Unseen

Chapter 21

Yvette lay on the cold concrete floor, naked and shivering, staring up at the harsh fluorescent lights. When she closed her eyes, they left afterimages behind, streaks of fire, burning mercilessly. When she opened her eyes, the fire was there above her, waiting. Always looming, never reaching down to consume her.

Half-dried blood made her skin cling to the rough concrete. Some of it was from before she had given them everything. Not all. Petric had liked to hurt her as he used her.

That hadn't been a surprise. The surprise had been that Donnellan turned out to have as much of enthusiasm for cruelty as Petric, once he got warmed up. He kept that sorrowful look on his face the whole time, shaking his head at her. Oh, Yvette, I wish it hadn't come to this.

She had spit in his faux-regretful face. That was how she had gotten the split lip.

The lip didn't hurt enough to be worth considering, compared to the rest. The burns from the electricity. The new cuts from where they had taken their time hurting her just for the fun of it. The bruises across her soft torso where they had driven their fists in until she gagged. And other hurts, deeper, a raw burning coupled with a dull ache, from where they had done to her what men did to women they wanted to put in their place.

Now they were done with her. She lay on the floor, bleeding, discarded. Staring up at the lights as they talked about her just out of view.

Tehrani had rejoined the other two. He kept shaking his head at what they had done to her, and asking if that kind of brutality had really been necessary. His face kept swimming into view as he snuck furtive, hungry glances at her broken body.

They were discussing what to do with her body after they killed her.

"Dissolve it in acid," Petric advised. "That's the best way to be thorough." He talked with the confidence of a connoisseur.

"I don't think we need to go to all that trouble," said Tehrani. "After all, who's going to be looking for her? Drive her out to the river. Weigh her down. By the time anything washes up—if it ever does—she'll be nothing but bones."

"That all seems a bit impersonal, doesn't it?" Donnellan asked with a sigh of regret. "I think we owe her a little more than that. We can bury her out in the yard. Under the flower garden. It seems more... peaceful. She deserves that much."

Donnellan had slid a pocket knife into her ear while he was inside her, and twisted. He had laughed as she writhed and shrieked. When she had abandoned the last scrap of her dignity and begged, he had twisted harder.

All three paused to look at her. Their dark silhouettes were only just the visible at the edge of her vision. They would make their decision soon, and then they would shoot her in the head and that would be the end of it.

A part of her thought she would welcome it.

But a larger part wanted to live. She wanted more vampire kitten movies. She wanted ice cream with crumbled potato chips, or whatever other disgusting concoction Violet could persuade her to try.

Violet was dead. Soon she would be dead, too. What was the point of thinking this way?

But she wanted, she wanted, she wanted. She wanted everything that had been denied her. Everything her father had never let her taste.

Before they could speak and seal her fate, she let the last of her dignity go on a quiet sigh. "You don't need to kill me," she croaked. "You got what you wanted from me." They had the money, and they'd had their fun. What good would her corpse do them?

Tehrani met her sigh with a long sigh of his own. "I'm sorry, Yvette. But we can't leave any loose ends. You, of all people, know that. You know how the Couvillion Syndicate operates."

"You'll never see me again." She told herself she wasn't begging. But she was. "You can have the Couvillion Syndicate. I don't want it. I'll leave the state, leave the country, whatever you want. I'm no threat to you." Her voice broke.

Donnellan let out a soft chuckle. "Magnus's daughter, begging for her life," he said. "I never thought I would hear that."

"Enough of this," said Petric. He crouched beside Yvette and pulled something from his waistband. A handgun, black and blocky and anonymous. "It's time to end this."

"I'm sorry, Yvette," said Donnellan. "I never wanted it to end this way. I always saw you like a daughter."

Less than an hour ago, he had licked the sticky blood from her face and smiled at the taste. He had told her she tasted just like he had always imagined.

He and Tehrani stayed back, looking down on her from afar. Petric pressed the barrel of the gun to her temple.

"Please." Tears distorted her voice. She didn't bother telling herself she wasn't begging this time.

A soft click. A squeal. The thick reinforced door swung open.

A pair of cold-eyed guards fell through the doorway and toppled to the floor. Only their eyes weren't cold anymore. They were wide and staring. Their throats yawned open in a pair of grisly smiles.

Petric spun to face the doorway. But there was no one there.

Then Petric's throat burst open. A spray of hot blood coated Yvette's face. The gun fell from his hands as he clutched in vain at the gaping wound.

Donnellan ran for the door. He disappeared down the basement hallway.

"Violet!" Yvette's voice was rough from screaming. Blood trickled into her mouth—Petric's blood, still warm with life. She didn't care. "Violet, the door—"

The door swung shut. Too late. Tehrani had already followed Donnellan.

Violet flickered into view. She was as coated in blood as Yvette herself. She crouched next to Yvette, showing no concern for the rapidly dying Petric next to her. "Yvette," she said, and her soft voice might have been the sweetest thing Yvette had ever heard. "Are you hurt?"

Yes, Yvette wanted to say, but she knew what Violet actually needed to know. "Nothing that won't heal," she said. "Don't worry about me."

She pushed herself up on aching arms. Beside her, Petric gave a final twitch, and was still.

She spat into his open eyes.

Then she turned to the door with a grim expression. "Don't worry about me," she said. "Worry about what's going to come through that door when those to raise the alarm."

Violet followed her gaze, her eyes as grim as Yvette's voice. "There's six of them, right?"

Yvette would have laughed if there had been anything funny about the situation. "Six? No. I got a look at their army when they dragged me downstairs. They came here prepared to kill every guard I've got, and my guess is, they did. There's two dozen goons out there. Maybe three."

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