Blood & Honour [Book Four of The City of Eternity Series] [✔]

4.25: Contortion

"Fuck," I whisper into the dark room, barely comprehending my voice. My hand trembles as I pull it away from my arm, blood smeared across my palm. The wound where Damiro's knife had bit into my skin throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. I wish he hadn't taken the knife out—the pain is almost unbearable. There was almost nothing going right for me, no part of my body that wasn't in pain.

It certainly didn't help that the wound on my head was still pounding, that the nausea was still roiling in my stomach, and that the taste of bile was lingering in the back of my throat, threatening to spill over with every hollowed breath. Even my legs, largely untouched, felt like lead, each muscle protesting movement, and I felt that if I tried to stand, I was bound to collapse. I lean back against the cold stone wall, warily focusing on the scent of bleed. How much longer can I hold on like this? I have no real medical training, but the heavy certainty in my gut tells me that if I spend another day in this cell, trapped with no way out, I won't survive.

My shaking hands continue to tremble as I fumble with the hem of my shirt, the slicked blood coating my hands and making the task far more difficult than I anticipated. The fabric sticks to my skin and I have to pull hard to tear a strip free. I wrap the scrap around my arm, wincing as I pull it tight around the wound, trying to ignore the new stinging pain that flares.

Blood oozes out, the warm, sticky liquid soaking into the makeshift bandage. The sight of it, dark and wet against the pale green fabric, churns my stomach. It's not doing much to stop the bleeding, but it's something. It's enough to keep me alive for now. At least my hands are free, even if my leg is still chained. I flex my fingers, testing my range of motion, finding some small comfort in the fact that I can still move, still fight if I have to.

Sitting in the darkness, I can't stop my mind from racing; sifting through every possibility of how this could end. My hopes of finding a way out of this nightmare were slim to none. Even if I pretended to join Damiro's revolution, at least to buy myself some time or a chance to escape, it would be a pointless endeavour. Whether I say yes or no, there's no way I'm leaving this building alive. If I agree to join them, they'll keep me locked up, testing me, setting me impossible tasks until they've broken me down, until I'm nothing but a shell of myself. If I refuse, they'll kill me. It's as simple as that. I'm a loose end, and loose ends don't get to survive.

A bitter chuckle rises in my throat, but I swallow it down, resting my head against the wall. It's not much of a choice, is it? I've been used as a pawn in a game I didn't even know was being played, trapped between two sides, both far more powerful than I could ever be. I closed my eyes, finding a strange solace in the fact that the darkness was no longer as terrifying as it had been. At least now I know what's out there: people who believe they're justified in doing whatever it takes to create the world they want. People who see those who are different as lesser beings, as beasts. In a way, it's as simple as a foe can get.

I think of people I'd met over the years who don't fit into the neat little boxes Damiro and his group want to put them in - each one with the prerequisite of being human. They were so intent on hating anything else it had infected them to their core. He'd offhandedly labelled my brother as a 'beast', my family, and anyone else who'd been unfortunate enough to be turned.