Beggar

Chapter 27: "Are you going to hurt me again?"

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Contains torture. Skip to ф symbol if sensitive to gore.
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Thea

Thea immediately jumped when the door craned open. The Crime Lord descended down the oakwood steps. She'd tried again and again to accept he would come back, that the group wouldn't risk the deal with Mercy to come save her. The money they were due, worth the weight of her in gold. No, they would not be coming for her.

So she had not slept, instead she had cried at the fingers he cut off and weeped for the skin shaved off her thighs. He left her naked in the chair last night again to bleed, wrist and ankled tied tight enough to cut off circulation. The first night she thought he was at his worst, but learned the longer his fiancé was away, the longer the Crime Lord raged. On the first night, he chained her neck and bound her feet and hands in a stretching position, had spit on her and locked her up in a cage for the night.

Thea had sobbed herself into exhaustion, finally sleeping until he brutally woke her—
She would not think of that, the breath it took out of her, the mark it left. Thea had not slept again after that. How long had it been since that night? How much of herself had she lost physically?

Theas head violently shook, her mouth wasn't gagged, he wanted to hear her beg, hear her scream. But it was impossible for him to be down here, hadn't it? Barely four hours had passed, was it possible the Crime Lord wasn't sleeping either? Keeping her up to make her suffer?

She would break and tell him where the girl was, but that would mean her inevitable death. Thea did not want to die.
Still, she hoped for escape, somehow.

The Crime Lord was in front of her now. He didn't say much, if anything. He knew what she wanted from her, and silence drove her mad.

"P-please. Please. Please." Her body shook violently. The Crime Lord gave her water when necessary, but had not fed her, still she felt the ache to hurl up what was left.

But there was nothing.

The Crime Lord walked behind her and without a word, carefully pulled back her hair with a lace strip. His touch was gentle, she saw how the huntress could love this side of him, a different side. Still, the caress petrified her. And if it meant he was tired, he was also impatient.

Then, he was humming. What insanity was he spiraling into? The Crime Lord didn't speak to her, she wouldn't know if the girl was found and safe and he was doing this for fun, or if his group was dead or if, if..

He pulled her chain in a circle so she was looking at his tools, then, the Crime Lord had hold of a rosewood dagger. The girls blade, the one that took the lives of all those helpless men. Thea struggled against the bindings, the chair itself seemed to jump up for a minor moment. He lit a flame, let it flicker and roar, and soon it spread across a fireplace. The rosewood daggers end was heating up in the fire while the butt rested on the bricks.

The Crime Lord had a damp handkerchief on Theas face, she pulled away with a whimper, but its touch did not sting. Water, then.
He pulled her face to look into his, and she saw in his eyes two black moons without any light. He smirked at her, as if the chaos of everything— the girl missing, her bleeding feet and hands, the roaring fire, oh gods the fire— as if all that was amiss.

She was tired, she was bleeding and waiting greedily for a rescue that would not come. No money could make up for the fingers he cut off or the lashings he'd cracked down her back or the teeth he'd pulled or skin he'd peeled off. Victoria was a fool, a vile wicked freak, and they seemed to deserve each other. But she could not take anymore, she was starving and dying and stupid, so stupid.