Whitewashed

This Time It's Personal

Chapter 15: This Time It’s Personal

“I’ve told you everything I know,” I close my eyes, trying to ignore the heat that’s radiating onto my cheek from the glowing iron brand.

Romeo’s face is inches from mine so he doesn’t have to speak very loudly in order for me to hear, “Well that’s not good enough.”

“What ELSE could you possibly WANT from me?” I whimper, daring to let a little bit of light seep between my eyelids. This gives me the minimal amount of sight.

He smirks, “Maybe I’ll call Haz and THEN brand you- but only so he can hear it. I wonder how loud you’ll have to scream to make him to spill.”

“News flash, I already told you what happened,” Gia sounds annoyed. “He’s not interested in the girl anymore.”

Our argument. She had been listening.

But this is not what bothers me upon hearing her words. Something bleeds into my chest, something cold and uncomfortable. I almost prefer the glowing iron rod.

He doesn’t care about me.

It’s not jealousy or self pity. It’s regret. Regret that the last thing I’ll ever say to Haz will pretty much be “a big fuck you.”

“That’s only what you think,” Romeo turns away from me, going back over to the fire.

“What do you mean?” the drug user asks for me.

Romeo sighs heavily, slapping the metal rod back in reach of the flames where the elaborate R shape at the end starts to regain some of its glow, “No one simply gets over feelings in a snap like that. Haz is likely moping around somewhere, waiting for her to call and apologize.”

I am suddenly more terrified than before. I can see Romeo is going to get what he wants despite the cost- it’s only a matter of how much pain I’ll have to endure in the meanwhile.

My idea that maybe I’d get out of here by negotiation seems trivial now.

I’m going nowhere until Haz gives this sociopath an answer.

The question then becomes: how much will Haz make me suffer?

Will he break at a threat? Or will I end up dead?

This sends a chill down my spine. If only I had listened to Liam… If only my promise to be safe held some sort of validity.

Gia and Romeo begin whispering, the latter continuing to heat his chosen weapon over the roaring flames. Every so often, the girl throws in a couple pieces of wood.

It takes a second, but clarity sizzles across my skin as I observe them.

Whatever they don’t want me hearing is their problem, but as far as I’m concerned, their attention is now completely diverted.

When he had dragged me out of the stairwell, I located the knot in the rope around my wrists. It is pressed against the back of my left hand and the lower part of my right thumb. I won’t be able to reach it easily.

But now is my only chance.

Wrenching my arm sideways so that my shoulder rotates much further back than is physiologically painless, I bite down hard on my lower lip to kill the scream forced outward by the antagonizing ache that pulses through the area with each minute movement.

However, from this vantage point I can twist my wrist around and hold the knot in my right hand. My sense of touch makes quick work of mapping its contours and I’m able to slide my index finger between the loops and start wiggling out.