by Nora Ash
I don’t know how long I sat there, wallowing in self-pity, but it seemed like hours. When the door to my holding cell finally opened, my throat was dry from thirst and my joints stiff from sitting in the same position for so long.
“Get up.”
I looked up to see Trish standing in the doorway, aiming a gun at me. If I hadn’t been numb from emotional overload, it would undoubtedly have rocked me to my core to see someone I used to trust so completely pointing a weapon at me. As it was, I only felt a wave of disgust at how low she’d turned out to be.
“What, or you’re going to shoot me? Wouldn’t your beloved Bright be pissed if you killed me before he’s used me as bait?”
“It’s not like you don’t have plenty of body mass I can shoot at without killing you. I doubt he’d mind if I blew your kneecap. Now get. Up.”
I obeyed slowly, steadying myself against the wall when my head began to spin and the pain from my wound intensified. Trish motioned for me to walk outside so I did, grimacing as each step made my head throb. There wasn’t anything left to say, and no reason to plead with her to spare me. She was too far under Bright’s thrall, and apparently quite happy to be there.
Trish guided me down concrete hallways lit up by sparse strobe lights that made me think we were in some sort of a bunker. The notion wasn’t dispelled when the narrow hallway opened up into a room a few times bigger than the one I’d been kept in. There was a sturdy chair bolted to the ground in the center, with equally sturdy straps attached to the arms and legs, and a metal grid underneath it. On the near wall hung a row of wicked instruments that looked like they belonged in a slaughterhouse. Mirome stood next to the chair, caressing one of the armrests with a thin smile.
“Ah, there you are. Come, sit. We have a little chatting to do before Bright gets here.”
My steps faltered as I took in the scene, my eyes flicking from the terrifying tools on the wall to the grid underneath the chair. It was a torture chamber.
I don’t know how the seriousness of the situation had managed to elude me up until then, but even after I woke up in a concrete cell with a splitting headache, some part of me had expected The Shade and Lightning to sweep in and save me before anything really awful could happen. Just like they’d done every time before.
“No, no… you can’t!” I was vaguely aware I was babbling as I backed against the barrel of the gun Trish was holding. I froze, and she jabbed it hard against my spine.
“Stop being such a fucking coward,” she snarled. “Sit down, or I’ll shoot you and you’ll still get put in that chair.”
Every hair on my body stood on end when a sharp, metallic click announced that Trish had cocked the gun, but I was physically incapable of getting any nearer to the chair. My muscles had stopped responding to my brain’s commands, even as it was screaming for me to do something, anything.
I didn’t get a chance to unfreeze as Mirome evaporated with a snap and a purple cloud of dust, only to reappear next to me in the same second. He grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me into the chair. I landed with a painful thump and yelped from the impact, but before I could as much as scramble to get up again, he’d secured my wrists and ankles tightly to the chair.
“There. That’s much better, isn’t it? Neater.” He sent me that sickly smile of his, but behind the mask, his eyes were cold as ice. “Now, as I said… let’s have a little chat. Bright will be so thankful if I poke a few holes in you and see if any delicious secrets spill out.”
“I don’t have any secrets!” I spat, cringing back in the chair when he casually strolled toward the wall with the tools. “Bright already asked me everything when he captured me the first time. You’re wasting your time.”
“Ah.” Mirome pulled out a long, pointed piece of metal with an elaborate handle, almost like a miniature rapier. It looked like the work of a craftsman. A sick craftsman. “But I won’t find it a waste of time. I find torture… quite relaxing. So even if you don’t tell me anything of interest, I guess I can just write it off as recreational pastime, hmm?”
I did my best to control my breathing as he picked a knife off the rack as well and turned around, but I couldn’t look away from the sick look of glee in his eyes. “Now, are you ready to sing, little bird?"
“Well well, you’re a stubborn thing, aren’t you? Or perhaps you truly are just clueless.”
I didn’t have the energy to answer Mirome’s taunting, nor the desire to. It had taken everything I had to not plead and beg for what felt like the past many hours, but was likely much less. Time had a way of standing still when someone had you tied up while inflicting the worst kind of pain on you.
I breathed heavily and sagged in the chair, trying to get my shaking body under some form of control. Everywhere hurt, from the long gashes all over my skin to my fingernails, which had suffered the torment of the long, needle-like tool. When Mirome wiped blood off the knife in front of me and studied it carefully for any damage, the sight of it made my stomach churn until I had to lean over as much as my binds would let me to spit up bile.
“So dramatic,” he said as he gave the long needle a similar level of scrutiny. “We didn’t even get to play with any of the electric tools, and here you are, retching all over my floor like a real drama queen. But perhaps we can resume this later, once Bright’s had his fill of you, hmm? You may not know Lightning’s true identity, or even where he keeps his base, but let’s be honest here—I don’t much care. I just like to see you writhe in agony, you worthless piece of human trash. I want you to beg for forgiveness for taking my boys away from me before I kill you. What do you say, want to make a little bet on how long that’ll take?”
I had never hated anyone as much as I hated this man—my torturer, the one who had betrayed the men I loved. That hatred gave me enough strength to lift my head and spit in his face. “Go to hell, you psychopath!”
Mirome put the needle aside, carefully and with measured precision, before he wiped his cheek of my spit. With equally controlled movements, he bent down in front of me with a hand on each armrest and looked me straight in the eyes, a thin smile on his lips. “You are going to regret that, girl. I promise you.”
The seething hatred in his icy stare matched my own, and I felt my resolve wither under his gaze. He was crazy—stark, raving mad—and I knew he would make good on his promise to break me before he killed me.
“Please.” The plea bubbled out of my throat without conscious thought, spurred on by the desperate instinct to fight for my life. “Don’t.”
Mirome’s mouth pulled up into a smirk. “See, that’s much better. You just practice—” His voice faltered and his gaze shot toward the hallway Trish had brought me down. Then his face contorted with frustration and he straightened back up, cursing low before he spun around to face the only entrance to the room.
“What’s happening?” Trish, who had remained quiet during my torture, scrambled up from the floor behind me and came into view. “Is someone coming? Is it Bright?”
Mirome didn’t answer, but from the tension in his body, it was obvious that he wasn’t expecting whoever he’d heard. When my human ears finally picked up a muted thud from further down the hall, like the sound of a door being closed, my heart sped up. If it wasn’t Bright, then maybe…
“Kathryn!” The sound of my name rung through the concrete room before my eyes even picked up that we were no longer alone. Two more supes had joined us, one dressed in midnight black, the other in charcoal and crimson. Lightning and The Shade.
My entire body shuddered with relief so strong tears welled in my eyes—but in the next moment, Mirome was behind me, pressing the knife against my throat.
“Don’t do anything rash now, boys,” he said as the blade bit into my skin, causing fresh pain to shoot through my already abused nerves.
I bit back a whimper and looked at the two masked men standing just a few yards away, fists clenched and teeth bared. Their eyes were firmly fixed on Mirome and the knife, but the r
age in both their gazes was palpable, even from my vantage point.
“Rash? You kidnap our mate, torture her, and now hide behind her like a coward. You are going to die, teacher,” The Shade spat. “How painlessly depends on you. Lower the knife and we’ll make it quick.”
“Well,” Lightning said, the murderous intent as clear in his voice as it was on his face, “quicker.”
“You’ve got to see it from my side,” Mirome said. From the change in pressure of the blade against my throat, I could tell he was shifting ever so slightly behind me. “Bright gave me a choice—go with him, or die. And I plan on living for many, many more years.”
“There was always the option of not betraying us,” The Shade growled. “But I don’t give a shit about your reasons—I just want to sink my blades into your gut and see your entrails spill out. You will die for this.”
The room exploded in noise and streaks of color as my supes attacked. Mirome spun out of the way just as The Shade’s sword cut through the air above me. Then everything turned into a blur, their movements much too fast for my eyes to keep track of. Only the sounds of fighting, punctuated by angry hisses and metal screeching against metal, came through the whirl of preternatural bodies locked in combat, until suddenly, I saw Trish running for the exit.
But my former friend never made it out of the torture chamber. Suddenly, she stopped, as if someone had yanked a string attached to her body, and looked down in shock. I hadn’t seen the weapon that penetrated her chest, but I saw the blood blooming out to color her clothes. Then she fell to the ground in a boneless heap. Dead.
I should possibly have felt something. Remorse for how our long friendship ended, pity for how lost in Bright’s games she’d become. But I felt nothing as I stared at her crumpled form, apart from the pain in my own body from the torture she had witnessed in silent acceptance.
As abruptly as the fighting started, it stopped. The three supes paused as if on cue, stilling long enough for me to make out their individual figures. Mirome had long, red-rimmed gashes slashed through his elaborate costume and a bloody lip. He was hunched by the door, breathing heavily. Both Lightning and The Shade had cuts of their own, undoubtedly from Mirome’s knife, but neither looked to be in as bad a shape as their old teacher.
The pause in the fight only lasted a few seconds, but it was too long. Mirome straightened from his hunched position and gave them a mock-salute. Then the air blurred, and he was out the room. The sound of a door being flung open echoed through the hallways and into the torture chamber a split second later.
“Fuck!” The Shade whacked the wall with one of his swords, making sparks fly from the impact. “Fuck, we had him!”
“It doesn’t matter.” Despite Lightning’s words, his tone was dark. He wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth and turned back around to me. With a gentle touch he knelt down next to the chair and loosened my bindings, being careful not to aggravate any of my wounds.
“Right,” The Shade muttered. “Can we move her?”
“I think so.” Lightning brushed my hair away from my face, checking me over for any unseen injuries. “Think you can handle being carried, Kittykat?”
I wasn’t about to stay in this hellhole any longer than I had to. I carefully flexed my hands and winched as the movement made my wounds bleed anew, but no longer being restricted was blissful. “I-I think I need to go to the hospital.”
Three
Kathryn
When I finally opened my eyes after the unpleasant aftershock of teleportation had eased, I realized that the two supes hadn’t taken me to a hospital. Instead, we were at the top of what looked to be one of the highest skyscrapers in the city, with the wind howling around us from all sides.
“I really do need a doctor,” I croaked. “I know we have to defeat Bright, but I’m… I’m not doing too good.” Unwanted images of Mirome’s sick smile as he pressed the needle up underneath my fingernails made me close my eyes and breathe deeply until they passed. Somehow, I doubted I would ever be the same person as I had been before I’d experienced true evil.
“No. We’ll take care of you, Kitten.” The Shade closed his hands over my shoulders, deftly avoiding any cuts or stab wounds. “It will be faster.”
I wanted to ask what he meant, but I didn’t get a chance before he and Lightning had easily maneuvered me down on the roof in a seated position, their bodies shielding me from the harsh winds.
“This kind of magic is not something we do often. It will take a lot of concentration. Please do your best to be still during so we can take your pain away.” Lightning brushed a gloveless hand gently against my bruised cheek. There was anguish in his glowing blue eyes, and a rage only barely contained by his iron will.
I nodded, a little dazed by the intensity of his gaze. Then he nodded at The Shade, who was holding me from behind, and closed his eyes.
All the tension, all the emotion drained off his face as he sat in the howling wind with my hands in his. For a moment I thought he was simply meditating, until a gentle heat started to emanate from his hands into mine. Seconds later, a similar warmth penetrated my ripped shirt and seeped into my sides where The Shade was holding me. The heat traveled slowly, millimeter by millimeter, right into my bones. And in its wake the throbbing in my flesh seemed to ease, until there was just a dull ache left.
When Lightning finally opened his eyes again, it had been nearly an hour, and what was visible of his face was soaked with sweat.
“I’m afraid that’s as much as we can do,” The Shade rumbled from behind me. “Neither one of us are natural healers.”
I stared in wonder at my arms. What were once bleeding gashes were now fresh, pink scars. “I had no idea you could do that.” It came out as a broken whisper. And then came the tears.
Both men held me so wonderfully close while I finally got to cry all the fear and pain out, letting me break down in their shared embrace. Whispered words of comfort blended into my wails and the wind, until finally, after what felt like an eternity of sorrow, I was done.
I sagged between them, grateful to be wrapped up in their steely arms with their strong bodies surrounding me in a perfect shelter against the world. I felt empty, but also calmer than I had in a very long time. This was my home—this was where I belonged, where I’d always belonged. With the two men who would come for me no matter what, no matter where—and no matter how badly I fucked up.
“I swear to all that is holy, if you ever take off on us like that again, I’m personally going to make sure you won’t be able to walk when I’m through with you.”
I blinked in shock at Lightning’s angry growl against my shoulder.
“He’s right,” The Shade echoed from my other side. “Consider this your very last chance at being allowed any sort of personal freedom. If you get yourself kidnapped one more fucking time, I’m done playing nice with you. Don’t push your luck again.”
My mouth dropped open at the injustice, outrage dampening my otherwise warm and fuzzy thoughts. So much for the sweet moment of peace in their arms. “Are you serious? I just got betrayed by my best friend, and kidnapped by your old teacher! How the heck was I supposed to have known that would happen? You certainly didn’t!”
“Neither of us get kidnapped every other day, now, do we? You’re too weak to run around town on your own, investigating whatever clue you think has popped up. From now on, you’re running everything by us before you as much as think about acting, or you will end up on lock-down. I’m sure The Shade has more than one holding cell across town. Got it?” Lightning pulled back enough so he could look me in the eyes, though he didn’t release his hold on me.
A blessed rush of anger heated me up from the inside, making me set my jaw and glare back up at the superhuman in front of me, though my death-stare was meant for both of them. “Sure, I got it. You’re as controlling and mean as apparently every other supe in this Godforsaken city. Perhaps it’s all part of that special DNA that makes you shoot laser
beams from your eyeballs and fart fairy dust—all that awesome has to come with a few drawbacks, right? But you want a human plaything to boss around, you got it! Just give me a dose of supercharged pheromones and I’m sure I’ll happily comply with your every whim. Want a blowjob while we’re at it?”
To my chagrin, Lightning’s eyes lit up with amusement at my rant. “Well, if you’re offering—” he began, the smirk already forming on his lips. Thankfully, The Shade interrupted before I lost complete control over my rapidly flaring temper.
“It’s not a control thing, Kitten. It’s that we can’t fucking live without you, all right?” He grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around so he could look at my face. “I heard what Mirome told you about us—about what you are to us. I can’t lose you. Neither of us can. And if you keep putting yourself in danger, we have no choice but to keep you safe, forcibly. You understand?”
I didn’t. Not really, anyway. I hadn’t forgotten about the word Mirome had used—soulmate—but it wasn’t like I’d had any sort of time to reflect more on it since, what with having been busy being kidnapped and tortured. How could them choosing to mark me with their magic make us soul-anything? But when I looked into his eyes, dark with emotion, I knew that whatever my complicated feelings for him were, they were reciprocated, at least to some degree. I didn’t know if it was the same for Lightning, but the gentle ghost of his lips over the back of my head confirmed that he certainly felt something. Even if he was extraordinarily bad at expressing it.
“We’ll talk more later, when all this is behind us.” Lightning’s voice was low, but he was standing so close to me, pressed against my back, that I could hear both the words and his oddly vulnerable tone perfectly over the wind. “But until then, please, Kathryn, please don’t put yourself at risk again.”
