* * *
Next thing she knew,
someone slapped her across the face so hard it split her lip and flung the
other side of her face into the beam. She would have registered immense pain,
except what was in front of her stole every bit of her attention. She sensed
the emotions coming off of the person joining her in the cavernous space. If
pure evil were a feeling, this would be it; hatred, jealousy, rage, loathing,
greed, mistrust hit her all at once, and then she tried to shut them out. She
pushed against it with her mind, despite the throbbing in her head. She had
minimal success, making it slightly less overwhelming. She could make out a
shadow of someone hunchbacked. From what little she could make out, it looked
like he, or she, had been born with some hideous deformities. It seemed
lopsided. One arm appeared to be longer than the other. Its breath smelled like
putrid sewage … no that wasn’t it; it smelled of death. She could also hear the
voices of several others behind her, but they weren’t speaking a language she
understood.
Then a high, whiny
voice spoke in English. “How is it you know Nias, what business does he have
with you, human?”
Fuck, fuck,
fuck, did it just say human like it wasn’t one? She only wanted
to go back home. She wanted to wake up from this whole nightmare. She began
crying again, and she couldn’t breathe right. The chains were too tight and she
couldn’t calm herself.
She was screaming
again!
“Stop!” It slapped
her, hard. “What is your business with Nias? Answer me or I will not continue
to be so kind,” it whined in a macabre, singsong manner.
Although fearful, she
felt compelled to lie. “I don’t know who that is! I have no idea who…what do
you want from me?” she managed to choke out through the blood running from her
mouth.
It tore through her
shirt with a razor-sharp claw, drawing down her chest, diagonally over her
breast, across the chains, ripping across her stomach. She cried out and then
bit her bleeding lip. The nails made a scratching noise as they pulled over the
last of her bindings. Sharp pains were now emanating from her torso in concert
with the continued pulsing in the back of her skull.
“Do not lie to me,
I saw you transcend in with him! You were in his home; I saw you converse. What
did you discuss?”
Her vision was hazy
and she wasn’t sure what she should say. She didn’t want to make it angrier,
but she had the feeling giving it too much information was definitely a bad
idea. Actually, she couldn’t think of a good idea at all.
“Speak!” It ran one
of its razors slowly down her arm.
It was horrifying,
but the feeling of being trapped and powerless over the situation was starting
to make her angry, despite her terror. She clenched her teeth and began to
struggle again, but this time with fury. She shoved aside the pain and pushed
back at it with her mind, grabbing the emotions within its head and twisting
them. She attached herself to the darkness within it and it consumed her; she
knew it would, but she also knew it would only last until she gained control.
When attempting to
alter someone’s emotional state, she used the opposite emotion to push it out. Her
success varied. It depended a lot on how in touch with the opposing emotion she
could get, and how strong the target was. Although the utter darkness and pure
hatred was heavy and difficult to move, she found its self-doubt and the creature
allowed her manipulate it; at least, she hoped, enough to get it to stop
injuring her. She tried her best to channel pleasure until she could feel its
hate dissipate, if only slightly. Unfortunately, she was finding it a little
difficult to find any pleasant images to pull from. She only wished hate could
move hate. She was feeling plenty of that and channeling it could have knocked
the fucking thing on its putrid ass.
Jade thought she
would try to trick it into letting her go. She tried to speak evenly. “I was
taken by the man you’re referring to, but I’m not sure how.” The best lies were
always the ones that contain at least minimal truth. “I have no idea what he
wanted from me. What is it you want from me?” Her anger and pain were
starting to make her breathless.
“I need to know
what the Djinn are planning. They are a bad lot. They hurt people, did you know
this?” It continued in its high-pitched, unholy melody. She could sense
immediately it was lying to her but decided to play along.
“I didn’t, but I
knew when he abducted me that he had bad intentions. I was afraid for my life.”
Yeah, does this stupid thing not get that I am afraid for my life now?
“Yesss,” it
hissed, “you were right to fear for your safety, you are much safer now.”
Really? Did it
really just rip its claws through my body and tell me I was safe? She had
to get out of here. The pain in her head was abating, but it was starting to
swim now, probably from blood loss.
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