scrambled backwards and hit the wall in an instant. The body of my attacker was spread out like Thanksgiving dinner on my cell floor, his hands cut clean from his arms and stuffed into his mouth in a nightmarish fashion. His throat was slit from ear to ear, the sound of blood dripping into the pool around him drilling into my mind.
I made it to the toilet just in time to empty out the few contents of my stomach. I rinsed my mouth out with the water and heard Achilles say, “Alright, take him out.”
The corpse was dragged out of the cell by two goons just like him, leaving a thick trail of blood as they went. If I’d had anything left to throw up, I would have.
My body wanted nothing more than to collapse on the bed and never wake up, but I knew I was very much still vulnerable with this psychopath in the same room as me. Balling up next to the cot, away from the blood and gore left behind, I kept my eyes strictly on Achilles. His face, though somewhat terrifying in itself, was a welcome distraction.
“You did that, didn’t you?” I whispered, remembering the voice that joined the chaos of my mind right before I passed out. “Why?”
He bounced across the pool of blood and onto the bed, pillowing his cheek with both hands and turning to face me. “Does it really surprise you?”
“No, but it would still be nice to know why you felt the need to … to make a show of it.” My vocal chords were regaining strength with the help of the water.
“He broke these,” he said, off-topic, handing me … my glasses ? One of the lenses was cracked a little in the corner, but at least I could see properly again. I didn’t need my glasses to see, but it made me feel a lot better, knowing there was a barrier between me and the rest of the world.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“You’re thanking me?” He gave me a funny look, even from behind the black eyes and face-paint.
“Do I get an answer if I thank you?”
Time stretched out to an almost-awkward length, and then he said, rather quietly, “I told Joshua not to touch you. There are rules to working for me, darling, and he broke them. So he lost his hands. Then, because he tried to undermine me by interrogating you himself, I choked him with them.”
I shuddered. “And the cut throat?”
He shrugged. “To set an example.” But his tone was too tight to be truthful – I had a sneaking suspicion he was lying.
Not that I would ever voice the theory. I liked my hands attached to my body, thanks very much.
Speaking of my hands, it was only then that I realized my ties had been cut. Did this mean I was free to move again? Or was he just playing with me, getting my hopes up? I didn’t dare thank him for that , in case he thought he might be going soft on me, and decided to tie me up once more.
“Oh, I forgot to open my present,” said Achilles suddenly, reaching into his pocket. I fully expected him to pull out a gun – or something equally violent – but instead it was my wallet. My wallet!
“That’s mine!” I gasped, lunging for it. I managed to get a hand over his before he flipped me over, pressing my whole body into the mattress, holding the wallet outstretched, away from me.
“Ah, ah,” he tutted, his body far too close to mine for comfort. My hands immediately flew to my open shirt to cover my skin, a gesture he didn’t miss. “I’ll give it back once I’m done. We aren’t even on first-name terms yet, darling, and it’s killing me.” With a grin that could only be described as wicked, he pushed away from me and sat at the end of the cot, my feet tucked under his arms.
“Right, what have we here?” He flipped the wallet open and took out my small bundle of cards. The name on the first card made him frown. “Felicity Eastwood?”
“Yeah, so?”
I hadn’t imagined it; the frown deepened. “Nothing.” He flicked through the cards, visibly bored. “Not a very active lifestyle, Flick. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a