Night Series Collection: Books 1 and 2 (63 page)

Nothing mattered except them not doing whatever they were about to do to me.

No. No.
I shook my head and tried to fight my restraints. I kicked out with my feet, then lashed out my arms. But the moment I moved it was like someone had inserted an electric cattle prod directly into my heart.

I bucked, writhing from the agony of it. My eyes grew larger as I saw, SAW!, my heart. The actual beating organ. It was as exposed as the rest of me and there were wires attached all over it.

There was a beeping sound, and then hard, merciless hands were shoving me down onto the cold metal table, and a light so bright it was like staring into the sun was turned directly in my face.

I couldn’t see anymore. I whimpered. Moaned. Trying to plead, to beg them to stop. But they couldn’t make sense of my words, and what would it have mattered if they had? I knew these were the kinds of people who would never stop.

The last thing I could remember was my priest—he’d been holding me and we were going to….

I screamed when they took a knife to me. Screamed until my throat went raw, and still I went on.

I should have passed out. Why wasn’t I passing out?

“Pass me the clippers,” a male voice said.

The sound was so methodical, so normal, as if he were doing nothing more than cleaning his nails. Eating lunch.

“If you’re worried, demon, that we mean you harm,” that same male voice whispered to me as casually as can be, “then you’d be right.”

Then something sharp, metal, and hot as a hell furnace sank into my gut. The pain ate me alive and fractured my soul. My demons were gone. I was empty. So empty. So cold.

I was nothing.

And finally, finally, the blessed darkness took me…

~*~

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