Torture (Siren Book 2) (14 page)

Authors: Katie de Long

BOOK: Torture (Siren Book 2)

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Chapter Twenty-two

I can't stay in the ballast room. I know we'll have to check it out more thoroughly later, after we've built our courage back up. But I want to put off on that as long as humanly possible. George...
dead
. And
Milla
. Somehow, I don't think I'd truly believed she could die. She was so smart, so resourceful, so
strong
.

And she died angry at me, feeling I hadn't protected her.
That's
what stings, most of all. Once, I told her I would lay down my life for hers. At the time, I was trying to convince her that I was worth the same risk. But that's not the point. She died blaming me, blaming my brother. She died afraid of her companions, and defending herself. I can't believe she's gone, and all because I failed her.

Allen keeps flashing nervous glances my way, but I can't be assed to respond to the implicit question. They're all gonna die anyways.

I'm never gonna feel that spark between us. I'm never gonna fight over whether to be a gentlemen, or to treat her as roughly as she can handle, reveling in the fact that she
has
—whoops,
had
—that kind of strength to take either. I'm never gonna taste her lips again. Or her sweet cunt. I'm never gonna hear her soft voice, or stroke her hair.

I'm numb, unable to feel the riveted metal flooring I'm laying on, though it's comparatively smooth. Any other time, maybe it would seem unnatural after sleeping on sharp grating. But without Milla's sparing touches, without the possibility of taking it too far and seizing every physical pleasure I want from her... it makes it harder to ground me, harder to believe that anything I might do matters.

As the men around me snore lightly, all I can focus is on the soft noises Milla made when she slept, the tranquility on her face.

I wish I was a religious man, to believe she was truly somewhere better, truly above her suffering. I wish I could believe her
anywhere
other than a half-rotted ballast tank in a deathtrap, unmourned and unknown.

And George... a lifetime's worth of quarrels now left unfinished. Mom's favorite son, dead of his own arrogance and overconfidence. I shouldn't have hit him, shouldn't have let him know how much it wounded me that he'd treat Milla so awfully. But he didn't belong here any more than the rest of us. He was a cold person, and unpleasant to be around, but he was a good man, in spite of that.

I relive every memory, every holiday we spent together, every fight when he stood up for kids picking on me at school. Even the awkward teenage spats where he was mortified to be recognized as my much older brother, and lashed out at me.

There's gonna be hell to pay; you can't just
vanish
someone in his position without consequences. Maybe it means someone'll be more likely to be looking for us, or will put more effort into finding us.

But what good does that do if there's nothing left to find but decomposing bodies?

The questions etch themselves into my mind through sheer repetition, carving me like a Chinese lantern until there's nothing left but their glow. Nothing of me, nothing of
mine
.

I drift off with the smell of rotted flesh in my nose, and the image of those bloated corpses in the flashlight's fluttering glow burned into my eyelids.

If I live through this, I'm gonna have nightmares the rest of my life. But even
if
seems overly optimistic.

We're all dead men walking. Maybe it's time to stop denying my fate.

The next book in Camilla and Calder's adventures,
Restrain,
is now available for
preorder
, and is coming to a kindle near you, August 2016. Turn the page for an excerpt of Restrain.

Restrain (Siren #3)

Chapter One

Calder, Present Day

The world sways and yaws in my blurred vision. I’ve had concussions before, but nothing like this. Strangely, I can almost hear my mother talking to me, reciting Humpty Dumpty. It’s an odd juxtaposition since the only thing I can
clearly
make out is the half-naked woman in front of me. She’s been beaten to shit. Stabbed, too. That’s on me. But most importantly, she’s
definitely
not my mom.

She’s crying. I try to shape the words to console her. “Shhh, birdie.” The first part comes out just fine, but the rest doesn’t.

This is how I die. I never would have imagined it, a year ago. But the months I’ve spent trapped…wherever I am… have eroded any sense of propriety in it. The thought of dying of old age, in bed next to an elderly wife, is more foreign than the idea of never seeing my thirty-fifth birthday. I’ve known for a long time now that my death wouldn’t be peaceful. Wouldn’t be natural. Wouldn’t be painless.

But I never thought it would be at her hand.

Months now, she’s been my rock. She’s kept me steady. Nursed my wounds. Let me close enough to truly savor her wry wit and spunky personality. Not to mention the comfort I’ve found in her arms. She kept me grounded, even as our environment did its best to remake me into someone I hated, someone who hurt her.

Her betrayal drives home the last ugly truth: whether or not I can hope to live doesn’t matter. My world is already dead.

I’d hoped to escape this, to bury my family and friends in peace. But I always knew that there was no room for that kind of optimism, not in this deathtrap.

“Do you know what it’s
like
?” she asks. “To look at you, and see everyone who’s dead because of the Roanes’ ambition? For you to touch me, and for me to see only
them
, only the pain, and the selfishness, and the greed, and the callousness, and your casualties?”

I think so, birdie. Truly I do. It’s what I see in your eyes, right now. In this light, the hints of teal are gone, leaving only the deeper blue that I always saw staring at me in my brother’s face. That was you, too, wasn’t it? Did you see his body? Did you see what you did to him—what you made
us
do to him, back when there
was
an us, and not just me here, bloodied, broken?

“I hated you… but when I knew you, the hate only stretched so far. Why couldn’t you have been a monster, like the rest of them? Why did you have to make me love you?”

I’m cold. So cold. But not numb. Never numb. I can feel half my leg, and the pain that rips through the rest of it isn’t a good sign. Am I bleeding? Or are my bones just splinters?

I wish I could hate her. I wish I could blame her. But I know too much about her to see her as a faceless villain. I know how she comes. How she’s afraid of sharing that with someone else, and prefers to give pleasure rather than take it. I know what she looks like when she cries in fear, not in guilt.

I know what she looks like when she lies. I know her more thoroughly than it’s possible to know another person without walking through hell with them.

We’ve walked through hell together, but it looks like I’ll be staying there.

“I wanted to claw myself out of my skin, just so I wouldn’t have to remember that I
liked
you touching it. Because, you being what I thought you were, if I
liked
you, if I
liked
that
,
what would that say about
me
?” Her cadence is halting, choked with sobs. Maybe it should sooth the wound, that at least she feels remorse for what she’s done. But instead, it just grinds glass shards into it, because I can’t comfort her.

I wish I could hate her. But all of the hate I felt for the person who masterminded this sick torture is gone, because I see her for what she was: a scared child, lashing out. And I see her for what she
is,
as well: confused, and fierce, with eyes bright with the manic gleam of a widow about to throw herself onto her lover’s funeral pyre.

Months here, I wanted nothing more than for us to
live
. For
her
to live. To imagine that somewhere out there my birdie was taking care of herself, her wings unclipped, her being free of her cage. She’ll still have that. When I’m dead. I wish I could mouth the words to myself, just to see how they taste. I wish I could string together the thoughts to say
something
to her. Offer her blame, or forgiveness. But the words get lost on their way to my mouth, and a strangled moan is all I can manage. Pain and grief shadows her eyes, and tears spill down her cheeks.

I’m scrambling to put together the pieces, if only for my peace of mind. Ever secret she’s told me, every moment of vulnerability and honesty. It all has to mean
something
to the poisonous woman who made my death, and the deaths of others, her purpose.

What caused this? What happened to her? Maybe if I could understand, this all—the pain, the torture, the isolation, the ignoble death lurking just a few faltering heartbeats away—would mean something.

She kneels by me, and reaches for my hand. Her fingertips brush the back of it.

And then she grants me my deepest wish, and my greatest fear: she speaks.

And I listen. As the world fades into black and the blood stops rushing in my ears with each desperate heartbeat, I listen.

Preorder your copy of
Restrain
here
, or
sign up for Katie's mailing list
to be notified of new books.

From the Author:

Hey, guys! Thanks so much for tagging along with Siren, my first doggy-paddle attempt to swim in the deep, murky pool of Dark Romance. Things are going to hell, one bit at a time, and I hope you're enjoying the trip.

Camilla and Calder have a ways to go, and a rough road ahead of them. There's several bits coming up that I wrote, and then said, “Oh, shit, this is where people will get overwhelmed and throw the book across the room.” One of those is coming up. And one of them you just read. Stay tuned for
Restrain
.

I've got another series coming after Siren concludes, that I'm all atwitter about. I can't wait to start telling you guys about Black Roses, and I can't wait for you to meet the leads in that series, Asphodel and Oleander. But first, we've got to finish following Camilla and Calder.

Follow Katie's Twitter:
@delongkatie

Follow Katie on Facebook:
Facebook.com/KatiedeLong.author

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