The Annihilator (Dark Verse #5)(21)

The man with her arm pushed her to her knees, the other took out his camera.
“Make the feed live,” the bald man instructed from his place at the head of the table. “Let him see how we break his little toy.”
Lyla closed her eyes.
No.
He wasn’t there to save her, not like he’d told her, showed her, promised her he would be. And she couldn't save herself. He had lured her into a false sense of safety until she started relying on him, and now she was trapped because he had endangered her.
He had lied.
And he may kill everyone he wanted afterward, but it wouldn't be for her. It would be for himself, and it would never bring back the last piece of her that broke.
She closed her eyes, and let the black hole swallow her whole.

***

Her room was small.
Her bed was small.
Her life was small.
And it didn't matter.
She didn’t matter, nothing mattered.
She was the black hole and the black hole was her, endless nothingness with no capacity for light.
She didn’t know who came to her room, who left, who did what to her.
She felt nothing; she spoke nothing; she saw nothing.
She just stared at the cracked ceiling, recognizing the cracks within herself, widening, sharpening, lengthening.
Purposeless.
Endless.
Lifeless.

***

Days passed.
The ceiling stayed the same.
Months passed.
The ceiling got worse.
Time became meaningless.
The last sign of life in her body came when her box fell over, black roses scattering across the floor, sparking something.
She flew across the room in a rage and tore them apart, crushing the petals, bruising them until her eyes began to burn and her throat locked tight.
She wanted nothing of him. No reminders. Nothing of the man who had made her believe in an illusion of safety, only to push her into danger himself. He had betrayed her, time and time again, leaving her behind for the jackals to feed off her flesh.
Standing up, she went to the bathroom and grabbed a razor from the cabinet behind the mirror. Looking at herself, at her sunken eyes and her pallid reflection, at the hair he had been so fascinated with, she began to hack away at the long tresses she had never cut before. With each lock of hair that fell, she felt herself go, felt who she had been disappear as a silent doll took its place—good to use and play with, pretty to look at, but completely lifeless.
Cutting the last lock of her hair, she let him go, let herself go, let everything that connected them go.
The ceiling cracked.

***

PART TWO
Embers


“Each time you happen to me all over again.”—Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence


Chapter nineLyla | 6 months later


She was going to do it tonight.
She was going to end it.
It had taken her months to decide how, and she finally had a way that wouldn’t hurt much.
A song played in the back, the beats loud. She didn’t know the song, just moved her body in time with the beat on the stage, the leather chafing against her skin but still unable to wake her from her slumber. That’s how she felt, like she was sleeping, going through the motions, and one day, she would simply wake up and all of it would be a bad dream.
For months, she had been like that. Months of being confined to a room until her captors had realized she was useless, that whatever lure they believed she held she didn’t. She wasn’t leverage, just dead weight, and they finally relocated her again. Now, she danced on the stage at a club she didn't know, and lived in one of the rooms above the the building alone.
But something had changed.
She was scared of being near people now.
Now, after being confined in one small, dark room for so long with nothing but herself, she was scared of being around people. Just being in the club had her sweating and shaking too much. Dancing was only possible if she closed her eyes and made herself believe she was alone. Song after song changed. People cheered and jeered from below, making her open her eyes, but she saw no one, just moving on autopilot, looking at the neon sign above the main door, focusing on it.

‘Where the demons come to play.’


She didn’t disagree with that. Demons, every single one of them. And she was finally going to escape from this hell.
Her shift passed without incident, only her feet hurting, reminding her she was still in her body. A sheen of sweat marred her face, a face that looked haunted, the choppy haircut she had given it so many weeks ago making it more so. She hated her hair, her skin, her flesh, every single part of herself. Sometime in between, her indifference toward her body had shifted again into loathing. She had thought of cutting herself, but somehow, the pain still had the power to scare her.
Shaking off her thoughts, she got down from the stage at the end of her shift and headed to the backroom, breathing through her mouth to not let all the people around her overwhelm her, focusing on where her locker was with her change of clothes. She had something else there too.
Thankfully, without incident, she reached, opening the locker after she checked that the coast was clear. She looked at the small sachets of blue powder she had stolen from some of the tables over a few days. Four packets. The first time they had drugged her, they had used only one. She was going to use all of them and make herself high while her heart gave out.
A twinge of guilt moved through her, for the one soul she would leave behind, but she shook her head. She was not worth knowing. It was for the best.
Pocketing the bags, she shut the locker and moved through the sidelines of the lounge area, toward the fire exit that led up to the rooms.