Bone Deep(49)

“You are crazy,” he murmured as he crossed himself.

She laughed then. It was funny though it probably lent credibility to his assertion she was a sandwich shy of a picnic. “Your religion will not save you from me,” she told him.

She could not see the punches coming. They weren’t as effective as they were hoping. She couldn’t control how her skin bruised or swelled but she could control her pain and what they were doing was creating a monster inside of her.

Then they stopped and she breathed as deeply as her cracked ribs would allow.

“Take her to a Cathedral cell,” Dostoyev bit out. “String her up.”

Those were probably the only words they could have said that would have given Bone pause. The only other thing would have been that they had Dmitry. As it was, the threat of ropes slithered under her skin, sinking its poisonous promise into her soul.

But this too she would overcome.

They dragged her back through the tunnels and when they came to her cell, one man lifted her bound hands and wrapped a thinly-braided rope around her wrists. He left the flex cuffs on her, simply winding the rough rope over them.

You will know what it is to go against me. Do not breathe too heavily, child, the rope is frayed.

Once the men finished twining the rope on her wrists, they strung her from a bolt hole in the ceiling. They gave her a small table to stand on but it was rickety.

“Kinky,” she whispered. “Who’d have thought you capable of it?”

One of the men spit on her. Another punched her in the gut. She breathed out as the punch landed and it didn’t hurt quite so bad. Then each man turned, walked out of the cell, and locked it behind them.

And so it began. Every few hours one of the men entered the cell, kicking the small table out from under her to leave her hanging so they could tear into her with punches and kicks, and taunt her with death. She drew in a breath with each new man, memorizing their smell. When they left she withdrew into her mind, stroking her hate and lust and letting it soothe her.

The beatings went on for over a day. She’d had no food, nothing but their fists to eat and it was enough. She licked the ropes which had droplets of water clinging to them. She slept when she could. She had been here before, absorbing blow after blow, taking the punishment so the lust could be fully realized.

They did not know the beast they’d tethered. She wouldn’t be in these ropes much longer. And when she wasn’t, she would kill them all.

The ropes stirred the hate inside her. Minton had been a cruel taskmaster. He had lingered over tying her up, the look on his face as he’d touched the fraying strands, seen her naked and quivering in their grasp, had been grotesque.

Do not move, Bone Breaker, they will break and you will fall…all…the way…down…

Always he’d taunted her.

The cell door clanged open and a brand new scent, clean and lovely, littered with gardenias and a spice of some sort infiltrated the damp, musky confines.

The table was kicked from under her. She swung and swung until she did not swing any more.

“You will give me what I want, or I will kill you,” a woman’s soft voice said.

Give me what I want or watch them, child. Watch me take their lives.

She had not given in to Minton, she would not tell him what had happened on that black night so long ago and so he punished her. Five little girls, not much younger than Ninka when she’d died…bait…each a penalty for the crime of withholding information. He’d killed them all in front of Bone, throwing them over the cliff and forcing her to watch until her voice was gone from screaming.

She could not have given him the secret but she had begged him to throw her instead of the girls.

She had vowed that day she would be the one to take him. He was hers from that moment on. When he had released her from his ropes two days later, she walked to the river, gathered their broken and bent bodies with her sisters and buried them in the bone yard with Ninka. So many were there now…too many. The weight of their lives remained a noose around her soul.

No, she thought. I did not give in to Minton and this bitch will not break me either.

“She has not told you who she is?” a woman asked, her voice still soft though now being ridden with a hard edge.

“She remains silent. We have beaten her black and blue,” Dostoyev said.

The woman walked around and around and around Bone and she thought perhaps the woman knew Joseph too well. The woman’s fingers traced Bone’s spine, slid down her hip and Bone’s stomach rebelled.

“She was once lovely,” the woman said wonderingly. She release Bone’s braid and her hair fell. “Look at this hair.” The woman ran her hands through Bone’s long, curly hair and it made the rage grow and ripple under her skin. “She’s said nothing about her reason for attacking you? She hasn’t said why she’s here?”

“Nyet,” Dostoyev hissed.

Bone raised her head. She could no longer feel her arms. “I am here for you,” she whispered.

“What did she say?” the woman asked.

But Bone would not repeat herself. It was enough her vow was given voice, no matter if her target heard it or not.

The woman tsked. “Where is Sacha’s son?”

“Already in the tower,” Dostoyev assured her.

Bone’s heart stopped. Everything in her mind crashed around her. Surely not…