Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(68)

“No?” Marcel got up again. “Maybe I’ll make blondie mine first then. Would you like to watch that, Griffin? I bet I can make her scream until she loses her voice.”

Griffin stood up. He wrapped his blanket around his waist like a towel. “Don’t you dare touch her.”

Marcel raised his eyebrows. “Then you’ll turn yourself over to me.”

“Griffin,” I said. “Don’t listen to him. You don’t have to do anything. I can handle—”

“Oh,” laughed Marcel, “you’re so sweet, aren’t you? Ready to sacrifice yourself for him?” He crossed to me, reached out, and tugged on my blanket.

It slid down, exposing me. Revulsion and fear shot through my body.

“Stop,” said Griffin. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“That was easy,” said Marcel. He stuck out his lower lip. “Too easy, I think. I was looking forward to playing with blondie a little more.”

Griffin yanked my blanket back into place, covering me again.

“Did I say you could touch her?” Marcel took out his knife. The blade flicked out. “Stay back.”

“Just take me,” said Griffin. “You’ve got me. Let’s get it over with.”

Marcel smiled. “Okay, then. That’s more like it. Hold out your arms.”

Griffin did it.

“No,” I said.

He wouldn’t look at me.

Marcel had rope in his back pocket. He lashed Griffin’s hands together. “Let’s go.” He dragged Griffin up the stairs, throwing over his shoulder, “Hold her until I’m gone. If she struggles, you can shoot her in the head.”

*

Even with that warning, I struggled anyway. I did get shot in the head. When I came out of being dark, I was lying on the basement floor and my blanket was not covering me in a very modest way. I felt disgusted.

But I didn’t pay it much mind, because I knew that Griffin was going through so much worse.

He was gone for most of the day. As the hours wore on, I began to hear noises above me. Agonized, throaty screams. Jeering laughter.

What were they doing to him up there?

Marcel had said that what he did to Griffin wasn’t about sex, but I got the impression that Marcel would use whatever means he could to break Griffin down. Which meant that Griffin was probably being...

No.

Maybe I wouldn’t think about it. Maybe if I didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t be real.

That wasn’t logical, but I was beginning to think that I might be going crazy. After everything that had happened to me lately, I almost wanted to go crazy. It hurt too much inside my head. I could hardly handle existing anymore.

And Griffin. My poor, sweet Griffin. Was there going to be anything left of him?

What if they did kill him?

They wouldn’t need me anymore, then, would they?

“No,” I said out loud. “We’re not going to think this way.”

We?

Was there someone else here with me?

I really was going crazy.

But I knew it was true that it couldn’t be good for me to sit around and brood. I needed to do something.

I wrapped myself in my scratchy blanket, and I began to take inventory of the basement. I went through all of the boxes in the corner. There wasn’t anything in them except a really big spider, which gave me the creeps.

I managed to keep myself from screaming. Spiders were horrible, but they were an irrational fear, and I needed to stay sharp. I needed to be strong.

Griffin needed me.

Above me, there was a strangled yell.

I closed my eyes. I wanted to cry.

No. I needed to find a way out.

There had to be something I could use down here.

I went over to the washer and dryer. I looked inside them. They were empty. The hose was next to them. I contemplated the hose for a while. Was there any way I could spray Marcel and his men into submission or use the hose to strangle them or something?

After considering several different ridiculous scenarios, I gave up on the hose. It wasn’t going to help.

In desperation, I climbed the steps again. Maybe they’d accidentally left the door at the top unlocked.

But they hadn’t.

However, when I was standing at the top of the steps, I suddenly remembered the thing that I couldn’t remember before. What Naomi had said about the door.

We were standing at the top of the steps, in her hallway, which was where the door to the basement was located.

“I don’t know where this door came from,” she said. “It’s like an outside door, do you see what I’m saying?” She pointed to the door knob, which had a keyhole on it, unlike a regular door to a room inside.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “That’s weird.”

“Right,” she said. “I think maybe it used to be the main door. Like, I can tell where they put an addition on the house, and I think this was the old door. They put on a new one, but they stuck this one here.”

I considered. “Could be.”

“But that’s not the messed-up thing about it,” she said. “The messed-up thing is that it locks itself sometimes.”

I laughed. “Naomi, doors don’t lock themselves.”

“Yeah, well, explain to me how I’ve ended up in the basement in my nightgown with bare feet while I’m doing laundry, locked down there. Do you think I lock myself down there?”