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Electric shocks to nerve clusters.
Pressure to damaged tissue.
Stress positions that turn muscles into screaming knots.
“How involved is the Reaper,” he asks calmly.
I laugh weakly.
“You really think I’d tell you that.”
Another shock.
My teeth chatter.
My vision swims.
I ride it.
I think of my grandparents.
My mother.
The grill.
Tur’s face in the bathroom mirror when he came back into himself.
“No,” I croak. “You don’t get him.”
They try softer next.
They offer me protection.
Money.
Off-world transport.
A new identity.
A quiet life.
I spit on the floor again.
They try threats.
They describe what they’ll do to Tur.
What they’ll do to Ishaan.
To Mara.
To my staff.
I go very still.
“You kill them,” I whisper, “and you die screaming in a courtroom you didn’t know existed.”
They stop.
