Page 68 of Taint My Soul

The only word that haunts my mind, that I remember through the skin-scalding torture, was what Saint called Cyrus.

Gravedigger.

He was there that night. At the abandoned warehouse. With Vincent and my uncle. He was the last man to arrive. The man I never saw because he remained in the shadows, far from the light.

My whole body burns as if I were tossed into a red-hot volcano. My eyes stutter. I blink once. Twice. Then the image of the fissured grey wall forms around me. I don’t feel the heaviness of the silver chains that kept me bound to the chair, but the kiss of the cold metal around my ankle floods in.

All I feel is pain. All over my back. All over my fucking body. I remember my pathetic move to get us out of here. And it only ended with Saint almost dead. What made me think I could try to escape?

“Saint,” I whisper. A low, horrifying grunt drills out of my lips as I try to turn, but the burn of the scars on my skin is persistent. I recall waking up hanging in mid-air, and that terrifying man marking my skin with his blade and his vicious fists.

That’s when someone strokes my middle finger. The heat of the touch is so mild it’s almost invisible. But I feel it. I feel it because it’s so much different from the soreness on my skin.

My gaze falls on the man lying next to me.

He’s naked.

Skin caked in dried blood.

His body carries the scars of Cyrus’s hunger for vengeance.

“Where does it hurt? Tell me?” The broken helplessness in his voice sends my heart thudding violently against my chest.

“Everywhere.” I cry, fingers grazing against the jagged concrete floor beneath me. But it’s not enough to quench the scorching pang of pain I feel.

“He took you instead of me.” He grunts. Raw rage bleeds into his dark eyes.

“It hurts,” Tears spills down my cheeks. Restraint burns in his features. Hot and unyielding. He looks wrecked. As if he can’t decide whether he wants to help me make the pain go away. The space between us feels fragile and painfully thin. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The pitiful words wrench out of his throat. “I should have tried to save us. They hurt you because of me.”

“No, little devil. They hurt me because of me, and I promise I’ll make them pay.”

My body betrays me dangerously. Want scalds my skin. Want for something I can’t possibly have.

His touch. Saint’s touch. I need it. It’s the only thing that could take away this unbearable torture crawling over my skin like scorpions.

“Saint…” I utter his name savagely, voice stretching so thin it terrifies me. “I need…”

Who was I kidding? What makes me think that a man who runs from care would ever hold me? I have always dealt with pain all on my own. I have to do the same now. “Are you okay?” I ask him.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I have a high-level pain tolerance.”

He chained us down.

Of course, he did.

My eye tracks the rusted silver and find the anchor of the chains attached to the walls. The realization sinks deep into me. It’s happening all over again. A frustrated whimper stutters out of my lips like a wounded animal.

Those were the questions I asked myself when I lived with my uncle. Was someone coming to save me? An angel, perhaps? Anyone to protect me from his cruel love. But no one ever came. No one ever saw. Not until I saved myself. Not until I fought for my freedom.

I still recall that night. He’d come home almost late as usual. He’d found my bags parked. And he flipped. I had to choose between giving up my scholarship and standing up for myself.

And I turned up with a scar born from the bite of a kitchen knife in a clinic. I’ve always been grateful to the nurse who saved me. But sometimes, I caught myself wishing maybe it had ended that night.

If it did, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have been kidnapped and taken to Queenstown.

I wouldn’t have been here with Saint.

The touch of his fingers against my outstretched hand pulls me to him. We are both lying opposite each other, but the chains are long enough for us to move closer.