Page 61 of Shai

Stay quiet or answer? Either choice carried a risk of inflaming McIntyre’s ire all the more. History had taught me that the hard way. I rolled the dice and chose to respond. “Hardly. I never asked to be pulled from the river.” I hadn’t asked for anything that had happened after that either, not Shai’s mother using me as a fuck toy, not Shai’s own personal brand of ownership and possession, and certainly not to become addicted to drugs or used as a medical experiment. Yet, perversely, that world still seemed a hell of a lot more attractive than this one.

“Yet, pulled from it, you were.” McIntyre scratched his chin, his gaze speculative. “Let’s see if you’ve learned anything in your time away. Kneel for me, Elijah.”

I let out a slow breath. Life really had come full circle. “And if I do?

What does that mean? How does it change things?”

I would never have been stupid enough to ask that question before, to

try and bargain with McIntyre. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by Shai’s willingness to pay lip service to my questions.

McIntyre laughed, his gaze darting around his circle of men as if he was

sharing some sort of joke with them. “It would make me happy.”

I stared at McIntyre. Did he really think there was even one iota of me

that gave a fuck about making him happy? He probably did. He was delusional enough. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s not going to happen. I thought I made that clear months ago.”

McIntyre’s smile melted away to nothing, replaced by a fire in his eyes. He stood, and I held my ground as he got in my face, spittle hitting me

with every word he spoke. “Tell me about Shai. Tell me everything you know about him. I want to know about his compound, about his men— everything. I want to know what he eats, what he wears to bed, how often he takes a shit, how big his cock is. Don’t leave anything out!”

I could tell McIntyre a lot. I could tell him about the hierarchy of Shai’s

men. I could draw him a map of Shai’s compound. I could tell him about the snakes and how Shai used them as a weapon. I could tell him about Shai’s mother and the strange hold she exerted over her son to the point where he couldn’t bear to be in the same room as her, but refused to kill her. I could fill a book with the information I had on Shai. It would definitely buy me some time, especially if I only let a few tidbits drip out here and there, always letting McIntyre believe there was more where that came from. I could drag it out for days. Except, I’d be so deep in Void withdrawal by then, that I’d be lucky to know my own name, never mind have any control over what came out of my mouth. Would McIntyre cut a deal? Access to Void in exchange for information? It was a possibility, given that he was just as obsessed with Shai, as Shai was with him.

“No.” The word came out of my mouth almost before it was a fully-

formed thought. In case there was any doubt what I was referring to, I elaborated. “I’m not going to tell you one single fucking thing.” It wasn’t even loyalty to Shai. After all, the man had made the decision to trade me in a matter of hours, and then done the deed without so much as a backward glance. I didn’t know what it was that made me so stubborn. Perhaps it was just the fact that my hatred for McIntyre far outweighed any animosity I held toward Shai.

McIntyre’s nostrils flared and I knew what was coming even before Harris and Jones were motioned forward to take an arm each. McIntyre planted the first fist, this one driven into my stomach, the pain sickeningly familiar. Where the next barrage of fists came from, I couldn’t have said. I’d already slipped from the grasp of the two men holding me to assume my usual position on the cold, stone floor. That was when the kicks started, my attempt to curl in on myself doing nothing to alleviate the pain, each blow more savage than the last.

Jeers echoed around me, but they all blurred into one another, into one huge cacophony of noise where individual words ceased to have any meaning. Was this going to be the time when they killed me? Maybe. When darkness rose up to engulf me, it was a blessing, even if I never woke up.

I WOKE UP.

As usual when I regained consciousness after a beating, it took a while to orient myself. It was no surprise to be back in the basement, the place as cold and unwelcoming as ever. It was even more jarring after the continual tropical heat of Shai’s compound, the cold seeming to seep into every atom of my being.

My body was one big bruise, and for an interminable amount of time all I could do was lie there. How long had I been out? The cold flicker of withdrawal lapping at my veins said it had been a while. A tear slipped from my eye, the stinging sensation as it slid down my cheek broadcasting some sort of open wound, probably wrought by the ring McIntyre always wore on his finger.

I needed to sit up. Only, that required a reservoir of energy and willpower that I simply didn’t have anymore. Maybe I could just close my eyes and die.

“You’re a survivor, Elijah.” The memory of Shai’s voice was so clear that he may as well have been in the room. “Fuck off, Shai. Get out of my head. You’re not here.” Other snippets of conversation sprang to mind like the cruelest sort of montage. “I bet you’d like some of this.” The first words he’d ever said to me when he’d withheld water in order to get me to talk. McIntyre’s methods were amateur in comparison. “I have plans for you beyond finding your corpse in the morning.” It hadn’t taken him long to reveal those plans. I’d been so fucking naïve at the time. “Your fate has been chosen. And it lies here with me.” I’d never gotten around to asking Shai if he believed in the bullshit that his mother spouted about him. “Ah, Elijah. You are far sweeter than I ever expected you to be. McIntyre was an idiot to let you go.” What did that make Shai? He’d let me go too, giving me back to the very man he’d deemed to be an idiot. He hadn’t even warned me not to talk. Had he been so sure that I wouldn’t? Or did he really believe that nothing I could say would be useful enough to affect the outcome of his battle with McIntyre? “Spicy food is best. It’s virtually undetectable.”

The cyanide! My eyes snapped open. How could I have forgotten? I

forced myself upright, refusing to give in to the wave of nausea that could have been from the beating, or could just as easily have been from my body starting to crave Void. It took me a while to maneuver myself into a position where I could reach down, my fingers trembling as I slid them down my sock to curl around the small bottle that rested there. Intact. Unbroken. The opposite of me.

I held it up, staring at it. Inside was the means to kill McIntyre if I could

only get close enough to something he was going to eat or drink. But then what? It wasn’t like his men would simply stand around and watch. Even if they didn’t associate what had happened with me, they weren’t just going to let me walk out of there. Even the stupidest of his men would eventually put two and two together and come up with the right number. If I wanted a plan beyond McIntyre’s death, I needed a weapon of some sort, but it wasn’t like they left them lying around.

I lay my head back against the wall. If it was a suicide mission, that

wouldn’t stop me from going ahead, but I wanted some way of trying to increase the odds in my favor. I guess Shai had been right all along—I was a survivor. Or at the very least, a stubborn son of a bitch who refused to give up that easily. A weapon. Where could I get a weapon from? There had to be something I could use. And then it came to me, and I laughed.

Rolling my sleeve back, I stared at the bandage swathing my forearm. It