Page 33 of Dark Surrender

“Jesus, fuckin’ Christ.” Maxim turns and slams his fist against the wall. “Do it quickly, for fuck’s sake! Just end it already. Kill her. Stop dragging it out!”

“No! Please! Help!”

“Hey! Hey!” He pounds harder, making the wall rattle. “I know you can hear me. Make it quick. End her now. Take it out on me. Come and hurt me! Stop torturing her!”

“Maxim,” I gasp. “Don’t say that. Dee will do it.”

“Good. I can’t listen to this. Let her torture me. I can take it. Penelope is a lot of things, but she’s still a woman. She doesn’t deserve to go out like that.”

“Maxim—”

“Stop fuckin’ callin’ me that.”

“Wha…”

“My name is Dark.” He slaps his chest. “My father’s name is Sunshine.”

The door to the room swings open, and Dee steps across the threshold, covered in blood.

“Dee.”

She doesn’t look at me when she steps into the room and goes for him, knife in hand. Not a scalpel. A standard pocketknife. Her slow, painful torture device.

Maxim, Dark, whatever the hell his name is, stands with his head held high and back against the wall, as Dee steps before him and swings her blade, carving a diagonal path across his tattooed abdomen. Nostrils flaring, the man with the gray eyes clenches his jaw and takes it. No begging. No crying.

Over and over, my sister slices and dices him.

Blood flows like a river down his body, pooling at his feet.

I don’t know when it starts, but I cry. Silent tears stream down my face as the man who called me beautiful, who told me his name and that he has kids, stares past my sister, directly at me, as if I’m the anchor keeping him upright.

“Who should I call?” I sob, needing to know who to tell about his death.

“Dark… Delicacies.” He chokes between Dee’s violence. “Look… look… look it up. My ex, Kali, will… will…” Squeezing his eyes shut, he snaps his head back. “Fuuck… know what to do. Give me to them. Please. For their peace.”

“Dark Delicacies? Did you say… Dark…”

Dee spins to face me, eyes wide, mouth agape as if she’s just putting two and two together, the same as me.

“Cell,” I mutter in horror.

Dee nods.

“She told us about Harold and Penelope.”

She nods again.

“Kali…He’s… He’s Dark.”

Dee nods.

“Oh. My. God.”

Dropping her knife, it clatters to the floor as Dee races from the room, and I rush to catch Dark before he collapses. His weight hits me like a ton of bricks as I help him down onto the floor and onto his back, where I rip off my T-shirt to stanch the deepest cuts.

There’s a small chunk of flesh missing from his inner thigh area. I shuck off my shorts, not caring that all I have on underneath is granny panties, and I shove the ball of cotton there to quell the bleeding.

Dark.