Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

Time passes.

Bright light startles me. I squeeze my eyes shut against the glare sending bolts of pain into my head. Feet shuffle. The pain lessens, but never quite dissipates. I slit one eyelid open, testing. The light is bearable. Both eyes this time. I want to rub them, wipe away bits of sleep, but my hands are still bound.

A goblin female crouches next to me. Her black hair is loose and wild, framing red eyes and crimson lips that pull back in a snarling smile. I don’t recognize her. I’ve only ever fought and killed males. Goblin society is matriarchal for two reasons—females are born one in every fifty, and species procreation requires the death of the male. Only the strongest, battle-proven warriors are allowed the honor of mating and continuing the goblin lines. Like a bee and its stinger, fertilization is fast and deadly. Females are revered and honored, and rarely venture out in public.

They certainly don’t do their own dirty work.

“Evangeline Stone,” she says. It is a challenge as much as a greeting.

I don’t know her face, but I know her voice. “Kelsa.” It comes out somewhat garbled. I’m thirsty and my throat is tight, but I won’t ask for water.

“The great Evy Stone,” she says, as though I haven’t spoken. “Murderer of goblins and vampires and those you think beneath you. I’ve long wanted to meet you.”

“Lucky me.”

She arches a slender eyebrow. Long-nailed fingers slip into her stylish leather coat and produce a straight razor. She opens it with careful precision. I curl my hands around the cuff chains. My stomach flutters. She runs one fingertip down the sharp edge of the razor. I tense, but there is nowhere to go. The cuffs dig into my wrists and ankles. I grunt.

Kelsa smiles. “There is no escape from this, child.”

“Why?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“Why what?”

Coy bitch. I won’t give her the satisfaction.

“I’ve seen what your kind does to mine,” she says. She trails the tip of the razor down the center of my abdomen, too light to pierce the skin but hard enough that I feel every centimeter of her touch. I look at her, not at her hands.

“I’ve seen the way you kill, slitting them open from groin”—she presses just below my belly button, slicing the skin, and I cry out—“to sternum.” Swiftly her hand moves, drawing another fiery line straight down between my breasts. I hold my breath. Don’t make a sound. “It’s a shame, really. You humans have such spunk.”

Agony spears my left thigh, matched immediately on my right. Tears spark in my eyes. I bite down hard on my tongue, concentrating on that self-imposed pain. I try hard to ignore the inflicted wounds. I feel blood, oozing hot and thick from every cut. I won’t scream. I can’t.

She must be taunting me. If I’m to be sold, why damage me now? It makes no sense. Collectors rarely pay for broken merchandise.

Kelsa leans down, too far away for me to head-butt her, but close enough to smell her breath—moist and sharp, like metal. “We will have fun, you and I.” Fire bursts across my stomach and I wince. “Oh yes, Evy Stone. Two days of fun … for me.”

Two days? Until my buyer shows up? Until she gets bored and lets me go? Until her vampire alliance hits its boiling point? Questions without answers, agony without relief—this is my life now.

She holds up the razor, its edge coated with my blood. As red as her eyes. She presses the blade to my cheek and, in time, I do scream.

Time is lost to an endless cycle of light and dark. She comes and goes without warning—always her and no one else. I doze; she wakes me. I find no rest between our sessions, no respite from the anguish of her torture. She is creative in her methods. Meticulous in drawing blood. Expert in causing pain. In another life, I may have respected her for it. Today I despise her.

The mattress is soaked with blood and sweat and urine, and it sticks to my skin. Their fetid odors mingle with the wrenching stink of vomit. Burnt flesh lingers on the edge of my senses, but those wounds are old. Fire seems like days ago, though I know it is only hours. Lights come on and the pain resumes. Lights go off and the throbbing takes over.

I think of Wyatt in those brief moments alone. The soft caress of his hand on my breasts. The fullness of him as he slides in and out of me, loving me. He will come for me. He must be searching. I don’t care if the Triads find me first. As long as the suffering ends.

The door swings open. I squint, waiting for the light assault. Kelsa stands in the doorway, backlit. Behind her, something shifts.

“You intrigue me, Evy Stone,” she says. “You endure so much, and yet you don’t ask why. You don’t demand a reason for your suffering. Many lesser women would have broken long ago. I admire you for that.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I hiss.

She laughs. “You just don’t see it, do you?”

“Don’t wanna. Don’t care.”

“Of course you do, Evy. You care about him.”

A chill worms down my spine. Shivers ripple across my stomach, harden my nipples. She can’t say it. If she says she has Wyatt, too—

“Don’t worry, child; he’ll find you. Just as he’s meant to, but it will be too late to save you. Too late for the poor, lovesick fool.”

She’s going to kill me and leave me for Wyatt to find. God, this will destroy him.

Kelsa enters the room, but her shadow remains in the hallway, just out of my sight. She crosses to the foot of the mattress and squats. Unlocks the shackles around my ankles. My legs are too weak to use against her. I want to kick, but find no strength in the torn and broken flesh. She drags a nail along the sliced sole of my foot, and I shriek.

“You’ve been such a good sport, I hate for our time together to end,” she says. “The next step needs tending right now, but don’t fret. I’m leaving you with a friend.”

Leaving me? But why? I haven’t changed hands since falling into Kelsa’s. Is this lurking shadow the buyer who has yet to claim his prize?

She waves her hand. The backlit figure shambles forward. Bile scorches my throat, threatens to spill down my lips. A goblin male leers above me, his oily skin shimmering in the hall light. He is naked, the hooked tip of his penis dangling low between his crooked legs. His eyes dance with lusty fire, and I understand. There is no buyer. He’s here to kill me.

Only once in my career did I serve a warrant on a goblin for the rape of a human female. I’ll never forget the blood, or the frozen horror on her terrified face. For two weeks after, she haunted my dreams, the misery of her fate burned into my memory. The creature that killed her became one of Kelsa’s groin-to-sternum victims. I took great joy in killing it.

I close my eyes. Kelsa’s familiar footsteps whisper across the floor.

“Good-bye, Evy Stone,” she says.

The door closes with a thump. A lock snicks into place. The mattress shifts as weight is added to it.

I think of Wyatt and cling to his memory as my world descends into agony like I’ve never known before.

47:18

My fists closed over warm flesh, twisting and squeezing and trying to push it away. Blood filled my mouth, metallic and hot. I screamed, but no sound came out. My throat was hoarse, raw. I pushed, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Evy, stop! It’s Alex.”

The familiar voice finally invaded my foggy mind and pushed away the last remnants of memory. The small room in the basement of the train station faded, replaced by the luxury of the Sanctuary. Incense replaced urine; warmth replaced cold. The agony fled as well, leaving me empty. Shivering.