Chasing Catalina | Book One: Worshipping Ashes

12. | The Prey

My eyes shoot open and I nearly fall on my face, but something catches me mid fall. A hard snap in my shoulder as well as a searing pain in my wrist hit my nerves and I gasped in the pain. A loud yelp resounds as I bite my inner cheek. Holding a shaky breath as I recapture my composure once again. Lifting my furrowing gaze up to look around the area surrounding me.

It's a chamber. Grey Brick walls and concrete flooring is what surrounds me. A fireplace directly across from me on the opposite wall that flickers and burns with pride based on the size of the flames. The light from the fire bouncing off of the gray bricks that darkened the room. Making it look like a dungeon, but instead of that... It reminds me more of a library. A dark, gothic-like library. Two dark leather bound chairs sitting caddy-corner of one another next to the fireplace. A small coffee table stacked with books and journals. The surface of the table wasn't even viable because of the various books that were scattered, stacked and folded wide open. Suddenly, a shock to my system occurs from a burning in my arms. Feeling like knives stabbing repeatedly into my wrists. I wince hard and look up and at my wrists that burns worse than hitting a curling iron... no this was like being branded. I forgot what the leather had felt like.

I'm bound by chains to the wall. The chains look like they had some forging decay on the outer shell of the steel. Maybe they were recently made and weren't brushed off or worse, maybe they were done like that on purpose. I lifted a shaky arm and tried to pull on the chains with my wrist but it burned into my skin further. Causing me to cry out and nearly collapse against the wall from the pain.

My head leaned back against the hard bricks, my eyes squeezed closed as I tried to stand on my toes to take the pressure off of my wrists, but I was already being held up as high as I could on the wall.

    "Help!" I call out in a pained tone. Fear radiating through my entire body as the heat from the fireplace fills the room, sweat beginning to bead down my neck. My voice bounces and echoes off of the bricks that surround me. Nothing looked familiar, nothing reminds me of somewhere I've been before. It's hot, it's dark and it's painful.

I just want to go home.

    "HELP!" I call out again before I let my head fall back against the wall again. A soft bounce of my head against the wall before I lift my head up from the wall and let it fall back again. More or less to take my mind off of the pain in my wrists with more pain directed somewhere else.

    "Nobody can hear you down here, Cat." The voice darkly makes me aware of my surroundings fully. Turning my attention back to one of the leather bound chairs near the fireplace. I saw the man with the voice stand from the chair and turn back towards me. My brows furrow.

    "No." I whisper dryly. My throat dries up quickly as I realize who I was dealing with, goosebumps running along my body as my vision blurs and my heart stops. "No, not you."

    He smirked softly as he held up the glass in his hand. Turning it back and forth as he watched the amber liquid swish back and forth.

    "Jakub." I whisper breathlessly, "What... what did you do?" I continue as my voice becomes a raspy mess as he stops admiring the glass to acknowledge me. My position, my pain... my outward concern.

    "What did I do?" His voice got dark, his dark brown eyes shallow and narrow. Stepping from the chair and raising the glass as he pointed towards me. "What did you do?" He corrects me... making me jerk my chin back and narrow my eyes in confusion. He travels in my direction and once he reaches me, stepping toe to toe with me, he lifts the glass of whiskey to my lips, but I refuse.

    "Go on... your throat is hurting. Your insides are burning... you need something to numb the pain in your body." He said softly, pressing the glass against my lower lip. He was right, and based on the smell... It's my favorite. I close my eyes and furrow my brows as he tilts the whiskey glass up, making me tilt my head back as the whiskey drains into my mouth... and it was all of it.