𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐊

𝟒𝟓 | 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄

"𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔! 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔, 𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏!"

My voice is raw, my face is damp, my body is strewn to a metal chair with rope—I'm incapable of helping, unable to save anyone, burdened by the sight before my eyes.

There are five liters of blood in the human body.

But I never really knew how much that was until now.

Pools and pools of red darken the floor of the ballroom as I stare at the bodies of people I once knew—as I stare at the man in the center of it all, drenched in the spillage, yet completely unaware of the massacre that has happened tonight—completely unaware that it's all my fault.

"BEAU!" I scream again, "BEAU, PLEASE!"

My wrists and ankles are raw with rubbing against the scratchy rope, my body is rigid and tired from fighting against the bonds for the last hour and a half, and my voice is reaching its breaking point but I still fight.

I rattle against the chair, I rally against my enemy, and I scream and scream and scream until I have no more left in me.

"You really think that's going to work?" A voice says to my left.

"Screw you!" I flash my eyes toward him, "You're a monster."

Aemon—Aleksandr—offers me a smirk that I know will only be the death of me as he opens a bottle of lighter fluid and begins to spray it at my ankles. I hiccup, sucking in what little breath remains in my lungs, and pull my feet back as much as they can go.

Pebbles of incendiary still hit the rims of them, and it's as Aleksandr begins to cackle and spin around me, drawing a circle of his own making, that I realize his intentions lay in more than just making me scared. They lie in refusing to give me up.

Because that's what will happen if Beau wakes up.

That's what will happen no matter which setting remains.

"BEAU!" I yell again, putting all my effort and attention into it, instead of what Aleksandr is doing with his box of matches, "BEAU, WAKE UP! PLEASE!"

"Shut up already!" Aleksandr flings the bottle of fluid to the ground.

I ignore him.

I wiggle in the chair and scoot it as far as I can get from him, barely caring that the legs of the metal grind into the fluid sitting just a few feet around me. The loud scraping works to my benefit as I continue calling out the love of my life's name—as I continue to shout and shout and shout.

Until Aleksandr grabs the back of my chair.

And pulls me back into the ring.

I fight against him, thrashing, my hair a white veil against my shoulders as it snaps from its hold. Aleksandr pockets his matches and rounds the chair fast, grabbing so thickly onto my chin, that it all about stops me from moving. His fingernails dig into the flesh of my skin, and for the first time, I feel as if he might hurt me.