Shards of Memory [English - Under Revision]

Chapter 10: Tortured

SKYLANE

An ice-cold sheet of water slammed me back into the world.

It knifed down my scalp, ran into my ears, drowned the heat in my throat, slid under my collar, pooled in the seat of the chair where I was tied. The blindfold was gone, but the room was still mostly a bruise—one bare bulb swung somewhere behind me, wobbling haloes across concrete and warped wood.

Metal. Mildew. Oil. Blood.

My wrists were cuffed behind the chair—cheap cuffs, the kind with teeth that chew skin. A nylon strap bit into my calves, pinning my ankles to the chair legs. When I shifted, the chair skidded a centimeter; the scrape went skittering around the rafters and came back wearing teeth.

"Who are you? Where am I?" My voice came out ragged, wet at the edges. Louder: "Let me go! I'll—"

A gunshot hit the concrete inches from my bare foot.

The crack ricocheted through the attic and then dove straight into my lungs. Grit peppered my toes.

"Too loud," a man said, bored, like he was telling a dog to get off a couch. His breath smelled like an ashtray that had given up.

Three silhouettes drifted in and out of the bulb's swing: heavy boots, a loop of chain, a metal bat balanced loose over one shoulder like a joke. Names fell out when they snapped at each other—Harry, Niel, Leo—said with that easy meanness of boys who'd known each other long enough to hate each other, too.

Money. They had to want money.

"My dad will pay," I said, forcing my voice down to reasonable. "Anything. Just—"

Nike angled the barrel from the floor to my ribs, slow, the way a cat moves a paw over a bird. "Talk again and I drill a new window."

I shut my mouth. The gun drift made my skin crawl. Okay. Think. Lists steady me: exits, edges, objects. Load-bearing pillars at irregular intervals; one wall of nailed-over windows with rot-black seams; a braced door with a fat slide bolt... on the inside. Third-floor attic by the angle of the streetlight cutting in through warped slats. A balcony door with a rusted hasp and fogged glass; a view past it of a narrow lane slick with rain and a low roof lip two meters below, maybe. Stairwell I couldn't see. No sound from below—just the groan of old wood and the slow drip of water into something metal. Under it, my pulse, a hard moth in my ears.

"Where's the boss?" Harry asked. He wasn't asking me. Annoyed more than angry.

"How would I know?" Leo shot back. "You glued to him? Use the phone in your pocket—if your T-Rex arms can reach it."

If I were a better person, I would've used the fear to pray. Instead, pettiness flared: good cheekbones, dead eyes, brain like a loose wire. The type.

Niel prowled close, hunger in his gaze, something performative in the slant of his shoulders. "Jackpot. Not every day you net a girl like this."

"Don't," Harry said without looking, and Niel paused like a dog told to heel.

The pause wasn't long. He leaned near enough for me to smell old coffee and cheap spearmint gum on his tongue. I angled my face away. He laughed into my cheek. "Later, sweetheart."

A voice scraped from the dark, thin but steady. "You idiots really think you've got time? They'll be here soon, and you'll die before you line up a second shot."

My head snapped toward it. Limetheo lay hog-tied ten feet away, wrists and ankles cinched with plastic cord that had already serrated his skin. His left cheek was twice its size, a blood-matted gash scalloped above his eyebrow; his shirt ripped and glued to him by sweat. But his mouth still worked, and the look he sent them was the one he used whenever he clown-shamed his brothers: come on, then.