Villain Whumpee, My Beloved

She can feel him trembling as she wraps the collar around his neck, his eyes closed tightly, holding his breath - then letting it out in all low, stifled whine as she buckles it snugly around his neck.

Not so tight that he can’t breathe, of course, but tight enough that he won’t be able to pull the shock prongs away from his skin.

She pulls away for a moment, and he tentatively cracks his eyes open just in time to see her retrieve the lock from her pocket. He inhales sharply and leans back, staring at it wide-eyed as though she’d just pulled a live tarantula out of her pocket instead. “You’re gonna lock it on?!”

She chuckles. “Obviously. Did you seriously think I wouldn’t? Uh uh. This thing isn’t coming off without my permission.”

It clicks into place over the buckle, and he exhales shakily, hands clenched into fists.

He looks like he’s trying not to start crying.

Oh my god, he’s adorable. How is he adorable? Is this even the same man?? She takes a step back, cocking her head as she looks him over. Oh, god yes. Look at him. He’s.. he’s perfect.

This is not going the way she expected.

Not that she’s complaining - this is going phenomenally well, in fact, but still; she had made plans.

She had plans, and this was effectively throwing an entire box of wrenches into them.

She’d expected, and thus planned for, defiance. To be met with a hate filled glare and a variety of insults and threats from behind the gag. That felt like the appropriate response. He was a man, after all - and clearly one with issues, considering he had kidnapped her. Especially considering why he’d kidnapped her.

A toxic male who had been bested by his victim. Beaten by a girl.

She’d expected his embarrassment would have been promptly turned into fury. It would have taken about a week to break him, by her estimations.

And yet here he is. Already collared and on his knees for her, trembling and terrified, whimpering for mercy. Calling her his Master with no more argument than a quiet “please don’t do this” in a shaking voice.

God, she can’t believe how well this is going. How good he’s being. Fuck, the way he had just melted when she reached out and petted him - he’d closed his eyes with a soft sigh, leaning into her touch. She’d had his head in her lap within half an hour of opening the basement door.

Granted, that was probably just because he was freezing cold, but still!

I must have really underestimated how effective leaving him in the basement would be. This is.. this is fantastic.

She’d planned to break him and then kill him, but this is turning out to be so much better. I could just.. fuck, do I want to keep him? What if he’s only behaving because he’s weak and half-dead, and he’ll start acting up if she lets him recover? That could be it.

But fucking hell, if he stays like this… I might just keep him. How could I not? He actually agreed to wear the collar, I didn’t even need to force it on.

Oh, yeah, speaking of…

She pulls the remote out of her pocket and hears his breath catch. Glancing back at him, she sees wide eyes with narrow pupils, breathing shallowly as he shrinks away from her. “N-no. No,” he whispers.

Fuck he’s cute like this.

“Don’t be dramatic. You know I have to test it,” she smiles.

“Y-you don’t - ”

“It has multiple intensity settings, you see, I need to know they’re all calibrated correctly.” She’s not even being entirely sadistic - she really does need to test it. She retrieves a black notebook from the backpack and clicks the pen.

He somehow manages to look even more terrified, cowering back against the wall with his still-cuffed hands raised in a way that seems equal parts defensive and pleading.

“Let’s just start with level one.”

She presses the button, and he jerks with a yelp, instinctively reaching up to grab at the collar only for the cuffs to stop him short. He’s shuddering and gasping for air, but clearly still able to mostly control his own limbs - he goes limp with a sob when she takes her finger off the button a few seconds later.

“Th-that’s one?!”

“Yup. How much did it hurt? On a scale of one to ten?”

He looks up at her incredulously, mouth moving in silence for a second, before managing a tentative “uh.. eight?”

“Interesting.” When she was making it and testing the levels - though granted, she had used her hand, not her neck - she would have rated that setting a three. It’s really more of a warning than a punishment. Still, she jots it down. “Now two.”

Two had, accordingly, been a four for her. He jolts again, shaking, still trying to reach up to the collar. “T-ten! Ten!”

“Oh come on,” she scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is only level two, you have eight more to go. That is not the maximum amount of pain you’re capable of feeling.”

He chokes out “It f-fucking hurts!!” followed a few seconds later by the strangled shriek of “EIGHT MORE?!”

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Okay. Clearly he has a low pain tolerance. That’s good. I just need to give him some perspective.

“Alrighty then,” she says softly. “You think that was a ten? Well then, let’s just skip right to level ten.”

“Wha- wait, n-no, no, no - !”

Level ten on the collar is, of course, much more effective than level two. At the press of a button, he goes rigid. One second, he was starting to sit up, hands raised as if to ward off the signal - next second, he’s thrown onto his back by the force of his own seizure, his spine arching and limbs jerking, head thrown back. Instead of gasping or even screaming, he’s just making this strangled, stuttering gurgle with foamy, blood-tinged drool dripping out of his mouth. His eyes roll back in his head until all she can see is blank white.

When she releases the button, he stops spasming, but doesn’t move for a few seconds, aside from twitching. He lies there on his back, staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling, gasping, and then - once he’s caught his breath - he just starts crying.

“Now, how was that?”

His response is a heartwrenching, anguished scream that echoes off the concrete.

Delightful, but not what she was asking for.

“On a scale of one to ten, would you say that was a ten as well?”

“F-fuck you,” he chokes out, but before she can decide whether that response warrants another shock, he flinches, gasping, “no, ‘msorry, I’m sorry, please don’t!”

I’ll let it slide.. this time.

She waits patiently. A few seconds of staring up at the ceiling later, he whispers, “Ten.”

“Mhmm. So would you like to reconsider the previous two?” She takes down his response - including the fuck you - in neat handwriting.

He sobs hoarsely. “Why are you doing this, I - I’m not - I’m being good!”

“Oh, you are,” she reassures him, “you’re being a very good boy. Believe me, pet, if I was punishing you right now, you would know it. This is just.. preliminary. So - one and two, how much did they actually hurt?”

“I don’t know. Please just stop, please.”

“I can run you through them again if you need to be reminded.”

“No!” He yelps. “I - I changed my mind, I don’t - take it off, please take it off!”

“Oh, pet.” She chuckles. So cute. “I never said you could change your mind.”

In the end, she decides to set the default to five, the perfect medium - debilitating and painful - he’d informed her, whimpering while curled into a ball, that it felt like an eight - but not strong enough to cause too much damage.

He’s still curled up and whimpering, even though she’s spent the past few minutes sitting on the steps doing nothing but checking her notes; he curls up even smaller when she stands up.

She crouches down in front of him, balanced on her toes, and ruffles his hair. He flinches with a whine. “Aw, it’s okay. All done.”

He mumbles something.

“What was that?”

He mumbles again, slightly louder than before. “Please take it off.”

She sighs, resting her hand in his hair and letting her thumb idly stroke his temple. “I don’t think you really want me to do that, pet… because if I take the collar off, I’m going to kill you.”

It’s a subtle thing, the way he stiffens. His breath catches. She can’t see his face, it’s currently tucked behind his arm, but she’s sure that if his eyes were closed before, they aren’t now.

“And you don’t want that, do you? No. So you’re going to stop complaining about your collar and be a very good dog for me, aren’t you?”

Now, instead of stiff, he’s shaking. “Yes, Master.”

“Mm. I want you to say it.”

He groans into his arm. “I - I’m.. your dog.”

“Good boy.”

She combs her fingers through his hair and notices that it’s getting a little stringy and tangled. His clothing is dirty from being on the floor - honestly, all of him is dirty. He doesn’t smell too great either.

It’s a good thing the basement’s cold, or he’d smell much worse.

Yeah, he definitely needs to get cleaned up before she puts him to any use.

“You are filthy, pet. Now that you’ve got your collar on, do you want to go upstairs and take a shower?”

“Please.”

She stands up, pulling her knife from her pocket. “Kneel.”

He eyes the knife warily as he slowly forces himself up off the floor and onto his knees. She can almost feel his relief when she only uses it to cut away the duct tape around his wrists so that she can unlock the handcuffs.

“Thank you,” he whispers once the cuffs are removed, and winces as he flexes his bruised wrists.

“Mhm.” She’s looking in the backpack for the leash, which seems to have slithered its way to the very bottom.

Then, for some reason, he moves like he’s about to stand up. She pauses her search for a second to point at him sternly. “No. Stay.” He sinks back down to both knees, his face tinged with red.

She finally feels cold, heavy metal at her fingertips.

Ah, there it is.

That little flush of humiliation was nothing compared to the look of utter horror on his face when he saw the long chain in her hands.

She can’t help but laugh. “You’re wearing a collar and you’re shocked that I have a leash for it?”

For a few long seconds, he doesn’t move, still looking in her general direction but with a thousand-yard stare. “Oh my god,” he finally groans under his breath, followed by a barely audible mutter. “Leash. Of course. Sure.” He lets out a resigned sigh and tips his head back, eyes closed; baring his throat to give her easy access to his collar. Without even being told.

Oh my god, he’s a natural.

I struck gold with this motherfucker.

It’s a good thing he closed his eyes, because she couldn’t have maintained a poker face right then if she’d tried.

She clips the leash onto the ring on his collar and very nearly moans because just fucking look at him.

Collared and kneeling, disheveled and bruised with dried tears tracking down his face, leashed with a chain.

He’s so pretty.

He’s mine.

This is really fucking with her entire plan and she can’t even be mad about it. She doesn’t even want to kill him anymore. Not really.

She still wants to hurt him - god she wants to hurt him - his screams are amazing and his whimpers just make her want to choke him - but god fucking damn it, she doesn’t want to kill him. Not for a good long while, anyway.

No, she’s going to keep him. He has no idea how lucky he is right now. He’s perfect for her.

Fucking perfect.

————————————————————————————

If he kills her, she will haunt the fuck out of him. She will go 110% on being a poltergeist out of spite. Drag herself out of hell just to bring him back with her.

Actually, you know what? No. Screw that. She’s not going to die. This guy’s gonna slip up, and she’ll escape. And, bare minimum, she’ll lock him in his own trunk before she leaves.

Easy as that.

So… what’s the best tactic? Patience?

She’s not great at patience. Especially not when her own physical health is on the line. She’d like to minimize the amount of pain this involves, thank you.

She could piss him off to make him do something stupid, but then he might just shoot her. Not her best idea.

She’s certainly not about to beg. She would literally rather perish. He probably expects her to beg, anyway.

So what else?

Oh. Oh wait, now that could work.

A quiet giggle echoes off the basement walls. He gives her side-eye as he picks out a knife, but doesn’t ask.

She is going to make this so goddamn weird.

She grits her teeth as he cuts the first short slice into her forearm. He hadn’t gagged her, claiming that no one but him would be able to hear her scream.

She immediately made it a personal goal to not give him the satisfaction of one singular scream.

Instead, she starts laughing - a harsh, sharp, slightly deranged cackle that is not what he was expecting at all, judging by the flicker of horrified shock on his face - and then looks up at him. “Good start. Now do it again. Harder.”

He does it again, harder, digging the knife in deeper. Her skin splits open, blood dripping down her arm, and fuck it hurts it hurts why did I say that I hate this oh my god that’s it I’m gonna kill this fucker - “oh, yeah, daddy.”

She really hates that word, she’s never felt comfortable with that particular kink, but she has to give credit where credit is due - it is very effective at causing real-world Psychic damage.

He physically recoils as he stutters something along the lines of “what - ew - no - are you enjoying this?!”

She laughs again, furiously blinking back tears, “Why wouldn’t I be? This is fucking hysterical.”

“You ever tried drinking blood?” She asks him a little while later, and bares her teeth at him - red with her blood, because he backhanded her and she accidentally bit the side of her tongue.

How much weirder do I need to make this? Come on, man. Neither of us are enjoying this. Let me go. Just let me go so I can go ahead and put that fucking knife in your eye. And then maybe pass out from blood loss, but I swear to god I am not dying without taking you with me.

She nods her head to gesture at the blood trailing down from the uneven cuts on her arms, slowly dripping to the floor. “Do you want to? Go on. Just a little taste. I got to try yours. You’re tasty.” She licks her lips seductively before she snaps her teeth at him. “I’d love to bite you again. Do you want to trade places?”

“Sh-shut up, shut the fuck up!”

He regrets gagging her when she retaliates by making the most obscene moaning sounds she can. The gag is taken right back out.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He yells, waving the knife around for emphasis.

Droplets of blood fly off of the blade, glinting wine-red in the light. She watches them fall to the floor and splatter, speckles of almost-black against the pale concrete, briefly transfixed.

Blood really is gorgeous. Wish it wasn’t mine.

“What, is having fun a crime now?” She looks up at him with a manic smile, gripping the armrests so tightly that her knuckles were bone-white and she could feel splinters breaking under her nails.

“This isn’t supposed to be fun!” His voice, which he had been trying so hard to keep low and masculine and threatening, actually cracks.

She cackles maniacally. “Then what’s the fucking point? You went to all this effort and you’re not even enjoying it? I wanted to make your first time good for you!”

He lets out a short strangled scream of anguish. “No, you - you’re ruining it, you crazy bitch! You’re supposed to be scared! You’re supposed to scream and beg and - and - we were gonna fuck.” He trails off quietly, as if he’s almost embarrassed by the end of his sentence, a quiet whine of disappointment.

You have got to be kidding me.

“Oh, seriously, that was your master plan? You can’t get laid on your own merits?” She spits blood on the floor at his feet. “Tough luck, bitch boy. You really picked the wrong person for that.”

He stares at her, actually vibrating with anger, before spitting “fucking whore,” and grabbing something off the table.

Ah hell, that’s the gun. She forgot about the gun. How the fuck did she forget the gun?

He points it at her head, right between her eyes… close enough for her to see that his hand is shaking. More importantly, close enough for her to get a good look at the safety, which is still on.

She grins - not in a friendly way, but in the way a tiger bares its teeth, letting all of her anger burn in her eyes. More than anger at this point. It’s darker. Deeper. It’s bloodlust.

Genuine, unbridled bloodlust. She’s so tired of pretending to be nice.

So, so tired of pretending to be anything but what she is.

Twenty-odd years of bottling everything up, denying herself what she’s always wanted for the sake of what? Feigned morality? And now this motherfucker comes along and decides to start shaking the bottle?

He deserves to have it blow up in his face.

She deserves to finally get what she wants.

Blood.

“Go on. Do it.” She hisses, still grinning. “I’ll come back. I’ll make Amityville look like Casper.”

She knows what she looks like. Red hair, black clothing, dark makeup, skull necklace, and oh yeah - covered in blood with a horror movie smile.

Even if he doesn’t believe in ghosts, it’s enough to give anyone second thoughts.

“F-fuck this.” He whispers, voice shaking. “Fuck this.” He puts the gun down and starts scrabbling at the ropes, struggling to untie them. “Just get out. Get out!”

She stands up with a groan of relief, rubbing her wrists as the bloodied ropes thump to the floor. “Oh, my god, finally.” Just getting up makes her feel a little unsteady. Yep. That’ll be from all the blood that’s not where it’s supposed to be.

She needs to get this over with quickly.

The look on her face when she turns to look at him has him snatch up the gun again, holding it with both hands, arms stiff. “Get out! G-get the fuck out! I’m letting you go, so go.”

She sticks her hands in her pockets and smiles sweetly at him, rocking back and forth on her feet, the picture of innocence if not for all the blood and the vindictive gleam in her eyes. “Aw, you wouldn’t shoot me. I’m just a girl.”

Her fingers curl around the object still safely tucked in her pocket. Perfect. She may have lost her pepper spray, but she still had Option 2.

She drops her mockingly childish tone into something more akin to a purr. “You’re not scared of me, are you?” She takes a step closer, and he steps back, eyes widening. “Oh. You are. Well, that’s… that’s just adorable.”

“I will! I’ll fucking sh-shoot you!”

“No, you won’t.” She chuckles. “Safety’s on.”

She rips her hands out of her pockets and launches herself at him with a feral snarl - there’s a useless click as he pulls the trigger - she tackles him, fueled by primal fury, grabbing his arm and shoving his wrist into her mouth, biting down as hard as she can - he screams and drops the gun - she feels the skin split under her teeth, tastes the hot salt-iron of his blood again. Maybe it is a little tasty.

He staggers backward, falls on his ass with her on top of him - she grabs him by the hair with one hand and with the other, she holds up her taser for him to see. She can see the flash of light reflect in his eyes when she presses the button and electricity cracks loudly in the small room, arcing blue-white between the prongs.

He goes very, very still; pupils shrinking to pinpoints as he stares at the sparks.

“You didn’t even search me. That’s been in my pocket the whole time, dumbass.”

“N-no, wait - please - !”

“My turn.”

She jabs it into his neck, grinning maniacally: he jerks and shudders beneath her, back arching, strangled screams suddenly going silent as his eyes roll back.

He’s about average size - yet, to her immense annoyance, he’s just slightly too heavy for her to lift with the amount of pain she’s in. Trying to pick him up nearly knocked her out.

She would have preferred for him to wake up tied to his own chair, but unfortunately that’s just not happening. What she can do, however, is drag him right over there to those lovely, sturdy looking pipes and handcuff him to them.

The dumbass literally had handcuffs and he used rope instead. Thick rope, at that. If he’d left the basement for a little while, she probably could have wriggled free anyway.

He had plenty of supplies, too - rolls of duct tape, the handcuffs, a lighter, a few extra knives, even some rags for cleaning up - and he didn’t use any of them properly.

What an idiot.

Just to be thorough, she wraps plenty of duct tape around his wrists over the cuffs so he can’t pick them open or squeeze his hands out, then gags him properly, stuffing one of the rags in his mouth before winding a few layers of duct tape overtop, all the way around his head. That’s how you gag someone.

She takes his shoes and socks off, ties his feet together, empties all his pockets, and finds his cellphone. Ah. That could be useful. She takes a seat on the floor and presses his thumb against the sensor to unlock it. If anyone else knows about what he was planning tonight, she needs to know sooner than later.

He shifts with a quiet groan.

She startles, jabbing the taser into his side. After a few seconds, she pulls it away and eyes him suspiciously. No movement, other than twitching. Is he still breathing? Yes? Good.

Anyway. Back to the phone. So far, so good. The guy doesn’t seem very socially-active; the most recent message he sent was four days ago, and it was to his manager.

It occurs to her that having to physically put his finger on the phone anytime she wants to check it will be very annoying. She briefly considers cutting that thumb off and carrying it around with her, but - no. It probably requires some amount of bioelectricity for the phone to sense it.

She also doesn’t want a thumb decaying in her pocket. That’s just weird.

Instead, she goes into his security settings and, using his thumb as needed to confirm his identity, adds her own fingerprint.

While she’s at it, she resets the password too. Turns out his PIN was his birthday. So predictable. Good thing for her that this Jacob Spencer had his driver’s license.

After all, it’s important to bring your ID with you when you’re committing multiple crimes.

With that accomplished, she pockets his phone and double checks that there’s absolutely nothing within his reach before she goes upstairs, turning the light off as she does.

Oh, lovely, the basement door can be locked from the outside.

Hm. It’s not a bad house. Rather rustic for her tastes, but at least it’s clean. From the windows, all she can see is a foreboding dark forest.

A real cabin in the woods, that’s actually pretty cool. So he wasn’t lying about the “no one will hear you scream” part. At least he managed to get that part of a kidnapping right.

Her first step is finding the bathroom so she can take a shower and treat her injuries.

A cold shower, apparently. No matter how long she leaves it running “hot”, it steadfastly refuses to heat up. Awesome. Whatever. At least the cold will help numb the pain. She’ll find the water heater later. In the meantime she sits in the shower, gently washing the cuts and watching her blood swirl down the drain. Now I want to watch Psycho.

While she waits for her hair to dry, she peruses the medicine cabinet. There’s not a whole lot to choose from: basically all he has is a first aid kit, half a bottle of mouthwash, and, in the back of the cabinet, a long-forgotten dusty bottle of aspirin that expired… oh, cool, twenty years ago.

Well, shit. No painkillers, then. The kit is good enough to treat and bandage the cuts, but painkillers would have been really nice.

There’s a very quiet noise, she almost didn’t hear it at all - she pauses to listen, tilting her head.

Muffled screams from the basement.

Ah, he’s awake. Good.

She’s going to see what’s in the kitchen.

There’s... not much. Not much at all. She honestly thought the fridge was empty at first.

He has beer and Pepsi, cereal but no milk, three frozen microwave dinners, and a party size bag of Doritos.

For gods sake.

All that bloodloss - not to mention the exertion it took to take him down - is making her feel concerningly woozy at this point. She has to lean on the counter just to stay upright. Last time she had to get blood drawn, the nurse gave her a cup of orange juice.

Pepsi will have to do.

She considers going back downstairs, if only to yell at him for his shitty food options, but honestly she’s too tired to deal with him at all right now. Drinking a couple bottles of Pepsi helped, but she’s still exhausted.

Well, that and she’s decided to leave him alone down there for a little while. Maybe a whole day. Maybe even two or three.

Fuck him.

Either way, whatever she decides will just have to wait until the morning.

Why is there a duffel bag on the bed? She rummages through it, bewildered. Phone charger, a couple changes of clothes, deodorant, 3-in-1 soap, toothbrush…

He doesn’t actually live here. That’s interesting. Explains a lot, raises more questions. Did he rent the cabin for this? Is this, like, an AirBnB? Is it a sketchy one? Are there secret cameras??

She shrugs and shoves the duffel to the floor. Too tired. She’ll deal with it in the morning. If there are cameras and the owners called the cops, it’ll be extremely disappointing, but it’s not like she’ll be in any trouble. Surely she’s well within her rights to restrain her kidnapper. And they wouldn’t begrudge her a little post-kidnapping nap.

She’s been traumatized, after all.

————————————————————————————

Not that there was much to regret in the first place. Something was wrong with him, wasn’t there? Zach never regretted the blood on his hands, and he certainly couldn’t bring himself to regret trying to escape. How long had it been? Five years? Six? Days and weeks and months slipped by him, and time had lost its meaning in this awful and stagnant prison, still water blooming with noxious disease. 

Zach had honestly surprised himself, realizing that he still had the will to even try to break out of this hellhole. Maybe he should have given himself more credit. 

Or maybe not.

After all, he ended up here. 

Here, in the darkness, in the cold, barbed wire wrapped around his limbs, binding them together. With every twitch, the spikes scratched his skin, digging into his flesh, gasping for breath as he shook from the pain and the sheer struggle of keeping himself upright.

When he tried to let his head fall, the collar, chained to the pole he was propped up against, bit at his throat. No rest for the wicked, not even the slightest mercy.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have gotten caught. Or maybe he should have, maybe he deserved it, maybe there never was a world to go back to, and all his memories were only the delusions of a broken mind.

It wasn’t like he could prove otherwise, locked up in here. The only person he’d talked to in years was Cassiel, so maybe they were the world. And if they were, Zach didn’t want to be in it. 

He never wanted to in the first place. And yet… at this point, it was spite. That was his gasoline, the only thing that kept him going.

Because the alternative was giving Cassiel exactly what they wanted. Giving her exactly what she wanted.  

But some days…some days that didn’t seem so bad anymore. 

It was maybe a few weeks ago. Zach couldn’t quite remember what had happened, the memories fading into the hazy sea of all the things he’d rather forget. But he still recalled what it led to, that even Cassiel was worried they’d gone too far. Enough to give him some relief. 

The shape of the recollection was still clear. The bright orange bottle, translucent plastic filtering the cheap fluorescent light, filled to the brim with little white pills.

“These are quite strong,” Cassiel had told him. “Don’t take them all at once.” And they smirked, voice shaping into amusement.

They’d left the bottle with him. The entire thing—they didn’t need to. They already visited every day, just to hurt him. To try to make him regret.

They didn’t need to leave the bottle. But Zach knew why they did anyways.

So he forced himself to follow the instructions printed on the label, in a tiny font he needed to squint to read. One pill a day, no more and no less, until it was all gone, and he wasn’t.

The look of disappointment on Cassiel’s face made it worth it, he’d told himself.

Should he have cared? Maybe it would have been better to do what Cassiel wanted, what he wanted, to just die—

Head spinning, Zach pulled against his bindings, letting the barbed wire embed itself into his skin, tearing flesh apart. He bit down on his screams, teeth clamping onto his tongue, the taste of copper flooding his mouth. This was better. It was better. It was proof he was still alive. He couldn’t forget that, he could never forget that. 

Perhaps at this point, it wasn’t even spite. Perhaps it was simple inertia. Still, he wouldn’t die. He refused to die. Stubborn beast.

He wouldn’t die, even though this version of existence truly felt like dying. The darkness, so thick he could drown in it. Wasn’t this what death felt like? He knew the feeling, like infection taking over, like bleeding out on the dirty floor, and it was this.

Was he dying? Blood trailed down his arms and legs in rivulets, and his collar brushed against bruises old and new. How could existing be so painful? Maybe it wasn’t existing at all.

Did he want this? How could he have ever wanted this? Zach lurched forward as his stomach churned, heaving and choking, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. 

It wasn’t the coffin. Hadn’t he begged for anything else? He couldn’t go back to the coffin, that cramped slice of hell, forced to stand for hours or days with the walls pressed against him, suffocating him, crushing him. 

Wasn’t this the mercy he debased himself for?

Cassiel had laughed and laughed as they wound the barbed wire around him, as they obliged him.

This was better, it had to be better. 

The collar chafed against his scarred neck, two notches too tight, and the silence was deafening.

His throat had given out for sure, scratchy and rough and probably bleeding, but he’d never heard it happen. For all he knew, he was still screaming.

This was better. Was it better?

Why did he ever try to escape? He knew, he knew, that he’d never get out. It wasn’t like Cassiel was the first to teach him that lesson.

But if there was one thing he knew, it was that he’d never learn. 

—