Page 19 of Retrograde

Soon, tears are streaming down my face. I’m unable to stop them, but I don’t want to give him the pleasure of seeing me cry. I lower my head until my chin rests on my chest, and I let them fall to the ground with faint splats.

A whole eternity passes before I look up again to find that he’s gotten bored and is now tossing his knife up, letting it flip mid-air, and then catching it by the handle, over and over. After a while, he swaps hands, repeating the performance with the same practised efficiency.

Time stretches into a blur of growing agony. The sound of my ragged breathing is laced with whimpers that keep clawing up my parched throat. I grow weak. Each time I sway with fatigue, the rocks lodge deeper and deeper underneath my kneecaps, pain lashing further up my body.

“How much longer?” I finally ask him, past the point of being ashamed for the distinct note of pleading in my feeble voice.

He only shrugs, not even bothering to look at me.

“You sadistic fuck.” My words are laced with venom. “Do you promise you’ll actually let me eat if I last however long you want me to?”

He shrugs again before replying, “I can promise that I won’t if you don’t.”

Drip, drip, drip, I focus on the sound of water coming from the back of the cave, like the ticking of a clock, measuring seconds which then morph into minutes and then hours.

Aron cleans under his nails with his knife and pulls out a small paperback from his pocket, hiding the jacket from me behind his legs, bent in front of him as he reads. This encourages me to cry loudly and openly, my sobs echoing—trying to be proud and brave is one thing, but not letting the bastard read in peace is way more tempting. Not that he is bothered at all by the noise I’m making. He seems completely engrossed in the story; he’s chewing his bottom lip, flipping the pages fast. Not paying me any attention at all until I shift my weight for the millionth time, but this time the pain is so sharp it feels like a ligament in my knee snapped. My leg gives out, and I topple to the side with a screech.

“Well. That’s that.” I raise my head to see Aron stand up and slide his book back into his pocket.

My eyes stray to the blanket on the ground and the plate of food next to it. I howl like an injured dog pining for its master. I don’t even care. There’s not a thing that can make my humiliation worse than kneeling for that psychopath for hours in agony, only to have that be for absolutely nothing.

But then I hear the click of a lock and the scrape of the cell door. My heart stops.

Heavy tactical boots come into view, the outsole of one soiled with something that looks like blood. When he puts the cover over me and the soft, warm fabric touches my skin, the relief is staggering.

“Drink. Eat,” he orders me simply, pushing the plate closer to me with the tip of his boot.

Don’t thank him, you idiot. You’re better than that.

I sit up, not looking at him. A traitorous flood of endorphins is coursing through me in monumental waves.

“What made you take pity on me?” I ask to distract myself.

“Nothing.”

“What’s this then?” I ask, indicating the plate. “I thought I wasn’t getting any of this since I didn’t last as long as you wanted me to.”

“Oh, but you did,” he assures me, his voice dripping with cruelty. He crouches down and hooks his fingers underneath my chin, forcing me to look at him.

“You did, Hotshot,” he repeats with a malicious smirk, his voice low. “I wanted you to take it until you couldn’t anymore. And like a good, obedient fucking girl you did, didn’t you?”

My relief evaporates. My stomach churns, threatening to expel what little food it just got. Fear rather than restraint is the only thing that stops me from spitting in his handsome, revolting face.

7

RILEY

Ihave no idea how much time I’ve spent down here. I’ve never felt so completely untethered as I do now. Throughout my life, I’ve been lost many times, and not just in unfamiliar lands. But I’ve never come as close to losing my grasp on reality as I am now.

There is no natural source of light or heat. The cold is the moist, penetrating kind that seeps through your flesh into the marrow of your bones. Every inch of me is aching. All I can think of is the caress of sun rays on my skin—more inaccessible to me now than the western half of the continent.

I’m drowning in the darkness, even more oppressive and suffocating than the cave walls around me and the bars of my cell. There are moments when I’m not sure whether my eyes are open or closed. I’ve banged my head countless times on the protruding rock, pacing around like a caged animal.

Panic rushes through my ears. But even my unceasing dread fails to drown out the little noises coming from deeper within the cave: not only the trickle of water but also small, scurrying disturbances of the gravel that I think are caused by rats. Once, I heard something that might have been a snake slithering. There must be spiders everywhere, too, crawling noiselessly about, crawling over me during the rare moments when I manage to sleep.

The Necromancer has become my only source of light, warmth, food—my only source of comfort. And I despise him for it, even as I’m relieved that it’s only ever him who comes down here, and not any of his men. At least, he seems too disgusted with me to rape me—he hasn’t touched me in any charged way since the first day. He hasn’t hit me either—I almost wish that he would. Because he brings me only nourishment and respite, I catch myself looking forward to his visits. It’d be less confusing if he brought me pain, too.

He comes and goes at irregular intervals; sometimes it feels like entire days have passed since his last visit, and sometimes only hours. I think he does this on purpose, to confuse me.