Chapter 106

**Hadassah POV**

“Torin, I swear!”
He doesn’t say anything, no snarky or sarcastic remarks. A quiet Torin has the same formidability as a smiling Orian—petrifying. Torin forces me onwards as we all descend to the nether bowels, going deeper and deeper. The dark cellar is a place where light dares not linger. The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and the faint, acrid smell of old blood. The stone walls, slick with moisture, seem to close in on themselves, suffocating all of us as we enter. Faint, flickering fluorescent light casts long, dancing shadows that play tricks on the eyes, turning the stone floor's uneven surface into a shifting pendulum of peril.
In the center of the cellar, the gauntlet of guards drag Ellis down the narrow staircase. They move with brutal efficiency, their hands gripping him like iron vices to keep him secure. Despite his strength, towering above most of them, he doesn’t fight against his men. They push him forward, forcing him down until his knees hit the cold, unforgiving stone.
At the far end of the room stands an ominous chair, its wooden frame battered by time, its leather straps still taut and ready. One guard breaks away to fetch it before he positions it behind Ellis. The guards heave him up and shove him into the chair. They force up his black sleeves until his elbows before strapping him in tightly with his palms facing up, their faces expressionless as they secure his wrists, ankles, and chest with thick, worn leather. The bindings creak with the strain, but hold firm.
I catch glimpses of rueful glances given to Ellis by the others. He meets the eye of each of them with emphatic looks as if to reassure them that they are just doing what they were trained to. Follow orders. He knows it isn’t personal nor does he seem to want any of them to intervene.
As the last strap is tightened, the guards step back, their shadows merging with the darkness. Ellis remains still, his gaze fixed on me. His face, rough-hewn, betrays no fear, only a cold, calculating resolve. His eyes, sharp as flint, darts around, taking in every detail of his surroundings.
Torin points over to the rack of shelves of aged wood.
“Fetch me the acid. The tepid one.”
No one moves.
“I gave you an order,” Torin barks.
“You heard him,” Ellis echoes. “You were given a direct order.”
Grudgingly, a guard drifts deeper into the room.
“Torin—”
With my wrist still pinned to my back, I lurch to try to maneuver out of his grip and strike him with my free elbow. Mid-movement—a crunch of bone, then another crack as he breaks my wrist and that burst of pain sends me to my knees with a half-gasping scream. I curl over, coddling my wrist to my chest. Torin snatches a fistful of my hair, coiling it and yanking back so hard my head whips back up, forcing me upright as I seethe with spittle flying, my breathing labored and harsh as I do all I can not to cry.
Torin shoves my head into a slant so he can lean in with his lips grazing the hollow of my ear.
“You’re going to watch this.”
“Why are you doing this?” I scream back, paralyzed by pain and forced on my knees with Torin’s enduring and punishing grip on my hair. “He didn’t do anything to me. I didn’t do anything for him. Derek sucked and licked on me like a bulldog, but you want to torture Ellis for standing within close proximity to me?”
“Derek was a ploy,” he points out. “We both know you were using him, but I needed him to go through with it because I wanted to see how far you would go. He was under my discretion. And I entrusted your security with Ellis. And yes, he didn’t touch you but the look in his eyes told me that he wanted to.”
Two guards flank Ellis and I look away quickly. Torin grabs my head before seizing my chin and the top of my head to fix my face forward, forcing me to watch as tears already leak from my eyes.
“Now, if this was anyone else, I would be feeding your remains to the street dogs already,” Torin says as it’s meant to be a hymn of praise, something he ought to be thankful for. “You are a reputable soldier, my best man and those hands of yours are too skilled to go to waste.”
The moment the acid touches his skin, it must have been as if a thousand needles had been driven into the flesh at once, each one pulsing with a searing, white-hot agony. I can only imagine that the sensation is immediate and overwhelming—a sharp, stinging burn that quickly intensifies, spreading out like wildfire from the point of contact. His skin sizzles audibly and he lets out a steely hiss before he starts violently throwing his head back, side, forward and in every which direction.
A skull-rattling scream escapes me as a deluge of uncontrollable tears drench my face. Within seconds, the area of skin begins to bubble and blister, the flesh reacting viciously to the corrosive substance. His agony appears to burrow into the very bone. The skin swells grotesquely, raising angry, red welts that burst open to reveal raw, inflamed tissue beneath. The acid gnaws at the flesh, not deep enough to carve through muscle, but enough to leave a lasting, torturous reminder of its presence.
“Please, Torin,” I wail in a snot-nosed mess, disheveled and disorientated. “If you want to hurt me, punish me—”
“Don’t,” Ellis utters strenuously with his face flush with an agonizing red. “I—I deserve it.”
He twitches aggressively as every nerve ending in the affected area is set alight, sending jagged bolts of pain shooting up through the limb, each one more seemingly unbearable than the last. The blistering heat contrasts sharply with the clammy sweat that breaks out across the body. It’s a pain that leaves no room for thought, no space for anything other than the raw, primal need to make it stop and escape the relentless burning. And yet his eyes are trained on me as if I am the single tether between life and death that’s keeping his body from succumbing.
The acrid smell of burnt flesh fills the air, mingling with the sharp tang of the acid, creating a nauseating cocktail of odors that only heightens the horror of the experience. The skin of his forearms, palms and hands are now mottled and weeping, taking on a dark rough hue, the burns forming terrifying patterns as if the acid itself has scrawled its fury across his flesh.
His consciousness flits out, passed out from the pain as his head drops heavily.
Even after the acid is neutralized, the damage is far from over. His skin, once smooth and unblemished, is now a landscape of torment—red, rumpled, blistered, and raw.
“Should we get him to the medic?” one the guards asks urgently.
Torin releases me and shrugs with cruel indifference.
“Mr Moon?”
A slender silhouette of a woman with an office siren aesthetic sashays towards him with the utmost of professionalism. Sleek bun and sharp glass frames as she peers over at Torin, completely unmoved and unbothered at what is unfolding around her.
“You have a call,” she informs flatly.
“You can’t see that I’m busy?”
“It’s Gjoka Dervishi.”
Torin switches up and he follows after with not so much as a backward glance. Before he enters the stairwell, he casts me a cursory and conflicted glance before darkness inhales him. With their ascent resounding in the stairwell, I frantically crawl over to Ellis. Surprised that none of the guards do anything to stop me even though it would be considerably easy with my broken wrist. Sniffing, I edge closer so I’m knelt between his wide-set legs.
“Ellis?”
With my broken wrist cradled to my chest, I use my good hand to quickly shake his thigh. And a few moments later, his eyes flutter open, a wince straining his features as his vision struggles to focus on me but that doesn’t stop him from trying.
“Are you okay?” he whispers painfully.
A flash flood of tears as I hold my wrist down on my chest. “You just got burned with acid and you’re asking about me?”
“My only pain is not being able to touch you,” he breathes, his breaths shallow. “Not being able to wipe the tears from your eyes. That hurts me more than the acid ever could.”
I drop my head on his knee before I pivot to hide my tears by burying my face in his inner thigh, whimpering shamelessly.
“Get her to the physician,” Elllis orders, giving commands with the power of compulsion. “Now.”
One of them unpeels me from him and hoists me back to my feet. The other three unstrap his restraints and leverage as they try to raise his tremendous bulk to full height. He sways haphazardly but the other three are fast to stabilize him and he thanks them with a terse nod.
“Ellie?”
“I’m fine, boys. Just get her checked out.”
I allow one of them to steer me away as I stare back at him for as long as I can.