The one with the knife flicks it open, the metallic click echoing in the room. He steps behind me, grip on my hair tightening as he tips my head back again. “Let’s see how tough she is,” he says with a grin I can feel rather than see. “C’mon, sweetheart. Show us what you got.”
The blade slides under the plastic, cutting into my skin only enough to sting. Then the pressure snaps, the restraint falling away.
My hands drop free. My joints ache as the circulation rushes back, pins and needles racing up my fingertips. My balance wavers for only a heartbeat, and even that’s too much of a victory for them.
I keep them slack behind me, acting like I didn’t register the shift. Feigning helplessness. Letting him believe I didn’t just become the most dangerous person in this room.
“Yeah,” one of them laughs, stepping in front of me and rubbing himself harder. “Make this interesting.”
He leans down.
His face is inches from mine.
His breath is a warm, putrid cloud when he whispers, “Show us what a little fighter you are.”
I smile.
Slow. Sweet.
Deadly.
Before any of them realize I’ve shifted, my fingers slide up the wrist of the bastard who cut my ties. I keep my posture loose, my shoulders trembling like prey about to break. They buy it instantly. Predators always do. They see what they want to see.
I lift my gaze, eyes wide and glossy with pretend terror, and let my voice wobble as I whisper, “Please… please don’t hurt me.”
They howl with laughter, smug and sure of themselves. One of them steps forward, his fingers brushing my cheek with a softness that feels worse than any hit. “Oh, baby,” he croons, “you’ll be begging a lot harder than that before we’re done.”
I tilt my head, let my lower lip tremble in a flawless echo of fear. Then I let it drain away, sharpening into intent. “Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”
For a heartbeat they don’t understand. Then I suck in a breath and scream, loud and panicked, “Please! Please, I’m begging you!”
They blink. Confusion flits across their faces just long enough.
I snap the wrist I’m holding.
The crack is sharp, a wet pop that echoes off the concrete walls. He shrieks, high-pitched and shocked, and I ride the momentum, twisting his arm behind him. His friends surge forward, but they’re too slow. Too cocky. Too focused on the performance they think I’m giving them.
And I keep the lie breathing.
Every strike I land is punctuated by a scream, each one tailored to sound like fear instead of fury. I raise my voice high and trembling so anyone on the other side of the door hears exactly what they expect to hear.
“Stop, please—please don’t!” My cry echoes against the metal walls as I twist the first man’s broken wrist until he collapses.
Another thug charges, and I sidestep, slicing under his ribs. His breath leaves him in a choked grunt, but I drown it beneath my wail. “No! It hurts—please, stop!” I drag the last word out until it cracks, letting my breath hitch the way it used to when I was terrified. Only now it’s all show. Controlled. Weaponized.
I let my voice tremble violently, mixing sobs into each movement so the men upstairs will hear nothing but a victim breaking. If someone passes by, they’ll think these bastards are winning.
The third man grabs my hair, and I jerk away, slashing the inside of his thigh. His blood sprays warmly across my face. I sob louder, staggering back as if he hurt me instead. “Don’t touch me! Please, I can’t—don’t do this!” My deception is flawless. I fall to my knees intentionally, palms hitting the ground as I let out a shriek so raw it scrapes my throat. “No! No, let me go!”
The sound ricochets around the cramped room, bouncing off concrete until it becomes a convincing symphony of suffering. Underneath each pleading word, my blade sinks into muscle and artery, quiet and precise.
Between cries, a laugh threatens to slip free—from adrenaline, from the thrill of turning their plan against them—but I smother it beneath another panicked plea. “Someone, help me! Please, somebody!”
I clutch my side dramatically as the second man finally drops beside his own blood, and I disguise the thud of his body with another strangled sob. “It hurts! I’m sorry, I’m sorry—please don’t hurt me anymore!”
My shrieks swallow their dying breaths until no one in the hallway could guess who’s winning in here.
Then it is only him.