Rule and Ruin

seventeen; the look of death

chapter sixteen.

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"WAKEY, WAKEY, sleeping beauty."

The crazed sing-song voice snapped Selene out of her slumber. She jolted awake only to find herself strapped against a metal chair. Her head was pounding. Her cheek was bruised. Every single bone in her body ached.

She blinked and refocused her eyes on the person before her.

"Selene Casey," the familiar voice sang. "I did say I'd love to see you in the Mermaid Venue someday, didn't I?"

Wang's twisted grin burned itself into her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing for anything that could save her from this bad dream. He traced a finger down her cheek and she flinched, pulling at the ropes that strapped her down. Please please please no

Wang gripped her chin to force her to look up at him.

"Oh Selene," he murmured under his breath. "Look at you." He ran his gaze up and down Selene's tattered body. "Who would have thought you'd be at your knees before me, looking like this?"

She didn't want to know what she looked like. Half naked, bloodied, bruised. Utterly powerless. Shameful.

"Where's Dino?" she gasped. "Bring me to Dino." Some foolish part of her deep down still believed she would find mercy from him.

"I haven't told Dino about my little discovery yet," he mused. "I thought I'd have a little fun with you first."

He admired her roughness for a moment. "I heard you found out the truth about your father."

She looked away and pulled at her restraints.

"You have no idea how much I wanted to be there. To see the look on both your faces," he sighed. "Dino was so uptight about it all these years, forcing all of us to dance in circles around you. I despise that the Maddox boy ruined the fun for all of us."

"I'll kill you," she promised.

Wang laughed, "Can't wait."

He bent down to look her in the eye. He ran a hand down her arm, down her chest, down her stomach.

"Pretty little thing," he whispered. "I am going to break you."

It was a promise he delivered.

Wang had broken many people before. Selene never thought she would be one of them.

In that grey walled prison, he slowly took every piece of her away. Her voice, her clothes, her dignity. He wrote his own twisted little romance on her through knife carvings and decorative bruises.

He drugged her and touched her and cut her and broke her over and over, until she thought there was no possible way she could be more broken. Of course, she was wrong.

She fell in and out of consciousness, unable to count the hours or the days as she sat trapped for him. He fed her, washed her, felt her - he did so many things to her, all the actions blurred into one. She couldn't differentiate between his touch and the stone ground anymore. She lay there, utterly helpless and worthless.

She did not cry. She did not retaliate. She suffered in silence, finally paying for all the victims she had sent to this man. All the empty looks she evaded when she watched Wang drag them away.

The look of death does not like to be ignored.

"Selene," someone called.

Selene. Selene. Selene.

She jerked awake. Her heart was pounding. Her stomach was lurching. What was it going to be today?

"Selene," they called again.

She lifted her tired head but was too numb to offer a reaction when she saw who it was.

"Not looking too good there," Dino said with a laugh. "I forgot how rough Wang could get."

"Oh please," Wang's voice sounded from behind. "I was barely getting started. I saved the rest for you, sir."

Dino grinned. He gripped Selene's chin and tilted it left and right to examine her.

"Now, now," he said. "Don't look at me like that. It breaks my heart."

"What heart?" she mustered the energy to whisper.

Dino sighed. "You're the one who spat on my kindness. I really did care for you, Selene."

The metal cuffs dug into her skin. She pulled against them, wishing she could slam a fist into that arrogant smirk of his.

She closed her eyes, she was too tired to see. She was too tired to wish.

"Did you have fun running around with that boy?"

She didn't respond.

"I thought you were better than this," Dino frowned. "I thought you knew this business well enough to respect everything I've done for it. But of course, one whisper from that pretty boy and you're immediately swayed off your feet. How womanly."

Shut up shut up shut up

"I think I partly expected this, you know?" he continued. "So I shielded you from everything in case you were going to be...emotional about things. Which you were." He looked down at her in disappointment. "Tell me where he's hiding."

She shook her head. Over and over again.

"That's alright," he sighed as he began to walk away. "I can be patient. Maybe Wang can change your mind."

Wang had already tried to cut it out of her. Dig it out of her. He had taken everything else from her, but not this. Never this.

"I'll wait. When that boy comes to save you, I'll let you watch when I kill him."

"He won't come," she finally answered. "He won't."