“Knight won’t ever get that far,” he dismissed me. “Now,” grabbing my wrist, he turned my arm in order that my palm confronted upwards, “let’s not waste one other second.” The feather glided over my pores and skin, mild because it moved throughout my hand and wrist. As much as the criminal of my arm.

“No,” I begged, because the tingling sensation grew right into a burn. “Please.”

Manuel’s fingers tightened round my wrist. “Do not be such a toddler, Tatiana.”

It did not take lengthy earlier than the prickling ache escalated into an inferno because the powder sank into my pores and skin.

“Please!” I cried, squeezing my eyes shut to stave off the ache because it ran up my arm and into my shoulder. “Please!”

“Humorous,” Manuel murmured, the feather hovering close to my pores and skin. “That is precisely what my father stated,” he hissed, his jaw flexing with anger, “when Abuelo put a gun to his head and pulled the set off, proper in entrance of me.” He trailed the feather throughout my shoulder, shaking his head. “And Knight did nothing however stand there and watch as Abuelo murdered my father, even when he pleaded for his life.” Manuel let my hand go, then leaned right down to me, his eyes chilly and laborious within the darkness of the room. “Did not he know he was mine to kill?” He thumped his chest with a fist, talking in a low growl. “Mine.”

The feather descended once more and the powdery substance clung to my pores and skin, intensifying the burning sensation that thundered over my different shoulder, up my neck and chest.

He paid specific consideration to the areas between my fingers, the pores and skin the place my fingers met my nails, all of the tiny little cracks and crevices of my physique, right down to my toes. Anyplace that was naked, he tortured me, my screams and cries doing nothing to melt his laborious coronary heart.

I do not understand how lengthy it lasted, however it felt like an eternity as he caressed my pores and skin with one thing so gentle, it was barely heavier than air, however imbibed with one thing so harmful, so painful, that it felt like my pores and skin was on hearth.

I used to be burning alive.

My screaming drowned out the sounds of gunfire from exterior, Manuel’s deep snigger, and the pounding of my very own coronary heart.

As wave after wave of panic and nausea rolled over me, almost choking me to dying, I screamed not just for my very own ache and agony, however for the youthful me, who’d solely needed somebody to like her.

To remain, for her.

I struggled for air because the darkness threatened to eat me utterly. Tears coursed down my face, however I sucked in giant, sobbing breaths, clamping my mouth shut, decided to take management over the state of affairs.

I had labored so laborious to develop into a brand new particular person.

An individual decided to not be crippled by the previous.

And I knew I used to be now not that woman, scared and powerless. I would modified, grown, educated.

Labored my ass off to develop into who I used to be now.

And never due to Knight or Rook or my mother and father or anybody else.

It was due to me.

I would accomplished that.

I would accomplished every thing attainable to cease myself from residing underneath the management of one other once more.

Together with the very poison Manuel had used towards me, so a few years in the past.

The contact of the feather on my pores and skin stopped and I took in deep, choking breaths. My face and garments have been drenched with my sweat and tears. My coronary heart was nonetheless pounding so loud, it shook my insides out.

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. Then, letting my rage take over, I opened them once more, dedication filling me.

I refused to be dragged again into his darkness.

To let my fears develop into my grasp.

I used to be able to greater than I ever dreamed of.

I wasn’t that very same little woman, scared and powerless.

I used to be Tatiana Krapivnik, and I wasn’t going to let him management me anymore.

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