Page 46 of The Castle (Endgame 3)
And instead of the man I love at the mercy of a killer, hurting, suffering, I see Jonathan Scott tied to the ceiling, his mouth dripping with blood and saliva, his naked torso a maze of scars and open wounds.
Gabriel’s eyes meet mine, and for one horrifying moment I can see everything he’s seeing. I can feel everything he’s feeling—the anger and the pain, the determination and sinking mercy. He’s a man who’s done violence before, one who will do it again.
And I’m the only person who can reach him.
“What are you doing here?” he says, and even his voice sounds different. Cracked.
“Looking for you,” I whisper. “How long have you been here?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The sound coursing through the night air had narrowed my vision. I didn’t know what kind of building we’d come to, but now that I look around, I see the remnants of some kind of clinic—that old rubbery floor strewn with dust, missing ceiling tiles, the smell of mildew sharp in the air. A home, an office.
“Is this…a hospital?”
Jonathan Scott begins to laugh, a horrifying sound. Blood-tinged spittle flies onto the floor. “Does someone look sick to you, little girl?”
A sudden chill overtakes me. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him speak before now. A sense of dreamlike familiarity washes over me, moving my lips. It’s someone else who answers him, her voice tight. “You’re not looking very well at the moment.”
Dark eyes meet mine, the same ones I saw across the ballroom in my mother’s house. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen this man, but I recognize the venom in his eyes. The soulless intent. “I’ve never been well, not really. Neither have you.”
Gabriel takes a step between us. “Don’t speak to her. You don’t fucking speak to her.”
The poker still burns faintly pink. That’s how hot it is. I can see the marks on Jonathan Scott’s body, the places where Gabriel has already applied the heat. Burns that will never really heal on skin that was never truly fine. “Gabriel,” I whisper. “What happened to him? Look at all the open wounds, the burns, the blood. Did you do all of this?”
Though his face looks completely normal, his body is covered in old wounds. Ropes of scars on top of scars. I’m not sure I can even see a strip of untouched skin across his chest or his arms.
“Some of it,” Gabriel says, his expression flat. “And don’t look so horrified. He doesn’t deserve your pity.”
“It doesn’t matter what he’s done, no one deserves that.” And I’m not sure anyone can survive administering that kind of torture day after day, the way Gabriel did.
“If you had a full accounting,” Damon Scott says, strolling from the shadows, “I think you would disagree. However, the stories aren’t fit for polite company.”
Penny takes a step back, as if she’s more afraid of the man with a quick smile than the one practically feral tied up with a rope. Damon pauses only infinitesimally, enough to show he notices, not enough to show he cares.
“Forty years ago they thought they could cure what was wrong with his brain.” He waves a hand around, as if showing off some banal art museum instead of torture devices. “That enough heat or electricity or water could shock the crazy out of him.”
My eyes widen. “That’s barbaric.”
“And ineffective,” Gabriel says, his voice harsh.
“Then why are you doing it?”
He tosses the poker down with a horrible clatter. “I’m not trying to cure him.”
“You’re torturing him,” I say, my voice rising in panic. “It’s one thing to kill someone in self-defense. Even revenge. Another to hurt someone like this, to destroy them, to mutilate his body.”
A small laugh. “Have I shocked you again, little virgin?”
Tears spring to my eyes. “Yes.”
Penny touches the back of my hand. “He’s trying to save you.”
I glance back. “How?”
“Yes, how?” Jonathan Scott swings in his ropes, and I see where Damon gets his grotesque humor. He looks almost playful. “Tell her how Gabriel Miller bought her and fucked her and keeps her locked away from the world, all in a desperate bid to save her pretty tits.”
“Get them out of here,” Gabriel mutters to Damon.
When Damon makes a move toward us, I back away. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He sighs. “You really shouldn’t see this.”
“It shouldn’t be happening! You’ve caught him. You have him. You can turn him over to the cops.”
Damon’s eyes close. “The chief of police is dear old Dad’s drinking buddy. They liked to torture animals together while they watched the game on Sundays.”
My gasp is drowned by the maniacal laugh from the man hanging from the ceiling.
“Did I say animals?” Damon says, glancing back with an impassive expression. “Sometimes dogs. Sometimes girls. Anyone who would scream.”
“Sometimes you,” I whisper.
His dark eyes meet mine. “He doesn’t deserve your compassion.”
