Page 38 of Into Pitch

I swallow, my fingers tightening on my glass.

“He knew things, or he figured them out fast. My family and insecurities. Things I hadn’t said out loud in years. He’d circle them like pressure points, press just enough that I would react.”

“That sounds like—”

“Like therapy?” he cuts in, eyes flashing. “Yeah. Except there was no pretense of helping.”

My pulse spikes, and I keep my mouth from asking questions so he can continue.

“He kept me in that mirror room,” he murmurs. “Hours or longer. Time got weird. Every time I thought what he did to me was over, he’d come back with another question. Another observation. Another way to tell me exactly who I was.”

“What do you mean what he did to you?” I press gently.

He pulls up the hoodie over his stomach, pushing out of his seat so that I can see the skin beneath. I balk at the ragged scars that cross him like stitching.

“And when I stopped answering? That’s when he got creative.” He croaks and shoves his hoodie back into place.

I don’t ask for details, because I don’t need them. It’s clear the man was tortured.

“He liked it,” the man hisses, shaking his head. “You could hear it in his voice. The satisfaction of watching someone break.”

My stomach rolls, and I’m suddenly very aware that if I mention what happened to me it will land about like I expect it to—badly.

“By the end, I was begging him to just kill me,” he breathes quietly.

Silence stretches between us, heavy and suffocating.

“I thought Pitch was supposed to be fun,” I murmur.

He snorts. “Pitch is a hunting ground.”

I think of the mirrored room and the calm voice asking me to choose. Of the way he’d laughed when I grabbed his wrist.

Why was I treated differently?

“What did you do then, to get out?” I ask carefully.

“I gave him nothing. I quit giving him reactions and answers. I shut down completely.”

“And?”

“And he got bored,” he growls. “Or frustrated. I don’t know. He just let me go like I wasn’t worth the effort anymore.”

A chill rolls down my spine and he shifts forward onto the table, lowering his voice. “That’s what scares me the most. He wasn’t even angry. He wasn’t out of control or anything, he was just methodical. Like he was testing something.”

I nod slowly, pieces shifting in my mind.

“He talked about patterns and people repeating the same mistakes because they don’t understand why they make them. He said pain is just data if you know how to read it.”

Jesus.

“That’s…” I trail off, searching for the word. “That’s unhinged.”

The man barks a laugh, and nothing about it is humorous. “You’re telling me.”

He drains the rest of his drink and signals for another, hands shaking just slightly. When it arrives he looks to me again, eyes narrowing. “What about you?”

“About me?” I chirp, taking a long swig of my beer.