Page 48 of A Touch of Poison

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Nausea lurched through me.

“There’s a bucket on your left.”

I barely grabbed it in time to throw my guts up.

Panting, I collapsed back onto the bed and tried not to think about what’d I’d just seen or the continued proddinginsidemy body.

“There. Now we’re ready to begin.”

“You haven’t even started?”

Above her mask, her eyes barely crinkled. “That was just the preparation. Now for the experiment.”

I stared up at the ceiling.

This wasn’t me. Not my hand. I wasn’t here.

It would be fine. Cutting me open had to be the worst part.

Flaying you alive.

I shoved the thought away.

Out the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of silver. The vial of dye. Just a couple of drops and—

My whole body went rigid. The blood roared in my ears. Every instinct yanked on my arm, screeching that thiswasme and that I needed to get away.

Pain scraped along my nerves like a rusted razor.

I gritted my teeth as a scream scratched at my voice box, aching to be let out. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. I tried to breathe—in out, in out, calm and relaxed. Breathe through the pain.

But it was impossible.

“Interesting. Just a little more.” I caught her voice between the thundering of my heart.

I wanted to tell her I couldn’t take any more, but I had no command over my mouth or my grinding teeth. It was this shaking tension or a terrible scream. There was nothing else.

Over soon. Over soon.

Sentences withered in my mind. There were only those two words.

Over soon. Over soon.

“I wonder…”

Something lanced up my arm, searing and bright, making everything else dim in comparison.

Just breathe. Keep breathing.

Endure.

18

Kat

“There,” she said at last.

I blinked in that bright and terrible light and promptly threw s up. Bile and blood coated my tongue where I’d bitten my lip.

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