Black Ice - Anne Stuart [40]
“You think I might make her stop crying?” Hakim murmured dreamily. “I could cut out her eyes.”
Chloe jerked, then went still again. “Maybe you should check with the baron,” Bastien suggested. “After all, we’re here to work, not have fun.”
Hakim turned and pouted. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “There’ll be someone else…there are always pretty girls who stick their noses where they don’t belong. I’ll just finish her now.”
Chloe couldn’t have moved even if she thought it would do her any good. She’d tried to run, earlier, but he’d hurt her so badly she’d passed out, only to come awake in this horrible little room, feeling the hot blade against her skin.
She had lost the ability to think, to reason. She was going to die at the hands of a monster. A sadist exquisitely tuned to the nuances of pain. She had accepted the fact that she was doomed, that there was nothing she could do about it, when Bastien had walked into the room.
Not for one moment had she hoped he’d come to save her. She had no such illusions—he was as violent and evil in his own way as Hakim was. In a way he was worse, because it was hidden so deeply beneath his elegant exterior.
She watched the second piece of hair fall on the floor. A good thing they were going to destroy her body, she thought from a great distance. It would be hard to have an open casket with her hair all different lengths.
She must be going into shock, if she could think of such frivolous things. Her parents would be upset—they’d never wanted her to go to Paris. They’d wanted her to stay home and become a doctor like everyone else in the family, and she wouldn’t listen. She’d been too squeamish to bear the sight of blood, and now it would be her own blood she had to watch, to smell. At least her parents would have the dubious benefit of knowing they were right.
In the end the person who’d suffer most was Sylvia. Her clothes were gone, she’d be responsible for the astronomical rent on the tiny apartment and the French police would ask her all sorts of questions about her missing roommate. Sylvia’s lifestyle didn’t bear too close a scrutiny, and Chloe could only think that it served her right. A little discomfort wasn’t quite a fair trade for sending her best friend to her death.
Of course she hadn’t—the pain is so fucking bad I’m going to pass out, but I can’t, because then he’ll kill me—hadn’t meant to endanger Chloe. But if she’d simply come herself then nothing would have happened. Sylvia was never interested in much beyond her own pretty nose. She’d never end up trapped here, with a monster pressing hot steel against her skin, while another, worse creature looked on.
She wasn’t going to scream. She bit down on her lip so hard she could taste the blood, but she wasn’t going to scream when he drew the tip of the blade across her skin, watching the beads of blood form and begin to trickle across her skin.
“I’ll finish her now,” Hakim said, grabbing her hair in one fist and bringing the knife up to her throat. “You can meet me back in the library—I’ll be along in a minute.”
Chloe closed her eyes, bracing herself. At least it would be over, and the darkness would be a blessed release. She tilted her head back to give him better access, desperate to have done with it, and Hakim laughed.
“You see how good I am, Bastien? I make them crave it.” And he plunged the knife downward.
The sound was strange, an odd sort of popping noise, and then she was smothered, weighted down, awash in blood and darkness and smelling of sour sweat. It wasn’t what she thought death would be like, but at least it didn’t hurt, and she held still, letting the night overtake her.
When suddenly the weight lifted and she could breathe again. She opened her eyes to see Hakim’s body sprawled out on the floor, in a pool of blood that wasn’t hers.
Bastien Toussaint was standing over her, his face cool and emotionless. He held out a hand to her—in the other he held a gun. “Life or death, Chloe. Make your choice.”
She put her hand in his, and let him pull her to her feet.
She