Chapter 82 Death!
Third Person's POV
The room reeked of old blood and rusted metal, thick enough to coat the tongue. Water dripped somewhere in the dark slow, deliberate plinks against cracked, tilted concrete.
The floor sloped unevenly, pooling the floor with bloody streaks that had dried into flaky maps of violence.
Dim fluorescent tubes flickered overhead, buzzing like dying insects, throwing long, twitching shadows across the caged space. Iron bars loomed at the edges, cold and unyielding, closing the world in until breathing felt like theft.
Arcade sat chained to a metal chair bolted to the floor. Her hands were twisted behind her back, zip-ties cutting deep into wrists already raw. One leg tapped compulsively-tap… tap… tap, each impact sending faint vibrations up through the chair, echoing off the damp walls like a countdown.
Blood trickled from the socket where her right eye used to be, sliding down her cheek in slow, dark bloody mess
“Okay… I just helped… but really-I didn’t…” Her voice cracked, barely above a whisper, hoarse from screaming hours earlier.
Aaron stood motionless in front of her, arms folded, face carved from stone. His eyes drifted to the table across the room: a clean metal table, littered with pliers, blades, a blowtorch still warm, duct tape, and a single cracked hammer. The sight made her remaining eye flood fresh tears.
She trembled so violently the chains rattled.
“I’ll spill,” she whispered. “It was her… it was…”
She screamed the name.
Aaron didn’t blink, no shock. Just the flat certainty of someone who had already known the ending before the story began.
His mind drifted backward, to years ago.
(FLASHBACK: THREE YEARS AGO)
Rooftop wind sliced cold, the city lights glittered far below like scattered broken glass.
“I’m sorry,” the girl on her knees begged, forehead pressed to the gritty concrete floor.
The silhouette standing over her laughed, low and menacefiul.
“Beg? That’s not what I want.”
The girl bowed deeper. “Please… forgive me!”
The silhouette straightened. Her chair scraped backward and toppled with a metallic crash. In two strides she closed the distance and drove her boot into the girl’s ribs.
“How dare you apologize when I told you not to!”
Another stomp. The girls bone crushing under her leather boots.
Giselle leaned against the ledge, cigarette glowing cherry-red between her fingers, the smoke curled lazily upwards.
“Don’t kill her,” she drawled. “I don’t want blood on my fucking shoes right now.”
The silhouette whipped around, glare arctic. “I didn’t tell you to speak.”
“Fuck you. I’m not your slave. We’re equals.”
The silhouette rolled her eyes and turned back to the sobbing girl.
“Cigarette.”
Giselle walked over with reluctance, placed the burning stick between her waiting fingers.
“Here. Let her sniff it.”
She shoved the lit end toward the girl’s face.
The girl trembled her eyes open wode
“I’m asthmatic, please, don’t—” She begged, they all knew, why were they doing this to her?
A sharp slap landed across the girl’s ass. She froze.
“Let’s just take turns fucking her,” Carter said, exhaling smoke in slow ringss, staring at the girl like a fvcking sex toy.
Henry laughed, already unbuckling. “I’ll go first. I like when they bleed.”
The silhouette’s lips twitched. “No.”
She pinched the girl’s chin hard, forcing eye contact.
“I’ll force you my way if you don’t take it.” she smiled and turned to the males "Either they fvck you? Or you listen to me!"
Terrified of the worse, the girl opened her mouth.
First drag, and coughs ripped out of her, her eyes turned bloodshot red.
“Continue?” the silhouette asked sweetly.
Tears streamed down. “Please…”
A sigh escaped the silhouette's figure lips, then her fingers clamped the girl’s jaw open, shoved the cigarette deeper, pinched her nostrils shut.
The girl struggled, her lungs were screaming burning in pain, life squeezing out from her.
When the silhouette finally pulled it free, the girl collapsed, gasping, crawling backward across the roof, dragging herself toward her backpack a few feet away.
The silhouette kicked the bag farther.
The girl crawled. Reached and scattered inside but there was nothing.
Her inhaler?
The silhouette dangled the inhaler between her two fingers.
“No one will ever know,” the girl wheezed, clutching at her leg. “Pl—please…”
The silhouette crouched, almost tender and sincere but..
Then tossed the inhaler to Carter.
He crushed it under his boot with a satisfying crunch.
The girl’s eyes blew wide open: fear, betrayal, suffocation all at once, hit her, she gasps trying to grasp any air, her chest heaving uselessly, her skin turning purple, she could hear her faint heartbeat going slower.
She collapsed to the ground, but her gaze found Aaron.
He stood half-hidden behind the access door, his phone raised, he was on a call.
911 please! She tried to voice out but her throat felt heavy...
The silhouette figure watched, amusement flashed in her eyes. "Gosh, she really looks like a fish pulled out from the water!"
Sirens wailed in the distance.
“Shit, someone called the cops!” Carter hissed.
Giselle’s eyes went wild. “I can’t go to prison, I’m too young, I have a career—”
She spun on the silhouette. “Do something, you bitch!”
The silhouette only smiled.
Then dropped to her knees beside the dying girl.
“What did you guys do?” she stammered, her voice cracking perfectly. She crawled closer, pressing fingers to the girl’s nose, “She’s… she’s dead.”
Giselle screamed, her hands tearing at her own hair.
The silhouette laughed..low, evil, a triumphant fearful laughter.
Giselle froze mid-scream.
“All of you. Run. I’ll stay.”
They didn’t hesitate, their retreating footsteps pounded down the staircase.
The silhouette stayed on the ground, tears streaming, now real-looking, heartbroken.
“Who did this to you?” she sobbed, loud enough for the approaching sirens. “Oh my God… someone help!”
Aaron stepped out then. Shoved her aside, dropped to his knees and pressed hard on the girl’s chest: compressions, steady yet brutal just to wake her up.
The silhouette watched through her wet lashes. “I really don’t know how this happened…”
Her tears looked so convincing. "She's gone, stop trying to bring her back!" The figure choked on her words, but really she wanted the girl dead!
Aaron kept going, harder faster and a tiny gasp tore from the girl’s throat.
He yanked a spare inhaler from his pocket, pumped it into her mouth once, twice.
The rooftop door crashed open.
Police flashlights swept the scene. (FLASHBACK ENDS)
Back in the dripping cell, Aaron licked his lips slowly.
“Oh,” he said softly.
The chained female Arcade shook harder in fear, the sweet on her forehead was visible worse the pain form her disconnected eye felt crushing "I told you everything i know please let me go!" She begged.
“You did good,” he murmured.
His hand settled on her shoulder, gentle. Almost affectionate, like petting a dog that finally fetched the right stick.
“Take her back to the cell. Clean her up. Bandage what’s left of her right hole.”
He licked his lips again.
He had known from the beginning. Everything act, was a lie, a mere performance.
Still, a low chuckle escaped from his lips
He didn’t want to believe she could be this cruel.
But she was.
He pulled out his phone, dialed and answered the incoming call.
“You back for good?” he asked.
A female voice cold, and distant came through the speaker.
“Who’s this?”
Aaron chuckled, low and dark. “You sound so much… nicer.”
A sneer curled through the line. “I’ll report you if you don’t tell me who you are?”
His lips twisted into something crooked, dangerous
“It’s Death.”