POV Shift: Selene Varric – The Reporter
My body screamed.
But I wouldn't give him the sound.
The rope had begun to dig into raw skin. I could feel it tearing little by little each time I shifted. My breath stuttered from the pain, chest heaving shallowly. Blood from my arm painted a thick trail down to my palm, dripping softly onto the floor beneath the chair. Time passed slowly. Every second stretched like wire.
He stood in front of me again—calm, composed, not a hair out of place. The scalpel gleamed, its blade impossibly clean despite what it had done to me already.
"You still won't talk?" he asked, tone flat. "Do you think silence earns you points in this game?"
I clenched my jaw.
The girl behind him twirled a long steel pick in her hand, her laugh dancing through the air like a lullaby turned wrong. "Cut her ear. Or maybe just a piece of it!" she sang. "I want to see what her scream sounds like."
He didn't respond to her.
Instead, he looked down at my hands.
I saw his decision in his eyes before he moved.
"No," I whispered, for the first time, weak but audible.
But the scalpel was already sliding against the base of my finger.
He didn't cut immediately.
He pressed.
Deep enough to feel the bone resist, not enough to slice.
"This," he said, eyes never leaving mine, "is not personal."
He shifted the angle.
"It's professional."
A clean slash.
A flash of heat and white light exploded behind my eyes as the blade severed the flesh. Then the second pain came—deeper, stabbing.
My scream ripped itself free before I could stop it.
"AHHHHHH…!" I clench my lips desperate for the pain to leave yet it lingers.
The girl gasped delightedly. "There it is!"
She clapped like it was a performance. A show.
My vision swam. I tried to breathe, but my lungs barely worked. The pain was too much. Blood poured freely, staining the floor with something darker than red.
He crouched in front of me, his voice still composed—completely unaffected.
"You think this is the worst of it?"
He lifted the bloody scalpel toward my throat.
"I haven't even started yet."
Tears burned at the edges of my vision, not from fear, not from weakness—just from the sheer intensity of it all. I tasted iron in my mouth. Still, I said nothing.
"Name," he said coldly.
"I…" I rasped, barely able to speak. "Go to hell you motherfucker!" while giving him a glare look.
He watched me for a long second. Then stood.
"That's the thing," he murmured. "You're already there."
The girl started humming to herself. "She's gonna die~ She's gonna die~"
But she was wrong.
I didn't die.
Not yet.
Instead, my body began to shut down. The pain blurred into a cold numbness. My head lolled forward. I saw the pool of blood beneath the chair grow, ripple from a single drop.
And then—
Darkness swallowed me whole.
POV Shift: The Mafia
She slumped forward—limp.
A slow drop of blood rolled down her chin before hitting the floor with a quiet splat.
The mafia stood over her, calm, the bloodied scalpel still warm in his gloved hand.
He clicked his tongue.
"Tch. passed out already."
His gaze dropped to the puddle beneath the chair.
It was spreading fast.
He lowered the blade and straightened his coat.
"I can't kill her," he muttered to himself. "Not in broad daylight. My card would suffer a penalty…"
He looked to the side, toward the girl with the wide eyes and wicked smile.
"…But I can still break her."
The girl was squatting nearby, boredly doodling in blood with her fingertip across the tiled floor. She looked up lazily as he called her name.
"Throw her a healing potion."
Her nose scrunched. "Eh? Why? She's dying. That's fun."
"If she dies now," he said coldly, "I get penalized."
The girl stood, twirling the small crystal vial between her fingers like a toy. "But if I heal her… then I can't kill her later tonight. You said it yourself, right? One protection per cycle."
She pouted, crossing her arms. "That's not fair! I wanted her heart to stop while I watched!"
"I don't care what you want," he said. His voice didn't rise, but it dropped — low and razor-sharp. "Do it now. Or else."
That was enough.
The girl paled slightly. Her giddiness flickered under the weight of his tone. With a frown, she walked over and uncorked the vial. Muttering under her breath, she splashed the potion onto the reporter's bloodied hand. A faint shimmer of blue light rippled across the wound. The bleeding slowed.
She groaned — not in pain, but disappointment. "So boring..."
The mafia crouched again in front of the unconscious woman, tilting her chin upward with the tip of his knife. Her face was pale and damp with sweat, lips parted in faint, broken breaths.
"I told you this wasn't personal," he whispered to her, even though she couldn't hear. "But maybe… just maybe… I lied."
He stood and turned his back, scalpel flicking closed in a smooth motion. The girl behind him was twirling again.
"She'll wake up later," she said, grinning. "You think she'll scream again?"
"She'll beg," the mafia answered. "Eventually…"
He paused before walking out.
"And when she does... I'll be ready."
The door creaked shut behind him as he left the area.