Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 125
125
A bright flower of pain blossomed against the back of her head, sending warm roots of blood down her neck. There was a voice somewhere... in front of her? Above her? Direction didn't make sense. She could feel something pressing against her back, something hard and uncomfortable, and an unbearable pressure around her throat, cutting, burning, aching, crushing... she couldn't breathe! Her lungs were screaming, but she couldn't pull in any air... she was drowning! She was -
The pressure around her neck lessened, and with huge effort she was able to suck in a tiny amount of air through her clenched teeth, just barely enough to make the darkness recede. But why couldn't she open her mouth? What was this crushing pain around her muzzle?
She blinked, and the shadows began to take on form. There was something there, a black shape staring at her with a single, blood red eye. Teeth sprouted from a tear in its face like weeds from a ditch. Drool hung from its chin in thick, red ropes. It was the grim beast that had licked her blood from a stone, that had come after her in the storm, that had been bound by rattling chains and jaws of metal and had dragged his battered body through the mud to get at her. He had never given up the chase, and now he had her.
It was Banno.
"Hey there, Kiana." His smile, already stretched to monstrous proportions, widened even further. She could clearly see the corner of his mouth split apart along the scarred seam. He reached up with a claw as black and shiny as the pit in the centre of his eye and slowly brought it toward her face.
Kiana tried to pull away from the tip of that wicked claw, tried to scream, tried to bite, but it was all useless. Banno was holding her jaws shut with such force she could actually hear her teeth grinding against each other. Her nose was still stuffy from the cold and every breath was a wheezing struggle.
Banno dragged the claw across her cheek. Slowly. Delicately. "I was so afraid when you wouldn't wake up," he said. "I thought I had gone too far. You Foxes are so frail, after all. The ones in the pass, they just fell apart the moment I touched them. Like pulling the wings off a baby bird. But you... no, I need you to last a little longer than they did, Kiana. I need you to sing for me."
Banno lifted her even higher, scraping her up against the tree he had slammed her into.
Tree? I'm up against a tree?
Yes. There was no mistaking it. She could feel the back of her dress snagging on the bark, pulling tight.
With her head beginning to clear, Kiana looked over his shoulder, hoping to see the glow of the basecamp, but even that feeble ray of hope simply did not exist anymore. Wherever they were, its light did not reach this far. It was an endless world of black trees and white snow, all covered in thick layers of shadow.
"Tell me, Kiana... Do you know a little Fox girl by the name of Valery?"
Ander's warning floated through her mind, a warning from a time so different it was almost impossible to believe it was still the same night, perhaps even the same hour.
I don't know how, but he managed to claw his way out of hell. He'll want revenge for what I did to him, but he won't stop with me. He'll just keep going and going until he drops dead, or he's tasted the death of every single living thing in this world. And after that... he'll turn your cousin into his second 'Vallah'.
Kiana shook her head as vigorously as Banno's grip allowed, which wasn't very much at all.
He leaned in closer, studying her face up close with that hideous eye. "You're lying."
She shook her head again, scraping the back of her head raw against the bark.
"Her name is Valery. She has two brothers, Lucas and Timothy. Her father's name is James. He has a brother named Jon, who has a son named Jonah. Are you telling me you know none of these Foxes? Not a single one?"
Kiana shook her head again. Her rapid breathing made pathetic little mewling noises through her nostrils.
"Kiana, there's no point to this. I already have a fairly good idea of where they are. Somewhere to the north, probably up high. Just be a good little Foxy and tell me exactly where and, if you do, I might let you go. I swear it. I'll have to knock you out first, sorry about that, but you can trust me. I'll leave you right here for Ander to find. His smiling face will be the first thing you see when you next open your eyes. So how about it?"
He'll just keep going and going until he drops dead, or he's tasted the death of every single living thing in this world.
She knew he was lying. She knew this was all just some sick game. She knew he would never, ever let her go. But still... the image of waking to Ander's concerned face... it gave her pause.
"Kiana..."
If Banno already knew where the mill was...
"Tell me..."
Would it really make any difference if she pointed him in the right direction? What if he actually kept his word? It was a chance, wasn't it? And there was no guarantee that he would even make it that far in this blizzard. Would it really be such a sin for her to try and save herself? To try and save her baby? It was a chance, wasn't it?
"Tell me... and I promise you..."
Kiana slammed her eyes shut and shook her head, shook it so hard that tiny bits of bark broke off the tree and got stuck in her hair. She was ashamed of herself for hesitating even a moment.
The seconds dragged by. She could still feel Banno's fingers around her muzzle, locking her screams deep inside. She slowly opened her eyes, expecting to see him with his teeth bared, his eye a blazing ball of flame and fury, but that wasn't the case. He was smiling at her, actually smiling...
"Well, I didn't really expect you to say anything. Buuuut..." He leaned in close and whispered in her ear, like two best friends sharing a juicy secret. "There is another reason I chose you, Kiana. Out of all the Foxes, you are the one I wanted more than any other, even more than his real mother, that 'Sarah'..."
Kiana tried to pull away from that horrid mouth, but there was nowhere to go. His breath kept washing over her with every syllable, sickly warm. Sometimes his lips would actually brush up against the inside of her ear and they were so wet...
Banno lowered his head and sniffed deeply of her neck. His nose was sticky with drying blood. "I can smell him on you. That freak's scent. It's like you bathed in him. His stench has seeped all the way into you." His eye crawled over her face. "You love him, right? Well, whatever 'love' means to a creature like you. Might as well ask a rock or a stump."
Kiana did not understand what he meant by that, and neither did she want to. Understanding his words even a little bit would be tantamount to diving face first into madness.
"No, the important part is that Ander loves you. He risked his life to save you from the sacrificial fire. He suffered torture to spare you the wrath of his people. And now he's betrayed his entire family to keep you safe. Yes, he loves you very much, doesn't he? That's why I'm doing this, Kiana. Not because I hate you, but because I want Ander to suffer. I want to strike at him where he'll feel it the most, and you probably know as well as I do, that the best place to do that is his heart. His soft, vulnerable little heart."
Kiana shook her head in complete and utter denial of everything this monster was saying, but that only made his smile wider. His tongue, coated in a thin layer of blood, snaked out of his mouth and dragged along her cheek, and it was with intense revulsion that she realised he was licking the tears off her face.
"That's it," he whispered. "Just like - Wait..." A frown suddenly creased his brow and he swished his tongue from cheek to cheek, savouring the taste perhaps.
Kiana couldn't bear this any longer. She could still feel that tongue on her cheek, the path it had taken all the way up to her eye, disgustingly warm. She had to get out. She had to break free. Right now.
She groped in the dark, grabbing fistfuls of coarse, sticky black fur. She could hear him in the dark, sucking on his tongue, extracting every last ounce of salty flavour from her tears, and the knowledge that he was probably enjoying it made her feel absolutely filthy, like she was participating in some profane act.
Her hand slid across the tough, muscular curvature of his shoulders, then struck something hard and thin, something that shifted slightly against her touch. She wrapped her fingers around it and realized she had grabbed hold of an arrow shaft.
A spark of hope, almost blinding in its brilliance, took root in her heart and she twisted that sharp piece of wood with all the malice she could muster, grinding it back and forth like she was trying to clean the grime out of a stubborn pot. She could hear his flesh open and close around the shaft, could feel the warm torrents of blood pouring over her fingers.
Banno did not cry out in pain. He didn't even seem angry. By the gods, he wasn't even annoyed. It was like he was completely unaware of the hole she was excavating in his shoulder.
"There's something wrong with your tears," he said, running his tongue over his lips. "They taste... different."
Kiana tried to pull the arrow out - maybe she could stab him in the face with it - but the blasted thing was stuck in there so deep and her fingers were slick with blood. It kept slipping through her grasp!
"Kiana? Are you even listening to me?"
He pulled her forward and slammed her up against the tree again. She tried to scream but could only expel a feeble whimper through her nose as a fresh line of blood dripped down the back of her dress, shockingly warm.
"Look at me, Kiana. I said look at me!" He jerked her muzzle upward so she had no choice but to look into that horrifying face with the one loose eyelid, only halfway shut. Blood and puss was slowly leaking from beneath that wrinkled piece of useless skin and congealing in his fur. "I am going to tell you exactly what I am going to do to you because I want you to be aware of it as it's happening. I want you to be awake and aware for the whole thing. I want you to feel as much of it as possible, and believe me, Kiana, you will feel it. I will push you right to the very edge, and then I will back away. I will give you time to recover, to catch your breath, and then I will start again. It's like..." A dreamy look came over Banno's half-face, like he was reliving a precious memory. "It's like making love."
Kiana raked her claws across his arms and kicked out with all her strength, bashing her feet into his midsection again and again, but none of it had any effect save for making his smile grow bigger, exposing more of those hellish teeth, inch by bloody inch.
"Yes, it's just like that," he said. "Your heartbeat goes wild. You gasp for air. You feel things you've never felt before. You feel this heat inside yourself, this prickly tingle that feels strange, but also good. How is that any different from pleasure? The pressure builds and builds until it just can't fit inside one body anymore, it has to get out, it has to explode, it has to gush and flow... and that's when the blood comes pouring out." He kissed her on the forehead. It was a soft kiss, a gentle kiss. It was so much like something Ander would do that Kiana could actually feel her sanity buckle underneath the strain.
"Once I get going, you will wish you could just black out, but I won't let you. By the time I'm halfway done, you will beg for death, but I won't release you. I will keep going and going until you can't stand it anymore. I will keep going until... well, until you reach your climax. And then, when we've both had our fill, and your death is still warm and fresh in my mouth, I will leave your body where Ander is sure to find it. I want him to look upon your corpse and piece together every moment in his mind: every scratch, every bruise, every cut, every bite, every gash, every broken bone, every severed limb. I want to break him, Kiana. I want to break him like he almost broke me. I want to break him... like I'm about to break you."
Kiana's mind was just a cacophony of noise, a jumble of screaming voices, all of them telling her to fight, to break free at any cost. She clawed at his arms and face, she kicked him in the stomach, she reached for the broken arrows sticking out of his back, knowing that she had done all these things before, but unable to think of anything else in her desperation.
But the one thing she wouldn't allow herself to even consider was giving up. She had to fight, no matter how useless it might seem, because she wasn't just fighting for herself.
"Is this your first time, Kiana?" Banno's voice had taken on a disgustingly soft tone, like he was speaking to a lover. "If that's the case, then I think we should start slow. Don't worry, I'll be gentle."
He stepped forward and pressed his body against hers, pinning her to the tree at her back. He was unbelievably warm - it felt like she was being crushed by a furnace, and for one terrifying moment she was convinced that Banno hadn't been speaking lightly when he compared murder to 'making love', but when he removed the hand from around her throat she realized it was only to keep her in place. Her relief didn't last long, though, only long enough for him to press the claw at the end of his index finger against her cheek, right below her left eye.
She grabbed his hand and tried to pull it away, but it was like being caught inside that biter again, fruitlessly tugging on sharp edges that simply would not open. The screams built up inside her chest but could only escape through her nose as feeble whimpers and moans.
"Shh, shh, shh..." Banno said, intimately close. "Don't fight it. Just relax and embrace it. Maybe you'll enjoy it. This is what you were made for. This is why you exist."
He slowly increased the pressure until the tip began to sink into her flesh, a burning needle of pain boring all the way down to her cheekbone.
"Mmmm! Mmmmm!!" The shrieks worked their way up Kiana's throat, but there was nowhere for them to go. They just died inside her mouth and issued from her nostrils as bursts of vapour.
"Hold still for me..." Banno whispered, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he slowly dragged his claw down her face, carving a furrow through her flesh like a line of crimson tears.
He's cutting me oh dear gods he's cutting me open oh my gods no please!
The pain was unlike anything Kiana had ever experienced. Even the biter that had nearly crushed her ankle didn't come close to this. That had just been a mindless set of sharpened metal jaws, but Banno... she could feel his hot breath blowing into her face. She could feel all that tainted air rushing over the wound, burrowing inside of her like invisible maggots. She could feel the way his stomach expanded and contracted against hers, going faster and faster in his excitement. She could even feel the heavy throbbing of his heartbeat, pounding away inside his chest, pumping whatever vile ichor serviced his demented brain.
The scratch burned against her cheek like a brand. Warm blood flowed from the open wound and dribbled down her face.
"That's good, very good..." Banno whispered, his lips no more than a hair's breadth away from hers. "And now for the other side..."
He was enjoying this. This monster was actually enjoying this. This wasn't about revenge for him anymore. This wasn't about his foot or his eye or even about being left for dead. Banno was deriving a sick pleasure from cutting her open. To him, maybe this really was akin to making love.
She tried to shake her head, but Banno was holding her so tightly, pushing against her with so much weight, nearly crushing her against the tree, that even that tiny amount of movement was no longer possible.
No, please don't do this! Please don't do this!
He moved his claw to the other side of her face, slowly and deliberately, so she could see her own blood dripping down from the curve, and placed it just beneath her right eye.
Noooooo!!
She shut her eyes tight. Every muscle in her body tensed in preparation for the coming pain.
She felt the sting against her cheek - just a pinprick at first, quickly growing into a burning spot of fire, building with the pressure, becoming so intense she could feel the vibrations running through her skull, like she was about to explode. Without warning the claw finally punctured her skin and dug through her flesh. Hot lines of blood flowed down her face and over her lips. She could taste it. Her screams pounded inside her head, unable to get out. The claw was still moving down, cleaving through her flesh, tearing her face apart, and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing.
My face...
And then, just like that, it was done. Banno pulled his claw back, dripping with blood, and Kiana's body went completely limp. Her arms and legs dangled like those of a doll. She wished she could pass out, but the world remained dreadfully clear; burning pain and freezing cold, crimson blood on a pitch black claw.
"Aw, there there..." Banno said, speaking softly, like a consoling parent. "We can stop now, if you want. All you have to do is tell me where Jonah's house is. If you do that, I'll let you go. I won't hurt you anymore, I promise."
A tear broke free from her eye and travelled neatly down the path Banno had carved into her face. She could feel its progress as a warm, stinging sensation inside her flesh.
Banno looked into her tear-streaked eye, filling her vision with the empty black pit that was his pupil, surrounded by red veins like crimson streaks of lightning inside a white sky. "Oh, that is beautiful..." he said, cracking that wicked smile. "I can see why Ander likes you so much. I bet he likes to taste you, too. I bet he likes to stick his tongue in your mouth and just breathe it all in..."
If you try to stick your tongue in my mouth again I will bite it off, Kiana thought. I will rip it out with my bare teeth.
He didn't try to stick his tongue in her mouth, but he did kiss her. It was the kiss of an animal. He stuck out his tongue and dragged it along the scratch he had made, from the bottom up, lapping up her blood. He licked his lips, savouring the flavour. But, just like with her tears, he seemed confused by the taste.
"All right, what is that? No, seriously, what is that?"
Kiana tried to turn her face away, and for that he jerked her even closer, pressing their bodies against each other so tightly she could barely breathe.
"You smell and taste different from the last time I met you," he said, "and it's not just because you're covered in Ander's stink. There's something else going on here. What is it? Tell me!"
For the first time he seemed genuinely angry. She had dug a hole in his shoulder with a broken arrow and he never even noticed, and now he was getting angry over some change in her scent? What did that even -
Your scent is practically screaming it, girl. I'll admit I don't know much about the different Fox smells just yet, but you're certainly different compared to your mother and sister. Very different.
Mellah's words echoed through her mind. She remembered how panic-stricken she had been to be caught out, to have her little secret laid bare. Did she have any idea what true panic really was before this moment? She had thought she did. She had thought she knew very well. From being stuck inside that cage, waiting to be burned alive, to seeing Ander's broken body lying beneath a giant beech tree, motionless, she certainly thought she knew better than most. But all of those moments, even the one where she held Ander's face in her hands and begged him not to die, paled in comparison to this.
Banno was smelling her baby. He was smelling her unborn child even as they slumbered inside her body.
NO.
Kiana raked her claws across Banno's face, drawing blood. She grabbed his shredded lip and pulled, tearing the corner of his mouth all the way up to the base of his ear, creating a horrid half-grin of steaming flesh and exposed muscle. Blood gushed from his widened mouth in a torrent, flowing over his jagged teeth like a waterfall and splattering the both of them in a putrid shower that reeked of iron and sickness. Her punches smacked against his face and came back dripping. Her finger snagged on something thin and slimy, and she realised her finger had slipped inside his empty eye-socket. Feeling no revulsion whatsoever, she grabbed the loose, flapping eyelid and ripped it clean off, exposing the socket to the elements, a hollow cavern of bone coated in blood and puss. Even more blood dripped from the shredded remains of his eyebrow and filled the socket like a brackish lake. Steam billowed from the inside in thin, snakelike tendrils that wound their way up his face and disappeared into the frigid night, making it look like his head was filled with hellfire.
Banno tilted his head like a curious child and the blood from his eye spilled down his face in a line of tears the same colour as his fur, rendering it almost invisible save for the occasional runner of yellow puss. "And what's got you so excited all of a sudden, hmm?"
Kiana's arms slumped to her sides, burning and aching. Her lungs screamed for air, but could only take tiny sips through her clenched teeth. She couldn't stop shaking. Her head throbbed and her vision kept fading in and out.
Banno sniffed her neck, smearing her with blood. "I know there's something different about you," he mumbled against her flesh. "I will find it..."
He moved down lower, down to where she couldn't see him anymore past the hand curled around her muzzle, but she could still feel his nose bumping into her breasts, giving each of them a cursory sniff before moving on, lower and lower...
Kiana closed her eyes. Oh dear gods, please... oh please, if you're up there, please let us get out of this. If not for me, then for my baby. Please, I beg of you...
She felt his face go down across her belly, and then stop. He sniffed a few times in quick succession, and then followed it up with a single long, drawn out inhale.
Please...
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