Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files by Pittacus Lore Read Free Book Online

myself to sob audibly, though: he can see me cry, but I won’t let him hear it.
    “Okay, ladies,” he says, clapping his hands together and approaching a little desk tucked into the corner of the cell. He opens a drawer and pulls out a vinyl case, which he unwraps on the surface of the desk. The ceiling light glints off an array of sharp steel objects. He picks them up, one at a time, so I can see them all. Scalpels, razors, pliers. Blades of every kind. A pocket-size electric drill. He gives it a few nerve-shattering whirs before putting it down.
    He strides over to me, putting his face right up in mine. He speaks, and his breath forces its way into my nostrils. I want to retch.
    “Do you see all of these?”
    I don’t respond. His breath smells like the breath of the beast in the cage. Despite his bland exterior, he’s made of the same foul stuff.
    “I intend to use each and every one of them on you and your Cêpan, unless you answer every question I ask truthfully. If you don’t, I assure you that both of you will wish you were dead.”
    He gives a hateful little grin and walks back over to the desk, picking up a thin-looking razor blade with a thick rubber handle. He returns to me, rubbing the dull side of the blade against my cheek. It’s cold.
    “I’ve been hunting you kids for a very long time,” he says. “We’ve killed two of you, and now we have one right here, whatever number you are. As you might imagine, I hope you are Number Three.”
    I try to inch away from him, pressing my back hard against the cell wall, wishing I could disappear into the stone. He smiles at me, again pressing the dull side of the razor into my cheek, harder this time.
    “Oops,” he says, tauntingly. “That’s not the right side.”
    With a single dexterous motion, he reverses the blade in his wrist, the sharp side now facing me. “Let’s try it this way, shall we.”
    With reptilian pleasure he brings the blade to the side of my face and swipes hard against my flesh. I feel a familiar warmth, but no pain, and watch with shock as his own cheek begins to bleed instead.
    Blood flows from his wound as it splits open like a seam. He drops the blade, clutching his face, and begins stamping around the room in pain and frustration. He kicks over the desk, sending his instruments of torture scattering across the cell, then flees the room. The Mog guards who’d been standing behind him exchange indecipherable glances.
    Before I even have a chance to say anything to Katarina, the Mogs move forward, unshackle me, and drag me back to my cell.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    Two days pass. In the dark of my cell I now have more than madness and boredom to contend with. I must also work to burn the image of a bloody and broken Katarina from my mind. I want to remember Katrina as I know her: wise and strong.
    I continue with my breathing exercises. They help.
    But not much.
    Eventually the cell door opens, and again I’m doused with cold water, gagged this time, blindfolded, and dragged back to the same cell. Once I’ve been chained to the ceiling, my blindfold is removed.
    Katarina is right where I last saw her, as broken and battered as before. I can only hope she’s been let down at some point.
    The same Mog as before sits across from us, on the edge of the desk, a bandage across his sliced cheek. I can see he is straining to be as menacing as he was before. But he regards us with a new fear.
    I hate him. More than anyone I have ever met. If I could tear him apart with my bare hands I would. If I couldn’t use my hands, I would rip him apart with my teeth.
    He sees me looking at him. He leaps forward suddenly, tearing the gag from my mouth. He wields the rubber-handled razor in front of my face again, twisting it, letting the ceiling light dance across its edge.
    “I don’t know what number you are . . . ” he says. I cringe involuntarily, expecting him to try and cut me again, but he holds back. Then, with sadistic deliberateness, he