Raw Bloody Power

Chapter 53

53

A BLOODLINE’S END

Benedikt

I wake to the sound of a machine whirring overhead. I’m so disoriented after Belucci and Guerra’s teamwork, that for an almost pain-free moment, I’m convinced a giant hacksaw is cutting through the top of the safe to set me free. The more this godforsaken box rattles, though, the clearer it becomes that’s not the case at all.

They’re moving me.

I don’t get much time to mull over the where and why. With consciousness comes another tsunami of agony radiating through various parts of my body. The missing eyeball and gaping socket, the displacement of my nose, every blow I took to the face, my shattered kneecap. Growling as the excruciating throbs intensify, I blindly reach around the darkened, cramped space and immediately detect a small puddle beneath me. The viscosity alone tells me its blood .

At the rate I’m going, I won’t make it out of here alive. I’m losing too much, too quickly. I can smell it, taste it. Hell, I can hear it, too, roaring through my ears. And the moment the machine disengages, that heart-stopping sensation of free-falling zipping through the my stomach, followed by a monstrous splash, I know I won’t make it out at all.

Takes nothing but literal seconds before ice-cold salt water starts spewing into the safe through the doorframe. If I were standing, I’d have another two minutes, maybe three. From my position, though, slouched at the bottom of the safe, paralyzed, and unable to move, I’ll be done in a minute, tops.

I’d never really thought about how I would die. I guess a part of me assumed I’d succumb to a heart attack like my father. Drowning while trapped in a safe was definitely not on my bingo card, though. Oddly enough, as the water level rises, I begin to feel a sense of peace. I realize I should be afraid, the last seconds of my life ticking away. After all I’ve done, the devil himself is likely waiting at the fiery gates, ready to enslave me for the rest of eternity.

Guess we’re about to find out.

When the water reaches my chin, I take one last deep breath and close my eyes. It’s not terrible at first, like diving underwater while enjoying a swim. But the moment my lungs beg for the air and the most basic of instincts tell me to find the surface—and I know I can’t—that’s when fear takes its hold.

Drowning hurts, I’ll tell you that much. It burns, not only from the lack of oxygen but from the water itself as it fills your lungs. Every second beneath the surface feels like an eternity, until suddenly… it doesn’t. As my brain starts to shut down and unconsciousness draws me into its warmth, I allow it to consume me and fade, fade, fade away.

Black.