Chapter Text
Occasionally, when the only sound keeping him company was the faint drip of water from a rusty old pipe somewhere in the cellar, Verso examined the theory that he had died and been consigned to Hell.
It never held up to scrutiny. For one thing, would demons be this mundane? His captors griped about “it’s a real bitch to smuggle human skin into America these days,” or “My hand still aches from where that painter bit it.”
And they didn’t just complain. Over his gag-muffled screams as they meticulously peeled away long wet strips of his skin, they struck up conversations. “Did you hear that new soprano at the opera house? When she sang about dying of tuberculosis, I’ll tell you, I cried like a baby. Wrote four poems that night.” Or “You know what I want to tell my students? There’s no good reason to put sex in a story. Vulgar, the whole lot of them.”
They weren’t demons, just people. People who’d decided he didn’t count as one. Writers who believed that books bound in flesh were the most powerful of all.
The parts where they weren’t scraping bits off his body like he was a marble statue also reassured him he was alive. Those were better. He sank into a delirious gratitude for the lack of terror and pain. Gratitude for the sunbeam that inched across the cellar’s blood-sticky floor. He could have composed a whole concerto about the tangible slowness with which that light poured in. And the cellar was somewhere near a school, because every so often a gaggle of girls would pass overhead, singing and laughing with words he could almost detect. Desperate hope placed Alicia among them. His sister, alive, with scars that barely ached.
What would that even feel like? To not be in pain? He knew intellectually but he couldn’t remember. There was a time when he wasn’t even aware of his body except after a long fencing practice. No strained muscles screaming for his attention. No throb of winter’s chill rasping over raw missing skin.
But the one thing to really reassure him he was alive - and that life was something to hold fast to, even when they left him hogtied upside down for too long and he pissed himself at an angle where it seeped down his back and burned his wounds - was the newspaper.
One day, one of his captors tossed him a fresh croissant wrapped in newspaper. It bounced off his face, and he fumbled to catch it. It looked too good to be true. Drugged? Poisoned? He should have refused this suspicious gift. But his stomach was hollow and it smelled like warm butter. He fell on it like a wild animal, ripping chunks off with his teeth. Fuck, he’d missed real food. Sometimes they gave him porridge, which tasted like eating glue.
He was probably going to get scurvy, wasn’t he? Well, that was their problem. Nothing he could do about it.
When he devoured the pastry, another treat remained: the paper that enclosed it. His captors had been so careful to keep news of the outside world from him. They’d beat him for reading the newspaper, but at least he could anchor himself in time.
Verso unfolded the newspaper. His breath caught.
ARTISTS ANNOUNCE ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP, the headline read.
A tragic fire struck the Dessendre family manor earlier this fall, leading to the death of their only son. The family made their first official public appearance since the incident to announce a memorial scholarship in his honor… In somber black and white, a picture of his family. Clea’s face had that tight, stony look she got when she was trying not to cry. Mother and Father were leaning on each other as much to stay upright as for comfort. They both looked hollowed-out and insubstantial, all deep shadows and cheekbones. Like they’d spent too much time trying to avenge him. But they were alive. And, tucked between their parents and Clea as if hiding from the camera, her hair falling over her face - Alicia. Alive and whole.
Whatever happened to him, he’d saved her. His captors could crow all they wanted about how they’d broken the Dessendre heir. Let them make bets on how far he could crawl for a cup of water before a dizzy spell carried away consciousness. Let them stab the searing heat of their reeking cigarettes out on the bottom of his feet while struggled unsuccessfully to flinch away.
If his sister was alive, he’d fucking won.
Footsteps on the creaking stairs. If he let his captors know he had something to hope for, they’d find a way to snatch that hope away. Where could he hide the newspaper scrap? No furniture, no loose bricks –
Blind panic collided with a burst of inspiration. Verso folded the paper as small as possible and stuffed it into his mouth. Metallic-tasting water from the tin cup they’d left him allowed him to choke it down.
“What’s on the list for today? Do we need more of his skin?” asked the large man who was generally in charge of holding him down.
The ratlike fellow the others deferred to shook his head. “No, we’re well-supplied for now after our last harvest. This… well, I was thinking since we gave him such a good meal, we could have some fun.” Cold horror stabbed Verso as the man reached down to his belt.
At least when Verso threw up some time later, the newspaper he gagged on appeared indistinguishable from porridge.
At least they couldn’t steal what remained of his hope.