He laughs at her as she releases a trembling breath, tears pouring down her cheeks. "This isn't happening," she whispers. "This can't be happening."
Chapter 2: Anger
They returned her to her room, shoving her down on the bed roughly and tying her down without much care for her wellbeing.
She curled on to her side as best she could. They put a gag in her mouth and tied her hands behind her this time, and she realized with fear that they were leaving her.
The door clicked shut, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her fear is changing, morphing, from one monster, to a completely different one.
She yanks uselessly at the ropes that bind her wrists back.
"What do you think you're doing?"
His voice doesn't startle her like he'd hoped, and he wonders why.
He gets his answer when she growls, "Leave me alone." Her voice is muffled by the gag.
"I can't do that."
"Too bad," she snaps.
"You're aware that you're smartmouthing a guy that can kill you, right?"
"I don't give a shit. You aren't going to kill me, you need the money."
He growls and she flinches when the door opens violently.
She still has the gag, so her yelp when he yanks her out of the bed and propels her through the door. He drops her in the chair, and she realizes that the camera is on. The realization lasts a split second before she finds herself flying off the chair. Her vision flashes with brilliant color. She lands hard on her wrist, the pain making her cry out. She's not even done before he's yanking her up by her hair. He drives something—his knee, maybe—into her gut, and she groans.
She's on the ground and he's kicking her. She's not crying or screaming, though. She's cursing him, the white rag in her mouth soaked with spit and blood. He kicks at her harder to shut her up. Then he realizing that he's doing to her what his father did to him, and he forces cool water to put out the fire of rage in his veins. He makes it pour soothingly into his mind. He won't be like him. He won't.
He turns to the camera and growls, "get the money" before stopping the recording. Then he pulls her up and hauls her back to her room.
"I hate you," she mutters, but she doesn't object to the ice pack on her face, or the cool, soothing cloths cleaning the blood away from her hands and cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he says. He really means it, too. He didn't mean to lose control like that.
"What's your name?" she asks.
"Why do you want to know?"
"So that I know whose name to curse the next time you touch me," she snaps.
He laughs a little bit. "Four. You can call me Four."
"Well fuck you, Four."
"Fuck you too..."
"Tris."
"Fuck you too, Tris."
She glowers at him, and the effect is lessened by her eye, which is sore and blooming with dark purple bruises. It will be completely black in the morning.
"You shouldn't piss people off that can kill you."
"You shouldn't be someone that can kill me."
"But I am. So don't piss me off again."
"Fuck you, Four," she says.
He just sighs.
