~Dessa~

"Psst!"

Dessa's head snapped up at the tiny hiss of the Fae girl trying to get her attention.

"Koi?" Dessa whispered, crawling toward the sound as far as her chains would allow her to.

"Yes!" Koi's sweet voice whispered back, bringing tears to Dessa's eyes.

The precious little thing had found her again. Dessa did her best to shield her nakedness from the child as she apologized remorsefully, "I'm sorry - they destroyed the dress you gave me."

"Do not be sorry," Koi murmured gently. "If it kept you warm through the last night, then it was worth it."

"It did," Dessa sniffled back her tears, "Thank you."

She heard a scuffling noise and when Koi spoke next, it sounded like the girl had lowered closer to the ground.

"I have come to tell you something," Koi told her, her voice even quieter than it was before. "Something good."

"What is it?" Dessa asked, her pulse quickening.

"I heard them say that Pathos is here, so I went to see for myself if it was true," The little Fae's tone had a tinge of excitement. "And I saw him! He is here."

Was that some sort of celebrity in Faerie? Was Koi starstruck or something?

"That's . . . good?" Dessa ventured, perplexed.

"He will make them let you go," Koi explained, sounding giddy.

"What?" Dessa gasped, hugging her knees to her chest and her chains rattled with the movement. Could there still be hope? "How do you know that, Koi?"

"I heard them say that they would let you die if he did not come for you," Koi murmured lowly, in a more somber tone. "Some of them said that he would not."

"Wh-who is he?" Dessa squeaked, anxiety trilling through every nerve ending.

"They say that he is one of the most powerful Dark Fae. I think that they are afraid of him."

A Fae who strikes fear in the other monsters who inhabited this hellish world? Dessa shuddered at the thought of such a creature.

"But why would he come for me?"

"You are his mate," Koi answered simply, as if the reason should have been obvious to Dessa.

"But I . . . "

Why would a powerful Fae think that she was his mate? And what would he do with her, if her captors handed her over to him? Dessa started trembling so terribly that her heavy chains vibrated against the stone floor. Did "mate" mean the same thing here in Faerie as it did in the nature documentaries Dessa had watched?

"You do not have to be afraid anymore." Koi tried to assure her, not realizing the new reason for her fear. "He will not let you die."

Dessa's throat closed up and she couldn't bring herself to speak right away. What could she say? That she would rather die than be a sex slave indebted to a vicious monster? A strangled sob slipped out at the thought. Suddenly, she was more  than accepting of her eventual death as a plan formed in her mind. Numbly, Dessa said to the little girl,

"Thank you for telling me. You should go, Koi, before your mother realizes you aren't home."

"She will not catch me, I am very sneaky," Koi attempted to protest, but Dessa shook her head.

"I don't want you to get in trouble because of me. Please?" Dessa whispered, feeling more hollow than she ever had in her life. She wouldn't be able to execute her plan with the innocent little girl watching her.

The sound of Koi's scoff and the tone of her voice came across like she was pouting over it, but she agreed.

"I will go, but what if I cannot find you again?"

Dessa bit back another sob and forced the lie from her lips, "If I will really be free, then I  will find you, Koi. I'm good at finding things, too."

Koi made a dubious grunting sound that reminded Dessa of herself when she was little and she wanted to play more, but her Auntie would tell her to come inside before the sunset, or the faeries  would get her. Koi didn't believe her, but she would do what Dessa wanted her to do anyway. As soon as the pitter-patter of Koi's retreating footsteps could be heard no more, Dessa traced her shackles with her hands, following along the length of the chains. She had decided that her death would not be in the hands of sadistic Fae, that she would be the one to take her own life. She refused to wait for a savior named Pathos who would surely expect her to be grateful that he had rescued her, grateful enough to mate with a horrifying Fae creature. Dessa remembered learning about pathos, ethos, and logos in her English literature class. Aristotle had described them as the three modes of persuasion: Ethos  was persuasion based on the credibility or authority of the speaker, logos  was persuasion based on logic or reason, and pathos . . .

Pathos  was persuasion based on emotions, and it was used to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience.

Dessa had been manipulated by her own emotions for far too much of her life, and she refused to be manipulated by her fears of nightmarish mythical creatures up until the very end of it. She was going to cut to the chase by stealing that opportunity from them, and from him. She lowered herself to lay on the floor, with the top of her head resting against the rusty hook, and forced out the longest exhale she could manage until her lungs were straining to push out anymore air, as she gathered the slack in the chain that was attached to the shackle on one of her wrists. Her pulse started pounding in her ears as she lifted her head enough to wrap the slack around her neck. The links pinched the skin around her throat painfully as she wrapped it around one more time and then let her head lay back down against the hard stone. She focused on that sweet moment when she thought she had died as she pushed her arm away from her, pulling against the chain until it tightened enough to strangle her like a boa constrictor. Even though her mind was resolute on her decision to kill herself, her body disagreed. A wheezing inhale tried to squeak past the restraint but it was for naught, and her body started to twitch. It felt like high voltage breakers were being switched off in her brain, one at a time as it slowly shut down, and it buzzed louder and louder, as if her brain was a television left on a channel that only showed static and someone was turning up the volume anyway, insisting that it was their favorite TV show. Dessa forced her arm all the way down to lay at her side, her fist clenched so tightly that her nails dug into her palm, even though the limb hardly felt like hers anymore as her body went numb. She wanted to never have to feel pain, or fear, or hunger again. She silently begged for the sweet release of death, and the gracious unspoken promises that it had offered her. The last thought that flitted through Dessa's darkening mind was,

Give me the black . . .