The hits come quick, fists burying into a body that, despite being home to a mind that can see through all this pointless violence, just isn’t framed with the strength to fight back. Their back slams against the wall with a dull thud and the sharp crack of an elbow hitting bricks, a sharp yelp tearing its way out of Quinn’s throat.
They anticipate the damage as it should manifest once time’s teased the marks into dark colors. Bruises circling their upper arms and across their cheekbone, hip, flank. Ribs aching from taking punches, stomach tense from rippling pain. Skin torn at their knees and palms from falling, scrabbling. Every hit that they take further develops the image in their mind of the state they’ll be in, once those bruises form, once the aches have all set in.
The street spins. Quinn cries out as they’re tossed again, flipped, suddenly pinned on their front to the asphalt with a knee buried between their shoulder blades and a fist in their hair forcing their head up and back.
Neck arched sharply, Adam’s apple bobbing with ragged, nervous breaths, they wait. Their scalp burns. They can’t breathe well. No one is around to stop this.
“You scared, warlock?”
It amazes Quinn, sometimes, how repetitive life as a magic user can get. How many times they can hear the same taunt, and still it sinks mortal terror into them like a gun pressed into their mouth, metal heavy and cold on their tongue, death a brush of a finger away.
“Yes,” They breathe, the admission small and raspy.
A laugh falls from over them and creeps into their skin. They jerk sharply when something presses to their neck, a thin cold line held steady despite their flinch. A knife. It’s a knife. They’re going to be bled out like a slaughtered animal. All their half-finished plans register suddenly in their mind as glaring failed missions.
And if they live… they’ll have a scar like Javi’s. A jagged, raised mark across their throat, one they’ll touch with muted, distant horror like their friend does on bad days.
But the cold line shifts, the knife traveling to the center of their throat, then up under their chin, then over their jaw to their cheek, and up to - Quinn blinks rapidly, already difficult breaths coming shorter and quicker. The tip of the knife presses steadily just under their eye, holding still in threat.
A moment of silence passes.
“No begging?”
The blade doesn’t move. Quinn tries to match its cold steadiness. “I… I don’t think it would… make a difference.” Every few words, they lose the battle to sound unaffected by their difficulty breathing.
The man chuckles; as he does, the knife shits slightly. Quinn forces their head further back, just an inch, as much as they can. The grip in their hair tightens and the knife moves back to its original position.
“You will.”
