by Bella Jewel
“Good, meet you at the club in ten. We’ll separate, cover all three locations. Load up on weapons, as many as you can find. Don’t imagine Trey works alone. Five men go to each place, I want Koda and I want Mason. The other two, you can pick. Have it ready.”
“On it. See you in ten.”
I start my bike and glance back at the mansion once more, before riding toward the club.
And fucking praying it isn’t too late.
~*~*~*~
AMALIE
I spit blood from my mouth, and my ears are ringing. My left leg has been hit four times with that crow bar, and his boot has connected with my ribs another five. He’s hit me countless times on the face, thrown me against walls, and done anything he can to damage me. It’s worked, my body feels like a bomb has exploded right in the middle of it. I can’t hear, I can barely see, and mostly, I can’t move.
Any hopes of escape have gone out the door.
I’ll never get free now. I’m already too weak.
“Think that’s enough damage for the day,” Treyton says, dropping one last kick into my ribs.
I cry out in pain; there are no tears left, they’ve been dragged from my body along with all my hope. He’s going to kill me, Charlie too. He made that clear. But he didn’t want to send us back clean, he wanted Malakai and the club to know we’d suffered first. He wants our bodies bruised and battered, something that will stick in their minds forever.
I roll to my side, spitting more blood. The ringing in my ears has turned to a loud roar after Treyton slammed my head against the wall. Blood trickles from one of them. The pain of that is worse than anything else. If I lose more of my hearing, I’ll never ever recover. He knows that, it’s exactly what he wanted.
“As soon as I’ve checked the perimeter, I’ll be back. I’m going to kill Charlie first,” he tells me, making sure I can read his lips.
I tried to close my eyes against it earlier.
I quickly learned that was a bad idea.
He doesn’t take too kindly to ignorance.
“I’m going to make you watch,” he smiles. “Then I’m going to gut you, and send it all to your boyfriend on a pretty platter. Can you imagine his face?”
I can, and my heart twists and clenches. The fear in my body is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. No nightmare could ever compare. It’s a desperation, crossed with horror. The thought of dying scares me to no end, and I’m frantic to try and stop it, yet helpless because there’s nothing I can do. It’s the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced, and even the pain can’t mask the fear consuming my every thought.
“Enjoy your last few minutes, I’m going to sharpen my knives.”
Him and the other two men leave the room, and I turn to see Charlie, tears running down her face, watching me. They made her watch the whole thing, and I know that what she sees is terrifying. She drags her equally beaten body over to mine, and places a hand on my face, trying to wipe some of the blood away from my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Amalie. I couldn’t do anything.”
I reach up, crying out in agony, and take her hand. “It’s okay,” I rasp. “You’re here now.”
“They’re going to kill us.”
Yes. They are.
Her eyes swing to the piece of wood I started loosening on the wall, and with a cry that makes my heart rip in two, she pushes to her feet and hobbles over. Then, she starts crawling at the wood, her fingers bleeding, her body limp and weak, but she pulls and tugs, scratching until the wood is covered in her blood, until finally the two top nails are free.
I take a deep, shaky breath and scream out in pain as I push to my hands and knees, crawling in pure agony over to the hair pin I stashed away. I pick it up and slowly make my way over to the wood, and with a strength I never thought I could find, I start loosening the bottom two nails. Tears roll down my cheeks, and my body begs me to stop, but the need to save my own life far outweighs my pain.
Charlie pulls, and the wood makes a loud snapping sound, breaking in half. She topples backward, crying and gasping in pain, but she has the wood in her hands. It’s a jagged, broken piece, with sharp edges. So sharp they’d pierce someone with enough force.
“This is all we have,” she croaks. “And it’s probably still not enough. He won’t come back alone, but at least we don’t go down without a fight.”
It isn’t enough.
We both know it.
But even if we ended Trey’s life before ours was taken, it would mean our death was worth something.
I shuffle closer to Charlie, a different kind of understanding and respect for her. I reach over, and take her hand. She looks at me, eyes glassy, fear as strong in her gaze as it is in mine. “I’m so afraid,” she whispers.
“Me too. If we get out of this, let’s make sure we stay friends, okay?”
She smiles, weakly. “Okay.”
We sit, side by side, hand in hand, waiting for Treyton to come back.
The sounds of gunshots disrupt our silence, and my eyes get wide. Angry, yelling voices, and more gunshots erupt. What’s happening? Is he coming?
Charlie looks at me. “We need to stand.”
Both of us push to our feet, standing, holding the jagged piece of wood. We go closer to the door, so that when it opens we can drive the wood into whoever comes in. We both stand, one either side of it, and we wait, holding onto it with the last strength left in our bodies.
We wait.
There are gunshots.
Then silence.
Dead silence.
I swallow the fear and wait for the door to open. Footsteps can be heard outside, and then the door rattles, once, then twice, and then it opens. We both lunge the second the door opens and the man coming in’s hand lashes out and he catches the end of the wood, knocking us off guard. We both tumble to the ground. No. I frantically look around for something else, but there is nothing.
He’s going to kill us.
He’s going to …
I look up and my heart stops beating. Standing in the doorway is Malakai and Koda, both of them bloodied, both of them panting, both of their eyes on the two broken girls lying on the floor. I open my mouth and cry out in relief and pain. Malakai drops to his knees, cupping my face in his hands, his eyes glassy. Koda leans down, scooping Charlie up into his arms.
She’s crying, too.
“Oh, god. My beautiful girl. What has he done to you?”
I clutch his jacket, crying so hard I can’t see him enough to see what else he says. I bury my face into his chest, and he scoops me up into his arms.
The relief hits me, the reality that I’m going to make it through another day, and my body shuts down on me.
I’m thankful for the darkness, because it means I can’t feel the pain.
Not for a little while.
~*~*~*~
MALAKAI
We go in, guns blazing. I knew from the moment we put a bullet in the man at the front doors head, that this was the place. They came out with force, and guns that put mine to shame, but we had the upper hand, because we came in as a surprise. I decided on bringing ten men with me, my gut told me this was the fuckin’ place and I’m glad I listened to it.
We came in slow, guns ready, and once the shooting begun there was no looking back. Bullet after bullet, shattering skulls and exploding through hearts. Releasing a rage I’ve never felt in my entire life. Every time I pull the trigger, I think of Amalie. Is she still alive? Am I too late? Is she dead?
Kicking the door to the house open, I step inside.
And a hard form slams into me.
I stumble backwards, toppling over a couch and landing on the hard, fucked out floor, with a grunt. I launch upwards and somehow manage to dodge a bullet that comes flying in my direction. I raise my gun but am slammed down again when the man shooting at me, throws himself on me once more. He wants to use fists? Fine by me. I take a few hard hits to the face, and realise he has some force, but I have more.
So much fucking mo
re.
I drive my fist upwards into his face, cracking his jaw over and over. Then with all my strength, I flip him over until I’m straddling him. I pull out my gun and press it to his temple. Treyton. Panting. Blood pouring down his mouth. He grins up at me, unafraid, evil as hell. Those eyes are the coldest eyes I’ve ever fuckin’ seen and that’s saying something.
“You finally found me, Malakai. Well done,” he splutters, laughing.
“Where the fuck is she?” I growl, shoving my gun into his temple.
Mason enters the room, gun out, covered in blood. I don’t look at him for longer than a second before focusing back on Treyton.
“Oh, she’s fine. Probably bleeding out. But that’s the least of your problems, isn’t it?”
“I’d love to fuckin’ kill you slowly, but I don’t have time. My girl is in there, and I won’t fuckin’ sit back and leave her a second longer.”
“Kill me, by all means. That won’t make you or your club safe, Malakai. Nobody is safe. You think I’m bad,” he throws his head back and laughs. “You have so much more coming for you.”
“Who the fuck are you working for?”
He grins at me, bloodied teeth. “Ah ah ah, that I can never tell you. You should know, that little Charlie, has bigger secrets then you could ever imagine. Perhaps, you should ask her?”
Charlie?
What the hell has Charlie got to do with this?
“Who the fuck gave you information from my club?” I growl, slamming the gun into his temple. “Who the hell betrayed me?”
He laughs again, the sick fuck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I drive my fist into his face, hard, over and over. Blood spurts out, but he doesn’t even flinch. Evil doesn’t cover what Treyton is. Deranged. That is closer to the truth.
“You can hit me. You can kill me. You will never get what you want from me,” he spits blood in my face. “My job here is done, you’re not safe, nobody is. Now, hurry along, your little girlfriend isn’t doing so well down there. I was going to send her dead body back to you, never mind, eventually, someone is going to.”
Fuck him.
Dirty little scumbag fucker.
He’s not going to tell me a damn thing.
I pull the trigger. His head explodes and I stand, wiping my gun. Waste of my fuckin’ time and space. I need to get to Amalie. Before it’s too late. I wasn’t wasting a single second more on that scum. I move through every room in the house, my men take care of anything left. When I realise she isn’t up here, I go down to the basement. There is a locked room, but the padlock is only dummy locked. Enough that they can’t push out. I shove the lock off and unlatch the bolt, stepping inside.
A huge piece of wood swings at me. I get it just in time, knocking whoever swung it off their feet. It takes me a minute to see who it is, and when I do, my heart stops beating.
My entire world fuckin’ stops.
Bloodied. Battered. Fuckin’ broken.
My Amalie.
I drop to my knees, cupping her precious face in my hands.
“Oh, god. My beautiful girl. What has he done to you?”
-18-
AMALIE
My eyes flutter open, and I stare around the brightly-lit room. My body is numb, and my throat feels like I’ve swallowed a heap of rocks. My vision slowly clears, and I realize I’m in a hospital. Memories of what happened come flooding back to me, and my heart starts racing as I glance around, wondering who is here. Is Treyton dead? Where’s Malakai?
A nurse comes into the room, smiling when she sees me, and she comes over, placing a hand on my forehead before saying, “Hi, Amalie. How are you feeling?”
How am I feeling?
I don’t know. I can’t feel anything.
Why is my head bandaged?
Why is my leg and arm bandaged?
How bad was the damage?
“You’re in the hospital,” she tells me when I stare at her blankly. “You had severe injuries. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for the last few days. Today is the first you’ve fully woken up. You have a cast on your leg and on your arm. You have some broken ribs and wounds over your body that we have stitched. You had some internal bleeding around your stomach that we had to do surgery to fix. You also had severe damage to your left ear, and extensive damage to your right. We’ve done what we can to fix both.”
They operated on my ears? But how?
“We’re aware you’ve had hearing loss in the past from a difficult accident. The doctors repaired as much as they could on top of what you’ve already had surgically. They’re confident they’ve saved some of your hearing.”
They did?
But I didn’t have any before.
“I’m going to get the doctor now and run some more tests. Your partner is waiting outside. I’ll send him in.”
He’s here?
He’s okay?
My heart explodes with happiness.
I look over at the door once the nurse is done, and I wait, just needing to see his face. When he steps into the room, I start to cry. Big, fat tears rolling down my cheeks. For a little while, when I was with Treyton, I never thought I’d see Malakai again. Or anyone I loved for that matter.
He walks over, going straight down and cupping my face, his eyes glassy. “Never thought I’d see your beautiful fucking eyes again. I’m so sorry, Amalie. I should never have let him take you.”
“You’re here now,” I croak. “I’m here. That’s all that matters.”
“He hurt you … so fuckin’ bad.”
“Is he … is he … gone?”
Malakai nods. “I watched the life suck out of his eyes when I put a bullet in his head. He will never hurt you again.” He leans down, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Nobody will.”
“Ch-Ch-Charlie?”
“She’s okay. Still in here. Her injuries were much like yours. She’s had a few surgeries.”
“Can I see her?”
“When you’re better. The doctor said they worked on your ears. He said he repaired some old damage. They won’t know if you have more or less hearing until the bandages come off.”
I reach up and lightly touch the bandages.
Will I be able to hear more?
Malakai covers my hand with his, and tells me, “I was so scared. Never been so fuckin’ scared in my life. Love you, Amalie. I need you more than I need my next breath. Don’t ever wanna feel what I felt over the last day, again, for the rest of my days.”
I smile weakly up at him. “I love you too, Malakai.”
He presses his lips over mine in a soft kiss, and then stands up when the doctor enters the room. The older man walks over to me, a smile on his face. “How are you feeling, Amalie?”
I shrug. “I’m a little numb.”
“Pain medication. You had some serious injuries. You’ll be here for at least a week.”
I nod, frowning.
“The nurse probably told you we did some work on your ears. We’ve yet to take the bandages off, although you don’t need them, because we wanted you to be awake when we did. Should we take them off now? I will need to pop on a device, that’ll help, and you’ll probably have to wear forever, but it’s better than not hearing, right?”
I nod, and suddenly my heart is in my stomach and I can’t breathe. What if I can’t hear anything, not even the faint humming I heard before? What if it’s all gone? Tears burn in the back of my eyes as Malakai steps away and the doctor unravels the thick bandages covering my ears. As he releases them, I wait, wondering if I’ll hear anything, or nothing.
When he puts the bandages aside, I look at him. I can’t hear anything. Not a thing. But I’m not entirely sure there is anything to hear. The doctor moves closer, inspecting my ears with his little torch. Then he reaches out to the nurse and she gives him a little black device. He clips it onto my ear, and plays around with it for a moment.
“Looks good. The swelling has gone down.”
I cry out.
It’s so sudden he leaps backward.
Tears explode and run down my cheeks.
I heard him. I heard his voice. It was faint, and a little muffled, but I heard him. I heard him. I press a hand over my face and I cry so hard my body shakes.
Malakai pulls me into his arms, and holds me until I stop crying enough to pull back and look at him.
“S-S-Say something to me.”
“Hi, baby.”
His voice, I can hear his voice. It’s far from clear, and it’s far from easy, but I can hear the different tones and make out his words. I’m sure to anyone else, it wouldn’t be much, and it would probably still sound so incredibly off, but to me, it’s like heaven has opened up and sent me a miracle.
“I can hear you,” I cry in pure happiness, burying my face into his chest.
He hands onto me for a while, clutching me close, then I pull back, wiping my tears and turning to the doctor.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“You’re very welcome. We were unable to do much to one ear, so you’re probably going to find it is still deaf, but there was one semi-good ear and with the surgery and the little magical device, you should be able to hear just enough. We did what we could, and it would appear it worked. It’ll never get better than it is, and it’ll probably always sound a little different, but I’m sure you don’t mind.”
I still stare at his lips, because some of his words are unclear, and sound more like a hum than a word, but I can hear. I don’t care if it’s the smallest bit.
I can hear.
“I’m so grateful. Thank you. So much.”
He nods, and smiles. “I’ll leave the nurse to finish up here. I’ll send you for a hearing test in the next few days, to check how it’s going. Rest up.”
He leaves the room, and when he does, Scarlett comes barrelling in. She sees me, sitting up in the bed, and comes running right at me. She skids to a stop, tears running down her cheeks, and then gently leans in and hugs me, as tight as she can without hurting me. When she pulls back, she looks at me, and says, “I thought I’d lost you. Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
