Shadow of Nevermore

by Lilly Black

  What I still can't figure out is how to break down things like metal or electronics, so I had to leave my jewelry behind when I followed Jax to the prison, and I couldn't carry weapons or my cell. It didn't really matter though. Jax wasn't going to be able to call me from there anyway, and anyone else who wanted to get in touch with me could just hold their horses. Jax is the only person in this fucked up world who really matters to me anymore. I love my friends, but they're changing. It seems like they're always fighting, and that's not the life I want to live. I just want to be alone with Jax. We can make love all day, and if any bad people or corpses come after us, I can use my powers to destroy them. I only wish I had the courage to tell Jax what I am now, but I'm afraid he won't want me anymore. What if he sees me as something less than human? What if he fears me?

  These are the questions that plague me, but anytime Jax is around, my concerns seem to fade away.

  It was almost dinner time when I heard him come home to our cabin. I was in the bathroom changing my makeup, and when I was finished, I pulled on one of Jax's t-shirts and headed into the bedroom to grab a pair of pants. I found Jax sitting on the bed waiting for me, wearing nothing but tight, black jeans, his pale, lean body propped against the headboard, one knee bent up, beautifully showcasing his dick as it taunted me from behind his zipper. He was reading a book, and he tossed it on the nightstand when he saw me standing there, a triangle of hot pink panties peeking out from beneath his white shirt.

  "Are you hungry?" he asked.

  "Are you?"

  "Not anymore," he said, his eyes beckoning me to him, and I slowly crawled onto the bed from the foot, drinking in every inch of him with my eyes as my hair dragged over his legs, his crotch, his abs. Straddling him, I grabbed his hands, holding them above his head. There were hooks in the back of the headboard because this cabin was secretly outfitted for BDSM, and though I didn't bring anything to tie him with, I noticed a belt out of the corner of my eye on the dresser. I leaned in, bringing my lips so close to his, he could feel the heat of my breath as I let my free hand come apart and bring it to me. Then I sat up and wrapped the belt around his wrists, securing them to the headboard.

  Jax didn't say a word, but the satisfied smirk on his face told me all I needed to know about his interest in this game. I reached over and turned off the lamp then lit the candle on the nightstand, and in the dim, orange glow, Jax looked exactly as he did when he was twenty and I was still a virgin in my freshman year of high school interested in sex only with the rock star I was obsessed with. His black hair was getting longer like it had been back then, and those mesmerizing blue eyes behind thick, dark lashes had the same effect on me today as I looked up into them and felt myself flood with desire. I reached down into my panties and wet my finger, tracing it over his lips, and as he sucked it into his mouth, his dick jolted beneath me, tempting me to forget all else and take him inside me immediately.

  I withdrew my fingers and pulled the t-shirt off over my head as Jax leaned forward, struggling against his bonds to reach my tits, and I felt the tip of his tongue just barely make contact with my nipple. I moved nearer and he closed his mouth over me, licking in a concentrated circle as he held it in place gently with his teeth, and it felt like a direct line to my clit. I moaned his name, and he bit harder. Oh, God! I could feel it everywhere, like a thousand new connections had been made since the last time he touched me. I wrapped my arms around his head, trembling as he sucked me into him, swirling his tongue and nipping at my breast. If I didn't stop it, I was going to come like this, and I wanted more.

  Slowly, I pulled back until I was beyond his reach, and he looked up at me, his breathing heavy as we locked eyes. No words were spoken, but we both knew what had to happen next. I went up on my knees, reaching down and unzipping his jeans as quickly as I could, yanking them until they were past his hips, exposing his big, beautiful dick. He was so hard he was throbbing, and I was so ready for him as I forced myself down hard, all the way to the base. He thrust his hips forward, filling me until we were one, both of us shuddering at the raw, delicious pleasure of it.

  I wound my arms around him, and he buried his head in my breasts, twisting his arms unnaturally to get closer to me. As I used my knees to raise and lower myself, he used his hips to meet me every time I came down on him, and I felt him squirming oddly in my embrace until suddenly his hands were free. He grabbed my hair, pulling my head back as he went for my neck, licking me from shoulder to ear.

  "God, I fucking love you, Dani," he growled, biting my lobe as he forced himself inside me in hard, vicious thrusts. He wrapped my hair around his fist and yanked until he had arched my back sharply, his tongue chasing downward as he moved me, and inside, I felt him pounding against something different, something that had never been reached before, something that made my whole body begin to vibrate. Jax could feel it, too, so unmistakable, he knew he wouldn't be denied before he even gave the command, "Let go, Dani. I want to feel you all over me."

  His words were like the final ingredient in a volatile recipe that once added led to the inevitable flashflood within me.

  "Oh...my...God!" I cried as the orgasm tore through me, igniting every cell in my body. My arms behind me, I felt my nails digging into his knees, and though my mind gave me a flash of concern that I should stop before I drew blood, I had no control, my grip tightening as Jax kept fucking me, oblivious to the pain until I could no longer feel my hands at all as they flew apart.

  Oh, fuck! I thought, my forearms swirling behind me as more and more cohesion was lost, but I was powerless to control it, a slave to the sensation as Jax tormented that perfect, hypersensitive spot inside me, producing a series of violent explosions.

  As my arms failed me entirely, I leaned forward, kissing him to keep his eyes closed. I was too distracted by the barrage of orgasms to adequately command the swarm, and I just kept breaking apart until my rhythm became affected as I no longer had feet to help me rise and fall. With his hands now around my waist, Jax kept up the pace, but I knew I had to end this. I nuzzled my face against his, seeking his ear as I summoned words I thought might do the trick.

  "Come for me, baby," I moaned. "I want you to fill me with your hot, wet cum."

  Jax moaned my name, his hold on me suddenly more intense, and as my knees began to fly apart, he finally reached his summit.

  "Oh, Dani! I'm going to come! Oh, fuck, Dani!" he cried, speeding up before bringing me down one final time, thrusting in deep, and as he held me there in a post-orgasmic death grip, the power to command my particles began to return. Slowly, I willed myself back together, and just before Jax pulled back from me, I managed to form one hand to brush his long, sweat-drenched hair out of his face.

  "God, I love you, baby girl," he breathed. "I never want to go two days without you by my side ever again."

  But I was with you, I thought. I'll always be with you now.

  Justice and Vengeance

  Day 58

  Aiden watched from the shadows as Olivia and several guards brought Rundo and Brock down the hill to the spot in the lower ring where their punishment would be meted out by their victims. He had tried to persuade others to come and watch, but nobody was interested. While that was a blow to his Plan A, he quickly switched to Plan B. If he couldn't save the prisoners from torture, at least he could ease their pain. Earlier, June had given him two pills, telling him to have Rundo and Brock swallow them about a half an hour before the execution.

  Bringing them their final meal, he had slipped one in the mouth of both before stepping back to let the guards feed them as Olivia would not allow their hands to be untied. It was another example of what he considered Olivia's inhumane cruelty, and according to Plan B, the people of the Deadfall were about to see just how cruel and depraved their queen was. Regardless of how they felt about these horrible men, Aiden believed that once they saw the acts visited upon them this night, Olivia would have dug her own grave.

  As torches burned in a circle like s
ome ancient ritual site for blood sacrifice, the guards, including Alek and Reid, put metal shackles around the ankles and wrists of the prisoners then affixed them to two poles that had been set in the ground earlier in the day. Rundo and Brock would not become scarecrows upon the crosses by the gates because Olivia didn't expect there to be enough left of them when the women were finished, and as she watched them approach from across the field, she asked the guards to step back and make themselves unobtrusive. Alek would stay close to her, and although Reid wanted to be there to protect his wife as well, he needed to be with Amina, who was having difficulty coping with the whole capital punishment situation. She believed Olivia was right, but it still brought back horrifying memories of her early years in Bosnia.

  "Take care of my wife," Reid hissed at Alek as he walked past him.

  "I always do," Alek said with a subtle hint of innuendo.

  "Yeah, good luck with that," he said, winking at him. "She's been with me for four days."

  "I haven't exactly been alone, you know. When you kiss your girlfriend tonight, tell me how I taste," Alek said, and it was so out of character for him to say something like that, Reid didn't know whether to laugh or punch him.

  "You're a fucking prick, Hellström," he said with a grin as he headed up the hill, and Alek was amused with himself as he watched his rival leave until he noticed how the arriving group of women swerved slightly away from Reid when they passed him. It made him sad. Despite their personal issues, Reid was a good man, but their apprehension had nothing to do with him beyond the fact that he had a penis. They didn't seem to trust a single man other than Jax and Austin, and although it tormented him to think that any woman would be afraid of him, he still stepped back as they approached, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible while still keeping Brock in his crosshairs. John, who had also stayed behind, kept his distance as well. He was a good shot, and as he settled into an out of the way spot to cover Rundo, Olivia welcomed the ladies.

  "I'm not here to instruct you or guide you in any way," she said, "but if you need me to take care of anything on your behalf, all you have to do is ask." Austin raised his hand, and Olivia's face fell into a sad smile as his arm in the air reminded her that he was just a boy. It also reminded her that some of the women here were really just girls, too. None of them should ever have been subjected to any of this, but she wasn't about to take away their right to vengeance. She acknowledged Austin.

  "I'm not going to stay," he said. "But before I go, I was hoping you'd let me tell Rundo how I feel about what he did to me. I promise I won't shoot him or cut him or anything."

  "It's okay," Olivia said, and as Aiden began recording on his phone, Austin walked up to Rundo and promptly punched him so hard in the gut, his body tried to crumple against the will of his bonds. He let out a muffled cry behind his gag.

  "That's for me because you took my childhood! You made me pretend to do disgusting, evil things to survive, but I want you to know something. Remember that time when the women escaped and killed a bunch of your guards and took me hostage? I wasn't a hostage. I was the one who gave them the guns, and maybe if I wasn't just a fucking kid, I would have planned it better and we could have killed you and your band of sick fucks back then so some of these women wouldn't even have to be here tonight feeling like this!"

  Next, Austin's fist met Rundo's face hard, and blood started to stain the white fabric of his gag.

  "That's for my sister! I still don't know if you all killed her or turned her over to the Sinner, but she was a good, sweet, little girl, and you fuckers took her away from me!" Austin shouted at him, fighting back the tears because he didn't want Rundo to see him cry. Then he took another swing, this time punching Rundo directly in the dick. "That's for Serena! I made a plan! I was going to save her! Why did you bastards have to go back to the hotel? You already cleared it! She should have been safe there, but you...fucking...killed...her!" With each word, he delivered another strike between Rundo's legs, and finally, Olivia had to pull him off as he started crying and punching blindly. She led him away, planning to take him in her arms because he needed a mother in this moment more than anything, but suddenly someone else took her place.

  Serena dropped the hood from her head and threw her arms around Austin from behind.

  "It's me, Oz," she whispered. "I survived it. I'm here now."

  "Oh, my God, Serena!" he cried as he turned around and hugged her so tightly she could barely breath, gushing in his extreme relief. "Thank God! Oh, thank God. I wanted to die when I thought about what they might have done to you, and I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry..."

  "Shhh...it's okay," she whispered, and she took his hand and led him up the hill away from the scene, turning at the last minute to tell Olivia that she didn't need to take her turn at Rundo anymore. "But I would like it if someone could punch Brock in the balls for me."

  "You got it," Olivia said, and she smiled because the only person in this world whose survival could possibly have meant more to Austin would have been his sister. And even then, he didn't feel the same, deep level of guilt about Sheri that he did about leaving Serena. Sheri's fate with the Sinner was an unknown. Austin was well aware of what Rundo and his men did to girls like Serena.

  It was the same thing they did to every women who was gathered there that night, and although they had come with designs on cutting these men apart one piece at a time, after seeing what Austin chose to do, they began to follow suit, using the opportunity to tell them how they had been hurt, usually followed by a kick in the balls, though some did choose the face. As Aiden filmed, he was frustrated because again Olivia had somehow eluded the label he thought she deserved - sadistic murderer.

  When nearly all of the women had said their piece and left the scene, though not a single mortal wound had been opened on Rundo or Brock's bodies, both men were at a point where they would have welcomed death, and Frisco had stayed behind to give it to them. She had been in that prison longer than just about anyone there, and when she gave up her freedom for the three women who escaped when Austin helped them, they had punished her the harshest. Most of the others had been wounded by the motorcycles or bullets, but Frisco didn't have a scratch on her until she was taken back to Death Row and labeled the ring leader of the prison break. Rundo and Brock had taken a very active role in her punishment, and she had come tonight prepared to return the favor. She had a sharp knife, but she wasn't planning on killing them with it.

  "I admire what they all chose to do here," she told Olivia. "If I walk away now, what's going to happen to them?"

  "We'll put them down," Olivia said.

  "Humanely?"

  "Depends on what you consider humane. I'm not wasting any medication on rapists."

  "Well, I think you know that I'm not going to just walk away, but I'm not planning on killing them either. I was hoping maybe I could do what I came to do, then you could just let them bleed out?"

  "These men are yours to punish. If you want them to bleed out, they'll bleed out."

  "Thank you," she said, staring Rundo directly in the eyes as a smirk spread across her face, then she added with reverence, "my queen."

  Frisco pulled out her knife along with a sharpener and began to drag the blade along the stone at such an excruciatingly slow pace, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard to the ears of her prey. For a long moment, she honed her weapon in silence as she knelt before them, then she stood.

  "I don't need to tell you what you put me through because you know," she began. "There's not a damn thing I can say that's going to make you feel any empathy for me because you don't fucking care how much you hurt me. You don't care that you have probably fucked up my sex life forever or that I doubt I'll ever become a mother because of your actions.

  "You know, when I was trying to decide what to bring here with me tonight, my first thought was a broom handle. I almost tried to get the other women on board with it, too. We could all get brooms, mops, hoes, fucking candle sticks, it doesn't matter
as long as it could be uncomfortably shoved up your asses, then we ask these nice people to tie you down so we can show you what it feel like to lie there in pain and humiliation while a gang of other people take pleasure in your suffering.

  "And I would have taken great pleasure in that suffering, Mr. Rundo. Great. Pleasure. But I thought about it, and that wouldn't really have served my purpose here tonight because we all know you won't be around tomorrow. You aren't going to wake up with your asshole bleeding and aching because you're never gonna wake up again at all. Besides, now that I think about it, you already know what it's like to feel that way, don't you, Mr. Rundo?"

  Then she turned to Olivia and explained herself.

  "I was a guard at the prison, and I'm the only woman who was in that place from the beginning, the only one who survived anyway. When the shit went down, there were three female guards along with a couple dozen men, and even though some of the men jumped ship and went home to their families, most of us stayed. I stayed because I didn't want a bunch of poor guys who were just in there on weed charges to end up starving to death in their cells since there would be no one around to let them out. You hear that, Mr. Rundo? Mr. Brock? I stayed there for people like you! And what did you do to thank me? How did you repay my kindness when we decided to let the nonviolent offenders out of their cages so they could help fight the dead?"