Toxic

by Nicole Blanchard

  The water cuts off, and then they’re back. I can’t stop crying, not even when the flame comes back. Then my tears turn into screams, and I’m shouting and wailing with everything I have. It echoes throughout the warehouse, and the flame shuts off, and Danny hits me again, his fist colliding with my jaw, making my vision explode in a kaleidoscope of stars.

  “If you aren’t going to answer the question, keep your fucking mouth shut,” he growls as he stuffs a strip of cloth into my mouth.

  I’m past caring.

  My legs too burned to be his canvas of torture, he lifts my foot and the torch clicks back on. The moment the flame touches the sensitive skin of my sole, I scream against the gag and writhe against the man holding me.

  “Where the fuck is he?” Danny asks. “Tell me what you know, and this all stops. The pain will stop if you just tell me where he is.”

  He drops the torch on the floor and removes the gag so I can speak, but instead of talking, I muster up enough saliva to spit in his face. His look of utter outrage causes me to laugh, though, it’s tinged with hysteria.

  “She’s fuckin’ losing it,” Andrew says. “Completely fuckin’ nuts.”

  Which only causes me to laugh harder.

  There’s a loud screeching sound from the warehouse door, and I wilt a little inside knowing it must be Sal, whoever he is, coming back to get the results from the past few days or to finish me off. Part of me almost wants them just to put a bullet in me, but the other part, the one who’s sick and damn tired of being treated like shit wants one chance, just one, to pay them back for everything they’ve done, everything they’ve taken.

  “Last chance,” Danny says. “Where is he?”

  Then a voice that isn’t Sal’s says, “Well, boys, if you wanted to see me that much, then all you had to do was call.”

  I wish I could turn or open my eyes enough to actually see him. That way, I would know he’s actually here and it’s not some hallucination or shock setting in. For now, I’ll choose to believe he’s really here and for that thought to light me up. I jerk in the bonds, and the man behind me tightens his hold.

  Danny straightens, his muscular body going tense as he turns to face a nonchalant Gracin. “King,” Danny says, though it’s more like he spits the word out. “We’ve been looking for you.”

  “Terrelli,” Gracin responds. “What have you got here?”

  I black out then, too overwhelmed by pain and disbelief to keep conscious. When I come to, I can actually see him when he throws a thumb over his shoulder in my direction. “This slut? She’s just the dumb cunt I convinced to help me get out of Blackthorne.” He laughs, bending forward to slap his knee. Danny snarls at Gracin’s blatant condescension. “Man, Sal must be hard up if he’s sending men after the women folk to get his work done. Tell me, Terrelli, are you that bad at your job that you can’t track down a mark without resorting to beating up women?”

  “Tell me, King, are you such a pussy you had to run with your tail between your legs?”

  Gracin clucks his tongue. “I never ran. Unlike you, I know how to do a job properly. Now, are we going to stand here all day, or are you going to give Sal a call and tell him you’re a complete fucking failure?”

  His gaze doesn’t come to me once, not a single time since he got here. I know because I can’t take my eyes off him, and for that, I hate myself. He looks nothing like the man I knew, and yet, he’s so familiar that it makes my whole body ache. Well, even more than it already does.

  Danny crosses the room to the table, and the others follow after, leaving me hanging, hurting, bleeding. I’m a piece of meat. It doesn’t even surprise me when Gracin doesn’t come to me. But that’s okay. It keeps my brain busy and off the pain just to watch him as he studies them.

  He’s wearing a suit, and he looks even more intimidating in clean lines and expensive fabric than the prison garb. The stark color against his tan makes him seem confident, sleek, and capable. Polished and refined and dominant. He keeps his hands at his sides, loose and ready, like a gunslinger or a gladiator ready to fight to the death.

  Danny is talking to someone on the phone, Salvatore, and I close my eyes against the pain radiating through me. When I manage to pull them open again, Gracin is close.

  His face doesn’t betray any emotion, but he looks over me once, noting the bruises on my face, the burns on my legs, and the blood all around me. He doesn’t say anything, and after his cursory once over, I’m reminded of all the reasons why I want to be as far away from him as possible. So, I turn my head away from him and wait to see what these bastards have next in store for me.

  But Gracin has other plans.

  While Danny’s on the phone and the others are taking a smoke break, he cuts me down and takes my weight because my foot is burned so badly I can’t stand on it.

  “The fuck are you doing?” Danny asks with one hand over the phone.

  Gracin doesn’t spare him a glance. “You got the information you wanted. I’m here. You want to keep going at her?” His mouth twists, and he looks up then. “Didn’t know you were into that shit. Must be why Sal got into snuff films, huh? Kinky.”

  Danny frowns and then returns to his conversation. Gracin begins massaging my shoulders to increase blood flow to the area, but I shrug him away and take a step away. Well, I try to. My legs don’t want to hold my weight and the fresh pain that ignites in my limbs makes it so I nearly end up taking a nose dive straight into the concrete.

  “Don’t,” he says, his voice harsh as he helps me back up. “You can’t fuckin’ walk, so don’t fuckin’ try.”

  I force my voice around the rawness in my throat. “Don’t touch me.”

  He studies me and then retreats, his hands held up as he gestures for me to continue. I glare at him and limp to the table where I ignore the things on top of it and crouch down to sit on one of the chairs. I couldn’t hide the pain lacing my features if I tried, so I don’t. I let everyone in the room know just how vulnerable I am.

  “Boss wants us to take you to him,” Danny says as he hangs up the phone and comes to stand behind me. My shoulders tense at his proximity, but I made such a show of sitting down that I couldn’t move if my legs had the strength to keep me upright.

  “That won’t work for me,” Gracin replies.

  “’Fraid you don’t got a choice.” Danny and his men form a line between the exit and us.

  Gracin sighs as if he’s at the supermarket and the clerk won’t direct him to his favorite sparkling water. “Then I guess we have nothing to talk about,” he says and pulls out a gun.

  He fires four times in rapid succession, faster than I have time to realize what he’s doing. I fall unceremoniously off my chair, and the pain of the movement is so breathtaking that it causes my whole body to go numb. My arms come up to cover my head, and my eyes squeeze shut. When the shots stop, I look up and find the four men moaning and supine on the ground.

  I don’t even think, I just get to my aching feet and stumble for the door. Footsteps are close behind me, but I move as fast as my battered body will let me. The last thing I want is to be caught, but it’s no use. Gracin's healthy, rested, and still as quick as the snake. He reaches the door before me, barring its way.

  With one hand wrapped around my arm like a band of steel, he yanks me out after him and then scoops me up into his arms as though I hardly weigh anything. But I don’t want to go anywhere with him, so I’m scratching and clawing at every available part of him that I can reach until we get to a car and he throws me in the back seat.

  When I come up screaming and slapping at him, he deflects my arms and knocks me on the side of the head with a quick blow. One second I’m conscious, the next I’m consumed by darkness and shadows.

  I sense everything through a haze.

  The movement of a vehicle.

  The remnants of indescribable pain.

  The presence of other people around me.

  Panic threatens to swallow me whole, so I give into the da
rkness once more.

  The numbness and haze continues for so long that I start to believe I’m dead. What else can explain the complete peace and sense of calm? Then something jars my body, bringing the crippling pain back to the forefront, and I wish I were dead all over again. It’s only a minute’s worth of eternal pain before a tiny pinch on my arm has my mind drifting . . .

  Then sleep comes. Blissful, uninterrupted endless sleep.

  It’s the murmured conversation that pulls me out of the drugged stupor with a snap. Immediately, I think of Danny and the band of thugs. I have to protect myself from what they plan to do to me next. I surge up, teeth bared in a snarl and find hands pressing me into the bed.

  I fight them, and inhuman sounds come from my throat until I hear a voice I don’t recognize.

  “Mrs. Emerson, I need you to calm down.”

  “Give her a sedative,” comes a familiar voice.

  Maybe I am dreaming.

  “She’s already had too much,” the first voice replies.

  Neither of them sounds like the men who’d beaten and tortured me, and it piques my curiosity enough that I open my eyes, if only to prepare myself for my next version of hell. The sight that greets me is enough to choke off my screaming, and I shrink back into the blankets.

  A doctor—or at least, I think he’s a doctor based off the stethoscope wrapped around his neck—stands by my bedside, looking both concerned and intimidated. He straightens and sends a questioning look to another person standing in the corner.

  Gracin.

  He pushes himself off the chair he’s been sitting on, comes to the foot of the hospital bed, and rests his hands on the footboard.

  “Good morning, Tessa,” he says.

  I nearly laugh. Good morning? Good morning? Like he’s a relative, and I have the flu or something. I close my eyes and relax into the softness at my back, trying to remember what happened or where I may be.

  The memories of what they did to me are too much to process, so I tuck that back in the recesses of my mind and focus on the end. It’s tinged with the fogginess of recollection, lingering effects of the sedative, and marred by pain. First, my mind latches on to Gracin.

  He’d shown up at the end in a suit. Called me a cunt and then cut me down. I open my eyes to confirm the image that comes to mind. He’s straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. I recognize the shirt as the one he wore when he was at the warehouse, but he’s shed his jacket and unbuttoned the top button and rolled up the sleeves.

  The doctor clears his throat next to me, and I look up at him.

  “Mrs. Emerson. I’m—” He looks at Gracin for confirmation, and Gracin nods. “I’m Doctor Haversham. I’ve been treating you for the past two days. You’ve suffered several second- and third-degree burns on your legs. Multiple bruises, contusions, and a concussion.”

  He pauses, this time asking me for silent permission for something. He wants to tell me about the one thing I have been trying so very hard to not think about.

  I can hear my own body’s response to the knowledge on the monitors beside me. My heart rate accelerates off the charts, and the doctor’s pained expression flits from me to Gracin and then back.

  “Tell me,” I say, my voice guttural.

  “You miscarried the baby,” he replies, sounding reluctant.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Gracin’s hands fall to his sides, but the vision blurs with unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor says, but there’s no point.

  I knew long before Gracin even showed up that my body no longer carried a life.

  “Baby?” Gracin asks.

  I don’t answer Gracin, because what is there to say? He doesn’t deserve the courtesy, and I’m too tired to say or do all the things I want to, so I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep until he leaves me alone.

  It takes me a few hours to figure out that I’m not in an actual hospital. No, I’m in a bedroom in someone’s house. Gracin’s house. The doctor and a woman I assume is a nurse check in on me for the next few hours. Most of the time, it’s quiet, and when night falls, I let the tears come. They fall in streams down my cheeks. I shake so hard I feel paralyzed, but I let the emotions come. I thought I’d cried all I could in the warehouse, but I was wrong.

  It seems to go on forever, until I spend all the energy I have left, leaving me to stare at the wall feeling empty. More empty than I used to after Vic fucked me into submission and ignored me like I was less than a person. That tiny life was the only positive thing that came from the last three years of my life, and now it’s gone.

  “Baby?” comes his voice from the darkness. I hear it, but I’m so tired, so thoroughly used up that I can’t summon the energy to move.

  I know he means it as a question and not the endearment.

  “You were pregnant?” he asks.

  “So it would seem,” I say dully. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not anymore.”

  “It was mine.” It isn’t a question. He says it like a claim. Like it’s something vital and real. And it was, but it isn’t anymore, and I don’t want to talk to him, especially about this, so I say, “Probably,” even though I know for certain it was.

  “It was mine,” he repeats, his voice more insistent. I hear the chair creak, and my aching body tenses, bracing for whatever he has planned next.

  He doesn’t touch me as I expect. He just moves the chair closer to my bed. “How?” I can’t tell if he’s merely curious or furious. He wants to know how I lost the baby, but that isn’t something I can talk about right now . . . maybe not ever.

  My hands knot in the thin bedclothes. “I don’t want to talk about it.” I pause to clear the tremor in my voice. “Does it matter?”

  He sighs, and the sound caresses my skin. I can almost imagine that I feel his breath coasting along my flesh. “I guess not.”

  For some reason, his words cause my eyes to water again. I don’t let them come this time, blinking furiously to stem the flow.

  The questions bubble up inside me, and I nearly choke on them. The reasons why Gracin did what he did don’t matter anymore. They seem so very childish in comparison to all the things that have happened since then. One day, I’ll demand answers, just not today.

  I roll away from him, unwilling to say anything else. Thankfully, he doesn’t pry. I must fall asleep because the next time I open my eyes, I find the sun has risen and I’m alone. I watch the light for a long time before a knock sounds and a young woman enters. She’s wearing scrubs, so I assume she’s at least a nurse. I don’t ask. I also don’t ask how she knows Gracin or came to be in this room taking care of me. I don’t want to know.

  “Hello,” she says in a soft voice that is warm and soothing. I want to lean into it for comfort. I want someone to hold me more than anything, but instead, I swing my legs over the side of the bed.

  “Would you mind helping me to the restroom?” I ask brusquely.

  She nods, her hands efficient and capable as she helps me navigate the wires and tubes and bears my weight as she guides me to a door off to the left. The bathroom is sumptuous with granite countertops and expensive tile. I spot a walled in shower with a dozen knobs and heads. After I do my business, I ask her to help me undress.

  “Do you want me to—”

  “No, I’m fine.” I soften my harsh words with a small smile. “Thank you, though.”

  There’s a bench seat in the shower, and I ease myself down onto it with a small grimace. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt. Dr. Haversham had bandaged my thighs and calves with breathable gauze and some sort of waterproof plastic wrap. According to the nurse, they recently changed them, and I should be okay to shower, provided that it isn’t too long. I don’t even want to imagine what they look like.

  A cursory check of myself reveals blood, which streams down to mix with the shower water. I can’t find it in me to be embarrassed. There’s only room for the constant ache of grief.

  I don’t know how long I si
t in the shower, but it’s long enough that the blood abates, at least for a while. Long enough that the thick glass walls are steamed from top to bottom, and my skin is puffy and wrinkled. Long enough that the bandages on my legs need changing. No matter how long I sit in the spray, though, I feel like I won’t ever get clean.

  It’s Gracin who retrieves me when they’ve deemed my shower has gone on long enough. I don’t fight him, although his touch makes my skin crawl. He simply appears on the other side of the glass and reaches in to turn the water off. Then he sticks his arm in and offers me a towel. I expect him to peek as I wrap myself in it and step out, but he doesn’t.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks.

  I hate that his voice doesn’t betray any emotion. The man I knew who was calculating, devious and flirtatious is nowhere to be found. It only reinforces my belief that it all truly was an act. And like the idiot that I was, I fell for it.

  Guess it’s a good thing I’m not an idiot anymore.

  I level him with a look, and he says, “Fair enough. Is there anything I can get you to make you more comfortable?”

  “You can tell me when I can get out of here.” There’s no point in dancing around it. I didn’t spend two months on the run because I wanted him to find me. After what he did, the only thing I want is to get as far away from him as possible. Perhaps they’re taking new bids on the International Space Station. Yes, that or another planet might be far enough away.

  His expression doesn’t change, but for a moment, his mouth tightens. “It isn’t safe for you to leave right now,” he says.

  I lower myself onto the bed cautiously and then allow him to cover me with the blankets. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He glances away, and I have to swallow back the urge to force him to look at me. “It means you’re staying here until it’s safe.”

  “And where is here?”

  “My house.”

  I slump back against the pillows, more than a little stunned. Gracin has a house? I think back to the bathroom that must have cost a small fortune. It doesn’t compute with the man I met at Blackthorne.