by Ace Gray
“I heard a stop, did I not?”
I audibly gulped but didn’t answer him.
“That’s what I thought.” His words danced against my ear. “So here we are, making a deal.” He nibbled on my earlobe. “I’ll get Horse medical attention if you play ball.” I stilled. “There’s even a way Cole lives through this.”
I turned in his arms and looked him dead in the face.
“Tell me. Now,” I demanded despite all three wounded men yelling No! at me.
“Choose who dies and be mine, simple as that.” He smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “I trade one of those worthless sacks for you. Eye for an eye has always been poignant if you ask me.”
Cole screamed at me, weird distorted sounds, most likely butchered because of his mangled jaw.
“I won’t be yours,” I snarled back chancing a look over at both of my men.
“Then kill them both and let me taste you once.” He shrugged still holding on to me.
“I kill them both and you let me go, simple as that?” I cocked my head back, sure there was some trick. I looked over to where Cole was still screaming, now maybe crying as he watched this unfold.
“Yes, my little murderer. I let you go, sure that my secrets will die with you some day, the way they’d die with these two.” He shifted his grip on me, twisted my body so I was squarely between Cole and Jimmy then snaked his arms out along mine. He placed the gun in my hands then adjusted my fingers just so. “We’ll just cock this like so…” He guided my hands. “We aim by lining this sight up with this sight.” He adjusted the pistol so that it was aiming directly at the lamp in front of us. “Then you decide your future.”
35.
Cole
The pain that radiated from my cheek was consuming me, coming in waves as it throbbed like a goddamned marching band was playing on my face and stabbing me in time with their rhythm. The bone was broken. I knew it without checking. The crunch and the searing pain were familiar in that sickening way. It ping-ponged off the ache in the back of my skull from earlier.
There were no words for the spot that a knife still stuck in my thigh. It was torture. It was lightning. It was what I always expected hell to feel like. And I couldn’t tell if taking the knife out would make it better or worse. I didn’t have a choice anyway.
My wrists burned where they were bound. I’d been fighting so hard to get free I’d broken skin. Now the saltiness of the metal stung against my warm blood.
It all paled in comparison to seeing Elle with a gun.
Mickey wrapped around her like a snake begging for her to sin was stomach turning, but her, my sweet, innocent, perfect Ladyface, with her hands around a pistol was far worse. That she was bargaining with Mickey, that she’d said stop, was the torturous hot poker to my soul.
“Elle.” My voice was rough, blood gurgled in my throat. “Take it back,” I begged.
I needed her to. It couldn’t all be in vain.
“I can’t Cole.” Her voice broke. “I can’t see you or Horse in pain.”
“This is just the beginning,” Mickey murmured and rubbed his nose into her hair.
I jerked against the chains that held me despite the pain it shot through every inch of my body. The cry that came from my throat wasn’t intentional. I didn’t think any sounds I made anymore were. If only I were free, I’d fight my way out of here.
Mickey had been waiting. He’d known Elle was with me since that first date night. Connor was placed at the restaurant with the sole purpose of recognizing Elle if she came in to view her work. That I’d chosen that place freely was a really fucked up twist of fate.
We’d been some game that Mickey and Siobhan played. He sat back and waited for us while she went out and hunted us, knowing that soon enough we’d all collide in one hell of a nuclear explosion.
I just didn’t expect that nuclear explosion to be Mickey waiting right inside the door with a single question for Horse—are you with me or against me?—and then a baseball bat to the back of my head.
I woke chained to the floor and brass knuckles to my stomach. Again. Horse was watching from behind Mickey and the fact that he couldn’t sit in his normal chair to the side was enough for me. He was at war with himself; loyal soldier vs. loyal friend. I wanted to tell him that this was okay, he needed to live, he needed to take care of Elle if things went sideways. He needed to protect himself so we weren’t two pillars in a parking garage. But then Mickey punched me full frontal and I swallowed a tooth as my lip split across the ones that stayed in place.
I’d been in pain when Connor had come in carrying a limp blonde body and everything in Satan’s lair fell away. Mick sat down and Connor placed Elle on his lap then we waited. I couldn’t feel anything after that.
Mickey helped himself to her drugged out body. He explored the dips and curves that were mine. He peeked at the flesh that should only be on display for me and palmed between my little cherry thighs.
When I finally roared out in fury, he simply twisted her face towards her and kissed her. Hard. His lips explored hers, his tongue lapped on her closed lips trying to coax them open, then they started down her neck as his hand slid up her shirt and he yanked on her nipple.
“I’ll kill you, Mick,” I shouted and he just laughed as his other hand wrapped around and moved similarly on her other breast.
“I have no doubt, Cole. That’s why you’ve always been one of my most prized possessions.” He laughed as his hands slid down her taut little tummy and beneath the waistband of her shorts. I fought wildly as her shorts started moving in time with his hands. “It’s why you aren’t dead yet.”
“Kill me and let her go!” I demanded, blood spattering from my lips.
“Let this little cunny go?” He was still massaging against her, or in her, I couldn’t tell. “Not without something in return.”
“What do you want in return? I’ll give it to you,” I begged, broken on my knees.
“You’ll see,” he answered before he started kissing up along her neck.
If only I’d known how much worse it was going to get.
“Take a shot,” Mickey whispered in her ear coaxing her to try the weapon out and pulling me back to the scene in front of me.
“I can’t.” Elle crumbled beneath his hands, hers falling away from the gun.
As bad as things were here in the den, of all things disgusting that happened, that pulled a tiny sliver of hope into my heart. Elle would always be Elle, perfect and pure, the reason for sacrificing everything.
“Elle,” Mickey started as he roughly grabbed her hands and forced them back to the gun, “I know we just met but do you think you can toy with me? That I shouldn’t be taken seriously?”
“No.” Her voice was strong but I still wanted to reach out and lend her any ounce of strength I had left.
Hell, I just wanted to touch her one more time. I wanted to hold her while I told her that I loved her just like Conrad told me to.
“Good. So then you know you need to fucking choose,” he hissed in her ear.
The room stood still, all eyes fixed on Elle as she took a million deep breaths with the gun outstretched.
I chanced a look over to Horse and his eyes were shifting from her to me and back again while he held the wound on his thigh. He jerked his chin toward Mickey and immediately I knew what he was asking.
Should I get the gun?
Part of me wanted to say yes. Horse could lunge at him and wrestle the gun free then he could start shooting. But even if he managed not to squish Elle, or shoot her in the process, and even if there were a full round of bullets in the gun, he wouldn’t get far.
Watching Horse die with a bullet from Connor in his back would be the only way to make this whole debacle worse. Getting out was always what stopped me.
“Goddamnit, princess. Shoot someone!” Mickey roared behind Elle, shaking her violently.
When she didn’t pull the trigger, he ripped the weapon from her hands to walk toward Jimmy. She fell to
her knees without his support and for the first time, I saw Elle shake with fear. Every other time had been something else. Even Siobhan was more to shake the layer of ick off than terror. My scared Ladyface was a gut wrenching sight.
“It’s this easy, Elle.” Micky walked up to Jimmy and pointed the gun down at the distorted little ball of a body. “BOOM!” he yelled pretending to shoot him, then cocking back to soccer kick him in the ribs.
Tears started to fall down Elle’s perfect little cheeks. Despite the pain I reached out for her, now so close, yet still so far away.
“Or this.” Micky walked to me and kicked my hands back toward my body and held the gun at my temple. I couldn’t fight him, I just kept my eyes locked on Elle. “POW!” he shoved the gun into my head, jostling my whole body and making me cry out.
Mickey swiftly lunged down to where the blade stuck in my leg and twisted. I howled a sound that made me sick even though it was my own and the edge of my vision went white.
Bright white.
Like the dress Elle wore the day I met her. The dress I had fisted up around her hips while I fucked her in the airplane bathroom. The dress that had framed her perfect little pussy when she masturbated for me. The dress that had been faintly see-through when she agreed to come home with me.
Once upon a time, Elle had told me I needed to stop being hung up on heaven and hell. That they didn’t exist. She was wrong. That dress was heaven. She was heaven.
And this is what I’d done to her.
I twisted enough that she filled my hazy line of sight. She sagged on her knees, with big, fat crocodile tears streaming haphazardly down her cheeks. Her hair was still tinged with pink and her cheek sported the angry gashes from Siobhan. The curves of her body had been assaulted by both her and Mickey.
Never had anything in my life been so clear. I’d dragged an angel down from heaven and forced her to burn in hell. I’d broken her wings without ever really seeing them unfurl. And for what? Love? Creatures like me didn’t deserve it.
Mickey wrapped around her shoulders and violently hauled her back to standing. He yanked on her hair to level her gaze once she was standing. He slapped the gun back in her hands.
“Fucking pick now or it’s you that’s getting the bullet!” he screamed in her ear, spit splattering onto her delicate skin.
She jerked and cringed with every single word like they were the kill shots. This was causing her a deeper type of pain than I felt and I couldn’t stand it anymore. There was only one thing to do. Only one way to fix it now.
“Elle,” I breathed her name like it was the last bit of life in my lungs. And in some ways, it was. “I need you to do me a favor.” I blew out a breath, still spattering a little bit of blood across my lips. “One last one, okay?”
Her eyes went wide and I saw her little chest expand as she held a breath.
“Ladyface, I need you to kill me.”
36.
Elle
“Ladyface, I need you to kill me.” Cole’s voice was soft and warm despite the horrific thing he said.
“Never!” I screeched, feeling tears dance on my lips.
“Ladyface, this is all my fault.” He was having a hard time with words and I didn’t know if it was his disfigured face or the emotion he had to be waging war against. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be in a beautiful studio in Seattle, living a beautiful life with Conrad and some banker or shit. You should grow old and tell your grandkids how the worst thing that ever happened to you was some jerk never texted you back after joining the mile high club.”
He was pleading with me. Begging for me to go free. Begging to die. My insides were going to explode and send shrapnel spray about the room. My whole body vibrated with terror.
“See? He’s making it easy,” Mickey whispered in my ear and the words were hot against my skin, almost burning, and his breath smelled like the almost dead bodies in front of me. “Kill him. Pull the trigger and watch the blood seep into the floor.”
My stomach heaved.
“Kill Jimmy,” Horse piped up from where he was still awkwardly propped up against a couch. “We can all go back home if you pull that trigger, Elle.” His voice was ragged, desperate like my insides.
Cole looked over at him and sadness filled his eyes. I got the feeling he was saying you know that’s not true. I knew I was right when Horse started bellowing.
“No! Cole, no!” Tears pooled almost instantly in his eyes. “We can.” His voice broke. “All four of us,” he whimpered.
“Take care of her, Horse.” Cole tried to smile. “Fall in love with him. Let yourself, okay?”
He turned back to me.
“Jimmy doesn’t deserve to die, Elle, but I do.” His breathing was getting more labored, his eyes less vibrant. “I’ve always been a selfish monster but I really took the cake with you. I took you when I knew you weren’t really supposed to be mine. I broke you when I knew I was supposed to be careful.”
I thought I saw tears start to fall but his face was too distorted to tell. Or maybe it was just that my eyes were so blurry from the furious crying that I couldn’t see straight.
“Ladyface, take that gun from Mickey.”
Mickey was all too happy to shove it in my hand then push my wobbly body toward Cole.
“I’m gonna talk you through this.” His voice was trying to stay smooth and soothing but he couldn’t quite manage anymore.
I burst with one loud long rough sob before containing myself the tiniest bit.
“Both hands on it, okay?”
I didn’t budge unless the wild tremors racking my body counted.
“Come closer.”
That I could manage, so I stepped up to him. He lifted his bound hands to mine, blood tinged the skin beneath the cuffs marring the beautiful artwork up and down his forearms. The metal of his restraints clinked as he used what little mobility he had to wrap my hands around the gun. He continued to cradle them as he lifted the gun to point directly between his eyes.
His gorgeous green eyes that spoke poetry to my insides and forever would.
“Cole, no!” Horse howled. “Elle, please!” he begged but he also didn’t move to stop me.
My head snapped toward Horse but all too quickly Cole was gently shaking my hands.
“Hey, there.” He looked up at me and despite everything managed a smile. His dimple had disappeared and it felt like a hole in my heart.
“Cole, please,” I cried then let the most painful, ragged sobs shake my body.
“Conrad made me promise to tell you myself,” he started then tears interrupted him.
I couldn’t help but fall to my knees in front of him. He held my hands fast to his forehead.
“Cole,” I moaned.
“Ladyface, I love you. I love you so fucking much you split my heart in two. One half you take with you. Everywhere. And the other half just hangs around beating for you.”
I hung my head, bawling, shoulders shaking as my fingers went numb where they wrapped around the gun.
“That’ll never change,” he whispered. “And that’s why you have to do this.”
“I love you, too.” The words spewed out, a weird mixture of salvation and destruction. “That’s why I can’t.”
“Look at me.” I felt him bob and weave beneath the gun. I managed to lift my head enough to see him. “Let me die knowing that I did one thing right by the woman that meant everything to me. Please.” His words were becoming harder to make out. It wasn’t just the pain and the fear, or the fact that he was trying to be gentle with me even here, even now, it was that I was losing Cole. He was slipping away from me whether I liked it or not.
“Yes, please. I think I’d like to see this play out this way,” Mickey purred, once again too close to my ear.
Horse was wailing in the background like he’d been shot all over again. He was the external soundtrack to my internal turmoil.
Jimmy hadn’t been worth shit growing up but in the end, he lived and died for my
mom. My mom that was a loving mother after all. A mother that Cole had given back to me. My perfect, precious Cole that really was offering to die for me.
“How do you kill someone, Cole?” My voice trembled every bit as badly as I did.
“You pull the trigger,” he said softly. “And then you remind yourself you had no other choice.”
“How do I kill you, Cole?” My voice was even more broken, just like my insides.
“You pull the trigger.” He was still every bit as tender with me as he’d ever been. “And then you remind yourself that you did it to set us both free.”
My giant, violent sobs took over again and I crumpled further in front of him. Only my arms were outstretched where he held them to his forehead. The only part of my body that wasn’t going numb was the skin he still held. The only sound in my ears was Horse crying and the echo of the destruction of my soul.
I wanted to keep him. Forever. I wanted to go back and wear the white dress I’d worn the first day that I met him as I married him on the beach in some foreign country where Mickey and our pasts couldn’t touch us. I wanted to feel him pressed against me again, his hands around my throat and my life his to take.
My life that he would always cherish.
The way he was doing right now.
Setting me free the only way he had left.
I wanted to keep him.
He was my happily ever after.
“You are my everything, Ladylove.” His voice was so soft, so warm, so perfect. The new nickname was what I’d get tattooed on my skin to mark this day.
The day that I realized that I was the selfish monster as I sat up, gripped the gun with authority and lined up the sights just as Mickey had taught me then pulled the trigger.
Boom.
Fade to black.
