by G N Wright
“Oh, come on --” I pause for dramatic effect, enjoying myself here for the first time since Marcus left, “Sorry what's your name?”
“Really, whore? Almost two months here and you don't know my name. What’s the matter? Do you only get wet for Rebel cock?”
I smirk and he looks confused, “Oh, I know more than your name Chad McCormick, son of Barbara and Colin McCormick and that's the problem.”
“Yeah, well the only problem you should be concerned with, is that you can't keep your legs closed!” He snaps back and the only people that laugh, are the four guys stupid enough to stand with him. Everyone else is dead silent. They sense it, feel it.
“Yeah, and you can't keep your dick clean,” I reply smoothly, pulling out my phone and sending a mass text to everyone here, “Chlamydia three times really is impressive, I wasn’t aware Hallows High had any over achievers.”
The dings of everyone’s phone spurs him into action, “You fucking little cunt,” he goes to lunge towards me when I pull the knife from my thigh, giving zero fucks about anyone seeing. He falters immediately and I smile, a sinister smile channelling my inner Ash. Men always go for women when they think they are weak.
I slide my finger along the edge of my blade, “Just because Marcus isn’t here, doesn’t mean we will allow for any misdemeanours,” I say calmly before throwing my gaze at everyone still watching. I look back to Jace and Lincoln and nod and it sets them both into motion in perfect synchronization. They take out two of the five before anyone has even realized they moved. Then move onto the other two, leaving their pathetic little leader for me.
I put my knife away and he smiles like he thinks he can take me without it. Stupid fuck. He hasn’t seen me pull a Jace and slip my black jewelled duster onto my fist. I prowl towards him and when he reaches to grab me, I dodge it effortlessly before throwing my fist into his face. I hear a crack so loud that I’m sure I’m not the only one who heard it. When he falls to the ground, I relish in the fact that I chose heeled boots to finish my outfit today and slam my heel right into his dick and he screams out in pain. I bend down and grip him by the hair and whisper loudly into his ear.
“Don’t fuck with the Rebels, we bite.”
I realize what I am doing, I am cementing myself as part of them. They had already taken me in but I tried to push them away. I am starting to see that they might need me like I need them. But this isn’t about me, it's about Marcus. He has built a life for himself here, not the life he deserves, but a life that will get him what he wants, and I won’t let anyone take that from him. If that means stepping into his crew and becoming one of them, then so be it. I doubt any of this high school bullshit will affect my personal plans for revenge, so it's not an issue.
“Your King may be gone, but your court is not, now everyone fuck off to class.” I have barely finished the sentence before everyone begins to scatter. Once the hallways empty, I turn and head towards the main entrance, I need some fresh air and I feel the Rebels behind me like I always do when I exit the school.
I keep walking, not stopping until I reach my sanctuary on the bleachers. It’s barely a minute before Lincoln and Jace drop down beside me. We sit in silence until Jace breaks it with the playful tone I have missed hearing from him directed at me.
“Do I need to start calling you Queenie now, princess?” he asks, and I scoff.
The two of them burst out laughing when I respond, “Fuck off.”
When they stop, he turns to me again, “You didn’t have to do that, princess.”
I shrug, “It was no big deal--” I start but he cuts me off.
“It was a huge deal,” he begins, looking at Lincoln and then back to me, “every person we encounter comes to us for a reason and that reason is never pure, it’s always bullshit. Trying to wet our dicks, smoke our stuff or just use us for some shit they can’t do themselves,” he says as he pulls out a joint and lights it, breathing in deeply before blowing back out. “No one has ever done anything for us just to help us,” he adds.
I scrunch my face up in confusion as ever since I got here, all I have heard from everyone is how important the Rebels are around here. I suppose I never stopped to think that even with a band of followers, you could be lonely. Yeah, they have their loyal crew members, but that’s when I realize that's all they are, just workers. They aren’t friends with anyone but each other.
“That’s sad,” I finally reply and they both just shrug.
“We make it work,” Lincoln adds solemnly, slipping his glasses on and tapping away into his iPad, no doubt just arranging ways to make the disloyal pay.
“Well, Marcus is gonna come back to his Kingdom intact and a Queen for his side,” Jace laughs but the mention of Marcus pushes me back to reality.
“You mean if he comes back,” I respond quietly looking out into the distance of the hills.
“Yeah if,” he replies sadly.
Chapter 5
ELLE
After the exciting events of today, a stake out with Lincoln feels pretty chill. I have gotten very used to our evenings spent in his SUV, spying on targets, and eating snacks. He likes to pretend he doesn’t enjoy the fact I constantly bring him snacks, but I see him eat them, when he thinks I’m not paying attention. I do it to try make him smile, I never see enough smiles from him and even though Cassie manages to draw a few from him, he always has a tension about him. That increases tenfold when he’s at the house, especially when Asher is around, I have yet to get to the bottom of it.
The intel Asher shared with him before me was about the docks again, except it gave us more than we knew last time. Elliot Donovan does ship girls there, but he only uses the docks to send girls to buyers or receive them, he stores them at another location. A location we just so happened to be looking at right now.
It’s a warehouse that looks disgustingly close to what I remember of where they kept me that awful night, but on a much smaller scale. I know exactly where they kept me when they took me, I know the way, the layout down to every last square inch of the place but it’s too well guarded. There isn’t one loophole in the place that we have been able to find to give us an in. Not like the place we’re at now. This place is just off the radar, but it’s clear from the lack of security that he doesn’t care about this place as much as his main place. “Seems quiet,” Lincoln breaks the silence.
“Yeah,” is all I reply. We’ve been sitting here two hours, and no one has come or gone. “Let's go in,” I add.
Before Lincoln can even respond a dark voice hits my ear, “Don’t even fucking think about it, baby girl,” Asher says into my earpiece and I roll my eyes.
“Ash, it’s a fucking ghost town out here, we need to get in there and see if there is anything we can use.”
“Have you lost your fucking mind? I am not going to willingly let you walk back into a den of fucking demons to be taken again, have you forgotten my father put a fucking bounty on your head?” he snaps at me.
“Donovan's right, we don’t know what’s in there," Lincoln adds coolly, although it looks like it pains him to agree with him. Fucking traitor.
“You're supposed to be on my side, remember, dickhead?” I respond.
“No, I am on the side that keeps you safe.”
I huff and roll my eyes, “Well, considering Ash isn’t here to stop me, and Zack pays you to keep me safe, I am going in whether you like it or not. You can either wait here or come with me,” I don’t wait for a response before I jump out of the SUV and start to make my way towards the warehouse. I hear both his and Asher’s curses in my earpiece, followed by his door opening and closing quietly behind me.
I am being a bitch, but I don’t care. I want to move forward with my revenge plans now more than ever. The quicker I am done with Donovan and his sick band of merry perverts, the quicker I can take Cassie and run from this town again, and this time never look back.
I draw the gun from my waist and don’t have to try too hard to stay hidden when it’s pract
ically pitch black out. I wait until I get close, then I use a tree for cover while I wait for Lincoln. Once he reaches me, I nod towards the cameras on the outer warehouse and he nods in acknowledgement and pulls out his phone to run interference. I thank the gods every day for his and Zack’s technical abilities. I mean I have learned a lot myself but having someone to take care of it for me is amazing.
“What's the plan here, King?” Linc whispers into the cool night air.
I look around checking again we are alone before answering, “The plan is to see what's in there and then I don’t know,” I shrug.
Lincoln does his own sweep of the property with his eyes before looking back at me, “Wanna blow it up?” he asks, and I smile at him. I knew there was a reason I kept him around.
“Don’t fucking encourage her, Blackwell,” Asher spits into our ears and Lincoln smiles at his tone, it makes me wonder something that I don’t have time to think about right now.
Lincoln ignores him and pulls out his phone and taps away quickly before putting it away and I look at him in question, but he doesn’t elaborate apart from saying, “Let’s go.”
I calm my breathing and take one last look at my surroundings before nodding at Linc and moving towards the warehouse.
Once I reach the entrance, I glance back at Linc and he signals that he is going to check around back, which is a good idea. Although it seems like no one is here, we don’t want to be caught off guard. I open the door quietly and peek my head round and am greeted with a very poorly lit hallway. I slip inside and close the door behind me. I hold my gun tight by my side and stick close to the wall, as I move deeper into the hallway. I come to the first door and take a deep breath readying myself as I open it and step inside. Thankfully, it's empty but that doesn’t make me feel any better, it’s practically a mirror image of the room I was kept in. There is a dirty old mattress on the floor stained with blood and lord knows what else and a bucket in the corner. I take a deep breath and ignore the hundreds of images that are trying to force themselves into my brain. This is exactly the type of situation Zack prepared me for.
I leave the room as quietly as I entered and check four more, finding them the same but also empty. As I move towards a fifth, I hear a commotion further into the back of this place and know immediately that Lincoln has encountered someone. I rush to find him when I hear footsteps close by. Asher obviously hears the struggle and starts shouting down my earpiece, but I zone him out. I can’t respond without giving away my position to whomever is almost upon me. So, I ignore him and push myself into the shadows as the guy enters the hallway, I see him pull out a cell phone and know it’s now or never. I have to take him out before he calls for backup.
He doesn’t even sense me until the last second, as he goes to pass me, he is so close he must have felt my breath but it’s too late. When he turns towards me, I have already pulled the knife from my waist, forgoing my gun, in favor of a quiet kill. I quickly slice right across his neck, even with all the training I’ve had, I'm impressed. It's clean cut and perfectly deadly, forcing the life out of him in only seconds. He never stood a chance; the only downside is the blood spurt that has just sprayed all over me. I don’t need a mirror to know I look like fucking Carrie right now. I catch his body as best I can even though he’s heavy as fuck and slowly lower him to the floor. My only friend is stealth right now.
Asher's voice is still blaring in my ear when I quickly respond our prearranged safe word for everything's fine, “Donuts,” I whisper into my wire and it calms him straight away as he mutters, “Fucking donuts,” back to me and I smile. He was the one who insisted on having code words for situations like this, he wasn’t impressed when I insisted on coming up with them. ‘Donuts’ for everything's cool and ‘Crab Sticks’ for a cry for help. It still amuses me now as I get to use one.
I move further into the building when footsteps start coming towards me, I pause before the corner and ready myself for another attack. As the figure rounds the corner, I dart my knife out but my arm is quickly slammed backwards to the wall.
“Fucking hell, King!” Lincoln shouts, before taking in my appearance, then he quickly looks over my shoulder at the dead body behind me before looking back to me, “You okay?”
“Didn’t you hear her say fucking Donuts?” Asher snaps into our ear and we both laugh at him drawing more curses from him. I notice a little blood on Lincoln's cheek, it's nothing in comparison to me but it looks weird on his usual perfect appearance.
“You okay?” I return his question.
“Four threats neutralized,” he responds like it's nothing to kill a man, let alone four. His eyes are a darker shade of green than I am used too, and I can practically see the tension rolling off of him.
I just nod before he continues, “We don’t have much time before someone else might check in, so we need to be quick,” he says quietly. “You check the rest of this hallway and I’ll check the remaining rooms at the back,” I nod more in response.
“Five minutes King,” he adds before taking off into the darkness. I search the remaining rooms but find nothing but more fucking sex slave rooms. It fucking sickens me, how many there are, how many girls will have been here. I take that sickness and pour it into my vengeance. I will make every single one of these sick fucks regret the day they ever took a girl against their will.
As I make my way back towards the front entrance, Lincoln appears carrying a black duffel bag that definitely isn’t ours. I don’t bother asking questions now, we need to get out of here. We exit and make our way back into the trees when a whistle close by draws our attention, causing me to draw my gun in quick succession, only to be greeted by the last face I expected here.
“Pretty boy? What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask, taking a deep breath and trying not to think about the fact I almost just shot him in his pretty fucking face. I look to Lincoln and even in the dark I can tell by his face that this is his doing. Fuck’s sake, what the hell is he playing at?
Asher’s voice curses in my ear for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, I ignore him again. I swing my gaze back to Jace as he replies, “I came to blow shit up,” he says holding up the two bags in his hands and I realize Linc called in him for this.
I turn back to Linc, “Really you brought him into this to blow shit up?” I say in annoyance.
Linc just shrugs, “Rebels have each other's back, you're one of us now, it was time.” Ash fails to stay silent at that and mutters “Oh great, she’s a Rebel now too, just fucking perfect,” but Linc ignores him and continues to say, “You’re part of the family and this is Jace territory, he's our pyro specialist,” he says like it's nothing.
“Pyro maniac more like,” I mutter under my breath thinking about how he blew up my jeep on the first day of school before raising my voice, “Fucking fine just be quick about it,” I snap.
“Damn, princess, didn’t think you could get any hotter than that throw down today, but this bad ass, covered in blood, psycho killer look is really working for me,” he says with a wink.
“I’m not afraid to add your blood to the mix, Jace Conrad,” I snap back in exasperation, but he just laughs offering us a mock salute, before disappearing into the night. Linc and I make our way back to his SUV and I cringe thinking about getting in there covered in this much blood. He must sense my thoughts because he leads me to the back of the car and pops his trunk. A little light inside illuminates us slightly better and he rifles through a bag pulling out some clothes.
He hands me a black shirt, “Wipe your face with this and then strip,'' he says casually.
“Strip?” I croak out as Jace reappears.
"What the fuck does he mean strip?" Ash roars into my ear and I cringe.
"Relax, Donovan, I'd much rather see you naked than King. She's covered in blood and I need to dispose of her clothes," Lincoln answers him smoothly.
"In your fucking dreams, Lincoln."
Linc is saved from answering when Jace cuts in, “Ooo
h, perfect timing,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows at me.
“Fuck off,” I respond but still feel myself pausing. I look at the two of them and then feel stupid. Lincoln is gay, and as much as Jace jokes, I know he doesn’t actually look at me in that way, he is too loyal to Marcus for that.
I slip off my boots and my pants, followed by my shirt until I am standing in nothing but a black sports bra and black panties. I feel both their eyes on me, but I know, it's for one reason and one reason only, they can see my scars. The couple on my legs are artfully disguised by the dream catcher tattoo across my thigh, you wouldn’t notice them unless you knew they were there. The ones on my stomach are a different story. Some are minor, they look like they are a faded scratch, but there are two prominent ones that are red and jagged. It’s clear to anyone that sees them what they are and where they came from. Neither of them say anything as Lincoln passes me some sweats and a hoodie and I slip them on. As soon as I am covered, I feel less vulnerable, having my body on show doesn’t make me feel vulnerable but people seeing my scars does.
Lincoln takes my clothes and places them in a trash bag, I know I can trust him to dispose of them properly. We all climb into Linc’s SUV and still nobody says anything, if only it could have stayed that way.
“Was it Elliot or Greg?” Jace asks suddenly and I almost choke on my own breath.
“I’m sorry, what?” I stutter, the panic causes my voice to come out squeaky and high pitched.
I hear Asher mutter something in my ear, but I can barely concentrate on whatever he just said. My heart is beating too loud.
“The scars, Elle. Was it Elliot or Greg? Which one of them is Cassie's father? I’m guessing Greg,” he says with no emotion, staring out from the back seat at the warehouse in the distance. I look to Linc in a panic, but he is just staring at Jace like he doesn’t even know him, and I know he hasn’t told him anything.
