“Ugh,” I growled, finally managing to get the stupid cover off my head.
The first thing I noticed was the metal beams running across the high ceiling and Cobra being the one holding me down. Then, I turned my head and saw two bodies.
I recognized the habit immediately as one given by The Order, but I didn’t know the woman wearing it. Someone had slit her throat open in a ridiculously tidy fashion and done some damage to her mouth. She hung upside down from thick pieces of rope wrapped around her arms and legs. The dead man across from her looked like he’d received the worse end of the bargain.
Finally looking towards the end of the table, I was greeted with the sight of Romero holding the knife he had just stabbed through a man’s skull in one hand and a bottle of liquor in the other.
“Shit,” I gasped when his soulless eyes met mine and he began approaching me with purposely slow, even steps. I had pictured my death in a million different scenarios. Being gutted or cut up had never crossed my mind. I hoped this wasn’t karma catching up to me.
“Easy,” Cobra warned as I wriggled around, tightening his grip so I couldn’t go anywhere.
Without a word, Romero grabbed the hem of my ruined shirt and sliced it right up the middle, easily pulling it off. I was left in nothing but a dirty bra. I hissed when he tore the leftover pieces of fabric off me, detaching them from my skin.
Shit. Following his stare, now aimed at my stomach, I saw the puncture wound was surrounded by inflamed purple skin, and slowly leaking pus.
“This is gonna hurt,” he warned, flashing his eyes to mine.
“What’s going to hurt? What the hell do you think you’re––”
He didn’t let me finish before he leaned down and dumped liquor right onto the wound, using it as irrigation.
It. Was. Excruciating. Firewater was raining down on my flesh.
“Sonofabitch!” I sucked in a breath and swallowed a scream, unknowingly squeezing the circulation out of Cobra’s forearms.
I could hear the area sizzle and managed to catch a glimpse of blood, pus, and clear liquid running together. When he did it again, I planned his death in my head. The smell was horrible. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from me or the dead nun across the room.
“Take a sip,” he demanded, a little more gently, pressing the bottle to my lips.
I didn’t have to be told twice. I eagerly welcomed the burning sensation in my throat over the one on my torso.
He wordlessly pulled the bottle away after a few seconds and disappeared from view.
Leaning my head back, I swallowed, staring straight into Cobra’s smoky-grey eyes.
“I think he likes you.” He smirked down at me.
I attempted to furrow my brows to say, “Are you shitting me?”, but whatever I had just been made to swallow was starting to kick in.
Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t fast enough. When I looked down again, Romero was heating what looked like a large fishing hook with a lighter.
“Don’t even––” I began to protest, just as Cobra covered my mouth with the palm of his hand and dropped his elbows on my shoulders, essentially blocking my view with his upper body.
I felt Romero’s fingers near the wound a second before the pressure began. He pushed until the end of the hook popped through my skin, tugging something on the end of it and then pushing it through the other side.
I don’t know if it was from the pain of having a hook shoved through my flesh over and over again, the pills, or both. Either way, I closed my eyes to hide my tears and didn’t open them again.
CHAPTER NINE
Where the fuck did she come from?
Her screams were on a repeating soundtrack inside my head. I still had her blood on my hands. And when was the last time my dick was this hard?
I took another swig from the bottle and then passed it to Grimm. It was almost dawn, and none of us had slept. I couldn’t sleep because, well, I rarely slept, and because I couldn’t stop thinking about the potential problem I had placed in my bed.
It was a problem that had long blonde hair, skin as white as snow, and a cesspool of rage and pain that mirrored my own behind a pair of cornflower blue eyes.
She reminded me of an angel that had been stripped of its wings. It was a fitting description when I thought about the circumstances surrounding her, and I’d been doing that a fuck of a lot.
“You were right about her,” Grimm acknowledged. His neck was bent forward, and he was staring at the liquor bottle as if it held all the answers to his questions. A strand of his dark hair hung partially over his forehead.
“Where did she come from?” He looked at me for an answer he knew I would eventually have. I suspected this would be the most emotion he showed on the topic until he was ready to talk about it, which could be never, and that was more than fine by me.
The first time we saw Cali, we were ten, and she was five. She had been wearing a pink nightgown, and her hair was in two long pigtails. The kid was so fucking pale she looked like a ghost.
I didn’t know where she’d been for the past few years, but it made a lot of shit make sense now.
“So, are we keeping both of them?” Cobra asked, as if we were talking about a pair of puppies.
“Do we really want the loud one?” Grimm asked, referring to the brunette currently sleeping in the dog pen.
“She might be leverage.”
He grunted in response.
I already knew what I was going to do, but I never wanted them to feel like their opinions didn’t mean shit to me, so I always heard them out and then laid it all out for em. Rarely did they disagree.
“I think it could be good for a while. We could use a woman’s presence around here now Lena’s gone.” Cobra added.
Ah, Lena. The stupid bitch more than likely ran off having a temper tantrum and got herself killed.
We had yet to discuss what we were going to do about her death, but we would be doing something in due time.
Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and made sure I had their attention. “Until I know the who, what, when, and why, I’m keeping Cali close to me.”
Grimm shot me a skeptical look while Cobra’s expression turned smug. They knew what happened the last time I kept a woman close to me and it didn’t end well between us. They each played a role in her eventual downfall. That was years ago though, and I got what I wanted out of that situation. This was different.
I had selfish ulterior motives. I hadn’t been this intrigued in a very long fucking time—not by a woman who was supposed to be dead.
We had come across bitches before who would beg to be let in without actually knowing what it was they were asking for, swearing they were like us at heart, but it was all bullshit. After they were used a few times, they eventually buckled and had to be killed. It was pure entertainment, watching them all try to be something they weren’t.
I never made it easy for anyone to get in; I never accepted anyone at face value. I had too much shit at stake to ever be stupid and careless. Too many people relied on me.
This girl, though? She was different, so fucking different to what I had imagined. When she looked up at me and smiled, I saw insanity dancing behind hypnotic blue irises. It was the kind that made people scared shitless. I saw her look the devil in the eyes and accept what everyone else feared.
The immediate pull between us almost felt magnetic. It sure as shit wasn’t love, but definitely lust, and maybe something else. I couldn’t fully wrap my head around it and I honestly wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“Cali lived with The Order for nineteen years. She knows something that can help us.” Cobra spoke up first, handing the bottle back to me.
“Yeah…well, The Order also said she was dead. We don’t know what happened in the last however many years. They could have sent her themselves,” Grimm pointed out. Bitterness we were all familiar with laced his tone.
The fucking Order was a major pain in my ass. I had so much shit th
at needed to be handled and David was fifty percent of it. We all had our reasons for wanting to find the motherfucker, and we were close, so damn close.
“We can use this to our advantage. Just let me think for a minute.” Because all I had was a minute. We were running out of time, the clock was ticking faster each day, and this was something I hadn’t prepared to handle.
I meticulously planned my shit. I knew exactly when every bump, twist, and turn was coming my way, but I never saw this one.
I didn’t know a dove was going to land amongst the crows, and while her white feathers represented purity, her jet black heart gave life to a beautifully insidious soul.
He was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. For a few seconds, I thought I was having one of my rare good dreams again. He was facing away from me, getting a shirt from a dresser. His body was…incredible.
The patterned ink and his well-defined physique made him look like a living, breathing piece of art.
His hair was perfectly styled, undercut and combed back on the top with tattoos running around the trim line. I was still appraising him when he turned around, giving me a quick view of his solid abs that were also covered with tattoos, one being of a nearly obscured Sabbatic goat head, accompanied by a quote that read Flesh Of Blood Of Bone.
His fitted black T fell into place and slowly brought things back into perspective. I tried to swallow and nearly choked on dry air. My mouth felt like it had been stuffed with a handful of cotton-balls. In the midst of my coughing episode, my bladder made sure to let me know it was seconds away from busting wide open.
“Bathroom?” he asked, plucking the thought right from my head.
I looked at him and nodded.
“It’s through there. Do your thing and clean yourself up. There’s shit in the box.”
He pointed to a semi-open door to my left before heading out of the room, barely paying me any attention. I heard the telling sound of a lock clicking into place and then his boots carrying him away.
Shoving the comforter away with my legs, I slowly sat up and looked down to see I was wearing an oversized black t-shirt, much like the one Romero had just put on. My bra was still on—not that I would have cared if it wasn’t; Daddy dearest made sure I was comfortable being naked around strangers. I just wondered who’d taken the liberty of starting to scrub the dirt from my body.
Scurrying off the (surprisingly comfortable) bed as quick as I could, I tested the waters with how I felt pain-wise, relieved that though I was sore, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been.
I still took my time walking to the bathroom, glancing around the room as I went.
There was no real character to it. The gray walls were bare and the bed linens were all black, as were the few scarce pieces of furniture. The bathroom was just as dull with the same cold, sterile feel to it. Nothing about either room gave away anything about the man they belonged to, except the smell.
It was his smell. I’d inhaled it the second he stopped me from falling on my face—twice. It wasn’t synthetic, but all natural. It was exotic, a little indulging, and after sleeping in his bed, intoxicating.
My bare feet carried me across a cool slate floor. I plopped down on a steel seat and shut my eyes. Warm sunlight filtered down on my face from an oval window above the toilet.
“Shit, I got in.” My eyes popped open as if I were just now coming awake. I did my business and then rushed over to the sink. The flare-up in my side barely registered.
I was too focused on the fact that I had gotten inside whatever the hell this place was.
My excitement slightly waned as I reminded myself that getting inside was supposed to be the easy part. Nothing about what I just went through was a cakewalk. The hidden obstacles before me were slowly but surely making themselves visible.
I studied my reflection in the mirror above the sink, frowning at the woman staring back at me. My blonde locks were a tangled, bed-headed mess, and I had a few colorful bruises from my recent escapade that harshly stood out against my skin. I didn’t like this mirror very much. There weren’t any cracks in it.
Skimming my fingers along the hem of the t-shirt, I lifted it up and examined my puncture wound. Romero had done a surprisingly good job of stitching me up. Bits of crusted blood and scab still clung to me, but that was to be expected. The area was still tender to the touch, on top of being an ugly reddish color.
Letting the t-shirt fall back into place just above my knees, I turned the faucet on and finally peered inside the cardboard box on the counter. It contained various sizes of men and women’s clothes, and a few pairs of shoes. Unless Romero and his buddies were gathering clothing up for a rainy day, I could only assume it all belonged to some poor, dead, unfortunate souls.
I pulled out a long-sleeved plaid shirt that was about two sizes too big and set it to the side. After a few more seconds of digging, I had a pair of black boots and someone’s lacy bralet. I held the peach number up and shrugged. It would be a little snug on the girls but it looked clean and it wasn’t like the original owner could object.
After pulling Romero’s shirt off, I quickly washed my face the best I could with the corner of a balled-up bandana, sparing a few seconds to drink from the tap.
The end result was far from perfect, but I wasn’t trying to win any beauty competitions.
Tiptoeing toward the door, I tried to see if I could hear anything. Only the silence remained. With every second counting and a clock ticking, I tried to get my thoughts back in order.
David would not be in the same spot for long. If Romero knew where he was, he would have to make some kind of move soon. That is, if they weren’t working together. This had the potential to get all kinds of messy. I took a good look around and asked myself the game changing question: What the fuck now?
Heading back towards the toilet, I shut the lid and used it as a stepping-stone to the upper tank. Gripping the barely-existent window rim, I stood on my tiptoes and stretched up as far as my side allowed me, squinting from the sunlight. “What the hell?”
Narrowing my eyes, stretching a tad bit more, I tried to pinpoint where I was, but all I could see was wasteland.
Looking as far left as I could, slightly leaning in the process, I saw little black specs floating in the air above a circular pit full of visible corpses.
To the right was nothing but a view of the building I was in: some kind of refurbished warehouse. Old boxcars were stacked on top of one another and served as a fence that connected to a large pair of chain-link gates. They were secured together by what I was guessing was a manual lock. Clearly, they had two objectives: keep people out, and keep people in.
So much for running if things went south.
Dammit.
“Tryna find an escape route?”
Yes. “No, I’m trying to figure out where the hell I am.” Not letting on to the fact that he had just caught me completely off guard and that my side now hurt like a sonofabitch, I slowly lowered my booted heels and climbed off the toilet.
I turned around and crossed my arms, openly perusing him from head to toe. He was enigmatic and sinewy, leaning against the door jam with an unreadable expression on his pretty face.
The skull ring on his index finger looked familiar but I couldn’t place it. When my eyes drifted back up to his face, there was a cocky little smirk waiting for me.
“I’ve found many women outside those gates before, and none of them have been anything like you.”
“You didn’t find me, I found you, and I’d appreciate it if you let me leave now.” I tossed out a partial lie, readying my arsenal of false pretenses.
“Leave? Why would you want to leave when you just got here?” He pushed away from the door and took two steps towards me. “Do you think I saved you out of the kindness of my heart?” His voice turned serious. If possible, his eyes got a little darker.
It didn’t take me long to conclude that it was best to tread carefully with this man, but where was the fun in t
hat?
It also didn’t take me long to conclude that I’d made the right decision earlier. Tito and Grady’s plan was shit. I could not pretend to be weak or helpless in front of these people; they would eat me alive. Yet being too headstrong, being myself, could get me killed. It was a crossroad I really didn’t want to be at, so I chose the most logical path to take.
“Didn’t we already go over this? I never needed your help. You didn’t have to save me.” Boldly mimicking his actions, I took two steps forward.
“See, that thing you just did has me wondering if you were really lost in the first place.” His eyes traveled up and down me in a way that had goose flesh spreading across my skin.
“You think I purposely went off into the woods so I could meet a cannibal?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. Why don’t we find out?”
He stepped forward, bringing us chest to chest, forcing me to tilt my head back so I could look up at him. In one swift motion, he had his thumb over my trachea, gently applying pressure.
“What were you doing in the woods?”
“You saw what I was doing.”
“Come on now, Cali, I know you’re smarter than this.” He shook his head and tsked at me.
Once again, I had to keep my face impassive. How did he know my name? He leaned in so close I could smell traces of menthol on his breath. His proximity had my discomfort levels off the charts for reasons I wasn’t accustomed to.
I wrapped a hand around his wrist and placed the other against his firm chest, keeping my eyes locked with his, letting him know I wasn’t intimidated.
“Is this making you feel better about yourself? Interrogating a helpless woman?”
“Now, we both know you’re far from helpless. But yes, it is kind of making my dick hard.”
I coughed to cover the laugh that almost slipped out. His raised brows told me he heard it anyway. Thankfully, he didn’t comment on it.
“I’m still waiting on an answer, Cali.” He said my name like it was something decadent.
He began to run his thumb up and down my throat. The feel of his skin against mine gave me a feeling I couldn’t describe. His touch didn’t make my heart race with anxiety, my limbs didn’t shake from nervous energy, and my knees didn’t grow so weak that I fell at his feet. His touch made me feel unexplainably calm and warm at the same time, like at any second my skin would burst into flame, but it was okay as long as his hand stayed wrapped around my throat.
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