Light (Beautiful Ashes #3)

by Lora Ann

  “Of course,” Lexi answered.

  Zak chimed in with, “No one here is into children. Just not our thing.”

  Thanking God for that minute little miracle. Still the scene was disturbing until she really studied those faces. Some were terrified, tears streaking down their cheeks, but others, she observed with a keen eye, were excited. She queried again, “Where did you find them?”

  “All whores, I assure you,” Zak answered in an arrogant tone that made Alex’s fist tighten.

  “How would you know that?” His tone was bland belying his fury inside.

  “Because we pulled them from the streets where they sold their bodies for a high,” he replied a bit perturbed with all the questions.

  Sofie read it in his expression and body language. “Makes sense. No need to force an innocent when you can use a more experienced person.”

  Lexi giggled. “You’re so cute. Some are very innocent. Found offering themselves for the first time. They are preferred and our biggest money makers.”

  Alex fought back his wrath. His daughter almost ended up in this very situation. “So how many are virgins?” He asked, as a buyer would, with a hungry lilt to his words. No need for them to know the hunger came from the need to rescue, and he was setting his sights on one particular girl who looked like a deer caught in a hunter’s snare. His father’s instincts rising up. He wanted to save them all, but if he only managed to free one, she was it.

  “Only her,” Zak pointed to the very girl Alex singled out.

  Sofie was reading his thoughts. “Oh honey, she’s ours. Just look at her,” she said admiringly. Inside her heart was threatening to beat right out of her chest. The woman child looked just like Lilly, and she fought to keep her emotions at bay.

  “Yes, my dear,” he concurred, seeing what his wife saw—the face of her beloved stepdaughter, an honest to goodness doppelganger.

  Zak guffawed. “Damn, hope your pockets are deep. Everyone in this room wants her cherry.” He winked. “Including me.”

  Lexi left the conversation and took her place on the stage. One by one each prisoner was disrobed and paraded under the spotlight. She would poke and pull various body parts, arousing most. Alex and Sofie tried their damnedest to swallow back the rage and bile rising up until it burned the lining of their throats. Saving the most coveted one for last, Lexi made sure to handle the virgin like fine glass. “Let the bidding begin,” she announced.

  *****

  Unaware of how long she’d been lying there in her own blood, Viv attempted to stand only to slip and fall in a pool of crimson. Her trained eye taking in her body with an eerie detachment. She was sealing the vault on her emotions. Not any different than the other girls you’ve put back together, she reminded herself. A particular face and name surfaced—Keeley.

  She examined the gaping wounds and hanging skin where the piercings once were such a short time ago, remembering how Caleb had done most of Keeley’s piercings in the same barbaric way. Only he’d left hers intact. Viv was not so lucky. Unbidden, the tears began to stream, matching her blood flow. She’d lost too much of her life source. Weak, and in unbearable pain, she continued to take inventory. There would be more plastic surgery if she survived. And her mind, at that moment, chose to recall the brutality that took place as he raped her. Wasn’t her first time to be violated, but that didn’t make it any easier. Instead, she lay there as her memory let her revisit them all.

  “Carla!” he shook her, careful where he touched. Dear God in heaven, what did these monsters do to her. Though evidence of their depravity was all over her damaged body. Her eyes rolled to his with a distorted, “Help me,” barely audible. His gaze going to her mouth where her swollen tongue was visible. She didn’t have to talk for him to figure out someone wanted her silent. The fact she still had a tongue told him it was a warning. He shook his head as vengeance began to churn inside. For her. For him. For anyone else these less than human sickos had done this to.

  He grabbed a sheet, putting a barrier between them, to ease her mind. “I’m going to lift you.” Her hands came up to protect herself. “Carla, I only want to help you.” She nodded and held the sheet in place, screaming when he picked her up. “I know it hurts. I’m so sorry.”

  Chase took extra care in laying her down on the exam table, but she tried to fight. He glanced around to realize this was where she had been tortured. And if his gut was right, raped. He locked his gaze to hers. “Is there another room?”

  She nodded around the terror scurrying across her skin.

  Another scream escaped as he carried her to a different room, one he recognized from when she patched him back together. “I’m going to need your help on how to do stitches, okay?”

  She attempted to reach her left hand to the bend of her right arm, but it wasn’t cooperating. After several tries, she finally managed, “Need blood,” hoping he understood.

  He turned to a refrigerator and began to riffle through it. “What’s your blood type?”

  A muffled, “A positive,” came from the bed.

  Next, he found everything he thought he’d need to get the job done and brought it to her so she could approve. She was getting weaker, barely able to nod her head. “Stay with me.” He booted the computer that sat over on the counter and pulled up the information necessary to give her a transfusion. Thank God for the internet. Not wanting to freak her out but knowing he had to start cleaning and inspecting the damage, he spoke softly, “I’m going to move the sheet so I can help you.”

  Her eyes darted down her body then back to his. “Okay.” He smiled with a light touch to the back of her hand. She flipped it over to squeeze his fingers. “Trust you,” she garbled.

  Donning gloves, and with gentle fingers, he pulled her lips wider to see the damage done to her mouth. The tears were pooling around where he was looking. He removed his fingers and swiped a tender thumb across her cheek. “I have to stitch your tongue, but I think it’s best I do that last, don’t you?”

  She closed her eyes then opened them.

  “I’m a quick learner and I have my cheat sheet.” His chin inclined toward the computer. She held his hand to her face, grateful for his kindness. “All right, let’s see where I should begin.”

  Keeping one breast covered he studied the damaged nipple, noting she’d need reconstructive surgery. With precision he didn’t know he had, he began to sew her wounds. By the time he made it down to her vaginal area, he began to wonder if she’d ever know pleasure again. Whoever did this wanted to ruin her. His own memory providing the information about how the same had been done to him, and it was this woman who taught him he could still perform as a man. Gratitude filled him again for the gift she’d given him.

  Last but not least he did his best to repair her tongue. The pain meds held and two pints of blood were now pumping through her, Chase cleaned up and took a seat beside her. He was exhausted, but it was the good kind one got from helping another. Now that he was done playing doctor, he would step into the role of nurse. After all, she’d done it for him not that long ago.

  *****

  Cole recognized the handsome man. He was the doctor his mom left with while his uncle was in surgery. His gaze was hard as he told him as much. “You took mommy while Uncle Tar was fighting.”

  Dr. Barnes didn’t deny the charge. “I am a friend of your mom’s, yes. And I would like to help you.”

  The child’s glare turned to steel. “You wanna lock me away, too. Give me the fuzzy medicine.”

  The doctor leveled a pointed look at Jim. “What medicine?”

  Shit! There was no sense in denying it. “Mrs. McNeil needed some answers.”

  “What kind of answers?”

  Cole huffed, “She did a bad thing.”

  Both men took a seat on either side of the boy. “Go ahead, Cole. You can tell us,” Dr. Barnes urged.

  “No.” His head shook and his voice warbled.

  Jim looked toward the door where the child’s eyes were
glued in absolute terror. “There’s no one there, Cole.” His gaze moving to the doctor’s with a silent, see there, the kid is crazy.

  “What does he look like?” Dr. Barnes leaned in.

  He snatched the collar of his shirt and pulled him close, his pants puffing out in the doctor’s face. “Sh-sh-shadow m-m-m-man,” Cole stuttered.

  Nothing was visible. Yet the room had dropped a good five degrees. “Do you feel that?” His gaze latching on to the male nurse’s.

  “It got cold all of a sudden,” he replied.

  “Cole, here, isn’t crazy. He can see what our adult eyes cannot.”

  “Oh, you mean like the supernatural?”

  Dr. Barnes’ attention once more on Cole. “What does he want?”

  His little head shook violently as his body was wracked with tremors.

  “Stop!” Dr. Barnes stood swiftly forming a shield with his body over the child’s.

  Jim was at a loss but stood as well, searching for whatever was threatening the kid. “Leave the boy alone,” he said with a firmness he did not feel.

  The fallen one laughed. “As if a human could stop me,” he taunted.

  “Lars, back off.”

  “Ah, Kian, just the one I was sent to summon.”

  “I’d tell you to go to hell, but…”

  “You’re on the wrong side. That sharp wit and tongue has caused your demotion on more than one occasion.”

  Kian shrugged. “Discipline is never easy when it’s being given. But it is always done with my best interest in mind.”

  “Blah, blah, love and shit.”

  Cole’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Kian addressed him, “You may tell the doctor what you know about your mom, Cole. She needs help.”

  Lars hissed, “She’s mine. And I’ll make damn sure you can’t reach her.”

  “You’ve taken her?” Surprise filled Kian’s voice.

  The laughter now mocking. “Such a do-gooder. She’s been my pet for far too long.”

  But Kian didn’t believe the woman was unredeemable. The child in front of him held a piece of her heart, tiny as it was, her mother’s instincts were still in play. There was the leverage, love, he needed to work with. “What have you done with her, Lars?”

  “As if I’d ever tell,” he sneered before disappearing.

  Kian laid his hand on the boy’s small shoulder. “Be brave. Tell them the truth.” He was gone in the next blink of Cole’s eyes.

  “Did you see them?” he cried to the two men staring at him. One in rapt fascination, the other, in skepticism and dismay.

  “No, Cole. Did they say anything to you?”

  His gaze leveled on the doctor’s. “I’m ‘posed to tell the truth.”

  He patted the child’s hand. “It’s always best.”

  “Mommy hurt people,” he conveyed.

  Jim now leaned in for further information. “Who?”

  “Uncle Tar,” he gulped. “His head hit the table really loud.”

  Dr. Barnes filled in the blanks. “That’s why he needed my help.”

  “No, I mean the other time.” He swallowed hard, afraid what might happen to his mother.

  In his mind he heard, “Be brave.”

  Jim gasped, “There was more than one time?!”

  Cole nodded. “She…she…” sobs were making it difficult to finish his sentence, “put,” he hiccupped.

  Dr. Barnes encouraged, “Take your time, Cole.”

  He squeezed the doctor’s hand searching for strength. “There’s a shiny thing in his boo-boo.”

  They’d not put in any sort of implant. He studied the child’s gaze, noting he was remembering.

  Jim was horrified. “She put something in his head.”

  “Yes,” Cole cried.

  Dr. Barnes stood. “You did great, Cole. You’re safe here.” His attention now on Jim. “Please meet me in the hall.”

  He was still trying to put all the pieces together. How did a rich lady know anything about sutures, and why would she harm the man Cole called his uncle? Was that her husband? What the hell had he gotten himself into? No pussy was worth the ramifications that came from such an accusation.

  Dr. Barnes glared at him. “Tell me now if you knew what that bitch was doing?”

  He emphatically shook his head. “Hey, where the fuck you going?”

  “To make sure she leaves here in silver bracelets as a passenger in a cop car.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Perhaps Clark’s temper had gotten the best of him. The room looked like the proverbial bull in a china closet was turned loose. A computer lay in ruins along with the splintered desk. His rage was getting out of control. He ran his hands through his disheveled hair. She was still tied to that godawful chair, not moving. He might have finally gotten his wish—her death. There wasn’t remorse as he toed around her body. His only true regret, if she were in fact dead, he wasn’t the one who delivered it. Though the cameras had let him watch. Remnants from his temper tantrum crashed to the floor. He remembered the phone call that set him off. Her screams of terror. He’d left the room to let another do his dirty work. Matters that only he could deal with needed his attention. And when he returned, after watching the video feed, he lost it. The why still lost to him.

  *****

  Braxton sat back in his chair observing. Her head bobbed between his legs and he grunted on release. The reward was nice, but the little show they’d given Clark whet his appetite for more. His dark gaze collided with hers.

  Her hands were bound behind her and she knew a beast was about to come ravage her. The act they’d put on earlier awakening something deep inside her. A sadist wasn’t someone to be toyed with. This particular one was known for killing during his playtime. The very reason he might serve life in prison. Albeit this was where she had him by the balls, his freedom came with a cost. A business partner she’d never known physically until now. Their agreement was one of necessity while he ran slaves behind her husband’s back, under the guise of bringing the rings to justice. Perfect place to hide. Too many involved in the orgy like functions to ever tell. Her mouth opened wide as she waited for him to fuck it.

  Instead, he pushed her backwards and straddled her face. “Open again,” he demanded. Next, he shocked her by placing his ass over her mouth. “Fuck this, you worthless piece of shit.”

  He was suffocating her. She kicked with her heels on the backs of his thighs. Her legs flailing around. His long arm reached back as he rammed and punched inside her. She screamed, “STOP!”

  His answer was his full weight on her, grinding as he brought himself to orgasm. Her mouth full of his ass, her nose plugged by his balls, and his mocking laugh as he stole her life. Except, that was never his intention, and at the last second, his body left her.

  Lisa turned to her side coughing and gasping for air. She had no clue what he’d done to her sex, but it felt like he’d beat her black and blue on the inside. “Why?” she managed.

  “Because I can,” he announced, releasing her wrists. He tossed her clothes on her prone form. “Get dressed. You have a kid to check on.”

  *****

  Clark replayed that feed and there was his answer. The blur he’d missed before. Braxton and Lisa gave him the slip. So who was the woman on the floor? He knelt and pulled her head up, gasping for air. “My God!”

  His hands were frantically searching for a pulse, but he couldn’t find one. He gingerly picked her up as tears fell on her face. The race to save his wife began.

  *****

  Police were everywhere. Lisa sat as far against the door as possible from Braxton. He snarled, “You asked for it. You think what you want is pain and danger. Pfft…go back to your cushy life as a politician’s wife, love on your kid. Quit inviting the devil to sample your pussy.”

  She glared at him. “First off, you don’t know anything about me or my vagina! Second, how the hell do you expect me to get past all of that?” She threw her hand up toward the uniformed people surro
unding the building.

  His laugh was cruel. “Oh,” he chucked her chin, “but I do know your cunt, quite well.”

  She closed her eyes trying to find a way to control the emotions bubbling to the surface. He decided a hard fuck was necessary after beating her. Then there was that episode where he punched enough she knew there was evidence if they ran a rape kit. And that thought led to another, she could stop this bastard at least. But, did she want to? Fighting her repulsion, she straddled him in the driver’s seat. “Fuck me,” she growled.

  “Get the hell off me!” He shoved her hard. His fist made contact against her face several times. Her screams driving him further until he did as she requested, though this time she didn’t want it. After he finished, he opened the car door and shoved her out. “That should get you in without a problem.” He pulled away as if nothing had happened.

  Lisa didn’t know how long she lay on that curb. Her eyes were swollen shut, though the bright lights of the emergency room tried to penetrate them. She hated Braxton, yet could appreciate his ingenious idea. How could she crave a man she loathed? She couldn’t let herself ponder something so disturbing, they were admitting her, so she should thank him. Although as she drifted off to sleep, her thoughts were far from gratitude. Instead, they were filled with vengeance.

  *****

  The long cement corridor through the morgue was something out of a good horror movie. Her mind playing all kinds of tricks on her as she stayed close to the one guiding. Neither spoke for their own personal reasons. Shelby, because she knew staff was lurking around and had no desire to run into someone who might recognize her. While Keeley was convinced there were ghosts in these halls. She felt them. Evil was masked among them, and she felt its icy claws scratch along her legs as they carried her further into the bowels of the hospital. She hissed when Shelby stopped abruptly, causing a collision. “Damn it!”