Bad Boys of Jameson High
Her Champions
Book 3
Taylor Blaine
Her Champions
Blood. Sweat. And tears.
He demands all of it from me and then some. They all do.
I’ll do anything to keep them safe. Even if that means never going back. No matter how much it hurts.
I don’t need normal.
I don’t want hope.
I just want a chance to win.
Chapter 1
Gray
The walls squeezed in around me. My chest felt tight and my skin…
I lifted my chin, leaning my head back against the cement wall and staring at the ceiling. But nothing made sense. Nothing looked right.
Someone breathed hard, in and out like they couldn’t catch their breath. They were distracting me and being more of an annoyance than anything else. I dropped my gaze and looked from Sara to Gunner, back and forth, but they just stared at me. Their mouths were closed.
Whoever breathed like they were gasping, would definitely have their mouths open.
I reached up, covering my mouth with my hand. The sound lessened. It was me. I was breathing heavy. Dragging air through the cracks between my fingers, I let my eyes roll back again toward the ceiling.
Gasping didn’t help me lose the sensation of claustrophobia. Nothing did.
Why was it when I had given up hope of ever seeing my mom again, she suddenly makes contact? Why couldn’t it be happy circumstances like sitting in a restaurant and hugging things out? Instead…
Instead, I had to hear from her about Stryker and Brock – guys I wasn’t even sure I had a label for yet – and their pending doom or whatever she was trying to suggest.
Dragging in a ragged breath, I leaned over my knees, turning my head to rest my cheek on my knee. I couldn’t sob. I couldn’t do anything with the walls pushing to get at me, to squeeze me, to suffocate me.
I shook my head and crawled clumsily to my feet, shaky on legs that had been forced to run for my life just a scant hour or so ago.
“Gray, I…” Sara half-stepped forward as if to wrap her arm around me. Her large eyes studied me, watching as if I might bolt. She even lifted her arm and moved toward me.
I held up a hand in the universal sign of stop. Shaking my head, I whispered around my desperation. “Just a minute. Give me… a minute.” As much as I loved Sara, I couldn’t handle too much over-stimulation in that moment. I needed… just what I said. I needed a damn minute.
A bubble of panic and uncertainty worked its way up inside my chest. I had to break through it before I could think. I couldn’t do anything about my panic with the walls working on me right there in that bunker. The cement walls, the fluorescent lighting, the hard floor, and the beds where Stryker and I had almost…
The pressure was too much. I covered my mouth with my left hand and yanked on the handle of the door to break free from my prison. At first it wouldn’t open, only increasing my panic and shaking, but I finally got the door to do what I needed and pulled it open.
I stumbled in the conference room, hitting my shin on the leg of a chair and ricocheting my hip off the table. What else would be demanded of me? Everything already hurt. After being imprisoned and watching Stryker take a bullet, and then fighting for my life at Tiny’s, I wasn’t sure how much more I could survive.
The tunnel offered me an exit just beyond the conference room walls. Would it be enough to lessen the drag of my panic?
For a moment, I noticed absently that the air in the conference room wasn’t as musty as I’d expect. Was that a sign that someone else was in there with us? I didn’t care. I needed out and I needed out NOW.
Biting my lip, I pressed my hands out in front of me in case I fell again. I wouldn’t put it past me, to be honest. I wasn’t sure of anything at that point – least of all my graceful ability to stay upright.
“Gray, wait. We’ll come with you.” Gunner’s voice seemed to call to me from far off. “Grab that blanket. If she gets too cold, she might go into shock. She’s not completely recovered from this last week.”
What a delicate way to describe the hell I’d been through.
At least I could leave it behind me. I couldn’t ignore the fact that Stryker and Brock were being held against their will like I had been. I wouldn’t wish that kind of torture on anyone, least of all guys who had become so important to me.
Stryker… He’d been so gentle with me, careful when he’d found out I was a virgin. For such a rough and tumble guy, he’d touched me in ways I hadn’t wanted to come back from.
We couldn’t let him stay with whoever my mother was with, whether she worked with them or was a prisoner herself. Part of me shut down at the possibility that she wasn’t with these guys of her own volition, but it was more acceptable than the alternative.
If she’d become like them, it meant she hadn’t only abandoned me, she’d abandoned everything good.
Could I handle that? I wondered if her dying wouldn’t have been preferable. That left me guilt-ridden on top of everything else. Who thinks that their mother’s death is preferable to anything else?
As if sensing I was close to losing my sanity, Sara moved against me, wrapping her arm around my waist and pulling me to a stop just outside the conference room doors. She leaned her forehead against the side of my jaw and shook her head, moving my own. Sara cleared her throat, her voice raspy and raw. “What is going on? Gray, you have to let us help you. Talk to me.”
But how did I tell them what I needed when I could barely breathe? I swallowed against the lump in my throat and flung an arm around her shoulders. I pressed my lips by her ear and stared at Gunner past her hair. “My mother… she called me from Stryker’s phone. She… said I have to save all of them. All of them.” I ended on a sob, but my voice fell silent.
Gunner blinked, his lips falling open as he processed what I could barely put into words. “What does that mean? Save them? What does she expect you to do?” He folded his muscular arms across his chest in a move so similar to Stryker’s it broke my heart.
I stared at the dim wall sconce lighting the rough edges of the tunnel. I was just a kid. Yeah, I’d be eighteen next year and I’d always been more responsible for my age than others, but was this fair? Was any of this fair?
Clenching my teeth, I glanced at Sara and Gunner, half-shrugging as I blinked back my frustration. “I have no idea what she wants. That’s all she said before she hung up.” My own mother was the cause of my torment and pain – at least in that immediate moment.
Tightness held Gunner’s features expressionless but I could see in his eyes that he could lose it any minute. I needed to pull my shit together. I could do that. I could breathe enough for the both of us. I had to.
I nodded, inhaling deeply. The sensation of claustrophobia hadn’t lessened and I shrugged Sara’s arm off, unapologetically. She wouldn’t take it personally. It was all I could do to breathe normally right then. She understood. And if she didn’t, I wasn’t sure I cared.
Shaking my head, I turned toward the exit. I still couldn’t breathe. Waving my hand their direction, I pushed myself off the wall and strode on shaking legs to the end of the tunnel and the doors that would give me freedom to fresh air. Maybe that would help me with my first problem.
Pushing through the doors, I inhaled long and deep of air that smelled like damp pine needles, wet bark, and even wetter gravel. My lungs expanded and I closed my eyes.
The sound of gravel crunching and motors running m
ade me snap my eyes back open. Pulling up short, I exhaled on a whoosh. Two SUVs had parked around the sedan Sara had stolen from her uncle. Were they there because it was reported to the police? Were we close to going to jail?
Everything set me on edge and the sight of two black vehicles with limousine window tinting didn’t help anything. Maybe they were from the FBI and not the cops. Was it something to do with the fact that we’d crossed state lines or something?
Folding my arms, I started to back up, but a man climbed from the passenger door of the SUV closest to me. He adjusted the lapels of his suit jacket before lifting a hand to smooth the side of his slick backed hair.
Gunner and Sara rushed out of the doors behind me, their shoes crunching the gravel as they came to a stop on either side of me.
I lifted my chin. After all we’d been through, it wasn’t out of line for me to consider that I’d have to fight to save them, too. Everyone else in my life was in danger, why not them?
“Uncle Dominick? What are you doing here?” Gunner edged forward, pushing his shoulder in front of mine as if he could take the job of protecting them from me or maybe of protecting me from them.
Dominick. The man in front of me was Dominick? Instead of the fear I expected to shoot through me at his sudden arrival, I suddenly found myself struggling to hold myself back from attacking him with a screaming rage. I could kill him. It would be so easy after the things he’d done to me, after the pain he’d inflicted and told Blaze to deliver.
How much had he taken from me? He’d spoken about raping me like he’d discussed the outcome of a fight. Handing me over to other men like he planned on sharing a pot of coffee. The fear he’d flooded through me was something I would taste for a long, long time.
I clenched my teeth, pressing my lips together as I stared at him. From my peripheral vision I made note of other men climbing from the other doors of both SUVs. Only three more in all, but enough to give me pause. If they had weapons, we didn’t stand a chance. If, however, they expected this to be easy and they were cocky in their assumptions, I could take two of the men. Sara and Gunner would have to deal with the other two.
“Ah, Gunner. I don’t believe in trusting anyone but myself to do what I need done. Not anymore.” He tilted his head my way, his eyes narrowed. “I see the girl is still alive. Who else do you have hidden from me that I should know about?” Dominick arched an eyebrow I couldn’t help but wonder if he plucked. He rested a hand on his hip and narrowed his eyes as his gaze raked over me. There was the hunger in his face that I’d heard all last week in his voice.
I folded my arms, thrusting one hip to the side. He wouldn’t intimidate me and I wasn’t going to go easily this time. “What’s the matter, Dom? You scared to touch me like you did when I was tied up by Blaze?” My taunt wasn’t well-received as his nostrils flared and he dropped his hands to his sides. I wrinkled my nose and leaned my head forward just a bit. “I think you didn’t rape me before the fight because you can’t get it up.” Raising my hands like I didn’t care, I tucked my chin. “I’m not blaming you. I mean, I’m a lot to take in. That makes it hard to get little dicks working, wouldn’t you say?”
I could almost feel the incredulity coming off Sara and Gunner. While they wondered what had gotten into me, I had to agree with them.
In the prison Blaze and Dominick had kept me locked inside, I’d been weakened by drugs, starvation, and pain. While I was bruised and still trying to gather my complete strength at the moment, I refused to be weak in front of him. I wasn’t scared. I couldn’t be.
I had too much at stake.
Amusement barely concealed his rage as he stepped forward, tilting his head to the side. He stared at me, his lips twisting in a manic smile. “You really think you’re in a position to make jokes, little girl?”
I lifted my chin, standing my ground. He would never be allowed to scare me again. “You’re in no position to tell me what to do, dickhead.” I smiled as if to take the sting out of my words, but instead adding about ten more layers of disrespect to my tone.
Dominick stepped closer, the distance between us shorter than I was comfortable with. He would have been charming had he not had a permanent twist to his lips that promised cruelty should you get too close. He lowered his voice, scanning my face and then trailing his eyes down my shape. “I promise to keep my end of the deal, little girl. If you come without putting up a fight, I’ll leave Gunner and your friend alone.”
His offer could have taken the wind out of my sails, if I’d thought for a second he’d stick to his word. But a man like Dominick didn’t work in fair or right and wrong. He wasn’t the type of guy who would let Sara and Gunner walk away unscathed.
As Dominick flicked his gaze to Sara and ignored Gunner, I could almost see him assessing her for what he could get on the market. The way Blaze and Dominick had spoken, I wasn’t the first girl they’d traded off their hands. How many young women had lost themselves at the hands of the scheming pricks?
More fuel added to my fury and I shook my head in disgust. “Not worried about you, Dominick. Little men like you have something to prove because they can’t get it up. I’ve seen it more times than I can count.” I refused to own the fact that I was naïve when it came to matters about sex. All I knew was the angrier I could get Dominick, the more likely he was to slip up. Getting Gunner and Sara out of there would have to be my first priority. Saving Stryker and Brock claimed a close second on my list.
The fact that I had no small amount of cockiness in my ability to get us out of there at all didn’t escape me. I just pushed it to the side as I ignored it. Who cared that I hadn’t been able to get myself out of that basement on my own? I’d been ill-prepared for the situation. I could do this. I was in my element which meant I wasn’t in theirs.
Dominick searched my face as if he could discern just what I was up to.
I stared back, undeterred from my path. He couldn’t scare me into submission. I refused to fear him. No more. I would never feel inferior again. I’d never allow that emotion in me, if I could control it.
After a second, Dominick relaxed his stance and laughed. The bastard laughed! He shook his head and nodded. “She nailed it. You’re pretty predictable, Gray. Looks like I owe her for the heads up.”
Her would have to mean my mother. Who else would he be talking about that had any foreknowledge about me?
Gunner seemed to sense I was close to losing it. He stepped in front of me, half-blocking my view of his uncle. “That’s enough. I’m going to ask you to leave. Once. I won’t ask again.”
Dominick tilted his head as he shifted his gaze to take in Gunner’s position. “Interesting. Is she sleeping with you, too? I suspected something with Stryker, but if she’s anything like her mother, I have no doubt she’s good with all of you.” Dominick chuckled and moved to lean nonchalantly against the front quarter-panel of the SUV. He folded his arms and watched us, taking all three of us in with his gaze. He didn’t speak as he studied us.
I couldn’t hold back my questions any longer. “Where’s Stryker and Brock?” Tamping down my fear, I was pleased I’d been able to sound confident and intolerant. A snake like Dominick would only relish in any fear or intimidation. He wouldn’t give me any leeway and I refused to ask.
He jerked his head back as if in surprise. “You mean, you don’t know? What exactly did your mom say to you, Gray?”
He knew she’d called me. Was that because she was with him? I shifted my gaze past him, trying to see in the darkly tinted windows but unable to see through the black panes. Dominick followed my gaze and then turned back to me, shaking his head. “Ah, honey, no. She’s not with me. The boys aren’t either. I wouldn’t bring someone that valuable to a meeting like this. I’d run the risk of losing her or them. I’m not stupid.”
Neither of us mentioned the fact that he’d lost me at the fights.
“Where are Stryker and Brock?” I asked again, determined to become a broken record or mangled MP3 file.
Gunner’s bicep clenched, the muscles nudging mine through his shirt as he pressed back against my arm.
Dominick sighed, pushing off the car. “You know, this could have all been avoided had you just done what I told you. Gunner, you let me down, buddy.” His shift in who he addressed threw me for a minute. He moved to stand in front of his nephew. “I can see you’re not loyal to me anymore. I wonder how long this has been going on.” He didn’t ask, though. He just left the curiosity to dangle in the air between us.
His henchmen seemed to sense something shifting in the air. They casually moved their hands to rest on the butts of their guns where they stood. They were either going to shoot us all right there, or they’d been given some kind of a signal that the situation was going to get hairy.
“I’m not playing anymore of your games, Dominick, until you tell me where Stryker and Brock are.” I shifted around Gunner, declaring to him and Dominick that I didn’t need protection and I certainly didn’t need someone else to put themselves in danger for me.
“Interesting that you’re worried about the boys, but not about your own mother.” Dominick raised a hand, resting a finger on his upper lip in the shape of a small hook. Then he pointed his index and moved it in the air like he’d just realized something. “You know, I think it’s very interesting.”
I scoffed. “I don’t care what you think. Maria can take care of herself. She left me, remember?” I functioned under the assumption that he knew what had happened. Assuming was the safest thing I could do at that point. “What do you want?”
I wouldn’t bring up the fact that he’d already said he wanted me. That wasn’t something I needed to dwell on at the moment.
Dominick sighed. “Honestly? I would have been happy with just you, but now, I’m looking at all the things I lost when I lost your fight and I’m not sure it can be fixed. If I can’t fix my losses, then I need to start taking lives. It might not be yours, or Gunner’s, or even your friend’s, but I’ll start cutting them down in town, around the school, anywhere I think there might be someone you guys care about.” A twinkle in his eye testified to how much fun he was having.
Her Champions: A high school bully romance (Bad Boys of Jameson High Book 3) Page 1
