Rebecca rolled her eyes, as if she was tired of the conversation already. “It happened years ago. I literally don’t see why everyone wants to keep talking about it.”
“That’s really shady, Bec,” I said with a frown. The smug look on her face melted when she saw the disappointed expression on mine. She began babbling all kinds of excuses to defend herself, anything to make her remain a “good friend” in my eyes.
“He came onto me, you know? He said he and Sarah were on a break—”
“But you know if they actually were, Sarah would’ve said something about it. Anytime shit like that happens with any of us, we always go out as a group to help that friend forget about him for a little while,” I interrupted.
“Exactly,” Jamie said. “Rebecca was just going around whoring just because she literally doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but Sevyn.”
“She was literally just saying that I should’ve taken better care of him and he wouldn’t have cheated,” Sarah added. “All the other bullshit she’s spewing is a complete lie. I don’t even want to talk about this anymore because it’s doing nothing but pissing me off.” She shook her head. “Can’t even believe I’ve been friends with the likes of her for so long.”
I sighed. I could understand her frustration. It was betrayal at its highest point. “Sarah—“
“This whole group and friendship is toxic as fuck. You know what? Maybe we all deserve this. We were stupid enough to follow you. I knew it was wrong but because I was more worried about being popular, I did something I knew I shouldn’t have done. Logan didn’t deserve any of that and I allowed you to control me like a puppet.”
I narrowed my gaze at her. “You all had a choice. I didn’t force any of you to do anything,” I reminded her.
Crystal shook her head. “You kinda did, Sevyn. I mean you were always giving us ultimatums back then. You had it in your head that you had to make Logan ‘pay’ and if we didn’t help you, then we weren’t your real friends.”
“No offense, but you were a real self-centered bitch back then,” Jamie added. “And to be honest, I told my parents about it but because they needed my friendship with you to help my dad, you didn’t give me much of a choice either.”
“Wow. Sounds like you were a super shitty friend there, Sevyn,” one of the guys said as they returned to the room carrying trays.
Anger boiled under my skin, but I couldn’t even say they were wrong. So what if I were selfish or self-centered. For me, it’d always been a defense mechanism to weed out the people who were only using me for the connections my family had. Sure, it was no excuse for me to act the way I did toward people, but it pissed me off even more that these women only sucked up to me because of what me and my family could do for them. Hearing them admit this now pissed me off to no end. They were just as guilty as I was, but yet they were putting all the blame solely on me. If they truly thought it was wrong, they wouldn’t have done it. The only person who really protested against the idea was Jamie. Everyone else seemed just as excited as I was as soon as I spoke the idea into existence and to now try to flip this on me was shady as fuck.
“Sevyn’s a shitty friend and you bimbos are fucking idiotic,” Luther said, shaking his head as he put the tray he held on a table. The other guys walked over to the girls they were guarding and unlocked one of the cuffs on their wrists before placing a tray holding a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and bottled water onto their laps.
“Um, I’m allergic to peanut butter,” Rebecca stated, wrinkling her nose. I frowned at her. She wasn’t allergic; she just didn’t like peanut butter because she claimed she didn’t like it getting stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Luther only shrugged in response. “Well, if you’re allergic, then I guess you won’t be eating until it’s your day to die,” he said.
“There’s nothing else here?”
“Nope. I mean you can ask Carrie if she’d share her last meal with you,” he taunted, folding his arms across his broad chest.
“The answer would be no, you slimy whore,” Carrie immediately fired back.
Luther chuckled. “I guess that idea is out then. Looks like you’ll be starving today.”
“This is fucking bullshit,” Rebecca mumbled.
“Just eat the sandwich, Bec,” I said. “You’re not allergic. You always use that bullshit excuse when you don’t want to eat what someone is serving.”
She glared at me. “Well, thanks for throwing me under the bus, friend,” she sneered.
Allison snorted. “As if you know how to actually be a friend, Rebecca,” she mumbled and bit into her sandwich half. When Luther raised an eyebrow at her, she dropped her eyes to her tray. “I’m sorry. I won’t say anything else.”
“You better not or you’re going back on the floor,” he said, his voice flat. He turned his attention to Carrie, who didn’t have a tray nor a guy standing behind her anymore. “Since you’re going to be leaving us first, I’ll start with you. If you had to choose who was the most responsible, who would you say?”
Carrie furrowed her brow in thought. After a few moments, cut her eyes to Rebecca and then looked back to Luther. “I’d say Rebecca,” she stated confidently.
“Bull-fucking-shit,” Rebecca fired back. “You’re just upset that I chose you to die.”
“Even though Sevyn initiated the whole plan, Rebecca was the one dishing out majority of the ideas,” she said, ignoring Rebecca’s outburst.
“Are you seriously going to let her spew lies, Sevyn?” Rebecca exclaimed. I bit the inside of my jaw, unable to even meet her gaze. There was nothing I could say in her defense because Carrie wasn’t lying. I’d admit that I wanted Logan to hurt as much as I did. My original plan was a lot weaker than what happened because I really wanted her to suffer. In my eyes, Logan destroyed so much in my life that I still hadn’t fully healed from to this day. To admit this would be admitting the real reason I’d done what I did, which I wasn’t completely ready to do. My friends didn’t even know the full truth and with the way they were turning on each other right now, I was so glad they didn’t.
“The main thing that was Rebecca’s idea was Logan’s rape,” Carrie continued, which made Luther frown.
“Oh, was it?” he asked.
“Uh oh,” one of the guys said under his breath.
“Yes,” Carrie responded confidently. “When Sevyn gave the green light on any idea we could think of to destroy Logan, Rebecca recommended putting a bug in the ears of the Pussy Bandits, who were known for raping girls who’ve been drugged or were drunk out of their minds.”
“I’m assuming this is Josh, Tyler, and Hunter,” Luther mused. Carrie nodded.
“Sevyn did wonder if it was a bit extreme, but the rest of us co-signed the idea. I mean it doesn’t make us any better either because we all still went along with it. It was really fucked up and we were all stupid then and had no idea the true consequences of our actions then.”
Even though his back was to me, I could see his skin turning red. It crept up his neck, even visible under his tattoos. I knew he was beyond angry now. A part of me wanted Carrie to shut the hell up. The minute details of everything only seemed to be pissing him off even more than the things he’d learned about in court. I was worried about how this would affect us later, as I was sure the day was just getting started.
“Interesting,” was the only thing he’d said, just as a door opened and closed in the distance. Another masked guy came in with a Chipotle bag, no doubt Carrie’s last meal. How she ate from that place as often as she did was beyond me, but it was heartbreaking to know that after she ate, he’d kill her.
And it was all because of me.
The guy plopped the food in her lap and unlocked both of her hands, unlike the other girls. “Make it quick,” he growled.
Luther turned to face me, his face a lot redder than I assumed just by looking at the back of him. “On second thought, you won’t eat today,” he growled. He picked up the sandwich and pulled t
he halves of it a part, smearing the peanut butter and jelly all over my face. “Eat on that, bitch.”
My entire face was sticky and felt gross. It felt as if it was on my eyes, in parts of my hair that hung in my face. I was nearly afraid of opening my eyes in fear that some of it would get in them. I tried to wipe my face as best as I could by rubbing my face against my shoulders until it no longer felt as if I had a bunch of sticky jelly and peanut butter on my eyelids. It seemed to make it worse, but it was enough to where I didn’t feel as if I’d get any in my eyes.
He stomped over to Rebecca and punched her in the face before snatching her tray away as well. “I’ll make sure you’re the last to die because I’m going to take great pleasure in breaking you until I eventually kill you,” he growled and hit her again. “Get her the fuck out of here.”
“So…if she’s done for the day, can I…you know?” the guy behind her asked.
“Do whatever you want to her except kill her.” He paused for a moment and shook his head. “Actually, no. Not yet. Matter of fact, she’ll stay here until everyone is in their room and then I want three of you to recreate what happened to my sister with her. Since she can easily come up with ideas like that, how about we bring that to life for her, too.”
“Luther you don’t have to do all of—”
“Shut the fuck up!” he bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth. “You’re the last fucking person to tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing. If you want to keep running your fucking mouth, I can arrange for three of us to do the same fucking thing to you, too. Is that what you want?!”
His voice was so loud that it made me flinch back. I’d never witnessed him this angry before, not even in the court room. I mean he was angry, but he was more so angry at the jury and the judge. All of it wasn’t even geared toward me in that moment, but witnessing it now was terrifying.
I shook my head, fear making it hard for me to verbally speak. His eyes blazed with rage and untamed fury. Anything I said probably would’ve set him off and prepared me for another punishment that I didn’t think I could handle right now. After a few moments, he turned his attention to Carrie.
“You have fifteen fucking minutes to eat. Whether you’re done or not, you’re going in the box,” he snapped and then left the room again. Carrie sobbed at the news and my heart broke for her all over again. The guilt I’d carried all these years was nothing in comparison to the guilt I felt knowing that I had to witness all of my friends’ deaths. I’d been so, so stupid back then, thinking my family’s status and money could get me out of any trouble I’d gotten myself into. While they helped keep me out of legal trouble, they couldn’t get me out of trouble with Luther. I wasn’t even sure if they’d realized I was missing yet. It wasn’t like I checked in with them every day and after the last conversation with my mother after seeing her very young boy toy, she probably wasn’t even expecting to hear from me for a while. I bowed my head.
I was so fucked.
The room was completely silent aside from Carrie sobbing. She’d barely touched her food, her time quickly ticking away. Not that I could blame her. There was no way I’d have an appetite knowing I was going to die soon after either. A timer finally went off from somewhere and Luther finally reappeared in the room.
“Time’s up,” he said, his voice low and deep.
“Luther, please don’t do this,” I said when I finally got my voice. Carrie sobbed even harder to the point to where she was hiccupping. “Look, I’ll take another punishment if I have to. Please don’t—”
“That’s not how this works, Sevyn,” he tsked. “You only take a punishment so that you don’t have to choose who dies next. It won’t actually save them from not dying.” He nodded toward the guy standing behind Carrie. “Get rid of the food and put her in the box.”
“No, please!” Carrie begged. “I swear I didn’t mean anything I did! I’m sorry!”
“It’s a little too late for sorry,” the man said as he took away all the untouched food on Carrie’s lap. She begged and pleaded with him as he unlocked her ankle cuffs, roughly pulling her out of the chair. It fell on deaf ears though, as Luther walked over to the glass box and opened the door. The man pulled Carrie over to the box and my heart sunk as I watched. Tears burned my eyes when the door was slammed closed. One of my best friends would die soon and she was spending her last minutes terrified. I didn’t want that for her; I didn’t want that for any of them. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t in control of a situation, and that alone terrified me also.
Once Carrie was secured in the box, Luther put a much smaller, identical box on the table I was on earlier. “I’m sure you guys are familiar with vacuum sealing things,” Luther announced. “Carrie is the self-proclaimed minimizing queen according to her Instagram profile. She vacuum seals things all the time to make room for all the shit she buys to ‘minimize space.’ So, I’m sure you know what happens when you vacuum seal things. But in case you don’t, let me demonstrate.”
The guy who guarded Carrie walked over with a tray of unwrapped Twinkies and handed it to Luther. Luther stacked the cakes inside the glass box and then closed it, attaching a small hose to the corner of it. We all watched as he flipped the switch to a black pump next to the box and at first, nothing happened. But then the cakes started to grow abnormally large the longer the pump went on. Carrie screamed inside the glass box and I damn sure didn’t blame her. Was I going to watch her explode?!
After the filling in the Twinkies fell out of the puffed out cakes, Luther finally turned the pump off. “As you know, a vacuum seal takes the air out of things. Let’s see what happens to a human in a vacuum seal.”
“No!” Carrie screamed as she beat on the glass. I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring from my eyes as I watched one of the guys help Luther drag a pump into the room and attach a big hose at the top of the box.
“Please don’t do this!” my friends all shouted, excluding Rebecca. She only stared at Carrie with an indifferent look on her face, as if she didn’t care whether she lived or died. But I couldn’t even focus on her. My full attention was now on my friend of almost twelve years trapped in a glass box. I tried to commit her to my memory. Her short blonde hair, her flawless tanned skin that I used to be jealous about when we were younger, her soft, round face, button nose, blue eyes, and pouty lips that she’d had injected over the years. But now, her pretty features were covered in tears, running mascara, and fear of what was about to happen to her.
I sobbed as she slid to the floor of the box in defeat, her head against the glass as she sobbed and begged whatever God that would listen to her for forgiveness. As she begged Logan for forgiveness. Her parents that she was leaving behind for forgiveness. Luther’s family for forgiveness. My friends all bowed their heads and sobbed as well. There was nothing any of us could do to help her; all we could do was face the music of our actions and get what Luther felt we deserved.
He said nothing as he turned on the large pump. Within seconds, Carrie seemed to swell a little and turn red. She screamed in pain, but her scream was short. While she didn’t explode like the Twinkies, her death was just as disgusting. Her eyes turned blood red from popped blood vessels, blood coming out of her eyes, mouth, and nose the longer the machine went on. She writhed and twitched in pain until she finally went limp, her open eyes staring at nothing as she finally died. Luther turned the machine off and took the hose from the box, releasing the seal.
The swelling in Carrie’s body slowly went down, more blood oozing from every place it could. Her eyes, mouth, nose, ears. I sobbed in grief, knowing that all of this shit was my fault. The bubbly personality that always had positive words was now gone because I led her down a path she was never meant to be on. Seeing how my bad decisions were now affecting my friends made me feel even more like shit than I’d already felt.
“God, I’m so fucking sorry, Carrie,” I sobbed. “She didn’t deserve this at all.”
Luther stalked over to me and
lifted my head to meet his hard gaze. “And neither did Logan,” he said, his voice low before he let me go. “But we’re nowhere near even. You’ll get yours, Sevyn Langdon. I promised you that seven years ago and I’m a man of my word.”
Then he winked again, reminding me of the promise he’d made the last time I’d seen him. That same sinister action that promised pain, revenge, and spilled blood. My eyes drifted back to Carrie’s body when one of the guys popped the glass box open. He grabbed her by her hair, as if she was a trash bag and plopped her onto a sheet of plastic. Three more guys helped him by grabbing a corner of the plastic and carrying her out of the room. A part of me wanted to keep convincing myself that he wouldn’t really kill us, that he just wanted to torture us before he just killed me. But now that Carrie was killed, I couldn’t keep lying to myself. There was nothing to justify that her death was fake.
“One bitch down, six more to go,” Luther said, rolling his shoulders before he turned and looked to me. “Looks like you better spend the rest of the day and night thinking about who you want to go next.”
“You know I c-can’t d-do that,” I stammered, hiccupping in between my tears.
“Then you can prepare by the punishment you’ll get. Your choice,” he said and followed the remaining men out of the room.
The rest of us didn’t say a word. What the hell could we say to what we’d just witnessed? After a few moments, Allison shook her head.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” she whispered. “We’re really going to die.”
“What the hell are we going to do?” Rebecca hissed under her breath. “We can’t just sit around here like sitting ducks waiting to be killed.”
Sarah glared at her. “Your ideas have gotten us into enough shit. Why don’t you shut the fuck up for once?”
“I’m trying to help you,” she fired back. “I know you’re still upset about your pathetic ex-boyfriend, but we need to put our differences aside in order to make it out of this alive.”
The Destruction of Sevyn (The Vengeance of Luther Book 1) Page 12
