Decoding Darkness

by Marissa Farrar

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  Isaac appeared by the door, crouching to peer through the crack in the hatch, checking out the corridor beyond. “You have to get on with it, love. They might be back at any moment, and then you’ll have lost your chance.”

  I looked back down at my hand and gave a whine of pain and fear. I didn’t want to do this, but I knew I had to.

  A hand pressed on my shoulder, giving me a reassuring squeeze, and I looked up into Lorcan’s hazel eyes. “You can do this, princess, I know you can.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Lorcan.”

  “We’re all here for you. You know that.”

  Clay appeared in front of me, nodding as he pushed a hand through his hair. “Yeah, we’re here for you. Now stop being such a drama queen and get on with it.”

  I gave a small laugh. Tough love. I knew what he was doing, but I also caught the little glimpse of sadness in his blue eyes.

  “Okay, okay, I’m doing it.”

  Alex spoke again. “You’re going to need to press against the bone where it’s dislocated, to make sure it’s not caught against the side of the joint, and then pull outward before putting it back in place.”

  “And remember to breathe,” said Kingsley. “Take hold of the finger, take a deep breath in, and sharp exhale while you move it.”

  I nodded, and Lorcan squeezed my shoulder again. I wished I could ask one of them to do it for me, but they were all in my imagination, and such a thing was impossible.

  Both hands trembled as I took hold of my bent little finger with the opposite hand. I needed to follow Alex’s direction and pull outward to open up the joint again, and push it back into place.

  I just needed to do it. If I kept thinking too hard, I’d end up chickening out.

  Gritting my jaw, I tightened my hold on my little finger. I took a deep breath in, and as I exhaled, I pulled.

  Pain shot up through my arm, and I clamped my scream between my teeth. I released my finger and felt the pop as it went back into the joint. I panted hard, perspiration popping on my brow and upper lip. But the pain emanating from my pinky finger began to fade, and I dared to look down. It was back in position, and already color started to flood back into the digit.

  “Well done,” said Alex. “You’re almost finished. Just the next one to go, and you’ll be done.”

  Isaac checked the corridor again. “Get on with it, love.”

  I looked back down at my hand. The pinky finger was a hundred times better. My ring finger, however, still didn’t look great. I felt sick from the pain, and knowing I was going to have to put myself through it again. But I had to do it.

  I took another couple of deep breaths and took hold of my ring finger. I was careful of my newly aligned pinky finger as well, not wanting to push it out of joint again. A strange squealing noise pealed from my throat as I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled. The pain was blinding, and my eyes rolled and the world pulled away at the edges. But I couldn’t pass out with this only half done, and I kept going, clamping my teeth together and yanking with a hard tug. The finger popped back into place and I curled over, cupping my hurt hand with the other one, breathing hard and waiting for the pain to fade.

  Finally, it did, and I looked up to discover the guys had all gone. I knew they hadn’t been real, but I still missed their presence. It was stupid—my mind playing tricks on me—but having them here, reassuring me, had almost felt real. Missing them hit me like a blow to the chest, and I took a shaky breath, trying to position myself back in reality. The few imaginary moments with the guys had done what it needed to, and given me the strength I’d required to help my hand, but I needed to face reality now.

  I risked looking down at the hand again. It looked almost normal, though the joints were swollen, but I could live with that. I didn’t want to risk hurting it again. I should bind the injured fingers to the good ones, now that they were back in the right position, but I didn’t have anything to bind them with. The only material in the room were the clothes I wore.

  I glanced down at my jeans and t-shirt. The jeans were too thick for me to rip, so that only left the top. I lifted the bottom of my t-shirt, and, using my teeth, tore a strip from the bottom. It meant my stomach was exposed, but I preferred that to having to see my digits in that position again.

  Using the strip of t-shirt, I wrapped the two fingers against my middle one, so all three were strapped together. It was a fiddly process, and I had to use my teeth again, together with my other hand, to tie a knot and keep the makeshift bandage secure. Having all the fingers in the right position had made me feel better, and now they were also hidden from view and feeling snug and secure beneath the bandage, I was finally able to breathe again.

  My racing heart began to slow, and my eyes slipped shut. I was exhausted and shaky, and I needed to rest. The metal bed frame with the thin, dirty mattress was right beside me, but I still didn’t want to climb onto it. Giving in to sleep somehow also felt as though I was giving up. Sleeping meant being exposed and vulnerable, and though my eyes were sore, my lids heavy with exhaustion, I continued to fight against it. Even so, my thoughts drifted, and I barely noticed the cold, concrete floor beneath me. The faces of the men I waited for flitting in and out of my mind—Clay ... Lorcan ... Kingsley ... Alex ... Isaac ... Thinking of them was like wrapping myself in a warm, weighted blanket—

  The click of the lock pulled me from my reverie, and I gave a groan. I only wanted to be left alone and escape into my fantasy world. I’d slumped while lost in thought, but I instantly straightened at the sound of the door, my pulse quickening. Was Hollan back again? What did he plan on doing with me now? I was sure he’d punish me for what I’d done to Otto and for breaking the vials. I’d ruined his plans, and Hollan wasn’t the type of man to allow a thing like that to go lightly.

  The door opened a crack, as though the person behind didn’t want to be seen, and then a body slipped into the space. The light in the corridor outside was brighter than inside my cell, so at first it was hard to make out who my visitor was, but then my heart sank.

  Stewart.

  The concrete floor was cold beneath me and had leached through to my bones, so every ache and pain magnified ten times over. Damp permeated the air. Though my body hurt, I scrambled to my feet, not wanting to be found in a position of vulnerability while this man was occupying the same space as I was. There were plenty of dangerous men around, but some men were more dangerous than others. It was the way they looked at women, as though they believed the females of the species were automatically below them in the pecking order. That kind of arrogance was never good for the woman.

  “Hello, Darcy,”

  He moved farther into the room and pulled the door shut behind him. My gaze locked on that door. My only route to freedom closed off.

  I cupped my bad hand against my body. “What do you want, Stewart?”

  “I thought we might have a little chat.”

  “I don’t have anything to say to you. Does Hollan know you’re in here?”

  Stewart shrugged. “He doesn’t need to know.”

  I took a step back, toward the rear of the room, and Stewart stepped forward, matching mine. My heart raced. “Hollan’s not going to like it if you hurt me,” I spluttered, feeling as though my words were empty. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if Hollan gave a shit or not. It wasn’t as though the other man was taking care of me.

  A salacious smile spread across his snake-like face. “Oh, no one said anything about hurting you, Darcy. I want to make you feel good. Don’t you want a break from all of this? Just lie back and let me make you forget where you are for a while.”

  “Don’t come any closer!” Panic heightened my tone.

  He laughed. “Or what?”

  “I’ll scream.”

  “You think people are going to help you? After what you just did? Have you forgotten where you are? You were screaming and crying earlier, and no one came to help you, did they? What makes you think anything has ch
anged now?”

  With sickening dread, I realized he was right.

  My gaze darted around, desperate for something I could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. I only had myself—my teeth, feet, and hands, and even one of those wasn’t working properly. I’d fight with every part of me before I let this man touch me.

  He stepped forward again, and I moved back, but this time my back hit the wall behind. He was quite literally backing me into a corner.

  I opened my mouth and yelled. “Help! Someone help me!” Then something in my head clicked and I remembered how you should never yell help when you really needed it. “Fire!” I screamed instead, the word grating my throat. “Fire!”

  “Shut up, bitch,” Stewart snarled, and then he lunged for me.

  I was ready for him and sidestepped, but he managed to snag my t-shirt, yanking me back. My neck snapped with whiplash, but that was the least of my concerns. Stewart launched his entire bodyweight at me, throwing me to the floor, so I smacked my chin on the ground. I’d managed to protect my bad hand with the other one, but pain still shattered through me at the impact. I was hardly given time to process what was happening as he landed on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs before I even got the chance to move or fight back. His hand grabbed the back of my head, his fingers traversing my skull, and he mashed my face into the ground. I’d promised myself I’d fight, but in this position, with my face down, and his body pinning me, I felt as helpless as a hooked fish left flapping on a pier. The noise that came out of my throat was a frightened whine. I tried to struggle, but I was terrifyingly powerless.

  He leaned over me, and his breath was hot against the back of my ear, the tepid stench of stale cigarette smoke wafting over me, making me want to gag. “Oh, yeah, baby,” he rasped, his mouth so close to my ear, as his lips grazed my lobe. “Keep struggling like that. It only turns me on more.”

  The weight alleviated a fraction, but was replaced by tugging at my jeans. He was trying to pull them down, and then he’d rape me from behind, with my face mashed against the cold, damp floor, and I’d never be the same person again.

  I wriggled and bucked the best I could. Horror that this might actually happen made me blind with panic. I didn’t think I could string a coherent thought together. I suddenly understood how women often said they simply froze when they were threatened with being raped. That they felt guilty they hadn’t fought back, but yet hadn’t been able to when it happened.

  All I could manage was a panicked whine, and the sound of it frightened me as much as anything else. The voice didn’t even sound as though it belonged to me. “No, please. Stop, no, no ...”

  “That’s it, bitch,” Stewart said, and I could hear amusement in his voice. “Keep begging like that. I love to hear you beg.”

  The door opened, bright light flooding in a shaft across the concrete floor. My breath caught, wondering who had walked in. Would it be someone to help me, or someone who’d make things even worse, if that was possible?

  “What the fuck?”

  I recognized the accent. Otto. I almost cried with relief. From my position where I’d been thrown, I was able to lift my head enough to see the other man. I was looking at him from the feet up, so his legs appeared impossibly long, his shoulders and head miles away.

  Otto shot me a look, and I tried not to stare at the tape across his face, holding down a bandage that no doubt covered whatever stitches they’d been able to do. He wasn’t at a hospital, then? The cut I’d given him would leave him with one hell of a fearsome scar if it went without the attention of a plastic surgeon.

  “Get lost,” Stewart snapped. “This is none of your concern.”

  Otto took another step into the cell. “It looks like it should be my concern.”

  “Please,” I begged, though my voice came out muffled as I had to speak against the floor. “He’s trying to rape me.” I knew I was begging to the same man whose face I’d slashed open only a couple of hours earlier, but he was my only chance. I’d never gotten the same vibe from Otto as I had from Stewart, and, if it wasn’t for the whole ‘trying to drug me’ thing, I would have assumed him to be an ally.

  Stewart shoved his hand down harder on the back of my head, mashing my face into the concrete. It wasn’t me he addressed next, however. “Don’t pretend like this isn’t something you’ve thought about yourself, dude. What harm’s it gonna do? Not like she’s gonna walk out of this place, anyway.”

  Otto’s ice blue eyes narrowed. They looked almost supernatural in the dim light. “I do not rape women.”

  “You fucking hypocrite. But you inject them with some concoction of drugs, and then walk away to let men like Hollan do whatever they want.”

  “That is not the same thing. Let Darcy get up.”

  “Make me.”

  I’d stopped squirming, instead frozen beneath Stewart’s hold, every muscle tensed as I waited to hear my fate. I wanted more than anything to use the moment to try to elbow the son of a bitch in the face, but I didn’t want to give Otto any reason to step in and take Stewart’s side.

  “I will not say it again,” the Swede said. “Let her go. Hollan will not like it if he finds out you threatened to kill her when it was done.”

  “I never said that,” he blustered, but his hold on me had weakened. “Hollan will let me do anything I want to her once we get the information out of her.”

  “And what if raping her leaves her so traumatized she cannot speak, or she forgets the numbers? How do you think your boss is going to react then?”

  A growl came from above, but then the hand lifted off the back of my head, and I was able to move. Stewart got to his feet, and I scrambled away from him, secreting myself into a corner. My arms wrapped around my legs, my knees drawn up to my chest in protection.

  Stewart looked at me and jabbed a finger in my direction. “As soon as Hollan gets what he wants, I’ll have your ass. Got it?”

  I scowled at him, but didn’t answer. That certainly was never going to motivate me into giving Hollan what he wanted.

  Stewart left the room, pushing past Otto to get out of the door. The Swede with the pale blue eyes and almost white hair stood his ground, ignoring the other man’s aggression. Otto waited until he was gone and stepped into the room. He must have seen me cower back, as he lifted his hand in surrender. “It is okay. I will not hurt you. I want only to check that you are all right.”

  “Clearly, I’m not,” I muttered, leaning away from him and pulling my knees tighter against my chest.

  A troubled expression crossed his face, his lips pressed together, his pale eyebrows drawn down. My gaze fixed on the white bandage on the side of his face. I couldn’t believe he’d helped me, even after I’d hurt him so badly. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d either walked away and pretended he hadn’t come in when he had, or else joined in with Stewart by way of revenge. It said a lot about a man’s integrity when he was willing to protect a woman who had hurt him.

  Otto looked as though he was thinking something, but then he shook his head and turned away.

  “Otto, wait!” I cried, reaching out for him with my good hand. I didn’t know how much more I expected from him, perhaps hoping he might sneak me out of this place, but he didn’t even pause at my cry. Instead, he stepped through the door and pulled it shut behind him. He snapped the lock back into place, leaving me alone once more.

  Despite my earlier insistence to myself that I would never sleep on the horrible bed, I found myself crawling up onto it and slumping down onto my side, my hand, which was throbbing, held out in front of me. My eyes were sore and heavy from crying, my brain foggy. Though the mattress was thin, and I could feel the metal springs of the fold out bed beneath, my body relaxed. The mattress seemed to vanish, with me sinking deeper and deeper into it, my mind too exhausted to even think, and before I had even registered I was falling, I was already asleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  My dreams took me away from my damaged body and horrifi
c surroundings.

  “Hey, sugar.”

  His voice was soft, but I recognized it instantly. I spun to face him. “Clay!”

  He was standing in front of me, in his baggy jeans and t-shirt. He pushed his hand through his jaw-length blond hair and looked up at me from under it.

  “I thought you were never going to come.”

  He gave me a slow smile. “Of course we were. We’d never leave you, baby-doll.”

  I looked around. “Where are the others?”

  “We’re right here, princess.” My heart soared. Lorcan.

  I turned again to find him standing there, all leather jacketed, dark hair, and smoldering.

  “Lorcan, are you okay? How is your shoulder?”

  He shrugged. “It’s fine. I told you it would be. Takes a little more than a bullet to keep me down.”

  A third voice came from over my shoulder. “Didn’t you trust that I’d make him better?” I spun around again to find Alex grinning at me. I knew he was only teasing.

  “Of course I did. I trusted you, Alex. I can’t tell you how happy I am you’re here.” His tall, blond haired, blue eyed good looks shimmered before me as tears trembled in my eyes.

  I felt like there was something I wanted Alex to look at for me, but I couldn’t think what it was. Had I dreamed it?

  Someone else stepped out from the shadows. Kingsley. “You getting yourself in trouble again, Darcy?”

  I hitched a little sob of happiness. “Yeah, I think maybe I was. But I’m okay now.”

  He put his arms out to me, and before I registered either of us moving, I was in them, protected through the sheer size of him, my face pressed against his solid chest.

  I realized someone was still missing, and I forced myself to lift my head from Kingsley’s chest. “Where’s Isaac?”

  “I’m right here, love.”

  I twisted in Kingsley’s arms to face him, my heart lifting. If Isaac was here, it meant we’d be okay. We were all meant to be together—we could take on anything if we were together—and now we were, and my heart felt whole again.