Blindly Indicted

by Katie May

  Blindly Indicted

  Paranormal Prison Series

  Katie May

  Copyright © 2020 by Katie May

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Expresso Publishing, LLC

  Cover Design by Covers by Christian

  This book is dedicated to student loans---the only thing that consistently fucks me in the ass.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Afterword

  Supernatural Prison Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Katie May

  Monsters - Chapter One

  Foreword

  Thank you so much for reading my book! There are a couple of triggers I would like to warn you about before you dive in. Skip this if you don’t want spoilers!!!

  The main character lived as a prisoner and was tortured and raped repeatedly. Some of her men were sexually assaulted as well in the past. Nothing is explicitly detailed. I want you to read my book, but I also want you to take care of yourself. There’s also a lot of violence, main characters with questionable morals, and sexual content. However, none of the harem members treat the main character as anything less than a queen.

  This is a reverse harem romance meaning that the female lead will end up with at least three men! If that bothers you, then this book is not for you.

  Chapter 1

  Nina

  I push aside another swaying branch, my bare feet pounding against the forest floor. Grit, pebbles, and other unsavory substances have embedded themselves in my skin, but I barely notice the pain.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  I need to move faster.

  My dress catches on a branch, the fabric ripping, and I let out a startled cry as something sharp cuts my skin. I feel a sticky liquid slide down my stomach—blood.

  Run straight until you reach the tree cut in two. Then, turn left. Run until you see the road. At the road, make sure you go right. Do not stop. Do not look behind you. Do not allow yourself to be seen.

  The instructions reverberate in my head as I pick up my pace. My lungs struggle to replenish their oxygen supply, and my heart is hammering in my chest.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  I extend my senses toward the nearest animal, and immediately implant myself in the mind of a squirrel. It’s running through the underbrush, its eyes fixated on the human beside him.

  Me.

  Through its eyes, I’m able to see my tangled black hair, blood-stained white dress, and dirty face. The moonlight illuminates my haggard appearance.

  The squirrel, startled by my approach, attempts to scurry off in the opposite direction. It’s at that moment, before it climbs up a nearby tree, that I see it.

  In the distance, silhouetted in the inky gray darkness, I spot a strange tree cleaved in two. Without a moment of hesitation, I pull myself out of the squirrel’s mind and veer to the left.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  In some distant cavity of my mind, I become aware of dogs howling and motors revving. However, it’s all background noise, overshadowed by the breath rushing in and out of my lungs. My legs ache from the physical exertion, and I find myself stopping, one hand bracing against a tree trunk to hold myself up.

  No stopping.

  With a cry, I force myself to run even faster. Everything hurts. Branches whip at my face, drawing blood, and more than once I trip over a tree stump.

  Usually, I’m more apt at using my other senses, but not today. Not when my life and freedom are quite literally on the line.

  I can’t go back there again.

  I don’t know how long I run. Minutes? Hours? Time sludges by slowly. In a demented way, I’m used to it. My life as a prisoner and punching bag has assured me that time doesn’t exist. It’s just an abstract concept.

  I run until my bare feet touch something hard and grainy.

  Asphalt.

  Make sure you go right.

  I run.

  My chest tightens to unbearable levels, and the pain in my stomach intensifies. I’m weak—starved, really—and haven’t done more than walk from my cell to the torture room in months.

  Why did I think I could do this?

  Still, I can taste freedom on my tongue. I can hear the crickets in the distance. I can feel the wind against my face.

  It’s within my grasp…

  My legs give out from underneath me, and I collapse on the ground. I only have a second to pray, a second to plead, before unconsciousness overtakes me.

  His grip on my hair is punishingly tight as he drags me down the long, barren hallway. I’m in his mind yet again—a power I discovered many years ago. Gray stone walls surround me on every side, and the distinct smell of copper and urine permeates the air.

  “I’m sorry,” I cry, attempting to dig my feet into the floor. That small act of disobedience proves to be futile as his grip only tightens. Pain erupts on my scalp as I’m dragged kicking and screaming into a familiar bright room.

  This room has been the star of numerous nightmares.

  Floor to ceiling windows create the walls allowing copious light through. It’s the only room in the facility that allows natural sunlight to penetrate the monotony of darkness. The rest of the rooms are bathed in artificial fluorescent lights, or, in the case of my cell, a single hanging bulb.

  I remember the first time I’d been dragged into this particular room. I’d been three, maybe four, and more confused than scared. Where was I, and where was my momma? But those thoughts quickly dissipated as the pain consumed me.

  Now, the pain is something I am used to.

  He pushes me down onto a cold slab of cement raised in the center of the room. It resembles a macabre altar used for sacrificial rituals. At least, that’s what Kai always told me.

  Kai…

  His absence in my life is a physical pain, a gaping hole that is growing to a chasm. He has been the one const
ant in my life for years, and every day he’s not here is the slash of a whip against my back.

  Kai, I need you.

  I wrench myself out of the bad man’s head as iron chains clamp down on both of my wrists and ankles. The last thing I want to see is my own torture.

  “What should we use today, Little Monster?” he teases, and I don’t need vision to know his lips are curled into a sinister sneer.

  I don’t whimper, don’t cry. My eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling as he glides across the room, to the wall hosting a variety of weapons. Everything from machetes, to knives, to grenades.

  There’s only one rule the psychopaths have to follow: don’t kill me.

  I hear the sound of a blade being unsheathed, but I remain oblivious to what weapon he selected. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

  I brace myself for the pain—the never ending agony.

  It’s just another day in the dissonant chaos of my life.

  I wake up to beeping.

  My head is foggy, as if I’d been drugged, and my body aches something fierce. I attempt to bring my hand to the back of my head…

  Only to realize it’s restrained.

  I tug, the cold metal biting into my wrist.

  They found me.

  Terror thrums through me—a physical bolt of lightning to my senses. The incessant beeping becomes louder until it drowns out everything but the pounding of my heart.

  “You need to calm down. You’re safe,” a calm voice tells me, and I flinch at the hands touching my shoulders. It’s entirely instinctive. Flinching has been ingrained in my very anatomy since I could first walk. Every touch has a second agenda.

  Taking a deep breath, meant to calm my racing heart and mind, I push myself into the woman’s head.

  She’s staring down at me.

  I look like a mess. I must’ve been washed off, for the dirt and blood are nowhere to be seen. The white, gauzy dress has been replaced by something much less comfortable. Paper, maybe? A paper dress?

  A black screen is adjacent to the bed, a line steadily creating waves. I try to recall the name of the strange contraption. I know Kai told me…

  A heart monitor!

  I mentally grin at my own epiphany.

  I appear to be lying on a small cot, a scratchy white blanket pulled over my lower half. Both my wrists are secured to the bed by silver handcuffs.

  Any comfort I previously felt diminished at the sight of those things. How many times have I been strapped to a table just like this?

  The woman seems kind, compassionate, but what darkness is lurking just beneath the surface?

  Everyone has a darkness. Some wear it like a badge of honor while others hide it away. Which one is she?

  “Where am I?” I whimper. It’s the strangest sensation to see my lips move but not be consciously in my body. It’s a gift I’ve always had, and one I can’t explain.

  I don’t know how or when I lost my vision. It could’ve been from birth, or it could’ve been a product of the constant torture. Either way, darkness is all I have ever known. When I was younger, and I found myself randomly popping into people’s minds, I thought I was insane. Normal people can’t do what I can. From what little I gathered, the person can’t sense my presence in their mind. I can last as long as my concentration holds—the longest has been a few hours and the shortest was a couple of seconds.

  Kai was the one who told me to be quiet, to keep my power a secret.

  But when Kai left…

  I had nothing to live for, nothing I cared about. Like a volcano erupting, I confessed everything during one particularly painful session. I told them that while my eyes couldn’t see, my mind was more than capable.

  I thought it would help me, would save me, would provide me relief from the persistent pain.

  I was wrong.

  Heart hammering, I pull out of the nurse’s head and inventory my body. My eyelids feel heavy and crusty as if I had partaken in a long cry. Both of my wrists feel as if they had gone through a meat grinder. I know, without having to look, that the skin will be red and blistered from the cuffs.

  My lungs struggle to refill with air as my thoughts race in tandem to my heart. I may be in a hospital, but the cuffs demote me as a prisoner. I thought I was free. I thought I had escaped…

  The heart monitor reaches a crescendo as my thoughts run unattended.

  “You need to calm down,” the nurse instructs, not unkindly. “You’re safe.”

  “I’m a prisoner,” I retort, my voice a breathy whisper. It hurts to speak any louder, as if sandpaper is rubbing at my vocal cords. My words make her pause; I no longer hear her hustling above me.

  After a pronounced moment of silence, she resumes connecting a tube to my arm. An IV? I think I recall Kai telling me about one, but all of his lessons blur together. “I wouldn’t recommend talking until you have a lawyer present.”

  What?

  Try as I might, I can’t understand her words. They just don’t make sense in any context. Why would I need a lawyer? I’m not a complete imbecile. I know what a lawyer is and what they are used for. What I don’t understand, however, is why I would need one.

  The nurse finishes her thorough checkup before hurrying away, muttering under her breath.

  Alone with only my thoughts, I allow my mind to wander.

  I’m...free. Free. That word feels foreign, unnatural, as if I’m describing the situation of someone else entirely. For as long as I can remember, that word has never applied to me.

  Maybe when I was a child…

  A vivid memory of my three-year-old self being tied down to a table assaults me.

  No, not even then.

  I release a semi-hysterical giggle as tears burn my eyes. I want to shout from the rooftops, scream it to the world, brand it on my skin.

  I’m free!

  And yet…

  I helplessly wiggle in the restraints containing me to the bed. The metal is cool against my skin, almost uncomfortably so.

  If I’m truly free, then why do I still feel like a prisoner?

  I try to ignore the nagging voice in the back of my head—a voice that sounds eerily similar to my main torturer—telling me that I’ll never be free. That I’ll never escape.

  For the longest time, I had relied on someone else to save me. A knight in shining armor or a handsome prince. Kai frequently told me stories about the beautiful princess trapped in a tower and how a handsome prince killed the monster and saved her. When no princes arrived and my knight was taken from me, I decided I needed to save myself.

  My stomach is a tumultuous mixture of dread and anxiety as I wait for the nurse to arrive again. When the door is pushed open and footsteps pound against the stark white tiles, I know innately that it isn’t the nurse visiting me.

  With great trepidation, I push myself into the newcomer’s head. Fortunately for me, the direction he’s staring at gives me an unrestricted view of his reflection in the hospital window.

  The man appears to be older—mid-forties if I had to garner a guess—and he has a thinning hairline freckled with gray. His eyes are chips of obsidian in a decidedly cold face. He’s immaculately dressed in a black suit with gray cufflinks and a periwinkle colored tie. Everything about this man screams wealth and power. Lots and lots of power.

  When he moves to stand at the foot of my bed, staring down at me, I retreat from his mind and embrace the darkness. It consumes my vision like a dark curtain being drawn closed.

  “What is your name, child?” he asks briskly. His voice is as cold as his features. Unease skates down my spine, unfurling in my stomach like a heavy ball of lead. My breathing is painfully shallow, sawing in and out. I have heard that tone of voice. Once, when Kai had beaten one of our guards because of a leering look directed at me.

  That tone? It’s accusing.

  “My name?” I repeat meekly. I wish desperately I could fiddle with my long black hair. It’s a nervous habit I developed when I was younger, and it drove Kai c
razy.

  “Don’t make me ask again,” he snaps, and that previously mentioned ball of lead tangles with the nerves already present.

  “Nina,” I reply, voice a hushed murmur. And then, louder, I repeat, “Nina.”

  “Nina.” He speaks my name as if it’s something disgusting, a curse word spoken in church. The bed dips as his heavy weight settles at the end. “Do you know a Raphael Turner?”

  His question takes me off guard, mainly because I have never heard that name before in my life. Granted, the guards at the Compound never gave me their true names (Kai referred to them as Asshole One, Asshole Two, Asshole Three… and, well, you get the picture), but even then, that name had never even been mentioned.

  “This will be much more difficult if you play dumb,” the man points out scathingly. I flinch instinctively at his tone of voice. God, when will I never not cower when someone yells at me? I don’t know how I’m expected to survive this new world if the slightest noise sends insidious fear snaking down my spine.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply honestly. He releases a disgruntled sigh, and I resist the urge to peek into his head one more time. All I’ll see is myself...pathetic and trapped, like a feral dog taken off the streets but immediately locked in a cage.