Auctioned
Page 15
That made sense. If they got all ridiculous over seeing a crowbar, they probably had an urge to stay in their staterooms at the risk of a flu going around. But Gray and Darius needed as many as possible to show up in the dungeon after breakfast.
“I can do it,” he said as confidently as he could.
“I know you can.” Darius cupped the back of Gray’s neck and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Try to face the sun. It’ll make your pupils smaller. We don’t really have the time to fake any other outward signs of drug use.”
Good lord, only Darius would think of something like that.
Before they left the stateroom, they freshened up and talked about what to do with Cole. Basically, they would have to make the best of the situation. If Gray came across a moment where he could warn Cole or give any indication of what was gonna happen, he would.
The good thing was that Cole was quick on his feet, and he was ready for anything. Gray felt in his gut he could trust Cole to seize any opportunity.
Cole wasn’t on the upper deck. Only Lee and Oscar were restrained by the slave posts, and the breakfast table had seen more cheerful days too. The four men who sat there ate in silence, except for Vanya, who tried to make conversation. The blue-eyed psycho kid lit up when Darius took a seat, maybe hoping for a more interesting meal.
“Morning, gentlemen,” Darius greeted.
There was a murmur of greeting in return.
When Gray ended up in the chair next to Darius, the joy in Vanya’s eyes morphed into curiosity.
As per instructions, Gray had to give Darius a reason to inject him, so he slouched in his seat and reached for a muffin without asking.
Darius side-eyed him as he took a sip of coffee.
“You stare a lot,” Gray told him.
It didn’t take more than that to get everyone’s attention.
“I see being lenient yesterday gave you back your voice.” Darius set down his cup and retrieved the syringe from his pocket. “Let’s see how much you’ll add to your punishment now.” He grasped Gray’s wrist and gave his arm a swift tug, and Gray protested as Darius held the needle to his skin. “Stop fighting me, boy.”
“Stop it!” Gray growled.
He winced, feeling the needle piercing his skin. The liquid was injected, and Gray heaved a breath while the others mustered a few chuckles.
Vanya clapped. “Punishments are so much fun! Is there any chance you can do a public one, Mr. B? It saddens me that a few of our passengers are sick, and I think watching you with your toy would brighten everyone’s mood.”
Gray slumped back and feigned a violent body shudder. As Darius confirmed he had plans for Gray in the dungeon after breakfast, Gray turned his concentration on himself and went through the steps in order to look like he’d been injected with heroin.
The muffin fell from his hand, and he shook his head sluggishly. The most difficult part was the smile. Having to smile and act like he didn’t have a care in the world broke his heart.
“I’ll definitely stop by,” one buyer said. He was the owner of Oscar and Lee, and Gray found it easier to grin when he thought of what he could do to the shithead. “My fuck-dogs spent the night in hysterics. I could barely sleep.”
Motherfu—!
Gray took a deep breath and looked over at Oscar and Lee where they kneeled. Beaten-up, stoic, defeated. Then he smiled, and he faced their monster of a buyer.
“You…you deserve to die,” he said, only to let out a chuckle. “My tongue feels weird.”
“Oh my.” Vanya’s gaze flickered with interest between Darius and Gray. Waiting for a reaction.
“You too,” Gray told Vanya. He pointed unsteadily at the guy, remembering all the times he’d been drunk. How invincible he’d felt. “I wanna cut you open.” He grinned lazily and planted his elbows on the table, his chin landing between his open palms. “You’re such a deranged little shit. A psychopath. Are…are you even human?” He pressed on when he caught a glimpse of anger in Vanya’s eyes. “Half human, maybe?” Gray snickered wildly and drummed his fingers along his cheeks. “I think your mom fucked a badger or something. And got preg-pregnant with you.”
“Well.” Darius wiped his mouth on a napkin, his interference allowing Vanya to relax. “You just earned yourself a ride on the mechanical bull, pet. And you know what?”
“What?” Gray smirked and rolled his eyes.
Darius nodded at the others. “They will decide when you’re done.”
Suffice to say, no one at the table was going to miss out on this.
“I hate that I have to put you through this.”
“It was my choice.” Gray bit off another strip of duct tape to attach the second knife around his calf. “None of the other implements in the dungeon would create a diversion as big as the bull, and you know it.”
“I could’ve thought of something.”
“No time for that now.” Gray stood up from the bed and accepted the pair of loose sweatpants he’d wear. “I can handle pain.” In fact, holding a pair of sweats gave him a more visceral reaction. He hadn’t worn real clothes in months, and the soft fabric felt almost…luxurious. A part of him that’d been so dehumanized wondered if he was worthy.
“It’s going to be a lot of pain, Gray,” Darius pointed out patiently. “The spike mat will rip open your skin.”
Gray tore his gaze from the black pants and stepped into them. “I can guarantee you I’ve been through worse.” That didn’t mean he wasn’t glad Darius had advised him to protect his junk underneath the tight boxers. Hopefully, a thick sock wrapped around his dick would shield him in case he landed wrong.
Perhaps Darius could tell there was nothing to discuss. He nodded once and let it go. It was all business after that. They’d chosen the bathroom for their gun stash, because it wasn’t the first place one’s eyes landed when entering the suite, and it was in there Darius lined up their weapons. Gray stood in the doorway and eyed the counter as Darius checked the magazines to the three guns. If the cotton of the sweatpants didn’t rub his skin so weirdly, Gray would’ve appreciated the moment more. Darius was a badass vision in a suit.
“Remember how to use it?” he murmured, attaching the magazine to one of the guns. “Only close range, count your bullets—”
“—and try not to waste them. I remember.” Gray had been given a crash course in how to aim and fire one. The Glocks each had seventeen bullets, and Gray hoped with everything he was that he wouldn’t miss too much.
He’d been instructed to lift the gun off of any guard he managed to take down, but he wasn’t assertive enough to think that far ahead. He knew the plan, he knew his cues; aside from that, he was going to take it one step at a time.
“Good. Did you tape your hands?” Darius asked.
“Oh. No. I’ll do it now.” Gray pushed away from the doorframe and picked up the roll of duct tape again. Aside from having two blades taped to his right calf, he had the thin wire tucked into one of his pockets. In a battle between a neck and a couple fingers, the fingers would be severed. So he was wrapping the sturdy tape around his knuckles in order to use the wire in a fight.
The fight, he was ready for. Fuck, there was no word strong enough to describe how much rage and hatred he was ready to unleash on these murderers. The only thing that caused anxiety to prey on him from some dark corner of his mind was that people—innocent guys—could get hurt. Or worse.
With a big yacht like this, it was gonna be impossible to maintain the element of surprise for very long.
“When’s Jonas joining us?” he asked.
“When you’re down for the count, I’ll go get him,” Darius replied and exited the bathroom. “You’ll be given a warning—loud enough for the others to hear. That by the time I come back with Jonas, you have to be seated on the machine again.”
Gray nodded in understanding, though he was less chill on the inside now. This was really it. People were gonna die. Gray would likely be responsible for another person’s dea
th—or several. And he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to feel bad about it. What if he couldn’t—no. He could. End of fucking story.
Darius checked his watch. “All right, I think we’ve stalled enough. With a small dose, you’d be starting to come off the H now, so you can be a bit more lucid. And depressed.”
Gray could do depressed. No problem.
After Darius had checked Gray’s taped-up knuckles and once again reminded him to be careful and stay close once shit hit the fan, there was nothing to do but walk out of the stateroom one last time.
Fourteen
Darius had an arm around Gray’s middle and was supporting him on the way down to the dungeon. The yacht was pretty quiet this late morning, and they only passed two men, one from the waitstaff, one guard.
Music greeted them in the dungeon, as did seven other motherfuckers. Oscar and Lee’s owner was here alone, so was Philip—the British fuck who’d bought Cole—and then Vanya, three guards—Benny was one of them—and one guy who Gray had seen working alongside Jonas a couple times.
“There you are!” Vanya smiled widely and held out his arms.
“Remember.” Darius pressed his lips to Gray’s temple.
Gray remembered. Vanya couldn’t die yet. Darius had deemed him valuable in case shit went south and they needed someone to bargain with. Gray didn’t wanna think about that.
“I see you gave your toy some protection.” Philip smirked and tipped his beer bottle at Gray’s hands. Or maybe it was his sweatpants.
“So he’ll last longer.” Darius ushered Gray to the corner where the black, glossy mechanical bull waited. And the thin padded mat with plastic spikes that were about to break through Gray’s skin in hundreds of places.
Gray took the first step onto the mat with caution, allowing his reactions to remain a bit slower than normal. He needed to stay calm. Calm and cranky. He grunted and shoved halfheartedly at Darius.
“I don’t wanna do this,” he said. “Fuckhead.”
“Benny, go get my chocolate milk,” Vanya demanded. “I don’t want to miss a single second of this. Oh, and two lines.”
Chairs were being pushed closer to the scening area, and Gray swallowed an onslaught of nerves as he hauled himself up on the bull with Darius’s help. A bolt of panic followed when he noticed there was absolutely nowhere to hold on. The surface of the machine was too smooth to grip.
“I don’t wanna do this,” he repeated. Among the chuckles from the others, the tremor in his voice still sounded the loudest. To him, anyway. All he could do was lean forward and try to find purchase around the neck of the mechanical creature. “You wanted me to talk back to you!” He glared blearily, accusingly at Darius. “You asked for a rebel!”
Philip and Vanya laughed merrily.
Darius smiled and smacked Gray on the cheek. “Where’s the rebel now?” With that said, he turned to the sick bastards. “Anyone care to make this interesting?”
Everyone cared. They placed bets on how many times Gray would fall off before he started begging.
I’m gonna kill you all.
“Son of a fuck!” Gray hit the spiked mat with a hoarse shout, and as the pain blazed through him, he tried to curl in on himself in a fetal position. The sharp spikes left his skin raw and bleeding, and the pain sucked all the air from him. Every time his body craved the relief of sobbing and weeping, all he could manage were choking sounds that rocked his upper body.
It was the third time the jerky movements of the bull had thrown him off.
Growing up with three rowdy brothers, how many times had he injured himself? How many times had his ass hit the ground and robbed him of breath? It was like that now, except the pain was coming from every angle, and little knives were turning him into ground beef.
Darius yanked him off the floor and hung him over the back of the bull. He checked for wounds that were too deep, but Gray croaked out another insult. A way of letting Darius know he could handle more.
“Stubborn kid,” Darius muttered under his breath.
It was for the best, though. The assholes were having a good time; their defenses were lowered. They weren’t thinking about going home, nor were they worried about the food poisoning.
As Darius pushed Gray’s leg over the bull, he spoke for the others. “If he doesn’t beg by the next drop, I have an idea.” He wiped his bloodied hands on a tissue. “We give him a riding companion.”
“Excellent!” Vanya cheered. The psychopath kid was high on cocaine and sipping chocolate milk through a straw.
One more drop… If Gray struggled to hold on before, it had nothing on now when he was bleeding from goddamn everywhere. Hands, arms, legs, and torso were smeared with blood, and a few smaller tears had appeared in his sweats.
His knees and shoulder blades suffered the most. It hurt like hell to land on them, but it inflicted the least amount of permanent damage. Okay, maybe not his knees, but there was no better alternative. His hip was in agony, he needed his feet so he could run later, and he had to take the weight off his calves where he risked exposing the knives.
His stomach flipped when the mechanical hell-ride started over. His hands were already slipping, and it became a game of trying to predict the movements and stay level on the bull. The shitheads laughed, the music droned on, the bets were upped, and salty tears stung and mingled with blood in the scrapes along Gray’s cheeks.
Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his eyes shut and struggled against the violent movements beneath him. His muscles ached, and every effort made him sweat more. When shifting his head, he locked eyes with Darius, who sat in one of the chairs next to the others. But unlike them, he was tense. His hazel eyes burned with severity and barely restrained rage, reminding Gray of the flash of Darius’s eyes he’d gotten the night he was auctioned.
“Forgive me.”
The memory of the low whisper went through Gray like a breeze.
A second later, a rocky movement sent him flying off the machine. A somersault shot a bout of dizziness into him right before he squared his shoulders and landed on his back. Ow… The fire started up again. It was the first time he’d hit his head, and it hurt so much that he couldn’t make a sound. He imploded instead, trapped by the consuming pain. He lost track of time and space. The agony was everywhere, blackening his vision, squeezing his lungs, and rendering his body useless.
We’re not here. We’re somewhere else. Just…me.
Something jostled him—or someone. Slippery hands felt his neck and forehead, and then he was airborne. Darius… Gray felt his lips form the name, but he heard nothing.
Shhh…
Gray took a shallow breath, one after another, and slowly came to his senses. Darius was lowering him into a chair.
“Snap out of it, boy.” Darius gripped Gray’s jaw and brushed his thumb over his bottom lip. “Get ready for the next game. We need to have our fun.”
“The next game,” Gray echoed in confusion. Fuck, this amount of hurt was going to be impossible to forget. He blinked and focused on Darius. The next game. Oh fuck. “Yeah,” he whispered. Suddenly fully aware he was surrounded by people watching them, he offered a small nod to let Darius know. I’m with you. Next game. Darius was going to get Jonas now.
This was it.
Darius snapped his fingers at a guard, a silent command for the fucker to follow. Gray memorized the man’s stony expression, his high cheekbones, and his light hair. His perfectly straight nose and his dead eyes.
“I love that you don’t beg,” Vanya cooed. “Is it because you want to bring us more pleasure, hmm?”
Gray dragged his weary gaze from the door and fixed it on Vanya. How the hell could this slender little manchild be so fucking revolting? And downright terrifying. It was the angelic features masking the absolute purgatory of his mind that did it. Gray had never encountered anyone as evil as this guy. Because all Vanya wanted out of life was to make innocent people suffer. It made him happy. It lit up his baby-blue eyes with pure joy.
He wiggled his toes carefully. His feet had been spared, aside from a few scrapes. He didn’t feel any blood underneath the soles, so that was good.
By now, Darius must’ve summoned someone to get Jonas, and then he’d come up with an excuse to stop by their cabin. “Just have to get something.” Or whatever. Darius was creative. And once there, he’d get rid of any accompanying guard and grab guns before he and Jonas hurried to the second top deck.
Gray knew there were two scenarios, one of which would leave him a sitting duck in here for a couple minutes. That was if Darius and Jonas encountered more people inside the pilothouse than expected. Then they might have to resort to using the guns, thus alerting everyone that something was wrong.
Gray braced himself for anything. His ears prickled, straining to hear anything above the music, and he pretended to stretch his back so he could feel his hands around his calves. His forehead almost touched his knees. Deep breaths. Push back the pain. His fingers played along the hems at the bottom of his pants.
He was ready to pull them up and access the blades. He was ready to rip the tape if the knives got stuck in their sheaths. He was ready to use the wire in his pocket. He was just so fucking ready.
He sniffled and wiped his chin on his shoulder. The bleeding was stopping in most places, thankfully. Only a few spots where the spikes had opened bigger wounds would need dressing later.
Where are they? Are they at the bridge yet? Have they shut off the cameras?
According to Jonas, there shouldn’t be more than two people in there. Darius had dubbed them the background crew. They maneuvered the boat, they cooked, and one of them was close to Red, but they were rarely seen. They didn’t show up for dinners or events.