by J Bree
She smirks at me, slow and fucking murderous. “We both know his business can’t be run from the grave, Butcher. I’ll find where he sleeps someday and he’ll wake up to a cleaver at his throat for touching her.”
I think I see it.
I see exactly what D’Ardo wants so fucking badly from her.
She’s still a fucking kid though and he’s still sick in the head for wanting her.
I pull back out onto the road and put my gas pedal to the floor, the force of my acceleration whipping her back against her seat. “This isn’t a rescue and send on her way, kid. She's mine. I'm finding her, I'm taking her home with me, no matter what. If you don’t want a part of that you should say so now and I’ll get you home safe.”
She shakes her head. "No. There's a lot of bad shit I can't help with around here but this I can do and you might have failed her once but you won’t make that mistake twice.”
Fuck. I don’t know what the fuck I’ve done to get this sort of trust from this girl but today I’m desperate enough to take it. Fuck, I might just drive her back to my warehouse after this and hand her my life savings, get her right enough to leave this fucking city and start fresh somewhere cleaner.
As the auction house comes into view I slow my roll, we don’t need to attract any attention right now. I’m not going in there to buy my girl… no, I’m going in there to paint the fucking walls red with the blood of every man who’s so much as fucking looked at her.
The whole fucking underworld if I have to.
“Have you been in there before? It’s disgusting but I can run you through the entrances and exits, best places to lay low, whatever you need.” The kid murmurs again.
I park the car and stay seated for a second, thinking it over. Her spot in the Twelve might just come in handy for me tonight. “You follow my lead in there but I’ll listen if you have a better plan when things go south. Have you got your shit? I have a spare piece under your seat."
She shrugs. "I'm more of a knife girl."
I smirk at her. "Good kid. What's your real name? I can’t remember it from the home and D’Ardo never says it. Unless it really is Starbright."
She grimaces. "Don't call me that. I go by Lips. Eclipse is just as fucking bad."
"Well, Lips, let's get a few things straight. Don’t ever walk in front of me, if I throw a cleaver I don’t want it hitting you because you’ve darting around like the little ninja-shadow thing you are. If we get cornered leave it to me, you’ve already done enough for me. I’ll handle the rest.”
She rolls her eyes at me, stripping off the oversized sweater she’s wearing and pulling on a leather jacket instead. The scars all over her make me feel sick.
I helped D’Ardo trap her.
I helped him get her exactly where he wanted her so every last one of those wounds has my name on it, just as much as him.
She catches me eyeballing them. “Don’t worry about it. My life isn’t so bad.”
I snort. “Kid, I know exactly how bad your life is. Better than anyone else. Once we’re done here, you and I are going to have a long talk about D’Ardo and his plans for you. Then we’re going to get you clear of him.”
She chews her lip nervously. Fuck, tonight is like stepping into the twilight zone. I’ve never seen so much… humanity on her. “I know exactly what he’s doing. I also know that I don’t ever want to get caught in his traps. I’m working on something. Maybe… maybe we can talk about it. Later. I won’t sleep until we’ve got you French girl home safe.”
Home. Right. My fucking home, where I’ll never let another goddamn thing touch her and I’ll pay penance for my sins and stupidity to her every day until she’s sick of fucking having me. And then another lifetime after that.
Fuck, I’m gone on this girl and she’s only ever spoken one line to me.
I step out and go to my own go-bag in the trunk, loading myself up full of weapons until I think I could take out the entire fucking auction house if I need to. There’s five above ground levels and a basement. If she’s in the basement, I’m bombing the whole place. Leveling it.
The worst of humanity ends up dragging their prey into the basement.
I mean, that’s what I do. Except I’m not some sick, depraved rapist who wants to chain girls up and fuck them unwilling and screaming.
The only screaming I force out of girls is consensual.
The kid… fuck, okay, Lips watches me strap an extra cleaver onto my thigh with shrewd eyes. I raise a brow at her. “Do you think I’ll be up to it, Wolf?”
She scoffs back. “I was going to ask you to show me how you throw them, but now I think I’ll pass.”
I triple check both of my pieces before holstering them. “Look kid, I’ll train you up on whatever the fuck you want after this. You wanna throw knives around? Sounds fucking peachy to me.”
She grins, a real one, and ducks her head. Fuck, that makes her look even younger. “I like learning new shit, having tricks up my sleeve in case of emergencies.”
I grin back and pull my own leather jacket on. “You and me, both. Maybe you can show me how to choke a guy out with my thighs. Never know when I might need to sail through the air like something out of the old kung-fu movies.”
She laughs back, smoothing a hand down the old, ripped up band tee she’s wearing. The kid has taste, they’re not half bad. “Some of that was luck, you know, but I’ll show you some stuff. Fuck, the Bay better watch out if we’re swapping tricks of the trade.”
Then we put one foot in front of the other to step into the gates of Hell together.
Chapter Eleven
Odie
I don’t know how many days I lay there in the stinking and filthy bed wishing for death.
A maid would come in twice a day to take me to the toilet. They don’t ever look at me properly, never inspect the damage down to me by the men they work for. I’ve been beaten and raped and tortured every few hours for days on end and yet none of the maids will look at me or make a comment at all. They just quietly do their work and leave. There is no escape.
They undo the cuffs at my feet and then attach one of my hands to a small length of chain so there’s never a time I’m not attached to something in the room. On my fourth trip to the bathroom I consider snapping my own wrist to get my hand out and make a run for it but then I remember the blood-soaked dogs downstairs.
I’ll never get past them and the men alive.
I haven’t decided which death I’d prefer yet, so I bide my time and do the only thing I can do while chained to the bed in solitude while my rapists aren’t here.
I think about it all and plan out their deaths in my head.
I have no way of ever making those things come to fruition but it doesn’t matter. I plan them down to the finest detail. I imagine exactly what I’ll say and where I’d stab them first. I think about how I could possibly ensure they die screaming.
I think about how to kill them in the most unspeakable ways.
I grow weaker by the day. I’m only given a slice of bread here and a glass of water there to keep me alive. I start to think maybe I’m going crazy when white dots dance across my eyelids but really it’s just the hunger setting in and turning my world inside out. I can feel my organs start to cannibalize themselves, my stomach a tender thing to the touch.
I do not want to think about the mess between my legs.
I wash myself as best I can each and every time I am taken to the bathroom, but the burns on my arms from the cigars start to grow red and weep, hot to the touch. I begin to pray they will cause blood poisoning and I’ll die in my sleep.
It would be a kindness to escape this new life I’m trapped in.
Anything but this.
I continue to think that for what feels like days, right up until there’s a loud bang somewhere in the house.
My entire body freezes.
I can barely hear anything else going on in the house, the concrete walls doing an amazing job of muffling everything. I ne
ver hear footsteps until the door to my room is opened. I never hear the maids cleaning or the guys packaging drugs downstairs.
So this noise terrifies me.
I’m laying naked on a bed, legs tied so I’m splayed open, with no way of protecting myself or getting out if the entire house is being raided or set on fire, or a list of other things my mind conjures up.
Then there’s silence.
Silence for long enough that I start to shake with adrenaline, my body quaking with the need to run, and leave, and flee.
My door opens.
A maid steps through the door, her eyes on the ground, but something is different. She has a length of chain in her hands, one end chained to her own wrist. She’s shorter than I am but curvier, larger than me.
When she moves to undo the cuffs on my ankles I decide I’m going to try to run away from her. I can’t break the chain without a tool but I’ll snap my own hand if I have to. It sickens me to think about but if I can get her on the ground I can stomp on her hand until it breaks. I would do anything to get out of here.
She moves around the bed to undo one of my wrists and finally she makes eye contact with me. She speaks in broken English, “If you run, Señor Alcatron will cut you to pieces and fuck you bloody. He has been kind with you so far, puta. You cost him too much money so he is dragging it out.”
I swallow, wincing at the scratching feeling of my dry throat. She gets me attached to the chain, pulls me up so I’m standing with rough hands, and then moves us both to the door. My head spins and I struggle to stay upright, the fatigue and starvation so much worse now I’m upright.
“Move, puta. We can’t keep him waiting!” She hisses at me, yanking the chains and scowling at me as I stumble.
We walk back through the house, down to the dining room I’d first met my rapist in. The house is quiet, no sounds of life and I’m glad. I’m still stark naked, the burns weeping on my battered body. The maid hadn’t let me clean up before we came down so I can feel the dried fluids crack on my thighs as I walk. Bile climbs up my throat at the thought of how I must look, shame riding me hard.
Instead of cowing down, I hold my head up.
I will not break.
I will not.
The dining table has men sitting around it, all of them dressed well and smoking cigars, and they turn to look at the maid and me as we walk in together. A few of the men start to jeer and laugh, throwing comments around that I don’t understand but know intrinsically must be about me.
“Mira esa panochita tan deliciosa. A qué la puedo hacer gritar más fuerte que Alcatron cuando le destroce hasta los órganos a esta hija de puta.”
“Ya quisieras pendejo con lo que te llevas cargando la vas hacer gritar, pero de vergüenza ajena. Mejor ven aquí y ponte de rodillas donde debes de estar y empieza a chuparme el pito pinchi arastrada, quiero escuchar que te estes horcando y no te atrevas a usar tus dientes.”
“Por eso son pendejos, somos tres y tiene tres hoyos para rellenar. Apuesto que entre los tres va a terminar tan destrozada llena de sangre y meco que ni su padre la reconocería. Pero eso si, quiero estrenar ese culito.”
My rapist ignores them and the maid entirely, his eyes boring into my skin like a brand, but he flicks his hand at me.
I refuse to move.
It doesn’t matter what I want, the maid pulls me forward with a hard yank of the chain until I’m kneeling at his feet like a dog. My jaw clenches but I keep my face turned so I’m not looking at the ground like all of his invisible women. I loathe this man. If I die here then I pray for another life where I can find him and kill him in so many terrible ways.
“Stop staring at me like that, puta. I will carve your eyes out of your head just for the fun of it.” He murmurs, his fingers biting into my skin as he turns my head away from him and towards the door.
There’s another man here.
His eyes widen as he takes me in, the sternness of his appearance softening a little with the shock. He is definitely not a member of my rapists cartel, for one he is caucasian. He’s dressed too scruffy in a dirty pair of jeans, a black tank, and a leather vest on. His hair is dirty and curling around his chin but he’s the first person to look at me in this house like I’m a person.
That’s the real reason I know he doesn’t belong to the cartel.
“What are you doing in my house, Unseen? I don’t do business with the Boar.”
The man shifts on his feet, his hands flexing at his sides. All of the cartel watch that movement carefully. Ah. He’s armed and they’re watching for him to reach for his gun.
I hope he does.
“You know the Butcher is after the girl, right? He’s torn down half of the Bay already looking for her. I caught wind she was here and thought I’d pay you a courtesy visit. You don’t want to be on that man’s bad side.”
None of his words make sense to me but I don’t like the sound of the
Señor Alcatron chuckles under his breath. “Why would I care about that man? He is under the Jackal’s thumb. It does not matter to me. You should not have come here, Roberts.”
The man looks around. “I shouldn’t have ever come here but I guess that’s what drugs do. Look, you gotta let the girl go. Whatever it fucking cost you to get her, it’s not worth the death the Butcher will give you. It’s just not.”
Señor Alcatron chuckles again, flicking his wrist, then watching as four of his guys pounce on Roberts. He doesn’t bother to struggle, sure he’s just being thrown out of the house.
But he’s seen me, knows where I am, could tell this other man where I am.
So instead, I’m forced to watch as they chain him to the floor.
Still he doesn’t struggle or fight it, just tells them over and over again, it’s not a good idea.
It’s only when they wake the dogs he knows what’s coming but by then it’s too late to fight back.
I vomit over the carpet at Señor Alcatron’s feet, mostly just stomach bile. I can’t think about what exactly happens, my mind tries to blank most of it out, and when my rapist notices what I’ve done he punches me so hard I black out.
I wake again tied to the bed, legs splayed open and a soreness that tells me I was again raped while I was unconscious.
I can’t close my eyes without hearing the sounds of his screams and the dogs growling over the pieces of him as they ate.
I don’t think about running again.
I retreat back into my mind, trying my best not to fall asleep and become consumed by the darkness that lurks there now. The maids all continue to work efficiently as if their boss hadn’t just killed a man by feeding him to his dogs. Their eyes always stay on their work and never on me. I begin to feel so bereft of life. It's as if I've lost the tether holding me onto the Earth and now I'm cast out into a different solar system. It's terrifying, isolating, and frustrating.
I want to go home.
I can never go home.
Time blurs once again. I know I’ve falling asleep due to exhaustion twice since the dogs, waking with a raw throat from screaming in my sleep, when another of the maids comes to get me with the chain once more. I’m smarter than the last time I tried to leave the room and I ask to use the bathroom before we head down. I relieve myself, washing away what I can of my assaults and I try not to look in the mirror at the shadow of myself that stares back at me.
The girl staring back at me is gaunt and hollow looking but, curse my damned genes, I still hold some of my beauty. I wish more than ever I was born plain as I splash water onto my face to clean up, any pride I once had in my looks long since torn from me. I will never again look at my appearance as anything but a curse.
“Puta, Señor Alcatron is waiting for you." The maid hisses, snapping me out of my little moment of misery.
“Of course, I couldn’t possibly make him wait.”
She frowns at my use of my mother tongue. I don’t care.
My legs tremble as badly as the last time I was forced to walk down here, though
I’m sure it’s about the dogs more than my physical state. Once again, there’s no sound as we walk through. I look a little closer this time though and each room we pass is empty, even the room that once held mountains of cash.
Are we leaving?
Or are they leaving and feeding me to the dogs now they’re bored of me?
The tremble in my legs gets worse but I force them to keep moving and I keep looking around for some sort of clues about what is going to happen to me now. The the rest of the house is as darkened as my room, the lamps making it look as though the cartel was going for mood lighting, when really I know this is just the way the they choose to live; in a series of dark, secretive rooms, connected by winding hallways filled with blind, subservient maids who obey without flinching even when a man lays dead at their feet, his bones snapping under the jaws of the drooling beasts eating him.
The tremble in my legs is a full blown shake as we step into the dining room and I’m not sure if it’s pain, starvation, or the fear of being ripped apart by the dogs. I’d very much like to be put out of my misery but being eaten alive… being ripped apart by those beasts is not the death I would wish on anyone.
I take a seat at the table at the maids direction and stare over at my most brutal rapist.
Maybe I would wish that death on this man. And the other ones who visit me.
He’s here alone, nothing but a drink in front of him for once. I’m glad to see his usual cigar missing, I don’t need anymore burns littering my body.
I stare down the table at him, meeting his eye so he knows that he might own my body right now he won’t fucking break me, and I imagine the death I would give him. I fantasize about snatching that steak knife away from his disgusting hands and slashing his throat with it. I imagine his blood pouring out over us both, hot and thick, and the satisfaction I feel from that act… god, I would give anything to be able to do that now. Even the show of making me watch the dogs devour that man who came here about me, that hasn’t stopped me from having a spine.
