Trapping Sophia: Disciples 6

by Sweet, Izzy

  When I’m done, I thrust the phone out, holding it up for James before Lucifer and Andrew can finish reading.

  Literally stepping on top of Trent to reach me, James accepts the phone, his eyes quickly scanning over my typing.

  I watch his face, watch all the little changes, as he processes what he’s reading. Little changes I wouldn’t have noticed before but recognize now after our time together. At first there’s surprise in his expression, but then his jaw tightens. Clenching so hard I’m surprised I don’t hear his teeth cracking.

  By the time James looks up, locking on me again, red has creeped up his neck and his eyes are nearly black with anger.

  “What’s on the phone? Show me,” Simon demands as he approaches James.

  James thrusts the phone back without even looking at Simon, his attention still riveted on me.

  “Andrew, please see to my wife,” James says then slams his boot down, right on top of Trent’s groin. “She’s been through some shit.”

  Trent bounces up a little off the floor as if he’s trying to bend in half and grab himself. But he can’t without the use of his arms, or the way is James pushing down on him.

  “Please… fuck…” Trent begs and squirms helplessly against the floor. “I’m sorry…”

  Eyes lighting up with a wicked light, James lifts his foot and slams it down harder.

  I cringe, and again, I almost feel pity for Trent. But after all the shit he’s done to me… he deserves some pain.

  I almost wish I could stomp down on him too. Give him a few kicks from me.

  Approaching James, Simon pauses to glance down at Trent in disgust, then carefully steps around him, taking the long way around to avoid being anywhere near him.

  Simon greedily snatches the phone from James’s hand right before Andrew appears in front of me.

  “I’m going to touch you, Sophia, so I can check you out, and I’ll try my best not to hurt you,” Andrew says before he gently grabs the sides of my face and peers into my eyes.

  “This… this…” Simon says in surprise, reminding me a little of a kid on Christmas morning.

  “Her pupils are slightly dilated… and she has several busted capillaries… That’s why her eyes look like they’re bleeding… probably from the strangulation,” Andrew murmurs thoughtfully before his focus drifts up.

  Trent lets out a little scream.

  Examining my head, Andrew lightly probes at an achy spot in the center of my forehead.

  I can’t help but hiss, flinch, and try to pull away from him.

  “What did they hit you with?” Andrew asks with a frown.

  Without Lucifer’s phone to answer for me, I have no choice but to say hoarsely, “They didn’t.”

  Andrew’s frown deepens and he looks back into my eyes, examining them again. “Something hit you.”

  Trent lets out another scream, this one higher in pitch.

  I wince, the shrillness of the scream piercing through my head. “I hit them.”

  “You…” Andrew trails off for a second before it clicks. “You headbutted them?”

  Even though my head aches, I choose to nod instead of trying to use my voice again.

  “Probably gave yourself a mild concussion doing that,” Andrew grumbles like he’s irritated, reminding me of how pissed off Lucifer was when I tackled him.

  Whatever.

  I did what I had to do.

  Squatting down, Andrew examines my neck, his hands and fingers checking me with a clinical precision.

  Then he straightens and turns to his bag.

  Trent lets out yet another pain-filled scream before James asks sharply, “Well?”

  “She should be checked out in a hospital. I can’t see if there’s anything internally wrong with her throat, though it’s good she’s breathing and able to speak. I’m going to give her something for the pain for the time being,” Andrew answers as he digs a syringe and a small clear bottle out of his bag.

  Filling the syringe from the bottle, Andrew turns back to me. “This should make you feel better.”

  He begins to reach for my arm when I have a sudden scary thought.

  “Wait,” I croak.

  “Yes?” Andrew asks, pulling back and holding the needle up.

  I glance around him to look at James.

  Face still twisted with anger, James now has his boot down on top of Trent’s arm in the sling.

  “Is it safe if I’m pregnant?” I wheeze.

  James suddenly stiffens, going very still.

  “Are you pregnant?” Andrew frowns.

  God, I’m so fucking sick of talking…

  “I… I don’t know,” I cough out.

  Andrew glances at James before looking back at me. “It’s probably not safe.”

  I want to groan fuck, but it would only hurt. Just like every other word I’ve spoken.

  Sadness flickers across James face before hardening into resignation.

  As if he can’t help himself, he pulls his leg back and delivers a hard kick to the side of Trent’s head.

  “I’d give you some acetaminophen… but I doubt you could swallow the pills. And it would probably do little for your pain anyway. Otherwise, anything I’ve got in my bag that will make you feel better isn’t going to be good for a baby,” Andrew says.

  When my face falls, he adds, “It’s your choice, Sophia. We all know you’re in a lot of pain.”

  I am in a lot of pain… more pain than I’ve ever been in before. And I think the only reason I’m upright now instead of writhing in misery is because of the adrenaline surging through me.

  I can feel the adrenaline ebbing though and all the aches increasing. Especially now that Andrew has so helpfully pointed them out for me.

  James stares at me like I’m the only thing that exists in the world, his eyes bright with intensity, his chest heaving up and down.

  Bracing myself for another burst of pain, I force myself to push out, “I’ll pass.”

  For a second, relief flashes across James’s face, but when I start to cough again and grab at my throat, the relief is wiped away.

  Replaced by a look of utter devastation.

  Andrew nods and caps the needle attached to the syringe. “Okay. We’ll use some cold compresses and see if we can give you some relief that way. Then I’ll take a look at your other injuries.”

  “I can’t take it anymore,” James says quietly to no one in particular as Andrew puts the syringe back into his bag and pulls out the cold compresses.

  “Take what, James?” Lucifer asks from beside me, just as quietly.

  Shaking his head, James steps away from Trent and tears his gaze away from me. “I can’t fucking take it anymore,” he repeats, looking around the room.

  Andrew snaps a cold compress, activating it, then carefully wraps it around the front of my throat.

  The sudden cold causes me to suck in a hiss in surprise.

  James’s attention whips back to me, his eyes wild now with something I can’t identify.

  Andrew snaps another compress and wraps it around the back of my neck so that it overlaps the first one.

  “I can’t fucking take it, Matthew!” James shouts and grabs at his head, his fingers digging into his hair as he struggles with something.

  My heart starts to beat wildly with fear.

  Afraid that something is wrong, that James is hurt somehow, I try to say his name but my throat locks up.

  When I can’t get any sound out, I try to stand up so I can go to him and help him, but a hand comes down on my shoulder, stopping me.

  I glance over to see Lucifer shaking his head at me.

  “What can’t you take, James?” Lucifer asks, turning his attention back to him. “Tell us what you need.”

  “I can’t…” James groans and tears his fingers out of his hair as he begins to pace around the room. “I need…”

  The room falls into eerie silence as James paces up first to Jacob, then Dickers, and finally back to Trent.
>
  Glancing at me, his eyes still wild, James repeats the circuit.

  Jacob, Dickers, Trent.

  In that order, over and over again.

  I find myself holding my breath, afraid to breathe as the air practically crackles with tension.

  A tension James seems to gather around him like a coming storm.

  I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but a sense of impending doom washes over me.

  And I fear for James. Fear… something is wrong. Very, very wrong. Something I can’t even fucking explain…

  “Talk to me, James,” Lucifer says, finally breaking the silence.

  James stops in front of Jacob and stares down at him.

  Jacob tries to scramble away from James with a look of terror on his face, but he’s pushed against a wall. There’s nowhere for him to go to escape.

  “James,” Lucifer snaps with irritation.

  And James seems to snap in return, finally cracking.

  “I can’t fucking take that they’re still breathing after hurting my baby!” James roars before he reaches down, grabs Jacob by the throat, and drags him into the middle of the room. Dumping him beside Trent.

  Finally looking up from Lucifer’s phone, Simon makes a face and jumps out of the way as James stomps over to Dickers next.

  On his knees with his hands behind his head, Dickers sneers up at James. “Fuck you. You motherfuckers won’t—”

  James punches the sneering man in the face, causing Dickers’s head to whip back and blood to spurt out of his mouth.

  “I can’t fucking stand that they took her away from me!” James bellows, his words booming like thunder in the room, before he grabs Dickers by the throat and drags him over to join Jacob and Trent.

  “What do you need?” Lucifer asks, excitement leaking into his voice. “Tell us and it’s yours.”

  I glance over at Lucifer to see his eyes gleaming.

  What the fuck?

  What the fuck is going on here?

  I thought Lucifer was trying to talk James down, but now he’s clearly egging him on.

  Does he want James to do something crazy?

  Because I’m pretty sure James is going to do something fucking crazy if no one stops him.

  I try again to speak, to get words out of my mouth, but my throat refuses to cooperate. Even with the cold compresses, my entire neck feels like raw hamburger.

  James slowly circles the three men, his wild eyes glaring at them, and something about it reminds me of a lion circling its prey.

  Then James screams in fury as if there’s something inside him he can longer contain. “I need to make them pay… I need to make them suffer for hurting her!”

  My stomach drops.

  Fuck… oh fuck…

  James suddenly lunges forward and grabs Jacob by the back of the neck, yanking him up until he’s on his knees.

  “For fucking touching her!” James snarls, spittle flying everywhere, and yanks Jacob’s head back as far as his neck will go, like he’s trying to snap it, before suddenly letting go.

  Putting his boot to Jacob’s spine, James forces his face down to the floor and roars, “For taking her from me!”

  Stepping off of Jacob’s back, James reaches down and grabs Trent by the hair, ripping him up just like he did Jacob.

  But he doesn’t have to push Trent down.

  Sobbing and whining, Trent tips forward, hitting the floor face-first as soon as James releases his hair.

  “She is my everything! My everything!”

  Stomping over to Dickers, James tries to grab him, but Dickers resists.

  Bellowing, “Fuck you!” Dickers takes a swing at James.

  James sidesteps Dickers easily, as if he was expecting it, and kicks him in the stomach.

  Dickers starts to fall over, clutching at himself, but James grabs him. Viciously twisting him around and bringing him to his knees.

  Then he kicks Dickers hard in the back, forcing him to fall forward.

  Ripping his knife from his belt, James stares down at Dickers for a moment.

  Then he screams, “And you will kneel and bow before her!”

  Slashing down, James stabs his knife into the back of Dickers’s neck.

  When Dickers reaches up, hands desperately searching for the knife, James slams his boot down on top of the handle, driving Dickers back down.

  Face a twisted mask of rage, James brutally keeps Dickers pinned beneath his boot as the other man struggles to yank him off. Grinding his foot down until Dickers grows so weak all he does is spasm and twitch.

  Once Dickers is finally still and most likely dead, James lifts his head to look at me.

  Huffing for air, his eyes meet mine. Bright, crazed… and full of pain.

  A pain that both calls to me and cuts right through me as I stare back at him in surprised horror.

  Stare at him as if I’m seeing him for the first time.

  The real James.

  The James he’s been warning me about this whole time.

  Stupid me, I didn’t believe him.

  I didn’t believe he was as bad as he was saying.

  When he told me he had murdered before, I thought it was just some stupid kinky roleplay.

  And now…

  Oh god, now…

  I believe him. I believe everything he’s said.

  Maybe it’s the horror on my face, or maybe it’s something else, but some of the crazed gleam in his eyes starts to fade.

  “Fuck!” he curses then spins away from me.

  Grabbing at his own head again, he starts to tug on his hair, and shouts, “Fuck!” again.

  And, even after watching him murder a man, I have the strongest urge to go to him.

  To hug him and ease some of his pain.

  Because I can’t stand to see him hurting.

  God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me… Maybe I’m fucking sick too because I don’t know if I want to run away or run to him.

  I should run away. I should totally run away from him, his obsession, and this crazy shit…

  Yet I can’t seem to get my feet to do it. I can’t seem to move at all after what I just witnessed.

  “James,” Lucifer says, “are you done now?”

  “Done?” James repeats and goes still for a minute, as if he’s surprised or considering it. Then he laughs a laugh that sends chills down my spine and pulls his hands from his hair. “Not by a fucking long shot.”

  Lucifer grins a wicked grin. “What do you need to finish this?”

  James shakes his head, as if he’s trying to shake something loose.

  Then he slowly turns around.

  All traces of the madness that gripped him just seconds ago is gone, replaced by an unsettling calm.

  A calm I find more terrifying than the rage.

  “Knives…” James says, looking at Lucifer. “I need knives, Matthew, and… I want Simon’s bag.”

  Almost at once, the men in the room move into action, as if they were waiting for this moment. Whipping knives out of their belts or fishing them out of their pockets.

  And I have to wonder if I’ve suddenly stepped into the fucking twilight zone.

  Because this is so surreal, it can’t be real…

  Can it?

  No one seems the least bit disturbed by James’s sudden and complete one-eighty, or the fact that he just murdered a man, like I am.

  They’re not trying to talk him out of anything. No, they all seem eager to help him. Whipping their knives out as if they were simply waiting.

  Some even wearing grins on their faces.

  I’m stuck in a room full of psychopaths.

  Simon, the closest to James, walks up to him and offers him a thin stiletto. “I need to head out to my car and get to work on this new information. We need to seize this opportunity before it slips away. I’ll have Johnathan bring my bag in for you.”

  When James accepts the stiletto, Simon looks over at me for a second. “I’ll also make some calls and s
ee if there’s something we can give Sophia for the pain that’s safe.”

  James looks a little surprised at that and some of his calm seems to crack. Rage starting to ooze out again. But then he shakes his head hard, getting a grip on himself.

  Gripping the stiletto, James tells Simon, “Thank you.”

  Simon smirks at James before he starts to walk away. “What are brothers for?”

  The big blonde man that was pointing a gun at Dickers’s head before James killed him calls out, “Brothers, huh? You never do shit for me.”

  “Well, Gabriel, I actually like James,” Simon says and pauses at the door to sharpen his smirk at the big blonde guy. “And his wife just made my fucking year.”

  “Yeah… well, I don’t like you either, pansy-ass motherfucker,” Gabriel grumbles under his breath as Simon walks out of the room.

  “Our knives are yours,” Lucifer says, bringing James’s focus back to him. “Just tell us what you need us to do next.”

  James looks around the room, at the men both standing and kneeling, calculating his next move.

  Watching him, I wish I could speak. I wish I could ask him to take me home. To forget Jacob and Trent. Forget them and let the others deal with them.

  But every time I try to make a noise, my throat produces nothing but silence.

  It’s almost like I’m stuck in one of those nightmares… the kind where you can’t speak or move.

  “Uriel,” James says, turning to him. “Help me with this fucker.”

  Uriel grins at James and saunters over to him from the wall he was leaning against. “Sure. Which fucker?”

  James shoves the stiletto into his belt and moves two steps over to Jacob. Grabbing Jacob roughly by the arm, he yanks him up to his feet.

  “This fucker,” James says and points to the left wall. “I want to get him up against that wall.”

  Uriel nods and shoves his gun back into the holster on his hip before grabbing Jacob’s other arm.

  “Please...” Jacob pleads, trying to drag his heels as James and Uriel haul him over to the wall. “I’m sorry… I was just trying to protect my son. I shouldn’t have hurt—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” James screams, losing his cool calm.

  Lashing out, James punches Jacob hard in the mouth twice, in quick succession.

  The first punch is enough to shut Jacob up. The second causes blood to burst past his busted lips and his head to whip back.