by Bella J
“Not a chance, babe. You and I are practically married after last night.”
I snorted. “Yeah? And how do you figure that?”
He stopped and tugged me closer, our chests touching. “You’re my bitch now. And if I have my way, you’ll be my old lady for life.”
Those damn butterflies came back with a vengeance, flapping their dumb-ass wings like crazy inside my stomach. “Be thankful I like you so much.” I pulled away, and his forehead puckered.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re the first guy to call me a bitch and still have both his balls in the right place.” He snickered, and I glanced around. “Remind me what we’re doing here again.”
“Come on, this way. We’re almost there.”
He walked in front, with me close on his heels. The farther we went inside the building, the more potent the stench became. I could practically feel the filth stick to my skin, and how my lungs started to crave the polluted air of New York City rather than the smirched oxygen in this disgusting place.
It was eerily silent as we walked down a flight of stairs, our footsteps the only sound reverberating through the deserted building. Step after step, I followed him, our little banter earlier long forgotten as warning started to tighten around my throat.
“Ink—”
“We’re here.”
If I had taken one more step, I would have knocked right into him.
“Where is here…exactly? God, it stinks down here. What is this, the fucking sewers?”
“Something like that.”
“Jesus.” I held my hand in front of my nose, scrunching my face, trying to get rid of the horrid stench.
He pulled out a key, slipping it into the lock tied through chains around the door handle. I didn’t even notice the door before then.
Ink glanced at me, brows knitted together. “Babe, whatever happens, remember you trust me. Okay?”
“Okay, seriously, now you’re scaring me.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be scared. You’re not alone. I’m here with you, and he can’t hurt you.”
My heart came to a screeching halt, my spine frozen and blood instantly chilled. “Who is he?”
The latch clicked, the hinges complaining as Ink slowly pulled the door open.
He walked in first, looking over his shoulder at me the whole time. For the longest time, I couldn’t move. My body urged me to turn and walk the other way, to not set foot in that room. Yet I didn’t know why.
“It’s okay.” Ink held out his hand. “Trust me.”
This time, I didn’t place my palm in his, uncertainty making me hesitate. I took two steps, and I was inside. The second I saw the white tiles beneath my feet, I knew. I knew exactly where we were. Every inch of this floor had been engraved in my mind—from the grout to the tiny cracks at the edges of each tile. For hours, I had stared at them while pain got sliced, burned, and raped into me multiple times. Images of white refused to vanish from my thoughts—the exact image I was staring down at right now.
Air lodged in my throat, my stomach flipped inside out. I could practically feel the iron hooks still lodged in my back, every limb bathed in pain like acid eating through my flesh. The chills that erupted up my spine traveled to every inch of my skin, and I started shivering as flashes of my day in hell screeched with horror in my head.
“What the fuck is this?” I hardly recognized my voice, my lips trembling.
“This is your opportunity to slay the devil.” Ink stepped to the side and revealed my worst. Fucking. Nightmare.
Slither.
“Jesus,” I breathed, my mind too fucked to make sense of what I saw in front of me—a man’s beaten body hanging from a ceiling.
Slither stirred, the chains rattling above him, and I yelped as I scurried back, flattening my body against the wall behind me. My heart drummed, spliced with the ringing in my ears, making it impossible to think straight. With his head hanging down, bloody saliva dripped and hung from his mouth like thick, disgusting strings.
It was impossible to ignore the pungent smell of piss, sweat, and death filling the room from floor to ceiling. It was a familiar scent, an odor I associated with this very room. Only this time it wasn’t my blood. It wasn’t my urine…or my looming death.
“Neon?”
It was weird. I heard Ink calling my name, but I was too numb to respond. I couldn’t take my eyes off the man in front of me—or rather the thing that resembled a man.
“Neon, baby? It’s okay.”
No, it wasn’t. None of this was okay. How could he say it was okay?
Blood covered Slither’s chest, and smears of red streaked across his abdomen. His body looked like ploughed land, the skin on the side of his face burned. Jesus. He was me. This was me hanging from the fucking ceiling all over again.
I started shaking my head, disbelief crowding me against the wall.
This wasn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
“I can’t.” I struggled to find the words—any words, “This isn’t…Jesus.” Fear wrapped around my chest, squeezing the breath out of me, a sudden surge of adrenaline spurring me to run, to escape. But Ink was right next to me a split second later.
“He can’t hurt you, Neon.” His warm breath breezed across the sticky skin of my neck, sweat beading on my flesh. “He can’t touch you.”
“Ink, what is this?”
He took my arm and pulled me close, settling in behind me with his arms tightly wrapped around my waist. “This is you taking back what he stole from you.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You’ve had him all this time.”
Ink didn’t respond. He just kept his arms around me, not moving.
I glanced down and noticed the IV attached to his foot, the pressure in my lungs begging for me to take a breath. “You’re keeping him alive.” It wasn’t a question. Ink’s nursing background gave him all the knowledge he needed to keep Slither alive as long as possible.
I turned to face Ink. “Why? Why are you keeping him alive?”
“Because he doesn’t deserve to die quickly.” The hardened look on his face and the black rims that rounded his irises were signs of how hate manifested in him. How his need for revenge consumed him.
“How did you…why?”
“When Onyx and I found him with Wraith, I knew Onyx would plant lead in his skull. I couldn’t let that happen, not when I’ve been dreaming of killing him ever since I found your lifeless body on the fucking sidewalk.”
I closed my eyes when he said those words, flashes zapping through my head, images of Ink’s face, of two arms carrying me. Memories from before that moment started knocking at my skull, scraping against bone, clawing its way in, wanting to torture me further. It was like a fucking battlefield inside my mind, trying to keep them from haunting me.
I felt the tears wet my cheeks before I realized I was crying, my chest aching like it had been hacked open. “What have you done, Ink?” I whispered, tasting the saltiness of my torment. “What the fuck have you done?”
“If it ain’t…the blue-haired pixie.”
A whimper rushed from my mouth at the sound of his voice, every hair on my body raised. My breath hitched from the cold as ice spread down my spine, settling like glass in my stomach. Every voice inside my head warned me not to turn around, but I did…slowly.
“Purple.” His voice was strained. “I like it. But I prefer the blue.” The half-smile on his face was demonic as he watched me, one eye swollen shut.
Ink’s hand touched my arm, a subtle way of not letting me forget he was there.
“Let me guess.” Slither took a labored breath. “Pretty boy brought you here to finish his dirty work.”
I couldn’t speak. There were no words. Only memories, feelings, a whirlwind of emotions. The longer I stood there looking at him, the more it all started to settle in.
He was there, the one chained, vulnerable, and hurt. Not me. Him. The devil who took pleasure in my suffe
ring. The man who laughed when I screamed. The man who grunted like an animal when he forced his vile cock inside me.
The man who made me bleed.
“What’s the matter, pretty boy? Don’t have the balls to finish me yourself?”
Ink circled me, standing like a wall in front of me while glaring at Slither. “I see you’re back to being yourself again. That trip you took down Memory Lane sure fucked you up. You cried like a little girl.” Ink leaned to the side. “In fact, I think you might have shit yourself.”
Slither snarled, his forehead creased and nose scrunched.
Ink stepped out from in front of me. “She’s here to take what’s rightfully hers.”
“And what’s that?” Slither smirked.
“Justice.”
Maniacal laughs erupted, and I jolted from fright. “And here I thought she was here for my cock again.”
Anger sparked, and I balled my fists, thinking about him and how my screams only turned him on more. The idea of feeling him inside me, feeling his hands burn my skin had me swallowing down bile.
“Don’t look at me like that, little pixie. Like I disgust you.”
“Disgust isn’t a strong enough word,” I seethed.
“I’m glad to know I’ve left such an impression on you.” He smiled before his head lolled down. Even I could see he was exhausted, but it didn’t douse the flames of his arrogance, the way he still taunted me.
Ink approached me. “I know this is hard.” His words were soft so Slither couldn’t hear. “And I know you doubt me right now, probably thinking I’m an asshole for doing this. But you need to continue to trust me.”
“Do the others know?”
He backed down a little. “Only Manic.”
“Why haven’t you told Granite or Onyx about this?” I was holding on to my last thread of control.
“It’s complicated.”
I stepped forward, pushing myself up on my toes to get in his face. “Try me.”
“Babe, you know I can’t discuss club shit with you.”
“And this is club shit?” I snapped. “Kidnapping and torturing the man who let his men rape me repeatedly after he was done with me? Is that club shit to you? Because I’m pretty sure if it was, Granite and Onyx would be down here with us right now.”
Ink wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, and it only took me a second to figure out why he didn’t tell the others.
“You’re not sure if they would let you torture him to death, are you?”
Without looking at me, he replied with a hard voice laced in hate. “At first, it was just about me wanting this fucker’s blood on my hands, and my hands only.” He paused. “But turns out the Sixes have a score to settle with him as well, and, babe…I ain’t sharing.”
A soft cackle came from the back. “I sure am popular in this city, everyone wanting a piece of me.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Ink spat out his words dripping with disdain, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing. He turned back to me. “You know as much as I do that this is the only way for you to finally move the fuck on. This man broke you, made you bleed. Now it’s your turn to do the same to him.”
“Ink, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” He grabbed my shoulders, lowering himself so he could look me in the eye. “At first, I wasn’t sure whether it was the right thing to bring you down here. But now…now I know it is.” His fingers tightened. “I have no doubt in my mind that this is what you need. This is what you need to finally be able to move on.”
Determination and surety burned behind his irises, his expression hardened yet confident. For the longest time, I stared at him, my thoughts scattered in different directions. I’d be lying if I said I had never thought about it—about killing Slither. Slicing his flesh and watching it gape while blood oozed out of it. In fact, I’d dreamed about it more than I’d ever care to admit. To have his screams drown out my own and have his level of pain surpass mine. There were times my thoughts had me questioning my own fucking sanity, thinking of his blood filling the grout in the tiles, tainting it with the evil that clung to the crimson color of his miserable fucking existence. But I never thought—even for a moment—that I’d be given the chance, and if so, whether I’d take it.
“Neon, I can see it in your eyes. It’s there, the revenge you crave. Like I said before, you and me…we’re the same. If I had someone else to blame for my scars, for the nightmares, and hearing my little niece cry for help…I’d want revenge too. I’d want to inflict my pain on those who deserved it.” He straightened, his expression momentarily faltering, showing the pain he felt by thinking of his past. “But I don’t have anyone I can blame. Only myself. You, on the other hand, you have the fucker right here.” He pointed at Slither. “You can make him pay.”
My feet were blocks of ice, frozen on the spot. This moment felt too surreal, like a goddamn nightmare I was stuck in.
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t breathe, or think, or speak.
Ink brushed past me, grabbing something from a table which stood in the corner, and kicked a wooden crate in Slither’s direction. His leather boots creaked on the tiles, and the thump as he stepped onto the crate knocked against my chest.
Barbed wire tightened around my insides when I saw a pair of shears in his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Exactly what he did to you.” Reaching up, he grabbed one of Slither’s middle fingers, positioning the shears around it. Slither lifted his head and started jerking against the chains like an animal trying to free himself.
“What the fuck? Don’t do this. Jesus, don’t…” Slither begged with a quiver in his voice, his hands trembling while Ink held the shears in position, and I saw something in him I had never seen before. Fear.
And I…loved it.
Ink’s icy stare settled on me, both hands clutching the shears. “Your revenge starts…now.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ink
I felt the bone break the second I forced those shears shut around Slither’s middle finger. The crack, the snap, and the most gruesome screams that tore through his throat had my blood singing with satisfaction. The pleasure that rippled down my spine had me closing my eyes, relishing the moment while I basked in his high-pitched cries strong enough to shatter glass.
He swore. He screamed. And he jerked against his chains like a wild animal.
As I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was her, the look on her face. With flashing eyes, a trembling chin, and an iced expression, I knew she was feeling everything I felt.
It didn’t horrify her, seeing me cut this fucker’s finger off. It didn’t startle her or scare her. It fucking thrilled her. And God help, but I fucking loved the look on her face. It made my fucking dick hard.
“You feel that, babe?” I dropped the shears, the clank reverberating around us. “That’s what it feels like when you break the devil.”
Neon took one slow step at a time, not taking her eyes off Slither’s severed finger laying on the floor with blood splattered around it. That was the moment I knew I hadn’t made a mistake by bringing her here, by throwing her in the snake pit and forcing her to face her fear.
She lifted her head, staring at Slither’s agonized face. With one more step, she placed her flat leather boot on top of his severed finger, not even flinching. I took a step back, keeping my eyes on her beautiful face, hatred painted on every contour, malice lighting every feature. In that moment, she emanated the power of an angel sent to slay the beast, and I knew this would be her turning point.
Slither opened his eyes, spit dripping from his cracked lips. The blood pouring from his cut finger splattered onto his forehead, his hands hanging above him.
Her head slanted to the side then slowly leaned to the other as she scrutinized him, studied him. It was easy to see the world around her had disappeared, and it was now just him and her. No one else. Just them, and the sordid history she was forced to share with him.
His laugh was menacing, crazed, like a demon-possessed freak that craved the fires of hell, yearned for the flames to burn him to ash.
Neon didn’t even bat an eye and just stared at him as if she saw the man hidden behind the scaled ink—the man whose hands were painted with the blood of so many.
Her arm moved, and something glinted in her hand. A smile slowly eased onto her face, her jaw ticking and eyes alert. Then the words just rolled out of her mouth like she had been practicing it for months.
“Scream…for me.” A split second, and I watched as she hacked an iron hook into his stomach, blood gushing out of the wound, coating her hand. It happened in slow motion, and I managed to experience every expression that crossed her face.
Slither roared.
Neon’s jaw clenched, biting into her bottom lip.
With another jerk, she forced the hook deeper into him, and his eyes widened, his screams turning into gargles as he choked on his own blood—drowning in Neon’s madness.
She leaned closer, bringing her lips to his ears. “You bleed for me now.”
As she reared back, she yanked the hook out of him, tearing his flesh, an inhuman shriek tearing from his lips while his blood oozed from the open wound.
I was pretty sure any other person would be feeling a little queasy at the sight, but not me. Not while so entranced by the beautiful brutality my angel just unleashed on the man who could no longer hurt her.
NEON
I wished I could have said I felt nothing. That the fire burning in my veins wasn’t because of the bloodlust being satiated as I watched him bleed to death. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, off the blood dripping from the gaping wound in his stomach, pieces of torn flesh protruding from the wound. It was gruesome, but I loved it. I loved that it was me who painted this grotesque picture of a man butchered and hacked like a slaughtered pig.