Verboten: An Inferno World Novella

by A. A. Davies

  I’d grown up being the smallest, the youngest, and having to fight my way out of situations, which meant I knew the best tactics. You always went for the biggest, most influential when you wanted to take someone down, because every person who followed him would know not to mess with you.

  And that was exactly what I was doing.

  I’d waited him out, subtly followed him with Beth on the back of my bike and her thighs pressed against mine. It was easy to be distracted by her, but I had a mission. A mission I was about to execute.

  The jocks always got to school an hour and a half before everyone else, which meant it was the perfect time to accost him. I had an hour until I had to meet Beth a block from her house. I’d have liked more time, but I’d work with what I had.

  His shiny red car squeaked into the senior parking lot and I waited in the shadows for him to get out. He was an entitled prick who needed to learn he couldn’t do whatever he wanted and get away with it.

  He hooked his bag over his shoulder and stared down at the cell in his hand. He had no idea he was being watched, so when I stepped out from the shadow of the gym, he jumped back a step.

  “Holy shit!” He placed his hand on his chest, his wide eyes staring at me in shock. “Dude, you scared the shit out of me.”

  I pushed my hands in my pockets and rolled my shoulders back, giving him a carefree vibe. “Sorry, man.” I paused and shuffled forward. “My bike broke down in the lot, I was wondering if you could help me out? I need another set of hands.”

  He puffed his chest out and nodded his head like one of them goddamn nodding dogs he probably had in his obnoxious sports car. “Yeah, yeah, sure.”

  I tilted my head to the side and he spun around. We walked side by side until we were outside the front doors and I grinned at the flagpole.

  “I recognize your face,” he said, slowing down and looking over at me. “We met before?”

  “Yeah.” I pulled my hands out of my pockets and slowed down too. It’d only take a couple of seconds to knock the douche out, but I had to time it properly. “You know Beth, right?”

  He frowned and then blinked, probably putting it all together. I’d acted like I hadn’t cared a few days ago in the school hallway, but that was farthest from the truth. I always bided my time and didn’t react off my first feeling.

  The problem was, this time my first feeling didn’t leave me. I had to make sure no one messed with what was mine, and Beth? She was all mine.

  I took a step back and lunged to the side to wrap my arms around his neck. I wasn’t going to snap it—even though the thought had occurred to me—I just wanted to knock him out for a few minutes so I could set it all up.

  He struggled against me, but he had half the strength I did, and within thirty seconds, he was out cold. I was glad we were so close to the pole because the fucker was heavy as shit.

  I dragged him over, stripped his clothes, and pulled the rope out of my back pocket. A real man always came prepared. It took several minutes for me to tie him up like a hog to the pole, and when I’d finished, I stepped back to admire my handiwork.

  I hadn’t lost those skills I learned in the Scouts, the knots were proof of that.

  I leaned against the small wall a few feet away and checked my cell for the time. Forty-five minutes until I had to leave to get Beth, he better fuckin' wake up in time. His head was limp on his shoulders and the top of his feet met the gravel of the ground. If he struggled too much when he came to, he’d probably scratch the shit out of his skin.

  The thought had a grin spreading on my face. I was too goddamn happy about this whole situation, but I didn’t care one bit. I’d learned to keep violence inside the ring, but this was different. He’d touched and messed with what was mine, and he’d have to suffer the consequences of his actions.

  Ten minutes went by without a sound or movement from him, and in that time, I pulled out my switchblade, opening it and closing it to keep my fingers occupied. Then finally—fuckin' finally—he started to stir.

  I pushed up off the wall and ambled over to him, waiting for his eyes to clear and realize what had happened. His mouth was pulled open with the rope, stopping him from being able to scream for help.

  “Hey, man,” I said, echoing the way he talked. “So...I figure I should probably tell you what’s going on.”

  He struggled against the ropes keeping him attached to the pole and glanced down at his naked body. His small soft cock was on full display, and I was sure he was more concerned about that than what was about to happen.

  “So Beth...you know her, right?” He didn’t make a move, so I stepped forward. “Right?” I roared, the control on my rage starting to slip. He nodded his head the best he could and stared at me as took another step forward. “Thing is, Beth is mine.” I opened and closed the switchblade. “I’m what some may call overprotective.” I shrugged and placed the cold blade against his chest and circled his nipple. “So when I hear about someone hurting or upsetting her, it makes me upset, ya know?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and tears sprung from his eyes. I’d not even caused any damage yet and he was already crying like a fuckin' sissy.

  “Sometimes people need to be taught a lesson. We all learn, right? It’s just learning what the right thing to do that’s the problem.” I brought the blade up to his neck, stopping at his pulse point and continuing on to his face. “I had to learn that lesson when I was ten.” I shook my head and tutted. “It was from my own uncle too.” I stared at the guy in front of me, not really seeing him as I carved a line into his forehead. “He said he was teaching me how to behave, but part of me just wondered if it was an excuse to do what he did.” I tapped at my temple. “He wasn’t quite right up here.”

  I grinned and flicked the knife the other way, ignoring the moans of pain coming from him. “He told me that people needed to be warned about boys like me, so he branded me with this mark.” I chuckled, remembering the reactions I got when people first saw it. I didn’t remember the burning pain on the bottom of my cheek from the scorching hot metal, all I remembered was how everyone reacted at seeing it.

  “It was fair to say it warned people away.” I stepped back and admired my handiwork as I ran my palm over my cheek. My uncle hadn’t counted on me cutting the brand off my own face, but then, maybe I was just as crazy as he was. The upside-down cross was a warning, both to me and the guy attached to a pole. “This one will heal in a few weeks but know that if you even look at Beth again, I’ll come to your house and burn that shit into your head.”

  I let the blade graze over his chest and halted at his dick. “And this…” I flicked my wrist and slit the head of his soft cock. It’d heal and wouldn’t leave more than a scar, but it was another warning in case my first one wasn’t enough. “I’ll chop this off and stick it up your ass for good measure.” I stared into his terror-ridden eyes, drumming my point home, and then smiled.

  I backed away a couple of feet, put my knife away, and snapped a photo on my cell. “Wanna see?” I asked, and he shook his head as much as he could without strangling himself. I ignored him and held the cell up to his face and then zoomed in on his forehead. The upside-down cross was marked clearly between his brows with blood dripping from the two straight lines. “Fun, huh?”

  I grinned, stepped back, and pushed my cell into my pocket. “Keep your mouth shut and we won’t have any more problems, okay, Eddie?” His eyes widened at the use of his name and I raised a brow. “I know all about you and your family. Secrets always have a way of coming out, bear that in mind next time you think about touching what’s mine.”

  I lifted my hand on a wave and walked backward, knowing I now only had ten minutes to get to Beth and another ten after that until everyone showed up and witnessed popular Eddie tied to the pole naked with his dick and head bleeding.

  My work here was done, and I knew that Beth would sail through the last couple of months of high school now.

  JACOB

 
There was a power in a secret. A power I never knew about. I’d always viewed them as dirty, but what I was keeping from the world was anything but.

  When I’d brought Beth to my fight tonight, people had assumed she was my girlfriend and didn’t bat an eyelash. I didn’t correct them and tell them that she was my niece. I had a feeling they’d frown upon the way my hand gripped her hip and the way I would press my lips against hers. But fuck them.

  Fuck everyone’s judgment.

  Fuck society.

  What we had was real, more real than anything.

  It’d been four days since Beth had turned up at my house and gave herself to me, and things hadn’t been the same since. I was in a spiral that only she could stop. When she was around, everything was right in the world, but as soon as she was gone, things didn’t make sense.

  I was second-guessing what we had done, but as soon as I saw her face again, I forgot all about it.

  The bell to the second round rang out and I glanced at Beth sitting in the front row, her hands steepled together in a prayer against her chest. She caught my eye, smiled, and I winked in response. She had yet to see the high I’d get from a win, but tonight she’d know exactly what that was.

  I stepped into the ring, threw a combination of jabs and then an uppercut to finish. The fight was over in the blink of an eye, and I turned to look at Beth, but she was gone.

  My heart rate sped up even more than the exertion of the fight had caused as I gazed around frantically. Where the hell was she? And why the hell was everyone standing up so that I couldn’t see her? At five foot nothing, she was impossible to spot in the roaring crowd.

  And then I halted my gaze on the hallway entrance, and there she stood.

  I’d tried to resist her.

  I’d tried to be different.

  But blood was thicker than water.

  I didn’t just want her. I needed her. I needed to own every single inch of her.

  She crooked her finger, beckoning me, and I drifted to her like helpless sails in the wind.

  JACOB

  The gym was empty when we left. We’d created our own little bubble inside my room, and nothing would burst it, not even the fact that it was way past midnight and her curfew.

  “It’s fine, Dad won’t mind,” she told me when I parked my bike a block away.

  “You sure?” I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her closer to me, taking a deep breath of the flowery scent that always surrounded her.

  “Yeah.” She stared up at me and smiled small. “I’m sure.”

  I nodded, not thinking twice about believing her and walked her a couple of houses down from hers. “I’ll wait until you switch your light off.

  She bit down on her bottom lip and her chest moved as she pulled in a deep breath. “Okay.”

  I frowned, wondering yet again what had happened to the confident Beth she was when around me, but maybe I was thinking too much into it? I was overthinking everything because of what we were doing.

  “I’ll see you later?” she asked, and I leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.

  “You bet your ass you will.” I gripped her ass for good measure and bit down on her bottom lip. “’Night, baby girl.”

  “Night, Uncle Jacob.” It turned me on way too fuckin' much when she called me that in her soft voice.

  I stared after her as she walked up to her house and didn’t look away until she opened up the front door. Then I crossed the street and pulled out my cell, checking my messages and reading over a few from Wade. By the time I made it to my usual spot and looked up, I couldn’t see the light on in her bedroom.

  I stared for a couple of seconds and then stepped forward, about to walk back to my bike and crash for the night. I was exhausted and needed a good twelve hours’ sleep after that fight. But a light filling her bedroom window gained my attention.

  It wasn’t the usual light that came from her lamp, but one that seemed to stream in from the hallway. I waited a second and then saw the shadow of a person, but this one was definitely not Beth and could only be mistaken for a man.

  She’d gotten in trouble because she was late, and it was my fault. I had no idea what to do, but knew I had to wait until he left her room and I could message to see if she was okay. My instinct was to take her away from this house and keep her all to myself, but I resisted the urge even though it was all my brain screamed at me to do.

  I wanted her all to myself. Always.

  The shadow moved and then I spotted Beth sitting up on her bed. If it wasn’t so dark out and the streetlights would have been on, I wouldn’t have been able to see inside her room so clearly. I crossed the street to get an even better look and see if I could hear anything.

  The shadows moved, but I couldn’t see what was happening, and then I heard, “You know what your punishment will be.”

  “No, please.”

  I shook my head and held in my chuckle. I’d never had a normal teenage experience of breaking curfew, so I could only imagine what he’d do. Maybe take her cell away or ground her?

  “Strip,” Hal ground out, and every hair on my body stood on end. No. I’d heard him wrong, he wouldn’t have said that.

  “Dad, please, don’t—”

  The echo of skin slapping skin rang out all the way out here, and that was when I realized her bedroom window was open a couple of inches. The spring was making way for summer and bringing with it a heatwave.

  “If you’re not gonna do it,” I heard Hal grunt, and that was all I needed to run up to his front door.

  The wooden surface wasn’t a match for my raging anger and the strength I’d built up training over the years. I made it into the house in seconds, and ran up the stairs, not knowing which room was Beth’s but the grunting noises were enough to lead the way.

  I stepped inside and halted. Hal had Beth stripped of her clothes, fully naked, and pinned to the bed as he lined up his small cock at her entrance. Seconds dragged out for what felt like a lifetime as I put everything together. The way she recoiled from his touch at the dinner table, the way she said she wanted to want the touch when she’d given me her virginity, and the discoloration of some of her skin. Was she hiding bruises from me this whole time?

  More importantly, was I just as bad as he was?

  I stared into Beth’s eyes and saw the answer staring back at me. She trusted me without a doubt, so I stepped forward, silently promising that this would never happen to her again.

  Chapter Ten

  BETH

  “Strip,” Dad ground out.

  I’d known it was coming as soon as I heard his footsteps heading toward my bedroom, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. He’d taken what he’d wanted over the last week, not caring one bit about what it was doing to me. Part of me understood that to have the pleasure I had with Uncle Jacob, I had to expect the pain from my dad.

  “Dad, please, don’t—”

  His hand lifted, and I didn’t have the chance to move away before it connected with the side of my face. His ring that he wore on his middle finger cut into the skin of my lip, and I licked at the blood. The pain would keep me alive, if only for a little while.

  He grappled for me, ripping at my clothes as he grunted, “If you’re not gonna do it, then I will.”

  He pinned me to the bed, tearing my clothes off my body, and I felt myself escaping to that safe place. There I could pretend this was all a nightmare and that I’d wake up and everything would be back to normal. But tonight, something stopped me from going there.

  Footsteps pounded inside the house, and I wondered if Shell was coming to watch Dad do what he did best. She’d become just as bad as he was by not putting a stop to it. He had some kind of hold over her I’d never witnessed before, and for the hundredth time, I wondered if that was why she was so mean to me over the years. Maybe she was trapped here and yearned to get out, just like I did.

  I flicked my gaze over Dad’s shoulder, the weight of him pressed against my chest and m
aking it hard to breathe. I didn’t expect to see what I did.

  Jacob.

  Uncle Jacob.

  He stared at me in horror and stumbled to the left. I wanted to call out to him, to beg him to help me, but I couldn’t get my mouth to work.

  He blinked several times and didn’t glance away from me, seeming to search for something, and a second later, he’d gained whatever he was looking for and pushed his shoulders back.

  I flicked my gaze down to his arm as he reached into his pocket, pulling out the flip knife I knew he carried in there, and stepped closer to us. Dad was too focused on trying to get inside me to notice there was someone else in the room.

  Uncle Jacob halted behind him, grabbed him around the chest, and held the knife to his throat. “Wrong move, big brother. Wrong fuckin' move.”

  Dad opened his mouth, his wide eyes staring straight at me as Jacob slashed the knife across his throat, coating all three of us in the warm, red liquid. He didn’t let go of his body, instead kept him still as the blood drained out of him.

  I couldn’t look away from the sight, entranced by the life leaving the eyes of the man I’d come to hate. The man who had taken things from me that weren’t his. He was a thief. A thief who was getting what he deserved.

  Dad pushed and pulled, trying to get his hands up to his neck, but Uncle Jacob kept him in place until his body stilled and went limp. Only then did he let him go and curl his lip up in disgust at him.

  “Piece of fuckin' shit.” He pulled in a breath, one that seemed to make his entire body stand even taller, and in that moment, I think I fell in love with him. I was in love with a murderer who also happened to be my uncle. “Baby girl,” Uncle Jacob said, his voice soft. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it didn’t matter,” I croaked out, standing up and spotting Shell in the hallway, her eyes wide and an obvious look of utter terror on her face.