I roll my eyes, clutching my arm. “I’m gonna die down here, and you can’t even tell me what fucking month it is?”
“It’s November,” my mother says softly. “November third.”
November third. I count back in my head, certain she’s lying. Because if it’s November, that means I’ve been in here for three fucking months.
I choke on that, trying to suck in air as my throat closes in panic. I grab at my throat. “Three months?” I scream. “I’ve been here for three fucking months?!”
I’m suffocating. I’m going to die down here. Three. Fucking. Months? It can’t be right. The Prospect reaches a hand out to me, maybe to help me, I don’t know, but I hit it away, pummeling on his hard chest with my pathetically weak fists. He catches my wrists easily, slamming me back against the wall. I look across to see my mother standing there, first aid kit in one hand, her job apparently done. “What the fuck are you looking at?!” I scream at her. I’m suddenly so fucking full of rage. I’m drowning in it. “You fucking traitor!”
“Hey,” the guy says, but I ignore him, addressing my mother. “You’re meant to be my mother and I’ve been dying in here for three fucking months?”
My words barely pierce the drugged fog enveloping her, but they do. She frowns ever so slightly, tilting her head to the side.
“Hey, girly” the guy says, wrenching my chin toward him. More tears flood my eyes as I glare into his cobalt blue eyes. “Say my name!” I scream at him. “I’ve been down here for three fucking months, and she’s my mother, and you can’t even call me by my name?!”
I’m exhausted. I let my hands drop to my sides, and in response, he loosens his grip on me slightly.
“Juliette,” he says in his thick accent. We stare at each other for a moment, his eyes impossible to read, until eventually he breaks away, addressing my mother. “You can go now.”
She leaves just as gently as she came in, bumping into the doorframe on her way out. The door closes with a soft click and as soon as she’s out of earshot, we’re staring at each other again.
“You could help me,” I say desperately. “I have money.”
He smiles reluctantly, letting me go as he steps back. “No, no, no,” he says, waving a finger in my face. “I cannot help you. I’m a Gypsy Brother. And you’re a Gypsy killer.”
I snort. “Oh, really, you’re a gypsy brother? Where’s your tattoo? Where’s your leather cut? Huh?”
He smiles, his eyes gleaming, and lifts his shirt up, turning around so that I can see his back. A huge, freshly inked tattoo adorns his entire upper back in a curve, identical to the tattoo Jase sports on his back. GYPSY BROTHERS.
Fuck.
“Oh,” I say. He gives me a knowing look over his shoulder, dropping his shirt so it covers his torso again. Turning back to me, he stares at me for a long while before he speaks.
“Don’t try to get her to help you,” he says, jerking his thumb toward the door. “She might look like your mama, but there’s nothing between her ears anymore, girl. Nothing but Gypsy Brothers.”
I lean back dejectedly. He’s absolutely right. She’s completely fucked up. Beyond help. Useless.
“How’d you get involved in this life, anyway?” I ask, attempting to continue the conversation. Suddenly, I’m terrified to be alone in here. I don’t want him to leave. He’s easier to cope with than Dornan.
His tattoo flashes in my mind and all of a sudden, my heart sinks. I’d been clinging to the hope that he might be able to help me, but he’s one of them now. A motherfucking Gypsy Brother, complete with the obligatory ink to seal his fate..
But he helped me. He let me shower. Brought me clothes. Brought me medicine. Brought me my stupid mother. I’m so jarred by that, so confused by his random acts of kindness despite the fact we’re supposed to be enemies. My head aches.
He grins, flashing a mouth of beautiful teeth. “It was a woman,” he says, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. “It’s always a woman.”
He shuts the door, and I’m alone again, with his words stuck in my head.
TWELVE
Dornan comes in one morning a couple days later. I’m mid-vomit, my head buried in a bucket. He looks annoyed.
“I thought you said she was better,” he says to someone behind him. He steps to the side, and behind him I see my mother standing there, her expression once again blank and droopy. Fucking druggie.
She doesn’t answer him, and he snaps his fingers. “Caroline!”
She scurries forward, collecting the bucket in the corner, its only contents my urine. I’m not even embarrassed anymore that these people are handling my body’s waste. It’s all become disturbingly familiar.
He glares at my mother until she leaves the room, the urine sloshing in the bucket as she passes me. I consider sticking a leg out and tripping the dumb bitch, but then I’d be the one with piss all over the floor. And it’s bad enough in here as it is.
He waits beside me as I finish hurling my guts up, my mother scurrying back into the room with a clean bucket.
“Caroline,” Dornan says, his tone impatient. “What the fuck is wrong with her?”
I sit up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Apart from the obvious,” he jibes, glancing down at me dismissively.
“I think her wound is septic,” she says hurriedly, not meeting his gaze.
“You think?” he asks. “Or you know?”
“I’m ninety percent sure,” she says. “Also, she’s developed pneumonia. The mold doesn’t help.”
He nods, running his tongue over his teeth. “Will the sepsis kill her?”
My mother shrugs as I listen with interest. “Yeah, mom,” I ask, my tone like acid. “Will it kill me?”
She looks utterly confused, looking between Dornan and me with those pathetic drug-filled eyes that I wish I could just tear out and squash underneath my heels. Dornan laughs. “Give her the fucking medicine and get out, Carol,” he says shortly. “Don’t listen to what she’s saying. She’s mad like you.”
I laugh mirthlessly, drawing a knee up in front of me. As my mother readies a syringe full of antibiotics, I start to hum, a song from my childhood, from before my mother was completely fucked in the head and she still knew my name.
Dornan glares at me.
“Shut up,” he says.
My mouth curves into a fuck you smile as I continue to hum the lullaby from my childhood. And I can tell I’m distracting her.
She stands in front of me, her movements unsure, as she fixes her gaze on me and listens to the sounds coming from my mouth.
“Here,” Dornan snatches the needle from her and leans down, using his free hand to cover my mouth. I try to pull away, but his grip against my face as he pushes my head against the wall is like concrete.
“Tell me, Caroline,” he says, acting bored. “What happens when sepsis goes into your bloodstream?”
She blinks slowly. “Uhh…”
Dornan raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Yes?”
“There’s…Um…acute blood poisoning. Septic shock. Gangrene.”
His eyes light up when she says gangrene. “Ooh. And how do you chop off the middle of somebody’s body?”
She frowns. “You can’t.”
“So if this wound gets gangrene, how do we fix it?”
She shakes her head. “We can’t. Nobody can.”
Dornan grins. “And then?”
My mother appears flustered. “Septic shock—”
“You said that,” Dornan says sharply.
“Organ failure, massive shock, coma, and death,” She finishes flatly.
He shrugs his shoulders condescendingly as if to say, Oh well!
“And will it be painful?” Dornan asks.
She nods. “Oh, yes. Very.”
He chuckles, pushing my face and realizing his death grip around my mouth.
“Well, have fun,” he says, standing upright and ushering my mother from the room.
I roll my eyes, pissed I allowed him to get to me once again. I’m so annoyed. At myself, at him. At my stupid fucking mother for not even knowing who I am, let alone helping me. Even as a small voice of reason in the recesses of my mind tells me she’s beyond helping someone else when she’s a prisoner here herself.
Still.
If it weren’t for her, none of this would have ever happened.
If it weren’t for her, we’d still be okay.
If it weren’t for her, and her fucking drug addiction, my father wouldn’t have been a Gypsy Brother, and we’d all still be alive. Maybe she’d be dead, from the heroin, but hell, she’d deserve it for everything.
I hate her more than anyone. Including Dornan.
That thought is so fucking depressing; it’s enough to make me want to burst into tears.
But I don’t. Tears are for the weak. Tears are a luxury.
If I ever get out of here – the massive if – then, and only then, will I let myself cry.
Until then, I bite down on my lip, tasting blood, and continue to bite down until the lump in my throat slowly fades away.
THIRTEEN
Days pass with agonizing familiarity. In the morning, I get a tray of food and a handful of little white tablets that make me feel heavy and numb. In the afternoon, I’m allowed to use the toilet down the hall. Too bad if I don’t need to go then.
Three months. I don’t believe it, and yet I know it must be true.
I wonder if Jase is looking for me. If he’s even alive. And Elliot…. Oh, Jesus. I wonder if Dornan’s found him yet.
And then, Dornan comes back, with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye that makes me worry. He shuts the door behind him and places something on the table. A hand-held fucking Taser that looks like it could take a cow down. Awesome.
“I found your little boyfriend,” he says. “Elliot McRae, huh? He’s something else.”
I begin to sob brokenly. No smartass responses. No numb indifference. That look in his eyes tells me he’s satisfied. Did he kill Elliot?
It’s too much to comprehend.
“Why are you crying?” Dornan asks. “Tell me, or I’ll give you those drugs again.”
I don’t want the drugs. I’ve already started daydreaming about how delicious a shit of that stuff would be, how blissful, and I’m two or three doses away from being addicted to the fucking stuff.
“Just tell me,” I beg. “Did you hurt him?”
He sneers. “Not yet. I don’t need to anymore. I’ve decided on a much more fitting punishment to get back what you’ve taken from me.”
I stop sobbing and look up at him, daring to hope. “What?”
“Get up.” He eyes the Taser on the table deliberately and then glances back at me. “You don’t want to be shocked, do you Julie?”
I don’t. I stand. He didn’t hurt Elliot. Relief floods my body. He didn’t hurt Elliot yet. The yet is extremely disturbing, but I push that thought away, snapped back to the present by his demands.
“Against the wall.”
I’m empty of the will to fight. The little pills he is giving me are doing their job beautifully. They make me compliant. Somewhere in the darkest recesses of my addled mind I hear a scream, an urging to fight, but the syrupy medication that sloshes in my veins soon drowns that voice out.
It’s easier this way.
I walk slowly to the wall, turning and leaning my back against it. I stare at the floor in front of me, stained with my blood.
“Get your fucking clothes off.”
I hesitate. Not that. I raise my eyes to his and see the warning there. He reaches out and picks up the Taser, pressing the button so electricity sparks from the top of it. I jump, shrinking back against the wall.
“Hurry.”
I fumble with my shirt, pulling it over my head and letting it drop to the floor beside my feet.
“Keep going,” he says, making the Taser spark again.
Feeling my cheeks burn, I slide the sweatpants down past my bony hips and wiggle them over my knees, stepping out of them so I’m completely naked. The wall behind me is rough limestone, and I wince as the bits of uneven stone catch at the sores on my back from where the bedsprings have cut into my skin.
He stands, and places the Taser back on the small table. Approaching me, he bites his lip and grins. He stands so close to me, I feel like he’s going to suffocate me with his presence alone. I stare at his chin, level with my eyes, and wait to see what’s next.
I jump as his hands cup my breasts, almost tenderly. I grit my teeth as he slides the pad of his thumb across one of my nipples, making it spring to life. Touching me like a lover. I wish he’d just bash my head in instead.
Getting me undressed so I feel even more vulnerable? Signature Dornan move. I try not to tremble underneath his touch, but I’m terrified. Please, not that again.
He places his other hand under my chin, forcing it up so our eyes meet. The fingers playing with my left nipple move to cup my breast, and when he squeezes it hurts so much I gasp. That elicits a sneer from him, amusement dancing in his black eyes. He lets that hand trail down to my stomach. Thankfully, the bandage taped to the place where my tattoo and scars once lived stops him from dipping his fingers into the mess of missing skin, oozing blood, and possible gangrene. He brushes his knuckles down my side, stopping at my unmarred hip.
“Julie,” he says.
I don’t respond. I just hold his gaze, and in my head, think of something better, like Ferris wheels and kinder eyes.
“I finally decided what to do with you, Julie.”
I try not to react, but my body does it for me. Every bit of my exposed skin springs up into goose bumps, and I shiver in the cold.
I want to ask, what? What are you going to do to me? But I won’t. I refuse to.
He can tell, I know he can tell how desperate I am. He grins, taking both hands and holding them around my throat. Something dark flashes across his gaze and he squeezes, hard enough that I have to gasp in little sips of air.
So he’s going to kill me. I don’t drop his gaze, but I let my body relax. No point fighting it. He’ll strangle me to death, and then maybe he’ll bring me back to life if he’s in the mood. Maybe he won’t.
I don’t even fucking care anymore. I’m a zombie. A shell. A fucking notch on Dornan’s list of wins.
But you killed four of his sons. You still fought your war pretty fucking well.
That thought makes me smile, despite the fact that I can’t breathe and I’m against the wall, naked, and being strangled by the man who I once thought I’d be able to destroy.
“What the fuck are you smiling at?”
I think of Chad’s face when he realized who I was. Of Maxi, struggling violently as I rocked on his lap, a pile of poisonous powder rammed underneath his nose. Of the carnage that greeted me in the emergency room in Tijuana, when I managed to wipe out two more sons. And I can understand how Dornan feels right now. He must be so fucking pleased to get his vengeance on the girl who took his sons.
He loosens his grip on my neck. “Answer me. What the fuck are you smiling at?”
I hack up a lung, coughing as oxygen once again enters my body. The room stops spinning after a few seconds, and I lean against the wall for support.
“Tell me what you were fucking smiling at or I’ll shove that Taser up your pussy and set it to max.”
I feel my smile shrink a little. “I was thinking about how your sons looked when they realized karma had come back to punish their asses.”
“Huh.” He licks his lips, and that infuriating goddamn smile is back again. Not the reaction I expected.
“What are you smiling at?” Fuck! I ca
n’t resist. I’ve played right into his pathetic game. Admitting that I’m dying to know what he’s planning to do.
He takes a step back, letting his gaze rake up over my naked body. And when he finally speaks, his words are so chilling, so devastating, they’re worse than anything I could have imagined.
“I’ve decided how you’re going to pay me back for taking four of my sons, baby girl. Killing you and bringing you back to life is fun, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not nearly enough payment for the things you took from me.”
He pauses, letting me digest that before he continues. He licks his lips again, like he’s about to fucking devour me, and his grin is so wide, it’s as if his face might break.
“You’re going to give me back my sons, baby girl. All of them.”
I frown, confused. “What?”
He chuckles. “I’m gonna breed you like a fucking brood mare. I’m gonna keep you down here, in this room, for as many years as it takes for you to give me four fucking sons. Until you repay what you took from me. You understand? Get comfortable, bitch. You’re going to be down here getting fucked and tortured and popping out babies until our debt is cleared. I’m going to be inside you here,” he jabs a finger into my forehead, “and here,” another jab, this time to my stomach, “and here.” I gasp as he rams the same finger up inside me without warning. “I don’t want you dead. I just want you to wish you were dead. And I want my fucking money.”
I snort. “You’re delusional. I’m almost dead, you motherfucker! Do you really think this body would even sustain a pregnancy after you’ve starved me, drugged me, poisoned me, and fucked me within an inch of my life?”
Stark satisfaction dances in his eyes. “Aren’t I lucky then, that I already got inside you a long time ago?” He presses something hard and thin into my palm and steps back, giving me the space to look at what he’s handed me.
I stare down at the plastic stick, two lines intersecting in a circle. A plus sign. Positive. I laugh, but it’s an empty noise, as inside I’m filled with panic.
“Good try, Dornan. I don’t buy it for one second. This is a fake.” I continue staring at the plastic pregnancy test, turning it over in my hand, thinking how pathetic his attempt to scare me is. It’s a fake. Of course it’s a fake. You can order these off eBay for five bucks, for fuck’s sake, and scare your boyfriend—or your hostage—on April Fool’s Day.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 39