Before I can even think, let alone assess what’s hurt, another body falls on top of me, her hair covering my face, her salty tears dripping to mine as she whimpers and pleads loudly. “Please, please help me.”
“Doll, I can’t even save myself, let alone you,” I groan out to her as I use my hips to thrust her frame up and off mine. I don’t do human contact at all. This place is no exception. I search around me using my ears for clues, for more sounds. Yet nothing but stifled whimpers and sobs, mixed with footsteps and men’s voices hushed and low, meet my ears.
“You get all we need?” I hear one man say his tone harsh and gruff.
“Yep, and a little extra one too. This bitch is a fun toy, I know, I’ve had my dick in her many times.” That’s Drake's voice. I recognize it as his hands grab under my arm and pull me up from the cold concrete. Another man runs his fingers over my neck and down the swell of my breasts pulling back from his seedy touch I am greeted with Drake's chest my body is pushed hard against his as his hand grips my hips he pulls me tight into him and I feel the bulge of his cock press into my back. “Stand still, whore,” he barks into my hair.
“Drake, you’re a cunt,” I spit out.
“Ohh such dirty words coming from the girl who tries to be more than what she really is. The girl whose mother is a drug whore and, baby, you’re no better.” He says through gritted teeth into my ear. His teeth find my lobe and bite it hard. Sucking air deep between my teeth; it stings. I cry out as his hand grab my neck. “You know you want it, baby doll, and fuck, me and the boys will give it.” His dirty, beer-laced breath washes over me, pungent and disgusting. Without thinking, all fear that should be flowing through my veins is gone. It’s not normal for me to feel this calm. It’s not a natural feeling to not be afraid, I like it. I’m not hyperventilating or panicked anymore.
My calmness is like a new-found drug, oozing all over me, muting the sharp reality of my situation. I embrace the fake courage that it gives me and the knowledge that I was being thrust into this horror movie playing out around me. I am strong, I will not cry, I will fucking fight.
My hands tied behind me ball into fists, and through gritted teeth I spit, “Well baby, why don’t we tell them all how small ya cock is and how, when you cum, you cry for ya momma.” I straighten my shoulders as laughter rings out around me and hands slap what I think sounds like backs. I hear the low rumble of questions coming from shocked mouths. God I'd love to be able to see the look on Drake's face.
Before I can even smile at my inner bitch being awoken, I fall to the ground winded as something hard hits my ribs and back. As I hit the cold, hard ground, the concrete scrapes the side of my face as boots find my already gasping for air body. “You fucking whore,” I hear Drake spit. “You will learn your place even if I kill you while teaching you,” he spits over me. He starts to kick me over and over as stars form in my vision. My eyes water and my body curls around itself, pain ricocheting throughout.
“Fuck you,” I spit out my voice laced with anger and shaking with tears. My bound hands and shoulders screamed agony with the way my body contorted with his boots and my soul well that snarled for more, more pain more feeling more “Give me more, you fucker!” I hiss as blood flowed in my mouth. I spit it out as his hands find my hair and he pulls my head back. His boot is firmly plastered in between my shoulder blade, effectively bending my body around his.
“You found your voice, I see, finally we all knew you were just a dirty little fuck toy.” Once again, I search for fear but nope not there. All I felt was pain and that pain fueled me to fight.
“Enough, you fucking idiot!” the loud growl rumbles like an earthquake, hushing the words of hate and, in its wake, leaving nothing but the pain searing through me and the ragged breathing coming from me and Drake. Stepping off my back, he throws me to the ground and I fall, the cool ground a welcome feeling to my heated skin. Whoever had spoken, or growled, I should say, had power and I mean power like immense power. A shiver darted over my skin as all went silent.
“What the fuck happened? Who the fuck is the chick you’re beating on?” He yelled out amid the sound of a few scuffled footsteps and hushed tones. I pick up a comment from a voice I didn't know. ‘This should be interesting,’ the voice says.
Yep Drake won’t bow though, watch,’ another voice answers the first. My good angel is asking all the what’s and whys, how’s and who’s. I am unable to even try and think about that as I am so shaken by the situation flowing around me and that I kinda need to be like fierce and shit when I’m actually shitting myself. My bad angel is laughing at the events that unfold around us and the fact that Drake is getting pulled up finally someone sees that he’s a waste of space.
“Bend a fucking knee, dick bag. Show me some fucking respect!” The earthquake bellowed out around us causing my new inner found bitch to run and hide.
“I’m not bending nothing, asshole, you aren’t my Prez, bitch.” Drake has balls.
“I am while I'm fucking here! Three clubs joint and Three Prez’s came with them I am one of them so, dickless, you will bend, and you will fucking obey me.” He roars out, his tone is clipped, thick and angry, with an accent that is super alluring and all the young girls around me start to cry. For what reasone I am unsure of, is it his voice its super intense and scary as hell but nothing has happened to warrant tears. I can taste their fear though so maybe that’s it. It’s swirling around us all mixed with way to my testosterone. “I’ve been here for four fucking months and all you’ve given me is resistance, obey me or follow the path of your other brothers who dared push me.” His tone spits rage and it pushes my body closer to the damp cold concrete. I wish it would swallow me as I desperately rub my face over the gritty surface. Finally, the fabric comes free slightly, allowing me a little fresh air, not that it’s really fresh, it has the sharp taste of metallic blood floating through the air. The fear that oozes from the other women is suffocating as well as the stench of alpha male and the piss bags who all want to take his place.
I try hard to wiggle the fabric down far enough, so I can at least see what the fuck is happening around me as a newfound panic washes through the already suffocating air. “You’re just a bitch and I will bow to your boots the day I put a bullet in your head, Viper. You come in here with what a dirty ass snake on ya back and a beef with the Reapers who are piss bags in the wind. We have them by the balls with the lone wolf’s princess and you want us to jeopardize that, so you can take what? The Celtic goddess as you all call her? When we have the queen, we don’t need a bitch.”
“DRAKEEEEEEE!” the earthquake roars as steps sound out, fast paced and moving away from my body. All of a sudden I feel so exposed and this time, actual fear hits me like a semi. All I hear is muffled fists hitting bodies, kicks and cursing, their voices muffled, breathless. It ended as fast as it began with a painful groan and a body falling down beside me. I can feel the anger swirling around us.
The earthquake voice again bleeds out around us all. “Open your fucking eyes, you all have it so very wrong. You all don’t know shit, you don’t know what the fuck you’re on about, and you have no clue just how fucken dangerous the Reapers are. Not just the Reapers as a whole but their executioner alone is a death wish. He’s as silent as the wind and as sharp as the knife that will come from the dark and take out your fucken heart right before you; a man known to me as Cade Morrow, but to the world and the street, he is just Ghost.” Drake moves next to me as mind just sucks all this info in Ghost, what the hell has Ghost got to do with this place and these people, who the hell is Viper and why the hell am I here. Celtic Goddess, who is that? And he can do what? With a what? Ok so now I’m on hyper alert as the hairs prickle up and over my arms a glacial line of sweat runs down my spine.
My mind races at the speed of sound and my body begins to shake. I feel sick and I feel way out of my league. The fake courage is no match to the evil I can feel in this room, let alone the earthquake man, he seems like he would rip me a
part in one swift pull. “I’ve been chosen to run this operation so, boy, bend your fucking knee and respect me.” Another tremor ran down my back, silence deathly quiet answers him.
The only noise was the sound of boots on the concrete, heavy breathing and the suppressed whimpers from the women that seem to surround me. “You’ll die,” Drake seethes out to the man with the roaring earthquake for a voice
“Ha, Me? I won't die, son, but a traitor, a traitor will die way before me. I'm chosen, all us Presidents of clubs are chosen from a long line and rather careful planning. You’re just piss in the wind disposable.” His voice penetrates my cold as snow scared soul. I didn’t know how many men stood around me, but the air was thick with anticipation and anger. I heard a thud sounding like a fist meeting flesh and like the little girl I don’t want to be, I cowered into myself, tightening my body into a ball and willing this to be over. It sounds like we just got brought into world war fucking three the apocalypse of life alpha male among wannabe alpha male in a pissing competition.
Drake didn’t know when to shut his mouth. “I’ll kill you, you dirty ass mother fucker, like the snake that you are. Mark my words me and my boys, the Rouges, we will take you out.” My body shook with his words and flinched, nah fuck that, it jumped clean out of my skin and back again as the sulfuric boom of a gun sounded out around me and the high shrill screams of the ladies freaking the fuck out. Then, just as I turn my head away from them, I feel the crash of a body fall lifeless into the hard cold concrete next to me, blood pooling around us both. I can smell it, taste it on my tongue burning into my senses metallic blood mixed with gunpowder and murder. This shit is too much I can feel the fear take over as the realization of someone’s blood running into me sends me teetering over the edge of reason I need to breathe the floor begins to like move my body feels like it’s tilting from one side to another. The air turns thick and heavy. I want to rewind like eight hours and be with Ghost this man they fear to be safe and none the wiser to this world right here.
Murder was committed right before me. I’m blind to the actual act but I heard it all unfold. What will happen to me now? Drake brought me here, and for what, I don’t know and now I never will.
I’m a witness to murder, yet I witnessed nothing.
I knew only Drake and well, that wasn’t really a relationship. He took what my mother owed in money for drugs from me in the way of rape. So, no I didn’t know him. I hated him, despised him and his scent so his death means nothing to me really, I feel nothing but numbness. My hands shook even though bound so tight behind me; my whole body shook. A body to the left of me curled up tight and nestled against me, her knees digging into my tender ribs. I had to repeal from her touch before the tell-tale spots formed and darkness took me. I needed to be present for whatever was to come next. More beatings, rape, death? Shit, all three and in that order. Mainly orders quickly spoken.
Voices cascaded over us, whispers, every sound was so heightened. Being robbed of sight made my body seek other ways to work and find clues to what was going on and that meant my ears were working overtime.
The gravely tone of the man who I know shot and killed Drake spoke above me, sending me to coil around my inner self with fear again.
“Get rid of his body before daybreak and check that we are still undercover, he’s brought in one too many women and judging by his shit with this little lady here, it could be too close to home for comfort as she didn’t come off the truck with the others but out of his van.”
The women next to me whimpered and I angled my head towards her, wishing my eyes were uncovered. I wanted to see. I wanted to witness what was going on and I wanted to lay eyes on the man whose voice was the low rumble like an earthquake that seemed to set my skin quivering like quicksand. I needed to hear it again and see what body it belonged to. I needed to know that this was real proof that it was happening and that I finally hadn’t lost my mind and gone completely batshit crazy.
I sucked in a deep breath as warm fingers touched my cheek, strong hands fumbled with the fabric tied around my face. The anticipation of finally being able to see made me stay deathly still and focus on my breathing and the beats of my heart. I needed to not pass out when my eyes meet the man before me. I waited, and I breathed, and I listened to nothing but my heartbeats. The pressure of the fabric finally released, trading opaque darkness for a new kind of dark moonlight in an inky black sky with stars above. Anchors of a world that I lived in.
Continuing my gaze over the night's sky that came through from a glass roof above me, the whole roof was glass and the walls glass also. It was like a big glass viewing box. Scanning quickly around me, I see it’s filled with men in leather jackets jeans and dirty boots. Women laying blindfolded and weeping, half naked. To the far wall is a line of cube boxes lit up under red lights... interesting.
My eyes then meet his and all else around me ceases, my glass blues meet haunting black with pure yellow irises. Snake eyes, that’s what I thought as soon as they met mine and fear rippled out over me like a demon trying to exit my body. He had jaw-length hair tangled and sweaty with a square jaw a crooked nose and a scar that ran along his skin and down his neck.
His face blackens along with his eyes as he looked me over. I could see something in his eyes like he was scarred with what he was looking at in mine. “You know me?” I whimper out. “Who are you?” I ask, my voice a mere frightened whisper. I needed him to quit staring at me this way. His body goes rigid, his chest sticks out as he went to fill all six foot of his frame in what was an attempt to scare me. Sorry but my body is past that now. Fear and I are now best friends.
Then his voice cut through me like a searing poker.
“I'm the Reaper outside your door, sweetheart.”
Squaring my shoulders and standing to all five feet of myself, I summon all the strength I have and open my mouth, shocked at what seems to flow from it. “Oh sir please, you are not, for I am Timberly Roe and I'm the Reaper’s lady.” I’m not, but he doesn’t know that, and it sounded good. Before, when he spoke of Ghost, you could hear fear laced in his bravado.
His hands find the base of my neck, the dull thud still present from the many cracks I have had afflicted to my skull tonight. His fingertips lace through my long black mane before pulling my head back and arching my head towards him. “Oh you are?” his tone is light, almost mocking even.
“Sure am, baby, would you like to reach out and ask?” I murmur out full of confidence, hoping he will and Ghost will come and save my sorry ass from this hell that Drake has dragged me into.
He looks deep into my eyes, his stare heated with cold irises of death. My toes curl and the shoeless one grits over the concrete. His hands find my wrist and he rips the sleeve of my hoodie up, exposing my skin to the sticky air. His eyes rake over my wrists as my black rosary beads slide down my arm, settling just on the top of my wrist. My eyes find his face and it’s as white as a Ghost, no pun intended. I feel the sprinkling of fear prickle over me as his grip tightens.
“FUCK!” he screams out and I mean he screams it out causing my ears to ring. He drops my hand and runs his now shaking hands through his hair. “Fucking fool!” he screams again as men move in closer, all eyes on me as the massive, fuming man in front of me turns and lays kick after brutal kick into the lifeless body of a dead Drake.
His stare turns on mine, the Devil lacing his eyes as his fingers cup painfully into my cheekbones, digging deep causing my eyes to water. His hands shake as they cup my face. He breathes hard as the thoughts roll over in his mind. I could see it like a wheel turning over inside transparent skin showing off all that was going through it.
Fear.
Anger.
Loss.
Panic.
“Do any of you fucking fools know who this is!” he barked out, shaking me from side to side, sending my brain from the left of my already pounding skull to the right. Stars blink out in front of me as my legs start to turn to jelly. Hushed voices sound out, lo
oks and blank stares until Drake’s little buddy – his name is... shit, his name is...Jed! – who I only meet about a week ago when I had the not so pleasure of having his dick slammed into my mouth, stepped forward.
“I do,” he spat like he was the man. “She’s the little piece of ass, Drake, the boys and I fuck for payment for drugs from her mother’s Shame and humiliation washes over me as the sharp tang of his words seep out. He makes me sound like a whore which I am not. I shouldn’t care what these people think of me, but I do, and the words cut deep.
"Past addiction and used to fuck... well more like raped, you piss bag, you guys killed her tonight.” I spat at him, flying my head towards his body in the hopes that I could head-butt him.
Snake eyes grabbed my wrist as I lunged forward, snapping me back into his hard body. Pain from the ropes bite my torn skin. “Fucking let me go!” I screamed out as he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. Pulling a sliver gun from out under his shirt and waistband of his jeans, he raised his hand from behind his back to the front of him where I could no longer see.
“Well, Piss bag, as the little lady called you, she is the executioner’s little lady. He has been watching her and protecting her for well over a year now, and the guy who gave you and your boys that hiding this morning was Ghost, the Reapers Reigns VP and in house lunatic. You all have just fucked up royally.” He spits out to them all as the gun sounds out around us and women scream.
I just flinch in his grip feeling nothing now. I'm numb now to all around me. “He’s more dangerous than the Devil and you have just brought fire to us all!” he bellows out. He says it with such hate that I bite my tongue, my mind rolls over what he just said and the depth of the words ‘More dangerous than the Devil himself’ not to me, he isn’t. To me he is Ghost and I fucking pray that he comes to save me.
Heal Me (Reapers Reign, #3) Page 11