by C. M. Owens
“Is Liza here?” I ask, the question blurting out without hesitation.
His brow furrows. “No. She’s at the hospital getting checked out. We left her with a group of guys ready to kill a Death Dealer if they see them. But we have Hershel in the shed around back. The other guys they got from the bust are already dead and hanging near the factory where they tried to send us for a fucking trap.”
I nod, unsure if I want to get into the Liza situation with Drex.
“Sledge might kill Hershel too soon if I leave him alone out there for long with him. I need your help on this. You can calm us all the fuck down, and right now, we sure as hell need that.”
I swallow the knot in my throat as I give him a bitter smile. “As of right now, I’m not so sure how calm I’ll be. Maya didn’t get behind that door. Glass cut her up—shallow cuts, but they’re still there. If Herrin had known about her, she would have been taken. They’d have come in after her.”
“If he’d known Eve was there with just Drake watching after her, he’d have come in. But he didn’t. His target was the new vehicles, because he’s unaware of Maya being a sympathetic client and assumes this is going to hit us hard and get us into a mess with said client.”
Which makes me really fucking happy that Sledge kept Maya a secret from Liza. And I can’t believe I’m seriously thinking that. But Maya saw something that had her convinced we were running into a trap and that the club was about to be hit.
The club was hit, and conveniently, several people spotted Herrin at the factory where they tried to lead us.
For a likely trap.
He runs a hand through his hair like he’s frustrated. “I’m not cut out to be the P. I’m a solid VP, but running things is different. I’m still in the frame of mind that someone will reel me back if I’m ready to rush in, guns blazing, ready for a fight. And Pop is using that against me.”
I lean against the doorframe, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’re a good P. Stop letting him use his knowledge of you against you and start using your knowledge of him against him. Think like Herrin. You’re the only one who can do that.”
He runs a hand over the scruff on his jaw and nods absently, staring at nothing in particular.
I push away from the door and go back to the bathroom, poking my head inside in time to see Maya wrapping a towel around her body.
“I need to handle something. Stay inside.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she nods, being too quiet. Usually by now she has something to say.
“Drake is bringing you some clothes.”
“I hope he brings me some underwear,” she says on a sigh. “Otherwise, you’ll have to dig that pair out of your pocket and your pervy panty-sniffing will have to be put on hold.”
A smile slips over my face unexpectedly as she smirks at me. Looks like she’s recovered.
“Stay inside,” I repeat before stepping out.
Drex is telling Eve basically the same thing when I step out of the bedroom, and she’s berating him for not telling her about this house. My lips twitch as I pass them.
Eve is simply trying to take his mind off feeling like he’s failed. Once again. So she’s getting him riled up—something she’s damn good at.
I spend the short walk to the shed trying to get my temper under control so that I’m not one who accidentally kills Hershel before time.
As soon as I step inside, I see Hershel’s head snap to the side, blood spraying from his mouth as a seething Sledge shakes out his fist and takes a step back.
Hershel looks like he’s already been worked over enough for the day. His right eye is swollen shut. His lips are bleeding and swollen as well. His face is one step away from being mangled.
But the sadist is laughing even as he spits out another wad of blood. Because he wants to taunt Sledge into killing him.
Sledge raises his fist, but I speak before he can strike. “You can kill him now, or you can make it last for months.”
Sledge hesitates, his eyes darting to me as he breathes heavily, fury etching his features.
“Because if he dies right now, he doesn’t tell us anything. If he lives, he lives to suffer another day. And another. And another.”
I pull my shirt off—something I do when I’m ready to scare the hell out of people who think they’re a badass. My back goes to Sledge, giving him the visual, as I speak again.
“I know how to make the pain tolerance grow little by little, until you can handle so much pain that you’re incapable of passing out from it anymore. You’re forced to endure every single strike. Every single cut. Every single ounce of agonizing torture without the reprieve of your body shutting down to spare you.”
I look over my shoulder to see Sledge lowering his fist, nodding at me once.
“I know how to make him pray for hope to survive because death seems like an elusive dream that will never come true,” I go on. “And I can assure you, that after six months of being put through this sort of hell, he’ll forget his own name. He’ll beg you for mercy. He’ll cry and piss himself when you step into view. He’ll be your bitch, in other words.”
Sledge takes a step back, blowing out a breath as he gets himself under control. Hershel has paled a little, reluctant fear etching his face. All these years, he’s never heard me speak about the scars. He knows I’m not bluffing when I tell Sledge I can coach him on how to completely ruin a person.
“Not only will you completely wreck his body, you’ll destroy his mind,” I go on. “He’s too old to recover.”
A dark smile graces my lips as Hershel cuts his gaze to Sledge.
“Liza was good. Especially when she was screaming,” he bites out, trying to rile Sledge into a furious retaliation that will kill him.
Sledge’s lips twitch, not at all rattled.
“Let’s do this your way, kid,” Sledge tells me, his eyes shifting toward Hershel. “Because I want to see him beg.”
Not speaking, I lift my shirt, tying the sleeves together, as Hershel tries to rock the chair he’s tied to, but it’s nailed to the boards of the shed’s floor. After constructing a makeshift bag out of my shirt, I drop it over Hershel’s head.
And with that, I turn Sledge into my pupil, telling him the things that he can do to Hershel.
Telling him the things I know.
Because they were done to me.
CHAPTER 27
MAYA
Eve and I are at the window, watching as Drex, Axle, and Sledge talk outside the shed. They’ve been out there for a really long time.
For some reason, Axle is shirtless.
“Will you hurt me if I ask how he got the scars? I understand I’m just being nosy, but I can’t help myself. I feel like these guys know my life, inside and out, yet I barely know anything about them,” Eve says on a sigh, dropping to a chair and looking at me. “And they act like it’s their right to know everything about me.”
“He got them as a child. That’s all I know,” I tell her, understanding the feeling of everyone knowing your life but knowing nothing of theirs.
The Demon’s Child comment he made has sent a few theories into my head. Only one makes sense, but I keep it to myself, feeling like it’s Axle secret to share.
“He sees red when rape is brought up. It makes me a little queasy worrying that’s what happened to him as a child, and that’s why it’s such a trigger,” she says quietly.
An uneasiness settles in my stomach, but I don’t think that’s what it was. Still, I don’t share that with Eve, and she takes my silence as a sign to change topics.
“How did you know about the hit coming to us? What’d you see on that video?” she asks me seriously.
I slant my gaze toward her, wondering what Drex would do if he heard my theory. After having Axle be so attentive and concerned, I also wonder how he would react, only I’m not as scared of his reaction anymore.
“She looked at the camera,” I tell Eve, my eyes moving back to the window.
“What?”
I shake my head, deciding against telling her. “I’m going to go lie down for a bit.”
She looks like she wants to press for more, probably confused at what I said, but I turn and walk to the bedroom. I’m wrapped in a towel; there are no clean clothes to wear, since Drake hasn’t arrived yet.
Dropping the towel, I climb into the bed that smells fresh, as though the bedding was just washed yesterday. No sooner than I get comfortable and covered up, Axle walks in.
His gaze meets mine as he shuts the door and starts undoing his jeans. As soon as he’s down to his black boxers, he comes to the bed, pulls back the covers, and slides in next to me.
I don’t hesitate to quickly shuffle over to his side. This day started out so damn good. And went south so damn fast.
“What’s going on in the shed?” I ask him.
“We’re torturing Herrin’s right hand for information,” he answers flatly, no hesitation at all.
“Okay,” I state simply, hoping he doesn’t elaborate.
Blowing out a breath, I peer up at him, and he looks down at me, his hand resting on the curve of my waist.
“Go to sleep. I’ll stay in here with you until the others get here.”
I shake my head. “I’m scared to go to sleep right now. I’m afraid I’ll dream.”
He runs his other hand through my hair, turning to face me a little better. “You froze because you were back there…back to the day your parents were killed in the explosion,” he says softly.
My brow furrows. “How’d you know th—”
“I was in a hospital from ten to twelve while they worked on fixing my fucked up head. They kept me in a colorful room with the lights on all the time the first year, because when it was dark, I was back in my own hell. They spent a lot of time sedating me before the doctors made the suggestion.”
I swallow the lump in my throat as he talks about this so dispassionately, as though he’s not opening up his darkest secrets for me.
“So it stopped when you were ten?” I ask him quietly. Since he said he was in the hospital at that age, that’s all I can figure.
“No,” he says, sighing. “Only the pain stopped at ten. It took me a long damn time to get out of that place mentally.”
Even though I don’t want to push him, I still ask him, “What happened? Why were you in the hospital?”
“They realized I needed the psych ward when they were tending to my burns. I was begging them not to hurt me, screaming for the light to stay on. I never got much light in the hole.”
“The hole?” I ask shakily.
He goes on, his tone still flat, as though this is just any conversation. “The hole is what I called it. It was a cellar with no windows. The ground was dirt, and I had a small hole I slept in for three years. At least on unchained days.”
He heaves out a breath, his eyes moving away.
“Someone kidnapped you?” I ask, confused.
He slowly shakes his head. “No. My grandmother passed away from heart complications, and the state awarded my mother custody. She’d turned her rights over to her mother when she had me and ran away.”
“So you did have a name?” My question comes out soft as I tilt my head.
“I did,” he says tightly. “But the memory of that name has been gone for a long time. It was part of my punishment. When I tell you that name is gone, I mean it. I can’t remember what my grandmother called me. Even though they later found out my name, it still didn’t feel right to use it. Or even claim it.”
My hand slides over him, trying to be supportive. “So your grandmother didn’t do this?” I ask him, just to clarify.
He shakes his head. “I only have a few memories of a kind smile and a gentle voice. But I know my grandmother was loving, gentle, kind…everything my mother wasn’t.”
“Your mother did this?” I ask, anger and sickness mixing together in my stomach and souring it as I sit up, running my finger along the deepest scar on his face.
He catches my hand, his gaze meeting mine again.
“No. I did the ones on my face.”
Admittedly confused, I study him silently, waiting on him to elaborate. When he doesn’t, I ask, “Why would you do this to yourself?”
He shrugs. “I thought if I looked less like him, she’d be less inclined to punish me for what he did. So I took a piece of broken glass and cut until I couldn’t bear the pain anymore.”
The Demon’s Child…
After another long exhale, he says, “I’m the product of my mother’s rape.”
I swallow down the knot in my throat. That’s not what I expected. I expected him to tell me his father had done this to him because of radical religious reasons, given the name choice.
He goes on, his eyes averting mine again as he continues to clutch my hand, bringing it to his chest and resting it there with his over it.
“She was fourteen, and her family was strictly Catholic. The man who raped her was some thug who’d just gotten out of prison for the very same thing. He left her abandoned in the street, and when she found out she was pregnant, her mother refused to allow her to have an abortion, saying it wasn’t my fault this happened and God wouldn’t want an innocent child punished for a monster’s sins. Like I said, she signed her rights over after I was born and ran away, hating her mother for forcing her to have me. But my grandmother never blamed me for any of it.”
“You weren’t to blame. You were just as much a victim in this as she was,” I say softly, hating the pressure on my chest.
I feel violent, knowing where this story is going.
“Anyway, seven years later, my grandmother died, and my mother came back into the picture. She was so fucked up in the head by then the state never should have let her walk away with me. She’d been on the streets, getting abused on repeat, and taking shelter with junkies she fucked for food and warmth. She said she was going to hell, but she was taking the demon inside me with her.”
He clears his throat, his eyes meeting mine again.
“Between the drugs and psychological issues, she honestly believed there’d been a demon in the man who raped her. She believed by impregnating her, he’d passed that demon along to me. She performed her own versions of exorcisms, dehydrating me for days. Every time she asked my name, I told her, but she’d punish me.”
He gestures to some of the scars on his chest.
“These aren’t as bad as the ones on my back because she was terrified to face me, worried the demon would leap out of my eyes and into hers if she stared at me. So she usually put a hood over my head. Then she’d burn me with hot metal crosses, cut me, whip me, dehydrate me. I was fed and watered once a day like a dog, because she was afraid if I simply died, the demon would escape and she’d have to worry about it coming after her again, planting a new demon child inside her.”
My hand on his chest slowly curls into a fist as I fight back the tears in my eyes. He keeps his gaze off me.
“She believed if she inflicted enough pain, the demon would show himself, and then she could exorcise it,” he says quietly. “One day, she went too far. She went to cut off my dick, saying if she couldn’t kill the demon, she’d make sure he could never get out of me the way he got out of the last host. I wasn’t chained. She was so out of it, that she’d forgotten it was a no-chain day.”
The scar on the base of his penis comes to mind, and I hold back a grimace.
“Not sure why that particular thing prompted my survival instincts to kick in, but the second that knife bit into my flesh, I shoved her as hard as I could. She fell backwards, and I grabbed the knife, stabbing it into her leg, frenzied and terrified. I started to run up the steps, but she grabbed me as soon as I reached the top.”
He laughs humorlessly, running a hand over his face.
“It was so bright up there that I couldn’t see. I’d begged for light for so long, then the damn thing blinded me as though I needed to be kicked while I was down.” His gaze comes back to mine. “She knock
ed me down, and I was crawling blindly, bumping into shit as she limped after me. I felt something wet hit me, and then I heard the strike of the match.”
My eyes inadvertently drop to his legs that are covered by the blanket.
“The pain I felt next was some of the worst I’d faced. My legs were burning as I ran, falling on her. I heard her scream as I scrambled out, crashing into a door and falling outside. On instinct alone, I rolled on the ground even as I screamed.”
His eyes find mine once more, staring intently as his jaw tenses.
“The first thing I was finally able to see when my eyes somewhat adjusted was that house burning rapidly, catching fire because of the gasoline she had doused me and half the floor with. And she was on fire with it. I heard her screams and I fucking smiled, knowing I’d finally hurt her as bad as she’d hurt me.”
He releases his hand that’s over mine as his look hardens.
“Then I went to the hospital, the psych ward, a foster home, and finally juvie before ending up running with Drex. My mother’s rapist was caught and put back in prison. He died before I ever had to deal with him. And my monster wasn’t the man behind bars; it was his victim who was turned into a monster. I was just collateral damage. Now you know all my secrets.”
And my heart hurts.
“Don’t show me so much pity. It’s why I don’t like for fucking people to know,” he bites out. “It was a long damn time ago, so don’t think I’m that weak little shit anymore.”
My eyebrows go up in surprise. “Pity is for strangers you care nothing about but can’t help but feel sorry for them. It’s the side effect of being human,” I say softly, leaning closer so that our faces are inches apart. “What you see right now is a range of emotions on my face. This is me being angry for you. Me hurting for you. Me wanting to go back in time and hurt her while saving you. This isn’t pity, Axle. This is me caring about you. It’s a side effect of loving you.”
He cocks his head, but I hold his gaze.
“And that kid wasn’t a weak little shit. That kid is the ultimate survivor,” I add on a breath.
He searches my gaze for a moment before his lips find mine, and he kisses me like he’s thanking me. Or needing me. Or just caring about me too.