by JJ Knight
Crunch reaches forward to finger one of the fluttery scarves at the bottom of my dress. I can’t suppress the way I flinch.
“You ask a lot of questions,” he says. His knuckle grazes my knee.
I’m coiled tight as a spring. Maybe he isn’t as shy or nervous as I first thought.
His face is hard to look at, but I try to keep eye contact. I need to know what he’s up to, what he plans. The thought of his hands on me makes me feel sick.
Two hard bangs on the back door make us both jump. “You finished yet?” Striker calls out. “We ain’t got all day!” Laughter trails behind. They must all be standing at the back. The windows are tinted too dark to know.
I try desperately to think of something to do to slow this down.
“So you know Power Play?” I ask.
But this is totally the wrong thing to say.
Crunch makes a growling sound. “Yeah.” He grabs the bottom scarf and yanks it hard, ripping it from the seam near my knee.
I refuse to make a sound. As he grabs another scarf and yanks it free, I harden inside. This pathetic loser is not going to get anything easy from me.
I’ve got the old Maddie back now, the tough girl from LA. If he thinks he’s going to have a piece of me, he’s going to have to pay for it. And I already know where he’s hurt.
He tears off another scarf. Without them, I still have a skirt, just a short one. He seems amused by my lack of response. When he reaches for a fourth, I’ve had enough, and I unfold my leg, ready for him to lean in one more time.
He does, a sick smile on his face. “You have cute thighs,” he says.
“And you have a seriously fucked-up face,” I say.
And I kick him right in that swollen, bleeding eye.
He falls back with a terrible groan. His hands cover his eyes. I know I’ve made things worse, but this is how it has to be. I’m grateful my legs aren’t tied together because I can move. I careen to the front of the van, scoot across the driver’s seat, and fumble with my swollen, unfeeling fingers to open the door.
As soon as it swings wide, I hear shouts. They’ve seen me. I take off in a dead sprint, holding my bound hands out in front so they won’t slow me down.
I see a lighted hallway ahead and aim for it. My best chance is to find the fights, I think. Or make enough noise that the silk-shirt man spots me. He has to be close.
I blaze down the hall and hear footsteps behind. Striker and company are probably fast on my heels. I come to a T-junction and wildly choose to go right. It’s just a long corridor of closed doors. I’m afraid to go in any of them, as I might get trapped.
I turn another corner, and before I realize what is happening, arms close around me and I’m dragged into a pitch-black room.
Chapter 7: Parker
I’ve got her. I’ve got her.
I can’t think of anything else.
Maddie fights against me for a moment. The room is completely dark, and I know she can’t see a thing.
“It’s me,” I whisper. “Stay quiet.”
Maddie instantly slumps against my chest. “Oh my God. You’re here.”
I feel along the door until I find the lock and flip the latch. “Yes, I’m here,” I say.
I don’t know what she’s been through in the last hour, but she starts sobbing.
I run my hands down her hair. “Shhh,” I say. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
Footsteps pass the door, rattling the knob. It’s locked, so they move on.
I settle with my back to the wall, pulling Maddie in tight. “Colt’s here, and some friends of his. We’ve been looking for you.”
“I was in the van,” she whispers into my chest.
“Yes, Jax let us know. He was pretty sure you saw him. We covered all the entrances to the loading bay.” I kiss her hair. “You got yourself out before we got in to you.”
“Is Jax the gray-shirt man?” she asks.
“Yes.”
My phone buzzes. I glance at the screen. “Jax and Colt know our location.”
“What’s going to happen next?”
“We’re going to teach Striker a little lesson.”
“Do we have to?” she asks. “Can’t we just go home?”
I hold her tight and rock a little. “We’ll go home. We just don’t want him back in our lives.”
“I was so scared.”
“Did they hurt you?”
She shakes her head against my chest, and I relax a little. I had envisioned all sorts of horrible things. But Colt was right. They aren’t felons. Just punks wanting to even an imagined score. Colt has just as much right to vengeance as we do.
My screen lights with another message.
You two sit tight. We’ll get you when it’s over.
I frown. I don’t want to be left out of the action. But I can’t leave Maddie either.
In the light from the phone, I notice the tears on her dress. “Did they do this?”
She straightens her legs. “Some fighter named Crunch.” She sounds like she’s recovering from her breakdown.
“Shit,” I say. I remember that name.
“You know him? Striker seemed to think he would like knowing I was your girlfriend.”
“I kicked his ass about a year ago,” I say. “Short fight. One minute, maybe.”
“What’s he doing these illegal fights for, then?” she asks.
“Probably couldn’t cut it any other way.”
Maddie nuzzles into my neck. I feel the shift in her from fear to safety. She’s calmer.
And we’re fine where we are. The fights are way below us in a basement. These corridors are long and empty. I doubt anyone will come back this way until it’s clear for us to go.
I’m incredibly relieved I was the one to find her. I kill the light of the phone and wrap my arms around her. “You made it,” I say. “You got through it.”
She pulls back and bumps her hands against my chest. “They even did our bondage for us,” she jokes.
I can barely make out the shadow of her arms. I feel along her shoulder down to her elbow, then over a lump of tape. Anger rises in me again that they did this to her. “You want me to look for something to cut it free?”
“Maybe in a minute,” she says, and the way her voice hesitates lets me know what she’s thinking. My first thought is Really? Here? Now?
It’s so Maddie. So like her. The old her. Once when I got in a fistfight over some asshole who wouldn’t take her no for an answer, she insisted on having sex right there, behind a convenience store, with the guy out cold on the ground.
Which I did, of course.
She twists around on my lap, her knees on either side. I grab the bulky lump of duct tape and lift it over her head.
“If you break the strap of my dress, no one will know it wasn’t them,” she whispers.
God, this girl is wickedly warped. But I get it. Danger. Lust. It always went hand in hand with her.
I grab the tiny strap on her shoulder and pinch it with my fingers. In one sharp snap, it’s broken.
The cup of the dress stays in place for a second, but I peel it down. I know when the air hits her skin, because she sucks in a breath.
“Will they message you before they come?” she asks.
“They will.”
She leans back, and I bend in to her, catching her breast in my mouth. It’s as black as any room has ever been. I can only find her by feel.
Her response is sudden and intense, a sharp jerk of her body. I draw the nipple in, and she trembles.
I slide a hand up her thigh, pushing what’s left of her dress away. When I make it between her legs, her panties are wet. I press my fingers in hard, and she writhes against me. “Faster,” she urges. “I need it now.”
I push the elastic aside and reach inside her. She’s hot and slippery. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt her quite like this. Her body shudders as I go in, the flesh quivering. I think I could get her going just like this, but I know i
t’s not what she wants.
Still, I thrust into her, fast and deep. She bites my shoulder to stay quiet.
I know where she is. She’s taking back the power that was stripped from her before. I don’t know what happened, or if she’ll ever say, but I want to feed this need she has. I want to give her what she wants.
Her arms go around my head, and the wad of duct tape rests against my neck.
Her body moves with me, pressing against my hand. I can feel the ripples as her muscles begin to tighten around my fingers. I press into the nub, circling, keeping the rhythm. She rides my thighs, spread wide over my lap, driving down onto my hand.
But now she wants more, she wants me, and lifts her body up and holds still. I understand what she wants and withdraw. Her hands are still trapped around my neck.
I unbuckle my jeans. I push the pants aside just far enough to get them out of the way, then I drag her to me, shoving aside the panties again.
With one hard push, I’m inside her. Her breathing is hot on my neck. I know what she needs, something fast and forceful. I grab her waist and lift her up, slamming her down on me without mercy.
Her teeth bury into my shoulder, and I do it again. I can’t see anything, not her expression, her body, nothing. We’re just two figures in the blackness, taming our demons, wiping our memory of anything horrifying that might have come before.
Maddie lets me take her with total control. I jerk her to me again and again.
The buildup in her is slow this time, but then suddenly, it just explodes. Her entire body seizes up, like every muscle is contracting at the same time, then releases. She cries out next to my ear, shuddering, half-sobbing, her breath catching.
I let go of my anger and fear and drive into her like she wants me to. I possess her. I won’t let anyone else come near her. I will kill them if they hurt her. I will not let anyone take what is mine.
I spill into her, charged, electric, like fusion is taking place between our bodies. It sizzles through me like the rage I have felt for hours, but it’s all Maddie now. My Maddie. Mine. She’s here and I’m not going to let anything happen to her.
I vow to do what I have to do.
Chapter 8: Maddie
I can’t explain what I’ve just felt. I needed something powerful, dramatic, almost painful to blow out all the other things in my mind.
Parker has understood. No matter what he thinks of it, how crazy or strange, he’s done it for me, like he always has.
The first time that I asked him to tie me up, to make me his prisoner, he laughed. He wasn’t used to girls saying what they wanted at all, much less asking for it to involve rope.
I know there are other people like me in the world. Probably most of them hide what they feel, like I did with the last guy I dated.
But I don’t want to hide. I want to feel the things I’m moved to feel.
But maybe because of this, I end up in situations like this one. Surrounded by men who lead lives that aren’t normal, but are violent and unpredictable and dangerous.
Maybe I was right to leave him in the first place.
I’ve totally come down from the sex high now. I pull away from Parker and sit on the floor. My dress is in shambles. I can’t see it, but I know. I push up the bodice as best I can with tied-up wrists, feeling shame for having him tear it.
“Maybe we should find something to cut me free,” I say. As my body settles, I’m feeling a thousand piercing pains. My hands are hot balloons. The agony can no longer be ignored.
Parker turns on his phone to use it as a flashlight. The room isn’t empty. There’s metal shelving and a rusty desk with a broken chair.
He gets up to open and close the desk drawers. “All empty here,” he says.
I glance down and grimace at the drooping bodice. “Can you at least tie the strings together?”
Parker comes back over. He takes the two parts of the dress strap and ties a knot. That side is too high now, but at least I’m covered. “Let’s see if we can find another room with something sharp,” he says.
“Aren’t we supposed to stay here?” Fear of running into the fighter group flashes through me.
He hesitates. “We can. It’s up to you.”
My hands throb. I’m not sure I can take it. “No, let’s try another room.”
He opens the door to the hall. “It’s all clear,” he says.
We step tentatively away. As we leave the safety of the locked door, I am anxious to get this tape off, to be less vulnerable.
Parker hurries ahead, checking doors. They are all locked, just as when the others looked for us.
“How did you get in that room?” I ask. “Was it the only one unlocked?”
“Jax opened it,” Parker says. “He had some sort of magnetic gizmo.”
“Really? Like 007?”
He laughs. “Sort of like that.”
We continue down the hall, checking doors with no luck.
“There were supplies in the van,” I say.
“You really want to go back out there?” Parker asks.
“No.”
He turns to me. The yellowish light overhead makes him look oddly colored.
“Let me see if I can do anything with it.” He pulls at the tape.
“Maybe just unroll it, the same as she put it on.”
He tries to find the end, lifting my arms to find a corner to start with. “Got it,” he says. He loosens the edge and begins the process of pulling the tape away.
I don’t like where we’re standing, just out in the hall. Anyone can walk up. “Can we find someplace more hidden?” I ask.
He looks around. “Let’s see if that bigger room is open.”
We head toward a door with windows down either side. We can see a vast cavernous room. He tries the door. Locked.
“Maybe farther down there is a little inset or a short hall,” I say.
As we walk, I grab the loose end of the tape and pull at it with my teeth.
Sure enough, there’s a recessed door with “Janitorial” painted in small fading letters. Parker tries the door, and it opens.
So much better. We slip inside. Parker flips on the light and closes the door. He looks around and finds an old push broom with a wide ragged fuzzy bottom. He shoves it against the base of the door to block the light from leaking out into the hall.
I’ve gone as far as I can pulling tape with my teeth. Parker begins unraveling it again, but I spot a pair of hedge shears on a high shelf. “Up there.”
Parker reaches for them. I hold very still as he snips the edge of the tape with the tips. As it opens up, I can separate my wrists, and eventually, the tape pulls apart.
I feel instant relief. Parker tugs the tape away and lets it fall to the floor. He massages my hands until they are less purple. “Can you move your fingers?”
I bend them slightly, although the swelling makes it difficult to do more. “They’re fine,” I say. It’s still painful, but nothing like before.
His phone beeps. The message reads “You moved.”
He taps back, “Needed to unbind M.”
“Heading to van. Sit tight.”
“They’re going back to the van?” I ask.
“Looks like it.”
“So they haven’t done anything yet?”
Parker sticks the phone in his pocket. “I guess not.”
“Should we go?”
“I don’t think you want to get mixed up in the scuffle,” Parker says.
I manage to make a fist. “I don’t know. Maybe I do.”
Chapter 9: Parker
I’m not sure Maddie should get back out there. I’m torn. I don’t want someone else finishing my battle for me. But I have to think of her. She’s not like the rest of us. We expect to get in tough situations and punch our way out of them.
Maybe I can get her to Jo.
I’m about to text her when there’s a pounding at the door.
Maddie stifles a squeal and jumps into me. I look around t
he room for anything that will make a good weapon. The hedge shears are unwieldy. I take the broom that obviously didn’t help with the light leak and break the stick over my knee. Sharp and light. Perfect.
“Are you going to open it?” Maddie says. If she seemed brave a minute ago, she’s terrified again now.
“No. Grab my phone and let Colt know we have company,” I tell her.
The door bulges down low from somebody’s kick. It’s a powerful move, so likely one of the fighters. No telling how many there will be. I know better than to open the door. Let them tire themselves out on it first.
Every fight, in the cage or out, is all about how much gas you have in the tank. I’m happy to let them use up theirs.
Maddie sends the text. The door resounds with a regular BOOM BOOM BOOM. They aren’t really making any headway. These metal-core doors have a lot of resistance.
I look above us to see if there is a way out. The ceiling is twelve feet, easy. We could climb the shelves, but unless there’s a lot of braces, the recessed ceiling won’t support any weight.
The bottom corner of the door starts to bend in, but the lock holds tight. The kicks stop.
Voices. I wonder if Jax and Colt have come up on them yet.
Then the kicks return, not on the door, but the wall next to it. Of course. Much easier to break through drywall and plaster.
Within six kicks, the wall starts crumbling on our side. I’m trying to decide my plan of action. Wait until someone gets through and start smashing? Or open the door and get an element of surprise? Maddie might be able to escape if I did.
“Only one is going to fit through that hole at a time,” Maddie whispers. “Just take them down as they enter. Stab their damn eyes out.”
Old Maddie. Feisty take-no-prisoners Maddie. But still, I know all it takes is one thought of Lily to bring back the mother version. The more you have to lose, the scarier life gets.
There are more kicks farther down. That one makes faster progress. Now the game has changed. If there are several of them, they’ll make it in.
“Maddie, I’m going to open the door. When I do, I’m going to rush anyone who is out there. You’re going to have to run.”