I lift my head to find a man leaning against the window, his arms and legs both crossed. He’s just a shadow under the light of the moon until he unfolds himself and starts to walk toward me. As he moves, the shadows do too, and I can make out his features. He’s tall, though not nearly as tall as Bear. He’s muscular but very lean. He’s wearing a short-sleeved, white shirt and khaki pants, with an orange bow-tie, and black suspenders. His arms and hands are decorated in tattoos and his sandy blond hair is tied back in a high, messy ponytail, but that is the only thing about his look that’s even remotely messy. His shirt is neatly pressed and his pants have a crease on each leg that runs straight down the front. His beard is shorter than Bear’s, somewhere between stubble and a beard, but immaculately groomed.
“Who are you?” I ask. “You know Bear?” The man comes up beside me to sit down on the gurney, and that’s when my fuzzy brain starts to recognize him, but I can’t remember how I recognize him. I try to stand up from the gurney but when I make a move to stand, I wobble. The man grabs my arm to steady me and sets me back down.
“Of course I know that fuck. He’s one of my best friends,” he says, like I should already know this. “You’re fucking smoking hot,” he says looking me up and down. “You wanna make out?”
“Huh? What?”
“But since Bear’s my friend, no tongue though. Okay, maybe a little tongue, but only because you asked. No dick though. I draw the line there. Okay, only all the way in, but only for like an hour or two. Sound good?”
“What?” I ask again, rubbing my temples and trying to clear my mind so I can get a grasp on what exactly is going on here.
“Okay, okay, just until we both come. Or just me. Or whatever. Ground rules are important when starting a new relationship. I saw that on Oprah and that bitch knows her shit. If you don’t follow her book club you should.”
“Who are you again?” I ask and as I look at him, it finally registers how I recognize him. From the photo in Bear’s apartment. He’s telling the truth. He’s Bear’s friend.
Bear’s DEAD friend.
“I’m Preppy.”
“But you’re…” I start but Preppy waves me off.
“That’s not important,” he says dismissively.
“How are you here?” I ask.
“Shit you ask more questions than Doe. I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Doe?”
“Ray,” he says. “But if you want to sing the entire song from the Sound of Music I’ll have to find a pitch pipe and I’ll need to lube up my vocal cords.” He looks between my legs. “I think I know how to—”
“Preppy, can you focus for one sec?”
“Mmmmmmm?” he asks finally looking at my face. He reaches out and plays with a strand of my hair.
“Please just tell me why you’re here. Why I’m here.”
“You’re here because people suck, and I’m here for you because you need me and because I didn’t know when I was going to get a chance again to introduce myself to Bear’s girl.”
“But you’re…”
“Still not important,” he says.
“Then am I in a mental hospital?” I ask.
“No, why would you think that? Are you crazy? Did Bear catch a crazy one? He’s supposed to toss the crazy ones back. Didn’t I teach that bitch anything?” Preppy asked with a huff.
“I don’t know why I think I’m in a mental hospital, maybe because I’m sitting on a gurney talking to Bear’s best friend, who’s dead?”
“Awe that’s cute,” Preppy says, running the back of his index finger across my cheek. This man is a stranger to me. This gesture is an intimate one, like we know each other, so it should creep me out and make me jump back, but instead I find myself leaning into his touch, finding comfort in it.
“What’s cute?” I ask.
“That you think that even death could keep me away from my family,” Preppy whispers.
“I’m so confused,” I admit, falling backwards onto the gurney. Preppy follows and when I look to my right, I find him lying beside me and looking right at me. I could feel his cool minty breath across my face as he spoke.
“When you see King and my girl Doe can you please tell those bitches that Preppina the Magnificent would have been a way better name than Nicole Grace? That shit sounds like she’s already in line for the fucking nursing home. I’m going to have to watch over her just to make sure she doesn’t get beat up on the playground and trust me that shit is no fucking fun. I used to get into fights every single day, and even though I won every single one of them with my brawn and wit, I don’t want that for little Preppina.”
“Okay?” I say, unsure of what I am really agreeing to or what exactly it means.
“Now sleep, baby girl. Because I have a feeling that this big bad biker I know is coming to rescue his ole lady,” Preppy says. He leans forward, and for someone so harsh with words, he plants a gentle kiss on my lips.
“He’s coming?” I ask as Preppy tucks me in.
“Fuck yeah, he is. He’s coming to rescue your fine ass and then, if you’re lucky, he’s going to come everywhere else.” Preppy barely takes a breath between sentences. “I love that big fucking brute. I never doubted him for even a second. Or just for a minute. Maybe it was 50/50 for a while, but the bitch is lucky he came to his senses, because I had this whole plan laid out to haunt him by starting his bike in the middle of the night. Ghost Rider style.”
“I still have no idea what’s going on,” I admit to the confusing man.
“Shhhhhh, pretty girl. Get some rest, will ya? I’m sure Bear is gonna throw some D like a champ once you get some energy back, so you’re going to need to rest up unless you want to tap out from that shit, and I’ve seen that fucker in action. I mean to this day he’s never found that camera…” Preppy looked off into the distance. “Good times. Good times,” he mutters, smiling as if recalling the memory.
Preppy brushes my hair off my forehead and again looks me up and down, his gaze lingering for a beat too long on my midsection. “But in all seriousness, there is one thing I need you to remember, Ti, baby. Promise me that when you get the chance, you’ll do one thing for me and you can’t forget.”
“What’s that?”
“Run.”
With that Preppy walks back toward the window and in the time it takes me to blink, he’s gone. As my eyes again grow heavy and the call of sleep becomes all too powerful to ignore, I could swear I hear him mutter, “Do any of those fucking dildos know how to use a motherfucking rubber?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Thia
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of a pipe leaking echoed in my ears, dragging me slowly back into reality.
Handcuffs bit into my wrists. My arms strained above my head as I hung from a pipe that ran across the ceiling. When I could no longer hold myself up, my muscles gave out with a pop as my joints painfully dislocated. My chin fell to my chest. Wide tape covered my mouth, wrapped around the back of my head, pulling on my hair every time I turned my head. With one nostril stuffed up I felt dizzy, barley able to get enough oxygen through the other.
My vision blurred as I tried to focus on my surroundings. Grey. Concrete. An open ceiling with pipes and wires. Nothing on the bare walls. A metal cage in the far corner. In the center of the small room was a blue tarp. Next to the tarp was a red toolbox with a yellow electric drill set on top. It was all so clean.
Sterile.
I pulled on the cuffs above my head with a newfound strength I didn’t have seconds earlier. My legs flailed around uselessly in mid air as I struggled against my restraints.
The door opened and Gus entered the room. When I first met him in the park he’d protected Bear and myself. I’d even thought he was cute in a chubby-cheeked best friend kind of way.
That Gus wasn’t who walked into the room, though. This Gus looked up at me as I dangled from the ceiling, like I was a steak and he was a hungry lion who hadn’t eaten in months.
“I really wish it could be me who gets to have all the fun with you today, but you see, little one, I have to continue playing the role of loyal soldier, so unfortunately for me, I had to call in a substitute.” He stepped up to me and I braced for whatever it was he was about to do, my heart hammering in my chest.
The tape being pulled off was painful, but it passed quickly and I was finally able to take deep breaths. Gulping for air as if I’d been drowning. “Why do this at all?” I asked, after finally being able to catch my breath. “Me, Bear, the MC? Why?”
“I don’t ask why. I do what I’m told. Asking why is not my job.”
“Then what is your job? Who hired you?”
Gus covered my mouth with his hand and pressed his forehead to mine. My stomach rolled. “That doesn’t matter. All that matters now is what’s about to happen to you. My advice? Give into the pain. Enjoy it. The human body is a fascinating machine, and although I don’t get to do it myself, I’ll be watching the video later and I’m sure watching that machine come apart is going to be nothing short of spectacular.” He let go of my mouth and set the tape back in place. “Although I’m sure Bear is not going to love it as much as I will. He doesn’t appreciate the beauty in it, like I do.”
He stuck out his fat tongue and licked my face from my jaw to my eye, and my stomach rolled again and this time I tasted the bile rising in my throat.
Gus stepped back and took one last lustful look at me. “Such a shame, little one.” Before he left the room, he adjusted a camera I hadn’t noticed next to the door. A red light came on. “Maybe, I’ll stay. Just for the first part,” he said, opening the door. “We’re ready,” he called out, and a blond man appeared in the room, shutting the door behind him. He was shirtless, cut and muscular, black and grey tattoos covered one of his arms and all of his chest.
“I don’t like cameras,” the blond man said, tapping the wrench he was holding against his palm over and over again as he looked me up and down.
Gus was evil.
But this guy, with his classic good looks, was the fucking devil.
His eyes were black and glowing like a demon in a movie and I realized there was no getting out of this. My fate had been sealed. With every step the devil took toward me, the fear I felt increased higher and higher until I hoped I’d die of a heart attack before this lunatic could carry out whatever sick plan he had for me.
The devil set the wrench down by the toolbox and pulled his shoulder length hair on top of his head and tied it with an elastic. He bent his head from side to side, making a sickening cracking sound. He did the same with his knuckles.
Then, he came for me.
While Gus looked on like he was lusting after my blood, the blond devil looked natural. In his element.
Possessed.
He reached up and unhooked one of the cuffs, catching me before I fell to the concrete floor. My arms still raised above my head as they’d become completely useless and disjointed. “Nooooooo!” I tried to scream behind the tape, tears ran out the side of my eyes. He carried me to the tarp and laid me on top of it, binding my ankles together with the tape.
“You can take the tape off. No one can hear her out here,” Gus said. “Start with the teeth. They’re the most painful.”
“Why are you still here?” the devil asked. I was shaking so hard I could hear my jaw rattling.
“Just wanted to watch the fun start.”
“I don’t do audiences,” the devil said adamantly.
“Come on, man, just one tooth. Then I’ll leave,” Gus whined.
“Do it yourself then,” the devil said. Standing up, he tossed him the wrench. Gus’s face lit up and he practically ran over to me. Crouching down by the toolbox he lifted out a metal contraption.
“Just one, and then I gotta go,” Gus said. Ripping the tape off my mouth, he pried it apart using pressure points on the roof of my mouth to force me to comply.
It wasn’t the first time he’d done this.
The blond devil stepped back and looked down at us with an annoyed look on his face. He was obviously pissed that Gus was taking his sick work away from him. “I got shit to do so hurry the fuck up,” he snapped.
“I’d love to take my time, little one. But this is going to have to do.” He pushed the wrench into my mouth and clasped onto one of my molars. He didn’t just start to yank on it, he started pulling slowly, building the pain, setting each nerve on fire, prolonging the inevitable as he pulled harder and harder until I felt as if my entire jaw was being ripped from my skull. I screamed so loud my chest hurt. Warm copper flooded my mouth.
Gus sat back, his chest heaving up and down. My bloodied molar between the tongs of his wrench. “That was fucking fantastic.”
“Great. Now get the fuck out or I’m leaving,” the blond devil spat.
“Fine,” Gus said, standing up and setting the wrench down on the tarp. “Just make sure she screams, she was adamant about that.” The devil nodded and knelt down next to me again, picking through the toolbox. I started to choke as the blood dripped down my throat. He pushed my head to the side so the blood could run out of my mouth, the spreader bar painfully tearing into the flesh inside of my mouth.
How could someone so beautiful be so evil? I thought, but then I remembered something Bear had said.
He looks like sunshine. Blond hair and blue eyes. The kind of looks you’d see on one of them TV shows all the teenagers like these days. But that kid’s got the devil in him. Only human lives he values are his wife Abby’s and now his kid’s. Jake’s the only person in the world who scares the shit out of me. You know, besides you.
It was my only chance. It had to be him. One of the tattoos on his chest was the name Bee. Maybe short for Abby? “Jake,” I said. But I was tired, so very tired, and with the spreader in my mouth it sounded like, “Gggggggech.”
He ignored me and shuffled through his toolbox and that’s when I realized it was over.
I was going to die.
I love you Bear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Thia
When Jake turned back around he was holding a box cutter. He looked from me to the instrument in his hand. He slid his thumb up and down on the handle and watched the blade as it retracted again and again, as if he were in some sort of trance.
“Air Air!” I screamed, trying to shout Bear’s name to Jake, but it was too late. There was no decision to be made. My fate had been sealed. There was no drawing him back from whatever murderous place he’d gone.
A car backfired somewhere outside, or maybe a motorcycle. Whatever it was, it got Jake’s attention. The creases on his forehead relaxed, and his eyes focused. He dropped the box cutter to the floor. With an angry roar he pulled a gun from his jeans and cocked it.
“Noooooooo!” I screamed, trying to roll away from him like there was somewhere I could go. Somewhere I could hide.
There wasn’t.
He fired, the sound of the shot echoing through the room like a shrill scream in a cave, ringing my ears. I waited for the pain. Or the nothingness.
It never came.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jake whispered, and it was only then I realized I was still screaming. He looked over his shoulder toward the door and paused, listening for something. I noticed the camera had been the target of Jake’s shot. “Fuck!” he said, running his hand through his hair.
He lowered himself next to me, his mouth close against my ear and I tried to roll away again. “Do what I say.”
I stilled. Why was he whispering?
“Gus hasn’t left yet,” he continued. “That fucker is waiting in the other room to make sure I’m going to follow through. I am going to hurt you. Scream. It helps. I promise.”
What the fuck?
“Okay?” he asked. I nodded, oddly trusting the man who was now holding the same wrench Gus had just used to pull my tooth out.
It’s not like I had any other options.
“The louder you scream, the more
satisfied he will be and the sooner he’ll leave.” Jake pushed the wrench into my mouth and clamped it around another molar. Tears ran down my face in anticipation of the pain.
“Scream as loud as you can, because if you don’t he’ll just stay longer and I’ll have to take more teeth.” He paused. “And do God only knows what the fuck else.”
Screaming wouldn’t be a problem.
He yanked, and I screamed as he ripped another tooth from my mouth, flooding it with more blood. But unlike Gus, it was over almost instantly, almost painlessly. “Keep screaming,” he whispered, long after the tooth had been extracted, so I did, until my lungs burned. Until my vision blurred.
The door opened and Gus stepped back into the room.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Jake asked, picking up the drill and selecting a bit from the toolbox. Blood from my mouth dripped down his hand. I continued to scream although no sound came out.
“I was about to leave, but I wanted to make sure you were doing your job. Wanted to make sure the rumors weren’t true about you going soft.” Gus said, taunting Jake.
“You want to finish this? Finish it. Fuck it. I don’t need this bullshit,” Jake snapped. He stood, and on his way out the door, he tossed something to Gus who held up my bloody tooth with a look of approval. A phone rang and Gus answered. “Yes. He’s got it all handled,” he said into the phone. Jake stopped and turned back around. “I’m on my way, now,” Gus said, hanging up. “She’s all yours,” Gus said. He was about to close the door when he spied the camera in pieces on the floor.
He looked to the camera and then Jake, narrowing his eyes. The look lingered and anyone else would have crumbled under the scrutiny, but not Jake. He just shrugged. “Told you I don’t fucking like cameras.”
“So much for watching the fucking replay,” Gus muttered, closing the door and again leaving me alone in the room with Jake.
Soulless (Lawless #2) Page 17