“Apparently not, but you know that already considering that you walked in on me,” I said and smirked. “You should really try knocking sometimes.”
“Luther, this isn’t funny,” she snapped.
I chuckled. “Fine, fine. No need to turn all red and get upset. I just didn’t want you to be put in the middle like you mentioned the other day, so I just thought it was best to just end things off with her. I thought you’d be happy about that.”
“Well, how’d she take it?” Logan asked.
“She was pissed. I mean she just got dumped. How’d you think she’d take it?”
“Like, what did she say? Did she tell you anything?”
I shook my head. “She started saying something, but I may have interrupted her to dump her. I think she was going to bring up being exclusive again and that was the last thing I wanted with her.”
Logan glared at me, her lips pursed. “You know, you can be such an idiot sometimes,” she muttered. “If anything, she’s going to think I had something to do with it.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because she told me you and her were dating and then you go and dump her soon after that. So, thanks a lot,” she snapped and stomped off to her bedroom. I sighed and finished off the rest of my soda.
“Women, I tell ya,” I muttered to myself before leaving the kitchen. I pulled my phone from my pocket with the urge to text Sevyn just to tell her that Logan had nothing to do with my decision. After a split second, I shook my head. She was probably still pissed. Texting her would do nothing but initiate another conversation that I wasn’t in the mood to have with her.
“She never said anything about any secret,” I finally said. “She was just really upset that I’d broken up with you.” I was quiet for a moment. “She mentioned a secret a lot in her diary though. Care to tell me what it is?”
She shook her head. “No. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”
I ground my teeth. I wanted to know about this secret that was so fucking bad that it made her do the bullshit she did. Maybe her reason why would give me the fresh, new rage that would allow me to finally feel something when I ended her life. But her refusal to answer my question pissed me off.
“Don’t you think that’s the least you can do?” I finally asked, doing my best to keep my anger in check.
She cut her eyes at me briefly before slightly rolling them and looking away. “The least I can do? Whether I tell you or not, you’re going to kill me. Telling you won’t do anything.”
“It could possibly save your life,” I bargained, but she and I both knew that was the furthest from the truth.
She scoffed. “As if you’re someone to trust right now,” she muttered.
“You only have a few days left before I kill you, Sevyn. Do you want to spend those few days suffering?”
“I’m already suffering. What’s a few days more?”
I narrowed my eyes at her, a sinister grin tipping my lips. “Be careful what you’re asking for, Sevyn. I’m sure you’re more than aware of what I’m capable of.”
“Then do what you feel you need to do, Luther. The end result will be the same; I’ll be dead soon. You can’t hurt me more than I’ve already hurt myself,” she said, though she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You don’t think I can?”
“No.”
I chuckled. “Well, challenge accepted.”
Sevyn
My heart sped up in my chest as he slowly stood. “I wasn’t trying to challenge you,” I protested. After what he’d already done to me yesterday, I wasn’t sure if I could handle him doing anything else. Despite the fear coursing through my body, a tiny part of me wanted the punishment. For years, I’d tried to punish myself, to make myself hurt in an effort to feel anything other than guilt. It was a different ballgame when you no longer had a choice of your pain.
And it was no longer appealing when you no longer had a choice in whether you lived or died.
“It sounded like you were, so I took you up on it,” he said and shrugged. The muscles in his chest twitched in warning, the danger and pain that was yet to come. I had no idea what he had up his sleeve but waiting for the inevitable made it worse. I watched him as he just stood there, his head cocked to the side.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was only saying that I’ve beat myself up for so long about this that—”
He turned and walked out of the room before I could even finish my sentence. I held my breath, waiting for him to close the door behind him, but he didn’t. That only meant that he was coming back. My breaths came in quick as I waited, a woman’s voice sounding in the hallway.
“Get off of me, you fucker!” the voice exclaimed and I froze. What the hell was he bringing Rebecca in here for if he was going to punish me? Confirming my suspicions, Luther pulled Rebecca into the room as she tried to pull herself from his grasp, freezing when she saw me. “Sevyn?”
“What is she doing here?” I asked Luther. I had no idea what he had up his sleeve, but I didn’t like it. He didn’t say a word as he closed the door and locked us in before dragging Rebecca over to the chair he’d occupied moments before. “Luther, what is she doing here?”
He cut his eyes to me but still said nothing as he put a collar around her neck and pointed to the chair. “Sit.”
“Fuck you,” she spat, spitting at his feet. He only gave her a dangerous smirk, reaching into his pocket to pull out a remote. Within seconds, Rebecca was on the ground and convulsing at his feet until he took his finger off the button.
“Bec!” I called out, reaching out to her but stopped by the chains on my wrist. I glared up at Luther. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Shouldn’t talk shit with a shock collar on, bitch,” he growled, looking down at her while still ignoring me. “Ready to sit down and shut up?”
Rebecca groaned on the floor, taking in big gulps of air in between hiccupping sobs. I glared up at him.
“Are you going to answer me as to why the fuck she’s even in here?” I asked again.
He frowned at me. “I don’t owe you shit, Sevyn. Your best bet is to sit there and shut the fuck up until I’m ready to tell you both what’s about to happen,” he stated. The cool demeanor that’d been present in his eyes and body language was gone the moment he’d walked out of the door. The dark look in his eyes made me uneasy. I moved as close to the wall as I could, as if it would save me even though I knew nothing could save me in this place.
The fact that he only wanted Rebecca to sit gave me a small bit of relief. If he was going to punish me, I’d rather him just do it to me instead of to her. But what if she’s here to make me reveal the truth, I thought, which disintegrated any relief I’d previously had. He could’ve brought her here to threaten harm against her if I didn’t tell him what he wanted to know.
I shook the thought from my head. He wouldn’t have to use her for that; he’d wanted to hurt me by his own hand. As if reading my thoughts, Luther nodded toward me as he looked at Rebecca.
“You remember what I told you earlier about Sevyn?” he asked with a grin. I looked between him and my best friend.
“Told her what about me?” I asked slowly.
“Why don’t you tell her?” Luther taunted.
Rebecca’s eyes darted between me and him before she finally looked up into his eyes and shook her head. “I…I can’t,” she finally said.
“Bec, what did he say?” I asked, trying to keep my voice soft. She wouldn’t look at me, only bowing her head to look at her lap.
“Yeah, what did I say?” he mocked.
“Shut up, Luther!” I focused my gaze on my friend, who still wouldn’t look at me. “Did he say I did something? Whatever he told you was a lie—”
“It wasn’t about you,” she murmured.
I furrowed my brow in confusion. “But he just said that he told you something about me,” I said, my tone flat. “What did he tell you then?”
“It was more so about me,”
she said.
“Tell her what I said, Rebecca,” Luther said as his tone grew impatient.
“You can tell me, Bec,” I coaxed. I hated that I couldn’t hug her. Comfort her. I wasn’t sure what he’d said that’d made her shut down, but it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as nervous energy flowed through me. “I promise I won’t be mad.”
Her shoulders sagged a bit, but she still wouldn’t look at me. “He said that he was going to have sex with you and force me to watch,” she finally admitted.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s it? You want her to watch while you rape me, you sick fuck?”
“Tell her why,” he responded, ignoring me.
“Look, I told her what you—”
“Tell. Her. Fucking. Why,” he ground out.
Her nostrils flared as she brought her gaze up to his. They stared at each other for a long moment, as if exchanging thoughts before Rebecca finally tightened her jaw and dropped her gaze.
“Bec?” I called out with a raised brow.
She released a deep sigh. “Because he said it would hurt me more than anything else he could do to me,” she finally admitted.
“And why would it hurt you more?” Luther pressed. “And tell her about Logan while you’re at it. Logan wrote about it in her diary, too, so I’d advise you to tell the truth while you have the chance to.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek, which made me a bit worried. I had no idea where Luther was going with this. None of this made sense and the only thing it was doing was frustrating me.
“Can somebody just say it already? The suspense is worse than what I already know is coming,” I finally said.
“Ten seconds, Rebecca,” Luther announced. “Ten. Nine. Eight.”
“Just say it, Rebecca,” I begged.
“Oh no. If she doesn’t say it, I’ll just go ahead and kill you,” Luther said as he pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and pointed it at me. “Seven. Six.”
“No!” Rebecca screamed.
“Then say it,” Luther ordered and continued counting down. “Five. Four. Three—”
“Okay, you asshole!” she exclaimed. Luther moved closer to me and pressed the gun to the side of my head as he fisted my hair.
“We’re listening,” he said.
Rebecca looked at me with tears in her eyes. “Because he was right about me being in love with you. I’m sorry,” she said.
“Wait, what? Since when?” I asked. If she were telling the truth, I’d never noticed it. Sure, she was always very protective over me and would always act weird whenever I showed a guy too much attention or dated anyone. I never took it as her being in love with me; I just thought she was just selfish with her friends.
She bowed her head and sniffled. “I don’t know. I think since we first met. And when you shot me down—”
“You never told me you were into girls. You asked me if I’d ever date one and I said no,” I corrected her. “That’s not you telling me you’re gay or bi or whatever.”
“Now tell her where Logan comes in,” Luther stated.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Were you and Logan a thing?” I asked. Now that I was hearing this for the first time, it made me wonder how well I knew the people I called my best friends. I’d only seen her dating guys; I’d never seen her with a girl to even have an idea about her being attracted to women. To hear it now—and to know that she was in love with me, no less—was blowing my mind.
“No,” she admitted. “That night at the party, I had a little more to drink that I should have. Logan looked really out of place, so I went over to her to keep her company. I tried to make a move on her—which was stupid—and she practically screamed ‘I’m not into lesbian stuff’ to where everyone around us heard.”
“Bec…did you…”
“I was angry, okay?” she immediately said. “I was embarrassed and upset because she’d practically outed me to a group of people that you know aren’t very accepting of people like me.” She swallowed hard. “I was the one that told Josh, Hunter, and Tyler that Logan was looking for a good time and was ‘that kind of girl.’ They were already drunk themselves, so it didn’t take much convincing.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I exclaimed.
“Don’t act like you’re so innocent either, Sevyn,” she snapped. “When I mentioned it as a plan before the party, you were all for it.”
“I told you that was extreme! I didn’t give you a fucking green light to have her raped,” I shouted back at her. I couldn’t believe the person sitting feet away from me. While I was disgusted by her reasoning, I couldn’t judge her. I was no better for my part in Logan’s suicide either. She and I were both guilty for all we’d done, my rage, hurt, and betrayal being a leading catalyst for my friends’ involvement.
But Luther was the origin of it all. Too bad I couldn’t get him to see that just yet.
“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore because now she’s dead,” Rebecca said, her face wiped of the earlier emotion that was once there.
“And you’ll be following suit soon enough,” Luther growled. He was quick when he let go of my hair and gripped my leg. I squeaked in surprise when he roughly yanked me until I was flat on my back, slightly hitting my head on the wall when I went down.
“No!” I screamed, kicking him with my free foot. He only grabbed it as he got down on his knees, a sinister smile on his face.
“I already told you what fighting me will do, Sevyn,” he teased as he secured both of my legs with one arm. I tried my best to wiggle out of his grasp, but it was no use. Tears burned my eyes as he reached under my nightgown and grabbed the hem of my panties, yanking them down my closed legs.
“You bastard!” Rebecca screamed as she jumped out of her chair. Luther raised the gun and shot her in the thigh, sending her down to the ground before she could even move toward us. She cried out in pain, clutching her wound.
“I told you not to move. Move another inch toward her until I tell you to and the next bullet will go in your head,” he warned before turning back to me. “You claim that I couldn’t make you hurt more than you hurt yourself. That’s only because you have no idea how I plan to hurt you.”
Before I could even respond to him, he pressed my legs to my chest before putting the barrel of his Glock inside of me. The metal was freshly heated from the shot he’d just let off, but it felt as if it was 100 degrees the way it burned going in. The pain rendered me silent, my mouth opening to scream but nothing would come out. My breath caught in my throat, my entire body freezing as a burning sensation slid over my nerve endings and strangled them. It made me dizzy and nauseous at the same time, my body unable to process the amount of pain.
Tears swam in my eyes as Luther looked down at me, his gaze dark and angry as he shoved the gun in and out of me. I could hear Rebecca screaming, but it sounded as if I was underwater. By the time everything cleared in my head, I realized that I was the one screaming.
“Still sure I can’t hurt you more than you’ve already hurt yourself?” he taunted. “I’m pretty sure this gun shoved in your pussy hurts a lot worse than those pathetic cuts you’ve put on your body.”
“You’re a sick bastard!” Rebecca screamed, but she didn’t dare move toward me. All Luther needed was a reason to shoot her again just to heat up the barrel of the gun some more. I pulled at the chains, trying to twist and turn my body out of his grasp, but he only moved with me.
“Everyone in this house is sick, including you,” he replied back to her, but he never took his eyes off my face. A look of pure satisfaction filled his eyes each time he pushed the gun as far as it could go inside of me, a grin tilting his lips. “It would be unfortunate if this gun were to go off inside of you, wouldn’t it?”
“Please, no!” I wailed. He took the gun from inside me and let go my legs, optioning to grab my face instead.
“Open your mouth,” he growled. At this point, I’d do whatever it took to get the pain to stop. His ha
nd firmly gripped my cheeks, forcing me to open my mouth. I whimpered when he shoved the barrel into my mouth, the metallic taste of cooling metal and blood assaulting my tongue. “That’s what your fear, your pain, your desperation taste like.”
I tried to shake my head out of his grip, but he only turned the gun’s barrel side to side in my mouth, making sure I got as much blood of it as possible. He finally pulled it out and quickly put a hand over my mouth.
“Swallow,” he demanded. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I fought the urge to, but he wouldn’t uncover my mouth until I did. When his hand moved as if to put the gun inside of me again, I did as he asked, letting out a sob as nausea pooled in my belly. I almost breathed a sigh of relief when he put the gun on the mattress, but I should’ve known better. He kept his gaze trained on me as he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans.
“No, no, no,” I begged. “Please! Not after yesterday.”
“Oh no, I’m not fucking your pussy today,” he said and chuckled. I didn’t have to wonder what he’d planned to destroy today as he roughly flipped me over on my stomach, causing my arms to cross over my head.
“Please don’t, Luther,” I begged. “I’ll tell you whatever you want!”
“Too late for that right now,” he only said in response. I sobbed as he forced my hips up and spread my legs. I squeezed my hands into fists, waiting for the inevitable. I tried to take my mind to any other place other than being on this dirty mattress with a monster who kept my heart hostage even after he’d broken it years ago. But nothing could rip me away from the searing pain that licked up my spine as he forced himself into my ass. I squeezed my hands into fists so tightly that my pointed nails cut into my skin. I couldn’t make a single sound, only silent tears leaking out of my eyes and onto the mattress. With every pump he put into me, I disappeared further and further into myself. I wanted to be dead already. I wanted this to be over. I hated that he was going to drag this out for a whole week before he finally killed me, punishing me in every way he could possibly think of. I forced my mind to drift off to a better time as the pain slowly wrapped me up in its unforgiving embrace.
The Destruction of Sevyn (The Vengeance of Luther Book 1) Page 18