by R. A. Smyth
When they’re gone, I tap the card against the reader and slip into the interrogation block. It’s even darker in here, and the stench of piss makes me gag as I look around. Along one wall are steel doors, marking out small cells, with the rest of the room broken up into what looks like several interrogation rooms, with large, darkened windows, showing brief glimpses into each one. In the center of the room is what looks like a small guard station, composed entirely of glass, providing the guards with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the room. Thankfully, it’s empty at the minute, all available guards having been pulled to accommodate the open day.
“Hadley,” Hawk hisses. “Hadley!”
“Hawk?” Her surprised voice carries to us like a soft whisper from several doors down on the left. I’m itching to go to her, but I force myself to stay by the door, keeping an eye out as Hawk scurries toward her.
“Baby Davenport.” I can hear the strain in Hawk’s voice as he reaches the steel door separating her from us. A broken cry from behind it has my chest cracking open. Fuck, I never want to hear that sound again.
Hawk tries the security card on the keypad by the door, despite Beck already informing us only a few guards have access to these rooms, growling in frustration when the light flashes red. Even if we could get into her room, there’s no way we’d be able to sneak her out of the compound unnoticed before someone sounded the alarm.
Closing his eyes, Hawk rests his forehead against the door, letting out a long exhale as he attempts to wrangle his emotions.
“Hawk.” The relief in her tone crushes me. “What are you doing here?”
I can see Hawk gritting his teeth from here, struggling to contain his anger. “Beck said you were here, but we didn’t believe him.”
“He told you.” I can’t tell, through the thick door, how she feels about that.
We don’t have time now to get into all that, something Hawk must realize. “We’re going to get you out, little sis.” His voice is a low growl, filled with dark promises of vengeance. He’ll do whatever it takes to get his sister out of here, and we’ll be right by his side. “Stay strong, okay? I have to go.” His voice breaks and, fuck, if the moment doesn’t have tears in my eyes. “But we’re coming back for you…” He hesitates for a second. “I-I love you. We’ll be back. I promise.”
Another broken sob, followed by a quiet, “I love you too,” is the last thing we hear from behind the door as Hawk shoves a folded-up piece of paper through the narrow gap at the bottom of the door. It took a lot of arguing for us to decide who would seek out Hadley, and who got to write the note. Hawk pulled the brother card, and, well, what could we say to that? If it hadn’t been for the overwhelming despair of the situation, it would have been a heartfelt moment. I’m so proud of him for opening up and accepting her, and I know this moment will have meant everything to her. As for who wrote the note, Cam won that one, claiming he wanted to be there for her the way she was there to pull him back from the ledge. Regardless of who got to speak to her, or write the letter, Hadley knows we’re all with her in spirit, and that we’re all doing everything we can to free her.
Pausing, Hawk stares at the steel door for another moment, reaching out and pressing his fingers against the cold metal. His shoulders slump on a heavy sigh, and he closes his eyes for a second before standing up.
When he turns to face me, his expression is shuttered, but the fire burning in his eyes is something everyone in this place should be afraid of. He strides toward me, each step filled with purpose and determination. With one final glance at Hadley’s door, we step back into the main corridor. It tears me apart to leave her behind, and I can see the same war waging in Hawk as he sears me with a haunted look, his jaw set in steely determination, ready to do anything to get his sister back.
We jog down the corridor in the direction the others disappeared, and thankfully Cam’s loud laugh echoes further on up ahead, letting us know where they are. Slipping into a large room with a fighting cage built in the middle of it, I pretend to bend down and pick something up while Hawk strolls to the far side of the room, feigning interest in a collection of knives lining the wall. Actually, he’s probably very interested in them—in jamming them into the guard’s neck.
“Hey man,” I call out, gaining the guard's attention. “Is this yours?” I hold up the security pass Cam swiped. “It was on the ground here.”
With wide eyes, the guard pats his trousers. “Shit, yeah. Thanks, man.”
“Don’t sweat it,” I assure him, smiling easily, all the while picturing smashing his head into the concrete wall.
We quickly finish up with the tour and get the fuck out of there, and I can feel the impatient atmosphere as the car drives us back toward campus.
I text Beck when we’re nearly back at campus, and he steps up to greet us as the car makes its way out the school gates, having dropped us off.
“Well?” Cam snaps, irritably, when we’re alone. “Did you find her?”
“Yeah. She was there.”
“She got the note.” Hawk looks determinedly at each of us. “Now we just need to come up with a way to get her out of there.”
Chapter 29
I’m abruptly woken to yet more numbingly cold water being hosed over me. What day is it now? I’m losing count. My head swims constantly from lack of food, making it impossible to grasp on to a single thought long enough to figure anything out.
I’ve been so close to giving up; so close to losing myself. Every time I feel my will to fight slipping away, I pull out the note Hawk pushed under my door. It’s the only reminder that it wasn’t all a dream. That my guys were really here. They came to find me.
I’d completely forgotten it was that time of year. The yearly open day. After the challenge night, they left me alone. My world was nothing but deafening silence. The only noise was the sound of the hatch opening when food was delivered. It might seem better, but all that endless time left alone with my thoughts is just as damaging as what they were doing before.
Things went back to the way they were after the open day. The food stopped coming, my clothes were taken away, and I’ve spent most of the time living in a quiet corner of my mind where I pretend none of this is real.
The hose passes over me again, the cold water seeping into my already numb bones. I swear, if I survive this, I’m never having a cold shower again. Only steaming hot water for me. I want my skin to turn red, the water’s so scorching hot.
“Ah good, you’re awake. It’s no fun if you’re passed out.” Bowen’s deep, demonic voice pierces through the fog in my brain seconds before a blade digs into my thigh, making me grunt as it tears a path up to my hip. I can feel the blood dripping down my leg, pain flaring when I tense the muscle.
I’m yet again shackled to the fucking wall, wearing nothing and wondering what the fuck he did to me when I was passed out. The only difference this time is that my cheek is pressed against the cold stone, my backside exposed to the elements. Clenching, nothing feels overly painful, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
He trails his fingers through the blood dripping down my thigh before pressing down on the wound, the flare of pain making me hiss. I tense when his blood-coated fingers slip between my ass cheeks, the sick fuck chuckling in my ear.
“Not long now, D,” he promises. “Lawrence will be back in a few days, and when he sees you’re still fighting, he’ll more than happily hand you over for me to break.” Leaning in, his breath tickles my ear. “And trust me, when I’m done with you, you’ll be shattered into so many pieces there won’t be a hope of piecing you back together.”
All I know for the next however long is the feel of his blade digging into my skin, tearing apart my flesh and branding it. Although I’m acutely aware of what he’s doing, I hardly feel the pain anymore. I don’t know if I’ve just become so anesthetized to it all, or if it’s because I am starting to break apart.
The only thing keeping me going is the note from Hawk and my guy
s. Every time I’m dumped back in my cell, I dig it out from where I hid it between my mattress and the bedframe. When I read it, that spark of fire I’m so used to holding close for warmth, sparks within me, reminding me I’m not ready to give up the fight.
My body may be weakening, but my mind is still strong. It screams at me to keep fighting; to not let them win. Smoothing out the crinkled piece of paper, I read the words scrawled in Cam’s messy handwriting. I soak them up like they’re a lifeline. They are my lifeline. They’re the only thing keeping me going.
You’re so brave, Baby Davenport. We’re coming for you. We love you.
My boys are coming for me. I have to make sure I’m strong enough to fight when that day arrives.
Epilogue
I tore the dorm apart when we got home, but it still wasn’t enough to squelch the insurmountable rage I’m feeling. The things I saw today; what I heard; the way she looked. It took everything in me not to go fucking apeshit right there and then in that vile compound, but that would have been a sure fire way to have our parents getting suspicious, and watching us more closely—the last thing we need right now.
“What’s the game plan?” Cam asks, all business for once. We’re all perched on stools around the kitchen island and there’s a fire like nothing I’ve seen before in his eyes. Cam is one of those people, when he sets his mind to something, he gives it a hundred and ten percent. He doesn’t quit until he’s the best. That’s why he’s done so well with the swimming, and if he put his mind to it, he’d be challenging West for the top position in the year. Right now, though, all of his energy is focused on getting Hadley back and, looking at the others, they’re just as determined.
“I’m just throwing this out there,” Beck says, already raising his hands in a placating gesture as he looks at me, “but I take it there’s no point in going to your parents?”
I shake my head. “I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think so. I don’t trust them to get her back. If they realize how instrumental she is, they may decide to keep her there indefinitely, and if they know that we knew she was there, they’d make sure we never saw her again.”
Beck grits his teeth, giving a tight nod in agreement before he reaches out to grab a beer from the table. As his fingers wrap around the bottle, Mason’s hand snaps out, grabbing onto his forearm.
He stares in confusion at one of the tattoos on Beck’s forearm. “What’s that?” The tattoo he points to is one of his more basic ones. It looks like it was inked on him by a child, or a drunk person.
Beck’s lips press tightly together as he pulls his arm out of Mason’s grip, looking reluctant to share whatever the story is behind the tattoo.
“Seriously?” Cam snaps. “Now hardly seems like the time to reminisce and get to know each other better.”
Scowling at Cam, Mason focuses his attention back on Beck. “There’s a gang in Black Creek, called the Reaper Rejects. Do you know them?”
Beck’s brows furrow as he looks at Mason in confusion. “No. This”—he waves his hand at his forearm—“was just some stupid name a bunch of kids with nothing better to do came up with.”
“Yeah, a bunch of kids that lived in Black Creek,” Mason muses. “What happened to your friends?”
“I have no idea. We lost touch after I moved away.”
Mason’s fingers tap absently against the counter surface as he thinks. “What if they grew up and started a gang—one that’s quickly taking over Feral Beast territory.”
Beck’s brows climb up his forehead at that revelation.
“So what?” Cam sighs, frustrated.
I see when Beck catches on to whatever Mason is getting at. They better start sharing with the class real fucking soon.
Mason turns his head to look at each of us.
“So, that could mean we might be able to level the playing field.”
“I need to go to Black Creek to see for myself,” Beck states, his mind running a million miles an hour as he thinks. “There would be no guarantee that they’d help. This isn’t their war.”
“But it is,” Mason argues. “Our parents are lifting kids off their streets.”
“If you're right, and it’s my old friends running this gang, there’s no way they’d be okay with that.”
“Exactly.” Mason nods his head. “What do you think they’d do if your friends got in their way?”
“He’s right,” I add, throwing in my two cents. “Our parents will soon become their problem. If you can convince them to help, we might actually have a chance of defeating our parents, for good.”
We discuss it over some more, and Beck tells us more about the guys he used to run around with back in the day—Cain and Oliver—before he agrees to leave for Black Creek the next day.
That night, as I rest my head against the pillow and stare up at the ceiling, I think about Hadley and what she’s had to endure; sick in the stomach at the fact we had to leave her behind today.
We’ve got a plan, little sis. We’re going to get you out of there, and we’re going to make every single one of them suffer.
Break Free (Pacific Prep #4)
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Acknowledgements
As always, there are so many people I need to thank. The biggest one goes to Nikki for all the hours she dedicates to putting up with my needy ass. She’s as deep in these character’s journey as I am, always on hand to help me when I’m stuck, suggest improvements and—most importantly—change my UK English to US English. Thank you so much for everything you do, and most importantly, for just being an amazing friend! I love you!
I owe another thanks to Nikki Number 2 AKA UK Nikki, who is always ready to dive into a beta document, even when it’s still only half formed. Her keen eye and hilarious comments add the perfect finishing touches to this book, and I’d be lost without her.
A massive thanks to Shawna, Artemis and Jenni for beta reading and helping to make this book the best it can be, and to Zainab for her thorough editing and fine tuning.
A huge thanks to my street team and those who signed up with affinity to read and review this book. I appreciate all your hard work promoting every week and I’ve absolutely loved reading your reviews and seeing your edits.
Lastly, thank you to all of you, the readers, for picking up this book and reading it. Without you none of this would be possible!! If you loved this book, please help me spread the word by leaving a quick review.
Also By R.A. Smyth
Crescentwood Series
#1 Three Divisions
https://books2read.com/threedivisions
#2 Two Forces
https://books2read.com/twoforces
#3 One Family
https://books2read.com/onefamily
***
Pacific Prep Series
#1 Broken Trust
https://books2read.com/brokentrust
#2 Brutal Lies
https://books2read.com/Brutallies
#3 Beyond Vengeance (coming 2021)
https://books2read.com/beyondvengeance
#4 Break Free (coming 2021)
https://books2read.com/BreakfreePP4
***
Black Creek Series
#1 Rebels & Rejects (coming early 2022)
https://books2read.com/rebelsandrejects
About the Author
R.A. Smyth is an author of dark romance. She lives in the UK with her husband, although they frequently talk about moving to live abroad (so who knows).
She has always been an avid reader, starting from the Harry Potter books as a kid. It’s an interest that has grown into an obsession over the years and becoming an author has been a secret life long dream of hers.
When she’s not writing, Rachel enjoys spending time with her family, drinking cups of tea (or glasses of wine or gin) with a good book and exploring the small island of Ireland with her family.
Three Divisions (Crescentwood #1)
Chapter 1