by J Bree
That’s the fucking problem.
I want her better than okay. I want her out there in the world fucking thriving and forgetting that this place ever existed. I want her going to some college and meeting some smart guy and them running off somewhere and living happily ever fucking after.
I want her having the life we all should have had before the Bay got its claws into us and warped everything.
“Fuck, new topic. Teach me some French, kid. I’m going to have to learn it sometime, might as well kill some hours now.”
The drive is hell but at least the kid keeps me in good company.
She’s quiet enough but when she comes out with those one-liners of hers… fuck, she’s smart. She sees more of the world than most and it shows as soon as she opens her mouth. She’s right, you know, she’s so much fucking older than the years she has on this fucking planet. Not that it makes what D’Ardo is doing any better. He’s still a sick fuck for wanting her, that’s for fucking sure.
But finally, five hours later, we find the address. A giant fucking fence surrounds the property and I’m about to ram the gate when Lips stops me, jumping out of the front seat and fucking around with the keypad. She’s a fucking tech wizz or something because after about three seconds it swings open.
I see the looks Harbin and Roxas share behind us.
I know they’re impressed by her but I need them to leave her the fuck alone, no dragging her into biker politics and definitely no getting her involved with the Boar and all of his shitty schemes. That old dirty biker is the fucking worst, betrayal in his blood, and I’m not letting any of it touch her.
The kid jumps back in the car and I gun it up the driveway, no interest in being discreet. They’re not expecting company, us being here is enough of a surprise and there isn’t going to be any fucking cavalry.
We pull up outside the building Odie is being kept in and I tear out of the car. Even if they did have serious firepower, I have Kevlar and enough weapons that I'm not fucking worried. The kid moves with a little more caution behind me but she doesn't call out to me or attempt to hold me back. She just follows me up to the doors of the fucking hellish mansion Odie is trapped in with a motherfucking rapist.
Solid as a fucking rock, she’s got my back.
I pause at the door, just long enough to stake my claim. “I have dibs on the buyer. No one in this house is left breathing."
Harbin steps up beside me, "Done. It's been a while since I got to make a rich man squeal. I've missed the sound, man.”
Roxas eyes the kid, taking in every inch of lead strapped to her body, and nods slowly, like he's impressed. Between that and the gate, I know he’s seeing her a little clearer now. "Wanna make it a little more fun, kid? Highest count buys the first round when we're done."
Fuck that.
I move forward, not ready to be making fun and fucking games of this shit until I have my girl back. The kid shuts him down hard but I’m too busy getting an eyeful of the door to make a comment.
The fucking giant thing is plated in steel and iron and yet, wouldn’t you know, the fucking thing is unlocked. Clearly they’re betting on the gates keeping people out.
I push it open and find three men, dressed in suits and strapped with guns waiting behind it.
The first guy frowns at us while the other two grab for their guns. The kid shoots them both, while I throw a cleaver at the guy stupid enough to try to talk to us. It hits him in the thigh taking him to the ground. I step up quickly to him, a boot to the shoulder knocking him all the way to the ground.
“What—”
“Where the fuck is the girl? Where the fuck have you taken her?” I snarl, and when he sputters back at me I press my boot into his throat, slowly crushing his windpipe.
I manage to calm the bloodthirsty rage in myself enough to stop before I actually kill him.
Dead men can’t talk.
“Answer the fucking question or I’ll kill you so bloody your ancestors will feel it.”
The guy coughs and hacks as I ease up. I hear more men walking in but their bodies hit the ground fast, Harbin and Roxas spreading out and beginning to clear the first floor. The kid stays with me, watching my back as I choke this fucker out.
“W-we rescued h-her.” He gurgles and I snap and stomp down, killing him as his neck snaps and then I lean over to yank the cleaver out of his thigh. Blood shoots out and sprays everywhere, his heart still spasming in his chest, and suddenly the place looks like something out of a horror movie.
“Dead men aren’t giving us directions,” the kid says, and I shrug back, stalking over to the staircase with her hot on my heels.
“Now we know for sure that she’s here and I’m not wasting time with that dickhead while some other cunt might be hurting her.”
I don’t say raping her… or killing her. It can’t fucking happen. Whatever it takes, I’m getting her right the fuck now. I take the stairs three at a time and palm one of my guns as the doors start to open on the second floor. I don’t need to worry about it though, the kid is a fucking good shot. I’m not expecting her to be, knives have always been more of her thing, but I know she got some lessons from O’Cronin just after she got inducted into the Twelve.
Diarmuid O’Cronin, the black sheep of that useless fucking family. He’s a total fucking dickhead, a cocky asshole, but he’s a sharpshooter like the Bay has never seen before and obviously a decent teacher. Two men collapse at the top of the stairs, bullets between their eyes, and their lifeless corpses come crashing down the steps. I kick one away and Lips stays close behind me so they don’t take out her legs.
We go through every fucking room on the second floor but every last one of them is empty. No men and no Odie, the rage pumping through my veins is like poison, burning me up to nothing but ash and pain. Where the fuck is she? Who the hell is she with?
As we work our way up to the third floor, Harbin and Roxas join us covered from head to toe in blood. The rooms up here are ever more spread out and still fucking empty. Fuck me, this place is a fucking maze. Maybe I should have kept the cunt at the door breathing a little longer, just to draw us a fucking map.
Finally, we hit a meeting room full of assholes in suits.
I take out four men with my cleavers, quick deaths because I'm not going to have fun with it right now. Not when she’s been here for hours already. Roxas starts yelling out numbers like an asshole and Harbin roars back at him to quit it. I zone them both out, just put them to the back of my mind as I move forward.
We clear the room and then move on. Fuck, we’re running out of fucking rooms and still she’s nowhere to be fucking seen.
Come on, baby girl. Where did they hide you?
I hear footsteps behind us but they’re wrong. Too heavy, more stomping than any man from the Bay would ever be so I turn, right as the kid does too. She’s faster than me and drops her gun, not taking the chance of hitting Roxas or Harbin with a stray bullet. She’s fucking smart, quick thinking, and grabs her knife at the last second. He’s on her right as she turns and, even though he’s three times the size of her, he’s no match. He’s dead with one swing of her arm, knife in his throat and a quick twist to just blow his entire fucking jugular out, and his friend catches her by the arm. He gets an arm around her throat and smirks at me.
She shifts her stance and I know she's about to throw him the fuck off of her but I'm not going to take a risk.
I yank the cleaver out of the blood-soaked corpse at my feet and throw it at him, watching as his eyes widen but I'm too fucking fast for him to react and it catches him firmly in the throat, the arterial blood soaking the kid's face and hair until she looks like something out of a horror movie.
"Fucking gross."
She sounds so fucking prissy, something I never fucking hear from her, and I think I'll tease the fuck out of her later about it.
We make it to the end of the hall, every room being fucking empty and this is the last fucking option. If she’s not in here the
n either there’s a basement or… I’m not fucking thinking about any of the other options. I grab the handle.
The door is fucking locked.
Blinding, fierce rage over takes me. She has to fucking be in here and some fucking piece of shit is with her, I can fucking feel it. I rear back to kick the door in until the wood splinters and just fucking flies away from my boot.
I charge into the room but only make it three steps in before I falter to a stop, the kid swearing behind me as she nearly slams into my back.
Odie is sitting on a bed, wearing only my shirt from days ago, covered in blood.
I'm too late.
Chapter Six
Odie
I spend the day looking for a way out of the room, some hidden door or maybe something I can pick the lock with, but there’s nothing.
The bed is soft and lavish, but the rest of the room is very… barren. The floors are polished wood floorboard, none of them loose and no nails protruding. The bathroom only has a toilet and a bath, a single bar of soap the only thing available. Not even any towels.
I’d love to be able to get clean but there’s no way I’m taking Illi’s shirt off. There could be cameras or a peephole drilled into the wall somewhere.
Lord Devareux could come back at any moment.
He doesn’t though, even when my lunch is brought to me by one of the men he doesn’t appear. The man is someone different, someone who hadn’t been there to pick me up from the abandoned house, and he refuses to meet my eye.
I know for sure that my instincts are right and there’s no way I should eat or drink anything on the tray.
I pour the water down the plughole in the bathtub and I break the food apart to look as though I’ve eaten it. The bread is too fluffy for my liking anyway, I tell my stomach this as it begins to rumble with hunger. I don’t feel as much fear this time around, it’s as though those lessons le Loup had done with me gave me more than just skills. They’ve prepared me to think and act with a calmness that can only come from being prepared and I am prepared.
I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get out of here without another man touching me.
I leave the tray by the door and climb onto the bed, pulling the knife out and testing the weight of it in my hand. It’s light enough that I can get a good swing with it and the blade is clean and sharp.
I doubt it’s ever been used, all of the men here feel… different to the men who have held me captive before. It’s clear they live a very different life than the cartel. They’re cleaner and none of them stare at me like they want to have me but... I still don't feel safe. They're not doing it to be respectful.
They're doing it because someone else owns me.
So instead of falling asleep I lay there and wait with my knife in my hand and I think about mon Monstre. For the first time since I was taken, I let myself think about the night we had before I was taken. His hands on my body, the care he took of me, and the way he looked at me like I was his next meal.
I'm not going to die before I get the chance to be his meal.
The sun has long set when I finally hear the footsteps and a key sliding into the lock. It's too late for one of the men to be coming to collect the tray of food, too late for anything other than checking I'm still here.
I hold my breath and keep my entire body deathly still, straining to listen to his movements because I don’t want to move my head to look at him and lose the tiny advantage I have with him thinking I’m asleep.
I should have thought it through a little better, prepared myself by curling up where I could see the door, but there’s no time to beat myself up over the mistake.
He steps in, only the rustling of his pants making a sound as his feet are silent on the plush carpet.
My breathing sounds so loud in my own ears when I finally take a breath but he doesn’t seem to notice, his approach to the bed never faltering. My hand tightens around the handle of the knife, the sheath already cast away ready for this moment.
Nervousness bubbles in my stomach and I push it down. I am not the scared girl I once was. I’m strong enough to do this and I now know that I have what it takes to get out of this bedroom alive… unharmed.
The mattress squeaks as it dips down with his weight and I close my eyes. I need to catch him unaware and to have the advantage of him being unprepared so I can’t risk him seeing my eyes open, even if the room is mostly dark. I hold back my flinch as he leans over me, propped up on one hand as he brushes the hair away from my face.
“Such a pretty little thing you are… too pretty for the thugs down in the Bay.”
A shiver of repulsion goes through me at the sound of his voice, one I’m unable to hide and my eyes snap open.
He flinches back in the dark, a chuckle bursting out of him. “I should have known you wouldn’t eat the food. Too bad, you couldn’t sleep through this.”
He drugged my food.
I’d guessed at it, I’d known not to eat it, but I feel vindicated and a little sick at hearing the proof.
Popping noises sound in the distance but I ignore them, my focus entirely on what is happening here because every second counts. Le Loup had taught me that even a split second of hesitation can be the difference between life and death and I will make it out of here alive tonight.
My stomach revolts but I swallow it down, swinging my arm up to bury the knife in his throat. He sees me at the last moment and knocks my arm off course, just enough that the knife barely nicks him.
“What do you think you’re doing? I’m here to help you.”
No, he’s here to own me. To paralyze me and play with my unwilling and unconscious body like the perverted man with a hero-complex he really is.
He grabs my wrist, his grip much stronger than mine but I’m prepared for the move and when he pushes my arm to the side I slam my forehead into the bridge of his nose. There’s a crunch and he roars in pain, the hot spray of his blood spattering over my face as it pours out from the broken mess of cartilage and bone. My eyes have white light bursts and I blink rapidly to ignore them and the pain radiating from the point of impact. I need to move fast.
I take advantage of his distraction and the easing of his grip as he rears back on one arm and I yank my hand out, swinging with all my strength until the knife is buried in his shoulder. I’m terrified of his men hearing and coming in to find out why he is screaming, so I pull the knife out again and swing at his flailing body again and again. My stomach revolts at the feel of the knife slicing through his flesh but my consciousness switches off, letting the adrenaline take over me and my mind empties out.
His gasping body falls away from me and onto the bed, his arms pinwheeling a little and catching me on the arm but I ignore the pain, sitting up onto my knees to stab him again, over and over, until the gurgling and wheezing sounds in his chest stop.
The popping noises sound again but the pain in my head is once again severe, what little relief I’d gotten from being unconscious back in the Jackal’s car once again gone. I wonder, in a detached and dazed sort of way, how permanent this damage is going to be and if I’ll always bear the damage of my abductions.
Finally, after I’m sure he’s no longer able to move, I stop stabbing him and with shaking arms I slit his throat just to be extra sure he’s dead.
His heart has clearly stopped because the blood doesn’t gush out, it’s more of a sluggish and slow bleed out.
My chest is heaving and my ears are ringing, everything seeming both loud and distant. How am I going to make it out of this room like this? I’ve seen at least two dozen men since arriving here, there’s no way I can use this tiny knife alone to get out of here.
I pat down Lord Devareux’s body but he’s unarmed, so confident in the drugs he’d attempted to give me that he doesn’t even have a weapon to use as protection… or maybe he never expected me to try anything. I shove his body off of the bed in disgust.
How many girls has he had here before? How many has he raped with
out their knowledge?
The popping sound is closer this time and then I jump at the ear-splitting sound of the door shattering away from the doorframe.
Mon Monstre is here for me, his face the picture of devastation.
Mon Monstre stares at me until I blink and then he's charging forward, scooping me into his arms and patting down my body with rough hands.
"Where are you bleeding, baby girl? Fuck, where, baby? Kid, grab me something to stop the bleeding!"
I notice Lips standing in the doorway as she steps forward out of a stupor and then darts around the room, grabbing up the man's discarded shirt, one I hadn’t noticed he lost, but she stops as she comes around the other side of the bed.
"Illi—"
"Gimme the fucking thing! Baby, tell me where the blood is coming from!" His hands are desperate.
I find my voice, rough as it is, "It's not my blood, mon Monstre."
He blinks at me, his hands still moving around, and Lips says, "Illi, the buyer is dead at my feet. Odie took care of it herself."
He blinks down at me again, then gently moves to hoist me into his arms properly so he can walk around and look at the body himself without letting me go.
I’m glad, I don’t ever want him to let me go.
"Well, fuck me. Baby girl, you did a fucking great job of it too," he murmurs into my hair and I preen at the compliment.
I did do a great job of it.
I did an amazing job of it, even with my concussion, and I tuck my face into his neck. "I'm very glad you and Lips taught me so well, mon Monstre, but I'm happy to leave the deaths to you from now on."
He rumbles under his breath in agreement, and then helps me to my feet. He strips his shirt off and I blush, glancing over at Lips but she doesn't seem worried by the move, then I see the vest he's wearing. A bulletproof vest that already shows signs of doing its job, I blink at it. I hope those bullets weren’t from tonight. I hope he hasn’t been forced to take them for me.