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Perhaps being stuffed in the boot of a moving vehicle, gag tied around my face, cutting into my cheeks, bag over my head, that this was okay, fine even, compared to whatever it is that might come next.
Doors open as if in unison, then they close,one, two, three,a moment’s pause, shuffling,four.My breath whistles through my stuffy nose, pulse pounding in my ears as I strain to listen to footsteps, but they all move at the same time, giving me no indication how many there are until the noise of movement stops right beside my head.
Holding my breath, I wait, trying to listen, my ears full of nothing but the shooting of adrenaline flooding my veins. It’s all I can hear, the loud buzzing like locusts stripping a farmer’s harvest field bare. The boot lid clicks and I am silent as a corpse as it opens, unknown abductors presumably staring in at me.
That’s when big hands grab my upper arms, and I scream. I scream even though it’s muffled, even though it hurts my own head. I scream like I haven’t since I was five years old, locked inside of a kitchen cupboard by my mother to keep me safe. To hide me.
Protect me.
The only person who ever gave a fuck about me.
She should have locked herself in the cupboard and let the intruder rape and murder me instead.
I kick my legs as I’m lifted from the car boot, my heel catching something, a grunt loud as it does. I’m spun in the air and slammed into a rock solid chest, airoomphing from my lungs at the impact. Sandalwood and vanilla instantly filling my nose.
Flynn?
Chest rising and falling, heart hammering, knocking at my sternum, threatening to crack its way through, I drag in quick, hot breaths through my nostrils. Throat constricting as the gag seems to work its way further back along my tongue, I try to chew it forward, gagging anyway as the person holding onto me plants me down onto my feet, small scattered stones beneath the soles of my boots, hands behind my back making balancing harder.
The air is icy, my long, clingy dress on, it has thick ribbed fabric and long sleeves, calf-length boots beneath it. I wanted to wear the cowboy boots that Lynx gave me, but looking at them this morning made my eyes blurry, so I slammed the wardrobe door closed on them and dug out my combat boots instead.
My jacket was stripped off of me before my hands were bound. Temperatures below five-celcius, wind chapping my cheeks, my ears, it feels like my first day in Groveton all over again. The unexpected cold.
Shivering, my jaw works, teeth trying to clack together in a chatter, but the rag stops me, saliva leaking from the sides of my mouth, down my chin.
Suddenly, I’m shoved forward, curled knuckles in semblance of a punch, hitting me sharply between my shoulder blades. I jerk forward, toe of my boot scuffing in the loose earth and I go down. Hard. The side of my face smacking the solid ground, cheekbone and temple thudding the hardest, making me seestars. Sickness swirls in my belly, and I resist the urge to gag, just barely, by breathing slowly through my nose, but it’s taking gargantuan effort to do just that.
Breathe.
“Jesus fuck,” someone hisses under their breath, as large, warm hands hook beneath my armpits, pulling me back to my feet. “Easy, Kitten,” he whispers, revealing himself to me,Rex,as he grips my upper arms.
Smoothing his thumbs down the backs of my arms as my head spins and my body sways and the sickness I felt before comes rushing up the back of my throat. I swallow down the feeling, abdomen jumping as I do, my empty belly churning, burning in my chest, my throat. His heat at my back, warming my spine, it should feel safe, but it feels anything but.
I think this is worse.
This is so much worse because whatever is happening, whatever is going to happen is going to be so much worse because I know them. These boys, ones who have kissed me and touched me and fucked me. Brought me lunch and gifted me boots, lent me a coat, and genuinely cared for me.
Rex’s hands still grip my arms, holding me up as my head drops forward on my shoulders, chest tight.
The sob comes out in full force then. My entire body trembling as it does. I know they were the ones who released the shower video, my naked body plastered across websites and social media, every mobile phone on campus, and now I’m just waiting for that dreaded phone call from my father. Telling me to get on a flight he’ll have arranged and not put up a fuss when I get sent back to Briarmoor.
I’m not a person who should ever have been admitted there. I have depression and anxiety. I use drugs to numb my brain, to make me more social, more fun. Briarmoor houses criminals, people with severe mental health issues who are dangerous. Ithought he sent me there as a punishment, now I think he’s just trying to get rid of me.
And he can.
With that court ordered piece of paper, essentially making him my owner.
Sobs wrack my chest, choked and muffled with the gag and the sack and the lack of air, as my heaving breaths suck the rough fabric tight to my nostrils. And all it does is make me panic more.
“For fuck’s sake,” another male voice snaps, someone familiar, but deprived of my sight, and flooded with panic, I don’t know who it is.
The bag is torn from my head, Rex still at my back, holding onto my arms.
Blinking to clear the darkness, it does nothing, the night having fallen fully now, plunging us into pitch black, but having my sight back, it’s a little like relief.
Until, I blink away my tears, clearing my blurry eyes, and find myself staring into eyes the colour of onyx. Even when it’s not dark, unshadowed, his brown eyes are soulless black orbs that want to destroy anything in his path.
Bennett is a demon, and in this moment, he looks absolutely terrifying.
