I realize the universe works in mysterious ways when Eight’s grunted request for help sounds through my ears. He’s carrying a lifeless woman in his arms—my lifeless woman.
Seventeen
Kristina
“Come on, K.”
The heat of a hand being slapped across my face rouses me from the darkness long enough for me to realize I’m in the shower. The same shirt and tiny pair of knickers I’ve been wearing the past twenty-four-plus hours clings to my body. I’m drenched head to toe, and the contents of my stomach are being forcefully removed by two thick fingers ramming down my throat.
“Bring them up for me, K. You’re not going down like this. You are too fucking strong to let them win.”
I soundlessly cry through the pain tearing up my throat when the fingers pierce through my gag reflex so forcefully, my stomach has no reason not to protest. I cough and splatter through pain medication I must have swallowed whole since they ping off the floor like they’re made from the same material as the studs in Trey’s cock.
“Yes, that’s it. Bring them all up,” says a growly British voice not as pained as it was minutes ago before he once again shoves his fingers down my throat.
This time, it is Trey’s clutch around my waist that causes me to hurl. He squashes my stomach so brutally, I’ll never be convinced my insides have organs.
Once my second bout of vomiting is over, Trey commands for someone to count the pills in my vomit, wanting to ensure not a single one remains in my stomach. I don’t know who he’s talking to. I can’t see anything through the film coating my eyes. I’m not even sure we’re in the shower in his bathroom. Everything is a blur.
While the black bob near the lower half of my body rummages through my stomach’s contents, Trey slips his hand under my chin to raise my heavy head. “Stay awake, K. Don’t you go passing out on me again. If you pass out, I will hurt you. I’ll hurt you so fucking bad, you’ll get back the will to live because you’ll hate me so much, you’ll want to kill me. You can’t kill me if you’re dead, K, so you need to fight to stay alive.”
He pushes my hair out of my face when I slant my head back so the icy-cold water drenching my waist-length hair can remove the blobs of spew gripping my chin. “That’s it, K. Come back to me. Show me how strong you are.” When my head careens toward his chest, the pressurized water too strong for the emaciated muscles in my neck to handle, Trey wrenches it back. His clutch on my hair hurts, but it’s nothing close to the first time Achim tried to assault me. “Don’t you go falling asleep, K. Stay with me. I’ll get you warm soon, I promise. I just need to make sure you’ve brought up all the pills first, then I’ll never leave your side. You’ll never be left alone again. Do you hear me? I’ll always be there for you when you wake up from the dark. I won’t leave your side. I should’ve never left you to begin with.” His last sentence is barely a whisper, and it breaks my heart.
When the guilt highlighting his solemn tone becomes too much to bear, I whisper,“Omlouvám se. Nezasloužím si tvou korunu. Nic si nezasloužím. Je mi to moc líto.”
My blurry eyes drift to the right when a soft female voice whispers, “I’m sorry. I don’t deserve your crown. I don’t deserve anything. I’m so sorry.” Although my vision is still hazy, I know who she is. She just translated what I said word for word. Only one person has done that in this country. Justine.
“You said you’d go to war for me,” she tells Trey on my behalf. “But the war had already started. It will never end.”
After blinking in rapid succession, I raise my eyes to Trey’s face, desperately needing to gauge his reaction when I quote, “I’ll give you the crown you’re craving, Duchess. It just won’t be pronged with jewels.”
Since he has to wait for Justine to translate what I’m saying, it takes a few seconds longer for shock to wash over his face than I am anticipating, but it arrives, nonetheless.
“You were in the pantry?”
When I nod, Justine stops interpreting his question for me, clueing on that I have no trouble understanding English.
After many seconds of painful silence, Trey asks, “Did I fire at you?” Not waiting for me to respond, he pulls back the tangled hair draped down the front of my shoulders, sucking in sharply when he spots the familiar circular singe of a bullet wound. “I hurt you.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t shoot me. You pushed me out of the way.”
Justine is only halfway through interpreting what I said when a gruff, accented voice interrupts, “I’m only finding four pills.” Although I can’t one hundred percent testify it is Eight speaking, I’m reasonably sure it is. He has quite a twang to his tone considering he lives in the city. “There are only four pills. Are you sure she’s overdosing on codeine?”
“I assumed that’s what she took since it was what Dok prescribed. Did you find anything near her when you found her?” When Eight shakes his head, Trey lowers his eyes to mine. The panic in them has me wanting to fold in two. “What did you take, K? Was it pills? Coke? Did you shoot up?”
Even knowing there won’t be any, he checks my arms for puncture wounds. It isn’t that he trusts me, he just knows I wouldn’t take anything that would make me more vulnerable than I already am. Drugs would do that.
When he fails to find the cause for my near-comatose state, Trey requests for Eight to reach out to Dok. “If she’s OD’ing on heroine, pumping her stomach won’t be enough.”
While Eight rushes off to do as ordered, Trey pulls me out of one of the shower stalls across from the dorm where the other women are. When I shudder through the toxins wreaking havoc with my senses, he requests for Justine to fetch some towels from a linen closet partway down the hall. When she darts out of the bathroom, I wrack my brain as to what’s happening. I’m so confused. The last thing I remember is waking up in Trey’s bed screaming, but that’s on the other side of the compound, so how did I get here?
As panic drudges through me, my eyes pop open. I’m not just scared about the horrifying memories slowly filtering into my woozy head. I’m petrified Trey’s wet shirt is amplifying the zap of electricity surging through his body from him being tasered.
The charge of electricity buckles his knees in an instant and has him slumping to the floor as if he’s dead. If that isn’t already terrifying, with a mocking grin, a monster from my nightmares steps out from the shower stall next to the one Trey and I just exited.
With his head slanted to the side like a naughty dog, Achim says, “That was more fun than I thought it would be… even with his sickening display of chivalry. He has quite the fascination for you, doesn’t he?Come back to me, K. Fight for me.” He gags like he’s physically repulsed before he steps over Trey’s lifeless form. “Doesn’t he know he can buy you for a couple of nickels and a stick of gum?”
Determination spirals through me when he has the nerve to laugh. Those are the objects he tossed at me the first time he forced me to give him head. I took the gum willingly, needing anything to remove the putrid taste of his cum from my mouth.
