I’m truly lost on Col’s gameplan. He’s ruthless, sordid, and doesn’t have a moral bone in his body, so he can’t be overly smart. Bullies use violence because they can’t use intelligence. I was certain my ruse would be implemented without a hiccup. Now I have no fucking clue which way is up.
My eyes lift from my blood-soaked hands when the burn of pure evil scalds my head. Col is staring straight at me. His grin is smug, but it has nothing on the fire that blazes through his eyes when the door I was dragged through hours ago pops open. I wait for the putrid scent of a dog’s coat wet with my sister’s blood to plume my senses. I’m left reeling when the scent isn’t close to the one I am anticipating. It’s floral and feminine, a smell I’d recognize no matter how dire the circumstances.
“No!”
Demi isn’t meant to be here.
She should have been hundreds of miles out of Hopeton by now.
I’m forced back into my seat by the brutal zap of a taser. The electrical current bolting throughout my body stiffens my muscles in an instant, but nothing can stop my eyes from trekking Demi’s solemn walk across the room. Her hair is down and flowing around her shoulders, the clothes she was wearing when she stood across from me in the cabin have been replaced with a floral dress, and her face is wearing an expression I’ve never seen it wear before. She’s here, but she isn’t. So close, yet so far away. She’s a shell of the woman who stood across from me demanding fairer judgment only months ago.
Just as Demi kneels in front of her uncle, the zap making my nervous system shut down momentarily suspends. I try to move. I try to get to Demi before Col can run his hand down her head like Demi does to Max any time he behaves, but my legs refuse to cooperate. They’re heavy like lead and throbbing as much as the vein in Demi’s neck when her uncle dips his chin to whatever she is whispering in his ear.
They chat for barely half a minute before Col helps Demi to her feet. He parades his niece in front of me, holding her hand high in the air like he’s introducing a regal princess to her servants.
His ruse would be more effective if Demi didn’t shatter the fairy tale by mouthing six little words that break my heart into a million pieces, “It’s just one of those days.”
When I freeze, muted by shock, Col guides Demi to a door opposite from the one she entered only moments ago. A strength unlike anything I’ve ever experienced surges through me when someone inside the room switches on the lights. It’s a similar size structure as the one Justine was mauled in, except it doesn’t have a vicious, fang-drooling animal waiting to savage Demi. There is a king-size bed and a wall filled with bondage paraphernalia.
When my roar snaps the rope circling my ankles, the man who tased me back into my seat attempts to do it for the second time. I foil his endeavor by spinning around so fast, the stainless-steel chair I’m bound to knocks the taser out of his hand and sends him stumbling backward. A warrior cry parts my lips when I break his nose with my boot. He’s so shocked by my unexpected violence, he doesn’t attempt to protect his face when I ram my boot into it. I stomp and stomp and stomp until his face caves in and a third man joins us.
With my hands useless, I use my head to subdue him instead of my fists. I headbutt him like my brain isn’t throbbing against my skull, then crack his sternum with a quick front projected kick. He isn’t dead like the man with a now unrecognizable face, but he’s down for the count, windless and unsure as to what the fuck just happened.
I almost reach the room Demi is in when the chair I’m carrying around like a tortoise shell is yanked backward. The force of the blond man’s jerk untethers the rope around my wrists. With a move I’ve only seen in staged WWE fights, I spin around, snatch up the chair toppling toward the floor, smash it over his head, then send him flying away from me with the same front-propelled kick that pacified his friend.
With the room in lockdown and reeking of death, I race for the mirrored wall of the room Demi was guided into. “Demi!”
Memories of the time I banged my bloody fist on the glass partition in the ER of Mercer Private smack into me when I do the same to the two-way mirror separating Demi from me. The door Col forced her through is deadbolted with multiple locks, so I have no choice but to smash through the glass. It could be bulletproof, but that doesn’t mean shit when you have a man enraged enough to slaughter a hundred men without remorse.
“Dem—”
My second shout of her name is cut short by the mirror effect of the wall fading away to glass. Demi is standing directly in front of me. Her dress has been removed, tears are careening down her cheeks, and she has a gun butted against her temple.
“Look at me,” I demand when her drenched eyes stray away from mine for the quickest second to take in the carnage behind me. I did what needed to be done to save her, but that doesn’t mean I’m proud of the maniac I’ve become. “Just keep looking at me, okay? It’s going to be all right. I’m right fucking here. I’m not going anywhere.”
When Demi’s eyes return to mine, Col demands her to her knees. A squeak pops from her lips when she doesn’t jump to his command quickly enough. He forces her to kneel in front of him by pulling roughly on her hair.
I smash my fists into the glass enough to make it wobble when Col uses a knife to remove Demi’s bra and panties. They slide off her shuddering body like ice cream left outside on a hot summer’s day.
“No!” I scream with a mangled roar when Col drags the tip of his blade up the galley between Demi’s breasts. His pressure isn’t enough to kill her, but it is deep enough to leave a scar. “Look at me, baby. Keep your eyes on me,” I beg when Demi drops her gaze to the stream of blood rolling down her midsection.
She’s quick to acknowledge the command in my tone, proving she is lucid, but I know she’s hurting. There’s so much pain in her big blue eyes, so much hurt. She’s as devastated as me and very much confused.
“I love you,” she mouths to me when Col moves his blade from her collarbone to her neck.
“I love you back,” I say out loud, unashamed by the wetness in my eyes or the love I developed for her in a short period of time. I love this woman enough to kill without remorse. I can’t express how much she means to me better than that.
When the tip of Col’s blade digs into the vein thrumming in Demi’s neck, air catches in my throat. He’s going to kill his own blood to teach me a lesson, to prove how far he’s willing to go to remain the king of his realm, and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do about it.
Desperate, I snatch up the stainless-steel chair dumped in the middle of the death-scented space before tossing it into the glass separating me from the woman I love. It bounces off the seemingly impenetrable glass and nicks my face on the way by, but it doesn’t end my campaign. I slam my fists into the splinter it caused to the bulletproof material, aware nothing will hurt more than seeing Demi killed directly in front of me.
While roaring like a wounded animal, I punch and punch and punch until the glass cracks, and a taser brings me to my knees. Even with her uncle holding her head back by a brutal clutch of her hair, Demi stares straight at me, her strength unwavering even moments from death.
It is proven without a doubt when she braces one of her tiny hands on the glass separating us and breathes, “It’s just one of those days,” before Col slices his knife to the left, silencing us both.
To be continued in Ox
