There are around seven of them, and from how they talk, I catch a few names or nicknames.
Arson, Callum, Madman, Micaden, Psychopath, Sociopath.
Such weird names, but somehow they fit. Compared to them, John’s men seem like clueless idiots.
I hear deep voices accompanied by heavy footsteps. They all left me around thirty minutes ago to do whatever. “Aileen won’t be a little girl forever, Lachlan,” a blue-and-orange-haired man everyone calls Arson mutters as he enters the room with a man wearing a perfectly tailored three-piece suit that fits him in a way John’s suits could never.
I swallow at the power radiating from him, showing me, in all its glory that I could never best him in anything, and while every other man made me curious…this one inspires confused emotions like awe and fear.
His cold blue eyes focus on me, and I pull at my torn clothes covering my dirty skin, despising to look so weak and broken in front of him for some reason. His blond hair glistens under the light, and his ruthless expression makes me sit up straight.
It almost pains me to be unworthy of his attention, as I know it’s inevitable that all men hate me for merely breathing, and he wouldn’t be the exception.
So this is the mighty Lachlan.
A man everyone fears.
He steps closer to me, so I scoot back, hitting the bars, blinking, and hoping I give nothing away.
My body still trembles, too exhausted and starved to play along with me, but I try my best to seem brave.
I freeze when he says, “Their death needs to be long, agonizing, and never-ending.” Satisfaction flashes in Arson’s gray eyes while something wicked crosses his face, and that inspires more curiosity in my confused mind.
Would he do something horrible to them like Rush did? Can I watch?
“They’ll wish they were never born.”
I always knew the cage is small. Next to Lachlan, it shrinks even more as it reaches his hips.
His nose twitches, and my cheeks heat. He probably must smell the urine, as John wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom anywhere else, and I couldn’t hold it in for more than twenty hours.
This cage is my safe space still despite everything, and if he takes me out of here…what would happen to me next?
“Hi,” he says to me, his voice deep yet gentle in a way no one else has ever used with me, and I blink, fisting my hands even more before hitting the bars again with my back, breathing heavily.
All this is too confusing. It must be a game.
“Maybe he can’t talk?” Arson places his hand on top of the cage. I look up and dig my teeth more into my abused lip. Will he shake it like Dylan until I barf all over the cage to force me to talk? “There must be a reason they found him defective and took their anger out on him.”
Oh. They think there was a reason they didn’t treat me like the other kids?
“Not defective enough to kill him. We need to get him to the hospital. These wounds might get infected. Plus, I don’t like how his elbow sticks out, and his hand has become red. They must have broken it.” Lachlan wants to help me? That’s so weird. I thought he’d hurt my arm some more so he could force me into doing whatever he wants. “Call the doc to meet me at the hospital so I won’t have to answer any questions. And work on his paperwork. Once the doctor assesses his age, we will have to create something.”
Doc? As in like John’s surgeon? No way!
“How are you planning to get him there in a cage?”
“Easily. You think all of you have been a picnic in the park?”
My brow furrows at this. Does this mean they were once like me, locked in a cage, and that Lachlan saved them too?
I don’t have time to dwell on it much as Lachlan opens the cage, hunches down, and presses his knees to the floor. He extends his hand to catch me.
Instant revulsion fills me, and a piercing scream rips from my throat.
No touching, no touching, no touching!
Since it doesn’t stop Lachlan, I scream again, kicking his hands away, but instead, he catches my ankle and drags me toward him as I thrash on the floor, trying to escape.
