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30
Mercy
I flickedon the basement light but then stopped there at the top of the stairs, my legs refusing to move.
“You okay?” Rowan asked from behind me.
“Yeah.” I dragged in a breath. We’d been going through my old house, checking whether Dad or the Red Sharks who’d recently vacated it might have left behind anything useful. So far nothing. All that was left was the basement.
Nothing down there could hurt me anymore.
“This place just brings up a lot of bad memories,” I added, and pushed myself to tramp down the stairs.
With nothing else left to do, all four of the guys followed me. Weirdly, I felt both comforted and unnerved by their presence. I wanted them with me, but I wasn’t sure I liked them seeing the place that was the root of so much trauma—of the most fragile parts of me.
The small fixture in the ceiling lit the long, wide room with a yellow glow. Dust tickled my nose, the dank scents of old cement and long-dried bodily fluids traveling with it.
Kaige stepped past me and prodded a long metal pole mounted on one wall. “Was your dad a secret ballet dancer or something?”
My mouth twitched even as my gut twisted, looking at the thing. “He’d handcuff people to that to hold them up while he interrogated them,” I explained. “It annoyed him if they collapsed on the ground where he couldn’t hit quite as many sensitive places.”
Avoiding looking at the floor at the other side of the room, I walked over to the locker in the corner. When I opened it, I found nothing but a few cobwebs. Either Dad hadn’t stashed anything in there recently, or one of the gangs that’d come through since had cleared it out.
I turned around to find that Wylder had wandered over to the rectangular concrete slab fitted into the floor, the one I’d been trying to ignore. He nudged it with the toe of his shoe. “What’s this?”
My heart was already thumping faster. I debated walking over to join him, but decided I was happier right here. “Open it up if you want.”
“Mercy,” Rowan started.
I shook my head before he could go on. “It’s okay. They all might as well see it.” I’d already told Kaige and Gideon about the pit, but somehow it’d never come up with Wylder in any detail before now.
Wylder heaved the concrete lid to the side and peered into the coffin-sized hollow underneath. “I don’t get it.”
I swallowed hard. “He’d dump people he was pissed off at in there so they’d be more… malleable when they came out. Or just to torture them until they bled out and died. When it’s closed, there’s no light at all, and the lid’s way too heavy to shift from underneath.” My thumb ran over my scarred fingertips of its own accord.
Wylder glanced at me, a flicker of understanding and then horror crossing his face. It must have been obvious I’d spoken from experience.
Gideon was studying the pit with an analytical expression, but a furious glint had sparked in his eyes. Kaige’s muscles flexed as if he thought he could beat up my past for me if he took out his own fury on the source of my torment.
“It’s where I learned to be afraid of closed spaces,” I finished. “A long time ago.”
Wylder sucked in a breath through his teeth, his own hands clenching. “Just when I thought I couldn’t hate that prick more.” He kicked at the lid, which didn’t budge it, and then shoved it back into place with his hands. When he looked at me again, I could tell he was remembering the time he’d prompted my fear. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
I shrugged. “How could you have? I didn’t tell you.”
“I didn’t give you a chance to. I was such a shit about it.” He let out a little growl and stalked over to me, clasping my hand in his, his thumb meeting my palm where they held identical scars. The cuts where we’d drawn blood might have healed, but our bond remained in place. “I am never letting anyone torture you like that again.”
Gideon’s jaw twitched as he caught my gaze. “What your father did was unforgivable.”
“I wouldn’t agree with throwing a grown man in there, let alone a little kid,” Rowan said, his voice soft. “But you made it through. You didn’t let him break you.”
“You made yourself a total badass, in spite of that asshole,” Kaige put in. He cracked his knuckles. “It’s a good thing for him he’s already dead, or I’d make him regret every fucked-up decision of his life, starting with that.”
They closed in around me, but their nearness didn’t make me feel at all claustrophobic. Instead, I was cocooned in the warmth of their bodies. They knew my weakness… and by now, I knew theirs too. Somehow we’d all become something more than we were before. It was thrilling even if it scared me how much I liked it.
Gideon’s phone buzzed, breaking the moment. He dug it out of his pocket and grinned.
“What’s up?” Wylder asked.
