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You don’t grow up in the Dead Soldiers without seeing the life fade from someone’s eyes as their blood pools underneath them.
Someone places a hand on my shoulder, and I look up into the kind eyes of a medic. He’s saying something to me, but although I can see his lips move, I can’t hear his words. I let him pull me away as I watch others surround my mom, knowing that they’re too late. She’s already dead.
At least she won’t have to feel my father’s fists anymore or the many other horrors he subjected her to, only some of which I’ve witnessed.
A cold, clammy hand slips into mine, and I look down to see Rook, tears streaming down his face.
“L–Lark?” he asks, his blue eyes looking up at me, once again wide, but not with wonder this time. Instead, they’re swimming with tears.
I pull him into me, wrapping his small, trembling body in mine as I hug him, just like Mom used to do.
“Shhhh, it’ll be okay, Rook. I promise,” I tell him, swallowing my grief down as I try to comfort him as his body shakes with sobs. The wind picks up around us, like a last caress, and I look up into the sky. “I’ll get us out, Mom. I won’t forget. Whatever it takes.”
Lark
“Rescue My Heart” by Liz Longley
I watch as my father’s men drag the Tailor boys, my Tailor boys, away and I want to rage and scream at the world for making me do this terrible thing to the only men who have ever truly loved me.
Aeron’s ocean-blue eyes lock on me, his gaze tormented as they pull him and the others towards the door we came through only about half an hour ago. It feels like hours and just shows that mistress time is a fucking bitch who likes to play with her food. The guys fight, Knox more than the others, but there are too many Soldiers and so all they end up doing is getting roughed up more, each strike like a blow to my tattered soul.
The sting in my face from my sperm donor’s smack throbs like a motherfucker and just as they herd Aeron through the door, a fist lands on my stomach. I gasp as a shooting pain explodes across my solar plexus, leaving me heaving and breathless. My body tries to hunch over but the Soldiers grip my arms too tightly, forcing me to remain upright, my eyes watering.
“Don’t you ever talk back to me like that again, you little cunt,” Rufus Jackson, leader of the Dead Soldiers and my father, seethes, spittle flying in my face. My lip curls as I heave, trying to take a full breath so I can curse the bastard out, but the throbbing in my diaphragm prevents much more than a rasping breath to escape me. I can't even wipe the spittle off because more of my sperm donor’s goons hold my arms behind my back at an excruciating angle.
When did he recruit so many?
I look at him, at his dark hair and his all too familiar blue eyes, and it takes everything that I have not to spit back at him. Not to tell him exactly how much of a fucking asshole I think he is. Only a tiny sense of self-preservation prevents me from doing so, but I need to follow through with the plan. I need to get Rook and I out of here and make good on my promise to Mom. It’s the only thing that matters, and I’m so close, I just need all the pieces to fall into place.
And what about your Tailors?I shut that voice down, I can’t think about them right now, about the betrayal in Aeron’s eyes, or I might just break.
“I think my daughter needs to spend some time in the cages to relearn her role here,” he says to the men behind me as he straightens up, swiping a hand over his thinning hair. He looks fucking ridiculous in his sleeveless leather jacket, like some wannabe MC prez. It takes more than I thought I was capable of to not sneer at him. He’d only beat me more and I can’t afford that right now. Fucking pathetic twat.
I don’t fight—not that I’d manage much with the warm blood dripping down my side from my not-so-loving father’s stab wound—as the two guys holding me manhandle me towards the same door that the guys disappeared through moments ago. Anywhere is better than being with my sperm donor—the other side of the world would be too close—and my guys are there, so it’s where I want to be, even if they hate me.
Are they still yours though? You betrayed them to their worst enemy…
Fuck you, inner voice. My ire doesn’t stop my throat from constricting or the heaviness of my limbs as I’m hauled away.
“Oh, and,Darling,” Rufus says, his voice cloying like overly perfumed incense. Chills race down my spine as my captors pause, and I look over my shoulder at him, at the sick look of satisfaction on his face. “You’ve got some catching up to do.”
The men in the room chuckle darkly and my pulse skyrockets as I take in the lecherous gazes of the many new recruits that are all around the room. They know what they’re owed, and I can see them planning to collect from between my unwilling thighs at the first opportunity.
“I can’t wait to take my turn between those pretty legs, can you, Davis?” the guy holding one of my arms nasally whispers in my ear, his stale beer breath making me want to gag. Clenching my jaw I refuse to look at him, he doesn’t get to see the fear which I know shines in my eyes.
“I hope she’s a screamer. It’s no fun if they don’t fight,” Davis—I assume—answers, and tears fill my eyes as my body thrashes of its own accord, as if that will help. They’re too strong, and even if I got away from these two, the room is full of depraved men who would be delighted to take their place. “That’s it, keep fighting, baby. It just makes me harder.”
He thrusts his hips at my side, much to the amusement of the men around the room who laugh and jeer as I’m, once again, hauled towards the door.
They yank me through, the sound of celebrations muffled to a dull roar as the door swings closed behind us, and then cart me along the narrow walkway. A single bulb illuminates the miserable, dank space as I’m led down the corridor towards the end where the cages lie.
My heart thuds painfully in my chest the closer I get to the guys, but I’m not brave enough to look at them as we stop in front of the cage opposite theirs. Davis, at least I think it’s him, steps in front of the barred door and pulls a key from his pocket, unlocking it. It makes no sound as he turns the key in the lock, confirming that Rufus still keeps the cages in good condition, and the room is silent as he swings the cage’s door open.
A huff leaves me as the other goon—No-name as he shall now be known—shoves me hard, and pain shoots up my arms and thighs as I land on my hands and knees, breathing hard. Motherfucking cuntfaces.
“Think we can take our turn first?” one of them asks, and I feel warmth behind me, my eyes squeezing shut as if that will stop them. As if that has ever worked before, shutting the nightmares out only means you can’t see them when they come to devour you. Defeat and shame washes over me, leaving me feeling desolate and weak.
An anguished groan leaves my lips as a hand tangles in my hair and pulls me up by it, my eyes flying open and a yelp falling from my lips when a sharp pain lets me know my assailant has torn some of my hair out by the roots. My hand desperately grips over his, trying to lessen the pressure, but it’s no fucking use.
