AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My chest heaves around my thunderous heart, and the monitor next to me starts beeping.
Kira looks at the flashing numbers on the screen, and then turns back to me. “Calm the fuck down, or you’ll start bleeding again.”
I take a deep breath, pulling strength from her weirdly calm, commanding presence. If she can handle what’s coming, I can handle it too.
“What happened to your skirt?” I ask.
“What the fuck do you think happened to it?”
“Did he…? Has he…?”
She slaps me. Hard.
My face sings in a symphony of pains, but I can’t separate the sting from the intense pulsating throb of the chorus. I stare at her through the eye that isn’t swollen shut, wishing I had the force of two.
“I saiddon’t make it harder,” she says, glaring right back.
I nod. “That was fair. You warned me. Sorry. I just… I’m so sorry he—”
She slaps me again. “You apologize for someone else’s bullshit one more time, and you’re going to see mereallypissed off.” She pulls my leather belt from my pants and folds it on itself a few times before presenting me with it. “Bite on this. And try not to break any more teeth.”
I do as I’m told, and she gestures to Loosh. “Hold him forward, so I can get rid of these clothes. They’re in my way.”
He does as he’s told, and Kira yanks at my shirt and jacket with aggression, until they’re off my good arm. She’s surprisingly gentle with the other one, though, and soon enough, I’m sitting half-naked in our home basement, on a steel chair I can’t seem to budge. Is it bolted to the floor?
Kira studies the bullet’s entry hole and the mangled flesh of the exit wound a while, before sanitizing her hands and then poking her finger into me without warning.
I bite down on the belt and don’t make a sound, as she probes her stinging, alcohol-drenched finger around inside the meaty mess of my shoulder.
“I can’t feel any fragments… I think it went straight through,” she says eventually, withdrawing her finger and holding a wadded gauze pad over the wound she’s made bleed. “You can cuff him again,” she says to my brother, ordering him about as if he’sherhenchman.
He does what she tells him to do, too, literally giving her the shirt off his back when she demands it. He pulls his leather jacket back on over his bare chest, but he’s so fucking hairy, it now looks like he’s wearing it over a sweater made of brown fur.
Kira pulls on his shirt and wriggles around, before tossing her corset aside and using one button to keep the shirt shut over her bare breasts. It’s a white shirt, and I can see her dark nipples through it. I don’t appreciate her changing in front of my brother, but she looks more comfortable when she moves, so I’m pleased for that.
“I need sugary and salty snacks, Lucius. Hustle.” She claps her hands at him, pulls the wadding away from my wound, and douses me in burning alcohol.
I growl through my teeth, and she cringes like it bothered her as much as it did me.
I swallow my noise, to keep her from feeling worse about being rough with me, when she should be making me suffer. I deserve it, and it’ll help deter suspicion about our true feelings.
“That sounded like it hurt,” she says, too sweetly.
I spit the belt on the floor and growl at her. “It fucking did. Warn me next time.” My tone is intentionally harsh, and when her eyebrows rise, I glance at Loosh, who has paused by the door and is watching.
Kira takes a deep breath. “Fine. You want a warning? Here comes some more.” She upends the whole bottle of rubbing alcohol onto me, and then throws it into the trash so hard that the trashcan almost falls over. “You Montgomerys are impossible. How’s that for a warning?”
I force a smile and wait out the sting. “Better. Thanks.”
Loosh leaves us alone, and Kira comes to kneel in front of me. “I’m so sorry. I love you. I’m so fucking sorry.”
She pulls out some wipes and starts to clean my face so gently, I could cry with relief.
“Don’t you ever say sorry to me, beautiful,” I tell her. “It’s Jack who’s at fault. I’m the one who let you down. Set me free, and I’ll kill him. We’ll run away. Somewhere he can’t find us. Or just you. Without me. That’s probably safer.”
She shakes her head. “Jack’s got my dad held somewhere as leverage, and he’ll be killed if I don’t fulfill my part of the bargain. We can’t leave.”
She sniffs and scrubs a little harder at the itchy dried blood that’s crusted on the side of my head. “Are there cameras in here?” she asks, stroking the axe scar she gave me and making my scalp tingle. “Are they on film, beating you?”
