He doesn’t. He pulls her closer instead.
More feet sound behind me, several of my team folding into the room to deal with the situation for me. “I came here to trade with your uncle. In fact, I had an obscene amount of money to offer him, but as it’s you, and you’ve done whatever you have, I’ve changed my mind.”
He doesn’t move an inch other than tightening his hold on her and looking at each one of my team beginning to surround him. The gun gets tucked under her chin in the process, enough so that I watch her flinch under the contact.
“Stop, Temple. Think. Not all desperados are quite as obvious as you are. Don’t push me further into the gutters than I’m already lowering myself to.”
He frowns and loosens his hold on her a little. Sensible response to the very real threat that I’m about to lose my shit because of the look of defeat in her eyes. I’ve never seen it before, and it does something to my chest again, makes it ache and yearn like it might once have done years ago for things that meant something to me. In fact, it’s the same feeling as I had at my grandfather’s funeral – the same sense of panic that something had been ripped from me before I was ready to let it go.
I wave my hands at the team around me so they lower their weapons. There’s no need for them in reality, because there are only two eventualities here now. He releases her and I kill him for daring to piss on my fun. Or he kills her and I go to town on his body for months to appease my own sense of vengeance. Castration is a certainty either way.
“Your odds of survival are low, Temple.” I stare at her face again, searching for anything to show me she’s still in there like she should be. Nothing. Just a vacant expression and lips that seem endlessly sad. “I need my tattoos back where they belong. I hope, for your sake, you haven’t broken them entirely.” Her slow eyes look up at me, a spark of something at least lingering for me to see behind whatever this is or has been for her. “One more time. Let her go.”
I walk closer, closer still until she’s within reach, and wait for him to do the sensible thing and release her. He doesn’t.
“Get them all out of here,” he snarls.
“No.”
I look at him, then back at the team, and keep waiting for him to make the right choice without hurting her. He seems to think a bit longer, but the gun gets tighter against her, to the point where he drags her around the room as if he’s trying to escape it.
It’s all getting a bit fucking infuriating for my sense of logic. Pills would be useful. I wouldn’t be acting like I was in a boardroom negotiation then. And why the fuck isn’t she fighting? She always fights, or at least has something to say.
This silence is not her.
I don’t like it.
And I am done with waiting for reason.
Chapter 6
Ally
Let her go. Go where, though? I can’t move. Can’t act. I doubt I’ll even stand if he lets me go. I can’t scream or shout or find words in a head that is doing nothing but think of what happened. He was inside me, they all were. One after another. At the same time.
Every part of me – violated.
I can feel their cum inside me, feel the wet stains of men who just took what they wanted while I cried. And it was under his direction.
I stare, numbed somehow, and watch Malachi moving. I don’t even know if he’s really here. I keep looking at him, though. I watch his throat moving, swallowing, and the stark white of an open collar singling him out from the others. Maybe it’s just my imagination and some hope trying to power its way through me. There’s no hope now. It was a distortion of nothing and no one. Just grunts and groans and time passing by as something invaded me time and time again. They held me. Forced me. Used me like a vessel to be recycled and worn down.
I’m a victim. A whore.
Empty now, though.
Just quiet and empty.
They’re talking around me. Men, so many men. Men in black. Men with guns. Malachi’s mouth is moving. I can’t hear it fully. Just snippets here and there, like all the words are drowning beneath the water. Maybe they’re gasping for breath, too, searching for the right things to sound out to let everyone know what they mean.
I’m moved, crashed into something hard. He’s still all over me. Taking me somewhere now. Walls bounce off my shoulders, something dragging my feet at the same time. Or maybe that’s just my feet not going where they’re supposed to be going. I don’t know. All I know is the wetness between my legs and the bruising that’s covering me. It hurt. It all hurt. I couldn’t get away, couldn’t fight or try killing them. My knife was gone, lost, and he was bigger, stronger. They all were. Practised as they held me down. That’s what men like them are. Practised.
Good at doing what they want.
At using what they want.
There’s a sound somewhere, as I keep being dragged. I recognise it. Low, deep, slow. It beats repeatedly. Like thunder rumbling. The start of a song. Our song maybe. Not pretty or calm or played from hands that found the notes, though. Not this time. They’re strangled, discordant, like they can’t find rhythm.
My head lolls sideways at the sound of it. It’s nice after a while. Smooth. Repetitive. And eventually it’s balanced. One, two, three. One, two, three. Like a waltz. That’s what we did I think. We danced, waltzed our way along corridors and hallways. It was calm there, like this noise. Chaos and noise. White lightning. Can’t see that now. It’s all dark and raw, wet and soiled.
