Gabriel introduces them to me in a low voice, his breath against my neck, and I shiver.
“Aaron,” he says, and a tall, Hispanic man with dark eyes, black, tousled hair, and gleaming eyes, nods. “Noel.” Shorter, bulkier, brown hair tinged with red, currently taking me in while licking his lips and cracking his knuckles. “Elias.” Bored, on his phone, objectively beautiful with white straight teeth, his eyes continuously flitting up to me with badly disguised interest. “Lazarus.” He nods at a guy who looks surprisingly like him, only about ten years younger. “My little brother,” he specifies unnecessarily.
Well, those are some very biblical names.
Gabriel turns to me and flashes me another dangerous smile. “And you’re Seraphina Connor.”
I nod awkwardly. It feels strange to hear my full name after having spent the past months being called nearly exclusively some variation of ‘the girl’ or ‘the pet’.
“Where is it?” asks Noel impatiently.
“Shush,” says Gabriel, still smiling, and I suddenly realize he looks more like a snake than a shark. “Everything in its time.”
“Where is what?” I breathe.
Noel, Aaron and Elias stare at me even more intently than before.
“What is this bullshit, Gabriel?” snaps Elias. “Did you make a mistake?”
At once, Gabriel’s eyes flash with fury, and Elias inches back. I push back into my own seat too. The suddenness with which his smile has turned to anger astonishes me.
My instinct is telling me to get the hell away from here, but it’s too late. The car doors are locked.
A moment later, all trace of his fury has vanished.
“No mistake,” he purrs. “Don’t worry.”
He slides a cold, slightly clammy hand over the back of my neck, squeezing just enough to make me hyperaware of his presence and his power over me.
I sit rigidly, barely allowing myself to breathe, let alone ask any questions.
Gabriel’s cold finger starts to trace circles on my neck, and I repress a shudder. His touch does the opposite of what Damien’s did. It doesn’t soothe me, it makes me recoil.
The car continues to drive through the quiet streets of Astley, the neon signs and streetlights occasionally illuminating the men’s faces, and I squirm uncomfortably as I realize their eyes are glued on me.
But their stillness lulls me into a certain sense of security. Which is why, when the car pulls up to a large warehouse in the industrial suburbs of West Astley and Gabriel speaks next, I can’t prevent the sharp gasp that escapes me.
“Take off your clothes.”
“Wh… what?” I manage.
“Your clothes. Take them off.”
The honeyed tone with which he had previously spoken has disappeared, replaced by harshness.
I freeze, unable to wrap my head around the request.
“Last chance. I’ll count to three. Take them off, or I’ll do it for you.”
I stare at the burgundy fabric that carpets the floor of the car, realizing suddenly that it is the same color as old blood. Gabriel’s voice rings in my ear, a distant, unreal threat.
One… two… three…
He clicks his tongue impatiently before wrapping his long, clammy hand around my upper arm and pulling me over his thighs. He seizes my dress and there’s a large tearing sound as he rips it off. He forces off my underwear in the same rough manner, while Lazarus grips my feet between his thighs and takes off one shoe after the other. In just a few seconds, I’m sitting stark naked in front of them, too shocked to react.
Then Gabriel lifts me back up so that I’m sitting on his lap. I’m forcefully reminded of my initial experience with Damien, but this is so different. I’m not secretly aroused, only disgusted.
He puts one hand in my hair, twists my locks around his fingers so that my face is forced upward. The other hand descends upon my left cheek, an open-handed slap so violent it would have sent me reeling if he were not holding me by my hair.
