“I am Olivia Rose, I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”I chanted in my head to control the emotions forcing their way up my throat.
“Hmm, well, we might be able to use that to our advantage, but this?” he asked, shoving my left leg out. “That’ll need cut out, we can do that if we decide to keep her.”
I wondered how they would do it. Slice off the skin or just chop the leg off all together. It’d make things easier.
I felt his hand slide between my legs, and it took everything within me not to move. A warning look from Phil, my own heart begging me to stay. He wasn’t trying to fuck me like they did, he was examining his merchandise.
Mr. Alascer’s fingers slid inside of me. “Good, she’s still got some life left, and she’s tight.”
I glanced his way just as he stepped back, sliding his fingers over his tongue. “Good too.”
I closed my legs tightly and returned my attention to the ceiling. Sex trafficking? Is that what Isaak’s cousin’s friend did? He ran a sex trafficking ring?
Phil was right then, once they had me, Everett would never find me again. Fine. I’d just escape on my own. Fight my way out with sharpened nails and teeth. If I died, I died. But I was going to give it my best damn effort before my heart stopped for the last time.
Azrael told me to sharpen my thorns, so I turned them into razor blades.
“Alright, I’ll head back and let them know what I have. Just keep her here for now, we’ll be in contact.”
“When should we expect your call?” the male asked as they headed out of the room.
Phil appeared above me, the voices fading, his eyes were sad, tired, but I didn’t know why. All he had to do was watch me, feed me. I don’t know why he felt such damn pity. “I won’t let them take you,” he told me quietly. “I promise.”
I didn’t need his promise, I was going to save myself. I was going to get out of here, and I would come back with a truckload of weapons, and I was going to show them exactly what they had turned me into.
21
Everett
August 3rd, 2022
Ishoved the barrel of my gun under his chin, tears streaming down his face, hatred in his eyes.
He was surrounded by his dead family, his dead people. Why wouldn’t he be angry? But he was also in a significant amount of pain.
“Tell me where they are.” I had already broken both of his legs. I had exposed a nerve in his arm and clamped it down, blood pouring from that wound. He only had a few teeth left, the others scattered on the ground among the body parts of the people I had tortured before him. He was the last one left. He had to have an answer.
“I don’t know,” he panted, his accent thick. “They don’t share with us everything. My wife tried to tell you that before youshother.”
I laughed, but it was far from humorous. “I truly don’t like liars.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before working for one,” he spat.
I snapped that nerve, his screams filling the room, sweat pouring from his skin. “Don’t talk about Malachi Adler,” I threatened. “He gave you a chance, and you ignored it. Tell me where they’re keeping her.Tell meand maybe I’ll give you a merciful death.”
“Mercy,” he spat, panting. “That’s what got you into this in the first—”
I pulled the trigger, his brain matter, blood, and skull fragments coating the ceiling. “You’re right,” I stated coldly. Mercy is what caused all of this. It had been causing a lot of problems in the past and I wouldn’t allow it to cause any more.
They had met here. Had their meetings here. Some house near the outskirts of The Springs, further away from the busier parts of the city, but not quite a suburb. There had been 28 of them, and now they were all in pieces, scattered around the house.
“I always thought I was the cold one,” I heard Azrael say behind me.
My lip curled and I released the mag, shoved it into my belt, and exchanged it for a new one. “What did Jack always say? We were all one snapped thought away from replacing Azrael in that asylum.”
“No,” Evelyn said, walking out of the back bedroom, blood splattered across her face, her hair back in a tight ponytail. “He said that even if we did crack, we would never become Azrael.”
I heard a shift and turned just in time to see Azrael shove a 17-year-old boy off his dead mother. “I think we’ve surpassed that.”
