Fuck.
I bury my face against my knees and silently cry.
I can’t believe we’re here again.
The last time I was face-to-face with the Bone Reapers, my whole world changed. And now that I’m only just getting it back, I can feel it slipping away just as fast as it came.
I can’t lose this again. I can’t lose Stone, but if he were already dead, surely I would feel it, right? I would know it deep in my soul. I have to believe that he’s okay because I don’t want to do this life without him, even if it means living a life on the run.
As I think about the last time the Bone Reapers had me in their vile clutches, more pieces of the puzzle come back to me. Suddenly, I remember Ash coming to me, telling me about some ridiculous party he wanted to go to. But at that stage, I was already weary of him. He’d been gone for two years, only coming back when he needed something the Bone Reapers couldn’t give him.
He’d told me how much fun it was going to be and then used Stone against me, telling me I was boring because I didn’t know how to have fun, just like Stone. And fuck, I’d fallen right into his trap.
Stone was supposed to be working that night. He worked a lot back then. Always factory jobs or manual labor where he could be paid cash under the table, and shit, that cash put me through school and kept clothes on my back. He did everything for me, and as a kid, I think I took that for granted. He deserves so much more, and if we somehow make it out of here, I’m going to make sure that he gets everything he deserves. How could I not after the life he painstakingly provided for me?
Ash waited until almost midnight before deciding it was time to head out to the party, and by that point, I was already tired. I didn’t want to go, but I had put up a fight with Stone. I told him I wasn’t a kid, and after arguing with him for hours during theday, I was too stubborn to submit and stay home. So I let Ash drag me away.
I should have known better. I should have trusted Stone, but the second we walked out into the darkness and turned the corner, I found a car waiting for us, surrounded by Ash’s friends. I’d turned to him, ready to ask what the hell was going on, but something changed in his eyes, and I realized I’d been fooled.
“Sorry, princess,” he said. His tone was so chilling that even now it sends a shiver down my spine. “You’re all mine now.”
Fear turned my blood to ice, and I didn’t even get the chance to scream before the boy I considered a brother knocked me out cold and robbed me of the life I held with Stone.
Fuck.
The tears flow faster. It was all my fault. I should have trusted Stone like he begged me to, but I was a stupid kid. I wanted to prove something, and it cost me the whole fucking world. It cost me Stone, and because of it, he turned into a monster. He slaughtered men in cold blood and lost a piece of himself. All because of my stupidity, he spent seven long years behind bars.
How could I have done this to him?
Memory after memory swarms back, hitting me like a blunt blade straight to the chest. Stone taking my hand and running when we first left our foster home together. Stone fending off assholes in the night when we had nowhere safe to sleep. Stone giving up the food on his plate just to make sure I had a full tummy.
Stone. Stone. Stone.
Everything was Stone. My life, my love, my happiness, it was all because of him.
The sound of someone’s heavy footsteps has my head snapping up, and I find two of the men who originally grabbed me outside of the warehouse. Their wicked grins make my entire body tremble.
“Oh, baby. You’re not gonna like this,” he laughs, crouching down in front of me and pulling out a switchblade. My eyes widen in horror as he reaches for me. I try to kick him away, but with both my wrists and ankles bound, it’s useless.
No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.
“Hurry up,” the other guy mutters. “Get this bitch under control. Talon is waiting.”
Gripping my ankles too tight, the switchblade quickly slices through the thick duct tape that’s keeping me bound, and the second my legs are free, I slam one foot up into his face, knocking him onto his ass.
“Fucking bitch,” he grunts, gritting his teeth as he comes straight back at me, clocking me in the jaw with a heavy fist.
Blood trickles from my mouth as I cry out, and as the pain rocks through my body, he makes quick work of releasing my wrists and the chains holding me to the table. Tears stream down my face, and he grips my upper arm, dragging me across the tiles. I desperately try to grasp onto something to get just a bit of leverage, but the other guy steps in, grabbing my other arm and rendering me useless.
I squirm in their hold, thrashing around and throwing my feet up, bracing them against the door frame of the kitchen to halt their movements, but I’m too easily outmatched. I’m backhanded without warning, the hit coming before I even clock the movement, and I cry out in agony, but I don’t care. They can’t take me from this kitchen. I’m safe here. Unharmed. But I don’t know what waits for me outside this room, and I’m not prepared to find out.
“NO,” I cry, trying again, but the men grow impatient and adjust their hold, grabbing me by my hair and pulling hard. I have no choice but to grip onto their hands to lessen the pressure as I scream out in agony, my body sliding across the old, broken tiles with ease.
They laugh while pulling me along, dragging me through the door and into the main part of the restaurant where no less than twenty sets of eyes watch me, not one of them daring to help.
“Make it quick,” a cold voice says from across the room, the man who’d held the gun to my head outside the warehouse. “I’m growing impatient.”
The two men dragging me don’t respond; they simply turn to the right and head toward a door with a heavy padlock and push straight through it.
