His hand locks into my hair, pulling it hard at the roots.
“You asked for it,” he growls.
I know what’s coming, and I do my best to prepare myself. I deliberately take a couple of deep breaths, doing my best to oxygenate my blood.Stay calm, I tutor myself.He won’t kill you.
With his fingers knotted tightly in my hair, Ledger folds me in half, and plunges my face beneath the water. Everything goes muffled and dark, and air bubbles roil and churn around my ears. I thrash my head from side to side, seeking the surface. It’s only a flexi tub full of water, but it might as well be a fathomless lagoon with never-ending depths.
My plans to stay calm turn to shit. Pressure builds in my lungs, and I fight against my body’s natural desire to open my mouth and inhale. I pinch my lips tight and push up against the hand on the back of my head, but it doesn’t budge. Inside, my head is screaming.
Just as I’m sure I can’t take anymore, he yanks my face back up. I suck in a great, wheezing breath.
“Tell me where it is,” he demands.
“I don’t know,” I scream at him.
It’s a lie, but maybe he’ll believe me. If I give him nothing, he’ll keep doing this until I’m dead.
His fingers tighten in my hair, and I’m already prepared. Instead of wasting precious oxygen by telling him to go fuck himself, I draw another deep lungful of air and shake my head.
“Your choice,” he says, and shoves my head back down.
I fight again, holding my breath as well as I can until he yanks me back up and demands a response. I give him nothing, and he plunges my head back down again.
Over and over and over, no matter my denials of knowledge, he just keeps on.
I’m dripping wet, water all down the front of my camisole, the small shorts soaked. The front of my dark hair hangs down, the ends trailing in the bucket every time he gives me a brief snatch of air.
My blood oxygen levels are dropping low. It gets harder each time to fight my body’s instincts. This time, I come up coughing and spluttering.
Enough.I want to cry.No more.But the only way that’s going to happen is if I give him what he wants, but that’s never going to happen, and I can’t muster the energy, anyway.
“Silly girl,” he scolds me, as though I’ve done something as simple as spilling a drink instead of refusing to spill my family’s secrets.
The energy seeps from my limbs like someone is sucking it out of me. I barely have control over myself anymore. I’m so exhausted. I hadn’t known it was possible to be this tired. There’s a dark little voice in my mind that whispers,give in… stop fighting… just let yourself go…
The future I had only briefly allowed myself to hope for dances through my head, teasing me. I don’t mean the future that my father had dreamed of for me, but the one I’d wanted for myself. One filled with passion and romance, and maybe even a family of my own one day. It’s such a simple thing to dream of, having people in my life who really know me. Who see me for who I am, and not just the name I have, or what I might offer them.
Mentally, I try to take myself away. I’m not here. I’m back in bed with Rook and Ace, losing myself in the way they worship my body. I’m on the back of Jack’s bike, my arms around his waist, pressed as close to him as I think I can get away with. I’m in the bathroom with Ghost, while he soothes my heated skin with a damp cloth. Those are the moments in my life that matter. They are what will make me who I am. Not this man. Not his cruel words and violent touch.
“You’re only making this harder on yourself,” Ledger snarls.
His rough fingers knot in my wet hair again, and down I go, into the muffled darkness. My lungs burn and air bubbles flood from my nose. I’m not going to make it this time. I can’t. I have no more energy left.
The darkness claims me, and I float away.
5
ROOK
There aretimes I fucking hate being the prospect.
I appreciate Jack taking me in, and I know I need to do my time at this level, but sometimes they treat me like I’m a kid just out of diapers, not a twenty-three-year-old man who’s done time.
That’s how they’re treating me now, like a useless kid.
I know something is going on. I just watched Jack and the others march across the compound and vanish inside the clubhouse. I have little doubt that they’re headed to his office. Their energy was high, their body language bullish.
They’ve got information, but are they including me? Fuck no. Often, they’ll ask me to hang around outside the meeting rooms so I can go fetch anyone they need, or grab things for them, but not today.
