Whatever it takes…the words rolled through my head as I kept running. All I saw was the red brake lights of the four-wheel drive in front of me. All I felt was love. Love for the man who’d risked it all to save me. Love in the wake of hopelessness.
Movement swarmed in all around me. Mercenaries with guns watched me as I ran. I didn’t care about them, I couldn’t care about them. “Caleb!” I screamed, and pumped my arms. “CALEB!”
I lifted the gun as the four-wheel drive skidded hard and stopped in the middle of the driveway. My heart kicked in my chest as fear and desperation collided. I gripped the gun, just like Tobias had shown me, and aimed at the man who shoved open the driver’s door and climbed out.
“Let him go!” I screamed. “Let him go NOW!”
The guard raised his hands and stepped forward, yanking open the back door. “He’s not going anywhere, Ryth.” That cold, forceful voice was devoid of all emotion. “But you can get in.”
“No!” Caleb screamed. “No, Ryth. NO!”
My steps slowed, but my pulse kept thundering. I gripped the gun, aimed it at the guard’s chest, and stopped at the back of the vehicle. Caleb howled and bucked as he fought the man at his side. There was a grunt, then the thud of fists hitting flesh.
“Ryth!” Caleb moaned. “Ryth, no!”
Shadows moved all around me. I didn’t need to look to see I was surrounded and outnumbered. Still I gripped the gun as I wrenched my gaze from Caleb’s darkened outline in the back seat to the man standing beside the open door.
“Your choice,” the guard declared as he stepped forward to close the door.
“Wait!” I cried. “Wait…”
My breaths were brutal, tearing from my chest. I forced myself to move, taking a slow step forward. The door hadn’t quite made it, stopped an inch before sealing my fate. The gun wavered in my hand, then lowered as I got closer.
There was a pleased glint in the guard’s eyes and a curl at the corners of his mouth as I stopped in front of him. He opened the door, then reached out and took the gun from my hand. “You won’t be needing that.”
All I cared about was Caleb as I climbed through the open door and onto the seat beside him. His hands were cuffed behind his back. Still, he leaned into me as I threw my arms around him. “Caleb,” I cried, burying my head against his neck.
“You fucking stupid idiot,” he groaned as the door closed with a thud.
I smothered his words with my mouth as the echo of the driver’s door came and we were moving once more. As I kissed him, all I heard were those words…
Whatever it takes.
Caleb had risked it all to save me; his life, his sanity. Now it was my turn to do the same. I clenched my arms tighter around him, crushing my mouth against his. But still it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Tires squealed as the four-wheel drive pulled up in front of the building.
I didn’t want to look at the cold concrete structure looming through the windshield, didn’t want to feel the icy blast of air as the doors opened and especially didn’t want to feel their hands on me as they pulled me out. But I felt and saw it all. My arms were torn from around his neck. Rage flashed in his gaze as he glared at the man behind me. “Don’t you fucking hurt her! HEY! Don’t you…Ryth…RYTH!”
I bucked, kicked, and clawed, fighting with all I had to get back to him.
“No, you don’t!” the guard growled, his breath hot in my ear as he pinned my arms against my sides and hauled me backwards.
I slammed my head back and impacted with something hard. With a grunt, we fell and slammed against the ground. But my arms were free. I shoved against the cold pebbled driveway and lurched upwards. “Caleb!”
But the guard In the driver’s seat had a gun aimed at Caleb’s head. “Fucking try it,” he goaded. “And I’ll splatter his brains all over the fucking seat next to you.”
Fear stopped me cold. I stared at the gun, then at my stepbrother…the man I was in love with.
The guard fumbled with the door handle, then yanked it open before he slid out backwards.
“You’re fucking feisty, aren’t you?” the asshole behind me growled, and grabbed the back of my neck with a cruel grip. “Try that again and see what happens.”
His fingers bore into the base of my neck, sending spears of agony into my shoulders as he yanked me backwards. “You fucking escaped before. You won’t again, got it?”
Fear gripped me with an icy hold as he whipped me around and drove me toward the side door of the Order. It was already open…and The Principal waited.
“Ryth,” he snapped, anger seething in his eyes. “You stupid…stupid little whore.”
“Fuck you!” Caleb roared behind me. “You fucking bastard!”
The Principal looked past me and those dark eyes grew colder as they fixed on Caleb. “Mr. Banks. he said carefully. “My brother is looking forward to seeing you again.”
Caleb bucked and fought. I searched the darkness for the others, desperate to see Tobias charge out of the shadows with a gun in his hand and vengeance on his face. But there was no one. No Tobias and no Nick. An icy feeling of dread washed through me.
Only I didn’t have time to panic more than I was already before the piece of shit with his vise grip around my neck shoved me forward. “Move,” he barked as he pushed me past The Principal and back inside the place I hated the most.
These were the stark white walls of my nightmares. The sharp, clinical scent of my panic attacks. I’d barely survived this the last time, now here I was again…
The sound of boots filled the hallway as I stumbled through the doors. There were guards waiting for me, watching as I was pushed along the hallway and back toward the infirmary where I’d escaped. The ratchet sound of cuffs came from behind me. I didn’t need to look to know it was Caleb they’d released. They had us inside now, like rats in a cage.
The Priest waited, his arms crossed over his chest and his face a mess of bruises, along with a swollen, busted lip. He stared at me with a blood-red eye as I neared. “Nice to see you back, Ms. Castlemaine.”
“Fuck you!” I screamed. “Fuck you all!”
From the end of the hallway, movement drew my gaze. It was my mother. Her hair was wild, and it looked like she’d been running…to save me? Hope flared as she strode forward, her cheeks blazing red.
“Mom—” I started.
She wrenched her hand back and unleashed, striking me across the face with a slap! My head snapped to the side as fire lashed my cheek.
“You fucking cunt!” Caleb screamed behind me. “I’ll kill you! Do you hear me…I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Get him into the interrogation room,” The Principal roared. “NOW!”
I ignored the fire and swallowed the pain, wrenching my gaze to the men behind me as Caleb kicked and fought, his focus for me only. “Don’t hurt him!” I lunged, trying to tear myself from the guard’s hold around my neck. “Don’t hurt him!”
“Ryth!” Caleb reached for me as they closed in… “Ryth!”
“CALEB!”
A guard swung, and his fist connected with Caleb’s cheek, rocking him backwards. His knees buckled, and he fell, as the other guards quickly closed in around him. One grabbed him on either side and hauled him along the hallway, away from me.
“No!” I screamed. “NO!”
“You shouldn’t have run,” The Principal’s bitter words hit me as the hallway blurred through my tears. “You only have yourself to blame for this.”
“Fuck you” I croaked as tears slipped from my eyes and I turned to the woman who’d given birth to me. “Fuck both of you!”
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look like she cared at all. Had she ever? The grip around my neck tightened as I was driven forward past my mother and toward a room that waited further along the hallway. The door was cracked open and the light was on. It was all I could do not to break down and wish for the end.
Because in death, I wouldn’t have them…
In death, they couldn’t save me once more.
I managed to fling my gaze behind me and caught sight of Caleb as the guards marched him along the hallway, then through the set of double doors before they finally disappeared. Grief swallowed me, the kind of emptiness where I wasn’t sure I existed outside of pain.
My body moved on its own, the feet shuffled, the breaths burst in and out. But I was sliding deeper into that emptiness that I’d only tasted once before…but it was here now. It waited for me in that room. Footsteps sounded behind me, then forward to the door and into the room, but I didn’t even bother to look up.
The table in front of me blurred. All I saw were shadows until I blinked, then the only color sharpened in the room and my heart clenched at the sight. Red. Red…the door closed with a thud behind me. Footsteps sounded all around.
“Get undressed,” The Principal ordered.
That punishing hold ripped from me as he shoved me forward. I threw my hands out as I almost hit the corner of the table. But the bright crimson was all I could see. Dread filled me at the sight. “No…no.”
“No?” The Principal repeated. I closed my eyes as he came closer. “No?”
A pathetic sound ripped from me. But he didn’t touch me, just stood behind me. “We’ve been here before, Ryth, only this time you’ve proved to me just how much of a problem you really are. So I’m going to tell you again…get dressed.”
Torment plunged through me as I opened my eyes to see the neatly folded lace negligee. “No,” I whimpered. There was no way I’d willingly put that on. Footsteps moved closer. I held my breath as those cruel hands found me once more.
“No!” I screamed, bucking and swinging as the guard tore my shirt.
The sound of ripping fabric filled my ears as they lifted me from the floor and slammed me onto the table. My head cracked backwards, hitting the hard surface until white stars danced in the back of my eyes. That second was all they needed. They tore my boots free and someone fumbled with the button on my jeans. I kicked and thrashed, screaming until my throat burned.
“You will obey me, Ryth,” The Principal kept speaking.
They pulled my jeans off, and my panties were next. Cold air reached between my thighs. Tears blurred my vision, but still I fought. Caleb’s face was a brand in my mind. But it was all useless. They finally stepped back, leaving me in nothing but my bra. I sucked in a hard breath as they moved away.
I whimpered and cried, kicking out at the movement as The Principal stepped closer to the table. He picked up the red negligee and held it out. “You need to get dressed, Ryth.”
More tears slipped free. “No.”
I stared at the color, knowing instantly what it meant.
“No more white.” He stared down at me as I lay almost naked on the table. His stony stare drifted along my body. “No black. This time it’s red. Red because I want you gone, even if it is at a sacrifice.”
I shook my head. “No…” Please…the word rose, but it never made it to my lips.
“Red because you’ve been sold.”
The words stopped me cold.
That soulless stare pierced mine. I slowly shook my head, dislodging the tears in my eyes. “No.”
The door opened behind him…and a man stepped into the room. My stomach clenched. “No…please…no.”
Killion looked down at me. His sickening gaze lingered between my thighs. I clenched my thighs and closed my legs tight. “No.”
“They’re not going to save you,” he insisted. “No one is going to save you, Ryth. This is your life now. You exist solely at the whims of the Order…as you always have.”
I jerked my gaze from Killion to The Principal and moved, snatched the red lace from his hand to cover my body as I rolled off the table, stumbled backwards, and hit the wall. “No.” I shook my head.
Killion smirked. The guards held the remnants of my clothes in their hands. They held my life. My jeans. My boots. The panties and the clothes Nick had bought me. “No.”
“No one is coming,” The Principal repeated, as though somehow the words would hit home. “Not your brothers, or the man you call father.”
The man I call father?
I tried to control my breaths, tried to stop the shudders. But they continued to rip through me. “My father.”
He smirked, and I’d never seen such a sickening sight. “He isn’t now…or ever was, your father, Ryth.” He glanced at the red lace in my hands. “Like I said, you belong to the Order. Always have, always will. We’re not abducting you.” He met my stare. “We’re reclaiming what was already ours.”
He turned and strode toward the door, leaving Killion behind.
What was ours…what was ours? “What do you mean?” I cried as a guard opened the door for him.
His footsteps resounded as he walked out and left.
“What do you mean?” I screamed. “Come back here! COME BACK!”
But he didn’t, just left me behind with Killion and two of his men. Men who were dishevelled and bloody. Killion lifted his hand to the swelling corner of his mouth. “You’ve cost me a car, and at least a few of my men.”
I sucked in a breath and tore my gaze from the closed door to the monster in the room as he stepped closer, cruelty and rage glittering in his eyes. “It was an expensive car.”
My pulse thundered.
My stomach clenched.
I pressed my spine against the wall, shivering.
He lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “I’m going to enjoy making you earn every goddamn dollar to repay me.” He smiled. “Very…very much.”
