There’s a dream at the frayed edge of my mind. It’s fuzzy and indistinct, but I can feel the softness of Dimitri’s bed, remember the sleepy morning kisses, the way his arm had felt around my middle. Safe. Warm.
But there’s another dream that keeps tainting it. It’s filled with flashes of Jack, my old roommate. I’ve trained myself to skirt away from the memory, flinching somewhere deep in my mind. I’ve tried not to ask questions. What are his parents like? Did he have siblings? Is he being missed? Was I responsible for ripping a hole in their lives?
I haven’t let myself think of Jack in a long time. As I slowly rouse to consciousness, he’s all I can think about it. I wonder if it hurt. Did Ted make it quick? Did Jack struggle? Did he understand why it was happening?
It’s dark when I try to open my eyes. At first, I think I can’t raise my lids, but then I realize it’s a blindfold. All of waking up is like that; thinking there’s something wrong with my body only to find otherwise. I can’t move my arms and legs. They’re extended, but tied down to something. I can’t open my mouth. It’s covered with tape.
The panic comes gradually, in waves. I try to pull against the restraints, but it’s feeble. The drugs are still fogging up my mind. My throat still burns with the chemicals and everything feels muddled. Only one thing shines through loud and clear, like a beacon of light cutting through the clouds.
Fight.
The binds are tight on my wrists—less so on my ankles—and they’re cutting into the skin, making my tendons ache. It’s cold here, where I’m lying on something pliable and soft. When I make a futile attempt at turning, jostling, the squeak of springs gives it away as an old mattress.
Suddenly the mattress dips with a heavy weight at my side. I freeze, heart hammering in terror. Ted, I remember, stomach plummeting as my lungs constrict. I try to scramble away from the dip, but the binds are too tight.
I scream behind the tape when I feel fingertips on my cheek, tossing my head to the side. The fingers follow, however. I tremble, but refuse to cry, curling my hands into fists around the ropes.
“Sorry about this,” the man beside me says, caressing a sore spot on my cheekbone. “Hitting girls isn’t our style. It’s just that we weren’t expecting so much of a fight. You broke a guy’s nose, sprained a wrist, and gave one a pretty good headache. Got a little messy in the van.” His finger runs down my neck. Across my collarbone. “Wouldn’t know it by looking at you. You’re such a sad-looking, tiny little wisp of a thing. But you’re a fighter.” His voice sounds pensive and excited. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I shiver at the cold in the room—the terror coursing through my veins—and it makes my nipples peak. The response has nothing to do with his touch on me, but he chuckles into my ear anyway.
“You like that?” he says, trailing his finger around a nipple. “You like it when I touch you like that?” Drawing in the breath, I mumble under the tape. “What’s that, darling’?”
“Mwuf Mmew!”
His fingers dig into my cheek before ripping the adhesive off my skin. I yelp in pain and he shushes me. “Tell me what you wanted to say.”
“I said,” I lick my lips, tasting blood from where the tape pulled the skin off, “fuck you.”
He gives a loud, barking laugh, but that’s not what sends a chill up my spine. It’s the sudden presence of other, distant voices, perhaps in the next room. We’re not alone. My head whips back and forth, chasing the sounds, trying to count.
“So fucking feisty,” he says, giving my nipple a sharp pinch. “I have no idea how those bastards held off on you. Lords aren’t really known for their self-restraint. They have more willpower than I thought. I admit, I’m impressed. No wonder they kept that little detail about you a secret.”
My mind spins, brow crushing in confusion. The more he talks, the less convinced I am this is Ted. It doesn’t make sense, though. Who else would take me like this? Who would want to hurt me?
“That isn’t a surprise though. The Lords keep their shit locked up tight. Do you have any idea the coordination that went into this?” Laughing, he adds, “You made it a lot easier though, trusting the wrong person.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I gasp, twisting away. “I don’t trust anyone!”
His fingers trail over the tops of my breasts, then down the sides, before coming back up to flick at my nipple. “Ironic, right? All it takes is one slip. One little detail and the power structure of this whole little system is turned on its head.” His breath is hot on my ear. “We never would have known about their prized possession if you hadn’t told our Countess.”
Sutton.
I think about her earlier that day, asking me to lunch, the look on her face when she told me to turn around, to walk another direction. But I know that’s not when it happened. It was that night after dinner with our family, when Killian stopped at the bar. When Sutton approached me in the bathroom. Eased me into gossiping. She found out about my virginity. I told her why the guys picked me as Lady, and she went behind my back and…
His hand remains on my breast, but another digs beneath my head, untying the blindfold. My vision is blurry at the edges as I blink to adjust, chest heaving from the panic.
I don’t realize how intensely I’m expecting to see Saul Cartwright’s handsome features until I don’t. “I remember you.” It’s Perez, the guy Dimitri had gotten into that argument with. The one who wanted Ms. Crane. Next to Saul Cartwright, this guy looks like…no one. A nobody. A wimpy college guy, nothing more. Stunned, I ask, “Are you kidding me? This is just about some dumb frat rivalry crap?”
“Dumb?” he asks, eyes flashing angrily. “The only dumb thing about this is you. Do you have any idea how high the stakes are here?” He grabs my breast, squeezing it painfully. “We’re all sick of LDZ’s bullshit. They control the game, the faculty, the scouts, even fucking South Side. This year is going to be different.”
“What do you want from me?” I ask, stomach flinching as his fingers explore my flesh.
Smirking, he says, “You know what we want, Story. It’s the same thing they want. We just want it for different reasons. Although…” His eyes sweep down my body, two broad hands grabbing the collar of my shirt and ripping it down the middle. I make a startled sound, momentarily so distressed by the loss of the shirt—Tristian had given it to me as an apology—that I don’t even think to worry about being exposed. Perez licks his lips at what he sees. “Taking your virginity won’t exactly be a burden, if you catch my drift.”
My heart stops, catching in my throat. “What?” I worry about being exposed now, twisting futilely.
“I’m just saying, I’ve had worse jobs,” he says, watching his hand massage my bare flesh. “In fact, it’s the second biggest reason we even decided to team up with the Princes and Barons to begin with. They’re beneath us, honestly. Even the prospect of taking down the Lords wasn’t quite enough to convince me an alliance was worth it. But you…” He leans down, licking a path between my breasts and emerging with a devious grin. “Popping your cherry really sweetened the pot, Lady.” He wedges his fingers under my waistband, working the buttons to my jeans open.
My scream is deafening even to my own ears.
That’s how I know this is real. In my dreams, my screams are such feeble, tenuous things. Here, now, they’re full of anger and alarm, so loud that it makes my ears ring and my throat ache.
Even though I see his jaw tense, Perez says, “Scream all you want. No one can hear you except the guys in the next room. They’re waiting their turn.”
I do exactly that, howling as loudly as I can, thrashing against the mattress. Despite his insistence that no one will hear me, he spits a curse and starts fishing around on the bed, producing the strip of tape he’d taken from my mouth. He looks annoyed as he tries to replace it, but my mouth is open too wide, my screams tearing from my throat like a banshee.
He clamps a hand over it instead, ripping my pants open. “I wanted to do this nice and gentle,” he hisses into my face, “but now you’re really starting to piss me off.”
There are three loud bangs on the door before it opens, a rusty-haired man poking his head in. “Hey, we might have some trouble out front.”
Perez growls, hand halfway down my pants. “I don’t even have her naked yet!”
The guy glares back at him. “It’s not my fault you need three hours of foreplay. We need to make sure this location’s secure.”
“We’re in South Side, you moron,” he snaps, levering himself up. “Nothing around here is secure. But if you’re going to be such massive pussies about everything, then—” The door slams behind him and I’m left alone, breathless and lightheaded.
I know I don’t have much time until someone returns. I check my surroundings, noting how derelict everything looks. The house is obviously old—probably even abandoned. There’s graffiti on one of the walls and a cloudy window beside the bed with three jaggedly shattered panes.
That’s where he appears.
Startled, I almost cry out again, but he puts a finger to his lips, eyes hard and urgent. I obey more out of instinctual fear than anything else, mashing my lips together. I watch as he searches the window frame, fingers running along the bottom. He must find purchase because suddenly the window makes an awful screeching sound.
He pauses, shoulders tense.
Fuck your orders, I think, opening my mouth and releasing another bloodcurdling shriek.
Killian’s eyes grow wide and angry—a flash of betrayed discontent—but I nod at him encouragingly. He must finally understand because he shoves the window up in a single, swift, commanding thrust, his muscular shoulders jerking with the motion. The screech of wood on metal is swallowed by my wail. I quiet, panting as he climbs through the window.
When he does, he leans out, looking left and then right, before finally turning to me, plucking the knife from his pocket. I watch in a panicked stupor as the blade slices through the rope. “We have to hurry,” he says, face set into a grim expression. “My buddy isn’t going to keep them occupied for long.”
When my wrists are free, I hastily cover myself, cringing away when Killian reaches out for me. He gives me a look—something both surprised and accepting—and reaches over his shoulder instead. He tugs his shirt over his head, baring his broad, tattooed chest.
“Put this on,” he says, moving immediately to my ankles, carving easily through the rope. When he releases the last one, he lingers there for a moment, fingers soothing the red-raw skin. His dark eyes hold mine. “Can you run?”
At first, I nod, but as soon as I sit up to put on the shirt, my head spins. I moan, clutching my forehead, but do my best to power through, shedding the torn shirt and pulling Killian’s over my head.
He turns to check the door, and that’s when I see it.
There’s a pistol tucked into the waist of his jeans.
My first frenzied attempt at standing does not go well. Killian lurches forward to catch me, grunting a curse. “The drugs,” I explain, vision swimming in and out of focus. “It’s got me all dizzy.”
“This is a problem,” he grinds out, winding an arm around my waist. “I can’t just pitch you out the goddamn window. We’re on the second floor. Fuck.” He holds me there for a moment, arm clutching me against his warm chest. “I really didn’t want to do it this way,” he mutters, bending down to sweep me up, sending my head into another whirling spin as he cradles me. He gives me a jostle, securing me against him. “I’ll have to try to sneak.” He sounds really grim about it, which makes sense.
Killian isn’t a stealthy kind of guy even when he isn’t carrying someone down a shabby, creaking staircase.
Every step he takes makes the muscles against me tense more and more. The stairs are squeaky and obviously rotting, but he manages a safe—if not altogether silent—path down to the landing. I train my eyes to his throat, to the pulse jumping beneath the skin, and remember the words he said to me that day I was offered the position.
“I’m not your savior, then or now. You need to get that through your pretty little head.”
Everything is muddled and confusing, and I think that if I get out of this, I might have time to sift through it all and untangle the irony of me being constantly shuffled back and forth between greater and lesser evils. But right now, I don’t.
So I hold on tighter.
He looks down at me, surprise clear on his face, but just as quickly returns to the task of sneaking us out of here.
It all falls apart feet from the back door.
“Drop the girl, Payne.”
I go more rigid than Killian, my heartbeat spiking. When I swing my wide, terrified eyes to his, I notice that he looks more annoyed than afraid.
“Perez.” Killian turns slowly, mouth set into a tight, flat line. Perez is joined by two other men, all of them still dressed in the same black clothes as before. “Should have known you were teaming up. Your houses are all too fucking stupid to pull something like this off alone. Not that you’ve actually managed to now.” Gently, he lowers my legs, letting me slide to my feet. “Sending Gonzo to get me drunk last night might have worked, except I had shit to see to this morning.”
One of other guys shrugs. “Worked on the others just fine.”
Perez scoffs. “You aren’t taking all three of us.”
“You sound pretty confident for a guy who needed three people to take down one girl.”
I clutch at Killian’s arm as I watch them go back and forth, and I’m taken by a moment of perfect clarity. It’s aided by the angry, wild thing in my chest, desperate to break loose.
Desperate to fight.
I speak through clenched teeth, voice as raw as my throat. “I wanted to do this nice and gentle.” I reach behind Killian, pulling the gun from his waistband. “But now you’re really starting to piss me off.”
Perez ducks when I point the gun at him, screeching, “Holy shit!”
The other two are no braver, one diving behind the counter, the other fleeing from the kitchen altogether.
Even Killian flinches back, and really, he should. “Story. Chill, okay.”
I keep Perez in the gun’s sight. “Go fuck yourself, Killian.”
He touches my shoulder and I jerk away. He doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t even seem afraid. In a low voice, he says, “I get you want to shoot this asshole, but that brings cops. That’s a paper trail. That’s exposure and attention, and a whole shitload of drama you don’t want.”
“No,” I snap, not moving the gun, “that’s attention you don’t want. This piece of shit was going to rape me. I don’t care anymore!”
“You don’t mean that,” he says, cupping my elbow. “Do you know what it means to kill someone? Are you a killer, Story? Because I don’t think you are.”
I shrug one shoulder, not even needing to think about it. I tell Perez, “I feel pretty good about taking out a kneecap. But whatever you guys drugged me with is making me kind of dizzy, so I might miss.”
Perez’s eyes squeeze shut.
Killian mutters, “Enough of this,” and, quicker than I can react, snatches the gun from my hand. “Someday, you and I are going to have a talk about these not being a toy,” he says, tucking it back into his waistband. “And also about how guns are a lot less scary when you don’t take off the safety.”
I deflate, stumbling to the side, but Killian catches me again. Jesus. I’d forgotten about the safety.
When Perez jumps back up, face clenched in anger, Killian snaps, “Get down, fuckface! She might not know how to work a safety, but I sure as fuck do. And that whole kneecap plan is sounding pretty goddamn good to me.”
Perez doesn’t stop us from leaving, grinding out a sharp, “Fucking psychos,” as Killian scoops me back up into his arms.
I start hyperventilating the second the truck is in motion.
My lungs feel like they’re on fire and I can’t stop shaking. All of the adrenaline, the panic, the terror, comes crashing into me like a freight train. It’s not just from this afternoon. It’s from all of it. Last night with Killian. The package from Ted. The night of the party. It’s all stacked up to a leaning tower of trauma that’s finally crashing down inside of my chest.
Killian reaches out to cup the back of my head, pushing me down. “Put your head between your knees.”
Like before, I obey instinctually, ducking down to gasp at the floorboard. I don’t need Killian, of all people, to talk me through a panic attack.
I spend the whole ride like that. It never goes away—I know that better than anyone. But it gets less enormous. Easier to pick parts from, to be tucked away and never thought about again. By the time he pulls into the garage at the brownstone, I’m already being hit with the numbing exhaustion that always follows.
Killian cuts the ignition and we stay there for a long moment, listening to the clicks of his cooling engine. He clutches the keys, sighing. “You weren’t fucking around on us.”
I slide my gaze to him slowly, knowing that it’s full of everything I can’t say. That I hate him. That the only thing he’s ever been to me is another abuser. That I know I’ll spend the next few days—maybe even weeks or months—concocting fantasy scenarios in my mind of him being on the other side of that gun. That he’s not really much better than Perez and those other guys.
He sees it. He sees all of it. He watches me back, expression shuttered, and eventually gives a quiet, “Yeah.”
And then he helps me from the truck, leading me inside the brownstone.
