Present
I arched my back as Will gripped my hip and thrust against me, his dick sliding inside.
He filled me so tightly, stretching hot and thick, I whimpered, “Ah.”
Twisting my head, he covered my mouth with his as the steam filled the shower and he yanked my hips back again and again, fucking me harder and harder without breaking the kiss.
I licked his tongue and took over, backing up into it as I guided his hand down between my legs.
He rubbed my clit, slow but steady, in circles. “I don’t love you,” he whispered in my ear before biting my lobe.
“I know.”
He knocked my hand off his, slamming mine to the wall and returning his to my pussy, thrusting harder and bottoming out, going so deep.
I squeezed my eyes shut, moaning.
A hand took mine, and I closed my fingers around Alex’s slender ones.
“Say you’re sorry to me,” Will breathed out.
“I did.”
He pulled out, spun me around, and I let go of Alex’s hand as he lifted me up.
“Say it,” he demanded.
I wrapped my arms and legs around him as he slipped back inside. “What happens then?” I ask. “Huh?”
I trailed kisses over his face and then buried my lips in his neck as I hugged him to me.
“Once you get what you want, you’ll stop,” I told him, “and I don’t want you to stop.”
His hips moved as he gripped my ass in both hands, and I sucked the water off his skin, nibbling and dragging his skin out with my teeth.
He groaned.
“Don’t stop,” I panted. “I don’t love you anymore. You’re bad news and always have been.”
“But don’t stop, huh?” he chuckled. “The class reunion is next year, and I’m going to tell everyone what you really like to do when your nose isn’t buried in a book. I’m going to tell them that you like me and how you let me have some fun when no one was looking.”
I fell back against the wall, turning my head, my forehead meeting Alex’s as I moaned. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but I got off on how much he wanted me.
Aydin pressed Alex against the wall next to me, and while she faced me, he looked down at her, almost frozen except for his hand that slipped underneath her shirt so slowly. She breathed shallow, her lips close to mine, and in the blink of an eye, he’d torn off her bra and dropped the black fabric onto the shower floor, the water slowly drenching her shirt.
He was why she was here. This was why she was the one who came for Will, instead of Michael.
It was about Aydin. She was his artist, and she’d found out he was here when she was looking for Will.
Gliding his hand over her shirt, he moved up her stomach and between her breasts as the shirt plastered her skin, revealing the dark circles of her nipples through the linen.
She wouldn’t look at him, and I pressed my lips to her forehead, trying to soothe her. It was almost like she was scared, and if there was anything I knew about Alex Palmer it was that not much scared her.
I turned back to Will, tightening my hold as I watched him tip his head back and start to lose it.
“I’m going to slip,” I gasped.
He hefted me back up. “I got you.”
I sank my mouth into his, my wet hair sticking to my face and neck, and I wished I was back in that wrestling room with him and I wouldn’t have been so timid. I would’ve loved him and stayed there with him all night if I could do it over again.
“Kiss her on the mouth,” I heard Aydin say.
I looked over to see Alex staring up at him. “I want to kiss you on the mouth.”
He shook his head, his expression calm, but his breathing ragged.
He licked his lips. “Touch her on the cunt,” he whispered. “Like that night I watched you on the screen. Do it.”
He grazed his hand over her breast through her shirt, barely touching, and her mouth fell open, and I didn’t think she was breathing.
“Touch her,” he begged, hovering over her lips. “Fuck her for me in the bed.”
She swallowed. “No,” she whispered. “I do what I want, when I want, and nothing for your pleasure.”
“Nothing?” he asked, touching her lips with his fingers. “For him but not for me?”
She glared up at Aydin. “I feel safe with him. I feel like a whore with you.”
His jaw flexed, and his fingers curled over her breast like a claw. Her nipples hardened, poking through the fabric like bullets.
Will’s head collapsed into my neck, breathing hard and groaning, and I could tell he was close.
But my blood rushed hot, my orgasm crested, and I was already there. I whimpered, squeezing my pussy around him and holding on for every thrust as my body bobbed up and down, moaning loud and not caring who heard.
Part of me hated Alex. She was gorgeous, tough, and everything Aydin said she was in the bedroom. She was more Will’s friend than I ever was, and the hardest part was that she was stunning in every way.
She had to have been through shit, given her occupation. There had to have been days that brought her to tears, but you’d never know it.
And here the rest of us were, hurt and using it as an excuse to destroy ourselves, while she just kept trudging along day after day, getting closer and closer to what she wanted.
“What if I want to touch you someday?” I whispered to Alex, but leaned my head into Will, holding him close. “What if I want to kick them out and climb into bed with you, just us?”
Will grinned, kissing me without missing a step.
What if I felt safe with her, too, and she deserved better than how Aydin was treating her, and I wanted her to know that?
The lump in her throat moved up and down, and Will moved inside of me, both men watching us and holding us.
I gazed at her, droplets shimmering across her skin as Will nibbled the corner of my mouth.
“What would you do?” she asked, our heads together again. “If the boys weren’t allowed?”
I couldn’t hide the smile that peeked out.
“Yeah, what would you do?” Will panted in my ear.
I closed my eyes, loving the control they made me feel. “I wouldn’t be able to stop myself,” I told Will, loud enough for Aydin and Alex to hear. “I’d lock the door, turn off the light, and climb on top of her, sucking her tits into my mouth before spreading her legs and settling in between, nice and warm.”
Will’s body shook as he thrust faster and harder, losing control, and I looked over, seeing Aydin with her pants open and his hand inside, rubbing her through her panties. She clasped his hand in both of hers, like she wanted to stop him but couldn’t find the strength.
“Then what?” Aydin asked me but stared down at her, brow etched in pain.
“I’d kiss her,” I said. “If I were you and I had her under me, I’d kiss her and breathe her in and feel her body pressed to mine as I tasted her…”
“You like to taste things,” Will taunted me, groaning. “Show me. Show me what you’d do with her in your mouth.”
My belly pooled with heat, and I could feel it seeping out of me as he slid in and out.
“What does she taste like, Emory?” Aydin panted.
I glanced over, the cords in his forearm flexed as he worked her, and her eyes closed, the pleasure taking over.
“Warm,” I whimpered. “She’s warm and soft, and I love the feel of her clit against my lips as I lick between her legs.”
Aydin groaned, and I could see the bulge in his pants growing larger as Alex gripped his shoulder with one hand.
“Open your eyes,” he told her. “Look at me.”
She opened them, holding his gaze as he fingered her.
“She widens her knees,” I continued. “And holds my mouth there because it feels so good.”
“Yeah,” she pants, staring up at him as she bites her bottom lip.
I turn to Will. “I lick her up the sides,” I tease him, gliding the tip of my tongue across his lips and flicking the top one as I looked into his eyes. “And I tug on her clit, sucking it into my mouth.” I catch his top lip between my teeth and drag it out before sucking on it hard and swirling my tongue, playing with him.
He growled under his breath, and I flexed my thighs, riding him as he thrust.
“I’d lick her up and down.” I mimicked it on the corner of his mouth. “And play with her for hours, licking up how hot she gets, because she likes her pussy sucked.”
“Emmy,” Alex moaned, dropping her head back. “Jesus, girl…”
“But God, you know what I really want to do?” I asked.
Will shivered. “What?”
“I want to fuck her,” I panted, nibbling his mouth. “I want to drive her wild, rubbing our pussies together like animals, and screwing her until I sweat, because he needs to remember all that he’ll be missing when he’s sitting like a king at his dining room table someday. Alone and dreaming about his naked little Viking straddling him in his chair and fucking her man, because while he controls all, she controls him.”
Alex cried out, wrapping her arms around Aydin’s neck as she shuddered and came. Her head fell back, spray and steam caressing her face, and he held her head, his lips hovering over hers.
Aydin’s eyes glistened, and he moved over her lips, looking like he was going to kiss her and struggling to hold himself back.
I bobbed up and down on Will, crashing my mouth down on his, unashamed and unconcerned for the first fifteen minutes of my entire life. I didn’t care what else happened or how he might hold anything against me. I felt good and brave and high.
I rolled my hips, grinding and chasing the orgasm, and then finally… I cried out, shaking and coming, my thighs tightening and my belly consumed in a wave of tingles and shocks. I moaned, holding on for dear life as the burn in my back started to register from him rubbing my spine against the wall so hard.
But he wasn’t done, and I wasn’t telling him to stop.
“Say his name,” I heard Aydin tell her.
I breathed hard, heat coursing down every inch of my body.
“Say his name,” he told her again.
I looked over, seeing him still rubbing her and trying to make her come again.
“Please,” he begged.
“Will?” she breathed out, looking confused and still dreamy from her orgasm.
“Again.”
“Will,” she said.
I froze, feeling Will slow as well.
“Again,” he told her. “Again.”
What? His muscles flexed, and I watched him, the same pain etched across his forehead.
She stared up at him, searching his eyes. “Will,” she whispered.
“Moan it,” he growled at her, fingering her.
She closed her eyes, gasping from breath as she started to come again. Will stopped, both of us watching them.
What was Aydin doing? It felt different when I was fantasizing about her, because I wanted him to see her through my eyes, but what did he think he was doing, turning the tables? It wasn’t the same.
“Can’t remember my name, just say his,” he taunted, picking up his pace. “Dive deep into your head where I don’t matter, because you’ve already done it a hundred times, and I was always watching you come, you slut.”
She started sobbing dry tears, and he leaned in, moving rougher over her pussy. “Come on, moan for him. His dick feels so good.”
Will softened inside me, and I dropped to my feet, suddenly cold.
“You didn’t just fuck him,” Aydin told her. “You were close. He feels for you.”
I let my eyes fall, and Will tried lifting my chin, but I jerked away.
“Emmy,” he said.
They were close. Maybe he felt for her in a way he and I could never be. That perfect trust.
Friends.
“Come on, say it,” he urged. “Will, Will, Will…”
She shoved him away, slamming her palm against his face, and Will shoved him next before pulling up his drenched jeans.
Aydin slipped his hand inside Alex’s panties, but he had pulled it back out before she could shove him off again.
He held up his glistening fingers to us, showing us how wet she was.
“While you’ve been buried in this,” he told Will, “she’s been sad and sorry.”
His eyes flashed to me, and Will stood there frozen, while Alex quickly fastened her pants.
“It’s plain as day who really suffered during your time apart,” he bit out. “She owes you nothing.”
I couldn’t look up at Will.
And part of me didn’t want to stop Aydin, either, not because he was going after Will, but because he always found a way to make me less entitled to my guilt.
He was like a power-up, which was a weird turn of events, because I thought for sure he would be chaining me to his bed by my neck when we met.
Maybe if I’d grown up with him instead of Martin, my entire world would’ve been different.
He left the shower, dropping his wet clothes on the floor and tying a towel around his waist as he walked back into his bedroom. I left my clothes there and walked out, too, throwing Will’s hand off when he tried to grab me.
I wasn’t mad. I didn’t know what was wrong.
I just wanted to get dressed now.
Wrapping myself in a towel, I left the bathroom and walked for the door, but Aydin’s voice stopped me.
“Emory, come here,” he said.
I looked over, seeing him just inside his closet, pulling clothes off the shelves.
He tossed me some red boxers and a black T-shirt, and I caught them, lamenting the loss of my bra on the shower floor now.
The water stopped running, and Will and Alex walked out of the bathroom, wary with their eyes on me.
Will’s eyes dropped to the items in my hands and then back up to me. “Come here,” he ordered.
I darted my eyes to Aydin without even thinking.
“Don’t look at him.” Will scowled at me.
But I remained rooted, hearing Aydin’s calm voice.
“Do what you want, Emory,” he told me. “It’s okay.”
My heart splintered a little more, and I looked away, shaking my head. What I would have given for Will to say that just once. Or my brother.
Someone to guide me. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it from my life since my parents were gone.
If Will or Martin had given me freedom, I would’ve wanted them more. That was all he had to do. He just had to let me come to him. Like the Homecoming dance.
It just took me longer to figure things out. I didn’t dive into anything head first. Aydin seemed to know that.
Had to hand it to him… I understood why he was the alpha now.
“Emory…” Will said.
I didn’t move.
Aydin dressed, and I clutched the clothes, my legs charged to just head back to my room.
“Em…” he said again in a lower voice.
Tears filled my eyes, and I heard a quiet chuckle come from Aydin. “Micah and Rory are drunk by now,” he told Will, “and you’re going to leave without the only thing you want.”
Me.
Aydin pulled his T-shirt over his head and met my eyes. “You happened to him.”
Nothing happened to me. I wasn’t a victim, and this was the last time I’d hesitate.
I pulled on the shorts and rolled them over a couple of times, and Aydin walked out of the room as Will’s eyes bore a hole in my back. I didn’t even have my shirt on yet before Will charged out of the room, slamming the door against the wall on his way, and I whipped my head around, looking at Alex.
A crash hit the floor downstairs, and a moment passed before she shot off, running after them.
I threw on my T-shirt, pulled off the towel, and flipped my wet hair back out of my face as I ran out of the room. I looked left and right, not seeing anything, but a scuffle hit my ears, and I leaned over the balcony, seeing Aydin with Will in a headlock on the floor of the foyer.
Shit.
Alex rushed in, but Will shot out his hand. “Don’t,” he yelled. “Stay back.”
She halted, and I hurried down the stairs as Will and Aydin rolled over on the floor, Aydin strangling him, and Will struggling for air.
“Stop!” I shouted.
Will laid on top of Aydin and threw his head back, trying to hit Aydin with the back of his skull, but the other man jerked out of the way just in time. They both scrambled, their dark hair wet and messy as Will flipped over and tried to get a hold of Aydin’s neck.
They shot out their legs, tumbling to the side, and the candelabra toppled over, the candles rolling to the edges of the room.
The men wrestled, and I shot my hands to my hair, trying to figure out what to do. Will could wrestle. What was going on?
And if he couldn’t beat Aydin, why had he gone after him?
Enough. They were both getting locked in the cellar tonight.
I ran into the drawing room and pulled the longarm off the wall—an antique from World War I, it looked like—and dashed back into the foyer, stepping in and kicking Aydin off Will.
He fell back to the floor, but before he could dive back in, I pointed the gun, the bayonet pointing right as his neck.
“Enough!” I yelled.
I’d forgotten my glasses in the shower, but I could see Aydin’s cocked eyebrow well enough.
Will shot off the floor, coming for him again, but Alex grabbed him by the jeans and smacked him over the head.
I fought not to laugh, because that’s how funny all of this was.
Grown men…
I didn’t have time do more, though. Taylor, Micah, and Rory arrived on the scene, wet from the pool and their eyes darting between all of us.
Taylor’s gaze finally settled on me with the gun pointed at Aydin, and in a blur, it all happened.
Will charged for Taylor, Aydin scurried off the floor and threw himself at Will, and the next thing I knew, Taylor had grabbed the gun, ripped it out of my hands, tossed it, and gripped the back of my head with one hand and threw a punch into my stomach with the other.
My insides tried to push through my spine, vomit rose up my throat, and I coughed, dropping to my knees.
Tears filled my eyes as everyone, blurry in front of me, scrambled to separate Will and Aydin. Taylor lifted me up and slammed me against the staircase, squeezing my jaw between his fingers and hovering over me.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” he gritted.
My body wracked with pain, and I sucked in air, trying to catch my breath as the inside of my mouth cut on my teeth.
But he was pulled away, someone grabbing his hand, bending his finger back, and bringing him to his knees as he cried out. I blinked, gasping as Aydin grabbed the gun, propped it up on the floor for leverage, and shot the bayonet down, slicing off Taylor’s pinky finger.
I widened my eyes as blood spurted, spilling onto the marble, and everyone stopped, their attention caught now.
Taylor screamed, but Aydin didn’t waste any time. He hauled him up, threw him over his shoulder, and headed for the back of the house.
“Bring Will, too!” he shouted.
Huh?
I looked between Rory and Micah, who both looked unsure, but then Rory gritted his teeth and moved first, grabbing Will.
“No!” Alex and I shot forward, reacting, but Micah pushed us back, protecting Rory.
What the hell?
Micah helped him, both of them force-walking Will and following Aydin as Alex and I trailed. I grabbed the gun on my way, sweat coating my body as I watched Alex swipe a candlestick. We were both armed now, a trickle of blood gliding down my blade, and Taylor’s finger on the floor somewhere.
Why had Aydin done that? Taylor was his lapdog.
“Aydin, please,” I begged.
Where was he taking them?
He opened the door to the cellar, descended the stairs with the boys, and we chased, jogging down the stone steps to see them throwing Will on the ground as Aydin tied up Taylor’s wrists and slung them over a hook above his head. Blood poured down his arm, and he breathed hard, his face twisted in pain.
Next, he moved to Will, but shot a glance to us. “Hold them!” he ordered Micah and Rory.
“No!” We raised our weapons, and they stopped in front of us, the confrontation at a stand-still as Aydin squatted next to Will.
He laid there, blood dripping off the corner of his mouth, his eyes cast down, and making no move to fight more.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Alex was right. Will could take these guys. My God. This hurt more than the pain in my gut. I couldn’t watch.
“I like you,” Aydin told him, unknotting some rope. “I didn’t think I would. Life has a weird sense of humor, you know? I watched you with her at parties. I’d see you with her at restaurants. Then, lo and behold, you show up here, our new inmate.”
Her. Alex.
I straightened, a thought taking form in my head. It was strange that out of all the people in the world, they wound up in the same place. Two men who both knew Alex.
One who clearly resented the other for it.
“Remember when you asked me if I could get things other than alcohol and cigarettes?” he questioned Will.
And I gulped. No. He had Will brought here. Either for revenge or to take him away from Alex.
Oh, my God.
But then suddenly Aydin turned and jerked his chin, gesturing to me, instead.
What?
My heart dropped into my stomach, and Will gritted through his teeth, “You son of a bitch.”
I stepped forward, dropping my weapon. “Me?” I said, but I already knew the answer. “You brought me here?”
All the enemies and all the people who had something against me if they knew my secret, and it turned out to be someone I’d never met?
He didn’t sentence Will to Blackchurch. He smuggled me in for revenge.
Aydin’s eyes fell, and he tightened the rope around Will’s wrist. “I want him to know what this feels like,” he murmured. “To watch the one woman it physically hurts to look at, because you want her so much, give her time and loyalty and love to another.” He glared over at me. “I want him to feel this.”
Alex stepped up next to me, and I could hear her breathe.
“Then why not try to seduce me?” I charged before she could say anything. What was with all the big brother shit?
He just chuckled. “The only thing more powerful than the heart is the brain, and it was so much more useful to get into your head than into your bed.”
I shook my head. “Or maybe you didn’t want to take me away from Will, but Will away from Alex. Maybe she was the one you wanted to hurt.”
He shrugged. “Either way.”
The room fell silent except for Taylor’s shaking. I looked over, not that worried about him, but Aydin was going to have to help him. Close the wound or something.
My hand shot to my hair. He brought me here.
But that meant he also gave me the knife. Did he think that was going to be enough protection?
The floor above us creaked—as well as the wood in the walls—and I smelled smoke in the air, but then thunder cracked overhead, the lights flickered, and I raised my weapon again, opening my mouth to speak.
But Aydin spoke first. “You both will stay down here,” he told Will, “and if Micah and Rory know what’s good for them, they’ll fall in line.”
He turned to the guys, ordering them, “Take the women to my room,” he told them and then looked at us. “I’ll be up to see you ladies in a while.”
I tensed.
“Maybe they’d like some exercise tonight,” he said, staring at Will. “I’ll take them to the pool. Party of three.” His voice lowered, but I could still hear the smile in his tone. “Maybe Emmy will play out that little fantasy of hers and put Alex to some good use the way everyone else has.”
I lunged. “Will!”
Micah grabbed me, and I dropped the gun, shooting my palm up to his fucking nose as Alex shot out and caught Rory’s arm, spinning him around and shoving him into the wall.
He headbutted the stone, and I dropped down, picked up my bayonet, rushing to Will.
But Aydin was there, stopping me and taking me in his arms, wrapping them around me like a steel band and holding me hostage.
“Wendy, Wendy,” he taunted. “It’s true, then. One girl is worth twenty boys, it seems. So glad you’re on my team.”
His mouth came down on mine, his scruff and sweat grinding against my lips as he moved over me, stealing my breath.
Will.
I grunted, a sob lodging in my throat as I pressed against his blood-soaked shirt and tried to twist my head away.
Oh, God.
And then…a whisper came in close—calm, hard, and deep. “You’re not Peter,” it said.
I blinked my eyes open in time to see Will standing right behind Aydin, the ropes suddenly gone.
Slipping an arm around Aydin’s neck, Will grabbed his wrist, pulled him off me, and yanking his arm so far back that Aydin cried out, forcing him to the ground. In one quick motion, Will brought down his foot at the joint where Aydin’s arm met his shoulder, and a pop pierced the air, Aydin’s howl echoing throughout the cellar.
I gaped at Will who’d just brought Aydin to his knees in less than two seconds, not even losing breath.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
Alex and I stood there as Will stared down at Aydin’s form, a serrated knife in his hand and the rope around his wrists severed.
Where had he gotten that knife?
He inhaled a deep breath and straightened his back, cutting off the rope bracelets, sheathing the knife, and sticking it back into his pocket.
“Will…” I stepped forward.
He shook his head, telling me to keep quiet as he glared at the man on the brick floor.
Aydin shot up, but Will swung his fist down, landing right on his throat.
I narrowed my eyes, able to do nothing more than stare at him and blink.
Aydin gasped, hunching over and too disabled to speak or even breathe.
Will circled him as Taylor watched, and Micah and Rory stood frozen, clearly not sure what was happening.
“I was in prison,” Will said to Aydin. “A real one. Did you actually think I didn’t have any of this under control?”
Aydin looked up at him, a worry and puzzlement I’d never seen in his eyes now.
“I waited,” Will continued. “I was prepared to be as patient as possible to get you to follow.”
He dropped down, hovering over Aydin as he gripped the back of his head and delivered two punches to his face.
Aydin’s nose spilled with blood, and he reared back and hit Will, throwing him off and crawling away until he could scramble to his feet.
They both faced each other, widening their stances, and Aydin charged Will, throwing his body into his stomach. They crashed back onto the floor, and I lurched forward, but Micah shot out his arm, stopping me.
“I want to see this,” he said.
I darted my worried eyes to Will. His skin flushed and sweat pouring down his back, he rolled, hit, kneed, kicked, and did everything with rage in his eyes.
He wasn’t taking it like he had been since I’d been here.
This was Will.
Bloody and breathing hard, he punched Aydin in the stomach and rose, sending a hard kick to his head.
“It would’ve been perfect,” he growled. “You know that? Teaming up. Being equals, but I didn’t want to win you over with fear. I didn’t want to control you with violence.”
Aydin tried to get his legs under him, but he kept falling back to the ground.
“I wanted to be important to you,” Will told him. “If I were important to you, you’d follow me anywhere.”
Follow him? What was Will talking about? Why did he want Aydin to follow him?
“It would’ve been perfect, because you’re one of us,” Will panted, circling his prey, “but it seems I have no more time to waste on you. It seems I didn’t anticipate you had your own agenda with me.”
Meaning me—and Aydin bringing me here.
He sniffled, wiping the blood off his face.
“Rory.” He jerked his chin to the supply of rope sitting on the table. “Micah, help him.”
They tied up Aydin who was too exhausted and beat, barely kicking and thrashing as they secured him.
Will called us. “Alex,” he said, standing back and watching them. “Emory.”
Alex immediately went to his side, but I stayed rooted.
A fire lit behind his eyes. “I will raise hell and reduce this house to ash if you act like this is a choice for one more second!” he bellowed at me and then pointed to his side. “Now!”
I jumped, tingles throbbing between my legs, and I clenched my teeth, walking over to him.
“All this time?” Aydin breathed out. “All these months and all the fights. All the times you lost, it was on purpose?”
“You don’t have what it takes to be me,” he told Aydin, his deep tone sending chills up my spine.
Oh, my God.
He’d faked it. He’d faked everything. He was working the house for some reason, slowly turning everyone on his side, and he’d put up with months of this shit because he wanted Aydin’s loyalty, but he didn’t want it through force.
Micah and Rory finished and came over, standing with us as everyone stared at Aydin on the floor.
Will loomed front and center like an oak rising, and I swore I had to tip my head back to look up at him at my side.
“You can come with us,” Will told him. “I don’t want Dinescu, but I’ll take you.”
Alex stood on Will’s other side, a flash of pain in her eyes as she looked at Aydin.
But Aydin just laughed bitterly. “Kill me,” he said.
Will stood there another moment, absorbing his answer as the thunder cracked again, and I started to back away, everyone slowly following.
The boys turned and darted up the stairs as I watched Alex drag her feet, the distance between her and Aydin like nothing as the heat of their look grew.
“You wanted me,” she told him, backing away from him.
He nodded, his hands bound to some rusty piping as he sat on the floor. “Now I just want to win.”
She shook her head. “You’ve already lost.”
“Not yet,” he retorted. “I do know where you’re going, love.”
The hair on my arms stood on end, and she hesitated a few moments as his words hung in the air, but then…we both spun around, darted up the stairs, and slammed the door behind us.
“Alex…”
“Don’t,” she said, and I could hear the tears in her throat. “I already forgot his name.”
We raced upstairs, a thick stench hitting me as we pushed through the door.
I inhaled. “What the hell is that?”
Hearing commotion, we ran back toward the foyer, instantly halting as flames engulfed the drapes on the windows, rising to the ceiling and spreading onto the walls.
“Oh, Jesus!” Alex cried.
I looked for Will, spotting him rushing out from the kitchen with a fire extinguisher.
The heat baked my face, and I stumbled back as he tried to put out the flames.
Those damn candles must’ve been lit when they knocked them over.
“Will!” I cried.
We had to get out of here. It consumed the foyer, and I tipped my head back as I coughed through the burn in my throat, seeing the flames stretching so much higher than we could reach. There was no stopping this.
“Will!” I called again, but he sprayed the door, extinguishing the fire around the frame.
Alex shot past me, up the stairs.
“What are you doing?” I yelled after her, seeing flames flicker on the edges of the steps.
“My satellite phone!” she yelled. “It’s in the secret passageway! We need it!”
“Alex, no!” Will bellowed.
I shot off to go after her, but then I heard a crash against the front door, and I stopped.
Alex stopped halfway up the stairs, and I turned around to see Will standing still.
Another crash wracked the walls as smoke engulfed the entire room, and I blinked my eyes against the sting, trying to see who was coming through the door.
They had to have security nearby. There was a fire alarm going off somewhere, I’d bet.
Another pound, and then…the door flew open, the smoke gushing out the door, and I spotted black arms and legs coming into the room through the clouds.
“Will!” someone shouted.
I squatted down on the floor, pulling Will with me, so we could breathe, but also…
“Is that security?” I asked him, trying to see through the smoke.
“I don’t think so.”
I’d be glad if it was, but also, they might just transfer us all to another Blackchurch, too.
I wanted my weapon.
“Will!” another voice—this one also male—called. “Where are you?”
Why were they just calling for him and not the others?
“Will Grayson!” a woman shouted next, coughing.
My ear pricked, something familiar about that one, and Will sucked in a breath next to me.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered.
He shot to his feet, pulling me up by the arm. “Here!” he shouted.
Alex came running down the stairs as figures dressed in black moved through the smoke, and I saw three tall men with paracord draped over their chest and carrying duffle bags.
“What the hell did we bring paracord for?” Kai Mori said, looking to Michael Crist. “Thought you told us we were going to have to scale the walls and shit.”
Michael just smiled and grabbed Will by the neck, pulling him into a hug.
Will tensed like he was shocked, but after a moment he exhaled. “Came for me after all, huh?
“Always,” another voice said.
I looked as Damon stepped through the smoke, laughing as he dipped down, pressing his forehead to his best friend’s.
A woman came up, her blonde ponytail draped over her shoulder, the top of her head covered in a black ski cap.
Erika Fane?
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said and then looked over my shoulder, calling, “Alex!”
Alex rushed forward, brushing past me and crashing into Rika’s arms. “You made it,” she breathed out in a laugh.
Erika nodded. “Worried?”
Alex chuckled. “No. Course not.”
Everyone started to rush out the door, but Alex and I hesitated, looking back through the smoke, toward the back of the house.
“Wait,” she shouted. “There’s more back there!”
Everyone rushed back in the house, but the fire had drifted down the hall, splintering off toward the kitchen and then right, toward the pool.
We rushed up to the flames.
“Emmy!” Will yelled.
“Emory Scott?” I heard Damon say. “Alex, you didn’t tell us she was here.”
But no one had time to explain.
I peered through the fire, trying to see a way past, but I couldn’t find a path. We couldn’t leave them there to burn.
Alex and I tried, stepping left and right and trying to get through, but strong arms pulled me back.
“Take her,” Will ordered.
The next thing I knew I was being swept into someone’s arms and over his shoulder, and I screamed, trying to thrash my way free.
I could walk.
“And don’t put her down,” Will growled. “She likes to not cooperate.”
Motherfucker!
“Lev!” someone called.
And then I heard someone say David and murmurs mentioning Aydin and Misha.
Where were we going?
We left the house, rain splattering my body as the foyer grew smaller and smaller in my vision and more of the house came into view.
The fire reached the upstairs windows, an orange glow filling the rooms behind the curtains, and I stared as far into the foyer as I could the farther away we got, hoping for Aydin to make it.
Waiting to see a glimpse of him.
I didn’t want him to die.
“Give her to me,” Micah growled.
I was pulled off someone’s shoulder and into Micah’s arms, looking over and seeing that Michael was the one who had been carrying me.
I snarled at him.
“I got her,” Micah told him.
Michael nodded and ran ahead, and as soon as he was gone, Micah dropped me to my feet, holding my hand as we ran with everyone else. I looked over my shoulder, stumbling.
The greenhouse was separated from the main house. Not that I cared about the snakes, but that was a rotten way for any living being to go. They should be safe, though.
We ran through the woods, and I barely noticed the cold as the thunder roared over us and the rain spilled heavier.
“Where are we?” Will asked them.
“You’ll never guess,” Damon told him.
“How long will it take to get home,” Will prodded.
And everyone just laughed, whatever that meant.
We raced through the trees, and I gasped for breath as my legs turned to rubber under me.
“Micah,” I pleaded for him to slow.
But he just pulled me along, and then I saw it, through the trees in the distance.
I squinted, trying to blink away the blur that was always there. I needed my glasses. Shit.
Was that a… A train?
We scurried over the rocks and leaves, past the tree line to a train spanning to my left and right on tracks as far as I could see.
Did Aydin know this was here? They all must’ve known. We hadn’t run that long—maybe ten minutes?
Maybe he thought it was abandoned.
Everyone ran to a car in the middle, and I looked at the beautiful black steam engine, old but well restored. Curtains hung on the inside of the windows, and the engine chugged a steady rhythm.
“Go!” Erika shouted. “Go now!”
Everyone climbed into the car, and I looked behind me one more time for any sign of Aydin or Taylor.
I do know where you’re going, he’d said.
I didn’t even have to act like I didn’t know, either.
Back to Thunder Bay.
“Close the doors!” Michael shouted and hung out the door, waving, probably to the conductor.
We all piled in, some dark-haired woman grabbing Will’s wrist and cutting off his bracelet with a bolt cutter. She planted a quick kiss on his cheek, and then moved to Micah and Rory, severed theirs from their wrists and tossing them all out the window.
The train moved under us, and I swayed, but before I could even look around or figure out who the other women were, someone grabbed my arm and whipped me around.
“You hesitated,” Will growled, black streaks covering his body from the fire. “In the cellar… You hesitated! Again! And you were going back for him when you never came back for me. Ever!”
I flinched, remembering minutes ago when he’d told me to come to him.
He saw it as me taking Aydin’s side.
I saw it as me standing on my own. “Will…”
“After everything you’ve done to us, you hesitated!” he yelled, his face twisted in anger.
Everyone surrounded us, standing silently, and I felt the heat of their eyes like I was a mouse and they were snakes circling me.
“What are you talking about?” Damon asked him. “What do you mean ‘to us’? What did she do?”
I stared at Will, shaking my head slowly, begging him. Not here. Please, not here. Not now.
He straightened and drifted backward a couple of steps, finally having me trapped exactly where I deserved and savoring this moment.
“She’s the reason we all went to jail seven years ago,” he told them.
