Chapter Sixteen
Harley
I f he thinks he can break me, he’s wrong. I’ve already lived in hell. I’ve already hit the lowest of lows in my life. No words can break me more than my own thoughts.
Tank.
The man who held me, forcing me to watch my mom be beaten and raped. The man who left a scar on my face to remind me of that day forever.
The piece of shit scum who thinks I belong to him now. “I’ve been purchased, but I’m not yours,” I spit at him from where I am chained up against the wall in a random office he takes me to every night.
At first, I stayed silent, feeling hopeless. What was the point in fighting?
Them. Grayson, Ryker, Cayden, Noah, Colton, Carly, Brielle, Atlas… All of them.
They wouldn’t give up on me, on my dad. So why was I so quick to give up? That’s when I switched to trying to fight back. Fighting someone who is twice my size when I’m living off the bare minimum amount of food to survive and locked in a cage for most of everyday, is not possible.
So now, I push. I will push him over the edge. I will make him snap. Killer doesn’t want me dead, and I know he always has someone watching our sessions. I just need this fucker to snap.
Anger keeps me grounded these days—the fury that simmers deep within my soul, calling out to me, waiting for its moment so I can get my revenge.
Maybe I secretly have a death wish so I just don’t care as much anymore, or maybe it really is the anger at how these people can do this to other human beings and think it’s okay. Either way, I haven’t cried in weeks. My eyes are dry, and my broken heart is locked up tight, far out of reach from even myself.
Without responding, he chuckles softly before grabbing a knife and coming to stand in front of me. Gripping my chin in his free hand, he gently runs the tip of the blade down my cheek. “I’ve been thinking for weeks now about how I want to give you a matching scar on this cheek. I just don’t think it’s fair you only got it on one side of your young face.”
“Or you can let me down and give me a knife, and I can give you a matching one so we can be twins,” I sneer at him, and the bastard laughs.
“Since today is my last day with you, I think I will pass on that.” He moves the knife down and slowly slices through the thin pink dress we are all given to wear. I breathe in, reminding myself not to let him see my panic. As the dress falls at my feet, he gazes at my naked body, and I can’t help the shiver that goes through me as his disgusting eyes darken.
“I have a gift for you,” he tells me and then walks out of the room. My heart starts to beat harder as I wait for his return, unsure of what his plan is. After being at his mercy every day for a month, I never know what to expect. Everyday brought something different, and even though I try to push him over the edge and never let anyone see me in a state of panic or terrified, it sometimes becomes almost impossible to hide it.
He walks back in with something long in his hand. He doesn’t speak or even show it to me before he presses whatever it is against my chest, a burning hot pain seeping into my skin, forcing a scream out of me.
I jolt in my restraints, but he doesn’t stop as he moves the hot poker along my skin. Tears run down my cheeks as my skin breaks out in a sweat, and I let out another scream. By the time he finishes, my body feels numb, and I can’t catch my breath. He steps back and smiles as he stares at my chest. “Perfect.”
He calls to someone, and a few moments later, Zero walks into the room. “Get her cleaned up and then set up in the guest room. You have an hour.”
She nods and comes to unhook me from the wall as he walks out of the room. “Are you going to talk to me this time?” I rasp out. Zero talked to me a few times the first week I was here, but when I wouldn’t stop asking questions, she disappeared for a few days. Ever since then, she doesn’t speak to me. Most of the time because of me acting out, I get hosed down instead of a shower.
I see Zero all the time when she comes to help the other girls, but none of them will talk about her. She’s a mystery.
“Why can’t you just behave?” she hisses quietly as she helps me steady myself since my legs have gone numb from being chained up for who knows how long.
As she slowly guides me out of the room, I let out a small laugh, “Probably because I have a secret death wish.”
We walk into a bathroom, and she helps me into the shower. When the water hits my chest, I hiss in pain, and she grimaces. “We should avoid getting that wet.”
Without another word, she helps me get clean and then brushes and braids my hair, since my arms have bruises and small cuts all over. I doubt I could hold them up long enough to do my own hair right now.
Even though she is a mystery, and I still don’t know if she is here by choice or not, it feels good to be taken care of. As I drop the towel, I get the first glimpse in the small mirror of what he did.
The fucker branded me.
He fucking branded me.
TANK is burned into my skin directly between my breasts.
Don’t panic. I want to peel my skin off. I feel violated in an entirely new way. Don’t let Zero see you panic. You are strong. It feels like he took a piece of himself and attached it to me. I want it gone.
“Breathe, please. Please, you can’t panic like this. If they see, they’ll drug you. Stop it,” a girl's voice is whispering, yelling in my ear as I slowly come back to reality.
“You’re making it bleed. Let’s get you cleaned up. I’m sorry, we can’t take it off,” Zero tells me as she releases my wrists, and I see in the mirror that I had violently scratched at my chest, leaving deep, bloody marks.
So much for not panicking in front of her.
As I calm myself down, Zero stays a silent and solid presence. She doesn’t give me pity looks or reassure me. She just takes care of me with gentle hands, and somehow, it helps.
After putting on a new dress, she leads me out of the bathroom and into a room I have never been in before. It’s a small bedroom, with a large bed and a single dresser across from it. As Zero walks in with me, a new person steps into the room as well.
“Head upstairs,” Killer tells Zero, who immediately dips her head and does as he says.
“Your buyer is here.” He approaches me. “I have to admit, when he wanted to stay anonymous all this time, I thought he must be some big, important man, but he surprised me.” He pinches my chin in between his fingers. “You’re leaving today. The thought crossed my mind to keep you, but I watched you with Tank all these nights, and you aren’t broken enough for me to turn into the perfect toy.”
Releasing my chin, he slaps me once. “You’ll be back in my hands someday, and then you will be mine. My only regret will be not having kept your daddy alive so he could watch his precious daughter be turned into someone he doesn’t recognize.”
“I’m not precious,” I seethe, glaring up at him.
He chuckles. “That’s where you're wrong, Harley. You could have become the perfect weapon if I had gotten my hands on you when you were a baby like I should have. Instead, I ended up with a little bitch.”
Furrowing my brows, I ask, “Who are you talking about?”
A sudden knock on the door cuts us off, and Killer says, “Soon, Harley. Soon.” Then he is gone, and my eyes widen at the new man who enters the room.
“Wh–what are you doing here?” I stutter as tears fill my eyes.
“Taking what's mine.” He grins at me as he shuts the door and approaches me. Before I can react, there’s a sharp pinch in the side of my neck, and my body slowly turns to stone.
Cayden
“This is it,” Axe says over the phone from where it lays on Rage’s desk, and we all wait silently.
“Fuck. Let’s go,” Ryker demands, heading towards the door.
For once, no one disagrees as we all follow him out to where everyone is waiting in the main room—three other clubs and the Brooks family. All the women are with Parker at Stone’s house, since it is the farthest away from the main club.
“Stone, Axe, and Blade snagged one of the guards at the buildin’ Oakley was taken to and politely asked him what was goin’ on there,” Sugar says sarcastically, causing the room to chuckle. “It’s the Black Night Ball. We will have to go in blind. If you aren’t comfortable taking them down when we are going in mostly blind, say so now.”
No one says anything, which makes all of us let out a small breath, because we are going to need as many people as possible. Ryker stands next to me, tapping his fingers rapidly on his thigh, while Grayson has thrown himself into his laptop, working away at a table with Nerds.
“Teams are all the same as last time. Only difference is now, we are not going in slow. Break down the fuckin’ doors and destroy them piece by fuckin’ piece,” Sugar growls, and everyone begins to move heading out to their cars.
“Grayson,” Ryker calls as we head towards the truck. “Maybe you should stay–”
“No,” Grayson says without even glancing back as he climbs into the passenger seat. I hide my smirk and get in to drive while Ryker gets in the back seat.
We are all silent on the hour drive to the building that the ball is being held at. Grayson and Nerds feed everyone information about the scene through the ear pieces. It’s an old factory just outside of town, so the likelihood of cops showing up when we storm in is pretty high.
Tapping Grayson’s shoulder, I park the truck as he glances up from his laptop. After I make sure Ryker is paying attention, I tell him, “We are all antsy to get in there and get this shit done, but be fucking safe,” I say pointedly at Ryker, who rolls his eyes.
Grayson catches it as well and sighs. “Please, Ry. Be safe. The last thing we need is someone hurt again.”
“Got it.” He salutes us and hops out of the truck, with us quickly following behind him. Pulling one of my guns out, I keep it in my hand as we run towards the building to meet the others along the side of the empty place next door.
“Everyone ready?” Nerds asks through the comms. Everyone responds and then he says the words. “Alright. Go.”
Sprinting like I never have before, I beat everyone else up to the doors and easily take out the two guards standing there. Ryker comes up next to me and, together, we kick in the door and then storm in with a bunch of other guys behind us.
As we work our way through the maze of rooms, we find more and more people. The louder we get, the more people come out, and eventually, word makes it through that they are under attack. We watch as the little bitches make a run for it through the back, but they won’t make it past the wall of men out there and the two snipers across the street on top of another building.
“Run, rabbits, run,” Ryker sings while grinning maniacally. He hasn’t even pulled out a gun yet; he has been using his hands to take down the guards. Grayson, Ryker, Noah, and I work our way through the main floor, but when we don’t find anyone besides men working and our guys taking them down, we head downstairs to the basement.
“This way,” Vance calls from the end of a long hallway. “My men are finishing checking for any other guards or buyers. We found girls, though.”
The first room we enter has a few more dead men and then a large cage in the corner with four girls inside it. Ryker growls softly and moves to leave, but Grayson stops him. “Stop. If she knew we saw these terrified girls and moved past them, she would be angry.”
Her. Harley. We still don’t know where she is. Sighing, knowing Grayson is right, I walk up to the cage and help Vance get it open and help the hesitant girls out. As the last one, who is trembling and keeping her head lowered, steps forward, my eyes widen.
I must make a noise at the back of my throat, because she snaps her head up, and I hear Grayson let out a gasp behind me. “Tabby?”
Even through the terror clearly coursing through her, she narrows her eyes at us. “It’s okay. I promise, we are only here to help,” Grayson tells her.
She steps out of the cage but plasters her back to the wall, keeping all of us in her line of sight. Noah walks into the room from where he was speaking to someone in the hall and hisses before glancing at us. “Come on, guys. Let Vance get these ones.”
Vance looks around with narrowed brows but still nods. “There're more rooms with people.”
The next room holds more girls, some who look like they can’t be more than fourteen or fifteen. The fear in their eyes makes an ache settle in my chest, knowing we don’t know what has happened to Harley for the last forty-two days.
As we go into the third room, we find two more girls, and Grayson immediately speaks through his ear piece. “Nerds, we have her. She’s okay.”
Oakley’s eyes widen, and her lip wobbles as she steps forward hesitantly. Grayson being Grayson, he opens his arms, and she immediately seeks comfort in them. “I did it. I did it. I didn’t use. I spit it out. I did it. I did it.” She keeps repeating the phrase over and over as Grayson comforts her and tells her she did amazing.
“Check the next room. I’ll stay with Oakley,” Grayson tells us.
Ryker and I move to the next door, and before we open it, he grabs my arm. “If she isn’t in there—”
“I know, brother.”
We walk in and scan the room, both of us not even having the energy to be angry as we find the room empty.
“Guys!” Grayson calls, and we both run out of the room towards him.
Oakley, who looks much calmer now, frantically begins talking. “I heard some of them talking about another girl. She wasn’t in the van with them. Maybe that was Harley? Maybe whoever has her didn’t bring her?”
“Can you track the vans?” Ryker asks Grayson. He nods, and we all run back upstairs as Grayson starts talking to Nerds through the ear piece. As we get outside, he reads off the license plate numbers of each van.
“I can’t do this another day, Cade,” Ryker whispers brokenly as he faces away from me, trying to hide the fear and heartbreak I know is showing on his face. His mask is falling.
I don’t tell him he can. I don’t say we have to. Because the truth is, I can’t either. I can’t even pretend to, because the more time that goes by, the more I feel someone pulling my soul from my chest and burning it to ash.
Ryker
As the truck speeds down the open roads towards a small town in Virginia where the van that is owned by a guy Sugar remembered from the old days of the club, my heart pounds against my chest.
She’s there. She’s there. If I just keep telling myself that, I won’t feel like I want to end it all if she isn’t. This is enough. I don’t want to do this anymore. The unknown is killing me day by day. The fear of someone I have seen as a father and my soulmate being gone makes me want to blackout in rage.
Bikes and trucks from everyone at the SOS club race with us as we get closer and closer. “What if–” Grayson begins, but I cut him off, knowing what he was going to say.
“No. We don’t go through everything we have been through to just lose our soul like this. This is not the end. It’s fucking not,” I seethe.
It can’t be the end.
As we pull up to a large two story home, I leap out of the truck and fire at the men standing outside. As they fall to the ground, I can feel my pulse race faster and faster.
Going inside, Sugar calls for us all to split up. Noah, Gray, Cade, and I all run down the stairs to the basement, where we don’t find anyone standing guard and begin kicking down the doors.
Come on, little flame. Where are you?
Lifting my foot, I kick open the next door, and time stops.
So many things run through me as I lose all control and take him to the ground. My fists collide with his face over and over again, never stopping, even as my arms begin to ache. I thrive in the pain, let it push me forward as the image of him laying on top of my little flame naked is forever burned into my mind.
Don’t stop. Why would he do this?
Kill him. How could he?
Make him bleed.
He will die by my hands, and nothing will stop me as I continue to let out every emotion I have felt over the last month onto him.
Never again. No more mercy. They all die.