Chapter 10 Blaze #3
Pandora’s expression darkens, and she sits up to loom over me. “Tell me, Blaze. What did you do with Samantha? Where did Zayden drop her off?” She reaches for her bright prink sweater. She must have taken it off while planning all this. Pandora pulls something out of the pocket.
A knife.
She presses the blade against my throat. “Who murdered Rachel? You have to know!”
Rachel?
That’s the same person River had been looking for.
I swallow and stay still, conscious of the very sharp blade pushed up against my skin. “Pandora… I’m not… I don’t know—”
“Stop lying!” Pandora shouts. “I saw all the videos! The photos of the girls! Who do you take them to?”
“What are you talking about?” Asch asks. He’s tucked his cock away, and he’s standing several paces behind Pandora. “What girls?”
Pandora sits up and points the knife at Asch.
“Are you playing innocent? You’re telling me you don’t know what the Bouchards do?
Some bodyguard you are.” She starts giggling.
“Uncle Slayer and I noticed the pattern, a few girls disappearing every year. Not important ones. Not people anyone would miss. The ones who would naturally drop out, or weren’t full students.
The ones whose parents think their daughters are delinquents or worthless or should just fucking get married already because what other point is there to a woman, right? ”
I pull on the rope tying the cuffs to the bed and glance at Asch. “Asch! Untie me!”
“I know they deal in sex, but they don’t sell women,” Asch says, ignoring me, but he sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than Pandora. “You’d probably find them working for the clubs in New Valence.”
“Asch!” I hiss. “She’s fucking cr… Look, I’m sorry I called you my subordinate. Just get me out of here before she fucking murders me!”
Pandora’s head whips in my direction. Her eyes are wild, her grin stretched all the way up her cheeks.
“Murder you? But Blaze, torture is more fun. You should have seen what I did to Zayden. He was still alive when I sawed off his first leg.” She lowers the knife to my chest and draws a thin line parallel to the cut she’d given me a week ago.
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Blaze. But maybe I can open up your chest. Take a look at your beating heart.
Do you think it would fit in my chest? To fill the empty space I have there. ”
I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about, but my chest rises and falls unevenly. I try to stay calm. I try not to imagine how Zayden would have looked.
I wish I’d been there to help her.
I wish I hadn’t driven her to it.
And despite how terrified I am right now, despite how dangerous everything is…
Pandora is so fucking beautiful like this, bent over me with her knife, licking the drops of blood from my chest.
“What the fuck is going on here?” comes a voice from the door.
River.
He’ll get me out of this mess.
“River! Grab Pandora!” I order.
Pandora sits up to look in his direction, and somehow her grin gets even wider.
“River! I figured it out! I mean, not all of it. Blaze won’t tell me the details.
But I found the profiles of the girls, the ones they probably send to their clients.
Rachel must have been one of them! Help me cut Blaze up so he’ll finally tell me what I need to know.
” She traces one of my ribs with her fingers.
“I can make a new charm out of his bones.”
Bile threatens to rise in my throat.
“You want my rib?” I ask, my heart hammering in my chest. “That’s too big for a charm.”
Shit. Where did River leave his finger bones? I can get them back to Pandora to make peace with her. That would calm her down, right?
“Yeah, a little too big,” River says, and he sounds so rational when he continues, “I’m sure he’ll talk.” He crosses the room to look down at me. “Wow. Looks like you got wrecked.”
“Asch!” I plead.
Asch huffs out a laugh. “Oh, now you want my help?” he asks, finally seeming to unfreeze from the moment.
This is why I don’t want you near Pandora, I think.
Asch doesn’t know how to handle the real violence, the true darkness of the world.
River wraps his arms around Pandora, and she lets him easily. She even turns in his arms to kiss his jaw, knife still in hand.
“River, River,” Pandora murmurs. “You’ll help me, right? You want revenge for Rachel too.”
“I don’t know who Rachel is!” I shout. “But if you let me go, I’ll find out, okay? I’ll figure out what happened to her!”
“I do want revenge,” River agrees, his hand sliding down her arm until his fingers encircle the wrist of the hand holding the knife. “But I want revenge on the person who did it to her. If we carve Blaze up, we’ll never find out who that was.”
“Exactly!” Pandora presses her head against his chest, her eyes still on me. “You’re being a big scaredy cat for no reason, Blaze. I wasn’t going to murder you.” She lets out a soft sigh. “I knew you didn’t want to hurt me. Perfect Blaze. And now you’ll help me!”
I nod quickly. I also give River a pointed look, imploring him to untie me already.
Never mind that I’m here with my cock out and my shirt pushed up my chest.
“There we go,” River says calmly. “Let me have the knife, Pandora. I’ll trade you your charm for it, yeah? Then we can all settle down and talk this out.”
Asch’s eyes are intent upon me, but he doesn’t speak.
“Oh! Yes, please!” Pandora trails the knife along River’s arm. “I’ve missed it so much. Having a piece of you, with me… I wish I had a piece of all of you.”
She really is insane.
I stay perfectly still while River leads Pandora out of the room…
with me still cuffed and tied to the bed.
Once they’re out, I shimmy upright and glare down at the rope.
I could probably untie the end attached to the bed.
The cuffs have a snap that’s difficult, but not impossible, to reach while they’re on.
I glare in Asch’s direction. “So are you helping me or just standing around?”
“Why should I help you?” Asch asks, crossing his arms against his chest. “I don’t even know you, Blaze.”
The hurt slams into me, but I bury it quickly, focusing on my anger instead. “Don’t know me? What the fuck. We’ve been friends since middle school. Are you really going to throw all of that away because of Pandora?”
“You’ve been lying to me for years,” Asch replies, his voice quiet, and I can hear the mirrored hurt in it.
“You were never going to tell me about the… the scholarships.” He laughs again, bitter and hard.
“And selling women? What the fuck is she even talking about, Blaze? Is that why you don’t want me to be part of the family business? It goes that far beyond prostitution?”
“Untie me first,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m not talking about anything while I’m bound and my cock is out.”
He crosses over, and he pushes my cock back into my underwear before pulling up my pants. He zips them up, then takes a step back. “That’s all you get for now. I want answers, Blaze.”
“It’s not about the women,” I say. “Some do end up as prostitutes. But it’s about power and influence. And that’s all I’m saying. You aren’t…” I fumble for the words. “I’m trying to protect you, okay? If Pandora can get under your skin so easily, then clearly—”
“Excuse me?” Asch snaps. “You think she’d be able to get under my skin like this if you hadn’t been lying to me the entire time we’ve been… been… God, we haven’t even been friends.”
“You’re my best friend!” I shout. “What shit has she been feeding you?”
“Were you ever going to tell me about my dad?” he demands. “Your family’s been building up leverage against me all this time, and you never bothered to warn me. Do you really think your father was going to… what? Let me walk away from all of this?”
“If you don’t want any of this, then why the hell were you so pissy when I told you to get a fucking normal job after we graduate?” I start undoing the knot around the bed, which isn’t even that secure. If I’d struggled more, I might have been able to get it loose while they were fucking me.
“I did want this!” he snarls at me, watching me as I unfasten the knot.
“I wanted to be there to protect you, and keep you safe from your own fucking self. I was just stupid, that’s all.
But don’t worry. I won’t be that dumb again.
And you don’t have to worry about me and my messes.
I’m getting a real job and getting the fuck out as soon as I can. ”
Asch storms out of the room.
“Fine!” I yell back at him. “Don’t let the fucking door hit you on the way out!”
I hear his bedroom door slam down the hall.
“I don’t need you anyway,” I mutter as I try to unsnap the cuffs.
I have to stay angry.
I need to focus.
I can’t break down because of a stupid little fight.
This is for the best anyway.
This way, I’ll never have to worry about anybody delivering Asch’s head in a box.