Chapter 2 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
T he sharp sound of a breath in my ear woke me, my limbs jerking against a hard wall. An even harder floor.
Streaky light slashed across my eyes, and I grunted, squeezing them shut only to force them open again, panic swelling in my chest as the feeling returned to my bones.
I pushed my back flush against the wall I’d been dumped against, blinking rapidly to force my eyes to see. The persistent rush of adrenaline in my bloodstream helped burn off whatever shit still clogged my veins, making everything feel sluggish. Forced. Harder than it should’ve been.
Pain ricocheted through my thigh when I tried to claw my way up the wall to standing, making me sink back down to land hard on my ass, a dizziness making my breaths come heavier.
“ Fuck ,” I slurred, my surroundings dipping and spinning in a wild dance around me as they tried to come into focus.
Black spots bloomed in front of me like shadows come to life, and I weakly threw an arm out, trying to shove them back.
I coughed, the weak, wet sound of it rattling my lungs.
A room. I was in a room.
No. A box.
The thing in my chest squeezed at the sight of the gray walls. Four. In a square. No windows. A solid ceiling. A cold cement floor.
A door.
I pushed through the pain in my thigh, dragging my body in a sad attempt at a crawl, cursing the whole way as I tried to kick off the last of the drugs still in my system like a heavy blanket keeping me down.
I slapped a palm against the cool metal of the door, my forehead connecting next as I craned my neck to look up at the smooth surface. Entirely smooth.
No door handle.
No window.
I let my hand fall down the thin seam of the door.
No hinges.
No big deal.
There was always a way out.
Always.
My body seemed to disagree with me, my chest rising and falling faster, fingers vibrating with a tremor that coursed all the way up both arms.
Drake.
My slow mind slogged to catch up, piecing together everything that led me to this fucking box.
I remembered him. Drake. The wind tugging at his hair as we sped through the Deadwood. The malice in his eyes when he plunged a syringe into my leg. When he told me he hoped Corvus died.
Bones…
Oh god.
Grey.
The searing memory of him lying amid the carnage at the Docks, Rook bent over him, screaming. Screaming so fucking loud as he pressed his palms against Grey’s chest over and over.
He’d woken, but that didn’t mean he was okay.
And Corvus. I’d seen Diesel speed past like a bat out of fucking hell. And Drake said…
I couldn’t believe anything Drake said.
Corvus was probably fine.
He would be fine.
He had to be.
None of them could die because of me.
Why hadn’t I just listened?
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
My fault. My fault .
I clenched my teeth so hard I heard them click in protest, my fist shaking as I beat it against the door, heat rising in my face.
“Open this fucking door,” I shouted, my voice hoarse and breaking. “You fucking coward!”
I listened for a reply, my heart a jackhammer against my ribcage. The darkness within pooled, sparking with rage.
I beat the door again, the hit reverberating down my arm. “ Hey! ”
Again. “ Hey! ”
Drake was a dead man. If that was even his name.
He could keep this door locked all he wanted. They would come for me.
They would come for me, right?
My stomach turned and a stinging ravaged my throat, bringing hot tears to my eyes.
Would they?
After what I’d done?
The darkness drained away, taking with it the last dregs of adrenaline still pulsing through me.
I wouldn’t come for me.
The truth settled in my stomach like lead. “I’m on my own.”
My eyes traveled the four walls, no more than seven feet in length each. The gray color wasn’t painted. Not cement, I realized, squinting through the remaining haze still making the edges of my vision foggy.
I winced, pulling myself to the side to push my hand against the nearest wall. The spongy surface cushioned my fingers.
A padded cell?
No.
This wasn’t padding. Not the kind you’d find in an insane asylum. I’d seen foam like this before. On the walls of the closet in Corvus’ bedroom. In the little recording studio he’d built there. Soundproofing.
Wherever I was, Drake worried someone might hear me.
I dug my fingernails into the foam, the shush sound of it splitting as I peeled it from the wall making me shiver.
“Hey!” I shouted again, coughing.
I didn’t stop there, making myself move, I frantically began tearing all the foam from the walls, ripping it off in great swaths and little chunks where it was glued down more heavily.
I screamed as I worked. As the foam piled on the floor at my feet and I had to kick through it, rushing to do the next wall, and the next, ignoring the way my body protested the movements.
Ignoring the screaming pain in my thigh until I couldn’t anymore, growling as I collapsed to my knees, a sharp cry on my lips as the impact tore something.
I pressed a hand to my leg and it came away red.
For the first time, I noticed the way my pants were hanging off my one leg.
Torn from my ankle all the way up past my knee.
The once white bandage wrapped tightly around my thigh was now stained every shade of red with blood.
It was too much for the bandage to contain anymore and ran in wispy streaks down my leg.
I felt around my thigh, pressing gingerly on the exit wound around the other side.
Through and through.
Right.
I remembered.
But I didn’t remember how this bandage got here.
Or the wiry ridge of stitches I could feel poking through the soiled gauze.
What else hadn’t I felt?
I swallowed back bile, grimacing.
Somewhere outside the door, the loud clamor of another slamming shut echoed into the room.
Shit!
I got back to my feet, holding back a sound of pain as I spun through the foam, looking for something. Anything to use aside from the spongy material that would do nothing to help me unless I wanted to start a fucking pillow fight with a sadistic fuck like Drake.
My necklace. My hands flew to my chest, to the black diamond resting there. No. The dainty chain wouldn’t be strong enough.
My gaze caught on the hem of my black dress, and I remembered the laces running up the back.
Heavy footsteps rang in my ears from somewhere far off, getting nearer.
I let my ass fall onto the pillow of foam and wasted no time twisting my arms behind me to the point of pulling them from their sockets, tugging the laces free.
My fingers plucked and pulled until I had the full length of thin cord between my hands.
I grinned, scrambling backward to the wall where the door was until I was close enough to use it to aid me in standing.
The bones of my back pressed flat against the tacky wall just next to the door, and I held my breath, winding the lace around each fist, pulling the length between them taut, praying it was strong enough.
I shook my head, practically foaming at the mouth as the darkness woke once more, pushing back at the drugs trying to drag me down.
I won’t kill him , I decided. That would be too easy.
Just choke him out, the darkness whispered. So we can play with him later.
Yes.
I smiled despite the whisper of my sanity begging to be heard as we threw it in a closet and locked the fucking door.
The steady rhythm of his strides in the hall meant he hadn’t heard me screaming. Didn’t know I was awake. That I was ready for him.
If I didn’t take him down now, I doubted he would give me the opportunity of taking another stab at him. Not if he was as smart as he seemed to be.
It was a wonder he even left me with the laces in my dress. Either he needed to take off quickly, or he didn’t expect me to wake up before he returned. Either way, his mistake.
His fucking funeral.
I stretched the cord between my fists, closing my eyes as his footfalls approached the door. Swallowed and breathed deep through my nose to calm my galloping heart.
An electronic chirp. A click.
The door swept open and he stepped in, his back going rigid at the foamy carnage coating the floor. His momentary shock was enough to take him by surprise.
I cried out as I launched at him, the pain in my leg forgotten as I wrapped them around his middle the same time I pulled the cord tight around his neck, dragging my fists back and down as though if I just pulled hard enough I could take his head clean off his shoulders.
He choked, clawing at his neck, his hard body flexing with bone and muscle as he fought to shake me off. The acrid scent of rotting limes filling my nose, making me gag.
I twisted my fists behind his neck, feeling the cord cut into my flesh.
“ Come on ,” I hissed in his ear. “ Go to sleep, motherfucker. ”
My stomach lurched as he pushed us backward until my back connected with the wall, a sliver where there was still enough foam to cushion the blow, but still the air left my lungs in a gush and I fought to maintain my hold on the cord, stars in my eyes.
He spluttered, almost no sound escaping his lips as he hunched, pressing his neck harder into the cord before he slammed me back again.
My sight darkened as the back of my skull connected with the sticky cement wall and my fists loosened, fingers slipping as I was thrown, my body flipping over Drake’s to bounce hard on the foamy floor.
Somewhere, he was coughing. I could feel him, his nearness as I fought with everything I had to come out of the semi-unconscious state, trying to see through the black. To feel through the numbness.
No.
No.
I reached out blindly, wavering as I found my feet, claws slashing, ready to tear his face clean from his skull.
“ Come at me ,” I screeched, the pitch of my own voice painful in my ears.
He did, the blackness abating just enough for me to dodge his attack and land a violent hit to the back of his neck, sending him careening forward to catch himself on the wall.
I slid my right leg behind me, lowering my body in a fighting stance as he turned back to me. I launched into a full attack before he could make his first move, but he deftly deflected my advance and suddenly there were two of him. The twin Drakes moving together and apart and together again.
“Stop,” he growled hoarsely, and his voice in my ears only spurred the darkness into a feral frenzy.
I attacked again, and he knocked me away.
“You’ve lost too much blood, Angel,” he continued, shoving me hard enough to send me to the floor on my next advance. I pushed myself up on my arms and the traitorous things shook beneath me, my palms slipping on something wet and thick beneath the foam.
Blood. It was blood. My blood.
I glanced down, finding my leg entirely red with it. A puddle of crimson forming in the foam around my knee.
Shit.
It didn’t matter.
I roared as I went for his ankle in the tight space, pulling it in a sharp motion to make him fall.
His back connected with the ground for barely a second before he was pulling his ankle away, pulling me through the foam, flipping me onto my back, my wrists pinned as I stared half consciously into his brown eyes.
“Stop fighting,” he roared.
“ Never ,” I growled, spitting into his face.
He released my wrist, and I struck his nose, crunching it under my palm, but not before I felt the familiar sting of a needle sliding out of my neck.
NO.
A scalding tear rolled from the edge of my eye and down into my hairline as I felt the warm gush of whatever he injected me with sliding down my collarbone and into my chest. Filling me with a numbness so complete I thought it might paralyze my lungs. That I may not be able to breathe.
Was I breathing?
My vision doubled again, and I fought to hold onto consciousness.
“I miscalculated the dose last time.” Drake’s voice spoke to me as though from another dimension, coming across muffled as though spoken through cotton.
“That won’t happen again,” he promised as my heavy eyelids blinked up at the ceiling and my mouth fell slack.
My leg was moved and distantly, from the feel of pressure alone, I discerned that he was removing my panties.
Tugging at my dress.
“Clothes are a privilege, Angel.”
“I’ll kill you,” I tried to tell him, but the words came out a garbled, wet moan.
“Hush. You need rest.”
He slipped the black diamond necklace from my neck.
“Mother… fucker…”
My eyes crossed and the last strings tethering my mind to my body snapped, leaving me to fall back into the dark.