30. Harper
Chapter 30
Harper
Metal clanks against cement.
I jolt awake, hazy and disoriented.
Consciousness is a slippery fish swimming around inside me, unpredictable and difficult to catch. I’m awake, but maybe not for long.
Restrained wrists. Pounding head. Desert-dry throat. An aching pain coming from somewhere below my chest, so sharp it hurts to breathe.
A musty aroma.
The pain clears my mind for just a moment. I don’t know what happened to my rib cage, but I remember what Enzo promised me just before the drugs pulled me under.
He told me the next time we met, he’d introduce me to his dick, that repulsive, wilted organ he shook at me while his accomplice strapped me down to a stretcher.
My insides wither like poisoned plants.
The reality of enduring sexual assault at Enzo’s hands sends me spiraling out of control into a world of panic unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
My body is about to be violated, if Enzo De Luca has anything to say about it. Beyond what’s happened to my torso already.
Cian pops into my mind, and fresh tears wet my closed eyes.
There’s still a thorn or two in my heart.
It’s longing. Bitter, angry, dissatisfied regret.
I never got to tell Cian that I care about him.
At least I got to kiss him, that one last time.
My thigh itches.
Something small—like a fingertip—drags up and down the side of it.
Shock and panic pry me further awake. I’m not alone.
Someone’s here.
Enzo.
I buck against my restraints, and a fresh wave of aching soreness pulses through my body. The pain crushes me flat.
A chuckle brushes over me from somewhere nearby.
“Thank you for my engagement gift.” Enzo’s distorted voice warbles through my ears. “I’ll treasure it always.”
My eyes roll open and closed, adjusting to the semidarkness of the space we’re in. Enzo stands over me, a horrific, too-wide smile plastered to his face.
Between his fingers, he holds a tiny, beige something . He rubs the little thing over and over, like it’s a precious gemstone. What the fuck is that thing?
“See this?” Enzo holds the back of his hand close to my face. Tattoos cover it, but two words stand out, even in my drugged, delirious state.
Bone Breaker.
Right now, my brain’s recovering quicker than the rest of me. My muscle control lags so far behind, I can’t even get my mouth to open.
“Bones are my specialty.” A proud lilt bleeds into his voice. “I break the bones of my enemies. And I take the bones of the people who mean the most to me.”
His proclamation fills me with unwanted, morbid curiosity. Meanwhile, nausea twists my gut.
I pray he stops this unsolicited overshare, before his story time wreaks more havoc on my mental health.
Unsurprisingly, my prayers go unanswered.
“I have quite the collection, actually.” He paces around the stretcher I’m still attached to, coming to stand right over my head. “The bones from my mother’s ring finger. My father’s forehead, his frontal bone. My brother’s left humerus. I broke it once when we were children, so it has sentimental value to me.”
As Enzo lists his collection of human remains, the fear pumping through my system gets strong enough to cut through the drug-induced fog I’m swirling in.
It’s a double-edged sword. The more sober I am, the more possible trying to escape becomes, but also the more the terror rips me to shreds.
Give up , a voice inside me roars. You’re going to die anyway. Don’t fight it. Enjoy the drugs as long as you can. It’ll all be over before you know it.
Other voices plead with me.
They hold up pictures of the people I care about most. My sister. My mom. Bex.
Cian.
“But of all the bones I have, this one is my favorite.” He shows me a white chunk up close, lowering it until the fragment’s only a few inches above my face. “I knew I wanted this one the moment I saw you. The tip of your rib.”
My mind blanks as I struggle to comprehend his meaning. Did he just say, the tip of my rib ?
As in, my actual rib?
Hysterical laughter bubbles up in my throat. Well, I guess that would explain the pain in my chest.
“I’ve been most anxious to meet you in person.” He touches the fragment to the skin of my cheek. “You see, I’ve been watching you for such a long time…”
He did it. He really cut off a piece of my rib.
He digs the sharp edge deeper into my soft flesh until my jaw hurts, then he drags it over my lips.
Enzo De Luca is trying to get me to suck the severed tip of my rib that he removed from my body.
Maybe this is a bad acid trip.
He presses the piece of bone to his own lips. His dark, demented eyes go wild as he opens his own mouth and sucks. I’m going to be sick.
“That beautiful rib cage is the first thing I noticed about you.”
I’ve never been so violated. Astounded by the vileness, hypnotized by the gruesomeness, I’m queasy, broken, and defiled beyond redemption.
Numbness spreads through me like ink, blacking out every part of this moment. I must be losing my mind.
Enzo shifts his focus to something I can’t see.
He disappears from my side, and the last thing I hear before a slamming door are the words, “Move her to my upstairs office.”
I’m drifting again.
Darkness. Hanging, industrial lights. Squeaky metal wheels. Straining leather.
A rickety freight elevator, maybe? Everything swirls together.
This time when I attempt to move my hand, I succeed. Restraints no longer bind me. I wiggle the other hand and succeed with that one too.
Cautious and disbelieving, my trembling fingers migrate to my throat. During my last bit of awareness, a leather strap prevented me from lifting my head. Now, that’s gone too.
What’s happening?
I feel as if I’m waking up all over again, with chemically induced sensations flooding my bloodstream and spreading from limb to limb. My brain is malfunctioning, and the only feedback my body provides at the moment revolves around pain.
Without the restraints strapping me down to this torture trap, one word materializes in my hazy mind.
Escape.
I need to free myself from this nightmare. Or at least try.
Maybe the people guarding me peg me as too out of it to require binding. This might be the only chance I get.
Rolling off the stretcher hurts like hell. I land on my feet, but my weakened legs nearly buckle, and the world dips and spins in a dizzying rush.
Worst of all, my torso burns.
I force the thought away. If I live through this ordeal, I can spend all the time I want fretting about the missing piece of my rib.
For now, my focus needs to remain on surviving.
My legs wobble like spaghetti noodles, too uncoordinated to function. Thankfully, the room appears miraculously empty.
Woozy and out of focus, I stagger to the door and stumble into a wide, shadowy corridor.
Every little movement sends knives slicing through my midsection, but I push forward. One step. Two. Three.
A zillion more to go.
When my pain level ratchets up to a fifteen on a scale of one to ten, I sag against the cement wall for support. Agony steals my breath. I allow myself a few seconds to rest before swaying upright and continuing my sluggish trek. Despite the sharp stabs that accompany every movement, I don’t make a sound. The total sum of my meager energy funnels into pushing me forward.
I have no idea how to find the exit in this place, so I just keep on going. If I put one foot in front of the other, eventually I’ll?—
Sirens start screaming through the halls, echoing back until the entire corridor reverberates with their wails. I shuffle my feet faster, desperate to flee the ear-piercing din.
As I round a corner, my foot snags on a section of uneven flooring. I trip and fall to my knees, nearly blacking out when the impact jars my surgical site.
With every panting breath, white-hot agony shoots into my lungs. I squeeze my hands over my throbbing ears and force myself to weather the moment.
The De Luca soldiers are coming. If they recapture me, they’ll haul me back to Enzo to serve as his guinea pig for more horrifying experiments…or worse.
Now’s the time to dig deep if I want to quit being a victim.
This is my one shot at escape. And for all the people who care about me, who’ve risked their own lives to keep me safe, I need to make it count.
Plus, I can’t die without telling Cian I love him. He deserves that much.