Chapter 79 Kashton #2
I sit huddled in the corner of the cell, my knees to my chest and my forehead resting on them.
“You fucking bitch,” the man growls, and I try to make myself smaller, pushing my naked body into the wall.
“You can’t stop him,” the woman tells the Lord as the door creaks when he opens her cell door.
He just found their son down here and dragged him off. I was hoping Cyrus wouldn’t return but he has.
“If you’d quit entertaining him, he’d stop coming to see you,” he yells before I hear him slapping her.
I flinch, my body trembling.
“He’ll never be like you,” she screams. “He’ll never be a monster.”
I lift my head and look through the bars to see her on her bloody knees and him looming over her in her cell across from mine.
“I’ll tell you what, you worthless whore.
Next time he comes to visit you, I’ll kill you right in front of him.
Maybe that’s what the boy needs. Yeah, he needs to be disciplined.
He needs to be taught a lesson. And I’ll start with you.
” He exits her cell, slamming the bars shut and locking her inside.
He goes to walk away but spots me in the opposite cell. I scramble to press my back into the wall when he opens it.
“Leave her alone,” she screams.
He laughs, grabbing my hair and yanking me from the wall. “Did Daddy put you in time-out?” He yanks his belt from his pants and drags me over to the door. He wraps it around my wrists and pulls me to my feet. He ties his belt around the bar above my head.
“You fucking bastard,” she screams over my sobs. “Leave her alone. She’s a child.”
“She’s going to be our whore.” He tangles my hair and shoves my cheek into the bars. “Aren’t you, bitch?” He slaps my ass, and I try to crawl through the bars to get away from him, but there’s nowhere for me to go.
His laughter fills the cell before he yanks open the door and closes it, leaving me tied to it.
He walks over to the woman and spits on her and then leaves us alone.
Tears and snot run down my face as I stand on my tiptoes, trying to free my wrists. When I do, I scramble to the back wall and pull my knees to my chest.
She falls onto her hands and lets out a blood-curdling scream that makes my ears ring.
Her fists pound the floor, and each time, the pieces of broken light bulb cut her.
After a few minutes, she falls back against the wall, and her tear-filled eyes meet mine.
“He’s a good boy,” she tells me. “He’s going to be a good man. ”
I hate to tell her but no one in this hell walks away holy.
“He’ll be nothing like his father. I’ll make sure of it.” Reaching out, she picks up a piece of glass.
I get to my hands and knees and crawl across the cell. “No. Don’t—”
“That bastard is a man of his word, and I will not be the reason my son turns into his father. I’d rather break his heart.” Her watery eyes fall to the glass in her hand. “Sometimes you have to hurt the one you love.” She repeats what she’d told him when he was down here earlier.
Blue eyes are on mine as she reaches up and runs the tip of the glass along her neck, sacrificing herself.
I blink. Harsh light has me lifting my hand to try and cover my eyes.
Groaning, I close them and let out a deep breath. “Fuck.” My chest hurts. Why does it feel like something is sitting on top of me? My hand goes to remove the bulletproof vest, thinking it’s still on, but there’s nothing there.
“He-hello?” I ask roughly. My throat is sore, and my body is sluggish.
Looking to my right, I see a bag hanging that has a tube connected to my arm. It’s an IV.
Where am I?
I manage to sit up, and the room sways. My hands go to my temples, and I press on them, trying to calm my breathing. My heart is racing, and that pressure on my chest is getting heavier.
“Kash-ton?” I clear my throat. Fuck, why is it so sore? Am I at Carnage? Somewhere in the building I’ve never seen before?
Crawling out of bed, I get to my shaking feet and wobble like a newborn giraffe, trying to remind my legs how to work.
I’ve never been so weak in my life. I slowly pull the IV from my arm and see a gown draped over the end of the bed.
I pick it up and gently slide my arms into it because I’m naked. Then I take a quick glance at my body.
I’ve got bandages and bruises all over that I can see, and I can’t put much pressure on my right leg, but I have to find Kashton. Did they kidnap me? The last thing I remember was lying on the floor in the cathedral, bleeding out, with a gun pointed at my face.
Tying off the gown in the front, I make it to the door.
Opening it up, I look left and right to see a dimly lit hallway. Nothing but concrete walls, but there’s a door at the end on the right. I have a moment of panic that it’s Dollhouse. That they dragged me here and Kashton is being tortured in another room.
Everything was for nothing. I refuse to let them get away with this.
What has Kashton done? I’m the one who was killing Lords.
I’m the one who reported the video to Bill, alerting him to the fact that Haidyn was trapped in Dollhouse by Isabella.
That led to the halt of Dollhouse. No one else would want to run that hell.
My heart races as I let the door close behind me and lean up against the wall to help keep me upright. I could use my gun, but I didn’t see it anywhere. They must have stripped me naked and saved my life just to make me watch them take my husband’s.
After a second, I pull up the gown, trying to get a better look at why I’m so slow and out of breath. I see stitches in my thigh and more in my arm.
Have I been drugged? Was that what was in the IV? With a quick glance around the hallway, I don’t see any red bulbs.
How long have I been out? Did I save Kashton? Is he in the clear? What if everything I did was for nothing and they hurt him? I left my cell at Barrington, so I don’t have any way to contact him, and there wasn’t one in the room I woke up in.
I hear a phone ringing at the end of the hall on the other side of the only door. Pushing off the wall, I grit my teeth from the sharp pain that runs up my side and push on, dragging my right leg behind me.
I put my hand on the knob. Turning it softly, I push it open just enough to peer inside it.
“Hello?” I see a familiar face answer the cell that sits on a desk. What the fuck am I doing with him?
“I need you to come home.” I know that voice too. It’s Saint on the other end of the call.
“I can’t do that,” Adam says, falling into his chair. The top three buttons are undone on his button-down. He’s sans tie, sleeves rolled up, and he’s got a rag in his hands while cleaning off the blood that covers them.
“I don’t ask you for much. If anything,” Saint snaps, and then he lowers his tone. “But I need you. We all need you.”
“I’m sorry, Saint—”
“Haidyn has spent days in the basement. Days, Adam,” he growls.
“If I have to hear that damn ‘Hallelujah’ song one more time, I’m going to cut my fucking ears off.
” Saint sighs. “And I honestly don’t know what the fuck he’s doing down there because Kash killed most of our prisoners. We don’t have many left.”
Kashton. Thank God. He’s alive. Happy tears sting my eyes. He’s at Carnage. Safe. I can’t wait to see him. But if I’m not there, where am I? And why?
“Have Charlotte help keep him busy—”
“Charlotte is pregnant with triplets,” Saint growls. “She can barely get out of bed at the moment. The poor thing can’t even keep down saltines. She is not capable of keeping her husband busy right now.”
Adam runs his now somewhat clean hands through his hair aggressively, then looks over to the right and shrugs.
I push the door open just a tad bit more to see who he’s looking at, and it’s Bill sitting in a chair.
What the fuck is going on? I want to storm in, but something is telling me to stay quiet. Plus, my moves are sluggish already. Storming in is going to be a problem.
“It’ll be okay,” Adam assures him.
Saint snorts. “Kash is gone, Adam. Nothing here is okay.”
“What do you mean gone?” Adam sounds concerned, but his face doesn’t show it, causing me to frown.
“That’s why I’m calling you. After we buried Eve, he went fucking postal, Adam.”
Buried Eve? What the fuck is he talking about? I’m right here.
“Then he just left,” Saint goes on at Adam’s silence. “He packed a backpack and jumped on his bike. Haidyn tried to follow him, but he couldn’t keep up.”
“Find him,” Adam suggests, leaning back in his chair, getting comfortable.
“What the fuck do you think we’re doing?” Saint snaps. “He never replaced his tracker. Hell, for all we know he took a corner too fast and is lying dead in a ditch somewhere.” He lowers his voice. “Sin and Ryat have been looking for him for over a week.”
Week? How long have I been here? Where the fuck is here? Why am I not with my husband? I look down at my left hand and notice I’m shaking and that my wedding ring is gone. I was wearing it when I entered the cathedral. If I was going to die, I was going to die as Mrs. Pierce.
A silence lingers between them, and I take a deep breath before I shove the door open. Two sets of eyes snap to mine. Adam immediately jumps to his feet.
“Sa-int.” My voice is rough as I rush to the desk.
“Eve?” he barks.
“It’s me,” I say through the knot in my throat and pick up the cell before they can stop me. “I’m…alive. I’m here,” I rush out, trying to get as much information to him as possible. Maybe he knows where Adam is, and that will lead them to me. I turn and run toward the door.
“What the fuck are you doing, Adam?” Saint shouts and then softens his voice. “Eve where are you?”
All hope I had vanishes, and my stomach drops.
Of course Adam is hiding out. “I don’t know.
” An arm wraps around me from behind before I reach the door, and I scream, trying to fight them.
“Please…Saint. Find Kashton. Tell him—” I cry out when a hand tightly grips my wrist, causing me to drop the phone.
“Adam?” Saint shouts.
Adam bends down to pick up the cell.
“What the fuck—”
He ends the call, cutting off Saint. “Fuck,” he curses, tossing the phone across the room.
“Get her back to her room,” Bill demands, handing me over to Adam.
“No.” I fight him, but it does no good.
He lifts me off my already shaking legs and carries me back to the room I escaped from. He shouts for someone before tossing me onto the bed, and a guy I don’t know enters.
“Yes, sir?”
“Restraints. Now,” he orders.
“Adam,” I try to reason with him. “I have to see Kash. He thinks I’m dead.”
“You need to rest,” he tells me. His voice is gentle, but his hands aren’t as he holds me down in the bed while the gown rips open. I don’t even care.
The guy pulls restraints out from underneath the bed, and I scream and fight, but they easily get my wrists secured by my sides and then my ankles.
“Catheter and feeding tube. Now. They should have never been removed,” Adam snaps and then adds, “She will not leave this bed until I say. Understand?”
“Yes. Yes, sir,” the guy agrees, nodding quickly.
I’m gasping for breath when Adam pushes my wild hair from my face. His eyes are full of concern as they look over me. “This is what you wanted, Eve.”
I shake my head, and snot runs from my nose.
He nods. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
“My husband…needs me,” I sob, trying to breathe. He’s out there all alone.
I feel a sting in my arm and look to see a new IV has been started. Then I shiver when something cold fills my body, making me instantly relax into the bed. “Kash—” My tongue feels swollen, and I can’t get his name out.
“It’s okay, Eve,” Adam repeats, then looks at the guy. “You do not leave this room.”
My eyes get heavy, and I have a problem keeping them open. Saint said Kashton has been gone a week? How long before I see him? Another week? Two? A month? I need to be with him right now.
“Get some rest. We’ll talk soon.”
It’s the last thing I hear before the darkness swallows me.