Chapter 23
Lynn
“Plucking my eyelashes out one by one would be more fun than this,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my leather jacket and scuffing the glossy white floor of the clothes store with my heavy boots. I’d been dragged here against my will.
“Come on, Lynn,” Jessia chided, knocking her shoulder into mine.
The only reason I didn’t scratch her eyes out was because we were friends and she’d earned my trust. Plus, it was hard to attack someone who was so good and full of sunshine.
I couldn’t fight a woman who wore a peach, flowery sundress. “This whole day is to cheer you up.”
“I don’t need cheering up,” I muttered.
She ignored that. “You might even find something you like. This shop is so big, there must be something black and spiky here for you.”
ChaCha interrupted my snarky response with a whistle from a few aisles away. She held up a wine-red dress with a deep boob slit and an even higher thigh slit. “Do you think I could kill Sweetie with this?”
Dreamer barked a laugh where he stood against a mirror surveying the shop, arms crossed over his giant chest, his bulldog face transforming from gruff frown into a gruff smile.
I snorted, relaxing whether I liked it or not.
Sure, shopping was boring as shit, and I already had enough clothes, but I liked these women.
I’d endure hours of brain-numbing shit for them.
They adopted me at my worst, and stuck with me through my healing, never once judging me for my insecurities, fear, or trauma.
They judged me for everything else, sure, but that shit was mutual.
“That’s a cardiac arresting dress,” I told ChaCha, Jessia nodding vigorously in agreement.
Jessia grabbed a black vest with a pink cat holding a knife on it, and despite myself I smirked when she jiggled it at me. “Now, I know there’s pink on this top, but I promise it won’t kill you.” The jiggling intensified. “It’s your size,” she sang.
“Fine,” I groaned. It reminded me of the horrifically cute avatars Cobra always chose when we gamed. I sighed, my shoulders drooping.
“No,” Jessia huffed, thrusting the vest into my hand. “Nope. We agreed not to talk or think about him today. I can tell you’re breaking that rule, Lynn.”
“You’re a mind reader now?”
“Yes.” She nodded, her brown waves dancing around her face. “No Cobra talk, no Cobra thoughts. I’m not letting you be sad and sulky today; this is our day.”
“Where you torture me by dragging me from shop to shop and eventually reward me with food?”
She beamed. “There, see, you do understand.”
If she wasn’t so nice, I would have rammed my elbow into her ribs. Proving how nice she was, she squeezed my hand. It was a warm, reassuring touch. “We’re just worried about you, Lynn. This argument will blow over in a few days like they always do, but I hate seeing you upset.”
“I’m not upset,” I argued.
She raised an eyebrow. “It’s okay to be upset when you’ve had an argument with your boy—friend.”
“Nice save,” I drawled.
Jessia closed one eye in a wince. “You get my point. No sad talk, even though it’s completely okay to be sad and you should really tell us what happened so we can help. Now, let’s find some more cute and stabby clothes for you. ChaCha!”
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” ChaCha replied from a pile of clothes, holding up a denim skirt. “Is this too slutty?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that shit,” I said.
“You’re right, I don’t. I’m gonna try all these on while the shop’s quiet.”
Huh, she was right. I could hear people chatting near the register, but back here it was blissfully empty of anyone except us. And if I had to admit it, at gunpoint, I was having a good time.
Dreamer pushed off the wall—the mirror wobbled in panic at the sudden movement but managed to stay put—and followed ChaCha to guard the dressing room. If I thought that meant we were off the hook, I was immediately proven wrong when he grunted and angled his head for us to follow.
I sighed, linked my arm with Jessia’s and trudged after him. I’d changed my mind. I hated shopping. Standing around while ChaCha tried on her small mountain of clothes sounded as appealing as watching paint try.
Jessia batted her lashes at Dreamer. “Can’t I just look at that rail there.” She pointed at one visible through the curtain of the changing room area.
His face didn’t shift. “No.”
“Pleeease. You’ll be able to see me.”
I’d never seen the bulldog’s expression soften before. It was only in small increments—his eyes lost their hard edge, and his frowning mouth became more of a flat line. “You stay in my line of sight at all times.”
Jessia beamed. “I will. Promise. Come on, Lynn.”
She snagged my elbow and strong-armed me over to a circular rail of clothes I had very little interest in. Jessia laughed at my expression and picked out a pink top edged in marabou feathers. “You would look so darling in this.”
I narrowed my eyes. Two could play at that game. “This is so your colour, darling.” The top I held up was a shade of yellow I could only describe as BIC highlighter, and to make matters worse it was trimmed in big, gold sequins.
She laughed, a pealing sound that loosened some of the anxiety in my chest I could never shake when I left the compound. Like the universe was itching to prove me right, a shadow came around my side. Before I could react, a sweaty hand slammed over my nose and mouth, muffling my shout of surprise.
My eyes widened, panic clattering through my heartbeats when I saw a guy had grabbed Jessia too, silencing her with his hand over her mouth just like the fucker who thought he could grab me. The panic in her eyes drove through my heart like a spike.
I threw my head back, rammed my elbow into the bastard’s ribs.
Another muffled cry left me when my elbow throbbed.
I’d been aiming for the soft, fleshy bits lower down, hoping to hit a kidney, but all I’d done was piss him off.
His scent hit my nose, beta but blackened, bitter like acrid waste, and my panic turned to true, icy fear at the scent.
How many atrocities had he committed, to have a scent as warped and dark as that?
Cobra and Tybalt literally tortured people, and didn’t smell as noxious.
“Dreamer,” I screamed through his hand, throwing my weight back into the beta and managing to knock him back a few steps.
I pushed my advantage, jumping off the floor and trying to use my weight to unseat his grip like we’d practised in Justice’s self-defence classes, but he took advantage of me being unbalanced to secure his grip. The ice spread until I began to shake, adrenaline dumping into my bloodstream.
Jessia was struggling, too, but tears streamed down her face and through the muzzle of the fucker’s hand I could hear her whimpers, her pleas.
I could too easily imagine that fucker snuffing out her bright light, turning her sunshine to darkness.
I screamed against the sweaty hand over my mouth, sank my teeth into the palm, kicked my feet into his shins. My heart turned thunderous in my chest.
I saw her eyes widen a moment before the hands were ripped from my body.
The second I was free, I shoved my hand into my inner pocket, grabbed my penknife, and snapped the blade free.
I hesitated only long enough to see Dreamer charging at the beta who’d grabbed me—tall, white, unremarkable except for a scar that looked like a lightning bolt on his cheek and the ugly flare of his nostrils as he sneered.
Mean, cruel, hideous man. I’d seen his kind over and over at the barn.
I knew what men like him were capable of, even without the excuse of alpha instincts.
As Dreamer rammed his fist into the beta’s ribs, I threw myself at the bald, thuggish man who restrained Jessia. He released her a moment before I swung my knife at him, throwing my friend into the rail hard enough that she cried out.
“Run,” I growled at her, my voice deep, furious, a little powerful.
All the hairs on my arm stood on end as I came close enough to the bald motherfucker to smell his scent.
Alpha, dominant, and every bit as toxic as his partner in crime’s.
Dread turned the ice to shards within my chest, but I still rammed the knife into his side, relief making my arms shake as the blade actually punctured his body. “Run, Jessia!”
She stumbled to her feet but froze, staring as the bald alpha grabbed my arm in his meaty fist and knocked the knife from my hand. Oh, god. Warning crawled up the back of my neck. I threw my hands up in a messy manoeuvre, knocking away his first attempt to grab me but not the second.
His fist cracked across my cheek, and the explosion of pain was violent. Blood trickled down my skin, pain radiating from my cheek to my whole face, dazing me for a few seconds. It was long enough for him to grab my arms and wrangle me against his body.
“Let her go,” Jessia hissed, grabbing a top that had been knocked to the floor and tearing the hanger out, brandishing it like a weapon. I would have smiled at that if a solid thud hadn’t sounded behind us, and I twisted frantically to see if they’d found ChaCha.
“Oh god,” I choked out. It wasn’t ChaCha. Dreamer. They’d slit his throat. Blood spread across the floor, his eyes open, unseeing.
Jessia’s cry came out strangled. She threw herself towards him, but the beta grabbed her around the waist and slung her over his shoulder.
“Let go of her,” I snarled, attacking the alpha who restrained me with everything I had—my fists, my elbows, throwing my head back, kicking out with my boots. “Let her fucking go.”
If they killed Jessia, too…
“Take her to the van, then get the other one,” the alpha ordered his henchman, grunting when my elbow collided with his side. I tried it again, but he shook me, rattling my brain inside my skull, and before I could hit him again, he slammed his fist into my head and everything went dark.