CHAPTER 21 DOWN FOR THE COUNT
Maddy scrambled backward until his spine pressed against the cold metal bars at the back of the cage, his fingernails scraping the concrete floor.
The heavy steel door to the room groaned open on rusted hinges.
His kidnapper's silhouette filled the doorway before the man stepped inside, the door slamming shut with a metallic clang that echoed through Maddy's bones.
The man's eyes had changed—glassy, hungry, with pupils dilated into black pools that consumed the irises. This was it. No more playing .
The man was going to rape him.
A knot of panic grew beneath Maddy's sternum, spreading icy tendrils through his chest until each breath became a shallow gasp. His wrists and ankles, unbound, gave him a fighting chance—unless the man had a gun.
The kidnapper worked the latch of the cage, the metallic click echoing in the concrete room. He crooked his index finger in a beckoning motion. “Come on, boy, it's time to do this.”
Maddy pressed his shoulder blades harder against the bars, feeling each cold cylinder dig into his vertebrae. His mouth went dry.
The kidnapper dropped to a squat, his face level with the cage opening, close enough that Maddy could smell his stale breath. “Resisting will only make it more fun for me... and less fun for you. Now, come on out.”
Maddy swallowed, his heart hammering against his ribs like it might burst through his chest, but his limbs had turned to concrete, refusing every desperate command to move.
“You really want me to get rough? ‘Cause I have no issue with that. I was just trying to be nice. But if you don't want me to be nice…” The corners of his mouth curled upward like a wolf about to devour its prey.
Maddy's throat constricted as if invisible hands were choking him.
The metallic taste of fear coated his tongue while hot tears burned behind his eyelids, transforming the kidnapper's face into a watery, monstrous blur.
His chest heaved with each shallow breath, his training sessions with Cory—hours of combat drills and defensive maneuvers—evaporating like morning dew under the scorching sun of terror.
Think about Angel, Savannah, your dads… they need you to fight back—to come home!
The cage's metal bars pressed cold imprints into his palms as he inched forward on scraped knees, never breaking eye contact with his captor.
The man backed away, boots scraping against concrete, creating just enough space for Maddy to emerge from the cage.
When he finally stood, his legs trembled violently beneath him.
He tried to summon Cory's measured four-count breathing technique, but his lungs seized and spasmed, each breath catching like fabric on barbed wire.
The man's leather jacket hung open, revealing a gleaming black Glock nestled in its holster—a silent warning not to be stupid.
Cold metal cuffs bit into Maddy's wrists as they clicked shut, his trembling hands secured in front of him like an offering.
The kidnapper circled with predatory slowness, his calloused fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake as they traced the contours of Maddy's shoulders, the ridges of his ribs, the hollow at the small of his back.
His muscles contracted involuntarily beneath the unwanted touch, goosebumps rising on his pale skin.
The man paused behind him, pressing his substantial weight against Maddy's back, his breath sour as it dampened the fine hairs on his neck.
Maddy's chest heaved in shallow, rapid bursts as he squeezed his eyes shut, bile rising in his throat when the kidnapper's erection dug into the cleft of his ass through the thin fabric of his underwear.
“I don't know if I can control myself,” the man rasped, his voice like gravel scraping concrete. He buried his nose in Maddy's hair, inhaling deeply as if savoring a delicacy. “Pity for you if I can't.” His roughened hands slid around Maddy's narrow waist and down his quivering stomach.
No… The panic and fear blazed through him like wildfire, propelling him back to the apartment with Wade and Byrd, back to the island.
“It's really your fault if I lose control,” the kidnapper groaned, his voice thick with a hunger that made Maddy's skin crawl.
His hands moved lower with terrible purpose, burrowing beneath the elastic of Maddy's underwear, his calloused palms engulfing Maddy's genitals with a violating intimacy.
A deep, guttural sound—half-growl, half-moan—rumbled from deep within the man's chest, and he squeezed harder, his fingernails digging crescents into tender flesh.
Maddy clenched his teeth until his jaw ached, his eyes clamped so tightly shut that phosphenes sparked behind his eyelids as hot tears pooled there. No... no... don't... Sobs congealed in his throat like cement, threatening to suffocate him as every muscle in his body seized into granite.
The man's breath came in humid, ragged pants against Maddy's ear, guttural grunts punctuating each exhalation.
His calloused palm scraped roughly against Maddy's genitals, fingers digging into tender flesh with bruising force.
His denim-covered erection ground against Maddy's ass, the zipper teeth catching and scraping with each savage, rutting motion.
A strangled sob tore free from Maddy's raw throat.
His vertebrae cracked as the man's sweaty forehead forced his head down, the kidnapper's pulse throbbing visibly at his temple.
The man's pupils had dilated to obsidian pools, his irises mere copper rings around bottomless want as he savored each second of Maddy's terror—a predator toying with wounded prey before the killing lunge.
White-hot pain lanced down Maddy's cervical spine as the man's skull crushed his neck forward at an impossible angle.
The hands grew vicious, fingernails carving into the tender flesh of Maddy's scrotum, making him jerk and whimper involuntarily.
The man's respiration devolved into bestial panting, each exhalation spraying spittle against Maddy's nape.
He's going to fucking RAPE you—DO SOMETHING!!
The scream erupted from some archaic place deep within Maddy's chest, a desperate howl that clawed its way up his throat before he even registered the decision to fight.
In one fluid motion ignited by pure survival instinct, Maddy dropped his head forward and whipped it backward with every ounce of strength he possessed, feeling the satisfying crunch as his skull connected with the bridge of the man's nose.
The impact exploded through Byrne's face like a grenade, cartilage shattering with a wet crunch that reverberated through his skull.
Hot blood erupted from his shattered nose, copper-tasting and thick as it flooded his mouth and chin.
The world tilted violently, his vision fracturing into starbursts of white-hot pain as he stumbled backward, legs suddenly rubber beneath him.
Before his brain could process what had happened, the kid transformed into a blur of desperate fury—all knees and elbows and animal terror.
He slammed into Byrne's chest with a force that emptied his lungs in one violent exhale.
They crashed to the concrete, Byrne's skull bouncing against the floor with a sickening thud.
The boy clawed and scrambled over him like a feral animal, fingernails raking flesh, and Byrne felt those desperate fingers scrabbling for his holster.
He lunged for the weapon as the kid's hand closed over the grip, muscles straining as he wrenched the barrel upward, forcing it toward the soft underbelly above him.
Maddy's face hovered inches from his own, contorted in primal terror and rage, sweat and tears dripping onto Byrne's bloodied face.
Something electric surged through Byrne's groin, his erection throbbing painfully against his zipper.
He slowly bared his teeth in a crimson grin, blood bubbling between them.
The boy's fear was intoxicating—better than any drug he'd ever—
The kid headbutted him with the force of a sledgehammer, cracking Byrne's skull against the concrete, which sent vibrations through his teeth.
Blood sprayed from his pulverized nose as his fingers spasmed around the weapon.
The boy clawed desperately at the gun, fingernails tearing into Byrne's flesh until the weapon suddenly wrenched free, spinning across the floor with a metallic shriek.
Maddy lunged away, scrambling on all fours toward the pistol.
Byrne bellowed—a primal, animal sound—and seized the boy's ankle in a vise grip.
The kid crashed face-first onto the concrete with a hard crack, blood spraying from his shattered nose.
Maddy twisted like a trapped animal, flipping onto his back and driving his heel into Byrne's face with bone-shattering force.
Cartilage collapsed under the impact as Byrne's head snapped backward, his body following in a boneless arc.
The boy tore his ankle free, leaving skin behind, and hurled himself toward the gun.
Byrne lunged with animal ferocity, slamming Maddy face-first into the concrete.
Nearly two hundred pounds of muscle crushed the air from Maddy's lungs as Byrne came down on top of him, his blood-slick face pressed against his ear.
He buried his face in the boy's sweat-dampened hair, inhaling the scent of terror while grinding his granite-hard erection against the cleft of Maddy's ass.
“That was fun,” he growled, each syllable scraping from his throat like rusty nails.
“Nothing gets me harder than when they fight back.”
The kid writhed beneath him, his spine arched desperately as tendons strained in his neck, distressed gasps escaping through teeth clenched so tightly that the tendons in his jaw stood out like cords.
His handcuffed wrists scrabbled uselessly against the floor, fingernails breaking as they clawed at the rough cement.