Chapter 12 Griffin
Griffin
I’m barely able to get a wink of goddamn sleep in this place. My mattress at my parents’ house may have been old and lumpy, and you couldn’t lay on the left side of it ‘cause a spring was poking out, but it was better than the makeshift horse stall they’ve got me locked in.
I don’t know how they expect me to kick ass when I’m sleeping on a pile of itchy ass straw over a concrete floor.
The sky outside is just lightening up with the hint of dawn when there’s a whole lot of commotion going on outside.
I push myself up to my feet, peering through the bars of the metal stall door as the roar of an ATV’s engine driving into the barn echoes off the walls.
There’s a transport cage attached to the back with a slumped figure. Must be another one of the fighters, based on the flash of a metal collar I see around his neck. The skin under it is red and irritated, like they ran that thing at full blast to put him into submission.
Jett and the older-looking trainer open the door and drag him out of the transport cage. He fights against them, but a quick zap with the cattle prod and he’s slumping to the floor.
They move him into his cell, continuing to shock him over and over and fucking over again. He’s silent for a surprising amount of time, but Jett has his roars of pain echoing off the walls soon enough.
“This’ll teach you not to fight back,” Jett snarls. “You fucked with Tony’s spine, pullin’ that move you did.”
Damn. Impressive. I also feel bad for the guy, though. I know how much that fucking cattle prod hurts.
This torture almost seems perfunctory, though. Like Jett’s mind is elsewhere as he does it. He’s just going through the motions until he’s done, leaving the fighter collapsed on the floor before they slam the door shut.
The guy is up surprisingly fast, too.
“You’re fucking monsters,” he spits, pushing himself up and pressing against the bars. “He’s going to kill her!”
My hackles rise as I catch a whiff of sweet strawberries on his skin. I know the her he’s talking about.
Mirabelle.
I have to bite back a protective, possessive growl at the thought of the two of them cuddled up as close as they must’ve been for him to be absolutely drenched in her sugary sweet scent.
What I don’t know is who the hell this him is. Whoever he is, he sounds like bad fucking news.
I’d assume he’s the third alpha here. The crazy one, considering this guy still seems to be relatively sane.
Jett sneers as he drags the new fighter into his cell.
“Do you really think I give a shit whether she lives or dies?” He scoffs before driving off with the other trainer, leaving the two of us in silence.
“Fuck!” The new fighter roars. There’s a crash, like he’s driving his shoulder into the metal door.
The desperation in his voice makes my pulse race.
“What kinda trouble is she in?” I growl.
His wild gaze cuts to me like he hadn’t noticed me before.
“New guy,” he spits.
“One and only. Name’s Griffin. Now answer the fucking question.”
He throws his head back and lets out a bitter laugh, his voice hoarse from their earlier use of the shock collar.
“She was right, you give a shit about her,” he sneers, his lip curling back as he narrows his eyes on me.
My chest swells with pride at the thought of Mirabelle mentioning me to other people, but it’s quickly crushed when I notice the way this guy’s scarred knuckles shake as he reaches up and grips the bars of the door.
This guy has obviously been here a lot longer than I have, if the crazy scars on his body are any indication.
And whatever’s going on with Mirabelle has him spooked.
“Tell me,” I snap, my dominance exploding out from me as I feel my pulse roar through my veins. “What are they doing to Mirabelle?”
He lets out another sardonic laugh that just pisses me off even more.
“We’re being fucking played right now, don’t you see?”
“That’s not an answer to my fucking question!” I snap.
“Couple hours in that omega’s presence and we’re all twisted up into knots ‘cause we want to stick our knots in her.”
“That’s not—“ My jaw clamps shut at the eye roll he shoots at me.
“Don’t give me that ‘it’s not like that’ fucking bullshit. There’s a reason they cut off all her clothes.”
“They what?” I snarl, my voice menacingly low. The metal bars of the door creak as I grip them with all my strength.
He tilts his head, peering at me.
“Guess they didn’t do that when she was with you,” he drawls.
“Did you fucking hurt her?” I bite out. There’s no point in asking if he touched her or not. I know the answer. Her scent is all over him.
“No,” he snaps. “I kept her alive. Not that it’s doing her any favors right now. She’ll probably wish she froze to death soon.”
“You’re a fucking asshole! Just—just tell me what’s fucking going on, man!” I slam my fist against the door, the clang echoing through the barn.
My mind races as I imagine all the horrible torture she could be enduring right now. If those fuckers had no qualms about cutting off her clothes and leaving her at the mercy of a feral alpha, then they really have no care for her at all.
Where the hell is Rowan? Why the fuck would he let this happen? He promised he’d protect her, and then this bullshit happens less than twelve hours later?
The fighter scrubs a hand down his face.
“This place has two fighters. Well, three now. You, me, and then...”
“Stop with the fucking suspense,” I snap.
“The guy’s been here for a really long time. Longer than me. Lot longer than me. Been here since he was a kid, I think. He—“ he shakes his head before he stares at me, his jaw clenched. “There’s something wrong with his head. He’s not up there anymore. Can barely talk. Always fucking angry.”
“’Cause of the drugs?” I ask, fear skating down my spine.
“Yeah. He didn’t even remember his name when I got here, and I’ve been here eight years. But I think he doesn’t talk much ‘cause of an old injury. Pretty sure someone stomped on his neck when he was a kid.”
Holy shit. I don’t think I can even imagine what it would be like to be on these drugs for eight years, let alone however long this other guy’s been on them for.
“They call him Rage ‘cause that’s all he is now. Fucking angry. All the goddamn time.”
Fucking hell. That sounds like a miserable existence.
“So he’s Rage. You know my name, what’s yours?”
“Ash,” he says.
“Great, we sound like a bunch of circus freaks who’re trying to act tough,” I say, nodding slowly.
He rolls his eyes, opening his mouth to shoot back some sort of retort, but both our heads jerk to the side when we hear someone stumbling towards the barn. The door opens, and Rowan comes stumbling in.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I ask, balking at him.
He’s practically a walking bruise. One of his eyes is swollen shut, his lip is busted, and he’s holding his ribs like something’s wrong. There’s dried blood crusted to the entire side of his face, staining the collar of his white t-shirt.
Someone beat the living shit out of him.
“Where’s Jett?” He grits out, stumbling into the door of my cell.
Well, I guess I know who that someone is now.
Fuck, he’s in rough shape. And I’ve been beaten in the ring plenty of times. But he’s a beta, and it’s well known that betas have slower recovery times than alphas.
God, it must be hell having a brother like Jett. My dad was a douchebag, but he never hit me. He was just too much of a coward to protect me or the rest of my family from taking the hits meant for him.
Which is why I’m here, locked up in this fucked-up place.
“You seen a doctor yet? Looks like he got you good, kid,” I say, trying to catalogue all the injuries I see on him. “How the hell’re you even walking right now?”
“I took a dose,” Rowan grunts, shaking his head as he starts to lean to the side like he’s dizzy just standing still.
“Of the drugs they give us?”
“Yeah, what about it,” he snarls. “Where is Jett?”
I narrow my eyes on the kid, watching him. He willingly takes the drugs they’ve been pumping into us alphas.
Well, to be fair, if I had a brother like Jett, I’d wanna take as many drugs as I could to try to give me an edge.
“You just missed him,” Ash sneers, glaring at Rowan. I guess Rowan was telling the truth when he mentioned he’d never taken part in this side of the family business before if one of the big fighters doesn’t seem to recognize him.
Rowan shoots him a glare so cold I didn’t know the kid had it in him.
“Where’s Mirabelle?” He asks me, his expression pleading.
“Oh, so you’re Rowan,” Ash huffs.
Rowan’s head jerks towards Ash and he makes a pained sound at the back of his throat as if the motion gave him whiplash.
“How’d you know that?”
“How the hell do you think? It’s cause she told me. Said you were a sweet pathetic loser who ‘takes care of her’.”
“She—she didn’t call me pathetic,” Rowan grits out. “She wouldn’t say that.”
“Yeah, I added that fucking in, genius. ‘Cause from where I’m standing, you are pathetic. You couldn’t keep her safe. It looks like your psychopath big brother decided he wanted to play with her, and it was easy as fuck to do so if all he had to get through was your scrawny ass.”
Rowan flinches at the harsh words as if he had just been hit.
“Where—where is she?” Rowan asks, his voice losing the earlier angry confidence it had.
“Probably dead. She survived me, but I don’t think she’s gonna fucking survive Rage.”
“Fuck!” Rowan curses, pounding his fist weakly against my metal door.
“There’s gotta be something you can do to fix this,” I push, trying to get Rowan to calm the fuck down. “You’re the only one of us who can do something.”
“But—but what can I do?” He whispers softly, leaning his head against the cool door as he slumps forward like he’s going to pass out.
“Shit, let’s think. Your dad is the one in charge here, right? He’s the one who said you were in charge of Mirabelle? Go to him. Say your brother is fucking around with things that he shouldn’t be and that he needs to stop.”
“I don’t—I don’t know if that’ll work.”
“You have to try something, Rowan. Get your head out of your ass,” I snap.
I feel bad for the kid, I really do, but he’s the only hope we’ve got to save Mirabelle.
His shoulders stiffen as he nods.
“I’ll go ask. I think—I think my brother was scared I’d go to our dad in the first place. It’s why he beat the shit out of me.”
“Then go ask. Jett seemed off, earlier. I think you’re onto something.”
Rowan nods weakly before pushing himself up.
“Clock’s ticking,” Ash grumbles. “It’ll take less than a second for Rage to tear her to pieces, and you’re wasting an awful lot of seconds standing here like a dumbfuck.”
Man, this guy is an asshole. I’m surprised Mirabelle could stand being around someone like him for as long as it took her scent to absolutely cover him.
“Shut up,” Rowan snaps weakly before stumbling out of the barn.
I hope he doesn’t pass out on the way.