Chapter 25
KAYLA
Quiet, muffled voices wake me, growing steadily. It’s as though I’m dreaming. Floating. My body is languid and tingly.
“Make it quick,” one says to another in a whisper. “He’s gonna be looking for her.”
Make what quick?
Where am I?
Groaning groggily, I try to pry my eyes open, but I can’t seem to. Darkness entraps me, like something is shrouding my eyes.
Panic suddenly hits and I start to scream, and it’s then I realize my wrists are tied and I’m blindfolded. The pull on my wrists as I shout and jerk my body around causes my skin to burn.
“Shh. Don’t fight.”
I can’t make out the voice too well. It’s like I’m slipping in and out of consciousness even as my adrenaline fights to keep me awake.
“We need to hurry. Someone is going to come.”
Who’s saying that?! Where am I? Am I still home?
Sudden cool air hits around my breasts.
I’m naked? Oh, God….
My chaotic heartbeats echo in my ears as I continue to fight, even though I know it’s pointless. But I won’t give up. I won’t let them have me without giving them hell. Though I continue to scream, no real sound comes out.
My limbs jolt in a tremor. It’s happening again. They took me. They’re bringing me back.
“No!” I holler, but all that comes out is an unintelligible sound.
“Shut the fuck up,” a man fires, and I try to concentrate on the voice, try to make it out.
But it’s to no avail. My mind is too clouded, but I know deep in my heart that I have heard that voice before.
“Hurry up!” he repeats. “Do it now!”
And that’s when I feel it.
I let out a bloodcurdling wail as I register the sharp, agonizing throbbing in my stomach, like someone is slicing me open.
I wail, unable to move. Something tight is binding my ankles. I’m completely helpless as I shriek, tears leaking out of the edges of my eyes as a monster cuts me.
“A, where are you? Please! I need you. I need you,” I weep and beg and plead for him to hear me.
But he can’t. He doesn’t know what’s being done to me. Who is doing it.
Could be anyone. Could be the Midnight Murderer…
My pulse kicks up. It’s him, isn’t it? He came for me. He’s branding me like the others. Oh, God!
But there are two people here. Who is he working with?
I shriek as another agonizing slice pierces through the cloudy fog in my head. It’s like I’ve been drugged.
“Shh. Don’t worry, this will be over quickly.”
Am I going to die? Will it end this way? The way it began? Taken. Trapped. Unable to fight. Is this my destiny? Was I fooling myself into believing I could take him on? This killer. This monster.
A’s words ring in my head.
He’s not like the others.
He told me to be careful. But the killer found me anyway.
“The drugs are gonna wear off. Hurry up.”
Oh, fuck. They drugged me! That explains why I feel like I’m underwater, as though I drank too much.
The pain, it’s unbearable. Screaming against the gag does nothing but let the monsters win. So I stop, biting down instead, my hands fisting as my heartbeats quicken and my chin trembles. But they won’t have my screams, not anymore.
The brutality lasts for minutes, hours, I don’t know. I’ve lost all sense of time as they carve me up for their pleasure.
“He’ll find you soon enough.”
Does he mean A? Was this about him?
Oh, God, it hurts. It fucking hurts!
But I lie here, screaming inside my head, wanting their blood on my fingertips, wanting their deaths.
The sound of a window opening terrifies me even more. I hope they’re leaving and not taking me with them.
Time passes on a loop until I realize they’re actually gone. That I’m naked and alone, unable to get up or do anything.
Tears continue to fall as I cry, unable to stop now. Not sure what I can do but lie here, hoping A finds me. Because no one else will.
Emotions battle inside me, and I go there, to the one place I swore I wouldn’t. To the day I became someone I never imagined I would be. I bottled it so deep after it happened that I didn’t think it’d ever come out to haunt me. But here, with my own tears, I remember hers.
Because I killed her.
I played their wicked game and I lost.
It’s what they wanted. To break us. To chip away every human thing about us.
Her face is clear in my mind, as though she’s standing right in front of me.
“Why did you do it?” she asks, a bullet in her throat, blood rushing out of the wound like an endless river.
“I’m…I’m so sorry,” I cry, my body trembling as I reach my fingers for hers.
But she’s out of reach.
With her other hand, she removes a gun from her pocket and aims it at my chest.
She laughs at my horrified expression. “Say goodbye, Kayla.”
While I do nothing else but cry.
She pulls the trigger.
And I return to darkness, yet I still see her face.
Our bodies are bare, six of us standing in front of Chad, one of the cleaners who works for the Palermo crime family. And by cleaners, I mean the ones who disposes of us when we’re no longer needed.
Each of us knows that someone is gonna die today. Who? We don’t know. How many? No one knows that either.
“So, ladies…” He grins. “We have a little problem at the club today. Someone poisoned one of our customers. And do you know what happened to him? Hmm?”
He shoves the gun under my jaw, and I shiver, breathing faster, afraid that the bullet will enter me at any moment.
“Do you know what happened?” he asks me, his eyes darkening.
“N-n-no.” I shake my head in a hurry, one arm covering whatever I can of my body.
But it’s no use. They’ve seen it all. Touched and invaded every inch of me. Hiding is useless. They’ll always find me.
He slams the butt of the weapon into my jaw. Pain erupts, and I fall to the ground, large tears welling behind my eyes.
“On your feet, whore!” he bellows so loud, the other girls whimper.
Cammie reaches down for my hand and helps me to my feet. He lets her.
“How about you?” he asks Talon, another girl here with us.
“Is…is he d-dead?” she asks.
“Now, how would you know that?” Chad pops a brow.
“I didn’t, I promise! I j-just assumed since you’re mad.”
He cups her face and strokes it with his knuckles. “Now, aren’t you just smart?”
He mocks her, but her eyes seek for shelter, for warmth. For love. But there’s none of that here. All of it was depleted from our souls so long ago, we don’t know when it’s real and when it isn’t.
“Be my good girl and tell me who did it.”
She sobs, shaking as she looks at Cammie.
No. No, she couldn’t have.
“Her?” he asks.
“I—I’m sorry!” Talon cries. “I’m sorry.”
Cammie’s eyes pop. “No! It was her! She did it! I swear! I’m not stupid!”
He huffs, all dramatic. “Well, we have ourselves a situation, girls, don’t we?”
The whole room explodes in snivels, and I know this is the end. He’s either gonna kill them both or kill one of them, but someone is definitely not coming out alive.
“What do you suggest I do here, girls?” He points the gun at Cammie, and his finger moves over the trigger until she trembles and huddles against me.
My hand curls around the back of her head.
“Shhh,” is all I manage, not knowing what else I can say.
Everything will be okay seems useless, because nothing is okay.
Chad stares at me, his eyes cunning, a wry laugh escaping his ugly mouth. He’s a vile piece of filth, and not much older than me, around twenty-five. Brutal as ever. He doesn’t care who he has to kill. I don’t think he sees us as human beings, or he wouldn’t be doing what he does.
Does he have a mother? A sister? What would he do if this happened to them?
Is Chad even his real name? I think it is. These men are arrogant. They don’t think giving us their actual names will do anything.
“Stand straight!” He wrenches her away from me.
And when he glares at me this time, something devious brews in the sliver of his gaze.
He watches me swallow, and a slow-growing sneer fastens to his mouth. “I have an idea. I’m gonna let one of you decide who killed him. It’ll be fun!”
He walks around the room, chuckling like a sadistic madman, pointing the gun at each of us.
This isn’t the first game he’s played. They all play these games to mess with us.
Agnelo made Elsie kill a girl when she did something wrong.
It was her punishment. So whatever Chad has in store will be just as bad.
“Let’s see, which one of you should have the honor?” He points the gun toward each girl until it lands on me. “You.”
No. Please. No. Not me. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to kill anyone.
I know that’s what he’ll make me do.
“Who do you think did it?” he asks me, his eyes glistening like this is exciting to him.
“I—I don’t know.” My bottom lip juts out and fat tears roll down my cheeks. “Please…”
“What are you begging me for? You have no idea what I’m even asking for except your opinion.”
Nausea swirls in my gut as he takes a few steps closer until the mint on his breath suffocates my nostrils.
He grips my jaw and pushes the barrel of the weapon into my gut. “Pick one. You get to decide their fate. One of them did it, and it’s either all three of you die or one of them does. And you are the lucky girl who gets to pick the winner.”
“No!” I sob. “I—I c-can’t. I won’t do it. I won’t take a life.”
His fingers deepen into my jaw, and through gritted teeth, he says, “Did I tell you that you had a choice? Because you don’t!”
He wrenches back and grabs Cammie by the hair until she screams.
“Her?” He throws her on the ground, flat on her stomach as she cries, over and over until her voice seeps into the marrow of my bones. “Was she the one?”
“No! No, please! I can’t! I can’t do it.”
“That’s a shame.” He grabs Talon and throws her right beside Cammie’s naked body. “I guess it will be the both of them, then.”
My body wracks with my heavy sobs. “I can’t.”
I shake my head. How can I kill either of them? But how can I let them both die?
“You have ’til the count of three to decide. Or I will decide for you. One.”
“Please, just don’t do this! They didn’t mean it!”
“Two.”
“I’m—I’m s-sorry!” I stare down at both of the girls, their bodies shaking in fear, unending pain seeping out of them.
“Three.”
“T-T-Talon,” I sob. “Talon. Oh, God!”