10. Declan
TEN
DECLAN
Fucking hell. I get back to my car and slam the door shut. I can’t think about anything but Trixie and how sweet she tastes on my tongue.
God damn perfect.
She’s the third woman I’ve ever gone down on. It’s never been a thing for me, I’ve never really enjoyed it. But fuck am I ready to fuck her with my mouth again? I would have done it again now, but my dick is so hard I had to leave.
Now I’m sitting in my car with a hard on. Not only is it hard, but it hurts so much. I need to fuck someone. And at this stage I don’t even care who it is.
I look up at her window, then down to the ground, looking at the height. I can see the bruise matching with her story about falling. It’s a big fall, but if it wasn’t for the tree being there, I wouldn’t be able to get to her on the roof.
When I got there and she was smoking, I saw all the blunt out joints, which tells me she goes up there a lot, so if I want some fun at least I have easy access to her room.
What the hell was her reply about her not being allowed to open the fucking door? Is she a prisoner in this house or something? And who said she can’t open the door?
Grabbing my bag, I get out of the car and walk to the door. She better fucking answer the door. Or tomorrow at school will be fun for me.
Knocking, I wait for her to answer. When the door opens, I smile because now I get to plan out a fun day for me, and a shit day for her.
“What?” The guy looks at me as I continue to smile at the thought of tomorrow.
“I’m here to study with Trixie,” I reply. This guy is someone I don’t like. Who the fuck answers the door with, what? Has he never heard of saying hello?
“Well, she didn’t tell anyone.” He looks over his shoulder, and I see Trixie walking with her books to the dining table, yet not once looking at me, or the guy at the door.
“Well, I don’t plan on fucking up my grade, because she didn’t tell anyone.” I walk into the house without being invited. “I’m finishing my school with top grades, which I’ve worked hard to get.” I continue to walk further into the house toward Trixie. The guy follows me. I turn to face him. “Declan Crawford.” I introduce myself and put my hand out for him to shake.
“Robert,” he replies, but doesn’t shake my hand. He looks over my shoulder at Trixie, then walks away. Asshole.
Walking over to the side where Trixie is sitting. I sit on the chair next to hers and move in closer. “You didn’t open the door. Don’t wear any underwear tomorrow. That’s the first part of your punishment for not doing what I asked.” Leaning back in my chair, I take out my books and notepad, but stop when I see her dropping her pen and closing hers. Stopping her, I grab it from her. She tries to grab it back, but I grab her hand to stop her.
I look at what she has drawn and burst out laughing. The details in her drawings are so good, and this drawing might even be better than the one she drew of me holding my head.
It’s Stephanie lying in a pool of her own blood, as her limbs have been ripped off.
Brilliant.
I mean, I don’t blame her for feeling like this. I was angry when I saw the picture in a message. Now, I know I can be an asshole when I want to be, but something like that is not me. I’m the only one who can make her feel like crap, and no one else.
Stephanie. I’ll sort her out later and find out where she got the picture from, because I never told anyone to do it. The only good thing about it was seeing how good she looked with my dick filling her mouth. I got hard just thinking about how good it was. I need to get her on her knees again.
“Have you drawn my tattoo yet?” I ask. She shakes her head, and I place her notepad into my bag, and I feel her staring at me, but I ignore it and get to work. “Have you thought about the assignment?”
I thought we could do The Great Gatsby, in a comic book theme.
I’m about to reply, but my phone rings in my pocket. I answer the call the moment I see the name. I don’t need to be pissing him off. He’s in The Pit, so I know his head is already in the wrong place.
“Hello.”
“What time are you coming to the club?” Cain snaps, which means he’s in a bad mood. Great, just what I needed.
“You never gave me a time for tonight.” He thinks everyone can read his mind and just know what he’s thinking.
He needs to know we don’t.
“Don’t be too late. You’re joining me in The Pit.”
The line goes dead before I can even argue. I know he wants me to help him control the place, but I thought that would happen after I finished college or something. Not now.
Great.
This should be fun tonight.
I throw my phone onto the table and refocus. I need get this work done, so I don’t have to think about it later.
I keep hoping she’ll turn around and say she’ll do it all, but then again, me being here annoys her, so maybe it won’t be too bad.
But if you have any other ideas, we can do them instead.
“No, I like it.”
I grab a pen and open my pad.
“You know ASL?”
I look up at the voice.
“I’m sorry, I’m Patricia’s father.” He walks over to the table, and I stand up to shake his hand.
“Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Declan Crawford. We’re partners for our English assignment.” I look over his shoulder at Robert. He’s watching me as if he wants to kick me out of here right now.
What the hell is his problem?
“Crawford, where do I know that name from?” he asks, I choose not to answer him. It will come to him. “The rehab clinic, is it your family?”
“It is.” I smile at him, and he looks at Trixie.
“Did you have a good day at school?”
It was amazing, the best day of my life. Everyone is so nice, but I wish I could kill a few people. No, all the people-
“Okay, you know I don’t know what you’re saying.” Her dad puts his hands up, almost begging her to stop what she’s saying.
But I’m more interested in knowing why her father hasn’t learned to talk to his daughter. If that was any of my family, it would be the first thing I would learn.
“She said school was good, and she needs to get working on this piece of work.” Trixie shakes her head and looks down at her work, but I continue to watch the two men watching her. Her dad watches her, waiting for her to explode or something, and the asshole, I don’t know, but there is something off about him.
“That’s good. Do you still want the sewing machine?” Trixie’s head snaps up and I see the faintest smile, but it’s soon too gone, and I look back over at her dad and see her mom’s there.
“You know she’s not allowed to have it. She has to pass school first,” her mom snaps, and Trixie taps on her phone, and her dad’s phone beeps, but before he can look at the message, Trixie’s mom takes it from him, and starts laughing. “You don’t get your inheritance, because you’re failing math, and you’ll only get it when I want you to have it.”
You are a fucking bitch, and I want to rip your head off and put it on a stick as a souvenir in my bedroom, you fake plastic bimbo.
“She’s falling behind a little in math, but I’m tutoring her. With my help, she should pass with no trouble.” If it means I can get under her skin, then I’m going to take every chance I can get.
I don’t need your help, and I’m not fucking failing. Just a little behind.
“We can start tomorrow. After hockey practice, we can go back to mine, and we can start.” She sticks her middle finger up at me, which makes me laugh.
“Thank you Declan, she can be a little bit of a handful if she wants to be. Patricia, are you going to kickboxing tonight?” her dad asks.
Kickboxing? Well, that answers a few of her bruises she has on her body now. If she’s good, she’s going to get some hits thrown at her. Trixie doesn’t answer him, and gets back to writing in an English book.
“It would be nice if you could come back in time for dinner.” Again she ignores her dad, and this time he walks away knowing very well his daughter will not talk to him, but her mom stays where she is, watching the both of us.
Trixie hasn’t even looked up from her notepad, and I lean back in my chair watching her. If she thinks I scare easily, she is dreaming. I’ve seen the look of evil. I’ve locked eyes with men who have killed and raped women. There is nothing that scares me anymore.
“I’ll leave you two to work.” She walks away, but Robert is still leaning on the archway leading to the dining room.
“Do you have a problem?” I ask him.
“No.” He walks away, leaving me with Trixie.
“So, Kickboxing, I have to come watch you.” I pull her chair closer to mine and lick the side of her neck. Why does she taste so fucking good?
She slides her pad over for me to look at the rough draft of the cover she’s done. Fucking hell. She did this in, what, less than ten minutes?
“So, you do the drawing. I work on the written parts.” I write a few things down, reminding myself to see which part we can do. She can draw anything, so this could be fun.
Now we know what we are doing, you can leave. Work on what you want me to draw. I don’t mind-
“Get a clean page open.” I cut her off. She doesn’t want me here, and I have to go to the club, so I don’t mind leaving soon. “I want you to design a dress, sew and wear it next week.” Trixie looks at me, and the fear on her face makes me smile. I won’t make her walk around naked. I’m not that fucked up, and her fashion sense is growing on me. I wait for her to draw a person. I don’t know much about fashion, so I leave her to it.
“You have sexy legs. I want them out all the time. From your boobs to your thighs, I want the dress to be black, and cover you.” He starts telling me how he wants the dress to look. “But I want more of your thigh showing than hiding.” I wait for her to finish what I’ve told her to do. “Then, on top of this I want like a lace fabric, from the top to the bottom, and arms covered. Something like you wore the other day, but I want you to somehow put dark blue periwinkle delphinium flowers on there. But not blue. I want them black.” She stops drawing and turns to face me. “It was the color of my baby. You needed a reminder I haven’t forgotten.” I throw my things into my bag and lean in closer to her. “You’ll wear this next week. You need any fabric? Send me a message. I’ll get it for you. Now walk me to the door.”
Getting up, I grab all my things. I won’t make her spend money on something I want her to wear. It’s going to make it hard when she wears it. I have so many ideas in my head about what she can wear, and now I know she makes most of her clothes, I’m going to get her to wear everything that’s in my head.
Standing by the door, I step outside and turn to face her.
“Give me a kiss.”
Please don’t.
“You don’t have a choice. Now kiss me.” My words bring a tear to the surface of her eyes. But she obeys me. She stands on her tiptoes, and I grab the back of her neck, kissing her hard. Her lip ring hits my tooth, which makes her open her mouth for me, and I glide my tongue over the stud on her lip. Pulling away from her, I plant one more kiss. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
The door slams shut behind me, and I make my way to the club, and find out why I have to go down to hell again. Something is going on, and Cain being Cain, he won’t say a word about what he thinks about whatever it is.
* * *
Walking into the club, I’m not sure if I’m in the mood for whatever Cain has planned for me tonight. As always, the club is busy, and this is what I wanted from him, the club. Let me be the manager of this place, heaven for all men, but no, he gave me fucking hell.
“Hey Lincoln, is he in his office?” I ask him by the stairs as I look around at the pole dancers.
“Hey, I’m heading up. Seems like he wants us both there for this conversation.” Now this does worry me. He wants Lincoln there, too. I’ve done nothing wrong. I followed the rules. Cain gave me a lot of rules before he took me to The Pit, and I followed every one of them, I think.
Walking into the office, Cain looks up from his paperwork. I sit on the chair in front of his desk and wait to see what tonight brings me.
“When was the last time you slept?” he asks.
He’s reading me. The man is good at it, too. I learned how to read people down there, but I was only there for less than three months. I quickly picked up things.
Cain was there for most of his life. I’m nowhere as good as he is.
“I don’t know, but nowhere close to the amount I used to sleep?” I answer. No point lying to him. I can lie to mom and dad, but not him.
He opens the draw and takes something out and throws it toward me. Catching the bottle, I look at it and look up at him. “Cain-”
“I’m sorting it out before it gets too bad. There are four pills in there. You take one tonight and fucking sleep.”
His voice is louder than before, and I shut my mouth and nod.
Maybe taking one won’t be the worst thing I do. “Who did you talk to in The Pit?” he asks.
I glance at Lincoln, who’s leaning against the wall, watching me.
“I didn’t tell anyone my name. I didn’t tell anyone who you are to me. Nothing. I swea-”
“Declan, I only want to know who you spoke to. That’s it. Give me numbers.” He pauses. “Someone is coming for you because you killed one of their men. I have the list of people you killed, but I need a list of who you spoke to.” Cain looks over at Lincoln before turning his attention back to me.
“You think someone knows we’re family?” I ask.
“The moment I showed everyone who I was, they knew about my family. But this isn’t about me, because they didn’t send me the message, they sent it to you. So you killed someone important. What I need to know is who told them who you are as it’s just numbers down there.” Cain gets up and walks around the desk, before sitting on the edge of the desk.
“The five of us have the, ‘Find our phone’ app on at all times. I already told the others. Lincoln is added to that now. This is in case something happens. We’ll know where you are, just like you know where all of us are. Today, they’re coming for you. Tomorrow it can be me again. Or Mason. Now I need a list of the people you spoke to.”
I think back, every conversation in my head, and then I give Cain the numbers of them.
I remembered every man I spoke to.
I never spoke to the women.
For two reasons. One - they closed themselves off from everyone. Two - the ones who did talk? They were fucking crazy. Like mental hospital crazy.
“I’m going to look into these numbers, and cross them with the people you fought with, or the ones you killed.”
I nod and lean back in my chair, staring out the window at the dancers in the cage.
A lot of crap happened in the twelve weeks I was there.
One too many people hated me, and a lot more wanted to fight me because I was a baby down there.
If it wasn’t for all of Cain’s training, I’m not sure if I would have survived.
Cain walks in front of me, and Lincoln behind. This is how much control Cain has of this place. No one is talking to him, nor are they looking his way.
“Fresh meat!”
“Baby!”
“Let’s kill him.”
People are shouting at me, and my whole body wants to turn around and say fuck this shit, I’m out.
These crazy fuckers are going to come for me so quick, because they know I’m the weakest here.
Cain stops, and I look up at the numbers. 666. Welcome home for the next twelve weeks, Declan. Cain takes a step to the side and nods his head for me to get in. He’s not showing me any mercy in front of anyone.
I try to look around, but Cain gets in my way, a warning not to do it. Head down, only talk to the ones my gut tells me to. Cain’s words, follow your gut.
Taking a step into the room, my sight goes straight to the mattress on the floor. I shake my head a little. This is miles away from the comfy king size bed I have at home.
The scraping of the metal door closing makes me jump, and I turn around to face Cain. I’m not hiding it from him. I’m scared. Never been so scared in my life, and for the next twelve weeks, I have to learn to mask every emotion which runs through me. I have to learn how to read people, know the person’s moves before they even do it.
Cain nods his head for me to get closer to him, and as I move, I hear him shout. “Lights out!” The whole Pit goes dark. This has to be a fucking joke. I have to sleep in this hellhole with nothing but darkness. “Hand,” I hear Cain whisper, and I put my hand on the bar and feel Cain take hold of it. “Hide it.” He places a knife in my hand, and pulls me so my face is on the bars. “I’m watching everything. No one will hurt you, I promise you that. Show them you control this place, you’re in charge. Be a Crawford.” Cain lets me go, and I hear him walking away, and I listen to the shouting mostly toward me. When the cages open in the morning, I’m going to have to fight. New meat for them to all feed on, and I have to show them I’m not a little boy they can beat. I will fight until I have nothing left in me.
I jump when I hear the woman screaming, a scream which is full of torture, and there is nothing I can do about it. She screams again, and my body tenses up because this is all I’m going to hear tonight.
“What about the people who wanted to fight me? The ones who kept asking for a fight?” I turn to Cain, and he watches me for a moment. I’ve seen him zone out on us, now I know where he goes, The Pit.
“I’m looking into them.” He stands up and pats my shoulder a few times. “The nightmares will stop, the screams will stop,” he tells me as he walks back around to his chair.
“Have they stopped for you?” I ask him, because I know they haven’t. You can see it in his eyes.
“Go home, get some sleep.” He sits down and watches me again as I don’t get up.
“You said you wanted me in The Pit tonight. Why?” I ask, and why has he changed his mind?
Cain sits down, and looks at Lincoln, who then leaves the office, and Cain leans forward, elbows on the desk. “I wanted you to go to The Pit with me, to show them the Crawfords are the ones who are in control. But you’re not ready, you still have fear in your eyes. The mention of The Pit, and you stiffen up, your eyes change, they are scared, and you flinch at every sound which reminds you of the place.” Cain stops and leans back in the chair. “You can’t control The Pit if you fear it.”
“So how do I control it?” I ask, I don’t want Cain to think I let him down, or he picked the wrong brother. I want to stand next to him down there, and show them the Crawfords are a family you don’t mess with.
“We will get there, but right now you need to sleep, and we will go to The Pit, but when it’s lights out. So no one can see the fear. Everyone will be in their cage. We will go every week if we need to, but you will be like me soon down there. You’ll learn to zone it all out, Declan, the shouts, the screams, the insults, you will zone it out, and think of something happy.”
“And what did you think about?” I ask him, since he picked me to go to hell, he is more open with me, a bond which he has with me, and not the others.
“Dad, grand-dad. They helped me through it while I was there, and when I got out. Find a happy place. Now go home and take a tablet, and sleep.” Cain gets back to his paperwork, and I get up from the chair and tap on the table for Cain to look at me.
“I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t. I trained you-” he smiles before adding. “I wouldn’t have picked you if I thought you would fail.”
I give him a nod and leave the office. Maybe I do need to sleep, and I will feel better, or I can fuck someone and feel more relaxed. I haven’t fucked anyone in a while, and I’m missing it.
Well, I’m sure I can have some fun with Trixie tomorrow, as I do enjoy playing with her.