Chapter 9 Thorne
CHAPTER NINE
THORNE
My shoulder blades dug into the cot, my back arching as white hot agony tore through my nerves and consumed my veins.
Overhead, the fluorescent lighting assaulted my system, my eyes struggling to adjust alongside the sudden onslaught.
I’d been dead, or so I thought. But now I was back here, back in the hellscape I’d done everything I could to try and escape.
A cry of anguish bubbled in the back of my throat, and I struggled to move, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t.
“Morning sunshine,” the voice I’d expected and dreaded said.
Pressure, immediate pressure spread along my arm, a muffled groan escaping my lips as it turned sharp. My gaze flicked down to find his hand digging into the wounds they’d patched, blood seeping through layers of gauze.
“Did you know most medical beds have restraints?” The calmness to his timbre was terrifying.
“You wanted to cheat by leaving this world early?” He laughed, his nail sinking through another layer.
“Even in death, I’d find you, Thorne. Especially after the shit you exposed last night.
Wanting to fuck my whore of a son while you pleaded to him about your issues? ”
He stood, the difference in our heights a metaphor for his power.
“He told me everything. Every worthless phrase you spewed to him, because at least you managed to break him. Soulless, pliable, and bland.” He grinned.
“And now? You’ve opened yet another weakness, and who would have fucking thought it’d be my son?
Do you know how enjoyable it’ll be to torture the motherfucker to get to you?
To break you while I hurt him? He is so soft, isn’t he? ”
My head was swimming, my body aching. Oren told him? It didn’t make sense. Not when he’d been so vocal about how he felt about his father, how much he despised him. And still, in the same breath, I understood.
There was nothing Oren hated more than his father, except maybe me.
Swallowing, I tugged against one of the restraints, but the act only displayed how weak I’d rendered myself. “Y-You won’t…t-touch him…”
“Touch him?” He shook his head, and that’s when I saw the glint of a blade—my blade. The one I’d attempted to end his life with. He tapped it against his nails. “I won’t lay a finger on him, but you? It’ll be your blade that stabs him. Your weapon that provides the first scar.”
“No.” My reply came through clenched teeth, filled with the strength my soul no longer had. “I’ll fucking kill you, Andrew.”
“As if you’d successfully do so. Look at you. One rejection from Oren and you’re rendered useless.” He stepped to the door and passed the blade to one of the soldiers guarding it. “See to it that my son is taken care of. Report back once it’s done.”
“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, my voice echoing off the barren walls of the room.
Thrashing against the cuffs that bound me, I continued, praying that someone, anyone, would hear me.
“You psychotic fuck! Your corruption leeches into the men you lead, and everything, everything about Special Ops has been tainted by your maliciousness. And you want to know the best part? You coil your hands so tightly around the reins of control because you’ve never had it until now, and you’re terrified of losing it.
” I tossed out the piece of information I’d assumed through observation.
“How was it being abused by your own father? Sexually assaulted? Unloved?”
His jaw feathered, fists clenching as he cracked his neck.
“If you’re looking for remorse, shame, or sadness from me, I’m afraid you won’t find it.
Those traumatic days made me stronger. It’s why I utilized similar tactics on Oren’s…
innocence, but he still turned out weak, muddied by the renderings of his mother.
” He gritted his teeth, the sound like sandpaper.
“The only semblance of love was destroyed when she died. There is nothing in this world that I hold dear, making it impossible to gather weaknesses. You? You bleed it—a pathetic bitch who tried to fuck one to make himself feel better. Well, did it work?”
“You are so fucking easy to read when someone strikes a nerve.” A weak smile crossed my lips as I glanced down at his fisted hands. “Body language can tell a far different story than words. And the most ironic part about that statement is that you were the one who taught it to me.”
Wires and tubes ripped from my body as Andrew kicked the machine monitoring me. He drew in a breath, running a hand through his hair. “Fucking piece of shit you are. I should’ve killed you that day alongside your men, but then you’d be celebrated in honor, and scum like you deserve far less.”
“Should’ve,” I chuckled, fixating on the crack I’d carved in his near-impenetrable walls. “But you didn’t. So tell me, Andrew. Who’s really the pathetic one here?”
If I could get him to focus on me, then his hunger for inflicting pain would undoubtedly shift—away from Oren.
“I’m not pathetic,” he laughed, but it was void of its normal menacing undertone.
“I assumed you’d climbed the ranks as a commander to obey, but it seems your tongue is rather loose these days.
If my son’s presence is becoming a problem, it’s best to remove it totally, permanently, to put you back in line. ”
“Careful, Andrew,” I crooned, subtly trying to slip one of my hands through the restraints confining me. “You’re starting to sound a little manic, like I strummed a nerve a little too hard. Tell me. Why’re you so against your son being gay when you were the one taking dick at—”
Andrew lunged; that calm disposition was gone. He’d engaged in rage before, but this? This solidified that I was poking at an old, unhealed wound. His hand wrapped around my throat, and there was no mercy in his eyes. Eyes I defiantly stared into as his grip tightened beyond mercy.
He wanted me dead, his body language saying it all in the way he screamed, spit flying as he choked me beyond anything he’d done before. “You. Are. Trash.” His laughter was deranged. “Me? Hit a nerve? Fuck you!”
The strength he used made speaking impossible, but it didn’t stop me from grinning.
My face warmed, blood frantically trying to make its way to my brain, only to be stopped by the blockage Andrew had created.
The pressure in my head increased tenfold, my lids fluttering slightly as oxygen failed to fill me.
Checkmate, bitch.
If this was how I died, strangled by my superior in the medical wing of this hellhole, then so fucking be it. I didn’t give a damn about the nuances anymore. All I cared about was that, after a decade of kneeling at his feet, I’d finally uncovered what haunted Andrew Valens—his own insecurities.
“Sir,” a voice rose above the noise.
He didn’t pay any attention as one of the guards from the door entered. He was too gone, rage consuming him because I’d done it. Made the great General Valens crack beneath my words.
“Sir!” The man yanked on his arm, and on instinct, Andrew shoved him away, but the hold around my neck was gone.
My lungs filled with air, an uncontrolled cough escaping me as breathing became an option once again. Chest heaving, I fumbled to gather my bearings, my innards burning with the sudden influx. With each wheeze, I slowly slipped from the edge of unconsciousness he’d forced me to.
“Sir,” he reported quickly, hoping to ease the fury beneath General Valens’ stare. “Matthew’s currently with Oren.”
“Then fucking stab them both!” he yelled, shoving himself from my bed. “I gave you a command, and you do whatever it takes to complete that order.”
His walls were crumbling because, whether he wanted to admit it or not, things weren’t going according to his plan. His pillar, his castle, had its first crack.
Laughter, unfiltered and manic, escaped me. Shaking my head, the first genuine smile crossed my face in years as my rasped taunt slithered from my lips. “Uh-oh, General. Whatever will you do?”
Seething was an understatement for the expression on his face. He was bright red, a color I’d never seen the man wear before as he plowed to the door. “Fine. If you fuckers can’t get shit done, I’ll do it.”
He grabbed the guard by the collar, tossing him further into the room. “He moves, I shoot Matthew. He so much as breathes incorrectly, Oren will have more than one scar and a fucked up knee for the rest of his life.”
Scoffing, I licked my lips. “Running away as you’ve done your entire life? Figures, Valens.”
“No,” he answered. “I’m running exactly toward the source of your heart, and I’ll personally make sure this time it bursts.”
Hours. It felt like I’d been in that room for hours, waiting for word on whatever the fuck was going on in the world beyond.
I’d been holed up before, but in a place far darker—a place buried beneath the pristine mirage Andrew had created.
The dungeons beneath us were another world, a realm that’d been coated in my blood, sweat, and piss far more times than I cared to admit.
Its cement casing contained the sharp pitches of my screams and cradled the sobs that man had robbed me of.
At least here I had a bed.
I glanced at the soldier who’d remained obediently positioned at the door since Andrew left. “Damn. He’s got you ten inches deep, doesn’t he?”
He ignored me, staring out the window.
“Does he at least fuck you well? I mean, hell, he must know what he’s doing in the bedroom for you all to drop to your knees and kiss his feet, no matter how much shit he trudges through.”
The guard smirked. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? How many times has he fucked you to make you complicit? Bet you’ve kissed his boots to save one of your punk-ass friends.”
The corners of my mouth curled as I crooned, “I’ve never had the pleasure of getting to know his little pecker.
The man prefers blood and bruises over lube when it comes to me.
Though I hope he’s been able to stimulate your prostate and give you the ego boost you so desperately need.
Nothing like being called a good boy, right? ”
“Unlike you, I follow the general’s orders without question.
He gets shit done, and I admire him for refusing to listen to low-life pieces of shit like you.
” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “It doesn’t matter, though.
You’ll be silenced once you find out the details since your invaluable to the general for some reason. ”
“Capabilities. Competence. Things you wouldn’t understand. And while I would put a hand to my heart to offer a semblance of feigned offense,” jiggling my wrist, the restraint danced across the metal bar it was attached to, “kind of can’t.”
“Keep talking shit. It’s cheeky that you think you’re going to get out of this unscathed.
” A short buzz filled the space, the guard reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone.
A smile lit his face as he adjusted the strap holding his gun.
“Wanna see your precious recruit soaked in his blood?” he said as he dangled the device in his hand.
My eyes remained locked on him as I blatantly refused. Swallowing, I pushed down the desire, the need to know what Andrew had done. “What? Are you going to make me, soldier?”
He grinned, typing something into the phone as he ignored the question. “You just earned Oren another blow to the side. Wanna talk again?”
My jaw feathered, and I bit my cheek to keep the retort I wished to utter from escaping. If they wanted me to remain silent, fine.
His phone rang, and the guard answered, showing me the video footage. Oren looked like the first time I’d inflicted pain on him, but it wasn’t what frightened me. It was the dead, soulless eyes as he just… sat there, taking his father’s hits.
“Look at you,” Andrew’s voice said through the muffled speaker. “You’ve finally been molded into the ruthless soldier I’ve begged you to be all these years. You’ve never been able to withstand this many hits from me in the past without crumbling.”
While Oren’s face was perfectly fine, his body was battered, bruised, a patchwork of various shades, but it was surface-level hits meant to color, not to break. This was what Oren had endured for years. Enough to maim, but expertly hidden beneath clothes.
I wanted to speak, I wanted to fucking scream, but I bit my tongue.
“You can blame Thorne for all this shit, but at its core, it’s you. Your defiance has spread around my base, and I’m fucking done with it.”
It wasn’t true. God, it wasn’t fucking true.
Two words I never expected to hear from Oren, and my heart shattered. “Yes, sir.”
He was gone, stripped of who he once was and carved into the type of man I’d become.
“Oren,” I breathed; the syllables of his name like ecstasy on my tongue. “I know you’re still in there somewhere. You can’t let him win.”
“Win?” the guard repeated. “You did this by your defiance, Thorne.” He turned the phone off, the feed gone as Oren’s last words reverberated in my head.
“You’re lucky Oren’s still the general’s son.
Appearances still matter to him; otherwise, he’d be equally as fucked as Matthew was weeks ago when he dragged him into the room while you watched, or did you forget that happened? ”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarled, unable to stop myself from spitting in his direction. “You’re merely a puppet, a pawn, nothing you say holds any fucking weight.”
“A puppet? I have more freedom than you do, Commander. I’m not the one restrained to a bed while his fucked up whore gets the shit beat out of him.”
“You’re right.” The two words came breathlessly, a lure.
“Damn, I should tell the general to keep Oren on lockdown if it keeps you this… agreeable.”
I whispered, my tone too low, too mumbled for him to hear unless he got close enough.
He walked over to the door but paused as his hand grabbed the knob.
I thought he was going to react to my whisper, but he didn’t.
“I hope you heal up soon. General’s looking to start another operation shortly, and your men are just the disposable kind to offer.
” He twisted his face to look at me. “Pleasure waiting with you.”
I watched him leave, not pulling my attention away from the door until I knew he was gone. “Shame,” I hummed, glancing down at my freed wrist, the scalpel I held glinting beneath the fluorescent lights.
I’d enjoy every second gutting each of them alive; he’d merely been graced by chance to see another day.