Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EBONY
The air hums with a strange energy, it’s off, but not in the way you’d expect.
A normal person waking up in the boot of a car with their hands tied, kidnapped by masked strangers, would be struggling with a full-blown panic right about now.
So why is it I feel anything but? Truth is, I feel safer here in this grim underground carpark with two goons masking their identity than I ever did lying in my bed back at the group home.
If this whole scenario doesn’t have me begging for my life, I must’ve finally hit my limit.
The two men are broad, tattooed, and tall, wearing wide-brimmed hats, white vests, jeans, and boots.
“You boys here to strip for me?” I tease, immediately regretting it when the slightly taller of the two begins to lift his top, showing me that the tattoos extend from his arms and cover his chiselled lower belly.
“We stick to the plan,” I hear the sterner captor say as he tugs his friend’s hand away from revealing more of himself to me.
Their sharp gazes are pinned on me as they whisper back and forth.
I contemplate whether I have onset Stockholm Syndrome kicking in as I think up new ways of how to get him to show me more. He clearly wants to.
Deciding my sense of identifying danger has officially gone to shit, and whatever they pumped me full of is some kind of mind-altering nerve agent, I go back to the basics and rely on learned behaviour, some old class safety tutorial running on a loop in my head.
‘Never let them take you to a second location.’
I contemplate whether this would technically be considered the second location as I started out my night at the party, but all this thinking has my head thumping.
A caterwauling scream bursts out of my mouth without warning, broken as my sore throat constricts around the sound.
It seems to take everyone by surprise—myself included.
I don’t do it because I’m eager to escape—which I’ll address with my therapist at a later date, but because it feels like the next natural step.
It’s too confusing, the idea of being here and not trying to escape, especially after the evening I’ve had already.
The backhand across my cheek comes out of nowhere and silences me instantly, my mouth snapping shut.
My hands fly up instinctively. Of all the reactions I could have, I laugh heartily in response.
My body leaning in to the guy closest to me who looks to his friend, shock clear in what I can see of his face.
This clearly isn’t how any of us had seen this playing out. At least he had the decency to hit me on the opposite cheek to where Bobby had backhanded me earlier—the broken skin still stinging and raw there. This guy’s slap was a love tap in comparison.
“You can’t fucking do this,” I laugh. “You won’t get away with it. I’ve met plenty of small dicked men who thought they could take what they want from me, and I’ve had just about enough of it, so let’s get the show on the road. If you’re gonna kill me, do your worst. I’m bored.”
I don’t know how much time has passed, but my near-death experience with Bobby has skewed my bullshit meter, and I’ve had enough of men dictating how my evening is going to go. I could also really use a fucking drink if I’m honest. The buzz of alcohol would definitely help right now.
“Big boys without a plan, huh? You’re a joke,” I snap at the guy who likes to throw the orders around. The one who seems to be standing as far away from me as he possibly can. He bristles under my scrutiny, flexing his tattooed fists as he fills his lungs to steady himself.
Antagonising them probably isn’t the best response right now, but I can’t seem to stop my mouth from blurting out the words.
Maybe being strangled and left for dead has warped something in my brain.
Maybe this is all in my imagination, and I’m slowly bleeding out in the rosebush outside the keg party.
“Hit her again and shut her up,” Mr Tall, Dark, and Allergic To Me orders, his penetrative deep green gaze set on my face as my mouth curls up into a wide grin. There is a familiarity about him that I can’t place.
“I would, but I think she likes it.” The other guy who slapped me chuckles, slick satisfaction and what I think is admiration in his playful tone.
‘Do we like it?’ I pose the silent question, my gaze refusing to be beaten down by the big guy who is breathing a little heavier now as his frustration with me grows.
‘From them apparently, yes. Note to self: you need to change your underwear.’
Rubbing my thighs together to relieve the ache there, I feel how wet I truly am.
‘We are appalled though, right? With their audacity? This is kidnapping,’ I snap back, hoping I haven’t completely lost my mind as I have the one-way conversation with myself.
‘I think you mispronounced the word aroused—we are definitely aroused.’
Fucking inner-thought train—as usual veering completely off track at a hundred miles an hour and of no use to me. My body should know better, and yet here we are, wanting two strangers to play out this little captive scenario with me.
Lock me up and throw away the key, I’m clearly certifiable.
“You want to scream all pretty for me, darlin?” the playful one whispers into my ear as he tousles my hair in his fingers; it takes everything in me not to scream my approval and melt into a gooey puddle at his booted feet.
The spell is broken when the other guy says tersely, “Stop playing with the captive.”
Even with all this charged flirtatious energy bouncing around between us, my fight or flight mode activates, and I rear back, headbutting the guy that smells like heaven and hearing a mighty crack fill the air.
“Holy fuck, Dove,” he splutters and groans, swaying on his feet, backing away as he rips the red handkerchief stained with his blood from his face.
Unmasking one of my captors leads to yet more questions as his head snaps back, and he pinches the bridge of his nose to stop the flow of blood streaming down over his lips.
His cowboy hat tumbles to the ground as he whines as he approaches the other guy so he can assess the damage. “Definitely broken.”
I’m stunned into silence, unable to move from the spot. The second part of the safety class tutorial encouraged us to make a break for it, but the soles of my feet are glued to the spot. My mouth is dry, tears building at the corners of my eyes as a searing heat expands in my chest.
“You’ll survive,” the other guy says as he pulls down the matching handkerchief from covering his mouth and grabs a hold of his brother’s face.
The dusting of facial hair light across his tan skin, his full lips stretched into a wide smile.
Using his thumbs, Caleb cracks his brother’s broken nose back into place with very little effort.
“Stop whining,” he adds, slapping Cooper’s face playfully as he leans in and hands him a wadded-up t-shirt from the front seat of their car to stem the residual blood flow before it has a chance to dry on his skin.
I haven’t heard the nickname in six years, the sound of it crushing as my heart lurches painfully against my ribs.
I feel it as my internal armour slots back into place, my guard up as realisation dawns.
Ebony with an axe to grind steps forward with clenched fists as hot tears trail over her battered cheeks.
Sixteen-year-old Ebony, the girl they left behind—her instinct is to run to them and wrap her arms around their necks, her fingers tingling, ready to pull them in close and never let them go again.
Each inhale burns as I fight back the emotion clawing at my throat, for so long I’ve imagined what this moment might look like, and now that I’m here, the daydream that has brought me so much comfort in my darkest of moments, shatters.
The venom that fills their unfeeling gazes tells me to keep my distance—like two pit bulls warning me off as they bare their teeth, all playfulness gone.
The bubble of hope that was blooming inside my belly when I first saw their faces unmasked dies a fiery death, and all that remains are the charred remnants of sorrow and loss that I have felt every day since they were taken away all those years ago.
I bite on my lip and push aside the heartbreak—years of practice mean it’s easily done; there was no place for feelings where I’m from. With my emotions wrangled and chained away, hidden from the light of day again, I steady myself and fill my lungs until they burn in protest.
I refuse to let them see how much they affect me. I’ll revisit how good they look and how much I’ve missed them when I’m alone later crying into my pillow. Right now, I have questions, and they have the answers.
Caleb and Cooper Knox will likely kill me for what I did, and I can’t say I wouldn’t deserve it, but that doesn’t mean I’ll lower my defences for them and make it easy.
Be strong, Ebs. You’ve got this.
I very much don’t ‘got this,’ but the confidence boost is appreciated.
“Care to share your thoughts with the group?” Caleb teases, and I wish he’d get close enough so I could break his nose like I did his brother’s.
There is a beautiful irony to the fact that these guys were the ones who taught me everything I know about true self-defence; the headbutt was a Cooper classic, and I doubt he thought I’d ever be using it on him.
Ever the carefree jokester of the two, Cooper leans against the wall, his amused gaze flicking between the two of us as a contrite smile spreads across his stupidly handsome face.
Damn these fuckers and their Adonis looks.
Crazy at this level should come with a warning label—not a cover model aesthetic, large muscles, and a protective bear aura.
What have these guys been eating? It’s hard to forget them as the two scrawny kids who were always by my side.
“Looks like I’m not the only person you’ve pissed off today.” I glance up at Cooper’s left eye with the purpling bruising.
“My brother decided to go against the plan,” Caleb says through gritted teeth. I glance down at his bloodied right hand where the skin has split across his knuckles.
Cooper chuckles darkly, pulling my stare from his brother. “Totally worth the beating to get a taste of you, Ebs.”
“Your eyes…” I breathe, the word more of a sigh as the memory of my time at the party pushes past everything that has happened since I woke up here in the boot of their car. “Cowboy in the closet?” It feels like a question I already know the answer to. How didn’t I see it?
Cooper dips his hat by the brim as though to greet me as I struggle to take in a full breath.
“You saw?” I ask, not needing to finish the question when Caleb answers tersely.
“Every fucking second of it.” He grits out the words as though the fact pains him.
“You moan so prettily when your guard is down and you’re impaled on my fingers.”
A blush creeps up my throat, the staccato thump of my heart beating wildly against my emotional shield that is trying to keep it safe from these guys. “If you’re waiting for me to fall at your feet and beg for a repeat, you’ll be waiting a while. You should have packed a snack.”
“You are the snack, Dove.” Coop grins wickedly, dipping the fingers he had inside me in the closet between his lips as though he’s savouring the taste of me. There’s a promise of more in his tone, and I barely move quick enough to mask the shudder that rocks through me at the implication.
I want it, but I won’t admit that to them.