Chapter Eight #2
“Come on. Come on,” I chant under my breath, fighting to steady my trembling hands as I fumble with the phone. My fingers feel like rubber—useless, numb, barely responding as I tap the screen. Ronan’s last message is still open—a kissy meme that now feels like it’s from another lifetime.
I try to type HELP, but my fingers betray me, hitting random letters instead.
Then—
A soft, deliberate click.
And everything inside me stills.
They have a key.
The door swings open as if it’s just another evening, like they belong here. But the truth hits like ice in my veins.
Four men in suits step into the room—two of them all too familiar. Men I once trusted. One is the triplet’s father, Uncle Dean. Another, Emerson’s father, Uncle Bryce. And two others I don’t recognize.
They stand there, surveying us like predators in tailored armor. My fingers continue fumbling across my phone screen, still open to Ronan’s last message. I jab desperately at the keys, trying to type HELP—trying to summon him like a lifeline.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Uncle Bryce’s voice is cold and final as he snatches the phone from my numb hands. He glances at the screen, lips curling in amusement before tossing a knowing look toward Uncle Dean. Whatever I managed to send...it wasn’t enough.
Across the room, Reign is barely conscious, slumping on the floor in a tangled heap of limbs and whispers. Her lips form the word no, over and over, so softly I almost miss it.
Dean looks down at her, like she’s an inconvenience. His own daughter. The sneer on his face curdles something in my gut.
Without a word, he nods, and the two strangers converge on her. I want to scream, to throw myself between them and her, but I can’t move. I’m frozen in my skin, limbs heavy, heart pounding against a wall of panic and nausea.
They lift her like she weighs nothing—like she’s a rag doll—and position her carelessly, cruelly, on the other side of the room. My stomach twists.
I can’t save her. Not alone.
But I swear to everything that matters—I’ll try.
And if Ronan saw the message... if he’s on his way... please, please let him get here in time.
“No!” I shout, my voice cracking as I struggle to move, my legs heavy and uncooperative beneath me.
“Don’t touch her! Stay away from her!” The words tumble out, slurred and desperate, as the room spins faster around me.
My legs no longer hold me, dropping me to the floor, thwarting any hope I have to rescue her.
Dean crouches beside me, his voice disturbingly calm as he brushes my hair behind my ear. “Easy now,” he murmurs, like this is some twisted lullaby. “You’re going to wear yourself out. And I want you alert... at least for a little while.”
His words land like ice in my veins. My pulse hammers in my ears as panic claws up my throat. Reign is barely conscious across the room, and I can’t get to her—can’t protect her.
I’m not giving up. Not now. Not ever.
Laughter—low and cruel—echoes around the room, warping as my hearing flickers in and out. Time slips sideways. One blink stretches into forever, and when I come back to myself, I’m no longer on the floor. I’m bent forward over Reign’s bed, disoriented and foggy.
My vision clears just enough to make out the couch.
And I wish it hadn’t.
Reign—my best friend, my sister in everything but blood—is slumped over the cushions.
Her clothes disheveled, her body limp. Two men flank her, one behind, the other in front, and even in my haze, I can see the violation written in every angle of their movements, every sickening sound that reaches my ears.
It’s a nightmare. One I can’t wake up from. One I should never have to witness—let alone survive. My stomach twists as bile rises, my muscles scream to move, but the drugs hold me hostage.
I can’t scream. I can’t fight.
A broken whimper slips from my lips—the only sound I can manage, even though my mind is screaming, begging for it all to stop.
A rush of cold air hits my skin, and dread tightens in my chest like a vise. I’m exposed. Vulnerable. Stripped of everything, even the chance to fight. Two sets of hands grip and drag, groping without care, without consent, and I can’t move enough to stop them.
Hot tears stream silently down my face, soaking into Reign’s bed sheets. My mascara stains the fabric like evidence of everything I can’t say out loud. There’s pressure—unwelcome, terrifying—but the drugs dull the physical edge of it. That numbness, however twisted, is the only mercy I have.
I focus on breathing. On surviving. On remembering every detail so that when this nightmare ends, they won’t be able to hide from what they’ve done.
I must’ve drifted out again—whether from the drugs or the shock, I don’t know—but the sharp rise of angry voices yanks me back. Bryce and Dean are arguing now, their words sharp and accusing, cutting through the fog in my head like jagged glass.
“I thought you said she was a fucking virgin, Bryce! It was your job to watch her.” Dean throws out the accusation, his voice low and venom-laced.
“She should be! The only people she’s been around were our kids...” The words hang for a beat—then realization slams into both of them. “One of the boys got to her.” Bryce lets out a low, furious growl, frustration crackling beneath the surface.
“The agreement was clear—you take Reign, I take Berkley,” Dean snaps, his voice tight with anger.
“I kept my end. So, tell me—how exactly do you plan to fix this mess?” Dean’s tyrant comes and goes with my hearing but refocuses quickly when a sudden pressure pushes against me, followed by Dean grunting.
“Damn, she’s still plenty tight enough.” The pressure jostles me against the sheets, the soft cotton, the worst feeling in the world.
The next thing I register is the sting of cold linoleum against my skin as my body hits the floor with a sickening thud. My bare flesh squeaks across the surface as I slide to a stop.
I blink slowly, lashes flutter, struggling against the heaviness weighing them down.
Voices blur above me—deep, distorted murmurs that twist and tumble through the haze in my mind. Their words make no sense, but their silhouettes flicker in the light, harsh and detached.
Then comes warmth. At first, it feels like comfort—like safety. I almost sink into it, grateful for anything other than the chill.
A soft sound escapes my throat, a broken whimper that betrays the fact I’m still here, still fighting my way back to consciousness.
“She’s waking up,” one voice says, sharper than the other.
Another follows, colder. “Then we’ll let the flames finish what we started.”
A moment later, a white-hot sting rips across my left forearm, sharp and blinding.
The pain is instant and searing, dragging me further out of the fog—but not enough.
My limbs are still heavy, useless, like they’re filled with molten lead.
I try to move, to cry out, to shield myself, but my body doesn’t listen.
The warmth that once felt like a fleeting comfort now turns suffocating—thick, oppressive, wrong. It coils around me like a predator, licking my skin until I’m desperate for the icy touch of the floor beneath me.
But even that minor relief slips away as the heat rises, blistering against the silence I can’t break, while panic claws at the inside of my chest.
“Motherfucker!” The word cracks through the haze like a gunshot, just as a rush of cool water splashes over my burning skin.
Relief is instant, but it only dulls the edges of the fire clawing at my body.
“Hang on, B. I’ve got you.” Jay’s voice—steady, grounded—cuts through the chaos. My dad’s head of security.
His powerful arms sweep me off the floor like I weigh nothing, cradling me against his chest. My eyes flutter open, the world swimming in and out of focus. And then I see them—flames, licking up the walls and crawling across the ceiling like they’re hungry for more.
My head lolls to the side, too heavy to hold up on its own, and that’s when he comes into view.
My dad.
Lying still.
Blood spreads beneath him, soaking into the linoleum like spilled ink.
A scream coils in my chest, but it doesn’t come. Whatever poison clings to my system, it robs me of sound, movement, even tears. But my heart—weeps. It wails in mourning, broken, even if no one can hear it.
“What did those motherfuckers do to you?” Jay’s deep voice wavers, cracking just enough to tell me I must look worse than I feel.
“Da... Da...” It’s hardly a breath, barely formed—but he hears it. Understands.
Jay clears his throat, voice thick. “They got him too, B.” His arms tighten around me as he rushes toward the exit. “We have to leave him. The fire’s already taken too much—we don’t have time. I barely got to you in time.”
His eyes flick down to my arm, and his jaw clenches. “Your arm... damn it.” The words are low, raw—more to himself than to me.
With pain tearing through every piece of me—body, mind, and soul—something deep inside fractures.
Shatters. But just before the darkness swallows me whole, a spark ignites in the rubble of what’s left.
The warrior buried deep inside me rises, lifts her chin, bares her teeth—and makes a vow, forged in pain and fire, etched in blood and ash.
They’ll pay. Every single one of them.