Chapter 6
BLADE
She’s crying. I hate to see a woman cry. I’m not sure what to do but holding her is not a bad thing.
I wonder if I was the one who made her cry.
For some reason, I hate that thought. I like it when she smiles. When she attempts to make conversation despite the fact that it doesn’t come easy to me.
I like having her around because she’s easy company. She doesn’t talk non-stop, hit on me, or throw suggestive glances my way. She is pretty, easy on the eye and a feminine addition to a very masculine environment.
But she’s crying, and I’m not okay with that.
After a while, her sobs subside and she mumbles into my chest.
“I’m sorry.”
My muscles tense, and she pulls back and smiles. “I know, no apologies, but it appears I have a lot to apologize for.”
I frown. “What did I tell you earlier? Out here there are no rules. No problems and no fucks to give. If you want to scream your heart out, I won’t stop you, and if you decide to sing out of tune, I wouldn’t care.
Run naked through the trees; I’d be good with that.
But don’t curse. It doesn’t look good on you. ”
The fact that she is chewing on her lip and gazing at me through her soulful eyes is an inconvenience because my cock has his own mind and likes what he sees.
I pull away slightly; she doesn’t need that to deal with as well as her problems, and she smiles, an act that catches on a little edge of my jaded heart.
“I’m not sure why I cried, really.” She sniffs.
“I suppose it’s because you’re being so kind. I’m not used to that.”
I jerk my head to the side of the stream.
“Come, we can dry out and test your memory if you like.”
She nods and I lift her out of the water as if she’s a feather and curse the fact her t-shirt is stretched across her breasts that are straining against the sodden fabric.
This is bad.
I remain in the water to spare her blushes and lean on the bank.
“What do you remember?”
A flash of pain darkens her expression.
“I remember Angela Constable and what she made me do. I wish it was easier to erase that part of my life from my memory.”
“You can talk about it if you like. I won’t judge, or then again, you could tell me to mind my own business.”
“I’d rather not talk about her, but it has got me thinking.”
I say nothing, wishing like hell she had never stepped foot inside that fucking academy.
“What about?”
“How I got there.”
“You don’t remember?”
That surprises me.
“It’s as if I always lived there. I can’t remember arriving, where I came from, and how I became her, well, slave.”
I say nothing because I’m liable to curse way worse than she ever did.
“However–” she smiles. “For some reason, I realize that Delilah Grimes was never my name. I also understand her reason for being there isn’t mine.”
My ears prick up. “Tell me about Angela.”
“As you’re aware, she was the principal and not a nice woman at all. She ran a club for the staff who she had something on. Many of them owed her, or wanted to be in her good books, so she exploited them.”
“In what way?”
“She used them to do things nobody should imagine are right.”
She sighs heavily, a troubled expression on her pretty face.
“Every Friday evening, she summoned them into her apartment. They wore robes to cover their nudity.”
I can tell she’s uncomfortable and so I say nothing, waiting for her to be ready.
“She sat in the center, like a queen on a throne, and well, ordered them to do things to please her.”
She shifts, peering off in the distance, and her voice is soft, almost as if she is speaking to herself.
“It was all about sex with Angela Constable. She loved it, and the more degraded the better. She forced the others to do unspeakable things to her and to each other. If they resisted, she reminded them of what they had done. Many times, it would involve the cops, and they would either be arrested or fired with no references. They hated her.”
I’ve heard worse, seen worse and killed for less, but it doesn’t get any easier hearing despicable tales like the one this little lady has in her memory.
“I understood it was wrong. How could it be right, but for some reason my mind was always blurred? She used to inject me in my sleep, and I’m guessing it was the drugs she used to keep me compliant.”
“How do you know she injected you while you slept?”
“Because I woke up one time and attempted to get away. The punishment was so harsh I never tried again. But I knew. Every night the same pinprick in my arm, the same pain and the same sensation of floating away from my body. The inner discomfort and the sense that a lot went on during those hours that I would never remember.”
“Fuck, darlin’!”
I thump the ground and she flinches, causing me to say carefully, “I’m not angry with you. If I had one wish, it’s that of raising the dead so I could fucking kill her over and over again.”
“I appreciate that.”
She smiles, a sweet reaction to my temper that I’m unused to and it melts my heart.
“Anyway, it isn’t Angela or her proclivities that I want to tell you about.”
A hard edge creeps into her expression. “She was working for someone. A man. He didn’t live at Rockwell; he called though. Every morning at seven am without fail. It was as if she had to report in to him.”
“Do you have a name?”
She shakes her head. “She called him master.”
“What did they talk about?”
“She reported on what she had on the staff or students. One of her teachers, Jenna Sloane, was particularly corrupt and featured a lot in their conversations.”
The name is familiar to me. She evaded the bullet at the academy and hasn’t been seen since. Ryder is all out looking for her, so any information Delilah has is better than none.
“She relayed any information she had learned about the staff, the students and received instructions from him. They operated under the name The Serpent Society and this man, whoever he is, is the one controlling it.”
She bites that god-damned lip again and fixes me with a bright gaze.
“I overheard Angela talking to Jenna one day. They didn’t realize I was there.
I returned from the laundry and heard their voices.
Jenna was angry and yelling at Angela. She didn’t have the same fear of her that the others did, and if anything, I believe Angela was scared of her. ”
She shakes her head and whispers softly, “She told Angela that her days were numbered. That Gideon was done with her and wanted Jenna to take her place. She had failed to deliver and only had one more chance to prove herself. She told Angela that the prom was her final reckoning and if she didn’t sacrifice two students to the cause, it would be her body on the altar and Jenna would cut her heart out with pleasure. ”
“Fuck me, darlin’. And you stayed? Why didn’t you run like hell and call the cops?”
Her eyes flash. “Because I was terrified, Blade. I didn’t know who I was, where I came from, and well–”
She shifts uncomfortably and says so quietly I almost can’t hear her. “They would discover that I had killed a man.”