Chapter 45
Sunny
Weeks ago
I stare at the pregnancy test like it’s not fucking real.
It can’t be.
I can’t be fucking pregnant. Not me.
I’m not the type of girl to have a fucking child. I’m not mom material.
But I can’t just …
My hand instinctively lowers to my belly, and some kind of warmth floods my veins that I’ve never experienced before.
What the fuck is this?
My fingers begin to twitch, and I throw the test into the sink, angry with myself that I let this happen over some stupid dick.
It’s always the dick that convinces me to do dumb shit.
And it isn’t even a guy I wanted to keep dating.
Fuck me.
I knew I should’ve taken the pill.
I grab my shit and slam the bathroom door shut behind me, and I waltz down the stairs and don’t tell anyone in Delta Nu where I’m going. I don’t want people to put their noses in my business. I need to handle this by myself.
I jump on my motorcycle and drive downtown to where I know that fucker hangs out—an old neighborhood full of dilapidated houses mostly used by the wrong crowd.
I park my bike down the road and head toward the house at the end, where Sam and his buddies are probably counting money for the coke lords. I don’t care what he does. I just know he’s into the sadistic shit just like I am, and we were a good match for a little while.
But that has to end.
At the front door, two burly men guard the place.
“I’m here to see Sam. Samuel Garcia.”
“What’s your name?” the guy asks.
“Sunny Reed,” I reply.
The other one yells through the door. “Sam. Girl’s here to see you, says her name is Sunny.”
“That’s my girlfriend, let her through.”
I immediately barge past them into the house.
Sam’s busy with the counting machine, but stops when he sees me. “What are you doing here?”
I rub my lips together. “We need to talk. In private.”
“Sure.” He scoots his chair back and walks into a room next door, so I follow him through and sit down on the bed while he shuts the door.
“I’m pregnant.”
Again, the staring.
So much staring, it bores me to death.
“Aren’t you going to say something?”
“When are you going to have it removed?”
I frown. “Removed?”
“Yeah. You’re not expecting me to accept that, right?”
“You put your dick inside me,” I growl.
“You told me to fuck you,” he retorts. “After you strung me from the ceiling like some plaything.”
Kinks don’t matter now. “We’re equally responsible for this.”
“And?” He shrugs. “Take it out.”
Rage boils up deep in my body. “You’re pissing me off, Sam.”
He grinds his teeth. “Sunny. I’m not motherfucking kidding. Go get an abortion. Today.”
“Fuck you, you don’t get to make demands,” I retort, and I get up and walk toward the door. “Never fucking mind. I’m out of here.”
He stops me from exiting. “No. You’re not leaving until you promise me you’ll take care of it.”
“Fuck that,” I retort.
Suddenly, he pulls out a knife and holds it to my belly.
“I’m not fucking joking around, Sunny. I can’t have this. Not with what’s at stake.”
“Have you lost your fucking mind? Over a goddamn coke joint?”
He slams his hand in front of my mouth and pushes me back toward the bed. “Don’t. You don’t know these people, and you don’t know what you’re messing with.”
The door slams open, and the two guards who were at the front door burst inside. “She’s causing trouble, isn’t she?” One of them points a gun at my face.
“Don’t let her fucking run away,” Sam growls. “Tie her up.”
“What?!” I gasp, fighting him off. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
The two guards attack me and pin me to the bed, and I fight them off as best I can, but one of them has already tied a rope around each of my wrists and bound me to the bed. I bite one of them in the arm until my teeth leave a mark.
“This chick is insane,” the guard cries, pulling back. “You’re on your own, dude.”
“But the boss,” Sam mutters.
“Don’t care. Fix this yourself,” the other guard says, walking out on us.
“Let me fucking go, or I swear to God, I will kill you, Sam,” I roar.
He frantically searches in a drawer, and it feels ominous as fuck.
I have to free myself, quick.
I jerk the ropes and bite on the edges, but the knot is tied too securely. Fuck.
He returns with a syringe, and my eyes widen.
“What the fuck are you doing, Sam?!”
Oh fuck no, this isn’t happening. Not to me.
“It’s only for a while, until you calm down,” he says.
I kick and shove the blankets off. “Fuck no, get that thing away from me!”
But he grips my arm in the flurry of hate and stabs the needle into my veins.
Within seconds, everything becomes blurry. Numb.
And I fall into a dreamless, dark sleep that feels never-ending.
Every time I come to, Sam feeds me drinks and food and lets me use the bathroom, and I’m too out of it to realize what’s happening. He’s jabbed my body several times over the past few days. I don’t know how much time has passed or how many times he’s drugged me.
But I have seen the sun passing in the window.
I heard the chirping of the birds and the howling of the wolves in the woods of Priory Forest.
And I heard the people in the room next door, who were busy with the drugs, whispering about me.
But there was nothing I could do.
Nothing but wait …
Wait until Sam stopped drugging me and let me exist.
Only for a while, he said.
That was a lie.
Men.
Always the fucking lies.
When I finally wake up for real, I suck in the air and smell the scent of leather and … metal? I blink a couple of times to get my bearings, as my brain feels fried. For some reason … I’m in a car.
“What are you doing?” I mutter, trying to understand. “How did I get here?”
Sam’s behind the wheel. “I cut you free from the ropes and put you in my car. We’re going somewhere.”
“How long has it been?” I ask, completely out of it still.
“A week. Maybe a bit more.”
Fuck me.
“I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t think of anything else. I’m sorry, Sunny. But I can’t let you do this to me.”
I can’t even keep my eyes open.
“Look at us. We’re not parent material. We hang with criminals. You’re a killer, for crying out loud.”
My head is still pounding. It’s way too early for a conversation like this, especially after what he did to me.
“Is this … this is about the kid,” I reply.
I never should’ve gone to him. I never should’ve told him.
“What did you think was going to happen? That I was going to be happy about this?” He balls his fist. “No. I already made arrangements.”
I frown. “Arrangements to do what?”
He pulls something from his pocket, and before I realize what it is, he’s already jabbed it into my leg.
Not again.
The medicine instantly courses through my veins. Everything begins to spin, and I’m slowly getting dizzier and dizzier. I try to grab the door handle and press down, but I can barely move a muscle.
“Don’t try anything,” Sam says, starting the engine. “It’ll only make things harder.”
“What the fuck are you doing, Sam?” I keep jerking the door handle.
“I just gave you some more of the sedative, that’s it. Perry said it was totally safe, don’t worry.”
He’s insane. He’s fucking insane if he thinks he’s going to get away with this.
“We’re going to have to deal with this one way or another. I’m too young to become a father.”
I finally manage to get the door open, but my body flops out like a dead fish onto the pavement. I struggle to get away from him, but with every passing second, I lose more and more of my energy.
“Sunny, stop fighting, please. I’m only doing what’s right for both of us. You’re not equipped to be a mother, and we both know that. I can help you.”
That bastard!
“Get away from me!” I huff as I crawl across the ground, but I don’t think I get farther than a couple of feet away from the car before he’s already right there to grab me and haul me over his shoulder.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he says.
The loss of control—of my humanity—is what scares me the most. But the terror has only just begun, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
Nothing.
I have no clue where he drives me to, and I float in and out of consciousness every other minute.
The only thing that registers is a grimy-looking building up ahead.
Flashes of light flicker in front of my eyes as I’m put on a stretcher by a doctor and a male nurse.
I imprint their faces in my mind along with the names on their badges. Carlo and Paul.
My muscles refuse to move, and my eyes can barely stay open. When I blink again, I’m in a room with bright lights and machinery all around. Another doctor stands in the corner with a syringe and a mask. I read his name tag. Mike Smith. He approaches me and places the mask over my face.
“You won’t feel a thing,” he says.
Within seconds, I’m totally out, floating in a black void of non-existence.
It feels like ages have passed in the blink of an eye.
When I wake up, I’m in excruciating pain.
Lights flash in my eyes, and I can hear the machines beeping right beside me.
The doctors around me, or whoever the fuck they are, rush me down a hallway.
“Quick, quick,” one of them says. “Before the cops get here.”
I don’t know what’s going on, or what even happened to me as I’m being whisked down the hallways.
Everything hurts. Doors crack open, and the blinding light of the sun greets me. I close my eyes, still half asleep and groggy from the medicine they’ve forced into my veins. I can barely stay awake, but I have to know what’s going to happen to me.
“Hurry up,” one of the other men says. “She’s bleeding everywhere, we can’t just—”
A car rolls up to the pavement, and the two men drag me off the stretcher and into the car. They throw me into the back seat, and I groan in pain as the meds slowly begin to wear off. Something went horribly wrong. I can feel it in my bloody bones.
“Jimmy. Take her.”
“What the hell, man? She’s bleeding all over my car.”
“I don’t care. Just get her out of here before the cops arrive. You know what’s at stake.”
Jimmy grumbles. “Fine, whatever. Where do you want me to take her?”
“Doesn’t matter. Anywhere. Just get rid of her.”
The door slammed shut, and I have no clue what happens, because my brain is still too messed up to register the passing of time. My consciousness is fleeting, and I can smell the scent of my own blood perforating the air, suffocating me.
The drive seems endless, even when it only lasts a few minutes.
The tires screech as the car comes to a halt somewhere off the beaten track. My door is opened, and I’m tugged out of the car by my feet. The driver drags me into the woods, but I know this place by heart. Priory Forest.
If only the trees could whisper, they would tell him how many bodies our family has left strewn all around these roots. His will be next.
My eyes burst open, and he immediately releases me, nearly falling over his own feet as he backtracks.
“Listen, it was just a job. I don’t know what’s going on, don’t blame me. You’ll be alright. I gotta go.”
He darts off, and I can briefly hear footsteps among the fallen leaves, and then the loud roaring of his car’s motor before he rushes off.
Silence.
My hands slowly come back to life, and I touch my skin to graze the wounds left behind, none so violent as the one between my legs. The aching makes me pull my fingers back, and I look at the blood spread all over my hands, turning my eyes red with rage.
I scream, the loudest scream I’ve ever released into these woods, before I turn around and crawl through the mud, inch by inch, toward the one thing I’m owed…
Revenge.
Atreus
Present
Her words echo in my mind.
The horror she’s gone through is beyond what anyone would be able to cope with.
Her body, her organ, her choice was stolen away from her.
Nothing—and I mean nothing—could ever compare to that kind of anguish.
It would drive anyone mad.
Even me.
And maybe now … I finally understand how one could become a killer like her.
I caress her cheek with my thumb. “You’re safe here. No one’s going to hurt you.”
It pains me to my core that she’s had to live with this pain in solitude for so long. No one should have to suffer like that.
Her eyes twitch as her tears have all dried up again. “They already did.” Her voice is full of disdain and mistrust toward the system I helped maintain.
I avert my gaze.
How could I even look at her when her misery is partly caused by my inability to protect this city?
The system failed her.
I failed her.
Sunny
“I’m …” He sighs and shakes his head, like he doesn’t know what to say.
Who would after listening to my words?
He sighs again like it strains him to ask me any further questions. “You targeted those men, and only those men, right?” he asks, tilting his head to look into my eyes.
I keep my mouth closed, but the stares we exchange speak volumes.
“But you weren’t done yet,” he says.
No shit, Sherlock.
I was nearly finished when he arrested me.
“I need to ask you something, Sunny. And I need you to answer truthfully for me.”
I don’t like where this is going.
“Have you ever killed an innocent person?”
I lick my lips then shake my head.
“Would you?”
What kind of question is that?
“You think I’m a serial killer,” I mutter. “You already made up your mind.”
He cups my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I want to believe you.”
“Then believe me.”
His lips part, but he stops himself before he speaks.
What was he about to say? Does it even matter when I’m already in jail?
It’s too late to change fate.
He frowns, then releases me and takes a few steps back. “I wanted to tell you that you don’t need to worry about your boyfriends.”
My heart stops. “Don’t hurt them,” I beg. “Please.”
I never beg. Not for anything. But I must keep them safe from my own pain.
They don’t deserve to be jailed for my faults.
As he walks back to the door, he pauses and bites his lip. “Do you love them?”
Not even a second passes before I nod.
He lets out a long-drawn-out breath and nods. “I’ll do my best.”