Epilogue
COLLINS ~ TWO WEEKS LATER
I force my lips to remain shut to fight a scream that ratchets up my throat as my legs are wrenched wider apart, the spreader bar latched between my ankles clicked open another notch wider.
His favorite tool.
Guy.
My former foster father.
He fucking found me.
I hear the sound of a metal chain jangling for a moment before it’s pulled taut once more and latched onto the end of the bed. I can’t see anything past the cloth that’s been tied over my eyes for God-knows-how long, but I know he’s nearby.
He never goes far.
The touch of his large hand starts at my ankle and trails all the way up my leg and stops when it reaches the apex of my thighs. His hand squeezes my sex in such a bruising grip that it nearly makes me whimper in pain, but I bite it back. Barely. I will never give him the satisfaction. Though it’s hard to fight the nausea and the bile that rises in the back of my throat when he starts to rub me over the dirty t-shirt that barely covers my body with the way my limbs are stretched so far beyond what’s natural that my fingertips are now numb.
An unexpected slap lands on my cheek and it causes me to cry out. Two sounds ring out in the cold room as a result.
One groan of pleasure, and one of pain.
My heart squeezes at the latter.
“Ah,” my sick, sadistic captor whispers in the quiet of the room and moves his hand from my center and grips my thigh so hard that I know it’ll bruise and my traitorous voice whimpers at the pain, knowing he’ll leave a bruise on my pale flesh. “There are those beautiful sounds I’ve been missing for so long.” He chuckles. “Took you long enough.”
I have no idea how long we’ve been here, but it feels like an eternity.
“Don’t you fucking touch her you piece of shit!” Riley’s tortured voice screams out from the other side of the room and a little more of my soul dies with his words.
I hate him.
I love him.
I fucking hate that I love him.
I found out when we first woke up in this room that Guy had no idea about my relationship with Creed. Somehow when I’d been sighted in public, his goons that he calls spies had only seen me with Riley. This whole time, Riley was being targeted, too, because Guy thought that he was my only boyfriend at the time. Not Creed.
Tears threaten to rise behind my closed and covered eyes because if I’d just stayed away, kept my distance, and stayed friends— family —then he would never be here, suffering right alongside me. I hate him because he pushed his way into my life without even meaning to, when I wanted to stay invisible. I hate him because he showed me what it was like to have a family. I hate him because he’s shown me unconditional love.
I hate him because I opened my heart and had fallen so deeply in love with him.
The tears threaten to spill as Riley yells and pleads and begs for Guy to spare me, to turn his anger onto him.
It won’t work, Baby.
It never does.
He isn’t who Guy wants.
It’s not Riley’s pain he craves.
It’s mine.
I want to tell him to save his breath, to calm himself down before he gets hurt again, but I remain silent. I don’t trust my body to not betray me and give Guy what he wants if I open my mouth.
Riley had been shot the day we were taken, and Guy did a shitty patch job on his side where the bullet had passed through. He wanted him alive to witness my torture.
A dark chuckle fills the space and the hand gripping my thigh leaves momentarily before it returns, this time gripping my throat in another bruising hold. Not enough to take my breath, but he’s pressing on my pressure points that have stars dotting my vision. Panic grips me because I can’t fight him off.
My body freezes at the sound of the distinct click of a gun being cocked.
“I’m getting really fucking tired of hearing your boy-toy screaming and crying, so I’m giving you more of an incentive, little girl. ” The nickname he gave me so long ago threatens to drag up haunting memories that now seem like a dream compared to the nightmare I’m currently trapped in. “You’re going to give me what I want.”
I try to shake my head, breathing heavily through my nose and fighting the loss of consciousness that’s threatening to consume me, but he squeezes a little tighter and continues. “You’re going to give me what I want—” he repeats, “Or I’ll shoot your fucking boyfriend in his chest, then fuck you in front of him, using his blood as lube and make you watch as the life drains from his eyes.”
He's a fucking psychopath.
I do know what he wants, and up until now I’ve never given it to him. He’s always been obsessed with my pain. He gets off on it. But the thing that makes him come when he touches himself?
My screams.
I refused to give them to him.
He could cause me pain. He could make me cry and beg for mercy. But I’ve never given him my screams. I will never give him the satisfaction or knowledge that he’s breaking me from the inside out.
Besides the fact that I physically can’t scream, my throat never allowing it since I was a child, I would never scream for this man. This fucking monster.
Until now, with Riley’s life on the line, I’d do any-fucking-thing if I could if it meant I could save him.
Would he really shoot him?
It’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
Guy’s hand slides from my neck down to my left breast and he pinches and twists my nipple so hard I swear I feel the fragile skin tear there. I open my mouth on a silent scream as white dots my vision and the feel of wetness now soaking the shirt and the sickening, pleasured groan that he releases, accompanied by the blinding pain in my chest, tells me that he’s caused serious damage to my breast. My shoulders shake with quiet sobs as the searing pain envelopes me.
“Nothing?” He has the fucking nerve to sound exasperated. A loud bang sounds in the room followed by a pained, “ Fuck ”.
“Oops, I missed.” He snorts, but then he begins to laugh, the shaking of his arm as it jostles my injured breast threatens to make me vomit from the pain. “But he fucking pissed himself like a child. Oh, fuck, this is too good. ”
My heart squeezes painfully that the thought of Riley being tied to that fucking chair, tied down and so helpless and scared to death by having a fucking bullet graze by his head.
He shouldn’t even be here.
I hate him.
I love him.
I fucking hate that I fell in love with him.
“Let’s try this again, little girl. ” He drags his hand down my chest, the blood from my nipple spreading down the tainted fabric. When his hand reaches my sex, he delivers a slap so hard against my clit that I cry out, the hit nearly numbing the tender flesh there. He shifts, bending closer to me given the proximity of his voice to my ear. “Give. Me. What. I. Want.”
I’m about to tell him to go fuck himself, but then he does the one thing he’d never dared himself to do before. The one thing that finally breaks me, the final stone cast against the walls around me and causes my strength to collapse around me. It has Riley screaming and cursing. Begging.
I haven’t seen Riley’s face in so long but in this sick moment, I’m relieved I don’t have to see the look on his face as I’m assaulted.
The excruciating pain is unbearable as too many fingers invade my unwilling body. It’s unforgiving and rough and for the second time in as many minutes, I feel something tear within my body. But this time, it’s too much. I’d been assaulted before, the trauma of the events still haunt me in my dreams, but this? This has shattered the remnants of my soul. I cry out, my hips bucking up as much as the chains will allow, trying to dislodge his fingers from my body but it only serves to fuel his fire and he pulls them out almost all the way, only to force them back into my body, his nails scraping and knuckles bruising.
Riley is still crying my name, begging for mercy, begging for Guy to turn his wrath onto him to take the fucking bullet.
He. Shouldn’t. Be. Here .
“Let him go.” My voice cracks as I sob around the pain of each invasive thrust.
“You want me to free him?” His voice sounds almost reverent, but I know better.
“Please,” the singular word comes out in a whisper so quiet, I almost don’t hear it myself.
“Give me what I want, and I’ll set him free.” The bite of the muzzle of the gun hits my cheek as he shoves the blindfold from my eyes with the barrel. I blink my eyes open, and my pained gaze immediately finds the watery, red-rimmed eyes of my sweet Riley, bruised and bloody, the pallor of his skin alarming as he struggles from where he’s chained to a chair across the room.
“P-promise m— ah—” I cry in pain when Guy thrusts again and groans at the way my body clenches. It’s not to keep him in, though. It’s trying to force him out, which only makes his efforts more painful, fueling his attack on my body.
“I promise. Just give me what I want, little girl. Just once. That’s all I need and he’s free.” I’m surprised I can hear him over the pleas falling from the lips of the man whom I would give anything to kiss one last time.
I look into his beautiful, dark, watery eyes, hoping he can read the words I won’t say out loud. He shakes his head vehemently, his own silent plea to not give in, but the last thrust feels more like a punch to my most sensitive area and it’s more than I can bear.
I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.
Guy tuts. “You can do better than that.” He aims the gun at my man’s head and cocks the gun again. I drop my voice, lower and lower until sound begins to register, and the silence is filled with the one sound I swore I’d never make again.
I scream.
But it’s not for him.
I scream for me.
I scream for every motherfucker who ever dared to put their hands on me .
I scream for Creed, in hopes I’ll get to see his bright blue gaze again.
I scream for Riley, and the victory of earning his freedom from this hellhole.
I fucking did it.
“Oh, fuck yes. There’s that beautiful sound.” My captor moans and all at once his hand leaves me and I whimper in pain. It’s with that same hand he unbuckles his pants and pulls his dick from the waistband of his underwear and in two hard jerks, he comes with a harsh growl. Hot, sticky ropes of cum land all over me, from my face to my thighs. Marking me. Tainting me.
His face looks more relaxed by the time he tucks himself away and it fuels my desire to end his fucking life if I ever escape from these shackles.
My temporary relief from the end of his assault is replaced with panic when I notice the gun is still aimed at Riley.
“Wait,” I panic, yanking hard on my restraints, but not feeling the pain of it in my numb extremities. “Y-you said you’d f-f-free h-him.” I half-sob, my body losing its fight and trying to shut itself down to heal and disconnect from reality.
“Hmm,” He hums, looking at his spend and rubs it into my skin, making me dry heave at the acrid smell of his release clinging to my body. “I did say I’d free him, didn’t I?
He steps away from me and toward Riley .
Relief never had a chance to take hold because in an instant, Guy raises the gun higher and presses it against Riley’s forehead. His beautiful face is blocked by the monster of my nightmares. Black creeps into my vision and I fight to stay here in the present with him. I try to beg Guy to let him go, but nothing more than a broken rasp comes out when I open my mouth.
Riley’s sobs mix together with mine and echo throughout this small prison cell of a room. Meanwhile, Guy laughs in the face of his betrayal.
“Collins listen to me baby,” Riley whimpers and hiccups through his tears, his voice carrying over the psycho’s laughter as he taunts my reason for breathing with his gun. “I love you?—”
“I hate you,” I croak quietly.
“I know. But I’ll love you enough for the both of us.”
The familiar words nearly stop my heart altogether, knowing their true meaning. We had this very exchange when I briefly woke up in the trunk of the car to Riley watching me with drooping, weepy eyes. I didn’t want my first time telling him I loved him to be as a captive in the trunk of a car, now I may never get that chance at all.
I was going to tell both him and Creed that I loved them the night we were taken. I haven’t even heard Guy mention Creed the entire time we’ve been here. My heart cracks at the thought of the man I’ve loved my whole life.
I know he’s probably out there looking for me and won’t stop until he does. I just hope it’s in time.
I’m pulled from my thoughts as I drift away to hear a voice start to sing. Even in the face of death, Riley is singing to me. His voice is weak and sounds so haunted and broken, but the words of the song that he and Creed wrote for me settle over my heart like a balm for my shattered soul.
A song about their love for a goddess born of stardust, and her guardians who rose from ashes.
“This is just fucking sad.” Guy’s voice cuts through the sorrowful song that has flooded the room. He looks at Riley and laughs, the sound so chilling that it wraps around my body like a sheet of ice. “I did promise my little girl that I’d free you. So I will.” He presses his gun to Riley’s temple and a sob escapes his lips. His eyes are trained on mine, trying to tell me everything and nothing all at once. “Collins say ‘goodbye’.” Guy says coldly as he presses the gun harder into Riley’s temple.
No, no, no! Please, God, don’t take him away from me. From us.
Please, please, please, let him live.
He deserves to live .
I try again and again to plead for his life, jerking as hard as I can against my restraints until my voice finally cracks through.
“ No, please—” But my second scream is cut off when the room explodes with a loud BANG!
Blood sprays the wall and I cry out, Riley’s name the last thing on my lips before my world explodes around me and my mind fades into oblivion.