40
GAbrIEL
Present Day
Something was wrong.
Emersyn hadn’t been in the Menagerie enclosure for over twenty-four hours.
When we could, Seven and I snuck through the estate in an attempt to find her, only to come up empty.
Seven wanted to go hack the cameras, but I had one last Hail Mary.
I stalked across the mess hall toward where Angel sat alone.
He glanced up and watched us approach apprehensively, having already clocked my expression.
“Where is she?” I asked without a preamble.
“Hey,” Angel glanced around and jerked his head at the bench. “Sit down.”
“I’m good, thanks,” I said shortly. “Do you know where they’re keeping her?”
Angel ran a hand over his mouth and looked at Seven, then back at me. When he seemed to be taking his fucking sweet ass time deciding what to say, I leaned over the table, my patience impossibly short.
“I’m not going to ask again.”
Angel’s eyes sharpened, but his body language stayed non-confrontational. “Mahoney took her to the Hole.”
“What’s that?” Seven asked.
Angel sighed heavily. “You two are going to get yourselves killed.”
“You let us deal with that,” I said.
After what felt like another long pause, he answered. “The entrance is about two-hundred yards along the edge of the cliffs going south,” Angel said, his voice resigned. “Mahoney usually only puts Brooks, and a few of the more senior guards, on rotation there.”
“Why?”
“That’s where Mahoney likes to—play—with the more problematic people he brings here,” Angel said grimly. “Either people he interrogates or occasionally women he’s trying to break for clients. I’ve heard he dabbles in experiments—”
I didn’t bother to hear the rest and shoved away from the table to leave. Angel’s hand latched onto my forearm. I was about to fucking punch him, but the look on his face stopped me.
“You didn’t read the rules, did you?”
My jaw tightened, because obviously I didn’t.
“Punishment is a beating, or worse,” Angel said, something very close to worry in his eyes.
I shrugged him off. “I have to find her.”
A beating was literally the least of my worries. When it came to Emersyn, there really wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect her at this point. Angel looked over my shoulder at Seven, probably in hopes that he’d receive some help dissuading me, but he wouldn’t find an alliance there.
“You’ll need the door code,” he said finally and listed off six numbers.
I jerked my head in a nod and headed for the door. Once we were in the hallway, I felt Seven’s hesitation as he fell into step next to me.
“You sure about this?” He asked.
“You’re not?” I fired back.
“Again, man, we need to play this safe—”
“Nothing about this is fucking safe,” I snarled.
“Okay, safe isn’t the best word, but you know what I mean,” Seven said in exasperation, not the least bit put off by my tone.
“What happens if Mahoney catches us and we get detained in a way that stops us from helping her? Or worse, inhibits us from moving on Mahoney if, or when, he decides to use her as leverage?”
“I can’t leave her down there.”
“Then let me go,” Seven jumped in my path and forced me to stop. “Let me go—that way, only one of us is at risk.”
“No—but, you do bring up a good point,” I said. “I’ll go.”
“You’re impossible,” Seven groaned.
“I’m not putting you in that position again,” I said flatly.
As always, the memory of that desert hell was so close I could practically smell the blood and dirt where it mixed together below Seven’s feet, as he was whipped nearly to death.
We’d suffered unimaginable ways on that deployment when we’d been captured and held as prisoners of war. I’d lost everyone but Seven.
Seven gave me a look. “That was not your fault.”
“Yes, it was,” I forced the words past my clenched jaw. “It was my decision that put us there—”
“But, it was those bastards that chose to whip me, Gabriel,” Seven snapped, as though that alone was the only thing I felt guilty for. Seven’s stare hardened as his patience snapped.
He stepped closer to me. “Them. Not you.”
Even after all this time, he still couldn’t change my mind about it not being my fault. When I didn’t speak, he grabbed my shirt with both fists. I could see the past mirrored in his eyes, the same way I’m sure it reflected in mine.
“I could have stopped it—I could have told them what they needed to know,” Seven’s voice wasn’t the steady, carefree tone anymore.
It was laced with pain and dark violence.
“But, I didn’t. We didn’t.” He stared me down.
“And, I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but you shouldn’t feel guilty for that. ”
I frowned. “You’re going to have to say it a lot,” I grumbled.
Seven’s lips twitched into an almost smile. “I have already said it a lot,” he said in exasperation.
He studied my face and groaned quietly in frustration when he saw the set of my jaw. I wasn’t going to change my mind. He stepped out of my way and the tension evaporated as he waved his hand.
“Go on then,” he grumbled. “Tell her I said hi.”
I left Seven and made my way out onto the grounds of the estate.
The rain had stopped, but the incessant wind and dark skies hadn’t abated.
As I neared the location Angel described, I saw a door set into the rocks at the top of the cliffs.
I didn’t hesitate, intent on acting like I belonged there, but just as I approached to enter the code, the door burst open.
Two guards emerged, a bloody body between them.
One of the guards glanced up and looked relieved to see me.
“Oh good—backup,” he panted. He tossed me a syringe, followed by a set of keys. “She got him good. Careful when you go back there, I haven’t managed to sedate her yet.”
“Is he—”
“Yeah—” He adjusted his grip on the dead guard. “Never seen anything like it, man. She latched onto his neck.”
They moved past and I slipped inside the door and made my way down the blood-strewn hallway. The lights flickered, and for a moment I wondered if I’d set foot into a horror movie.
At the end of the hall, Emersyn paced the bars like a caged animal.
She was naked, with blood splattered across her face and down her chin where it coated her chest and stomach.
There were lash marks across her body, but none that really broke the skin.
A chill raced down my spine at the wild look in her eyes.
Her previous composure was gone, replaced with the sort of unhinged despair I’d seen on the edge of a break.
I approached the bars but she didn’t look my way. She kept clenching and unclenching her fists at her sides. I knew it was risky in her state, but I carefully unlocked the door and slipped inside. Her attention latched onto me, but she kept pacing. Her eyes dropped to the syringe I held in my hand.
She scoffed. “Changed your mind?”
I shook my head. “It’s just for the cameras.” She didn’t look like she believed me.
“What happened?”
Her composure collapsed and her lower lip quivered. She turned toward the wall and slammed her fist into it. Once, twice—I put my hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“If you want to hit something, hit me,” I said.
She whirled around and threw a wild punch at my face.
When it didn’t land, she paused and her lips curled in a predatory smirk as her eyes locked onto mine.
She attacked with a ferocity that was both primal and militaristic at the same time.
I was ready, but I also didn’t want to hurt her.
When her first hits came, I let them land.
She didn’t hold back and after the first two hit hard, I deflected her next set and dodged away.
She rushed in and again, I let her get a few hits in before I shoved her back. I refused to hit her.
“Fight me,” she screamed. “Fucking fight me!”
Her anger didn’t make her sloppy, but there was a deep pain in her haunted eyes, and a desperation in every hit.
She moved again, and I caught her fist as it came for what may have very well turned into a knockout punch.
But, she was fast and instead of pulling back like I anticipated, she moved closer and grabbed my firearm from my belt.
She stepped back and leveled it at my head, the wild look in her eyes had tempered slightly, but her finger dangerously caressed the trigger and sent a thrill down my spine. I held my hands up near my chest and looked around the cell for clues of what they’d done to her.
“What happened here?” I returned my gaze to hers. “What did they do?”
“Shut up,” she snarled.
Emersyn was too far away for me to risk disarming her and when I took a step toward her, she matched it with a step back.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I said.
“Everyone else is,” she scoffed. “Why aren’t you like them?”
I didn’t know how to answer that without giving up my position, and I didn’t know if our conversation was being listened to.
“Did they drug you?”
She shut her eyes and ran her empty hand over her face. For as distraught as she was, her hand was steady on the gun. She’d used one before, that much was obvious.
“I can still see them.” Her words were breathless.
“See who?”
“I failed them—” She spoke so quietly I could barely hear. “I fucking failed them—”
My lips thinned. Psychological torture then. “Whatever he made you see—it wasn’t real—”
Emersyn thrust the gun at me. “Yes!” She cried. “That’s the problem! It was real. All of it!”
Fury and anguish sharpened her eyes and her finger tightened on the trigger.
“Put the gun down,” I said.
I took another step toward her. When she took one back, she was met with the wall.
“Don’t.”
“It won’t help your situation to kill me.”
My words had a devastating effect on her. More than I anticipated.
The rage warped into grief and she nodded. “You’re right.”
She turned the gun to her own head and the room grew frigid. Everything in me revolted against the sight of her finger wrapped around the trigger. She wasn’t bluffing. I took another step toward her.
“No—” I barked. “Whatever Mahoney did—don’t give him this—”
“Shut up!” She cried.
I took another slow step. “If you do this, he will win.”
Tears streaked down her cheeks, and the look of devastation on her face caused panic to course through my veins. My throat felt thick, but I couldn’t go mute—not when she was this close to destruction.
“Put the gun down.”
“I–I can’t–” Her words were broken.
Her eyes fluttered and I lunged. The shot went off as I pressed her into the wall.
I yanked the firearm out of her hand and shot the security camera before I tossed the gun across the space.
She struggled in my arms. Her knee came up in an attempt to catch me in the balls, but I shoved my own between her thighs.
Despite the situation, the press of my body against hers did terrible things to my self-control, not to mention the heat of her caused my anger to flare hot.
She was mine, and how dare she try and take herself away from me.
“Don’t you ever,” I shoved my arm against her chest. “Ever, fucking do that again.”
Emersyn’s eyes widened at the panic in my words. I could see the confusion that warred with the rage and grief. Tears clustered on her lashes, and we were both breathing heavily like we’d just run a marathon. Her hands gripped my forearm hard enough to bruise, while her heart thrashed in her chest.
My other hand held the side of her face, my fingers anchored in her hair like if I let her go, I’d lose her again, maybe forever. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and never let go. But, I knew I couldn’t come on as strong as I wanted. She didn’t know me—she didn’t trust me.
So instead, we breathed together. I watched the anger as it bled into grief, and my chest ached at what she’d lost even if I didn’t know the whole of it.