Chapter 8
Piper
Present Day
For a few minutes after I hang up, I stare in front of me, shock making my mind go blank. Then, robotically, I stand up and walk out the door.
I have no idea where I’m going. I haven’t even thought of putting on a coat. I’m outside in the freezing drizzle with nothing but a sweater to keep out the cold. It’s soaked by the time I round the corner, the tank top underneath clinging to me.
The taekwondo class is long forgotten as I walk down one street after another. I wander aimlessly, everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours echoing like a refrain in my head, haunting me.
Dad, dead. His eyes unseeing as I pleaded with him to look at me. Mom. Looking for Mom. Knowing even before I found her…
Quill Nelson. The boy who ruined my life and ended my parents’. I know he did it. Fucking liar. Fucking monster.
But no. It was cancer. She was dying. Dad knew… Dad knew…
No. He couldn’t have known. He wouldn’t have sounded so cheerful on the phone if he had. Maybe he could have concealed the bad news from me, but he wouldn’t have said…
What the hell was it that he said?
“Let me tell you, pumpkin, I have a feeling your old dad is about to get a major promotion. Do you know Logan Colt?”
People who are planning to die don’t get excited about promotions.
Dad didn’t know. He was aware Mom had cancer. But she hadn’t gotten around to telling him about the terminal diagnosis yet.
But why the fuck did he ask me if I knew Logan Colt?
I come to a standstill, blinking up at the massive steel building in the middle of the Astley business district. Devil Tower. This place dwarfs everything else in Astley, and its founders have more power and wealth than all the other powerful and wealthy people here put together.
I don’t know why my feet led me here today. Maybe it’s just out of habit. For that one happy year, I spent my afternoons after school meeting up with Quill here.
We never actually went into the tower. That’s where his dad worked, and where mine did too, the janitor on the tech floor that Bob Nelson headed.
Neither of us wanted our parents to know about us, especially not Quill, I guess. But we often met in the looming shadow of the tower, then wandered off into the snaking back alleys that always seemed plunged in darkness, no matter how sunny it was outside, and where our secret was safe.
I look up at the tower, gritting my teeth.
It wasn’t a suicide pact, because Dad didn’t know. It wasn’t a murder-suicide, because Dad wouldn’t do that to us. To me.
They didn’t end their lives. Someone ended it for them. And that person is Quill Nelson.
My eyes blur with angry tears as I stare at the tower, hesitating. I’ve never felt so powerless before. That tower is a monster, far greater than the nightmare that burst into my subconsciousness last night. It’s a monster because it’s all powerful, and I’m nothing.
What did Devil Tower make Quill do?
He was already working for them when we were together. He had a gun, and I’d overheard enough conversations between him and his dad to realize what working for Devil meant.
He was one of their soldiers, a secret army that Devil formed. Kids they train in high school, who then go kill their enemies. All so the leaders don’t get their hands dirty.
The leaders.
Damien Wells, Everest Grant, Vincent Murilla, Igor Fars… Logan Colt.
I swallow as I remember Dad’s last words. Do you know Logan Colt?
You can’t live in a 100-mile radius of Astley without knowing of him. I eye the building, a sense of foreboding pushing down on me.
I know Quill is working for Devil. But what if he’s working directly for their leaders?
What did they make him do?
Somehow I latch onto the hope that Quill isn’t entirely responsible. That he didn’t decide, of his own free will, to end my parents’ life. Surely, he can’t be that cruel. Right?
But in the back of my head pricks the knowledge that he can be. That he is.
Didn’t he abandon me when I needed him most?
Bitterness strangles my throat as I stare up at the looming tower. Fuck Quill. Fuck Jones. Fuck all of them. I’m going to find answers, even if I die in the process. I’m going to enter Devil Tower.
Anger surging through my veins, I take a step forward.
Suddenly I feel the weight of a hand slap against my chest. It’s so sudden and so violent that I lose my breath, but whoever it is doesn’t wait for me to gain it again. A band of steel encircles my waist, and I feel myself getting tugged backward, dragged into one of the back alleys I know so well.
I’m so shocked I don’t even think to cry out. Not that anyone would care. The few people who are braving the cold, dreary weather and walking around the business section by foot, have their heads stuffed in scarves and collars, earbuds and muffs on their ears.
They’d never hear me over the howling wind.
Anyway, who would help Piper Day?
I’m shoved against a wall, my body slamming against the cold brick surface. Fuck, that hurt. I nearly sink to my knees, wheezing from the smack of the hand on my chest followed so quickly by the hard shove against the wall.
It takes me about fifteen seconds to realize just how incapable I am of defending myself. A full minute more to even think to look up at my attacker.
And then, I freeze.
Standing before me is the creature of my nightmares. The apparition with the blank white face, fabric pulled tight all around it. Though now, in the brightness of the day, I recognize it’s a hoodie.
Memories of that horrible nightmare come rushing back. I guess I had been so convinced it was only a dream that I’d buried it into a corner of my subconscious. I hadn’t even given it another thought upon waking up.
But now, the monster is here. A few steps away from me. With a gun pointed at my head.
Oh, fuck.
He’s got a fucking gun.
He draws near as I blink at him in shock. Then, as he sticks the barrel of his gun against my forehead, the coldness of the steel startles me enough to realize just how frozen I’ve been since setting eyes on him.
Well, guess I know what my fight, flight or freeze response is.
I clench my jaw, remembering learning about that in Psych 101. I’d decided my response was to fight. Didn’t I spend all of high school being known as Pissed-off Piper? I’ve flipped off guys for blinking at me the wrong way. Hell, I even punched Kevin the bellboy’s nose and broke it.
But faced with real danger, I guess my response is to freeze.
What is even the point of taking a taekwondo class since I’ll just fucking freeze up and stare like an idiot at a guy sticking his gun in my face?
There were at least sixty seven seconds in which I could have changed that outcome. But of course, I just froze.
Fuck me.
It’s not like I could take the taekwondo class anyway, since I’m about to die.
Stop. Stop. Just stop.
My brain curses at itself for rambling on. There’s a gun against my forehead and I’m thinking of taekwondo. No wonder Quill used to say I was the most annoying person on Earth. When my mouth’s not open to let an endless flow of words spill out, my rambling thoughts are picking up the slack.
Then I startle again as the gun leaves my forehead just long enough to press itself against my mouth.
Okay, what the hell?
“Give me one good reason not to pull the trigger.”
My eyes widen at the gravelly, raspy sound of his voice. He’s clearly disguising it. But I recognize it.
A monster. The white-faced figure standing before me is a true monster.
I stay quiet, and I’m not sure if it’s because the shock has turned into something far more bitter, far more cruel. Or if it’s because I can’t think of a good reason for him to not pull the trigger.
Probably a mix of both.
“Go on,” prompts the monster.
My mouth stays resolutely shut.
He presses the barrel harder against my lips and clicks his tongue in impatience.
“Open your fucking mouth. Open your fucking mouth and take it.”
I’m already sure I know who the monster is, even before he finishes his sentence.
“You worthless whore.”
I close my eyes to keep the stinging tears hidden under my eyelids. I’ve gotten good at that. Good at keeping the tears at bay so the bullies don’t see them. Crying makes them think they’ve won.
But this isn’t a bully, it’s a monster, and there’s no hiding from him. Especially as he takes a step closer, and my stomach twists at the scent of his spicy warmth. My entire body is shaking and my thighs are pressing against each other. And it’s not from fear.
It’s an uncontrollable spark that travels through my body and makes my skin hum, and makes me think of a single thing.
Him.
“Take the fucking gun in your mouth. Suck it off. Or I shoot.” Then he makes a derisive sound. “Better yet, I leave. Because you don’t even need me to threaten you, do you, whore? Bet you can’t wait to taste my gun.”
The worst part is he’s right. I want anything that comes from him. No matter what form. No matter how degrading. I thought I’d managed to put up walls of protection around me. But he’s here, he’s really here, and it’s all I can do not to dissolve at his feet, a pathetic pile of needy slush.
My brain is on mute as I tentatively open my mouth and my tongue curls around the barrel, tasting it.
It tastes like metal. Cold, coppery metal. The barrel feels a lot wider than it looks. I widen my jaw and take it fully. And then, feeling the wetness puddle in my panties, I suck it in.
He snorts, an odd sound coming from the featureless, soulless face. “I fucking knew it. Whore.”
He shoves me against the wall again, his hand wrapping itself around my neck, his thumb finding my pulse, squeezing just enough that I’m struggling to breathe.
He doesn’t let me lick the barrel anymore. He pushes it in, hard and fast, while squeezing my throat with his hand, making me see white.
I wonder if he’ll kill me like this, blowing me up through my mouth as I suck off his gun.
Or maybe he’ll strangle me fully, snapping my neck so I fall to the ground.
Then my corpse would be covered in snow, forgotten in this back alley until Officer Jones finds me and makes up some reason for my death.
She was so devastated her parents died that she stuck a gun in her throat while strangling herself. It’s a suicide.
But no. Even as he seems to be fucking my mouth viciously with the gun, I can tell he’s holding back. He could snap my jaw in two with the barrel, but he’s only going in a few inches at a time, as if calculating just how much I can take without getting hurt.
Or not. I realize I’m grasping at straws right now.
He lets go of my throat just when the lack of air starts to make me feel lightheaded.
Then he flips me so I’m facing the wall, and he pushes me to it, my hands pressing against the bricks.
One of his hands wraps itself around my hair while the other one pulls down my leggings and my underwear so suddenly that I feel the cold air against my bare skin before my mind even has time to process what’s happened.
I close my eyes in humiliation as he nudges my thighs apart and runs the barrel of his gun against my folds.
Then he snorts derisively again. “Fucking soaked.”
I can’t help it. I should be seething. I should be traumatized. I should be whatever it is that women are when they’re being victimized.
But his hand, wrapped tightly around my hair, so hard the strands feel like they’re close to being pulled out at the roots, sends zaps of current through me.
My entire body comes alive under his touch, regardless of how cruel it is.
My core twists with heat and I find myself arching backward, toward the murderer of my parents.
He chuckles in a heartless sort of way, before pressing my folds once more with his gun.
I don’t want the gun. I want his hands. I want his cock.
Maybe he knows that. Maybe that’s why he’s so intent on giving me some cruel, wrong version of what I’m silently begging for.
“Please,” I whisper, hoping it sounds like I want it to stop.
Even though what I really want is for it to continue.
“Please what?” he growls in my ear. “Please stop?”
Fuck. He’s really going to make me say the words.
“Please stop?” he insists in his unnatural, disguised voice.
Shuddering in disgust at myself, I slowly shake my head.
“Don’t stop,” I choke out.
The minute my words are out, he pushes the barrel inside me and I whimper at feeling the metal object entering me. It’s not as big as his dick. But it’s hard, cold, and it’s not him.
Still, my inner walls grip it desperately, as if they would happily welcome anything if it came from him. His cruel words, worthless whore, hurt, but it’s my own mind that cuts me.
Yes, I really am worthless. Pathetic. Arching into the monster who destroyed me. Arching into my parents’ murderer’s touch as he fucks me with his gun because he can’t even stand to touch me with his cock.
He drives it in and out, so hard that I’m breathless, that I’m arching harder than ever, but now, it’s just so I can accommodate the length of the object spearing me.
Yet again, in some back recess of my mind, is the realization that he’s restraining himself. He could hurt me a lot worse with the long, heavy, hard object.
Then again, maybe I’m just desperate to cling to anything that might humanize him.
It doesn’t feel as if it can get any worse as he pumps in and out of me, relentlessly fucking me with the barrel.
It can’t get worse because he’s got it angled in such a way that it keeps rubbing against some part of me that makes my body seize and tense, that makes my wetness pool around the barrel.
He knows exactly what he’s doing.
My inner walls spasm around his gun as he drives it hard inside me, and I don’t even think as I grind back to meet his every thrust, until the degrading orgasm has finished ripping through me, and I sag against the wall, panting hard.
He withdraws the gun and falls against me, crushing me, his hard, warm arms enfolding me just like they did that time when he brought me home on his bike.
Those arms are a lot harder, a lot bigger now, and a lot warmer, despite the cold air. But they still feel like him, and right now, in spite of everything, I wish he’d whip me around and kiss me.
I wish he were my silent protector again.
Instead of my monster.
Too soon, he pushes off me, as if he regrets touching me, as if the feel of my body disgusts him.
Then he growls, “Stop snooping around. Or you’re dead.”
Before I’ve even had time to react, he’s gone, leaving me with my panties and leggings around my ankles.
I gasp, my mind reeling, as I quickly pull them up and search for him. But he seems to have melted into the shadows.