7. Jade #2
I move to the bathroom as quietly as possible, knife gripped tight. The window. I have to try the window again. Have to get out of here before they decide that following Reaper’s order is easier than fighting it.
The bathroom is dark. I don’t turn on the light, don’t want to alert them that I’m awake. Just feel my way to the toilet, climb up, and start working the window crank.
It’s loosened since this afternoon. The paint’s cracked more, and the mechanism is moving more easily. I work it frantically, not caring about the noise anymore.
The window opens. Six inches. Eight. Ten.
Enough. It has to be enough.
I drop the knife on the toilet seat and start pulling myself up. The opening is narrow, but I’m small. If I can get my head and shoulders through, I can wriggle the rest of the way.
Cold air hits my face as I push through. The drop looks impossibly far in the darkness, but I don’t care. Better to break my legs, break my back, break my neck than wait around to be eliminated.
I get my head through. My shoulders. Start pulling my torso?—
Hands grab my hips.
“No!” I scream, trying to kick, trying to push myself through faster.
But the hands are iron, yanking me back. I lose my grip on the window frame, and suddenly I’m being pulled backward, back into the bathroom, back into the cabin, back into the nightmare.
I land hard on the bathroom floor, the breath knocked out of me. Look up to see Razor standing over me, his scarred face impassive in the darkness.
Behind him, Hawk fills the doorway, backlit by the hallway light. Shadow appears a second later.
They must have heard me. Must have been waiting.
“Going somewhere?” Razor asks.
I scramble backward until my back hits the tub, terror flooding through me. “Stay away from me.”
“That’s not how this works.” Razor steps forward.
I grab for the knife I left on the toilet seat, but Hawk’s faster. He picks it up, examining it briefly before setting it on the counter out of my reach.
“Please.” My voice cracks. “Please, I heard you. I know what you’re going to do. Just—just let me go. I won’t say anything. I swear. I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again. I’ll take Mason, and we’ll leave the state, leave the country, you’ll never?—”
“Jade—” Hawk starts.
“I have to get back to my son!” The words burst out of me, desperate, raw.
“He’s four years old, and he needs me. Please.
He’s just a little boy. He doesn’t deserve to lose his mother because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Please. I’ll do anything. Anything. Just let me go back to him. ”
The three men exchange looks.
Then Razor reaches down and hauls me to my feet by my upper arm. “Come on.”
“No. No, please—” I try to dig my heels in, but he’s too strong.
He’s already moving, half dragging me out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I fight him, kicking and clawing and screaming, but it’s useless. He’s too strong, too controlled, and I’m exhausted and terrified, and my body’s still aching from last night’s crash.
He sits down on the edge of the bed, and before I can process what’s happening, he’s pulling me across his lap.
Face down. Ass up.
“What are you—no! Stop!”
“I think you need to learn a lesson.” His voice is calm. Too calm. Like this is completely normal. “About what happens when you don’t listen.”
“Please don’t?—”
His hand comes down hard on my ass.
The shock of it, more than the pain, makes me gasp. The sound cracks through the room. I try to scramble off his lap, but his other arm locks around my waist, holding me in place like I weigh nothing.
Another smack. Harder this time. The sting spreads across my skin.
“Stop!” I’m crying now, terrified, humiliated. “Please stop!”
But he doesn’t stop. His hand comes down again and again, methodical, controlled. Each strike lands in almost the same spot, building heat, building sensation. Not wild like Tyler’s hits. Not fueled by rage or alcohol or the need to break me.
And then the pain shifts. The sting becomes warmth. Heat blooms across my ass and spreads, sinking deeper, radiating outward. My body responds in a way I don’t expect.
The heat pools low in my belly, between my legs. My breath catches for a different reason.
No. No, this is wrong.
But my body doesn’t care about wrong. It just responds to the rhythm, to the sensation, to the way his hand connects with just enough force to light up nerve endings I didn’t know existed.
Another strike. The heat intensifies. My hips shift involuntarily, and I hate myself for it.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
He’s punishing me. Humiliating me. And I’m getting wet.
Shame crashes over me in waves. Tears stream down my face, but they’re not from pain anymore. They’re from humiliation. From confusion. From the horrifying realization that my body is betraying me in the worst possible way.
I’m getting aroused. Actually aroused. From being spanked by a man who might kill me.
What kind of sick, broken person gets turned on by this?
Another smack. My breath hitches. The warmth between my legs intensifies, and I squeeze my thighs together, trying to make it stop, trying to deny what’s happening.
But it’s undeniable. The wetness. The ache. The way my body is responding like this is pleasure instead of punishment.
I hate myself. Hate my body for responding. Hate that after four years with Tyler, after all his violence and control and abuse, I’m still capable of being turned on by a man’s hand on my ass.
Then he stops.
Razor’s hand stays on my ass, no longer striking. Just resting there, warm and heavy. I can feel the heat of his palm through my jeans, feel the way my skin tingles underneath. He starts rubbing. Slow circles. Soothing the sting he created.
I sob harder, body shaking, completely undone.
“You need to listen,” he says quietly. His hand keeps moving, keeps soothing. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”
I don’t believe him. Can’t believe him after what I overheard. After Reaper’s order. After the twenty-four-hour deadline.
But his hand on my ass is gentle now. It’s nothing like Tyler’s violence. Nothing like the fear and pain and bruises.
His fingers hook into my waistband, and for a second I think—but he’s just pulling my jeans back into place, straightening them, making sure I’m covered. Then he helps me to sit beside him on the bed.
I can’t look at him. Can’t look at any of them. So I just stare at the floor, tears streaming down my face, body still traitorously warm from what just happened. My ass throbs with residual heat. Between my legs, the ache hasn’t faded.
I’m mortified. Terrified. Confused.
And still aroused, which makes everything worse.
“That’s right,” Hawk says from where he’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. “We want something else.”
Something else. Not to kill me. Something else.