Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
Eden
“Bleeding Out”
I’d tasted blood so many times in the last few hours that I’d forgotten what the inside of my mouth was supposed to feel like.
Swollen gums, busted lips, the unmistakable tang of iron sliding down the back of my throat.
Everything still spun in slow circles, but the world had slowly been righting itself again.
My arms were numb where the zip ties cut in, and my legs…
I couldn’t tell anymore. Pins and needles.
The men kept circling, picking at me like vultures, like they had time to kill.
The small man had been talking about Halo and how he was going to kill him slowly, how he’d make me watch.
He wanted fear in my eyes. He wanted me broken before he even touched me, but I wasn’t giving him that.
He could take the blood, the bruises, the tears, if they came.
But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of fear. He would have to rip that out of me.
The big man I’d stabbed back at the motel, started circling me with the grin of a man who enjoyed fear. The scrape of the crowbar on the concrete was louder than it should’ve been. He was playing it up for effect; he wanted me to feel every inch of his approach like a countdown.
When the smaller guy taunted me again, I couldn’t help but force another blood spray of spit into his ugly fucking face.
What he said next made my stomach drop.
The man with the injured leg stepped forward, already unzipping his pants, and I felt the first real fear surge through my spine like lightning. I pulled against the zip ties until they cut deep, still nothing. The second man stepped up beside him, doing the same.
“She’s going to bite me,” one of them muttered.
“Break her jaw,” Rook said. “You’ve got a fucking crowbar, dumbass.”
I went still. Not with surrender, but with fury. They wouldn’t touch me, I wouldn’t let them. I would bite, scream, fight, I would bite my own tongue off before I gave them that. I would rather drown in my own blood than beg. My heart pounded against my ribs like it was trying to get out.
The other big guy headed towards me, already undoing his own pants. “Hey, I wanna get in on this too.”
They stood around me like a pack of wolves. I screamed at them. No words, just a primitive warcry that I felt come up from my stomach. The man with the crowbar grabbed the back of my head, and I shut my teeth together, sneering at him as he brought the crowbar up to pry my jaw apart.
And then I heard a pop similar to the sound of a bat hitting a baseball.
The man holding my hair jerked backwards, dropping like a sack of bricks.
His hand didn’t immediately release me, and as he fell, he jerked my chair backwards, and I fell to the floor with him.
I looked over to see his right eye completely gone, replaced by a gaping geyser of blood.
I blinked, dazed. It didn’t register at first. I thought I was hallucinating.
The other two men were suddenly alert, but not fast enough. The other big guy jerked, a hole opening above his left eye: blood misting from the exit wound. He blinked rapidly, mouth opening like he was trying to speak. He collapsed like someone had cut his strings.
Rook spun and started to run out of the building, yelling for the guy who had opened the gate for us earlier, but a bullet exploded through his lower jaw. He fell to the ground, clutching his throat, screaming wet and gurgled, hands clutching what was left of his mouth.
I let out a sob, because I heard the fast but controlled footsteps on metal above us.
I couldn’t lift my head to see him, but I didn’t need to.
I felt him like I always did. That tension in the air that changed.
And when his boots hit the concrete, the sound cracked something open in my chest. He moved fast, not frantic, just focused.
A different kind of rage simmered in his eyes now, not the fury that had killed them.
This was fear: an unbearable fear for me.
He was cutting the zip ties, one at a time, careful but quick. My wrists fell loose, and I moved them to my chest, gasping at the rush of blood to my fingers and toes.
“Eden…” My name was sharp in his mouth, like it hurt him to say it. His hands were shaking as I fell against him, allowing myself to be dead weight for just a moment. He wound his fingers into my hair, his breathing ragged in my ear. “I’ve got you, baby. You’re safe now.”
My fingers twitched against his chest when he gathered me up in his arms. Halo was shaking. His arms were steady, but his chest trembled against mine.
I realized, slowly, that he was crying.
“I’m okay,” I lied.
“You’re not… You’re not okay. I’m so sorry.”
His eyes flicked to my face, and I saw the guilt there, carved deep.
“I have to get you out of here, but first… please don’t look.”
He settled me down slowly and stood, walking over to where Rook still wallowed on the ground. He hadn’t even tried to get up, to run. I realized now that Halo hadn’t killed him on purpose. He wanted it to be more personal.
“You aren’t going to have any rest,” Halo choked, crouching over him. “I’m sending you to hell, and I’m going to be right there behind you. I’m going to torture you for eternity for what you did to her.”
Rook sneered at him, gulping and bubbling at the mouth as he tried to speak. “Matteo already knows about her and about you. It’s too late. You’ll never get the drop on him.”
Halo stood slowly and looked back at me, repeating, “Don’t look.”
My eyelids fluttered, chest aching. “I want to.”
He hesitated, but let me. He raised his booted foot and smashed it down on Rook’s head.
It folded in like wet cardboard. I’d never seen anyone’s head stomped before, obviously, but how easily it crushed caught me off guard.
Despite having said I wanted to watch, I turned away as Rook’s body convulsed and fought, and Halo continued kicking him until he was still.
The sound of bone splintering echoed in the otherwise quiet room.
Halo came back to me, running his hands along my arms, my ribs, checking for breaks. His touch was gentle, but still trembling. Then he adjusted the pack on his shoulders before he lifted me in his arms, one under my knees and the other under my arms.
“I can walk.”
He didn’t respond as he hurried me out the back door. As we passed Rook’s body – just a pulpy mess from the shoulders up – I realized the body was still making noises. Moaning, trying to scream.
The air outside hit me like a wave of unbearable heat on my raw skin. Halo carried me like I weighed nothing, like I wasn’t shaking, wasn’t bleeding all over him. His breathing was fast and harsh in my ear, but he never broke stride.
We were halfway across the fenced in property when I heard it.
Another crack, this one louder and more harsh.
A gunshot that was sharp and close. Halo jerked, his body flinched against mine, arms tightening like a vice.
A rough grunt tore from his throat and he stumbled forward, knees dipping under our combined weight, but he didn’t fall.
“Shit,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Hold on to me.”
He spun and ducked behind one of the rusted-out cars in the dirt lot. His hands shook as he lowered me to the ground behind it, checking me once. Eyes scanning me head to toe, looking for new damage. I saw it, though: blood. Dark and spreading down his lower back. He’d been shot.
“No. No, no, no…” I choked out, reaching out for him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice already distant like he was somewhere inside himself, holding the rest of the world at arm’s length.
“You’re bleeding,” I whispered. “You—”
Another shot rang out and I heard it make a metallic clink as it hit the hood of the old car.
Halo grabbed the pistol from his waist and sprung into a standing position.
I watched as yet another shot caught him in the shoulder, and he reeled back with a curse, his body slamming against the side of the car.
But now he knew where the shooter was. He took two steps to the side and fired twice without hesitation.
Silence again.
Halo turned to me. His face was pale, teeth clenched, and sweat dripped down his temple. He looked like he could barely see, and still he reached for me.
“No… don’t. Just stop, please,” I begged. “You can’t carry me, you’ll—”
“I said I’ve got you. I have to keep myself between you and this place… just in case…”
In case someone shot at us again. My heart sank.
He pulled me into his arms again. I could feel his pulse racing.
Every breath was a grunt of effort. His knees buckled once near the edge of the lot, and I swore I felt him start to go down, but then he surged forward again like pure willpower was holding him together.
The car was just ahead: damaged worse than it had been when I last saw it.
The windshield was cracked and… I’m sure that was blood.
He got the door open and dropped me gently onto my feet.
Then he collapsed against the side of the car, one hand braced on the roof, the other gripping the frame like it was the only thing tethering him to the ground.
“Halo.”
He looked at me, eyelids heavy, lips tinged with blue. He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath since the moment he walked into that warehouse.
“I just… need a second,” he said, blinking slowly.
His legs buckled again, and I scrambled to hold him up.
“No, no, no. Stay awake,” I whispered, pressing my hands to his chest. “You don’t get to die on me now.”
He slumped more heavily as he tried to open the passenger side door.
He groaned but didn’t fight me when I wrapped my arms under his and tried to lift.
Tried. I wasn’t strong enough. Not even close.
But I got him halfway up, dragging and half-pulling, forcing my body under his to shift his weight toward the car.
“Please,” I breathed, teeth clenched. “Don’t make me do this without you.”