Chapter Twenty-Nine
Karlyn
We’d been at Trudy’s enjoying a good cup of coffee and some cinnamon rolls when Grace told me a little bit about her life.
My eyes found Indigo’s a few tables away and watched him stiffen, and I knew he had heard everything that Grace had said.
I didn’t know what to think. I was shocked and angry considering what had happened in my past. I wanted to believe on some level that she wouldn’t have gone through it, but I really didn’t know her that well.
“Maureen is in labor.” Johnny smiled as he walked over to us. “Her water broke in church, and King and Ravage took her to the hospital. We need to go.”
Grace got up and looked at me. “Are you coming with me?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but I slowly nodded anyway, saying, “If that’s where Jackson is, I’ll go.”
Grace and Johnny headed for the door as I slid out of my seat, Indigo standing right next to me, saying nothing when he quickly grabbed me, turning me away from the glass window right before it shattered.
Stumbling forward, I looked back just in time to see Indigo fall to his knees as he coughed up blood.
“Run, baby,” he managed to rasp before falling to the floor.
Time seemed to slow down as chaos erupted all around us.
The air was thick with the sound of shattering glass and the acrid scent of gunpowder.
My heart hammered in my chest, adrenaline surging as I instinctively ducked behind an overturned table.
Panic flickered in my eyes, but there was no time to process my fear—only to react.
I heard Grace scream for Johnny as gunfire rang out.
Scrambling fast, I kept low as I tried to make my way toward the back of the bakery.
I could barely make out the shadows moving—figures clad in leather with the familiar menacing insignias, their faces twisted with violence and purpose.
The Death Dogs had come looking for blood, and in that instant, the safety of Trudy’s was obliterated.
I crawled, hands shaking, searching for Grace in the chaos, my breath coming in short, ragged bursts as the gunfire intensified.
Reaching for the knife in my boot, I heard Grace scream again, cursing as a Death Dog grabbed her.
She fought hard, trying to get away when he hauled back and punched her in the face, knocking her out.
“Find the other cunt!” a Death Dog shouted. “We need to get the fuck out of here!”
Terror seized my throat as I pressed myself tighter against the cold tile, trying to shrink into invisibility.
The din of boots pounding on the floor was deafening as men flipped over tables, desperate to locate me.
Each muffled curse and barked order from the Death Dogs sliced through the haze of fear.
My mind screamed to move, but my body felt frozen—paralyzed by the nightmare unfolding around me.
I forced myself to breathe, desperate to steady my shaking hands long enough to grip my knife and crawl toward the faint outline of an emergency exit, praying I wouldn’t be seen.
“Gotcha!” Hands reached for me and I screamed, turning fast, jabbing my knife deep into his groin. He screamed bloody murder, and I watched in horror as the man stumbled back, his eyes wide with shock as he cupped his crotch, my knife embedded deeply in his dick.
My own scream was a raw, animal sound that ripped from the depths of my soul as I scrambled backward, my free hand fumbling for the emergency exit.
The Death Dog’s agony was a fleeting victory, a small flicker of defiance in the face of overwhelming odds.
I didn’t know if he would live or die, but for now, he was out of the picture.
Grace was somewhere, her fate unknown, and Indigo lay bleeding on the floor.
This was no longer just a fight for survival; it was a desperate race against time.
I burst through the emergency exit, only to run into the one man I prayed I’d never see again as his rough hands grabbed me tightly. His venomous sneer loomed down at me as he licked his lips in victory.
“Hello, bitch. Remember me?”
My vision blurred, my world a dizzying mess of pain and encroaching darkness. His voice, a guttural sneer, echoed with a sickening familiarity, confirming my worst fears.
He was here.
Zephyr.
The architect of so much of my suffering stood before me, his victory a cruel mockery of my fleeting hope.
His fist connected with my stomach, a brutal punctuation mark that stole the air from my lungs, the fight from my limbs.
I crumpled, the cold asphalt a stark contrast to the burning agony that consumed me.
His triumphant laugh echoed the screams trapped in my throat.
Yet, as the darkness of my past threatened to swallow me whole, a flicker of defiance ignited.
The memory of Jackson—his fierce protectiveness, his unwavering belief in my strength—surged through me.
He had taught me to listen to the forest, to find my own resilience.
And now, as this monster loomed over me, ready to remind me of everything I’d suffered, I remembered his words: ‘Survive, baby.’
“Grab the cunt,” I vaguely heard him order as hands roughly pulled me to my feet. “Skinner wants the other one. This bitch is mine.” His words were a raw, brutal claim, a violation that sent a fresh wave of revulsion through me.
I stumbled, my body protesting with every jolt, the foul putrid stench of death and gunpowder replaced by the acrid stench of fear and decay.
They were dragging me, not just from behind the bakery, but from the fragile safety I had found, back into the abyss I’d fought so hard to escape.
The shattered remains of my world, Indigo’s bleeding form, Grace’s unknown fate, all receded as the monstrous reality of Zephyr’s return crashed down upon me.
But even as the darkness threatened to consume me, a spark of Jackson’s teachings flickered within. ‘Listen to the forest, Karlyn,’ he’d said. ‘It will tell you everything.’
Shoved into the back of a van, I vowed.
I wouldn’t be a pawn again.
Not now.
Not ever.
I counted. I didn’t know what else to do, a desperate attempt to anchor myself to something tangible in the swirling chaos, a futile rebellion against the loss of control.
Each number was a tiny victory against the encroaching panic, a silent scream against the violation.
And I didn’t stop until the van stopped, my throat raw from unspoken pleas, my mind a battlefield of what-ifs and should-haves.
Men grabbed me once more, their rough hands a sickening echo of past aggressions, and as another slapped a strip of duct tape over my mouth, a cold wave of resignation washed over me, fighting the desperate urge to thrash, to scream, to be something other than this compliant victim.
The dirty cloth bag shoved over my head was the final suffocation of my will.
I could barely see or speak, the rough fabric scratching my skin, a constant reminder of my dehumanization.
Pulled from the van, I stumbled, my legs weak, my very bones protesting the indignity.
They dragged me, their heavy footsteps a grim percussion to the frantic hammering of my heart.
I could hear men’s laughter, coarse and mocking, women’s moans, a chilling symphony of despair, and smell the putrid stench of stale alcohol and sex, a testament to the familiar depravity I was being thrust into.
“It’s about fucking time!” someone roared, the sound vibrating through the bag, making my teeth rattle.
My head turned, a jerky, involuntary movement, barely seeing out of a small, jagged cut in the bag.
The man walking over was fat, round with a potbelly that strained against his shirt, his presence a grotesque caricature of power.
With his scraggly beard unkempt, he sneered at something or someone behind me. “You get the bitches?”
“Got em’ both, Prez,” someone answered, the false cheer in his voice a sickening counterpoint to his gravelly laugh, which amplified my fear tenfold.
This was it.
No more counting.
No more hiding.
“Get ’em into a room and strip ’em,” the fat man ordered, his voice thick with anticipation, and then I heard Zephyr growl as the reality of my fate, raw and brutal, slammed into me.
“This cunt is mine.”
“No problem,” I heard the other man sneer, a chilling agreement that confirmed my worst fears.
My choice was immediate and agonizing: protect Grace, or protect myself? Was my survival worth her suffering?
My question seared through me, an impossible dilemma.
Then, I heard Grace moan—a sound of pure terror that ripped through my carefully constructed composure.
Turning my head, I watched in horror as the fat man licked his lips and groped Grace’s breasts.
The sight was sickening, fueling a rage that warred with my paralyzing fear.
My stomach churned, a desperate plea to my own body to reject what I was witnessing. “This is the bitch I want.”
And in that moment, a dark, insidious thought, born of sheer terror and a desperate need for self-preservation, whispered in my mind: Maybe if they take me first, they’ll leave her alone.
The thought was a poison, a betrayal of everything I’d suffered and survived, but the alternative, seeing Grace subjected to such barbarity... the potential for regret, for a lifetime of haunting guilt, was almost unbearable.
I moved before I even thought about the consequences.
Fighting as hard as I could, I ripped my arm free, and yanked the filthy bag off my head, punching the man standing next to me, only to have Zephyr haul off and backhand me, knocking me to the dirty floor.
Leaning over me as I quickly removed the duct tape and spat blood on the floor, he sneered, “That’s gonna cost you, bitch. Now I’m gonna let the fucker you hit have your cunt first, while I fuck your ass. Do you remember that, Karlyn.? I do. I really hope you scream for me again.”
Slowly turning my head, I glared up at the son of a bitch. “I pray Jackson fucking kills you slowly.”