Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Ella
At first, I thought, that’s it, they are trying to burn me alive.
Then pain exploded on my left shoulder, and I thought perhaps that was even worse.
Because just when I thought my situation had reached its lowest point, they hit me with the lethal combination of Tristan seeing me get branded, and that’s a special type of torture I never imagined possible.
I had managed to fall asleep, which is a miracle given the state of terror I was in.
I fought it, trying to keep my eyes open in case anyone tried to enter and take something from me.
Except my eyelids did not agree with me, and lying down with the smelly, rusty blanket barely big enough to hide my nakedness, I had fallen asleep, eyes fixed on the door, as if looking straight into the eyes of an aggressor could change my fate.
I had, in fact, not heard anyone coming.
Had they added sleeping pills to the food? Why did I not think about it?
A hand grabbed me from the abyss of sleep, and the neon, my sole companion, seemed to be back on, burning my eyes, bright and unforgiving.
Blurry. A blurry shape, dressed in black, near me, talking with a rectangle of light above my body.
I could not register the voice either, my eyes still struggling to open, a primal instinct making me clutch the blanket to protect myself even without understanding anything around me.
“Ella.” Tristan? My eyes still could not see clearly, and I was struggling to move, as if somebody had injected me with too many painkillers, but hearing–hearing had come back, sharp as a knife.
My man had spoken to me. Of that, I had no doubt.
Straightening my back, I look around, heart breaking into a gallop. Is he here?
“Ella, I’m coming. I’m coming, sweetheart,” he says hurriedly again.
Disappointment hits me with a punch in the gut, but I hold on to his voice.
He did care about me. He is coming to save me.
“Hold on, princess. I’m taking care of everything.
I’ll be–I’ll be there soon, I promise.” Trying my best to focus on his voice, his nickname for me giving me more strength, I find the phone that Cole has been holding above me, filming me with a disgusting sneer, as I finally make eye contact with the man I love, his usual mask undone, revealing a war in his features, love and terror holding him hostage just as much as me.
Instinctively, I say his name, because I know he will understand.
He will know me saying this name means more than this.
It is a promise. A vow. It is the recognition of us.
And he gets it with a clench of his jaw.
“So soon already?” Cole mocks, and my heart aches. Evil does exist. This world is full of it. Changing angles, I notice Cole looking away, lost in his madness, and I jump at the opportunity to sign to Tristan, who is locked on me.
“Basement. Lots of guards. Other prisoners. I’m so scared. Please find me. I’m so sorry I left without telling you.” He nods, and I can almost hear hope in his voice as he grunts to Cole.
“I did what you wanted, transferred everything to your bank account. Now let her go.” What did he just say? How much did Cole want? Shame takes hold of me. Will he ever resent me for it?
“I don’t know, Ashford. I’m starting to enjoy having your girl here.” Cole barks.
“I gave you everything you wanted, Cole. Now let her go.” A flicker of fear crosses his face as I see him, for a second, like a young teenage version of himself, vulnerable in the eye of the storm.
“Or?”
“I swear to God, Cole, I’ll make you regret the day you were born.” Tristan’s anger unlocks Cole’s, and he kneels next to me, grasping my hair in his fist, so tight I am afraid he will tear off my skin. I scream, but like always, silence bounces off the walls before evaporating.
“Want to see something, Tristan?” Cole laughs, a challenge in his voice as I try to get away from him, tears forming in my eyes. “Now,” Cole orders. The door opens, with Nikolai barging in, holding a sort of black stick. No. Please don’t hurt me.
“Stop this. Tell me everything you want. I’ll give you even more.
Anything, Cole, anything.” Tristan shouts from the phone, but I am already trying to get away, scrunching back into my corner like an animal.
I pray and pray, then squeeze my eyes shut, because whatever comes next should not be witnessed.
And just when I think they are about to cut my throat, pain shatters through my shoulder, like a bolt of lightning striking one single point in my body.
The sound of meat sizzling. They have, they have… No. They could not. It’s madness.
Looking at my shoulder, blood drips to my elbow, revealing a large red V.
I wish I could fight it, hold it together, but it’s too much, and so I let my tears spill, closing my eyes and wandering in my mind, on a walk, in a park, not so long ago, with a man I have fallen for.
I visit my books, and fantasy mountains filled with magical deer and fairies.
I dilute into pages of poetry and movies about love and friendship.
I hide in my head, fixating on a drop of blood that has found a home on my thigh.
“Transfer 300 million in the next forty-eight hours or I won’t be so gentle next time,” Cole rasps, but I have stopped listening. Far away, Tristan shouts one last time.
“Hold on, Ella. I’m coming.” I glance up, coming back to reality for a second, just to see him one last time, because after today, I know each day will be another mountain of shards of glass to climb, and they will break me before Tristan gets here.
If he ever does. I take him in one last time, my heart telling him all the things we should have said, the ones now trapped inside me.
It’s okay, I want to tell him. For what felt like one second of our lives, I think I can vow that we felt what so many books call love.
The room turns black again, and steps streer away from me.
Curled up in a ball, my shoulder bleeding, I wander in my head and try to find refuge, knowing that now, this is all I have.
Imagination and memories.
Tristan, thank you. You have created the best of them.
I love you. I wish I had told you before.
I hope you feel it now, even far away from me.
I hope you feel our hearts beating in unison.
It is okay if you do not find me. But promise me to seek happiness even when I’m gone. You deserve it. Go find it. I love you.
Tristan
We’re in.
Thanks to Alfie, we found another entrance on the opposite side of the street from the one we saw in the camera footage.
Not the main access point or the abandoned gas station they had been using as a mouth to swallow people whole, but a secondary exit hidden under an office building that looked like it had been emptied in a hurry years ago and left to rot afterward.
The windows above us were blind with dust, and the whole district had the hollow silence of a place people used to live in a long time ago.
6:45. The street outside is as good as a ghost town. Ideal.
Matt parks in the shadow of the building with the headlights off and the engine running low enough that I feel the vibration through the soles of my black combat shoes more than I hear it.
“Still sure you don’t want me there?”
I sigh. “Wish you were, but he said no cops, no one else but me.”
“What if I hide?”
“I can’t afford that risk.” I could have ignored that, and on any other day I might have, but Ella is somewhere beneath us waiting for me, and we are in a bad enough situation that I can’t afford to make it worse.
Hence, I will not have my friend die in a basement because I was too afraid to walk into it alone.
Staying in the car, his face stern and impatient with that heat guys like him carry when they are deprived of a kill, I circle the hood, checking the gun at my back and the spare magazine inside my jacket.
My silencer is already fixed, cold and familiar beneath my palm, and a blade strapped to my thigh.
Just in case. Killing used to be the line I refused to cross.
The last proof that I was not my father, that the violence in me could be caged, disciplined, civilized into something useful.
Morals are great for people who can afford them.
My Ella happens to be five floors under me, in a particular hell I should have protected her from.
So violence, I’m afraid, will be required.
And whatever mercy I thought I still owed this world died somewhere between the moment I saw the brand on her skin and the moment Cole told me he would burn her alive.
Matt and I exchange a nod as I turn my back to the metallic door, a rumbling echoing in my ear.
“All clear,” Alfie grumbles in my ear, his voice thin with distance and static.
“At least from what I can see. I’ve looped the street cameras, and the motion sensors near the south door should ignore you for the next four minutes, assuming nothing resets, which it absolutely should not do, unless the system is older than it looks, and it does look ancient, so I guess, yeah, that should do it. ”
“Useful information only,” I grunt.
Alfie exhales. “Right. Sorry. I’ve dismounted this door.
It’s a generic system type, so you should be able to open it.
I’m guessing this is the only one with this system, since it’s a far-back entrance.
They must only use it for unimportant stuff and have other secret passages to escape in an emergency. ”
“Can you see those?”
“No, they must have added additional signal jammers to make it impossible to detect them. Just be careful, boss; that shit’s a maze.
” I step in, closing the door behind me, entering enemy territory with nothing but anger and the kind of violence I have spent years pretending did not belong to me.
Fifty meters later, I encounter another door.