Chapter 12 Cade
Cade
When I come to, I don’t remember a thing. Everything is hazy, and my sight is blurred. As I spend time regaining consciousness, reality becomes clearer. Weakened, I raise my hand, feeling along the wounds on my face until I find the bandage wrapped around my nose.
“Don’t touch that,” a voice garbles, weak and wheezy and completely unknown.
Fear curdles in my veins when a voice comes from the shadows. Whipping my head to the right, I squint to make out who’s in the room with me when a dim light flicks on overhead. With the glow being so low, it takes no time to adjust, allowing my comfort to return when Clara hobbles into view.
“Hey,” I groan, pushing on the thin mattress to sit up straight against the wall.
Past Clara, who is still somewhat in the dark, similar beds lie in a row.
They’re empty, all covered in black, oxidized stains.
The hard crust beneath me confirms I sit on top of them, too—the blood of someone unknown pricking against my skin.
Shifting, I take in the rest of the space. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a locked cupboard above an isolated metal sink.
“It’s a medicine cabinet.”
“Where are we?”
“An infirmary,” Clara utters, head rolling around the room. “Sort of. It’s not too far from where we’re kept. So, I guess that’s good to know.” Beneath her breath, Clara mutters to herself, “Not like they ever help us, though.”
That’s for damn sure. Stretching out my tight, stiff limbs, I peer closer in Clara’s direction, ordering, “Come here.”
There’s an initial hesitancy, almost as if she’s considering saying no, but then she steps further into the light, allowing me to study her entirely.
Fresh bruises, growing welts, and still-leaking wounds mottle her once-perfect flesh.
Beneath her dress, a scrap of silky, off-white fabric, bone breaks through her skin, splitting her collarbone in two.
I remember back home, I’d watch her hair swing as she walked away from me.
Now, chunks are missing from her scraped scalp, leaving her bald in most places.
I looked no further than the smeared shadow of blood between her thighs. “What the fuck happened?”
High-pitched whistling pierces my eardrums as she blows out a panting exhale. Throat bobbing, Clara gathers enough breath to mutter, “It was a rough one last night.”
If her skin weren’t already ashen, Clara would look deathly beneath the glow.
“What happe—”
“I don’t,” she cuts me off with a gasp, hand raised weakly to stop me from speaking, “want to talk about it, Cade.” When her fingers fall, they make a heavy thunk against her thigh. It’s a hollow sound, as if someone carved out her insides.
Sorrow and fatigue shine through the tears beading around the edges of her eyes. She used to brush them away. Now, Clara doesn’t bother trying to mask the torment she battles inside.
I bite my tongue, holding back all the questions waiting to spill out, swallowing the blood spilling into the sides of my mouth. Feeling my rage bubble out, I tear at my cuticles, fighting to give Clara the space she needs. “So,” I grumble, “what are you doing in here? Why—”
“You’ve been knocked out for over a day. Marone was talking about putting you down if you didn’t wake up.”
“Okay… and?” Normally, I would have said, “Do it.” Fucking let him.
But Bunny.
Coughing out something wet and chunky, Clara leans against the wall, fighting the sleep pulling at her eyes.
“And,” she states, annoyed. It brings a smile to my face, some of her old self shining through.
“I obviously didn’t want that to happen.
So, I told him my mom was a nurse. I could wake you up. ”
“And he fucking believed you?” I ask, completely amazed that he fell for her lie.
“I don’t fucking know,” she responds, almost as astonished as I am, “but I’m here, and it’s better than being out there.”
The weight of that final word hangs heavy between us because we both know what waits for us beyond these walls. Before my thoughts can delve too deep, Clara displays her first grin.
“I met Bunny yesterday.”
Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound of my heart shatters my eardrums yet beats against my chest in a rhythmic, soothing tempo.
“Yeah?” I ask, clearing my throat of the need I feel when I hear her name. “What about her?”
Her smirk turns into a full face-eating smile, splitting open her bleeding wounds, but she doesn’t care.
Joy radiates through her like she can’t even feel it.
“No. No. No,” she laughs, glee turning into painful wheezing.
When settled, skin devoid of all color, that smirk returns, though more muted than before.
“Don’t give me that cold, stoic shit. She was about ready to rip my head off when I said your name. Clearly, there’s something there.”
Clara is the last person Bunny ever needs to worry about, but still, hearing that jealousy hit her so hard she was ready to chew Clara to pieces… that brings some life back into me.
“What makes you say that?” I can’t help but ask, because that same envy turns my blood to ice. Someone touching her? God, I’ll fucking kill them.
After some thought, Clara whispers, “Her eyes. I swear you could see everything in them.” I thought so, too.
While I’m lost in thought, thinking of the way Bunny’s eyes would sparkle like the seas my mother dreamed about, Clara continues, “I told her about us, about what we went through that night.”
“Why?” I ask, with a bit of a bite in my tone. I don’t mean to snap at Clara, but why can’t that night die? It’s bad enough I have to relive it every time I close my eyes. I don’t need Bunny to know about one of the worst moments of my life.
Sensing my frustration, Clara offers a pleading look, silently asking me to understand. “I’m protective of you, Cade, and she just wanted to know why.”
Clara and I didn’t have much of a relationship in the beginning, but as time went on, her friendship became one of the few comforts in my life. Now, though, after everything, I don’t see Clara as my friend. She really is the only family I’ve ever had.
And I hurt her.
“And?” I choke, that emotion fresh as the day of.
“And—” Clara draws out, out of breath and determined. “If she could have gutted every last one of those guards with just a look, I’m sure she would have.”
My mind goes to all the different ways she could have revolted. After all, look at what I do in the ring—look at what I did to my best friend.
Clara reassures, “She just wanted to know you were okay.”
Knowing I’m completely undeserving of that, I let my head fall, welcoming the ache that spreads across my skull when it collides with the wall.
It’s weird. I went my entire life wanting someone to care—begging for anyone to want me.
I fought for the attention I’d never receive at home, and it brought me nothing but pain.
But here, stuck in prison, knowing what waits for me outside this door, I finally have what I’ve desired. People who care. Clara and Bunny.
And I don’t deserve either of them.
She just wanted to know that you were okay. “Is she okay?” I ask once again, raking my gaze over her condition. Clara’s on the verge of collapse. I have to know, is Bunny?
Glancing away, Clara sucks in a painful breath before muttering, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since yesterday evening. But…”
“But what?”
“She got violent with one of the members,” Clara exhales, suddenly weary. “They took her to a room, and I didn’t see her after that…”
Clara pauses, but her recount doesn’t feel final. Something is lingering in her eyes, with more details hanging on the tip of her tongue. “What, Clara?” I snap, “What else do you know?”
More silence.
“Clara.”
“Sometime later, behind the closed door,” she whispers, finally braving me with her eyes, “all we heard were screams, and then eventually, we heard nothing at all.”
“You got your blades ready? There’s supposed to be a big crowd tonight.” Vince continues to talk about numbers—money or people—I’m not sure.
I hardly hear a single thing word, replaying Clara’s voice in my head over and over.
Eventually, we heard nothing at all. But I do.
I can hear it now—the same way I heard it when the guards stormed into our room not too long ago.
I picture the terror in her eyes and the physical tearing of her muscles as her vocal cords strained for someone to save her.
I picture Clara’s bruises and open wounds; the patches missing from her scalp and the shadow of blood between her thighs.
The image of Bunny in her place consumes my thoughts.
I can’t think, hear, or see anything other than her—defiled, ravaged, and dead before me.
My brain is unable to separate the fact that this may not be real; these are just ideas sprouting into my mind, but my brain doesn’t know that, so my body doesn’t either.
At some point, I entered the ring.
At some point, so did my opponent, but his mind wasn’t plagued with fear like mine was. His body didn’t forget to work.
Somewhere, stuck inside the thick, cloying haze, I hear his voice echo, “Blade? Come on! Fight!”
But I can’t. I can’t move. I can’t think. There’s only Bunny, but she’s not here either. They hurt Clara. They tore her apart. What about Bunny?
There’s an invisible noose tied around my neck, squeezing ever so gently until I can’t breathe at all. Is my pulse pounding inside me? Or is that Axel beating against my flesh? It’s indistinguishable, as are the screams surrounding me. Are they mine? Are they spectators?
Or are they hers?
Maybe they’re not real at all, I start to believe when my back hits the floor. Punch after punch whacks against my skull. Perhaps it’s finally cracked. Maybe my blood is pooling around my brain, creating screams, creating dreams—conjuring nightmares.
Maybe I’m dead. At least her shrieks will be silent then.
“Cade!”
Please be quiet.
“Get up! Get up, Cade!”
The horrors my mind’s imagined, the screams I’m unsure were hers, don’t sound so far now. In fact, they seem right beside me. The delicate way her tone curls around me clears up the fog, allowing me to move—allowing me to see.
Rolling my eyes up. There she is. “Bunny.” Her face brings strength, enough for me to reach my arm around and meet her bleeding fingers through the links of the cage. There’s warmth in her touch, and that means she’s alive. They didn’t take her away from me…
“Fight!” she roars. But they’re taking her away now, straight to him.
Before this, my mind was a maze, twisted with dreadful thoughts of her. Now, though, now that I know she’s alive, the only thing I can think about is Culver, Hannidy, Ramirez—Marone. All I can see is red. All I can taste is their blood.
“Blade!” is shouted through the blur of words, but that crimson curtain falls heavy over my eyes.
Before anyone could catch me, my hands moved faster than my thoughts—quicker than my rage.
Before anyone can think, skin meets skin, and bone cracks against bone.
There are roars and screams so viciously primal we’re transported to a different time, back to when there was no order, back to the hunt—eager for the kill.
When I come back to myself, the red haze is still so vibrant.
There’s no time for regret. There’s no time to reconsider.
The wild, uncontrollable crowd is enough of a disturbance for the guards, so I take my chance.
Witnessing my girl pressed into Marone’s lap is the last bit of encouragement I need to race forward and mount the chain links.
The thin wire digs into my flesh, digging deep rivulets, carving more scars, but adrenaline prevents me from feeling a thing.
Small blessings, I suppose. I take that small blessing and milk it for everything it’s worth, surprising everyone into silence and awe when I reach the top.
I don’t relish their amazement. I don’t waste any fucking time hitting the ground and storming straight toward Marone’s no-longer smiling-fucking face.
Before I know it, the blades are in my hands, spinning rapidly until they stop with the tips pointed straight toward his heart.
In my periphery, I spot Bunny reaching for me, her fingers extending through the air.
Though I ache to do the same, even if it is only a brush of skin, I can’t let myself get distracted, not when he’s right there, finally within reach.
Pace quickening, I tighten my grip on my blade, arching them high into the air so he could feed me more of that terrified, frozen expression.
I’m so focused on that, on finally giving Marone a fraction of the pain he’s inflicted upon me, that it leaves me vulnerable and open.
It’s a mistake I’ll undoubtedly pay for.
When the gunshot fires, I don’t feel a thing.
In fact, I’m sure whoever was behind the firearm missed, but then Marone’s face turns into the ceiling, and the warmth I felt inside from vengeance spreads across my chest. There are screams echoing all over the room, and the stomping feet of guards coming for me.
Or maybe they’re running away. I don’t know.
It’s hard to decipher with the throbbing in my head.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” a voice whispers in my ear while hands press heavily on top of my chest. I’ve only felt them once before, but I have dreamed of them ever since.
I feel splashes of blood on my lips when I choke, “You… hurt?”
“No,” Bunny cries, hiccups taking over, “I’m fine.
” But I can feel the gashes on her skin, the shaking in her bones.
I tell my muscles to speak, to overpower the numbness falling over my consciousness, but then the pressure on my chest is gone, taking away the comfort of her with it.
Instead of her soft hands, a heavy leather boot falls in place.
“AAUGHH!” I groan while Marone spits down on me. “That was really fucking stupid of you, my boy. Really fucking stupid.” With stars dancing in front of my eyes, I watch him signal with two fingers, bringing two of the nearest guards forward.
“Don’t hurt him!” I faintly hear Bunny shout while I’m being dragged away.
When the darkness takes over, and the paralysis has spread through every inch of my body, I know I have nothing to fear. Her voice will follow me everywhere.