Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Drew
Nothing else mattered the moment I heard her scream.
My brothers had gotten me to my feet, but I’d barely been able to recognize one from the other as I hung over their shoulders, limp and trying to regulate my breathing. Slater was busy wrapping the chains around Cortez’s hands when the sound of her agony brought me back to life.
Quickly looking between all my men, I watched as their faces set to stone as firmly as mine did. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was pushing forward, not needing to tell Slater to hold on to Cortez.
“Drew, easy!” Jedd called out.
“I’m right behind you, brother,” Moose shouted.
“Fuck,” Kenny cried. Kenny. I hadn’t even seen him, but just knowing he was there somehow made everything seem a little clearer to me. We were still brothers. We were still on the same team.
I limped as hard as I could long after her screams died down, and all that was left was the echo of her suffering bouncing off every wall.
“Ayda!” I called out, but my voice was broken and weak. There wasn’t any real power behind it. Coughing up and clearing my throat to remove the razor blades, I tried again, knowing full well that no matter how much the men around me shouted her name, it would only be mine that would register.
“Over here,” Moose yelled.
I turned towards him without thought, even though he was on my left and all that side of my vision was screwed.
I had to use the full rotation of my neck to find him properly and when I did, I saw him pushing against a thick, steel door.
It didn’t budge, so he tried using his shoulder, barging into it once, twice, three times before eventually giving up and stepping back.
Moose didn’t even wait to ask what he should do.
He was a silent type, a man of war. He acted first and thought later.
He rarely spoke. Aiming his gun right at the three different joining points, he fired over and over again and I watched as small sparks flew off against the metal.
He charged at it, barging it with his shoulder another four times before it eventually broke and creaked open.
“It’s too dark. Can’t see nothin’,” he groaned, but I didn’t give a shit about that. I pushed past him as fast as I could. I only prayed I found her screaming because of her actions rather than her fate.
“Ayda? Ayda, where are you?”
There was nothing for a while, only the sounds of my panicked breaths.
The place was full of old machinery. Shit I wouldn’t be able to figure out even if this place was lit up like a Christmas tree.
Every turn I took, I stumbled into something, until I heard the one sound that had me releasing the breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding.
Her whimper was small, but it was enough. It gave me the direction I needed to move in, and when I turned a corner and found her backed up against the wall with her knees pulled against her chest, the rest faded away.
She was alive.
Moving carefully, I came to a stop beside her, unable to ignore the dead body that lay at her feet surrounded by blood and other parts that needed no description.
The light in there was dim. It reminded me of the night in the forest with the girl and her dead boyfriend.
The moon barely shone through any of the old, grimy windows.
All there was were shadows and outlines.
I guess nobody wanted to witness the first time an innocent girl killed a guilty man that night.
Bending down, I swallowed the massive lump of pain and regret that had formed in my throat and gently placed a hand on her knee.
“It’s me. I’m here.”
Ayda pulled her knees tighter to her chest. The only acknowledgement that I was there at all was her hands covering mine, clawing at my skin until she was practically folded around it, a small sob breaking quietly from her.
The first kill was always the hardest.
Seeing her that way had me wanting to close my eyes to wash the image away, but instead, I did what she needed me to do.
I turned my palm in her grip, curling my hands even tighter around hers until we were both left squeezing life back into one another, even though it sent a searing pain into my shot shoulder.
The back of my other hand found the edge of her jaw, moving slowly along to show her I was there and I was on her side.
I wasn’t going to hurt her. I wasn’t going to be rough.
I wasn’t an enemy. I was the other half of her.
I was her man. The one who should have been here doing the killing on her behalf while she remained ignorant to this world I lived in.
When my fingers grazed the edge of her hair, I tucked it behind her ear and waited, holding her head in my palm for as long as she needed me to be still this way.
“Come back to me, darlin’.”
Her head lifted from her knees, her blank eyes finding mine as she tried to blink some coherence back into herself. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she gave up and shook her head.
“I had to,” she finally whispered. “I had to. He was going to kill me.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “You did the right thing. You did what I told you to do. You kept yourself alive for me. We’re together now. We’re together because of you.”
My face creased up as the pain of seeing her this way eclipsed anything that was going on on the surface of my body. I would never forget that moment for as long as I lived. There was no going back for her now.
She didn’t so much lean as fall forward, landing on her knees as her arms moved slowly and gently around my shoulders until she buried her face in the crook of my neck and her body began to tremble like a tuning fork.
I didn’t think to avoid touching her back, but the moment I reached around to bring her closer, I felt the wet and warmth of blood across the obvious tears in her flesh and my body stiffened.
My hand froze, all my fingers lifting themselves away, even though she didn’t cry out in pain.
Between my little finger and my thumb, a small dance was performed, inspecting the edges of the ripped flesh before realizing it was everywhere.
She was a mess.
Moving my hand to the back of her hair, I pulled her to my lips and kissed her head as gently but as passionately as I could.
“I love you,” I said quietly, needing her to feel those words. “I love you and you’re safe now. You’re with me, but I need to get you out of here.”
She didn’t say much. She didn’t have to. Her rapid, panicked breaths spoke volumes to everyone standing around us.
“Take me home,” she whispered in my ear, her voice pleading.
I wished I could. I wished it was that simple, that I could just sweep her off her feet, lift her out of her worst nightmare and take her home.
But that wasn’t the reality. The truth was that her safety was no longer in question, but in order for us to live together after what had just happened, the heroics and romantics would have to wait until a debt had been paid.
There was no way I was going back to a world where neither one of us slept at night.
It all ended then.
Calling Moose over, I held her against me before asking him to do what my beat up body couldn’t.
I somehow managed to get her to stand, ignoring the way my skin tore even further every time she pressed against it or I had to stretch to hold her in my arms. When Moose eventually swept her up like a newborn child and cradled her to him, I swallowed and limped on pathetically behind them.
For as long as I lived, I knew I wouldn’t get the image of her and that night out of my mind. There was only one thing that was going to make the bitterness slightly less offensive.
Moose guided her like the giant he was, holding her in his grip while I somehow weaved my fingers through her hair as we walked.
When we fell back into the main part of the warehouse with the dirty, diluted light, I saw the whole of my pack standing around our enemy.
Every single one of them was there, their faces pointed in our direction with their chins held high, their hands down by their sides as they waited for their next instruction.
Pulling her closer to his chest, Moose kept Ayda’s face buried away from the world, but the flash of light that wandered over her ripped back had the eyes of all my brothers narrowing.
The low growl that each one gave out turned into a war cry from a pack of animals that were baring their teeth to their attackers, ready to strike.
Cortez was fucked.
Deeks was the only man to rush over, the lapels of his cut flapping back as he charged forward and ran his hands over her bare arms.
“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered.
Lifting my hand to his shoulder, I tried to ignore the layer of moisture that had covered my eyes.
To see her that way was one thing. For all my men to see her this way was another.
We were a family and the truth was, whether she’d been there for ten years or ten minutes, Ayda had become the heart of it.
“Take care of her for me while I do this, Deeks. You’re the only one she will let touch her after what she’s just been through.”
Deeks turned to me, his palms still resting on her as he spoke. “Kill him quick. Don’t waste time. That stuff is more precious now than ever before.”
“I don’t have the restraint to take it slow,” I said as my jaw tensed.
“But make him pay. Make it fucking hurt.”
The fact that it wasn’t like Deeks to speak that way didn’t go unnoticed. He was feeling what I was, only he didn’t have the black blood running through him the way I did. He had more compassion. I had more hatred.
“It’s done.” I gave him a nod before lifting both my hands to Ayda’s head and stroking her hair. When my lips met the side of her face, I pressed against her much harder than I intended, closing my eyes as I poured out every ounce of life I had left in me and aimed it all into making her better.
God, I loved her. I loved her so fucking much.
There was no sign of life coming from her, just a small roll of her head as though she was acknowledging I was there before she lost herself in Moose again.
I had to look away. The pain she was in was making the anger rise, which was perfect for what I was about to do, but I also needed to wait until just a few more things had been cleared up.
Turning to my men, I glanced up through my better eye and pressed my hands together in front of me.
I was a body of blood. Their faces failed to hide their horror, which coming from a group of men that had done what they’d done in their lives, pretty much said it all.
I took a moment to glance down at my feet before I managed to collect my thoughts, swallow my emotion, and roll my jaw.
When I pushed my shoulders back and tried to focus through the haze, I made sure every word I spoke counted.
“Get Sutton out of here and treat him well. I’d have been dead before you got here if he hadn’t done what he did.
He saved my life. Take him back to The Hut.
Someone else make sure his kids are safe.
All of them. If they’re scared or hurt, take them back to The Hut, too.
” I stopped to swallow, ignoring the way each word sliced my throat.
“Deeks and Moose will take Ayda home. The rest of you, I need you here. As you can see, I’m pretty fucked up, but I’m still here, hanging on by a thread.
I need your strength. I need your vision.
I need your help. I need my brothers at my back. ”
My head rolled in the direction of Cortez and the disgust on my face was immediate. I wasn’t going to take a single step closer until Ayda was out of there. She’d seen enough death and destruction for one night.
Cortez looked up at me through narrowed eyes, curling his lip as he tried not to show his own agony at having his limbs twisted around behind him with a knife wound in his shoulder and a bullet in his gut.
I intended on showing him that what he was feeling then was barely an itch on the agony scale.
“Chain him up high. Feet off the ground. No mercy.”
Then my men all howled around me. Our war cry had gone out.