Chapter 21
Indie
death is no more (slowed) - blessed mane
My eyes flutter awake to a darkened room, a hard, cold and wet surface pressing into my cheek. It feels as though the world is spinning as fast as a globe bar.
There’s a subtle ringing in my ears, and my head throbs to the point I want to squeeze my eyes back closed. Until I remember.
My eyes snap back open, heart rate picking up as my gaze darts around the darkened room. My mind scrambles as I try to piece everything together. I have no idea where I am.
I got blindfolded just as they threw me in the van, Morgan keeping the barrel of his gun into my waist the entire ride.
Someone—a man—had said about drugging me before they took me outside. At that point I lost my shit. There was no way in hell I was being drugged by these people again, being forced into something against my own will.
They already dragged me out of that house, and then they wanted to reignite my biggest fear of all.
I can’t remember what happened after that, but the sound of Morgan’s voice fuzzily echoes in my ears, and I can only imagine he used his gun on my head to make me comply.
Again.
I push to sit from the hard concrete floor, no longer having the tight metal cuffs binding my wrists. My entire left side aches from however long I’ve been knocked out here, likely discarded like trash, because I don’t remember being hit on the side of my face that feels tender.
The other side? That aches like a bitch. I can feel the crusted blood dried into it.
Even though the light is weak, I can see the angry red marks burning along my wrists from the faint radiance seeping from under the door.
My palm gently touches the source of my screaming headache, feeling my hair wet where it’s been bleeding, the blood matted in my hair.
Panic grips my throat, tightening to a point I can feel it closing up, threatening to strangle me.
My hands fly to my belt, finding it still intact and three loops remaining, and that my tracker is still in my back pocket when my fingertips graze the pocket over my butt.
My gaze travels all four corners of the room.
Cold concrete walls, a haunting dampness in the air, and a stale scent assaulting my nostrils. I’m in the cells they hold their trafficking victims.
Saliva fills my mouth, my chest spasming as I feel the vomit rise in my stomach. I chant the only prayer I can to calm the anxiety wracking through my bones.
Saint will find me next.
He has to.
They’ll have gotten to my mom, she’ll be taken care of, and then they’ll get me the fuck out of this hell hole.
But how long will it be before I’m stripped of these clothes, until they find my tracker, my only connection to them severed?
My shaky lungs struggle for a deep breath.
I’m fine.
No one has touched me like that. Just don’t take anything they give—
The crescendo of thoughts are silenced at the sound of metal scraping against metal, a key rattling in the lock as the door creeps open, the once white light leaking beneath the door now blinding me as the door groans against the hinges.
My eyes blink rapidly as they adjust to the burn behind my lids, my body scrambling backwards until my spine collides with the wall.
They broke my phone, took my gun.
I didn’t even have time to grab a knife on the way out from the Pit, but they’d have probably confiscated that too.
I’m utterly defenceless against them.
Again.
The only benefit I have is that drugs aren’t weakening my system.
Two shadows break the blinding light, and my hands palm the wall as I push to standing, my vision blurring with the motion from the head injury. A familiar voice has my jaw clamping.
“That’s not Regina?” Louisa asks, her voice merely above a whisper as she turns to face whoever has accompanied her.
Only their silhouettes are visible, but between her voice, and the same snicker that rattled my eardrum within their home, it fills in what my senses are catching up with. And he makes sure his voice is loud enough for me to hear.
Fucking Barry.
“No, it’s not, Louisa. Apparently, your sister doesn’t know how to follow simple instructions. I’m sure after her time here, she’ll learn.”
“Barry—”
His voice rises, shaking the entire room as the notes ricochet off all four walls.
“She’s been fucking protecting her, Louisa!
Both of them. Running around playing childish fucking games!
” He snaps his head from her to me, hand reaching outside the door, and the light in my cell comes to life with a stuttered hum. “I warned you though, didn’t I, Indie?”
There’s no point lying about this now. It’s about time I cleared my best friend’s name. Show them they’ve won the real prize. “I don’t listen to men who scream like little fucking pussies.”
Now that I can see her perfectly, I see the moment something dark washes over Louisa, like a mask sliding into place. The sister I’ve seen on TV debates comes into play, shoulders back, spine as straight as a beam of steel.
She slips into her multiple personalities so easily, and now I wonder how I didn’t see them for what they were before. No one needs to hide behind that many faces, unless they have a dark secret.
Her voice drops low, threatening, and it’s a tone I’ve never heard from her before. “We know Regina is in Kingstone. She murdered a very important member of our society that she needs to answer for, Indie. We need her to be held accountable.”
When I don’t answer, she continues when Barry glares at her, stepping further into the cell.
“You see, it took me a while to put it all together, and then things just started making sense. I saw her in the rental car we were looking for in the city. Right next to your old office. Saint just magically appears back in the picture after years of you two being apart.”
She leans against the wall, all sharp suits and a gaze that feels like it’s slicing through my heart.
“I set up the fake hit, hoping those two idiots would do us a favour and take each other out. But then you spun a cover story that you were in England with them both not long after, when all along they had you hiding with them.”
“Nice to see you all tried to protect each other. Shame it’s not gonna work,” Barry mocks, mirroring Louisa’s position on the other end of the room.
They’re trying to play a psychological game with me here.
Both in a threatening stance, leaving the door wide open as if I have an opportunity at freedom, but vipers are known for their speed on latching onto their prey.
I won’t be lured into it.
My bite force is still to be shown.
“You’re my sister, Indie. I don’t want you getting hurt in this, but you can’t protect Regina forever. You have no idea what you’re up against. If you help us get both of them, you can walk away from this.”
I scoff, biting down the anxiety that’s threatening to drag me into a dark place I never want to visit again. Instead, I force everything inside me to channel the one that’s my old friend.
Reserved for special occasions like this.
Matching both of their stances, I fold my arms across my chest, crossing my foot across my ankle. “What makes you so sure it’s Regina that killed them?” I ask, my gaze shifting from my sister to Barry.
Louisa barks out a weak laugh, but it’s shaky as she looks me up and down. “Oh please.”
I wet my lip and cock my head, my glare lazily going back to my sister. I hope I’m about to rock her fucking world, the same way her secrets did to mine.
“If I’m not mistaken, Clarke White did some testing for the Omnia, didn’t he?
The women you abduct and abuse? When you found him, I bet his results showed drugs were in his system along with a stab wound to his left side, from a five-inch blade.
Not to mention his ass was handled a little bit before he got that injury. ”
I release a bored-sounding sigh. “Then there’s your Sumus members, the ones that seem to never have gone far enough to meet your elite standards.
Still considered clients, but you’re missing around…
eight of them over five years, am I right?
I can rhyme the names and causes of death if you’d like?
You wouldn’t even need to put a gun to my head for me to tell you. ”
His movements are fast.
But not fast enough.
Barry’s face is inches from mine within a second, seemingly looking to test my reflexes.
Throwing my elbow upwards, I catch him right in the nose before he can grab me, flipping him around and taking his feet out beneath him with one hard kick from mine.
He drops to his knees as blood splatters across the floor, and I grip him against my thighs in a head lock, my forearm clamped against his windpipe.
“However, if I had a gun, it would have already sent your brain matter over my sister. But bullets often bore me. The fun’s over too quickly in my experience.
Now, if I had a blade, you’d be dead the way I prefer, Barry.
” I tighten the pressure as he chokes. “Don’t fuck with me. I fuck back twice as hard.”
I lazily drag my gaze up towards the source of the gasp. Louisa’s bottom lip has a tinge of a tremble when she whispers, “Oh my God.”
Yeah, I hope you’re fucking seeing me for who I am, Louisa.
I’m the one responsible for fucking up your society’s plans. Who’s been plotting to take you all down for years.
That’s the biggest puzzle of them all.
I’m certain the smirk that creeps up my face would send the devil quivering. I’ll have to show Saint it when I make it back. “That’s right, Louisa. I’ve got a few secrets just like you. Guess it’s in our DNA?”
Barry’s strangled laughter sounds beneath me. “You Kent women, always causing fucking trouble.”
I ignore him and tighten my arm against him as he pathetically struggles. My grip doesn’t loosen up, even when his nails bite into my forearms.
I’m lapping up the opportunity to witness firsthand my sister falling from her stride, her eyes wide and wild as she stares at me. Like she doesn’t know who I am.
“Take a good fucking look, Louisa. It was me who joined Saint for your sick fucking event. It was me you spoke to sending out a hit on him. And it was me who’s killed every single one of your fucked-up followers you’ve lost these past five years.
You knew all along that Conrad raped me, and you said nothing.
You did nothing. When Saint and I tear your society apart, I’m going to make sure I engrave the look on your face to my memory.
You’re already fucking dead to me, Louisa. ”
My forearm relaxes off Barry’s neck, and I take a fistful of his hair to yank his head back to me. “You get all that, Barry?”
He sucks through the oxygen getting back into his lungs. “You seem to like keeping yourself busy, Indie. And that’s good. Keep it up for when Conrad pays you a visit. Lord knows the man loves nothing more than spending time down here with his new pets.”
I didn’t want it to be like this. I had plans for so much more.
The moment I saw what he did to my mom, I had a wrath surge through me that would have put Saint’s to shame.
He doesn’t deserve this, but it’s my one and only chance.
Both my hands grip his head, twisting it so hard his eyes almost meet mine, and I could bet a whole number of the vertebrae snap as his skull disconnects with his spine.
The crack that thuds through the cell makes me shudder; it almost sounds like a muffled thump of stone. I feel it vibrate through my bones.
And when his lifeless body slumps forward, I let my potent gaze wander to my sibling.
The colour in her normally warm face has left the room, and another first is gifted to me.
She’s stunned into a deathly silence.
Almost as dead as her husband lying on the ground at my fucking feet.
I launch for her, but as she calls out, guards come swarming into the room, landing a punch to my gut as I double over.
One of them yanks a fistful of hair on my bloodied scalp, yanking me backwards and throwing me against the wall as I palm it to stay upwards, him aiming his gun on me. Barrel right against my forehead.
Louisa remains frozen in place behind him. Her lips twinge like she’s fighting for the words, but I don’t give her a chance. I don’t need to hear anything else from her; her performance today has sealed her fate.
She might not have said it directly, but her underlying meaning was as clear as day.
Until her knowledge of who she should have really been looking for, if I continued to protect Regina, I’d willingly become collateral damage.
Guess now she has exactly who she needs to deliver.
And if they think I’ll ever give them up, they’re wasting their time.
No matter what horrors they put me through. “Let this be the last time I see you alive, Louisa. Now get the fuck out of my cell. Take your dead bitch with you.”
She doesn’t move. The longer she looks at me, the more I can feel my walls threatening to collapse.
I watch as her throat bobs on a swallow, eyes wide and bulged as Barry’s dead body is removed from my cell.
I hope her heart is torn in two.
I hope she’s destroyed by witnessing his death.
I hope she does me the biggest favour of all, and takes care of herself for me, so that I don’t have to.
Someone outside calls her name, and she eventually turns her back on me, guards following and dragging a dead Barry, slamming my cell door.
When the sounds of her heels clacking fade as voices rise above one another, I let it all come crumbling down amongst the chaotic aftermath.
My knees buckle, sending me crashing onto the cold ground, silent tears dripping from my cheeks. My hand reaches into my back pocket, pulling out the tracker and fisting it in my hand, my only source of freedom clenched within my palm.
My only connection to him is tethered through the signal in this device.
But when I stare at it, familiarity doesn’t register with what’s nestled in my trembling hand.
Ice rushes through my veins. The snap of the thread holding me to him screams louder than I ever could.
My whispered ‘no’ is followed by sheer terror when I read the words carved into the back of the silver pocket watch.
Nice try.