Page 22

Chapter Twenty-two

I come back to myself slowly, a trio of smooth male voices speaking softly, tempting me back to the present and somehow over-riding the harsh voices of my past. When I groggily open my eyes, I quickly assess the situation I’ve gotten myself into. Backed against a corner and wedged under the big desk, I’m curled in on myself with my back to the wall. Someone has managed to place the thick comforter from the bed over most of my body and I curl it more tightly around me on instinct. The slight movement catches the attention of Hunter (of course it does the creeping stalker) and his sharp command has the other voices in the room go silent. I wish they didn’t, the silence makes me nervous.

“Darlin’?” Hunter voice is soft and deep, the kind you might use on a cornered animal, one that’s likely to rip you apart if you move too quick. Fair analogy really. Considering I am huddled in a corner like said animal. And I probably did already try to rip them apart.

“Sweetheart, you comin’ out?” his soft voice insists. I manage a pathetic squeak in return, then flinch back violently as I hear the unmistakeable thud of a fist hitting flesh, followed by a manly grunt of pain. Despite my conditioning I find myself clutching the comforter to me tightly and scrambling towards the edge of the desk, needing to see what happened and make sure one of my guys wasn’t hurt.

I peek out from under the desk and immediately spot Hunter, crouched to the side of the opening under the desk intent gaze already cataloguing my features and obviously not liking what he sees if the tightening around his eyes is any indication.

I’m not able to maintain the eye contact with Hunter, feeling far too vulnerable right now and so I swing my eyes over to the side of the bed where Chase stands slightly hunched over, holding a hand to his stomach and a stony-faced Nate slowly unclenches his fist beside him. My attention flickers from Nate to Chase and back again, trying to understand what I’m seeing. Chase has a mark on his cheek, red now, but promising to darken into a truly impressive bruise. I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a black eye; most of the hits I got that looked like that, turned in to black eyes.

I expect Chase to respond to the physical attack but he just sighs and nods at Nate, who doesn’t even twitch from his stony-faced expression. That is until he notices me staring. His blue eyes lock on to mine and he moves forward quickly. Too quickly, and I flinch back from him. Nate stops dead in his tracks a second before Hunter barks “Stop” at him. I watch Nate’s fists clench against his sides and he whirls suddenly to Chase again, landing another brutal punch to his stomach.

Again, Chase just grunts, his devastated eyes never leaving my face. “Don’t even fucking look at her!” Nate snarls at Chase, making him flinch and his face harden, but he drops his eyes from mine and I can’t stand it. I gather my blanket like courage and dash out to stand between the two of them, facing Nate with a hard stare.

“Stop it! Don’t you fucking talk to him like that!” I snap at Nate, anger making my face flush. Nate gives me a perplexed look before gesturing to Chase behind me. “That fuckface hurt you Trouble. He fucking admitted it. He said he caused your panic attack!” Nate tells me quietly his Texas drawl doing its best to smooth his hard words “That’s not ok, baby. Not ok at all.” His words and his defense of me makes me melt a little bit, but then I remember how miserable Chase is behind me and I have to try to make things better.

“No, it wasn’t his fault! We were… it was just… umm…” I suddenly realise that I have to tell the other two men in my life that I was in here making out with their friend. More than making out. How do I get myself into these situations? I stammer and stutter and try to get coherent sentences out until Chase finally takes pity on me and says “It’s ok Angel, they know what we were doing and what happened. You don’t have to defend me, beautiful, it was definitely my fault and I am so freaking sorry.” I turn around to look at him and his face breaks my heart with the sorrow and guilt in his eyes. “I swear to you I never meant to hurt you. You don’t have to forgive me; I know I fucked this right up.”

“No, I don’t… it’s just… it’s not like that. You didn’t hurt me at all I promise.” I say pleadingly, only to receive a disbelieving stare in return. “Fine.” I huff “You didn’t hurt me physically. You just… when you grabbed my ankle… and… and said that. It… reminded me of before and… I just… I can’t be held down, ok? Never. No restraints. And… and some things might set me off. Things you say and stuff. And, yeah. You… you can’t get mad again, ok?” I say the last bit beseechingly, pleading with him to understand. I watch as his tortured eyes start to soften towards me and he opens his mouth, only to be cut off by a hard voice at my back.

“The fuck were you doing getting mad at her? While she was naked?” I expect the snarling tone to come from Nate but its Hunter’s deep voice that silences Chase. And, smart man that he is, he stays quiet, his grey gaze flicking from me to the two men standing protectively at my back then back to me. I can see the struggle in his head of whether or not to defend himself, to tell them what he learned about me. Obviously, he put two and two together. Eventually though, his eyes settle on me and he decides to keep his mouth closed on the subject, protecting my secret, at least for now.

Of course, that only serves to increase the agitation coming from behind me and I have to force myself not to roll my eyes at all the testosterone clogging the room.

Looks like the time has come to spill the beans on some of the worst moments of your life, so you can assuage some male territoriality and save the day. Damn it. This is going to suck. But I see no other way for the guys to move past what happened between Chase and I.

“He found out I was raped.” I state semi calmly into the growing tension. The effect the statement has is like a bomb going off. Chase flinches back as if I it hit him harder than Nate did earlier and when I turn to look at Hunter and the doctor, I find their reactions similar. The silence stretches on for a few beats of my heart, then it explodes, as Hunter picks up the armchair in the corner and slams it into the wall, leaving a gaping hole behind as he stalks out of the room. Nate doesn’t even seem to notice as he starts to pace, fists clenching and unclenching over and over again, breathing hard as he moves about the confines of the room, muttering quietly to himself. The mutterings sound suspiciously like a plan to kill every last male with-in a ten-mile radius, interspaced with vicious cursing.

I let out a defeated sigh and go to slump on the bed, wrapping my blanket around my body like a shield. Pretty sure I just said they shouldn’t get mad. I lift my sad eyes to Chase who hasn’t moved from where he was standing when Nate hit him. As he looks at me, I see his eye twitch, before he too storms out of the room.

Bloody fuck. Temperamental bastards. I didn’t even get to the bad parts yet.

Before I can get fully into a funk, Chase comes barging back into the room, frog marching a furious Hunter in front of him. He stops Hunter before the bed and kicks his legs out from beneath him, effectively sitting him on the floor at my feet, before turning and grabbing a still pacing Nate and doing the same thing.

“Sit the fuck down you idiots and listen. She just said no anger, or have you already fucking forgot? At least try and learn from my god damn mistake, would you?” Chase growls at them and I watch in fascination as they both go still and draw in calming breaths before nodding their heads and turning to me expectantly. Still sitting on the floor. At my feet. When Chase plonks himself down, too, my discomfort only grows.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Nate says gently, using Hunter’s nickname for me, “we shouldn’t have done that. We’re here, we want to hear what you have to say. It’s just the thought of someone hurting you… it doesn’t sit well with us.”

“Ha! Shit. That’s a bit of an understatement.” I deadpan, looking pointedly at the hole in the wall. Hunter just grunts and I sigh. “Look, maybe it’s not a good idea to talk about this, because honestly, I got hurt, a lot. And I don’t think you guys want to hear about it. I certainly don’t want to talk about it.”

I watch a red flush creep over Hunter’s handsome face but he manages to stay silent, and even more impressive, he doesn’t put another hole in the wall. It’s Chase who speaks up first.

“No, Angel, we need to know what happened. We want to know everything about you, good and bad. But we need to know who hurt you. If you can’t talk about it now then that’s ok. Of course it’s ok.” he reiterates at my look of surprise, “But, eventually when you are ready to talk about it, we just… We have to know.”

Ah shit, that’s a not-so-subtle way of saying they aren’t going to let this drop.

Right, well then, let’s get this shit over with.

“Ok. Right. Ok.” I start, already struggling for words as I start to pace the length of the bed, blanket dragging behind me like a heavy train on a dress, but much less elegant. “So. You guys know that I was at the compound for a few years, that I learned to fight there and that I was looking out for the women with kids?” They all nod their heads obediently, but I can’t look at them directly as I continue. “Well, I didn’t mention that those women are all, for lack of a better explanation, sex slaves. Breeding mares, if you will. Jacob… he keeps the girls he finds, breeds them, rapes them, to continue on the human legacy or some such bullshit. And I was one of them for… for a long time. But; and this might be a deal breaker for you guys, I don’t breed. My bits don’t work and the thought of having children makes me want to vomit.” I pause and take in a deep breath to gauge their reactions to this statement, because it is one hundred percent the truth, even if I could have kids there is no way I would bring a child into this world. I expect at least one of them to be upset about the declaration, but surprisingly each of them nods in agreement, no one looking particularly unhappy. I must look confused because Hunter speaks up for them.

“None of us want kids, Angie. Bringing them in to a world like this is insane. What kind of life would they lead? How would they grow up happy and carefree? It might be ok for other people but not for us.”

Ugh, these guys. Why do they fit me so well?

“Anyway,” I clear my throat and shake my head, trying to fling out the gooey feeling inside of me and get back in to the head space of talking about the shitshow that used to be my life, “Jacob likes his new girls, they are always the flavor of the month, or until he finds another one. He, um, was fascinated, by the fact that I didn’t become immediately pregnant. I guess it started off as a challenge to him but then he’d get mad about it… look, I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of it. He found me at my lowest point, starved, lonely and poisoned by the red berries. He promised me everything. Food, safety, shelter, you name it, he promised it. I went there without fight and for my naivety he abused me in every way you can imagine. I was tortured and raped, beaten and belittled and quite frankly I would rather not explain every little detail to you all just so you feel included!” Ok. So, I was screeching again at this point. I guess I wasn’t as calm as I thought. But those things that had happened to me, they were mine and I was determined that they would stay locked in their box, buried deep in my soul under mounds of broken concrete and sunk below oceans of blood and tears. Dang girl, easy up on the blood oceans metaphor, it’s a bit dramatic. I take a few deep, calming breaths.

I shake my head again to get my focus back and register the matching looks of denial on each of the guys faces. Denial and sadness. Balls.

“Look, sorry. I know that’s not why you needed to know” I hold up my hands placatingly, “but I’m not ready to share the play by play. I’ll probably never be ready to share it. But I can give you the truth of how I ended up escaping?” I offer the olive branch tentatively, not knowing if they are going to push for more.

It honestly shouldn’t surprise me when they all nod their agreement without hesitation, along with a murmured “Whatever you need” from Chase, but it does. I think it always will. I am so used to men demanding, taking what they want and fuck the repercussions for other people.

“Ok.” I scrub at my leaky eyes and drag in a lung full of air to start my story up, again. “A couple of months in and another girl came, I can’t remember her name and she didn’t last very long but she broke the weird trance Jacob was in with me. He started handing me out to the Knights after that, losing interest in me altogether. He’d pass me out for jobs well done and most of the knights would use me and let me go. Some of them weren’t even horrible people.” Cue three angry, growly denials. “Yeah, yeah. I know. But compared to the others… yeah some of them weren’t so bad. Anyway, this happened for… months? Years? I don’t know, it felt like eternity and one of the knights became… obsessed, I guess? He would stalk me around the compound, constantly find ways to get me alone, or to have Jacob send me to him of a night. He scared me. The girls in the harem eventually convinced Jacob to give me a new job, guarding them. They actually got a guy killed to get me that job. They claimed he kept sneaking in to watch them, which was probably true, to be honest. Anyway, Jacob had me train during the day and rewarding his soldiers at night until the harem girls managed to get me out of that too, they said they didn’t feel safe at night, so I had to stay with them constantly. It was masterful, really.” My eyes start leaking again at the thought of the women I left behind. I never even said goodbye. Or thank you. Such an inspiring way to repay their kindness. “Anyway,” I wave away the emotion “eventually all the… the sex stuff stopped and I got to focus on learning how to kick ass. As you can probably tell, I got cut up and beaten and broken on a pretty regular basis but I learned the things they taught me. Then I got the opportunity I had been unknowingly waiting for when the zombies attacked. I… I was resigned to dying in that place. I thought I’d never get away and once the knights left me alone… I didn’t think it was so bad. The physical pain from my training was actually rewarding, in a way. But then Ben… that was the guy who… scared me...he managed to get Jacob to give me to him again.” I see three sets of brains absorb his name and tuck it away. It’s kind of scary. And a bit sexy. They all look like they are ready to head out and hunt down every last Ben in the surrounding area. Definitely a bit sexy.

“I…” now this is the bit I’m most intimidated to tell them for some reason. Announcing to the three guys who saved me that I killed a guy in cold blood? Pretty up there on my do not want to discuss list. I mean I know on a realistic level that I was defending myself, but it didn’t feel like that. I went with him intending to end him that night. No way that wouldn’t have been classed as murder back in the day when stuff like that mattered. Come on now, do you honestly think these guys would bat an eyelid at you killing anyone? They practically exude death and destruction with their constant badassery and personal arsenal, put on your big girl panties and own that shit!

“I killed him!” I blurt, hurrying on before catching sight of their faces, “The night that the zombies came and Jacob said I had to go with him, I killed Ben. He didn’t have a weapon or anything and when he came towards me I just… I…” I clear my throat and level my gaze with theirs, meeting each stare head on, “I stabbed him in the stomach then I slit his throat like a butchered pig.” I tip my head back a little, raising my chin as I steel myself for rejection. I should know better by now, I guess. Because the only reaction I get is a downright evil smile from the doctor, an approving nod from Chase and a growled “Good.” From Hunter.

“I can’t believe you guys!” I burst out, “I killed a guy! He wasn’t even armed! Why aren’t you more horrified?”

“The question is, Trouble, why are you so horrified?” asks Nate. Completely unreasonably, I might add. “That piece of shit raped you, touched you without permission and was going to do it again by the sounds of it. He deserved to die. Actually, he deserved to be tortured for days, weeks even, then cut apart bit by bit until there was nothing left of him. You are far too sweet.” He says the last part with a little bit of admonishment. I’m speechless for about five seconds.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a fucking doctor?! You can’t say stuff like that! It goes against your… code thingy!” I pause and stare down at them as they break out into manly giggles, sounding a lot like schoolgirls. Deep voiced, sexy and dangerous schoolgirls. Who apparently are not opposed to torture and dismemberment when the opportunity presents itself. Ok, not a great analogy. I plonk my tired ass on the bed, suddenly so worn out from this day I can’t even stand anymore. The giggles break off almost immediately as they all stand to tower over me.

“We must not have made it clear to you, sweetheart. We kill people. Alive and dead. People that need killing. I can assure you, our list is longer than yours will ever be, even if you went off and killed every single person in that cesspit they tried to keep you in, our list wound still be longer than yours.” Dang, that was a lot of people. “So, no. Nate does not have a code thingy. The only code we have is that no one fucks with us, or they die. That now includes you, Angie, and we will destroy anyone who wants to hurt you. No matter the cost, no matter the threat.” Be still my beating heart. Death threats and violence have never sounded so sweet. I’m speechless again, which seems to be happening a lot around these three. “Those fuckers that put hands on you are as good as dead, darlin’. Now, climb up into bed and get some rest. You look like you’re ready to drop.”

I blink at Hunter, more than a little stunned that he thinks an ominous death threat against the organisation that tortured me is the best way to get me to relax and snuggle in to bed.

Surprisingly, or I should say, unsurprisingly, at this point, my body has other ideas and my jaw cracks on a massive yawn. I cave a bit and wiggle back enough that I can scramble under the covers without flashing my naked butt. Chase gives me a sheepish smile and bends to pick something up off the ground. When he straightens he hands me a shirt. His shirt if the massive amount of fabric is any indication. He looks a little unsure as he hands it to me, but I don’t even think as I take it from him and slip it over my head. He looks relieved. Nate looks confused. I’m too tired to work out what’s happening.

“Out.” Hunter barks from the door. He hovers next to the light switch as the others leave. Just like that. No questions, no demands for more information. No speculation or judgment or thrown chairs . Not even a minor hissy fit. They just accept what I told them and continue on caring for me. It’s so weird. Like… like they just accepted all the broken bits and didn’t even think to try and smooth them out. It feels kind of nice to be accepted so completely. But also foreign, so very foreign.

“I just need to wrap that arm back up, Trouble, then you can sleep.” Nate says, approaching the bed and tugging down one side of my borrowed shirt to expose my shoulder. Hunter stays hovering by the light switch but Chase slinks out the door with a little wave and a blown kiss.

Nate works quickly on my bandage and once satisfied, takes a moment to tuck a stray hair behind my ear and kiss my forehead gently, lingering for a second to murmur a sweet goodnight against my skin.

“Good night, sweetheart.” Hunter murmurs as he flicks off the light behind Nate’s retreating form. I’m far too tired to unpack all the new feelings and information that tonight brought, so I just murmur a sleepy goodnight and tell myself I’ll deal with it another time. I’m good at that.