Page 44 of Her Wicked Knights (Their Hallowed Queen #3)

Tripp

I feel sick, horror mingling with adrenaline and disgust and terror.

Because as I watch Whit so callously tear Audrey apart and then brutalize her one last time, unnecessarily, I realize we're in a territory we aren't meant to be in.

Whit isn't normal. He's deranged, and while we suspected as much, now there's not even a chance to deny it.

What he just did was unhinged. And I don't have time to contemplate it, because Marley just walked in with Mark, who's already slunk away from her before she even realized it.

I watch her from the shadows with Rev at my side, holding my breath in horror as the reality of what's about to happen unfolds around us in real-time as Marley looks around at the cardboard set, the shadows where she doesn't see us all waiting.

"Mark?"

When her eyes skim across the room, looking for where her companion disappeared to, they snag on the ceiling, and it takes a moment for her to register what she's looking at.

I watch the horror dawn on her face, helpless to do anything to comfort her. And just as she opens her mouth to think about screaming, Whit lets Audrey's body fall.

She drops to the ground with a thud, and blood splatters around the room, splashing against Marley's smooth skin, covering her thin white tee shirt, painting her in carnage.

Whit managed to slip behind her, pressing his gloved hand against her mouth and cutting off her scream. He's blocking her path to run back the way she came, which she wouldn't be able to escape through anyway.

My chest aches as I watch tears burn already in her eyes and she wretches against Whit's glove, no doubt feeling physically ill from what she's just witnessed, from wearing her best friend's blood.

She turns around to get a look at him, confusion and fear mixing into a potent elixir as she stares at him before realizing he isn't alone.

Her gaze bounces right over me as we step from the shadows, coming to take our places behind Whit.

"No, no, Lavigne." Whit speaks, but his voice is modulated, cloaked by the little device that his character uses in the movies to disguise their voice.

It's a creepy touch, something I never even considered.

She would recognize my voice, Rev's, Colton's, and Jake's.

I'm not sure she'd recognize Whit's— they haven't interacted a ton—but it's smart to cloak it anyway. "You're not going anywhere."

I don't think Marley even realizes that Whit is moving slowly forward, pushing her toward the stage, toward Audrey's body.

"Please..." She chokes, tears streaming down her face freely now. They glint in the little bit of light in the room, and I feel my heart fracturing further at my helplessness. I'm the one who makes everything okay, and right now I can't make everything okay.

"Please." Whit teases. "Please, please! Please don't kill me!"

His laughter cuts through the air, prompting laughs from others... Carson and Nick, Jake, Mark, some of the faceless figures dressed in black who Mark didn't introduce us to. Anger coils in my veins as they laugh at her misery, fueling Whit's manic performance.

"You can let me go." Marley pleads. "I don't know anything."

"I know you don't know anything. Because you're a stupid whore, Marley Lavigne."

I curl my fists inside the leather gloves, trying to refrain from going and wrapping them around Whit's fucking throat.

My anger only grows as he grabs her chin and squeezes, tilting her face to the screen that shows the haunted house so guests can see other people being terrified after they've made it to the end.

Except, right now, it's playing a recording that makes me sick to my stomach.

It's so vulnerable, and the thought that Mark did that to her knowing that it was going to be recorded makes me want to punch him in the fucking balls.

He's got Marley on her back, his fingers pumping in and out of her.

I don't care to see it; I turn my focus to Marley, who tries to look away, to assess the current threat. But Whit doesn't let her gaze move.

"Watch it, Lavigne. This is my favorite part."

Mark steps behind her, seizing a fistful of her hair and yanking her head back so that her focus turns back to the screen.

Her shame is clear on her face, embarrassment twining with her fear as tears flow faster and Carson reaches over her shoulder to put a finger on each of her eyelids, pulling them up so she can't close her eyes to try and deny what she's seeing.

"You squeal like a stuck pig when you come." Whit chuckles, his timbre rising and dropping behind that false voice. "I bet you'll bleed like one too, the first time a real man fucks you."

I take a step forward without thinking, ready to slip my hands around his neck until he chokes on those fucking words, but Rev's hand darts out to catch mine, and when I get a glance at him, he shakes his head ever so slightly.

"No!" Marley cries, trying to wrench out from under the hands on her.

Carson gets a fistful of her shirt, using it to yank her to him so she can't escape, and the sound of the fabric shredding is surprisingly loud over the laughter.

I turn to Rev, because we can't let this go on. Whatever the fuck this is, it's not what we agreed to.

Whit made it sound like we were going to cherish her, to worship her the way she deserves to be worshipped.

This is torture... cruel, malicious, sexual torture.

It's not the way I imagined seeing her topless before me for the first time, and I can't bear to look, to see her with her shirt shredded down the center, exposed to everyone in here.

"Stay." Rev whispers, so quietly that I almost don't hear it above Marley's panicked breaths.

Mark catches her by the hair as she tries to brush past him, knocking her to the floor when she slips in a puddle of Audrey's blood, and Rev's hand wraps around mine, squeezing to try and remind me that he's here too.

He won't let her get hurt. But this is already hurting her. .. maybe worse than just physically.

"Don't worry about why." Whit tells her, looming over the spot where she lies flat on her back, just feet away from Audrey's lifeless body. "Worry about what comes next."

Whit drops to his knees and my panic surges; I take a step, dragging rev forward with me, ready to fight him off with my bare hands if I have to. He straddles her, leaning close, covering her body with his.

"You don't know who we are under these masks, but I assure you, we know you, Marley Maire Lavigne of 487 River Lane. We know where your parents are buried and where you sleep... where your sister sleeps and what her favorite position is..."

Rev withdraws his hand from mine, but he positions his body just slightly in front of me, a warning not to make any sudden, insane moves. And turning on Whit right now would be insane. He's got more people in his corner at the moment, but I'm not going to sit here and let him do things to her.

Rev's touch returns a moment later, and I realize he's slipped his glove off. I can feel his skin on mine as he wraps his fingers around my wrist, a reminder that he's right here, that he's not going to abandon me, and we aren't going to abandon her.

Marley please for her sister, the last family she has, and my heart burns inside of its cage.

"Good girl." Whit affirms, skating his gloved hand over her chest, helping himself to a feel of her breast before gripping her neck. "You and Audrey came here alone. You never met up with other friends. You were together all night until you got separated in this haunted house. Got it?"

Marley nods vehemently, but it's not enough for Whit to give up intimidating her.

"If you tell anyone what happened tonight, we'll find out.

And then we'll just have to show the whole town what you were doing while your best friend was getting her guts rearranged.

.. literally and metaphorically speaking. "

Marley chokes on a sob. "Okay."

"I think part of you wants the world to see you like that." Whit chuckles, gesturing at the screen with the knife in his hand.

"Focus on me." Rev whispers, his fingers flexing against my skin until I flick my gaze to his.

I think he may be trying to communicate with me telepathically.

I can't see much of his eyes behind that mask, but I can tell that he's watching me.

I know he's trying to tell me that it will all be okay, that this will all be over soon, and it will have been worth it.

I know that Whit needs her, that he won't kill her.

But I also know that he's so much worse than I thought, that he's capable of things worse than I imagined him to be capable of.

"You really do taste like sin." Whit laughs, and I turn to see him squeezing Marley's throat, not hard enough to cut off her air supply, but enough to prove that he could.

His touch releases, only to grip her nipples between his gloved fingers and pinching hard enough to make her cry out, and her hips buck in an attempt to throw him off of her.

Rev's nails dig into my flesh as I stare, my horror burning through the facade and the games, ready to tear everything down to keep him from going further.

This is already too far. This is sexual assault, and I'm sick because I'm just fucking watching it, completely fucking useless to do anything about it.

I don't care if he tries to kill me, but I saw firsthand that he's clearly insane.

If I try to stop him, I don't know that Marley will be spared in the fallout of whatever’s to come.

"You're sick!" Marley cries as he lifts his robe, moving for his belt.

"I am."

Colton moves in front of me, shaking his head ever so slightly before moving around to stand closer to Marley, ready to act if he needs. But I don't know how he can stand right there, so close to her, and not try to stop Whit as he takes his belt off.