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Timberly
I'm a hot mess, a shitty hot mess. He left, he just left. Shaking in despair, I try hard to pull myself together. Why can I be smart to the dirtbags that abuse me and sass back to them and the horrid woman who is my mother? I talk to Red just fine also but this man, this guy, I just can’t seem to do it. He screams fear, hurt, lust, crazy, the whole works. He scares me, thrills me, excites me and loses me all at the same time. How am I to fix this, me?
Looking at Red through my tearstained eyes, I see the pain etched on her face. She goes to speak, and I shake my head. “Not yet,” I whisper out, falling into her arms. I weep as her big arms wrap me in the embrace of love, her bosom comforting my shattered soul, rocking me back and forth. She hushes me, soothing me as we rock away the dark and replaces it with light.
The smell of him lingers in here. It engulfs my senses, takes my soul on a journey and my mind down the road of self-doubt and disappointment. Pacing is what I need to do so that’s what is going to happen. No, I need walking, I need to walk it off, breathe in the fresh air. The chill of mid-afternoon will do me good. It helps, it will help, well it has to. I stop at the door, looking back. “Red, how do I be what he needs?”
She stands, passing me the bag that holds a promise and I’m unsure if I can be the person he needs it places a pressure on me he has so often spoken of his desire for me and the fact that he’s like stalked me and now has thought of all the small things. Overwhelming much. Yes it sure is, “Start by being just you, that’s what he likes, send him a text, his number is in there.” She kisses my forehead and I close my eyes, breathing in his smell one last time because I'm not sure what awaits me when I get back to the hell that I call home. Not after him flying in there today like a bat out of hell.
Pulling myself into my hoodie as I walk into the apartment block, blood running cold in my veins, I head straight to my bedroom to hide the phone. But on heading downstairs, the house is deathly silent; is anyone here? Anxiety spikes as an uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. I search the kitchen and lounge room for someone, anyone but nope there is no one. The table and chair is over turned a small picture on the wall is crooked and a hole in the wall next to it little bits off plaster lay on the floor. Running my hands through my hair sweat beads down my spine. Ok so I need to shower and think. I chant out as I walk up the hall way stepping over the small coffee table and broken dinner plate and coffee cup. Its deathly cold in here tonight I need to warm my body up.
My mind flicks to where the fuck they could be. It’s not like mom to not be here, or a drug lord, for that matter. Weird. Pushing open the door to the bathroom, in that moment, I see her in the bath, beaten and bruised, blood pooling around her head which sinks dangerously low back in the water. Just her lips and nose stick out of the water. Is she dead? Shock races through my body; I don’t know what to do
Shaking, I run to my room to pull the phone from the floorboards and do the only thing I think of, text Ghost. But before I can do that, the taste of bile rises up in my throat and spews out all over the floor in front of me as the image of her in the bath, dead, floods my mind’s eye like a horror movie of images just stuck on replay. The blood, the bruises, the needle jammed into her vein, her lips deathly blue, her eyes huge and bugging out of her head. Fuck... This is so bad. my hands reach around my long black hair as I pull it back from my face sticking to my skin that is now clammy laced in sweat. Her bruises mirroring my own; how fucking ironic.
I pull myself to my feet. I need water and to calm the fuck down before I even text Ghost. Shit, will he even want to come here and help me after today? I may have pushed him too far today with my problems and my fear of letting people in. “Anxiety is a bitch,” I say out loud to... well no one but myself as I run the cold tap. Splashing it out over my face, the cool ice water stings my skin. I rake my wet fingers through my hair to pull it back from my face.
Filling a glass with water before leaning against the counter top, I raise the glass to my lips, taking a long gulp of the cool water. I close my eyes as it slides down my throat. I relish in the calming feeling as it slides all the way down to the bottom of my belly. It makes me feel something other than hate. Opening my eyes, the glass slips from my hands, shattering on the kitchen floor as my eyes land on the men standing before me. Their faces are masked but I know them. Their eyes I see daily, those four sets of eyes haunt my dreams.
Before I can even find words, the baseball bat holding masked man known as Drake, comes out full swing and cracks into the side of my head. I'm falling as the world around me goes black. I'm out before I even hit the cold floor of my home of horrors. This time, it’s not from a panic attack but an attack on me from the actions of the devil dressed in a mother’s clothing.
Darkness....
Literally and physically, that is now my reality, before I could always hear his voice. Each time I passed out, Ghost was there; now though, there is no Ghost just the eerie sound of silence. The side of my skull hurts from the bat cracking against it and knocking me unconscious. Shit, even the back of my skull hurts. My whole body feels bruised. I try to move my hands and my arms are aching. Why can’t I move them? I realize then that they are tied together. What! Why! Panic creeps in. Willing the fuzziness to recede and part the clouds of sleep mixed with the feeling that floats around you from being unconscious.
Trying hard to shed light on what happened and where I am and why it’s so freaking dark, I open and blink my eyes. Nothing but endless darkness greets me. Something is tied around my face. I can feel the bristly fabric rubbing against my skin and each time I suck a breath in, I can feel it pull into my nostrils. Anxiety dances deep in my stomach as the panic of having the one fundamental gift of sight taken away from me.
I don’t move. I lay still and breathe, trying to mentally catalogue my body, from the tips of my toes all the way up to the last strand of hair on my head. My shoulders ache and my skull is pounding, sending out a horrid thud through my body. The fabric, or mask, that is tied around my face, whatever that is, it’s taking away what oxygen I do need, just letting small, hot amounts to reach my lungs, just enough to keep me alive.
Fear is rising inside me. I'm struggling against the tell-tale panic and anxiety readying to take my body, grip it and threaten to claw its way out. I need to be bigger than Timberly the girl who passes out at the very thought of attack. I need to shove it way down deep and suppress the panic in order to assess my predicament rather than lose myself to the terror that is raking through me. I can feel it tingling through my senses.
I need to remember what Red used to say to me when I first started working for her. When a panic attack, anxiety and self-doubt would grip me and take me down deep to the dark place of my soul that always had me guessing why. Why I was so timid and broken a shell of a human who shook at the smallest sound, shied away from people and their stares and glares, or never let a soul in on the fear of passing out.
‘You need to focus on your senses, Love, not the fear of the unknown or the what ifs.
Fear never helps, Love, it only hinders one’s soul.
Touch
Smell
Sound
Always when struck with the dark, or the lonely place that your attacks send you to, always focus on these three things. Assess and judge, figure out and find, before you know it, you will be in control again.’ Why haven’t I thought about doing this when I am with Ghost. Fuck my mind works backwards.
So Timberly, it’s time to focus and access the senses you can feel around you. Breathe girl, I tell myself, breathe and just feel.
Touch: I can’t seem to touch my body as my hands are tied but I do know that my skull is sore and my body, mainly the base of my spine and the left side of my ribs, is sore. It hurts to breathe in air.
Smell: I can smell the pungent scent of fear rolling of my body deep from my core. But I can also smell men, and stale smoke and beer.
Sound: The gritting sound of tires rolling over gravel, the creak of brakes being pushed down to the floor of a vehicle and that said vehicle rolling to a stop.
I’ve been kidnapped. Me, Timberly Roe, a nobody has been kidnapped. It’s laughable. I pass out at the first thought of something new and uneasy coming my way and now I’ve been cracked in the skull with a baseball bat from a guy who has had his dick in me more times than I’ve had hot dinners.
Moving around slowly and as quietly as I can to not draw attention to the fact that I'm awake, I need to really sort my head out and try to rein in the small control I have. The last thing I need is desperation and the fear of the unknown to grip me and rip me in two when I feel, in the pit of my stomach, that this is really fight of flight time and I wanna fight because, for once in my pitiful life, I need to just let go. But shit, it’s hard to do anything with my hands that are tied behind my back and a searing pain rushing over my over heightened body.
I now have to hold my shit together long enough to figure out what the fuck I can do. I'm going to have to dig deep and pull out the wild Timberly that I know sleeps deep down there somewhere in the pits of my soul. Awaken the beast and let’s get to it. Ha Timberly you’re so confident and strong sugar in your head! But I have a man who seen me and legit wanted me. So, for that alone I'll fight. He made me feel strong. I know he did when I was wrapped in the blanket of darkness. His voice filled my mind and gave me a sense of strength.
Tears prick my eyes as I feel the cool wind wash over me as the door of the vehicle rips open and a hand grabs my ankle. It pulls me with such force over the floor that a searing pain licks my bare skin of my back. Trying hard to blink the tears away, I can’t but I refuse to lose myself in the fog of tears. Be strong, Timberly.
My heart flurries to an unnatural beat and a trickle of hot sweat seeps down my spine. I wiggled and tried to kick out at whoever has their filthy hands wrapped around my ankles. My bound wrists protested, stinging as the rope around them bit down and gnawed into my flesh like twine-beasts. My ribs screamed out in pain along with my head. There was no give in the rope restraints nor in my captor’s grip, so I stopped trying to fight him and made the inward decision to preserve my energy. I tried to swallow, no saliva, I tried to speak out wanting to ask why, no voice I tried to remember why what I had done and to who for this to be happening to me then it hit me like a wet fish to the side of my face; Ghost, the beating, they hurt me the night before so he hurt them that day and they hurt her well killed her and now they took me. Great, I already thought I lived in a hell I couldn’t handle and now \ I'm tied gagged and now a damp piece of fabric of some kind tied tightly around my face I can barely breathe.
“Get up, Move bitch.” A voice slams out hitting me like a semi-truck jabbing something sharp into my ribs.
“Won’t fucking say it again, bitch, I don’t like repeating myself.” He spits out to me.
“Well dick, bit hard when my hands are tied behind my back and I can’t fucking see.” I snap back at him pulling my legs back bending at the knees to gain the momentum I need to flick myself forward I can feel my bum resting on the edge of the vehicle bed can’t be too far to the ground.
Nope wrong my horizontal body suddenly and rather too fast for my brain to catch up went rather vertical in one swoop. Laughter washed out over me as a pair of boots found their way into my ribs searing burning pain like a hot poker dug into the right side of my body as another pair of boots found the left side of me kicking back and forward between them like a soccer ball. Dust flying up around me getting under the fabric and coating my dry lips and getting inside my nostrils sneezing and screaming out in pain as the movement burned through me. Hands vice like fingers griped around the crown of my head and pulling me too my feet, my toes dangling barely touching the ground as tears of pure gut wrenching pain lashed out over my body ricocheting down my spine stopping at the tips of my toes for a split second before it flew back up through my body like a pinball machine ball darting through my body from one bone to the next on nerve to the other pain laced nerve.
Just like that, he drops me in a pool of hair and dirt to the hard ground below me. My skull bounces off the ground hard, mind-splittingly hard, before settling back down. The pain rushes through me as tears stream from my eyes. I have no control over them now and blood? Is that blood I can feel and taste sliding from my nose over my top lip settling on my bottom warm and sticky? Darting out my tongue and diving it back inside my mouth I taste the metallic tang, yes, yes it is.
“Get up, bitch.” Trying to curl my body like a caterpillar and shimming myself to my knees. At least from my knees I may be able to get the rest of the way up. “I said get the fuck up” his tone septic
“I’m fucking trying, dick bag!” I holler out in the direction I hear his voice coming from. With the fabric stealing my sight and taking away any fresh air I so desperately need, plus the damn binds taking my hands, it's kinda making it hard to do as they seem to be scream at me to do.
Finally, I make it to my knees. Just as I raise my leg to stand, my captor grabs me under my arm and pulls me hard up and shoves me forward, the ground unsteady beneath my feet. The air whips around my sweat-laced body, sending out shivers over my skin. Confusion, mixed with a sick feeling and the taste of blood, does nothing to quell the panic that’s taking up residence inside my belly. My legs stumble in the direction that he wants me to go. I hate this shuffling forward in the darkness, not having my hands really creates a sick sense of dread deep in me. You don’t realize just how much you need them when they are taken away, that and sight. I wish I had that right now also. Drake will fucking pay for this. That’s a promise that I make to myself if I get out of this alive. I shall make him pay for it all.
My heart thudded harder and faster than it had ever before as hands pushed me. Stumbling, I carried on forward... to where, I don’t know, but I didn’t stop, I didn’t ask, I just did, gathering all the strength I could from deep down below because this shit is real and it’s happening. I couldn’t let fear slip through my defenses and threaten to take me down the rabbit hole of the dark. I needed to stay present. Full blown terror was sliding through my brain like a slippery little fish. God knows what amount of horror is lurking on the other side of this fabric covering my face. I don’t have a clue where I am, how I got here, what direction we came in, nothing, so I don’t think this is still necessary and it’s dark, at least it was when I had walked home. Home, god I never thought I'd say this but at this moment I miss it, I miss the horrors that was my home.
Whipping my head to the side of me as a sound pulls me from my thoughts, I can hear the faint whimpers and moans coming from behind me, little snippets that I'm not alone. I'm not the only girl here.
The pushing in between my shoulder blades stops and so does that mean no more walking, shit nope big mistake stopping “Move” a smack to the tender part of the back of my skull has sent me wheeling forward. I didn’t stop again fuck that I just kept walking forward my feet shuffling out over the dirt and stone laced ground. I’ve lost a shoe. I can feel every little stone as they hit the soft pad of my foot.
My movements must have slowed as my mind travels through the things that’s missing. My shoe, my sight, my smell, my touch, my everything they have taken it all them and all the men before just take, take and take. “Faster, bitch.” something cold wedges against my spine the captor behind me dug it in and dragged it painfully slow up my spine, leaving a nice long rip through my hoodie and the flesh of my back, exposing me to the cold air, and as the air kissed the fresh new mark up my spine, a sting broke out in its wake leaving me sucking in air so fast and deep that I choke on it.
With my hands behind my back, I try to move faster, negotiating the ground as best as I can for dips, rises and falls stones and whatever else with no sight, bound hands searing pain and an evil son of a bitch behind me with what sounds like a scared chorus of women behind me as well.
“Step the fuck down.” The man behind me grabs my bound wrists, giving me some sense of balance and guidance as my toes try to navigate the steps in front of me.
“Again.” he hollers.
“Again.” I obey.
“Again.” I seem to manage the steps fine without falling and for the man behind me to have a painful grip on my binds which is sending the ropes to bite deeper into my already torn flesh. But I am grateful for it as I didn’t want to face plant again.
“Last step, bitch.”
“Enough of the bitch, thanks,” I grit out into the air in front of me anger rolling through my veins.
“Ha! Say what, bitch?” his voice greets the back of my neck so painfully close to me that I can smell his dirty breath.
“The bitch, can you give it a rest,” I say. “I get you don’t like me but hell,” I say to him, false confidence suddenly spilling from my shaky body, the tell-tale white dots of a panic attack kiss the dark that is my eyes. Oh fuck no, don’t pass out, Timberly, I beg myself as his hands grab a fist full of my hair and he rips my head painfully back to near snapping it from my shoulders.
“I'll call you what the fuck I want to, BITCH!” he emphasizes the last word a tad too much and my anger, laced with pure anxiety, takes over and I dig my heels in.
“Fuck you!” I spit, spinning on my heels and slamming my head forward fast till it cracks with what I hope is a head next to mine. All I want is to inflict some pent-up rage on this fuck bag. But nope, my head meets a chiseled and smelly chest, and as quick as I hit him, I'm falling backwards and falling down the last of the steps. My knees come up over my head I can feel my hair fan out behind me and before I know it, I'm flipped right over and lying face down on a cold concrete floor.
Before I can even think, let alone assess what’s hurt, another body falls on top of me, her hair covering my face, her salty tears dripping to mine as she whimpers and pleads loudly. “Please, please help me.”
“Doll, I can’t even save myself, let alone you,” I groan out to her as I use my hips to thrust her frame up and off mine. I don’t do human contact at all. This place is no exception. I search around me using my ears for clues, for more sounds. Yet nothing but stifled whimpers and sobs, mixed with footsteps and men’s voices hushed and low, meet my ears.
“You get all we need?” I hear one man say his tone harsh and gruff.
“Yep, and a little extra one too. This bitch is a fun toy, I know, I’ve had my dick in her many times.” That’s Drake's voice. I recognize it as his hands grab under my arm and pull me up from the cold concrete. Another man runs his fingers over my neck and down the swell of my breasts pulling back from his seedy touch I am greeted with Drake's chest my body is pushed hard against his as his hand grips my hips he pulls me tight into him and I feel the bulge of his cock press into my back. “Stand still, whore,” he barks into my hair.
“Drake, you’re a cunt,” I spit out.
“Ohh such dirty words coming from the girl who tries to be more than what she really is. The girl whose mother is a drug whore and, baby, you’re no better.” He says through gritted teeth into my ear. His teeth find my lobe and bite it hard. Sucking air deep between my teeth; it stings. I cry out as his hand grab my neck. “You know you want it, baby doll, and fuck, me and the boys will give it.” His dirty, beer-laced breath washes over me, pungent and disgusting. Without thinking, all fear that should be flowing through my veins is gone. It’s not normal for me to feel this calm. It’s not a natural feeling to not be afraid, I like it. I’m not hyperventilating or panicked anymore.
My calmness is like a new-found drug, oozing all over me, muting the sharp reality of my situation. I embrace the fake courage that it gives me and the knowledge that I was being thrust into this horror movie playing out around me. I am strong, I will not cry, I will fucking fight.
My hands tied behind me ball into fists, and through gritted teeth I spit, “Well baby, why don’t we tell them all how small ya cock is and how, when you cum, you cry for ya momma.” I straighten my shoulders as laughter rings out around me and hands slap what I think sounds like backs. I hear the low rumble of questions coming from shocked mouths. God I'd love to be able to see the look on Drake's face.
Before I can even smile at my inner bitch being awoken, I fall to the ground winded as something hard hits my ribs and back. As I hit the cold, hard ground, the concrete scrapes the side of my face as boots find my already gasping for air body. “You fucking whore,” I hear Drake spit. “You will learn your place even if I kill you while teaching you,” he spits over me. He starts to kick me over and over as stars form in my vision. My eyes water and my body curls around itself, pain ricocheting throughout.
“Fuck you,” I spit out my voice laced with anger and shaking with tears. My bound hands and shoulders screamed agony with the way my body contorted with his boots and my soul well that snarled for more, more pain more feeling more “Give me more, you fucker!” I hiss as blood flowed in my mouth. I spit it out as his hands find my hair and he pulls my head back. His boot is firmly plastered in between my shoulder blade, effectively bending my body around his.
“You found your voice, I see, finally we all knew you were just a dirty little fuck toy.” Once again, I search for fear but nope not there. All I felt was pain and that pain fueled me to fight.
“Enough, you fucking idiot!” the loud growl rumbles like an earthquake, hushing the words of hate and, in its wake, leaving nothing but the pain searing through me and the ragged breathing coming from me and Drake. Stepping off my back, he throws me to the ground and I fall, the cool ground a welcome feeling to my heated skin. Whoever had spoken, or growled, I should say, had power and I mean power like immense power. A shiver darted over my skin as all went silent.
“What the fuck happened? Who the fuck is the chick you’re beating on?” He yelled out amid the sound of a few scuffled footsteps and hushed tones. I pick up a comment from a voice I didn't know. ‘This should be interesting,’ the voice says.
Yep Drake won’t bow though, watch,’ another voice answers the first. My good angel is asking all the what’s and whys, how’s and who’s. I am unable to even try and think about that as I am so shaken by the situation flowing around me and that I kinda need to be like fierce and shit when I’m actually shitting myself. My bad angel is laughing at the events that unfold around us and the fact that Drake is getting pulled up finally someone sees that he’s a waste of space.
“Bend a fucking knee, dick bag. Show me some fucking respect!” The earthquake bellowed out around us causing my new inner found bitch to run and hide.
“I’m not bending nothing, asshole, you aren’t my Prez, bitch.” Drake has balls.
“I am while I'm fucking here! Three clubs joint and Three Prez’s came with them I am one of them so, dickless, you will bend, and you will fucking obey me.” He roars out, his tone is clipped, thick and angry, with an accent that is super alluring and all the young girls around me start to cry. For what reasone I am unsure of, is it his voice its super intense and scary as hell but nothing has happened to warrant tears. I can taste their fear though so maybe that’s it. It’s swirling around us all mixed with way to my testosterone. “I’ve been here for four fucking months and all you’ve given me is resistance, obey me or follow the path of your other brothers who dared push me.” His tone spits rage and it pushes my body closer to the damp cold concrete. I wish it would swallow me as I desperately rub my face over the gritty surface. Finally, the fabric comes free slightly, allowing me a little fresh air, not that it’s really fresh, it has the sharp taste of metallic blood floating through the air. The fear that oozes from the other women is suffocating as well as the stench of alpha male and the piss bags who all want to take his place.
I try hard to wiggle the fabric down far enough, so I can at least see what the fuck is happening around me as a newfound panic washes through the already suffocating air. “You’re just a bitch and I will bow to your boots the day I put a bullet in your head, Viper. You come in here with what a dirty ass snake on ya back and a beef with the Reapers who are piss bags in the wind. We have them by the balls with the lone wolf’s princess and you want us to jeopardize that, so you can take what? The Celtic goddess as you all call her? When we have the queen, we don’t need a bitch.”
“DRAKEEEEEEE!” the earthquake roars as steps sound out, fast paced and moving away from my body. All of a sudden I feel so exposed and this time, actual fear hits me like a semi. All I hear is muffled fists hitting bodies, kicks and cursing, their voices muffled, breathless. It ended as fast as it began with a painful groan and a body falling down beside me. I can feel the anger swirling around us.
The earthquake voice again bleeds out around us all. “Open your fucking eyes, you all have it so very wrong. You all don’t know shit, you don’t know what the fuck you’re on about, and you have no clue just how fucken dangerous the Reapers are. Not just the Reapers as a whole but their executioner alone is a death wish. He’s as silent as the wind and as sharp as the knife that will come from the dark and take out your fucken heart right before you; a man known to me as Cade Morrow, but to the world and the street, he is just Ghost.” Drake moves next to me as mind just sucks all this info in Ghost, what the hell has Ghost got to do with this place and these people, who the hell is Viper and why the hell am I here. Celtic Goddess, who is that? And he can do what? With a what? Ok so now I’m on hyper alert as the hairs prickle up and over my arms a glacial line of sweat runs down my spine.
My mind races at the speed of sound and my body begins to shake. I feel sick and I feel way out of my league. The fake courage is no match to the evil I can feel in this room, let alone the earthquake man, he seems like he would rip me apart in one swift pull. “I’ve been chosen to run this operation so, boy, bend your fucking knee and respect me.” Another tremor ran down my back, silence deathly quiet answers him.
The only noise was the sound of boots on the concrete, heavy breathing and the suppressed whimpers from the women that seem to surround me. “You’ll die,” Drake seethes out to the man with the roaring earthquake for a voice
“Ha, Me? I won't die, son, but a traitor, a traitor will die way before me. I'm chosen, all us Presidents of clubs are chosen from a long line and rather careful planning. You’re just piss in the wind disposable.” His voice penetrates my cold as snow scared soul. I didn’t know how many men stood around me, but the air was thick with anticipation and anger. I heard a thud sounding like a fist meeting flesh and like the little girl I don’t want to be, I cowered into myself, tightening my body into a ball and willing this to be over. It sounds like we just got brought into world war fucking three the apocalypse of life alpha male among wannabe alpha male in a pissing competition.
Drake didn’t know when to shut his mouth. “I’ll kill you, you dirty ass mother fucker, like the snake that you are. Mark my words me and my boys, the Rouges, we will take you out.” My body shook with his words and flinched, nah fuck that, it jumped clean out of my skin and back again as the sulfuric boom of a gun sounded out around me and the high shrill screams of the ladies freaking the fuck out. Then, just as I turn my head away from them, I feel the crash of a body fall lifeless into the hard cold concrete next to me, blood pooling around us both. I can smell it, taste it on my tongue burning into my senses metallic blood mixed with gunpowder and murder. This shit is too much I can feel the fear take over as the realization of someone’s blood running into me sends me teetering over the edge of reason I need to breathe the floor begins to like move my body feels like it’s tilting from one side to another. The air turns thick and heavy. I want to rewind like eight hours and be with Ghost this man they fear to be safe and none the wiser to this world right here.
Murder was committed right before me. I’m blind to the actual act but I heard it all unfold. What will happen to me now? Drake brought me here, and for what, I don’t know and now I never will.
I’m a witness to murder, yet I witnessed nothing.
I knew only Drake and well, that wasn’t really a relationship. He took what my mother owed in money for drugs from me in the way of rape. So, no I didn’t know him. I hated him, despised him and his scent so his death means nothing to me really, I feel nothing but numbness. My hands shook even though bound so tight behind me; my whole body shook. A body to the left of me curled up tight and nestled against me, her knees digging into my tender ribs. I had to repeal from her touch before the tell-tale spots formed and darkness took me. I needed to be present for whatever was to come next. More beatings, rape, death? Shit, all three and in that order. Mainly orders quickly spoken.
Voices cascaded over us, whispers, every sound was so heightened. Being robbed of sight made my body seek other ways to work and find clues to what was going on and that meant my ears were working overtime.
The gravely tone of the man who I know shot and killed Drake spoke above me, sending me to coil around my inner self with fear again.
“Get rid of his body before daybreak and check that we are still undercover, he’s brought in one too many women and judging by his shit with this little lady here, it could be too close to home for comfort as she didn’t come off the truck with the others but out of his van.”
The women next to me whimpered and I angled my head towards her, wishing my eyes were uncovered. I wanted to see. I wanted to witness what was going on and I wanted to lay eyes on the man whose voice was the low rumble like an earthquake that seemed to set my skin quivering like quicksand. I needed to hear it again and see what body it belonged to. I needed to know that this was real proof that it was happening and that I finally hadn’t lost my mind and gone completely batshit crazy.
I sucked in a deep breath as warm fingers touched my cheek, strong hands fumbled with the fabric tied around my face. The anticipation of finally being able to see made me stay deathly still and focus on my breathing and the beats of my heart. I needed to not pass out when my eyes meet the man before me. I waited, and I breathed, and I listened to nothing but my heartbeats. The pressure of the fabric finally released, trading opaque darkness for a new kind of dark moonlight in an inky black sky with stars above. Anchors of a world that I lived in.
Continuing my gaze over the night's sky that came through from a glass roof above me, the whole roof was glass and the walls glass also. It was like a big glass viewing box. Scanning quickly around me, I see it’s filled with men in leather jackets jeans and dirty boots. Women laying blindfolded and weeping, half naked. To the far wall is a line of cube boxes lit up under red lights... interesting.
My eyes then meet his and all else around me ceases, my glass blues meet haunting black with pure yellow irises. Snake eyes, that’s what I thought as soon as they met mine and fear rippled out over me like a demon trying to exit my body. He had jaw-length hair tangled and sweaty with a square jaw a crooked nose and a scar that ran along his skin and down his neck.
His face blackens along with his eyes as he looked me over. I could see something in his eyes like he was scarred with what he was looking at in mine. “You know me?” I whimper out. “Who are you?” I ask, my voice a mere frightened whisper. I needed him to quit staring at me this way. His body goes rigid, his chest sticks out as he went to fill all six foot of his frame in what was an attempt to scare me. Sorry but my body is past that now. Fear and I are now best friends.
Then his voice cut through me like a searing poker.
“I'm the Reaper outside your door, sweetheart.”
Squaring my shoulders and standing to all five feet of myself, I summon all the strength I have and open my mouth, shocked at what seems to flow from it. “Oh sir please, you are not, for I am Timberly Roe and I'm the Reaper’s lady.” I’m not, but he doesn’t know that, and it sounded good. Before, when he spoke of Ghost, you could hear fear laced in his bravado.
His hands find the base of my neck, the dull thud still present from the many cracks I have had afflicted to my skull tonight. His fingertips lace through my long black mane before pulling my head back and arching my head towards him. “Oh you are?” his tone is light, almost mocking even.
“Sure am, baby, would you like to reach out and ask?” I murmur out full of confidence, hoping he will and Ghost will come and save my sorry ass from this hell that Drake has dragged me into.
He looks deep into my eyes, his stare heated with cold irises of death. My toes curl and the shoeless one grits over the concrete. His hands find my wrist and he rips the sleeve of my hoodie up, exposing my skin to the sticky air. His eyes rake over my wrists as my black rosary beads slide down my arm, settling just on the top of my wrist. My eyes find his face and it’s as white as a Ghost, no pun intended. I feel the sprinkling of fear prickle over me as his grip tightens.
“FUCK!” he screams out and I mean he screams it out causing my ears to ring. He drops my hand and runs his now shaking hands through his hair. “Fucking fool!” he screams again as men move in closer, all eyes on me as the massive, fuming man in front of me turns and lays kick after brutal kick into the lifeless body of a dead Drake.
His stare turns on mine, the Devil lacing his eyes as his fingers cup painfully into my cheekbones, digging deep causing my eyes to water. His hands shake as they cup my face. He breathes hard as the thoughts roll over in his mind. I could see it like a wheel turning over inside transparent skin showing off all that was going through it.
Fear.
Anger.
Loss.
Panic.
“Do any of you fucking fools know who this is!” he barked out, shaking me from side to side, sending my brain from the left of my already pounding skull to the right. Stars blink out in front of me as my legs start to turn to jelly. Hushed voices sound out, looks and blank stares until Drake’s little buddy – his name is... shit, his name is...Jed! – who I only meet about a week ago when I had the not so pleasure of having his dick slammed into my mouth, stepped forward.
“I do,” he spat like he was the man. “She’s the little piece of ass, Drake, the boys and I fuck for payment for drugs from her mother’s Shame and humiliation washes over me as the sharp tang of his words seep out. He makes me sound like a whore which I am not. I shouldn’t care what these people think of me, but I do, and the words cut deep.
"Past addiction and used to fuck... well more like raped, you piss bag, you guys killed her tonight.” I spat at him, flying my head towards his body in the hopes that I could head-butt him.
Snake eyes grabbed my wrist as I lunged forward, snapping me back into his hard body. Pain from the ropes bite my torn skin. “Fucking let me go!” I screamed out as he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. Pulling a sliver gun from out under his shirt and waistband of his jeans, he raised his hand from behind his back to the front of him where I could no longer see.
“Well, Piss bag, as the little lady called you, she is the executioner’s little lady. He has been watching her and protecting her for well over a year now, and the guy who gave you and your boys that hiding this morning was Ghost, the Reapers Reigns VP and in house lunatic. You all have just fucked up royally.” He spits out to them all as the gun sounds out around us and women scream.
I just flinch in his grip feeling nothing now. I'm numb now to all around me. “He’s more dangerous than the Devil and you have just brought fire to us all!” he bellows out. He says it with such hate that I bite my tongue, my mind rolls over what he just said and the depth of the words ‘More dangerous than the Devil himself’ not to me, he isn’t. To me he is Ghost and I fucking pray that he comes to save me.