Chapter 24

brOOKE

The next couple of hours go by in a blur. It's nearly midnight now. I've changed into a pair of jeans and a hoodie, much to the annoyance of Chase, but no fucking way am I freezing my ass off for him. We're in the basement of some old decrepit house that Jax scouted out for us to "play," as he said. Shane's face is blowing up into a mess of purple and black bruises from Chase beating on him earlier.

Chase told me about the darkness that eats at him. I wasn't surprised, wasn't scared when I saw him lose it. If anything, well, it kinda turned me on seeing him be that protective of me. I have to laugh at myself and how much I've changed in the past few weeks. Who would have thought watching a guy get the shit beaten out of him would make my pussy flutter.

Shane stirs slightly, and Asher takes a step forward. He's so different like this. I've seen that little boy inside of him, the kid who found his sister bleeding to death. I've seen the mask he gives to the world, the guy who doesn't care and whose life is drugs and girls, and then there's this guy in front of me. It's like there's nothing there to an outsider but to me, the girl that held in his hand in the graveyard that night. I still see that little boy. The difference is it's not sadness anymore—it's rage. Unfiltered rage, the kind that craves revenge on what happened to his sister, the kind that wants people to pay for him losing his childhood.

Asher suddenly throws a bucket of water over Shane, who coughs and splutters awake. Jax chuckles to himself in one corner of the room. Chase, in the other, reaches out to my hand to keep me close, but I shake it off.

I need to see this. If I want to be a part of this fully, I need to see what happens next. I take a step forward to stand by Asher.

"Who the fuck are you." His eyes move to me. "You fucking bitch, I'm going to make you pay for this."

I laugh lightly.

"Oh really? And how do you think you're going to do that, Shane; you're tied to a chair," I scoff.

Asher walks over to a table, picking up a small dagger before making his way back to Shane. With such speed, he plunges it into Shane's knee. He screams out in pain as Asher lowers his face to his, blood soaking down his bare thigh. "Don't talk to her again; don't even look at her. You talk to me. You got it?"

Shane gasps for breath before he goes still, nodding.

"What do you want?" he asks, his demeanor changing as he realizes he's in trouble here.

"Who is Deacon?"

Shane goes quiet and almost trembles. That is fear I can see it in his eyes. Pure, unadulterated fear. Whoever this guy is, Shane is scared of him.

"I don't know who you're talking about," he mumbles.

I pull the knife from his leg, surprised at how easy it is, as he screams out.

"Who is he?" Asher repeats.

"I can't tell you; he'll kill me. Deacon doesn't exist, man; you can't find him."

"So, it's an alias?" Jax asks, typing something on his phone.

"Yes, I mean…"

Asher smirks at how Shane just tripped up. "Wow, Shane, if you're talking now, imagine how much you're going to talk when I bring out the rest of my knives."

"I don't care, don't waste your time, just kill me and get it over with."

Asher pulls out his gun, holding it to Shane's forehead, pressing it in.

"Who said anything about killing you, Shane?" Chase walks forward from the dark corner without looking at me and steps behind Shane. Shane's eyes widen with fear before I hear a crack and realize Chase just broke one of his fingers, then another crack, another, and another. Shane is now begging him to stop. Chase steps back, walks over to the table, and picks his gun up.

His eyes are completely blank as he walks back to his prior spot and aims the gun at Shane's hand.

"You can fix broken fingers, Shane. You can't fix your hand being blown off. Talk."

He cries out, begging him not to do it, but it doesn't help. The gun goes off, and Shane screams a scream that would haunt the normal people in this world. Not me. I've seen too much, heard too much. I know what this group would have done to me if I hadn't taken James out.

"I'm dead anyway," Shane whimpers.

I nod, stepping forward. "You're right but you do have power here despite what you think. You get to choose whether the pain stops now; you can tell us everything you know, and I'll end it for you. I'll tell Asher to put a bullet in your skull, or you can be a little bitch, and these guys will start blowing and cutting bits off till you finally talk. It's your choice… Your power." I lean down to his face, smirking coldly. "But know this Shane, these guys can keep you alive for days, for weeks with no one to stop them. They will make your final days hell, and I'll let you in on a little secret." I raise my knife to his crotch, pressing the knife at the base of his cock. "If you don't talk now, you're going to spend your final days without this," I press harder, letting blood begin to spill over my fingertips.

"Fine, I'll talk. Please…please just stop." I pull my hand away smirking to myself. Shane thinks that his cock makes him a man. He's so far from the truth, but all you had to do was apply a little bit of pressure in the right spot, and well…

The guys take a step back from him. "Talk," Asher says quietly.

"Deacon, he's…he's in charge. He pulls the strings behind the operation, tells us which girls to take and where they go."

"Where do they go?"

He exhales shakily, "I don't know, but I've heard he has clubs where he sells them. The guys wear them out till they're no good, and then they kill…kill them."

This guy is sobbing at this point, snot and blood running down his face, shivering from the coldness of being naked in a basement in the woods. I could almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

"Where can we find him?" Asher's voice booms around the room again despite barely shouting.

"He picks the place to meet, but he's out of the country right now. He's not back in the States for a few weeks."

Asher strikes him across the face.

"Tell me the fucking truth." He hits him again and again. Each hit is controlled to give enough power behind his fist without knocking him unconscious.

"I am, I promise. He's on vacation with his family. We've been told to lay low for a while. A few of his key guys have been taken out by…fuck, it's you guys."

I cock my head. "You're not the sharpest knife in the draw, are you, Shane." He doesn't look at me, doesn't speak just keeps his eyes on Asher.

"Why?" he whispers. "What did we do to you?"

"You are the reason my sister is dead."

"We took her?"

Asher shakes his head. "No, you just raped her over and over again."

"She was a college slut?"

Asher shoots him in the shoulder without blinking.

He screams again, begging him to just end it.

"That's how you guys started, right? Raping innocent girls at parties?"

"You don't know?" he asks. Shane's demeanor changes again as he grins. "Oh fuck, you got that wrong. It's our initiation, man; we find the most innocent of girls, and we break them. Only then are we allowed into the inner circle. We get our first mark once we prove that. We have to send proof to Deacon, and if he's pleased, we get let in, and we start working for him. But if we killed her, we wouldn't have been…. Wait, you just said we're the reason she's dead? She killed herself, didn't she?" Shane laughs.

"Damn, Deke likes the girls to suffer, so if she killed herself, those guys would have been promoted. Your sister offing herself would have made him very fucking happy. He keeps track of them after—likes to watch their lives fall apart, and if they don't, well, he picks them up and sells them and makes sure they break. If anything, she got off lightly, man."

I watch Asher's face throughout—it doesn't change, it's blank, it's like he's disconnected from it all.

"You know, B here had the right idea." He lowers his gun and shoots it right into Shane's dick. Fuck there's so much blood and mess I want to vomit. Chase's eyes meet mine, and I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. Fuck fuck fuck. My head starts to swim as I can't pull my eyes away from the mess that is Shane's crotch.

"Where does he live?"

Shane's hysterical now, screaming and crying.

"Where the fuck does he live?" Asher shouts.

"I…I don't know…"

"Who does?"

"Please just kill me."

"Who does?"

"I don't know, dude, I don't think anyone does. He pulls the strings from the shadows. Please just end this."

I look at Shane's face, snot falling from his nose. This guy doesn't know anything more, and Asher is losing himself. I watch him punch him in the face with the hilt of his gun.

"Tell me," he screams.

"Asher, he doesn't know anything," I say.

Asher walks over to the table grabbing another knife and slamming it just above his other knee.

Shane's sobs wrack his body. "Tell me where he lives."

"I-I don't know, please."

Asher pulls the knife from his knee, blood gushing everywhere, before slamming it back in.

"Your fucking useless, you know that?" Asher says so fucking cold. I don't know this guy in front of me anymore. That little boy is gone, the guy that jokes around is gone. That man is a stranger now. Chase talks about darkness but Asher has it seeping from every single pore right now.

"Asher, stop," I speak. I look to Chase, but he stands there just as coldly, I look to Jax, and he doesn't do anything either.

Asher slams his knife again, this time in Shane's other hand.

"Tell me something. Or I swear to God, Shane, you think this is bad, this is going to look like fucking heaven."

I walk over to Asher, pushing him out of the way before using my knife to slit Shane's throat. Walking away and out of that hell without a second thought. The only sound I can hear is Shane choking on his own blood.