40. Ava

AVA

I groaned weakly as I rose up from the darkness as if my mind was swimming up from deep water.

What happened?

Where was I?

My thoughts were slow and fragmented as I tried to piece together what happened before I blacked out.

I tried opening my eyes, but they felt like they were glued shut, my head pounding with each strained throb of my pulse.

When I finally managed to blink, everything was blurred and dim.

I could feel something hard beneath me. An old, lumpy mattress that reeked of mold and something sour.

I tried to move, but a sharp pain shot through my shoulders.

Fuck. My hands were tied, rope digging into my wrists, holding them above my head, my arms stretched tight.

The more I moved, the deeper my wrists and shoulders burned .

I gasped, instinctively trying to ease the pressure as I moved my knees under me into a kneeling position. That helped a little.

I winced. Every breath hurt, and my muscles ached.

I forced myself to stay still, trying to think through the haze. How the hell had I ended up here?

My memory was fuzzy, everything blurring together, but slowly, the pieces of my memory tumbled into place.

I’d been getting ready to leave. Then Cormac had shown up.

I remembered the sting of a needle in my arm, and then nothing.

He’d injected me with something.

Something that made me black out.

But why? Why would Cormac do that?

There was a faint drip in the distance, water probably.

I listened, trying to pick up on anything else, but all I heard was the hollow sound of my own breathing, ragged and fast. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry as dust.

I couldn’t feel anything except the pain in my arms, the bite of the rope, the dull ache spreading through my body.

I blinked a few more times, forcing myself to focus.

The room around me came into view—dark, dank, with grimy walls and a flickering light overhead. I couldn’t see much from this angle, but I could tell it was a basement.

The air was stale, cold, and there was that unmistakable scent of dampness clinging to everything.

The dimly lit room was blurry, but I could see it was some sort of old cellar.

I blinked again and my vision cleared enough to make out wet, mossy stone bricks and a narrow staircase leading up to darkness before nausea swept over me and I squeezed my eyes shut.

My chin fell to my chest where my heartbeat was reedy and erratic. My hair clung to my clammy cheeks as I tried to swallow down bitter bile rising in my throat.

Fuck, I was so tired. So fucking tired. I wanted desperately to give up, to lie down, but I was forced to remain on my knees thanks to my hands tied above my head.

Come on, Ava. Focus. Find a way out of here.

Craning my head, I squinted up at the thick fibrous rope hanging from a hook chained into the packed earth ceiling. The skin around my wrists was already raw and bleeding.

I tugged against the rope, testing it, and winced, the rope cutting into my wrists.

There was the tiniest amount of give. The knots looked too tight to undo. But I might be able to slip a hand out. But it’d fucking hurt.

I glanced over to the stairs that led up to the darkness.

Even if I could get my hands free, who knew what—or who—was waiting for me up there.

I was trapped.

Panic clawed at the back of my throat. If I lost it now, I wouldn’t stand a chance.

My heart was racing, my mind scrambling to catch up. I tried to slow my breathing, to think.

I had to stay calm. I had to figure out a way out of this, but with each passing second, the weight of the situation pressed down on me.

“H-Hello?” I called out with a croaky voice, my throat dry and cracking.

That was answered with a familiar laugh .

I blamed the lingering effects of the drugs for not seeing him sooner.

Cormac reclined in a simple wooden chair against the wall, balancing on the two back legs. He had his arms crossed over his dirtied cream fisherman sweater. Dried blood flaked on his cheek beneath his black eyepatch.

“Cormac,” I murmured, my brain struggling to comprehend. “Why are you doing this?”

I struggled to draw in a full breath with my arms above my head.

Cormac let the chair slam forward as he set his feet on the floor. The echoing sound felt like a hammer against my temples.

Cormac stood to his full height, the glare from the bare bulb above cutting his face into gruesome lines and shadows. “Can’t let a few stupid orphan girls bring everything down.”

I panted as a realization hit me. “ You took Liath.”

Cormac laughed again, but this time it was higher pitched. Almost hysterical. Something had snapped in him, something wasn’t right.

I struggled against my shackles, but they only sliced deeper into my wrists.

“I would have,” he said. “Happily, really. Had the High Lord asked it of me.”

“The High Lord? You mean Dr. Vale.”

“Dr. Vale is just a puppet,” Cormac sneered. “A second-class citizen who would do anything for scraps. They’ve been dangling membership in front of his face for years.”

An alarm jangled in my head.

They .

This was bigger than Dr. Vale and the fact that he was abusing girls in his care.

Dr. Vale was covering for someone. Someones .

“Cormac, who is they ?” I asked fearfully.

The confident Darkmoor golden boy was gone. Cormac’s eyes darted from place to place and he again checked his Rolex wristwatch, a gift, I knew, from his father, a high-ranking Irish politician.

“ They are everywhere,” he said as he advanced upon me. “ They are everything. They take what they want. Always have, always will. And they want you, Ava.”

Cormac stopped in front of the dirty mattress, hands stuffed in the pockets of his tweed pants.

“Cormac, please. You haven’t done anything wrong yet,” I lied. “I don’t have to tell anyone. Just let me go.”

The metal chain rattled above me as I yanked at the hook that my wrists were tied to. Dirt fell from the ceiling, but nothing gave way. Nothing even budged. Imagining how many feet of solid stone was above my head made my chest tight with fear.

Cormac was my only hope of escape.

“We cared about each other, right?” I begged. “We held hands by the river. We shared bottles of wine at The Vault. We made love.”

Cormac leaned his head back and released an uncontrolled howl of laughter. “Your attempts at garnering empathy from me are pathetic.”

I shrunk from him like he’d raised his fist. The sound of it chilled me to the bone.

But I couldn’t give up .

“Please,” I said, “I’ll give you whatever you want if you just let me go.”

Cormac sneered, bending at the waist to be near eye level with me. He mimicked my pleading voice when he added, “Cormac, please.”

I cringed away from him and his sour breath.

He pushed back a strand of hair from my face and I flinched away from his touch. “Whatever you can give me pales in comparison to what they will reward me with when I hand you over to them.”

I fought to keep my breath steady, to wet my throat. “W-What do they want with me?”

Cormac chuckled a dark, evil laugh. “They want to shut you up.”

My blood drained from my limbs. “They’re going to kill me.”

Like they killed Liath.

“If you’re lucky… they’ll kill you.”

I was almost too afraid to ask. But I had to know. “And… if I’m not?”

Cormac’s face twisted into an evil smirk. “I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun for you. Just know that if they decide to keep you, you’ll be wishing for death.”

Flashes of torture and rape went through my head. Fates worse than death.

“You pin dick son of a bitch,” I snarled. “You won’t get away with it.”

Cormac backhanded me across the face.

I gasped against the blinding pain as Cormac paced back and forth, shaking the hand he’d struck me with.

“The High Lord won’t be happy with that,” he said, eyeing what was surely a throbbing red welt on my cheek. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

When he kneeled on the edge of the mattress in front of me, he placed his palms together, thumbs tucked under his chin.

“Don’t worry, I won’t fuck you too hard,” he whispered, cocking his head manically to the side. “Do you think I can still make you come without leaving bruises?”

I couldn’t help the sob that tore from my mouth. There was no convincing him. He wasn’t going to let me go. Cormac was going to hurt me.

His one remaining eye shined feverishly, burning with hatred. “Or maybe I’ll fuck your ass. Leave your pussy for the High Lord.”

Cormac tore roughly at my blouse and the buttons popped free, rolling wildly across the wet stone floor.

He pushed my blouse from my shoulders, leaving me completely naked from the waist up. He grabbed my breasts as I bucked.

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

I screamed when Cormac pinched my nipples and twisted them savagely until my nipples were an angry red against my pale skin.

Cormac palmed himself through his designer tweed.

“My boyfriend is coming for me,” I hissed, looking at him through tear-stained eyelashes. “And he’s going to rip out more than just your eye.”

Cormac sneered. “Let him come. He’s no match for them. They’ll catch him, too. Maybe they’ll give him to me as a reward for handing you over. Yeah, I’d love to cut his eyes out with a butter knife. ”

I spit at Cormac and it landed on his cheek.

He just laughed. Using two fingers, he wiped it from his skin. He held them up, the tips shimmering, before as he slipped his hand under my skirt and pushed aside my lace thong.

“No,” I said, thrashing, my shoulders screaming against the pain. “No!”

He circled my spit around my clit and I gritted my teeth against the wave of bile rising up the back of my throat.

Cormac’s teeth found my earlobe.

“They have something special planned for you, Ava,” he whispered, his breath foul with cheap nicotine. “But I don’t know why you’re so fucking precious to the High Lord. Maybe we should find out, huh?”

He began to choke me. Pain ripped through me as he roughly thrust his fingers inside me, invading me, my body tense as it tried to reject him, his fingernails scraping my delicate walls.

Black spots played in my vision as Cormac’s jaw tensed and he squeezed even tighter.

“You snobby little bitch,” he snarled. “I’m going to imagine your face when they give me my first orphan girl. I’ll name her Ava.”

I tried to fight, to thrash against my bindings. But all I did was strain my shoulders. It was no use. I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t stop him from hurting me. From doing whatever he wanted to me.

“You’re going to be dead and gone and I’m still going to be defiling you. Owning you. Coming all over your fucking grave. ”

I gasped for breath as hot tears streamed down my cheeks, but my windpipe was crushed.

His fingers stabbed at me as my body began to buck, desperate for air. He was losing control of himself.

He was going to kill me.

Tires crushed over gravel and a yellow light filled the cellar from the high small windows.

Cormac turned his head and his fingers stilled.

I heard an engine switch off, and then we were plunged back into the dim light of the single overhead lightbulb of the cellar.

Through gray-edged vision, Cormac looked back at me with an exaggerated pout.

Cormac pulled his fingers from me and let go of my neck. “Shit. They’re early.”

I sagged against my chains, sobbing with relief. But I knew my reprieve would only be short-lived.

I was about to be delivered to someone much worse than Cormac.