12. Nicole

Chapter 12

Nicole

If you asked me how I was not freaking out and panicking as each horribly slow minute passed, I'd tell you I had no idea. Somewhere deep inside of me, I know that my man is out there, very close. He will rescue us. I don't know how he's going to do it, but I know he will. I just need to find the courage to wait. In the meantime, despite the fact that King said he was here to help, somehow, I need to defend myself and get Gabby to do the same. Sadly, I think she's in some sort of shock. She's operating on the surface as normal, but her eyes hold a glassiness to them that is unnerving. I don't know what happened before I woke up in this hellhole, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't good.

"Gabby?" I murmur. "Come over here and sit beside me."

She looks at me and her face reminds me of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle that's barreling toward her. My heart squeezes in my chest. I have a lot of anger toward Gabby for the pain she caused my boys. I'm not a blind parent, however. My boys could have handled things better on their end. Even Thomas should have talked about things with his brother. That doesn't excuse Gabby's hateful and selfishness, nothing could. I can, however, let go of some of my hostility toward the girl. She's young. There's hope this will wake her up. If nothing else, it should wake up Skull enough that he starts listening to Beth and stops spoiling the girl. Dragon spoiled Kayden and the boys at times, too. I admit it. That said, he made them respect rules and stood with me when it came to punishment. There were times I felt he could be too harsh, but I can't deny that the two of us managed to raise three remarkable children. They may not be perfect adults, but they're damn close.

The thought of my kids makes me smile. I sigh as I try to hold on to their beautiful faces in my mind as Gabby slowly sits down. When I turn my head to the side, for the first time I focus on Gabby and not on everything that's happened or my surroundings. I gasp when I take in the dark purple bruising around her throat.

"Gabby," I whisper, my voice breaking as I reach out to touch the side of her neck.

I didn't notice them before, making me feel shame. In my defense, the room doesn't have that much light. Plus, I think these bruises are just now beginning to darken. She jerks away from me, just as my fingers graze the darkened flesh.

"I'm fine," she snaps harshly, her entire body vibrating with fear to the point that she's gone rigid beside me.

"You're not. It's clear that you were choked. Hell, from the look of it, they almost killed you. Tell me what they did."

"No. It's fine. I'm fine."

Despite the fact her body is giving off silent messages to stay away, I take her in my arms and pull her into me. She remains stiff for a minute or two. Then finally, I can feel her tremor against me. "Shh …" I whisper. "It's going to be okay. You're okay."

"I'm not," she cries. "You aren't either. They're coming back. You … you heard what they have planned."

Finally, her body gives in completely to her grief as she wraps her shaky arms around me. With a gut-wrenching wail, she begins sobbing. I hold her, letting her vent her grief as the front of my shirt becomes wet with her tears. She's sobbing so painfully that I can't help but cry with her. "I don't know how, but it's going to be okay," I tell her.

"I can't let him touch me again. I can't. I'd rather die."

I put a hand on each of her shoulders and pull her back. "Then we're going to fight."

"But—"

"No buts," I interrupt. "We're going to do everything we can to keep safe until Dragon and your father get here."

"We can't fight them. They're too strong," she argues.

I'm doing my best to make sure we keep our voices down. We're also further away from the camera area now. Still, I make sure my voice is barely above a whisper. There's a large fan, or maybe even a heat pump outside close by. It makes for a constant humming in the room and I'm praying that's enough to help make our conversation private.

"Gabby, we have the legs under the mattress. When King comes in here, we prepare to see if he truly is going to help us. If he has someone with him, we attack them. If he's on our side, he'll help. If not, then you keep going after your target and I'll start on King. I've already taken the rubber bottoms off the legs. The metal ends are jagged. We can use them to stab at our enemies. Anything we can do, we need to. Then when we see a break, we run for the door and hopefully whatever they're using to lock us inside, we can quickly use it to lock them in here."

"We don't even know where we are or how many …"

"We'll take it one step at a time. We can do this, Gabby. We have to. "

"Keep hold of your weapon if you can. We may need them. You understand?"

She stares at me, her eyes puffy and red from the force of her tears. She's still crying, though they've slowed down to just a few sliding down her cheeks here and there.

"Do you really think we can do this?"

"Of course, I do. You played softball in school, right?"

"Yeah. I wasn't that good. I did it because …"

She doesn't finish, but we both know that it was a co-ed team, and she did it so she could be closer to my boys. I don't push her to admit it. This is something she needs to move past and honestly, I'm so damn glad. My Dom is so happy now. The difference in him is night and day. The same could be said for Thomas. There's a love of life in that boy's eyes that, as a mother, makes me weep with joy. Before Lyla, he's never had that. I push thoughts of my kids away for a moment and turn my attention back to the problems we're facing instead.

"It doesn't matter. Let's dry these tears and we can concentrate on swinging those table legs like it's a baseball bat. Take all your anger and fear and channel it into each hit. Okay?"

"I can do that," she says with a resolve that would almost make me smile— if our situation wasn't so desperate.

We both swipe at our faces and then look up when the doorknob makes noise as it twists and we hear the lock make a clicking noise.

"Keep one hand locked on the mattress. If they come at us, grab the leg. Understand?" I hiss out.

"Ye-ye-yes," she stutters out.

I send up a silent prayer. "God, Dragon, hurry and get to us." I murmur as King walks in with one other man. He looks at me and I can see on his face that things aren't going according to plan.

Shit!