18. ~Brianna~

18

~Brianna~

I flailed wildly as the two guys dragged me across the snow toward the trees.

"Stop! Get the fuck off me!" I yelled.

To no avail.

They didn't answer, didn't speak at all.

They were like robots programmed by Royce Humphrey to do his bidding and nothing more. No sentiment, no thoughts of their own, no fucking humanity.

Not a far cry from their maker.

A despicable demon incarnate.

I was suddenly released roughly and dropped in the snow just before the forest.

They stepped to either side of me, guarding me, making it clear I wasn't going anywhere.

And then Royce stepped out from the shadows, where he'd obviously retreated to when we'd started fighting back and he'd been worried about the outcome of his attack.

He walked to me, smiling cruelly.

I jolted as he grasped my jaw in a painful grip.

I went to respond, to lay into the psychopath, but his guys either side of me grabbed my shoulders, bearing down and keeping me on my knees.

At Royce's mercy.

Just like back then with him and Malcolm Lynch.

That nightmare.

That horrific abuse.

That degradation.

That pain.

The adrenaline already tearing through me threatened to be undercut by one of my episodes that I could feel trying to breach the surface.

The flash slammed into me before I could stop it, taking me down to that dark place.

Royce appeared and dragged my mom in. Her jeans and t-shirt were caked in mud, her leather jacket even torn, and her black hair, just like mine, was matted.

"Baby girl!" she shrieked, staring at the glass.

"She can't see you," Malcolm told me. "I've just had Royce tell her you're here being railed by me like a good little whore bitch."

I couldn't even fight as he tightened his grip on me, then fucked into me like a madman, as Royce slapped my mom hard across the face.

I screamed into his hand as he started beating on her until she collapsed onto the concrete.

"All this fear from you is turning me on. Go on, squeeze my cock, and I'll make it quick for her, no more drawing it out."

I couldn't process any of it, I just shrieked and bucked in his merciless hold.

And then Royce drew a gun.

I blinked back to reality to see Royce still holding my jaw and calling me pretty princess in that creepy way that Lynch had.

His free hand was stroking my hair now and trailing down to my throat, along to the tops of my breasts accessible through my now open puffer jacket.

I swallowed hard as a shudder took me, threatening to spark a full-on episode which would completely incapacitate me.

As if it wasn't bad enough already.

I hadn't been able to do a thing back then.

To save my mom.

To stop any of it.

Another flash took me.

As we were making our way down the corridor, one of the doors to the left opened, and a guard wearing one of those awful ski masks stepped out.

"What the fuck are you doing free?"

He came at us in the next second.

The hell I was going to let him stop us from finally making our escape from this nightmare.

As I came out of it, I locked onto the memory.

We had fought back.

I'd gone to that dark place fueled by desperation, rage and terror.

I hadn't been trained to fight then.

I hadn't dealt with anything like that prior to that night.

I'd been a little girl, basically.

Not anymore.

It was different now.

Everything was different.

I was different.

As his fingers started to dip inside my shirt I asked, "Are you really this vanilla?"

It worked all too easily—fragile egos of psychopaths and all that—and he took a step back, finally releasing my jaw as he regarded me with a whole lot of dark curiosity.

"What do you mean?"

"You said you wanted a taste, you should make it worth your while, especially considering you'll be handing me over to Malcolm. You know, I thought you were the softer one compared to him. I guess that was why you were the sidekick. You can't bring the sadism and intimidation like he can."

"You're wrong."

"Yeah, then prove it. Let's do a little gun play."

"What?"

"That's something he threatened to do to me, but never did in the end. You want me a mess when you hand me over, subdued, then that's the way to go. I hate guns, they scare me."

Bullshit.

But I was selling it well.

"Why would you offer me this?"

"You walk away afterward, take me to Lynch like you intended, but call off the kidnapping of Mason Hall and Colton Sharp."

"What about Knight?"

"I know that could never be on the table because he's put you in Lynch's crosshairs by using you to search for that megalomaniac."

"True." He played with his straggly goatee, thinking it over. "Fine, you've got yourself a deal."

Then he was snapping his fingers at the guy holding my left shoulder. "Give me your piece."

I'd already checked that Royce wasn't carrying his own.

In fact, it was what had given me this idea in the first place.

It had been all about causing a distraction.

Now I'd put my deal out there Royce was no longer so on edge and wary of me, because he believed he was going to get what he wanted—one over on Lynch using me to do it.

And as he had to grab a gun from one of his men, it served to make the guy inadvertently release his painful debilitating grip on my shoulder as he shifted his weight to draw it from his hip holster.

It actually ended up with him releasing me entirely as he was focused on giving his boss what he'd ordered of him.

That was all the window I needed to turn things around.

Just as the Glock was about to be passed between them, I snatched it with my now free left hand and spun and pistol-whipped the guy to my right still holding me.

As he fell back, I burst to my feet, executing a brutal push kick that sent Royce sprawling into the forest.

As the guy on the left went to grab me, I ducked, then came up with a harsh uppercut that had his head snapping back.

A sense of coming victory rolled through me.

But I was still shaky from what had happened, the threats of it, and the callbacks to that awful time.

I was basically still trying to fight off an episode.

It had me fumbling with the gun to flick the safety off, then take aim at Royce, and Lefty was there smashing his fist into my face and then wrenching it back from my grip.

I stumbled back, but managed to catch my footing.

But then Righty was there with Royce coming back too, the three of them surrounding me.

I leapt up into a spinning kick and blew Lefty back.

But it cost me as Righty shoved me and, as I stumbled, Royce was there snatching up a hefty branch and sweeping it at my back.

I grunted at the brutal impact that sent me crashing onto the snow on my stomach.

I scrambled to get up, but then there was a knee on my back driving down painfully and pinning me there.

I strained to look up to see Royce staring down at me with a malicious look in his eyes as he grabbed at his belt.

No. No. No.

Rapid-fire movement caught my eye, rushing through the dark forest.

And then Levi burst out from the trees and barreled into the fray, roaring like an unhinged animal when he saw what was happening to me.

That was exactly how he laid into them in the very next moment too.

Like an animal.

A feral beast.

And I loved him for it.

He was here for me, just like he had been back then during our attempted escape.

"We're here together. You're not alone," I told him.

He smiled out at me. "Couldn't have asked for anybody better to be in this nightmare with."

"Right back at you."

I blinked and focused through the shock of it all, noting that he was covered in blood and dirt, something that had occurred before he'd even come at Royce and his two soldiers just now.

Screams sounded as Levi broke the knee of one of the guys, then the other's arm.

He was snarling as he snatched a gun, then put a bullet between their eyes in quick succession.

And then he turned his unforgiving gaze on Royce who was standing there in absolute stunned silence.

"Yeah, not a kiddo anymore, am I, motherfucker?" Levi spat at him.

As I pushed back to my feet, Levi lunged at him and tackled him across the waist, taking him down to the ground brutally hard.

But in his current feral state, he wasn't even fazed by the jarring impact.

Royce was, though, and he was too slow to react as Levi drew a knife, then plunged it into the asshole's gut.

A shrill scream tore through the night and Royce writhed on the ground beneath Levi.

Levi ripped out the blade, then held it right in front of the demon's face.

Royce lifted a trembling hand. "Please," he gasped, grimacing at the wound in his gut, blood pouring down over his fingers. "Show mercy."

Levi's eyes went black.

"There's no mercy for those beyond redemption," he growled.

Then he grabbed Royce's shoulder and jerked him to him as he drove the knife right through his chest.

As Royce's eyes went wide and he choked, Levi twisted it, then yanked it out, a haunting, gargling scream tearing from Royce.

Levi thrust his foot into his face, knocking him onto his back.

And then he stared, like I was, watching as the life drained out of the sick bastard.

As one of the demons left this world.

Levi staggered back and turned to me, his eyes wide and pained.

"God, what happened to you before you got here?" I gasped as the state of him.

He was bloodied and stumbling in his step and there was a deep, nasty gash down his cheek that was bleeding all down his face profusely.

"The fucker had called in reinforcements. I headed the six of them off and put them down so they couldn't reach their destination here."

Holy hell.

He sucked in an unsteady breath. "It's over," he rasped.

"We're safe."

For now.

From Royce Humphrey and his mercenaries at least.

Levi slumped to his knees, all the blood seeping into the snow and staining it, tainting it.

"Too close," he muttered on a pained murmur. "Christ."