Page 98 of Captive Souls

But I didn’t give them a reason. They couldn’t cause me any more pain anyway. Nothing would rival the excruciating anguish tearing at my insides

“I’m hungry, and this bitch isn’t going anywhere, so let’s eat,” Groves said.

The older one eyed me with a more practiced eye, as if he thought my behavior was all an act to lull them into doing something just like that.

I didn’t care what they thought. I was drowning in my fate. In the knowledge that Knox was gone. The ceiling tiles numbered 148, with three of them peeling, thirteen of them covered with a yellowish water stain. I’d counted and roamed my eyes over every one, cataloguing precisely so I didn’t have to think ofit.

Knox is dead.

Knox is dead.

Knox is dead.

I knew I couldn’t give up, that this weakness was essentially spitting in the face of his memory, but I couldn’t find any fight in me when I was uncuffed from the bed and carried roughly into the bathroom before they dumped me on a cold tiled floor and refastened my cuffs to the bottom of a filthy sink.

I barely even whimpered when one of them kicked me, hard, in the ribs. There was a loud crack then a feeling of warmth in my abdomen, but I barely noted it.

“Don’t scream,” Grove hissed, yanking my hair so my face was exposed to him. His eyebrows needed plucking, and he had pock marks from acne dotting his skin.

Scream? I was already screaming, wasn’t I? Maybe it was just on the inside.

“You scream, anyone hears you and calls the cops, it’s goodbye little sister.” He grinned, showing gleaming white veneers, fingers bending in a daunting wave. “Not before we chop off her limbs. Or maybe we do that and keep her alive? That would be a fate worse than death for a dancer like her, wouldn’t it?”

The mention of Daisy jerked me out of my stupor. My mind cleared as I focused on his dull-gray eyes.

“You hurt my sister, and I’ll pull your fingernails out and feed them to you,” I promised him, my voice cold, unfamiliar.

He laughed, pulling my hair harder so pain exploded in my scalp. “Big talk from someone about to be chained to Stone forever. Which, for you, may not be long.” He leaned in and laid a long kiss on my lips, shoving his tongue in my mouth.

I bit it.

“Bitch!” he yelled, rearing back as if to hit me in the face before remembering Stone’s instruction.

Another kick to my ribs. More warmth flooding my body.

I hoped that he had punctured something vital. Then I’d die, and Daisy would be safe. But would she?

There was no way to be certain of that. All it would‘ve ensured was that my bright flower of a sister would be utterly alone in a wasteland full of violent criminals. Not an option.

Dying and leaving my sister alone in that world wasn’t an option. Even when grieving, toxic parts of me wanted to escape into whatever afterlife Knox was in.

I had to stay alive, I told myself as darkness clouded my vision.

Stay alive, I told myself.

As if I had any kind of control over that.

Nineteen

Knox

“You’re sure this is where she is?” I asked Joey as we pulled up to some piece of shit motel over the state line in the middle of nowhere.

The sun was just about completely set, the dull glow of twilight doing nothing to improve the appearance of this ramshackle place. Only two cars were parked in the lot—an ancient Ford pickup and some cheap Toyota packed to the gills with crap. No black SUVs to be seen, no sign of Stone’s men.

Joey nodded beside me. “I was supposed to meet them here after I waited to see if you turned up,” he explained. “Then we’d take Piper back. For the wedding. Or…” he trailed off, swallowing, understanding the energy in the car right now and how fucking loose of a hold I had on the beast inside me.

“Or we’d be burying her body once we were … done with her,” he continued, fear in his eyes. Though there was also a touch of bravery for his honesty. “If Stone didn’t like the state she was in, if she refused him.”