Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) (36 page)

“I’m worried about you,” he whispered.

“I can’t talk about it.” Because all these
things that kept happening—the guilt, the regret, the fear, the
unbearable weight of it all—were tearing me up inside. I had to
keep pushing it down or I’d start crying and screaming until I
couldn’t stop, until…

Until it broke me. Like it broke Dad.

He tipped my chin up and kissed me. Softly.
Sweetly. His lips brushed over mine again and again, and all those
things I was trying to deal with and not deal with just kind of
floated back on a sigh. He teased me with his tongue, playful
advances and retreats until I surrendered, opened to him. He
gripped my waist and lifted me, pinned me between him and the wall,
obliterating the difference in our heights and any conscious
thoughts I had left. I didn’t care. I just wanted him to never stop
kissing me. He pressed harder, the heat of the kiss spiraling deep,
washing down my body. I was pliant, pleasantly, deliciously sedated
by that way he had of blotting out the world for me and making
nothing else really real anymore.

“Well damn, that’s kinda hot.”

Before I could even make sense of it, of the
fact that Marco’s voice was there with us, Dylan was suddenly gone
and I was pitching forward. I got a glimpse of him through dazed,
half-open eyes, a thrash among two other bodies. Then blackness an
instant before arms so strong they could only be Marco’s wrapped
around me from behind. I gasped in surprise, in pain, and sucked
the thin plastic of a bag against my face, cutting off my air
instead of bringing more, sending me further into panic mode.

I tried to go for a head butt and found
myself slammed face first into the wall.

“You’re gonna want to be nice to me,” Marco
said near my ear.

I blew the bag away from my face. He wasn’t
holding it tight; it was to blind me, not asphyxiate me. “Well,
that’ll be new and different.”

“You know why we’re here, don’t you, Joss?”
he asked. Then he went on because my answer didn’t matter, “Because
you fucked me over good. You and your friends, but it was really
you. You fuck me, I fuck you, right? It’s only fair. And I made
your boyfriend a promise that I was going to have you under me.
That he was going to watch. You remember that, D?”

“I remember telling you that if you touch
her I will fucking k—” the rest of it was cut off with a grunt.

“You just keep your mouth shut. You’re in
enough trouble,” Jeff told him.

“Let’s take this to the back room. Where
there aren’t any windows. Take it easy, guys, I want him conscious
for this. Nate, if you’re just going to stand there, clear me a
path.”

When Marco pulled back from the wall, I
tried to get my feet between me and wall to push back. But it was
easy for Marco to increase the pressure around my chest, lift my
feet off the ground and jerk me back before I ever got the
chance.

“Nice try, bitch, but there is just no way
I’m letting you get away this time. Time for you to get what you
deserve.”

Between the pressure on my chest and the
plastic bag it was a struggle just to breathe let alone, you know,
struggle. I reached out with my mind, searching for things to throw
at him, but in my mind the store was as it had always been,
everything ordered, in place. This new landscape of destruction was
so foreign to me that my Talent was practically useless. I
concentrated on using it to increase the force of the kicks I tried
to land on Marco’s legs as he carried me.

“Notice anyone missing? Like my cousin?
That’s because he’s dead.” Marco didn’t wait for me to ask. “What
did you think was gonna happen when you started messing around with
the Syndicate?” Behind us I could hear Dylan struggling with Jeff
and probably Corey. In front of us I heard Nathan pass through the
swinging doors just before Marco kicked them open and we were in
the store room. He turned us to the right, toward the office.

“What did
you
think was gonna
happen?”

Marco slammed my face into the doorframe. “I
thought I was finally getting out of this town. They were my
ticket. You destroyed that. Now Tony’s dead and they’re out looking
for me, too. And I am so gonna take that out of your ass.” He
pressed himself against my backside and I could feel how ready he
was to punish me like he promised. I shuddered and fought the urge
to vomit. “Get that desk cleared off,” he barked, a pause, then, “I
meant just knock the stuff off. Blow off some of that dust, I hate
coughin’ that shit. Corey, you got that?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“Right there, in the doorway. I want Dylan
on his knees. Jeff, get over here and help the kid pull this desk
out. Give us some room.”

I was thinking,
I can’t believe he’s
actually staging. You were so off guard, you are so caught that he
actually has time for staging.
Castigating myself gave me a few
moments when I could avoid thinking about what he was staging for.
When I could not think about how useless I was right now, how
helpless. How without my Talent I was really just a girl.

What the hell kind of bullshit is that? Just
a girl. Who took on Corey, Jeff, and Nathan blind-folded just a
couple weeks ago? Come on, snap—

The rest of my thought was annihilated.
Marco took me by the throat, yanked me into the air and slammed me
down on the desk. Pain and shock exploded through me. My limbs
twitched and flailed as my body tried to figure out where it was,
as I tried to turn my head to the side within the bag, find the
place where there was air.

“Get her shoulders. Hold her down
tight.”

Hands pressed down on my shoulders and upper
arms and then Marco’s grip on my neck slacked off slightly,
allowing me to turn, to take a series of short, careful breaths,
trying not to pull the plastic in on my face again. It was like
hyperventilating. My brain was going fuzzy and I was desperate to
clear it, to start thinking like I was supposed to. I tried to
bring my knees up to kick out, but too much of my legs hung over
the edge of the desk and with my shoulders pinned I had no
leverage. I started to, but the attempt was weak and Marco slapped
me down.

He climbed up on the desk. I could feel his
knees clamping in along my hips, locking me down. He sat down hard
on my thighs, the edge of the desk cutting into me painfully. I
tried to twist, but there was no way I could buck him off. Inside,
a voice was starting to scream. I tried to put it away, but I
couldn’t shut it out, my brain caught somewhere between fight and
panic, between
this is so not happening,
and
oh my God,
this is really happening.

It wasn’t just in my head. Beyond us I could
hear Dylan screaming threats and obscenities at Marco as he went at
my belt. His voice was raw, horrible. There were tears in it. Tears
on my face, sticking to the plastic.

Dear God, this can’t be happening. Why can’t
I move? Why can’t I fight? Why can’t I stop this?

But could I ever stop it? Was this always
where we were headed? The harassment, the blackmail, the
kidnapping…wasn’t that all leading us here? I should have paid more
attention. I should have…

Marco’s hands snapped my mind back to here
and now, sliding over my bare breasts as he pushed my t-shirt and
bra out of his way. A nauseating wave of revulsion and humiliation
crashed over me, crushing and unbearable. He squeezed viciously and
I opened my mouth to scream, only sucking the plastic into my mouth
again. I turned my head and sobbed as one of Jeff’s hands left my
shoulder to paw at me and I struggled convulsively, not even
thinking about what might work anymore, just full-on panicked
flail.

“Hold her down!” Marco growled, slapping
Jeff’s hand away. “Wait your damn turn.”

A hand clamped around my throat again,
trapping the bag to my face, blocking all the air, squeezing and
choking until I went still, on the edge of passing out. He eased
off, just enough so I could turn my head and breathe, and leaned
into me.

“There’s something else you should know. I
was gonna take you from your house, show you my new place since you
brought the cops to my old place. We were gonna have this party
there. But then when I saw you leave I figured you were gonna meet
our boy Dylan, which saved me the trouble of having his ass dragged
down there too. But since we were hangin’ out by your house anyway,
and seeing as how you weren’t going to be there, I left some people
there.”

“Who?” I whispered, hating how Marco’s
clothes were brushing my bare skin, hating how I was shaking under
him.

“Well, Angie, who’s not good for much once
she decoded the security. And Curtis. I think you met him. He was
going in to make sure your mom and your little sister were going to
be asleep for a while. And we left at least part of Bella there.
The rest of her is at home by the phone in case she sees something
we need to know. And last, but certainly not least, we left
Trina.”

“Trina?”

“Yeah. You’re good ol’, long-lost friend
who’s been wandering through your dreams for the last few weeks,
helping you guys remember things. Mostly she’s a bitch, but it’s
been cool to hear about the kind of stuff you and D have stored
away for her to play with.” He laughed. “Man, that girl really
hates you. I mean, she hated you before, but now that Tony’s gone…
And she’s got what’s left of your family at her mercy. Wonder what
she’s doing to them.”

“You son of a bitch, they’ve got nothing to
do with you!”

“And everything to do with you. So I just
wanted to let you know that, in case, you know, you pass out or
something and I don’t get around to telling you.”

So I could feel even more helpless and
frantic. Which I hadn’t thought was possible.

“Hold her,” Marco commanded and he climbed
off the desk.

“Nathan,” I croaked, knowing the kid was the
weakest link, “don’t let him do this. Please.” But he didn’t move
or let up the pressure on my shoulder.

Marco laughed, clamping my legs between his
super-strong ones as he started to fumble with my jeans. “My boy
Nate does what he’s told. Which is what you should have done,” he
threw over his shoulder at Dylan. “It shouldn’t have gone this way,
dude.
You
should be here on my right, waiting your turn.
You’ve been way behind the curve on this one all along and now
you’re just gonna have to sit there and watch the rest of us get a
piece of this ass you’re never gonna have. But don’t worry, I’ll
tell you how it is.”

Marco’s fingers grasped my waistband and
yanked down. It was so quick. I was ready to use the opportunity to
get a knee up into him or something, but my bare ass smacked down
on the desk and Marco’s legs were clamped around mine again before
I knew it had started.

Marco said something, but I didn’t even know
what it was. I wept. I lay there, completely exposed to all of
them, completely helpless, and all I could do now was cry. It felt
like my mind was breaking, like I was losing the capacity to hold
it together, to search for another opportunity to fail, to think
like a fighter thinks, to keep blind, insane panic at bay.

But you have to keep it together. A fighter
fights. Always. You fight them all, for Mom, for Jill. For
Dylan.

But inside my head my thoughts were almost
drowned by the voice that was screaming,
no, no, no,
getting
louder, blotting out everything else.

“Marco, come over here and knock this crazy
son of a bitch the fuck out,” Corey grunted, winded from the
struggle to hold Dylan.

“He’s gonna watch this. All of it. That’s
how I told him it was gonna be, so you do your fucking job.”

I couldn’t see it, or hear it over Dylan’s
screams or the ones in my head, but I knew Marco was unfastening
his pants. His forearm came down across my legs, immobilizing me as
he pushed his jeans down. He shoved my knees apart. There was
absolutely nothing I could do to stop him. I could feel his hairy
skin on the insides of my thighs.

The screaming in my head got louder and more
frantic and the part that was still thinking went off on a
different track. I wondered how much it would hurt, how long it
would go on. I wondered if Dylan and I could ever come back from
this, or if we would even live to find out. If I would want to. And
was it inevitable? Could I have made different choices, chosen a
path that wouldn’t have landed me here, spread-eagled and naked on
my father’s desk?

The desk.

For once I didn't pause to think how stupid
I was, I just whipped the desk out from under us. We all went down
hard onto the floor as I continued to swing the desk down in an arc
that would connect with Marco’s head.

It was gone. The strain, the weight of it in
my mind vanished in almost the same moment that the guys started
coughing and I felt a fine dust settle on my skin.

Nathan.

“You fucking bitch. What good did that do
you?” Marco growled.

“Come on, boss. Get in there and break that
bitch.” It was Jeff.

“Just…shut the fuck up,” Marco spat as we
all waited, as I shook uncontrollably, crying, knowing I had played
my very last card and there was nothing left for me to do but
survive it.

“Oh my God, really?” Jeff blurted out on a
laugh, a fine mist of his spit landing on my skin. “You can’t get
it up?
Now?
”

The pressure on Jeff’s side was suddenly
gone. I didn’t hesitate. I whipped the bag off my head. Fresh air
and light so bright it seared my eyes. My fist slammed into
Nathan’s jaw, throwing him back away from me.

With my upper body free and the floor to
plant my feet, leverage was on my side again. I bolted up from the
waist, bringing my hands in, Talent-loaded, to slam against Marco’s
ears. In the moment he was dazed by it I yanked my legs through
his, trying not to see our nudity, trying not to let it matter. My
jeans were around my ankles, keeping me from kicking effectively so
I just keep pulling away until I could scramble off the floor. He
was dragging himself up too, but now that I could see my mind
reached out for the fax machine and whipped it at his head.