Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) (27 page)

Cade and Debra are both crying. I will not cry.

Not yet.

Quietly, I move towards the door.

“Liam …” Cade and Debra say at the same time.

I don’t answer. I leave the room and walk past all of the cops talking in the hallway.

What I mistake for the deepest numbness settling over me is really a white-hot rage that devours every other emotion in its path, until I am consumed by it and nothing else remains.

I climb the stairs to my room and begin getting dressed.

“Where are you going?” Josh, who is sitting on the edge of his bed, wide awake, asks me.

“None of your fucking business.”

He nods. “Okay, I get that.”

I pull my blue jeans on over my shorts and throw on the first t-shirt my hand gets hold of—my bloody hand.

Quinn’s blood.

Talon is hopping into his sneakers. “So where are we going, Liam?”

“You’re not going anywhere, now butt the fuck out,” I tell him.

Ryder comes crashing into the small space of a room Josh and I share. “She has a fucking tube in her chest for her fucked up lung!” He slams his fist against the wall, leaving indentations from his knuckles. “Did you know that, Liam? Did you fucking know that?!”

I lace up my heavy, steel-toed, shit-kicker boots then go for my pack that I still keep ready in the closet.

Reese leans his head in the door. “Connor, they’re talking about a forensic exam that might end up showing multiple strains of DNA. What does that mean?”

Somehow Connor is in the room too and answers, “It means that she was …” He goes quiet, then finishes with, “probably raped … by multiple guys.”

I hear a sound rip through my throat. I ignore it and unzip my pack. I grab my knife and a five inch steel fist bar to put behind my knuckles, and I know I’m taking the metal baseball bat that’s in the garage.

I leave my open pack on the bed, turn and walk out of the room. I won’t need it again, not where I’m going.

“If you’re going for Vince, we’re coming,” Talon says.

I’m going to take Vince to hell
.

Chase gets in front of me. “You can’t get out through the downstairs; it’s swarming with cops.”

“I don’t give a fuck about cops,” I say blankly. I walk around him and into the bathroom, where I lift the window and climb out.

“It’s two stories up, what’s your plan?” I hear Josh’s voice behind me.

“My plan is to get the metal baseball bat in the garage.” With that, I disappear out the window and climb down the vined lattice Quinn and I use to sneak to the roof.

Quinn … dying.

Doing everything they can to save her …

Save her.

Stay focused.

The sky is pitch black with no stars. I open the garage side door and rummage through for the bat. When I find it, the smooth, cool metal feels perfect in my palm. Perfect for the vengeance I’m about to exact.

I carry it out of the garage, and as I get down the walkway, I see Talon.

“Come with me,” he says.

“I’m busy.”

“Connor wired a car down the street. You didn’t plan on walking all the way to Westhill, did you?”

It hadn’t even crossed my mind.

I follow him across the street and around the corner.

I see the car and everyone in it. I shake my head. “You guys are not coming.”

“The hell we aren’t,” Ryder barks from the back seat.

“Do you understand that I’m going to kill Vince?” I ask, feeling eerily levelheaded.

“Goddamnit, just get in!” Connor snaps from behind the wheel. “It won’t be long before the cops pick him up or figure out we’re not here anymore.”

“What? You assholes are going to fight
with
me?”

“
With
you.
For
Quinn,” Chase states.

Josh steps out from the front seat and opens the door for me. “Let’s go.”

I sit by the window, squeezing the bat and bar in each hand. In the rearview mirror I can see into the back seat—Ryder, Reese, Chase and Talon ready their weapons—I don’t know where they got their hands on knives and police style batons, but they did.

Josh leans in to me. “We’ve got your back, man.”

And for the first time, I believe him.

No one speaks for the rest of the way.

Chapter Fifteen

2015

Quinn

“I TRUSTED YOU! I BELIEVED IN YOU!” My voice sounds raw as it echoes across the expanse of space and time as I shout at the angel. “I loved you!” I sob. “Couldn’t you have loved me back?” I scoop a stone from the pile of rocks I’ve made on the ground at my feet.

“Instead of helping me, it’s like you conspired with my mom to kill me!” The rock I throw sails through the air and nicks the statue’s torso.

“And now I’ve suffered without Liam, and I made him suffer, and I’ve had to put myself back together piece by piece—
with no help from you
!” I propel another stone and it hits her wing. “I thought all those years you put us together … but then you let
it
happen and it ripped us apart!”

My hands are shaking as I shoot another stone.
“I could hardly live with myself!”

“AND I BLAME YOU! AND MY MOTHER!” I scream and hurl more rocks against her.

“Now she’s dead. My battle with her should finally be over. But I can’t even grieve right—because when someone dies, you’re supposed to feel sad and sorry and brokenhearted—and I don’t feel any of that! I feel forgotten, and unloved, and thrown away! I FEEL HATE!” I grind my teeth together and throw more rocks.

Another.

Another.

Another.

“She’s dead—there is no more chance for amends! And she never has to say she’s sorry! Sorry for what she did and didn’t do.” I drop to my knees in the wilted, soggy patch of grass, bend over and press my hand against my stomach to try and offset the agony of too many emotions all at once. “How does it still hurt like hell? How can you miss something you never had? Like a mother? How can you miss an idea?”

“I would have done it, you know, Angel—gone to the hospital or her bedside before she left this world. I would’ve forgiven her.” I pull as many rocks as I can into both my hands and squeeze. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s just always going to hurt. It will always feel unresolved, because I loved her and she didn’t love me back.”

I shake my head as I fill with fury. “Every part of me has been violated—because of her! My mind, my heart, my soul, my body! Just a fucking phone call, that’s all it would have taken to protect me.”

The violent wave builds again as I scream, “I’M NOT SORRY SHE’S DEAD! MY LIFE HAD
FINALLY
FELT LIKE IT HAD COME TOGETHER!
AND THEN YOU LET THEM SHRED ME!
”

*****

July, 2005

Quinn

I hold on desperately to the plastic, lifeless phone receiver before it’s yanked cruelly from my hand as the men pull me away and begin dragging me down the alley behind the dark abandoned gas station. I kick and scream as I press my Chucks into the dirt and gravel to get purchase.

Vince spits, “Secure the bitch.”

The four men that are with him each grab one of my limbs. They half carry me and half drag me, with my back scraping against the dirt and stones.

I can’t let them get me back there! I have to get away from them!
I flail my arms and legs, trying to get even one of them free, but I’m no match for the four of them together, they’re too strong.

“Bitch ain’t stoppin’,” the big guy holding onto my wrist says.

Vince stoops down so he’s in my face and with cruel glee says, “Pull her apart and break her like a wishbone.”

Immediately, both the guys holding my arms and the two holding my legs viciously wrench my limbs in opposite directions. The pain is unfathomable—as if my limbs are being torn out of me.

With it comes a sickening dread.
They don’t intend on leaving me alive.

I scream a warning, “Cade North is on his way! He knows you’re here!”

“I figure that gives me ten minutes before he comes.” Vince grabs my cheeks hard in his hand and squeezes. “I can do a lot of damage in ten minutes.”

He nods and his men pull again, ruthlessly. I hear as well as feel the pops from my ligaments and sockets as they seemingly break my bones. I’m blinded by agony. A strangled cry tears through my chest.

When they let go, my body drops hard against the rough gravel. Intense pain shoots through every nerve, while sharp rocks and stones pierce the skin along my spine. Vince and his men laugh.

“Get her naked,” he orders them.

I desperately want to move, but I can’t! I’m literally frozen in fear! Nothing will work! My mouth won’t make a sound—the scream I want to let loose is caught in my throat—and, like in a nightmare, it won’t come out!

I watch in horror as two of them pull out knives, flipping them in their hands until the blades are fully opened and locked.

What the fuck are they going to do with those?
Terror seizes me.

A third guy reaches under his shirt to a belt holster, revealing a jagged hunting knife.

THEY’RE GOING TO KILL ME!
Panic wraps around my mind, and I flounder like a fish caught and thrown on a dock—despite the white-hot pain—willing my limbs to
fucking work
! My mouth is still gaping open as I try to scream for the angel.

One of the men jumps down on my arm, crushing it without mercy, then elbows me across the face. A shattering quake rips through my face and neck, and my ears begin to buzz loudly.

Vince carelessly grabs my face and forces my head back in his direction so I have to see him and what’s going on.

“Fucking little cunt, you won’t want to miss this.”

NO, NO! PLEASE NO!
My breath comes panting in and out of my lungs as the hunting knife is brought closer.

The guy holding it brings the sharp edge to the bottom of my shirt.

Without a word, only violent grimaces in the dark, Vince and another guy pull the edges of my shirt taut while the knife slips up and under, cutting the fabric in half while the tip scrapes and digs against the tender flesh of my belly.

GOD, HELP ME, PLEASE! I HAVE TO GET AWAY! I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!

I hitch in air to shout, then I realize something is wrong with my jaw! It won’t move like it’s supposed to!!
Please, Angel, please!!

How will Cade ever find me back here if I can’t even scream?
My vision blurs as hot tears gather and burn in my eyes.

I fight through the grating sound my jawbone makes as I try moving it, while it sends a shrill cry of torment reverberating through my head. “Please … stop,” I beg with pleading eyes.

Maybe one of them will take pity on me. Maybe one of them isn’t really this evil!

“Please, stop. Please, stop!” Vince sings and mocks in a whiny, feminine tone. “This is my territory, fuckin’ bitch!” he tells me with a deadly poisonous voice. “I don’t have to stop, and there ain’t no one who’s gonna stop me.”

At that, he grins maliciously and undoes the button and zipper of his jeans.

Oh God, NO!
I swallow and taste blood.

He shoves his jeans and underwear down around his knees and grips his penis in his hand.

He’s going to rape me!

It’s more horrific than my mind can take. The reality of what’s happening shatters me into a million tiny pieces—as my mind refuses to believe it. Refuses to understand and pleads against what has now become the inevitable.

Vince gets on top of me as the other men hold my broken body down, and I feel his dirty, disgusting body penetrate into mine.

It’s agonizing torture as he violently shoves it in and out of me. It sears like fire, sending shock and pain through every fiber of my being.

With everything I am, I want to fight and shake my head in protest! I want Vince to know that this is
MY
body and he
CAN’T DO THIS
!

ANGEL!!

“Don’t … do this!” I cry. “How can you—?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Vince’s fists pummel brutally into both sides of my rib cage.

I can’t even ball up to protect myself—there’s a man on each of my arms and two others holding my legs. The more I cry, the harder Vince punches.

Then a savage, howling pain rips through my lungs. A scream is forced from my throat and one of the guys covers my mouth with his hand with such force it feels like it vacuum seals, and I can’t pull in enough air.

Quickly, I feel like I’m going to suffocate.

A new rush of panic takes hold because I can’t breathe!

Vince pulls himself out of me.

“Told you I’d fuck you until your pussy bled,” Vince gloats then presses his fingers inside of me. When he brings them back out, he shoves them in my face. They’re dripping with blood.

Seeing my blood throws me into hysteria!

“Virgin blood. I popped your cherry, bitch! Guess Liam wasn’t man enough to do it first,” he crows then hits the guy sitting on my right leg. “Your turn, man.”

Vince takes the guy’s place and sits on my shin, while the guy kneels between my legs. He’s short and stocky with wide shoulders.

I’m hyperventilating. I’m bleeding! I’m going to pass out!

He quickly yanks off his pants and crawls over me.

They’re all going to get a turn before they murder me!!

I beg him not to do it, but I'm barely able to speak, to breathe.

Without sympathy, he takes a handful of my hair in each of his big hands, lifts my head up, and slams it back to the ground.

More pain. More misery consumes me.

One of them tells me to shut up again and holds a knife to my throat.

I’m abandoned to their mercy.

All I can think about is that I’ll never see Liam again.

After the third man, I’m numb. Somewhere inside, I resign myself to the idea that maybe I’m already dead. Time’s gone now, and I feel like I’m flickering in and out of reality. One moment I hear them laughing while they kick and cut me, the next I feel and hear nothing at all. I keep wanting to scream, but I’m not sure if I do or if I can. My body is consumed with excruciating agony everywhere.

I close my eyes against the pain and the fear, and focus on Liam’s face—his blue-green eyes and dark hair—and the way it falls across his forehead. I think about how his strong arms feel around me, and I’m safe.

Safe.

Loved.

A thought drifts by. I wonder, if I live, if he’ll ever be able to love me after this.

Too soon, everything is going black, and I can’t even hold onto his image.

I think I hear a car door slam and then a gun firing. Maybe they shot me. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve lost Liam’s face. 

“Quinn?? QUINN!!”

“Cade?” I squeeze the whisper from my hoarse throat.

I can’t breathe.

And it’s so fucking dark.

*****

I listen as Debra reads my book out loud to me. She cries as she tells me she loves me and that I’m the daughter she never had.

I hear Cade begging me to stay and begging me to forgive him.

I feel Liam’s warm hand on mine. I know it’s him, I can just tell. He doesn’t talk for a long time.

After what seems an eternity, he starts telling me that when I get better Cade’s going to give us enough money to go to Florida and get an apartment. He tells me stories about what it will be like, walking on the white sands and listening to the ocean waves hitting the shore.

He tells me he loves me, and I feel his mouth right next to my ear, as he pleads with me to wake up, says that he doesn’t want to live without me, and his tears fall against my cheek.

I would do anything for him, but it’s still so dark, and no matter how badly I want to, I can’t open my eyes.

*****

There’s a sharp prick in my arm and the black starts to recede. But with the light comes enormous pain. I can’t move, at all; it’s so bad, I can’t even open my eyes.

“It’s okay.” Liam’s voice reaches me. “I’m right here. Don’t try to talk. Just rest.”

And although I hear him, I’m not sure if he’s real or if I’m hallucinating.

Not being able to move makes me feel like I’m back under Vince or one of his men. I can see their faces. I try to thrash and get free, but they’re still holding me down.

Liam cries out, and I try to yell back to him so he’ll hear me, so he can help me, but before I can, the blackness swallows me again.

*****

Beep … beep … beep … beep …

I wish I could make that infernal sound stop! Over and over again. It’s not loud, but it’s annoying, like a snooze alarm you can’t turn off.

“Off,” I whisper.
Jesus, I’m thirsty.