: Chapter 56

Breathe through your nose.

Visualize his hard eyes staring into mine, empowering me without words.

Smell the pungent leather of his jacket and the stark sulfur of the infamous matches he held between his teeth, ready to set my world on fire by allowing me the strength to strike them.

Feel the coarseness of the masculine calluses built up on his hands as they firmly grip my soft flesh.

Hear the soft reluctant sigh slip through his lips as he trails your fingers along his tattered and torn skin, finally learning to embrace the loving touch.

With my heart rate slowed and the drool spilling down my chin, I open my eyes to the darkness of the trunk, utilizing every available sense I have.

After swallowing the pill in the bathroom at our family home, I walked out to find Callum’s security already zip-tying Baret as he screamed into the duct tape silencing him. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but lucky for me, Aero was ahead of the game. He’d already taught me what to do.

They drove wildly, throwing our bodies around in the back of some blacked-out trunk together. I panicked alongside Baret, who was thrashing around violently, screaming muffled obscenities into his tape. When the vehicle finally stopped, I inhaled a deep, calming breath, and my mind went to him.

Those days spent with Aero alone at his cabin were nothing short of an educational experience set to bring me to this moment. We wasted not a minute of time spent together. I’d learned a lifetime of information crammed into a single week. Everything was a game to him, or so I’d thought. The chase into the woods, being tied up and used at his mercy, being cared for afterwards as everything I’d learned during our lessons was broken down. From the flick of my wrist throwing the blades to the ability to escape his traps, here I sit, contorted into the back of this trunk, sitting on a gold mine of skills set to free us. To free him.

He’d always known it’d come to this moment.

The moment he’d finally let go and watch as his bud bloomed into his savage rose, bleeding nothing but strength and courage from her petals. The stem, built with the most destructive thorns of empowerment they’d ever known. A warrior arising from the soiled dirt of the institution meant to choke me dry.

They were always wrong about him. He’d always maintained his faith.

His faith in me.

I’d left my wrists side by side while they zip-tied me together at the house, ensuring that whenever they were taking us, I’d be able to get out of them, just as he’d shown me. Sure enough, turning my palms together, I was able to create a little bit of wiggle room in order to shimmy my way out of them, one hand at a time. Ripping the tape from my mouth, I face Baret.

“Shhh, calm your breathing.” I place my hand on his face beside me as he thrashes and confused mumbles leave his throat.

He finally does as I ask before I rip the tape off his face, swallowing his pain while I feel around him for the trunk latch.

“Fuck, Briony! How did you…?”

“We’re going to get out of here,” I interrupt, determined as ever.

“Wait,” he says, sounding breathless. He sighs heavily, and I can practically feel the guilt lacing his pause. “I’m sorry.”

Something washes over me. It’s not anger for a past I’ve yet to learn. It’s understanding.

“I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve told you what I’d discovered. That you and I weren’t really…”

“We are.” I stop him. “You’re more my family than anyone I’ve ever known.”

He shakes his head, not wanting to face me, remorse clearly overtaking him.

“You’ve protected me, despite the truths that were held from me. You’ve remained a constant for me in a world that you yourself didn’t wish to be a part of.”

Baret left The Covenant Academy as soon as he could, pursuing his own goals at the nearby university. Our parents reluctantly allowed it after he’d been caught sleeping around and drinking, doing things most normal teenage boys did. To them, he wasn’t the chosen one. I was. They planned my entire life in order for me to be the beacon of faith for our family. To continue the mission of falling silently in line. But what they hadn’t realized was that my mission wasn’t meant for them. My mission had always been to unveil the broken nature of the system built on lies, unearthing the horrors within. Given the throat through which I was allowed to scream.

“There’s so much you don’t understand,” he begins. “He’s always watched over you…from afar, while I’ve watched from within.”

Baret’s known of Aero’s existence. To what extent, I haven’t discovered. The only reasoning I can imagine is that Aero wanted it that way. I’ve always been protected, the truths surfacing in their own time, when I was strong enough to accept them. To believe them as facts.

Luckily, the car they’ve put us in is a newer model, as I suspected, leaving me to feel out the dark space with my free hand until the tips of my fingers sweep over the safety latch. This wasn’t a lesson from Aero, this was from my own little arsenal of knowledge.

“It truly pays to have an older brother growing up,” I whisper to myself as I pull the cord, popping the lock on the trunk.

Not the first trunk I’ve been locked in. Thank you, Baret.

Baret laughs beside me in disbelief. “Who’d have thought my asshole-ish ways would pay off one day?”

The lock opens when I pull the latch, but the trunk itself doesn’t.

Fuck.

Shoving my elbow against the hood, I attempt to push it up, but some sort of weight is holding it down.

“Turn with me. On your back,” I whisper, getting into position. “Arch back and kick up.”

With minimal space, we plant our heels and push. With enough strength, we’re able to lift the hood long enough for me to slip out before the trunk closes again on Baret. I hear a muffled curse coming from him as I roll under the vehicle, crunching over pieces of broken glass in the process, and assessing my situation.

“You alright?” he asks from above me.

It’s dark in the alleyway, but there’s no one out here that I can see.

“Good, B,” I say, bumping the side of my fist beneath him.

Quickly, I fumble with my shoelaces, untying my boots in order to seesaw the remaining zip-tie off my ankles. After searching us at the house for weapons, the security that was with Callum ended up taking the only weapons I had on me.

Sliding out from under the vehicle, I recognize the alley we’re in. It’s the same alley outside Nox’s nightclub. That fucker literally gave them the venue to torture him. God, when I see him…

Anger penetrates me, poisoning my bloodstream as I search the empty car. Opening the glovebox, I discover that the idiots compiled my knives inside. Apparently, it doesn’t take brains to be the muscle surrounding those of power.

It almost makes me sick; the extent to which they truly underestimated me and my abilities.

But it’s to my advantage now, so I’ll use it.

After pushing the concrete blocks off the trunk of the car that these idiots must’ve grabbed from the alleyway to “ensure” we’d never escape, I assist Baret out of the trunk, helping him to break free of his restraints. He walks away as I begin to replace the heavy concrete blocks on top of the trunk.

“C’mon!” he whispers, heading around the car. “What are you doing?! We need to get help!”

I stand firmly planted in place.

“Briony! Let’s go!” he pleads, his tone tense.

I shake my head once. “There’s not enough time.”

Just as I mutter the words, I hear the side door to the club creak open. I grip Baret by the shirt, pulling him towards the brick wall behind me in the shadows. We seal ourselves against the cold, jagged bricks, holding our breaths, the outline of a dark figure looming nearby.

A man approaches the vehicle, inspecting the blocks. His head tilts to the side when he takes in the one lying on the pavement. The one I’d yet to replace. Shit. The light of the streetlamp nearby just barely illuminates his head as he stands straight again. Shaved. Tattooed.

It’s fucking Nox.

My pulse rages with a fiery hatred for the man that so clearly deceived the one I love.

Sliding out from the shadows against the brick, Baret tries to reach for me, but I slip out of his grasp. I grip the switchblade in my hand and quickly wrap my arm around the front of Nox, angling the sharp blade directly against his balls.

“Tell me one good reason I shouldn’t cut that overused pencil dick off right now,” I grit through my teeth.

He sucks in a breath, his hands rising in the air beside him. I press the blade into his jeans further, ensuring he feels just how serious I am.

“F-fuck…no. Please,” he begs, his chest heaving, his voice becoming breathless. “Briony, baby, please. Not the dick. Anything but the dick.”

I press the blade further against his jewels.

“Oh God, not those either!”

His desperation gets me off. I find myself enjoying his pleas and sad little cries for help, so I press a little deeper, most definitely cutting into something.

“Hands on the roof,” I demand.

I quickly search him with my free hand, finding a lone gun in the back of his jeans beneath the belt.

“Where is he?” I demand, tossing Baret the gun from behind me.

He catches it against his chest, looking at me wide-eyed, face drowning in shock at my behavior, before quickly realizing what I’m doing. Circling around to the side of us, he points the barrel at Nox.

Nox drops his head between his shoulders, his arms bracing himself on the surface of the blacked-out car, and a disturbing laugh fills the air between us.

He turns to face me, his back falling against the car as his ghastly grin finds me.

“In the lion’s den,” he says matter-of-factly, shaking his head in resignation. “Exactly as he designed.”

My brows lower, my blade still pressing firmly against his package.

He sighs, his crooked grin falling into a look of dejection. “Just not the dick. I’ve grown so very fond of it over the years. As have many others.”

Baret wears a contorted expression directed at Nox. He’s a strange soul, that much is certain.

“Take us there. Get me in,” I growl, my lip curling as I make my demands.

His eerie grin grows wide across his tatted-up face again as he gazes down at me with what I can only assume to be raw excitement. A thrilling awe.

“Right this way, doll.”

I’ve never actually killed someone. I’d imagined it endlessly out in those woods. The bark of the solid oak, my victims. But I would imagine it’s a hell of a lot easier than what I’m about to do.

Standing in the mock uniform, the black platform heels that tie up to my ankles, and the wig pulled tight on my head, I pop my knuckles, taking one final breath as the amber light above illuminates me to the room. Rolling my body to the sensual beat, I embody the woman he’s helped me to become. Someone who owns their sexuality; who’s empowered by it. A woman who has nothing but pride in the curves of the very body that makes her. I give these demons everything I’d imagine they’d want.

Shaking my bare ass against the pole, I bend down to touch the lip of the platform heels, ensuring the knife is secure. They don’t seem to notice I’m not the regular they apparently frequent.

I guess an ass is an ass to these people.

Twirling around the pole, I attempt to hide my identity, shadowing my face beneath the edge of the black, chopped wig, but my chest practically caves in on itself when I finally see him.

There he sits; tied to a chair, bloodied and beaten to a pulp.

I worry I’m too late, that I took too long to get to him, before I see his chest heave as his head drops further, almost finally submitting himself into my hands. Knowing he’s safe in those very hands he’s only just become accustomed to.

His direct gaze seals its fate against mine from across the room, and my entire being ignites.

It’s entirely metaphysical how we can sense each other’s presence simply by the resounding energy alone. Just as I used to feel the electrifying presence of him in the air before we really knew one another, he can count every beat of the heart that screams for him in any room I reside.

We’re as affixed as two broken things can be. The depth of his cracks sealing the fate of mine.

And together, in the den of their own demise, we’ll seal theirs.