34
Charlie’s men spread out to scour his land for me while he and his brothers watch tonight’s CCTV footage.
They remain in the front by the cabin, out of sight, and I steal back into the shadows. I tuck up behind a pile of chopped wood, taking a moment to compose myself before I fess up to what I’ve done.
I’m not scared. I’m fucking terrified, certain Charlie is going to go crazy at me when he learns I’ve murdered his men and freed my brother. But I expected that. I was subconsciously prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was him discovering that I roped Tatiana in to help.
I thrust my fingers in my hair, tugging with frustration. I should have disconnected the external CCTV system—or at least checked to be sure it didn’t cover the guardhouse cells.
I should have done many things tonight, but because of my psychotic tendencies, I blacked out, unable to think rationally, and now I’m screwed.
My heart races when I hear Nic point out exactly where I am on the CCTV—hiding behind the guardhouse—and it sinks when Andres snaps that I’ve killed their closest friends, including Rico.
“Keep your fucking voices down,” Charlie barks, ordering his brothers to come around the side of the cabin, nearer to where I am. I cover my mouth to muffle my heavy pants while he reels with Spanish curses and orders of death, insisting there’s no time to waste. Apparently, anyone who has access to their British CCTV system must die right now. Apparently, they could speak of what happened here tonight—plus the fact that I won’t be punished—and it could cause an uproar between his Los Zetas.
That’s another thing I didn’t consider, what would happen to my position in Charlie’s world after slaughtering his own. I’ve made myself a target for inside assassination.
“Where did you say Blaire was?” Andres asks, insisting that he should grab me and take me back to the house. “You’re not in your right mind to be around her, hermano. She’ll be safer with Luna and—”
“I’ll decide what fucking frame of mind I’m in,” Charlie’s voice beats over the tension as he paces across the crunchy, wet stones in a rage. “I’ll grab Blaire. You need to disappear out of sight, Andres, so we can inform everyone you’ve got her. Nic, line up the men outside, thank them for being loyal subjects, then waste them.”
“Now?” Andres gasps. “You want to kill them now?”
“Even Diego?”
“Even Diego,” Charlie replies to Nic, lacking in any remorse. He’s in true leader mode, dishing out instructions and strategies without a glitch. Andres must shoot when Nic does, and Charlie will fire from inside the guardhouse, covering all grounds. Once all the men are dead, they must collect their dog-tags for their wives, before burning the bodies in the furnace. “After,” Charlie reels with his final orders, “call in the men from the safe house to hold the fort. I’ll fly our backup details in tomorrow.”
Nothing else is said, and they each leave to fulfil their duties. I stuff my face in cupped hands, hardly believing this is happening. My tummy aches, churning with fear and the need to puke. I nearly do when heavy feet crunch toward me, and a looming shadow emanates over mine, blocking the heat from the beaming lights surrounding the field. I stare at it through gaps in my fingers, knowing exactly who it is: Charlie. I can sense him, darkness and utter rage searing off him in a globe of energy.
I should try to explain that I thought he was going to kill my brother, so my actions have justification. And I should beg him to spare Tatiana. She was doing me a favor, and now...
Words don’t come to the surface, no matter how many times my lips part. I’m verbally comatose, and a heavy lump is growing in my throat.
Vomit. I think I’m going to vomit.
“How dare you?” Charlie says under his breath, hunching over me. “You killed my men? My friends?”
I cower in to my hands, hoping we can add together our wrongdoings and see them as equal. I hope we can forget this ever happened. But I don’t get a chance to fight my defense. He fists the front of my hair, making me yelp, and drags me to my feet. The first thing I see is a black machine gun hanging over his middle with the strap hooked around his neck, and I panic. My hands flay to grab at his, clawing at his wrist trying to pry him off.
“Stop,” he orders, and I do. I clutch at the joggers I’m wearing, detaining my hands, cringing under his rule. He yanks to arch my head back, and I yelp again. He demands that I look at him, so I do, but I wish birds would descend and pluck out my eyes for what I’m seeing.
Charlie glares down on me with blue madness, painted in Robert’s blood. It defines the strength of his nose and the sharp outline of his cheeks, speckled around his eyes. Near his temple, a pulse throbs, evidence of barely controlled fury.
“Charlie,” his name trembles on my tongue, “I’m...I just...”
He shakes his head, and I squeeze my eyes shut, biting my lips closed to refrain from crying for his forgiveness. It’s not the right time. Whenever Maksim got mad, it took at least a day for him to calm down and forgive me—after a beating, that is.
Luckily, I know Charlie won’t hit me.
I squeak when he hauls me along, nearly pulling out my hair. I stumble and trip to keep up as he tows me around the cabin, up the wooden porch steps, and through the front door.
I smell the stench of raw flesh before I see it, and blood. Lots of blood. It’s splattered on all the walls and on the floors, forming puddles in places. My stomach lurches when my eyes land on Robert’s decapitated body, fingers and feet, arms and legs scattered across the rug under his middle. There’s another naked body by the bench, but it’s so mangled I can’t make out any features.
It’s the girl.
“This way.” Charlie drags me left off the living area and throws me inside a narrow room, onto a springy, single bed. I paddle around to face him in a panic, eyes bulging to see. He kicks the door shut with a loud bang! and I cringe in return.
Nothing happens for a moment, silence swallowing us whole, and my entire body trembles, petrified beyond belief.
“Char-Charlie?” I whisper, but stutter his name instead, gulping down a heave. The lights are off, emitting darkness, and all I can hear are his deep breaths virtually growling at me. “Charlie, I-I know you’re mad,” I lift defensive hands, “but, you have to listen to—”
“Quiet!”
I jump in my skin as his voice feels like it’s everywhere in the darkness, in every corner of the room. He finally flicks a switch, letting a ball of light form around us, and I can finally see where we are.
The room is long and wide with rustic, rolled-log walls and bare, wooden floors. It smells like musky, male bodies. Eleven single beds line the back wall, dressed in white sheets, and edged in bucolic nightstands housing chrome lamps. The only other piece of furniture is a large dresser under a huge, square mirror hanging on the wall, directly opposite a single, curtainless window.
I think this is where some of his men stay—men Charlie won’t have near the house because I’m there, as Nic told me.
“Keep your mouth shut until I say otherwise,” Charlie warns, narrowing a finger at me, and I put my eyes down. “You dare to say one word and I’ll—”
“I won’t!” I squeal, shaking my head. “I-I won’t speak.”
On my word, he thunders across the room toward the window, lifts open the pane, and leans down to look outside. I watch him from beneath my eyebrows, studying the tense stance of his body. His shoulders are tight, and his knuckles are white where he’s gripping the ledge. He’s fucking furious, but understandably so.
What the hell have I done?
“Ven aquí!” Nic’s voice carries in, yelling for his men to come here, and my eyes whizz past Charlie’s large frame dominating the view out the window. “Listen carefully! You’re all being gathered for a moment, so my brothers and I can show gratitude for your dedication to the Los Zetas! We’ve found Blaire! She’s safe, thanks to you all!”
Radio fuzz drowns him out, sounding from Charlie’s pocket. It’s Andres, informing his leader and brother that he’s in position.
My heart is a riotous howl in my ears, building to the anticipation of what’s going to happen. I cannot believe they’re going to kill their own men, for me. This is madness. I try to figure out how I can stop it, to spare Charlie having to slaughter his subjects, but all I can think about is how they will want my head when they discover what I’ve done.
It’s too late to form a plan now, anyhow. Los Zetas chant in unison when Nic has finished acknowledging them for their loyalty, mere seconds before a heavy machine gun blows through the night.
Bratatatata!
Charlie locks, loads, and fires from the cabin, with his formidable body tremoring against the power of the weapon.
I hold my mouth in a state of horror, sitting here watching it all unfold. The bullets let off crazy bursts of orange, and men scream for their lives—saying Charlie is their king, that they’ll do anything for him as they always have—but it doesn’t matter. The Decenas have no mercy. Another gun boom! boom! booms! and I assume Andres has stepped in. I recoil with every blast, squeezing my eyes shut.
Then comes the humming silence, wrapping around us in a blanket of death. It’s cold, and it’s ominous.
Charlie unhooks his weapon strap from over his head and drops it on the floor at his feet, clutching his face in a fluster. I don’t know what to say or do, so I just sit here, apprehensive for the moment he speaks. I taste the sharp, tang of gunpowder in the air, listening to the piercing ringing in my skull.
“Motherfucker!” Charlie suddenly shouts to himself, swinging around to punch the wall, making me flinch. “Thirty men dead! Thirty fucking men...!” His head turns to me, eyes blazing. I buckle to my elbows and bow on the bed, cringing with my face stuffed in the sheets. “Come see what you’ve done, Blaire. Come see what the fuck you made me do!”
I shake my head, but he marches up to me anyway. He snatches my wrists and yanks me off the mattress, dragging me over to the window. He shoves me forward and forces me to bend, trussing his forearm across my back so I have no choice but to look. It’s a gory, raw sight. My eyes stream back and forth across the bodies lying in the field as Nic and Andres do a round of gently toeing everyone to be sure they’re dead.
“All those men have risked their lives to find you and keep you safe,” Charlie hisses in my ear, causing a violent shiver to rip down my spine. “They would have died for you, and you killed a whole fucking detail of them to save your smack-head brother—who’s still addicted to opiates, by the way, and you fucking let him go?!”
“He’s, what?” I scuffle around to gawk up at Charlie, holding his arms to keep him at bay. “What do you mean, he’s still addicted to opiates? He looked fine when I saw him.”
“No, Blaire”—Charlie leans down, putting us nose to nose—“James isn’t better, you senseless idiota. His withdrawal process was medically handled.”
“I-I don’t understand?” I whisper, eyes glancing back and forth between his. “I-I don’t—”
“He was given substitutes for the heroin to avoid the dire withdrawal effects—opiate based pills that he doesn’t have since you let him go. And it’s only been eight days, Blaire...you yourself should know it takes at least twelve days to fully recover from withdrawals. You’ve been through the fucking process!”
“Charlie,” I croak his name, lifting a trembling hand to my throat. “I-I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me!” I scream with sudden fear, horrified at the idea of James out there struggling to handle the withdrawals alone. “I-I have to go find him. I-I need to go get him.” I shove past Charlie, but he snatches at my arm and tugs me around. “Hey, let me go!”
“You’re not going anywhere.” His grip on me tightens as he yells in my face that I should be ashamed. “My men are dead! And you’re more concerned about your fucking brother—who caused all this?”
“He’s my brother!” I shout back at Charlie, lashing out to slap and tug, desperate to get free. “Charlie! Let. Me. Go!”
He does free my arm, but only to shackle both hands around my throat. In a flash, he yanks me forward and slams me back into the wall, hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs. Then he kicks my feet out from under me and slams me down on the ground. I gasp on impact, frozen with shock as he straddles me under his powerful body.
“Charlie! What are you doing?!”
“I should fucking kill you for what you’ve done!” he roars, twisting his hands on my throat, half choking me to death. “You deserve punishment! I had to make my brother kill his fucking friend because of you!”
“Char-Charlie!” I cough, choking up strings of saliva. “Stop! You-you’re going to...you’re going to fucking kill me!”
He doesn’t hear, too blind with rage, transforming into someone I don’t recognize. His face turns red, eyes dilating as he squeezes harder to drain the life out of me. Pressure forms in my skull, and my eyes bulge, lips pulsing and swelling. I splutter and gasp, pressing and opening my eyes trying to clear the dark spots gathering in my vision but nothing will do.
His hold eventually loosens, long enough so I can suck in some air, but he merely shifts his grip to strangle me in one hand while fumbling to unloop his belt with his other.
The sound of metal clanging on metal registers, flipping something in my mind, and I go absolutely crazy.
Drawing back, I punch the inside of Charlie’s elbow to buckle his arm. I draw back again, and punch him in the face. His head whips to the left, blood spraying from his mouth across the walls. I pull up my knees and kick him in the chest with a deafening scream, sending him tumbling back on his ass. I don’t want to hurt him—and I won’t—but there’s something about him tonight...I need to get away.
He’s on his feet before I am, lunging at me while I’m choking and wheezing for breath. I turn over on my knees, thundering with adrenaline, and scramble to stand—but something loops over my head and tightens around my throat. The leather material cuts into my flesh, and I realize it’s Charlie’s belt.
I spin around and pound at his chest, then I tackle him, ramming him with my shoulder. We somersault across the room, crashing into a bed, and I whack my head on something. It knocks me sideways, causing a wave of pain to pulse from my cheek all the way down to my stomach. I hiss to handle the pain, and I try to roll over on my side, to curl up in a ball, but I can’t...I can’t move.
I’m so...dizzy.
I register movement around me, heavy trudges pounding back and forth across the floor. A loud smash! hits the wall behind, and shards of glass rain down on me, flecks of silver flashing in my eyes. The mirror. He threw the mirror. A piece of furniture scrapes and struggles on the wooden floor, and I hear Charlie grunting, as if for strength.
What the hell is he doing?
I don’t like that he’s not speaking at all. I know Charlie isn’t a huge talker, but his present silence terrifies the life out of me.
Still dizzy and hurting, I groan, reaching out for something—anything to use in defense—but the belt wrapped around my neck pulls tight. I choke in a panic, forced over on my hands and knees to crawl across the shards of glass.
“Char-Charlie!” I wheeze, hand slapping between the floor and my throat. “Charlie...stop! Charlie, talk to me!”
He doesn’t listen, and with the lack of oxygen and the dizziness, everything seems to happen in a blur. I’m lugged to wobbly feet, the movement intensifying the cramping in my stomach, and my chin is forced up. Charlie tacks the belt to the wall, on the hook that was holding the mirror, leaving me dangling on tippy toes. I struggle to suck in meager gulps of air, fighting to grasp control—but one of my worst fears personifies in Charlie.
He pounces on me, tearing at the t-shirt I’m wearing from the neck to the hem.
I scream so hard it explodes through the room, but he’s ruthless. He tugs the t-shirt down my arms, causing friction to burn my skin. He yanks off my trainers one by one, then he tears off my joggers and my underwear, snapping the elastic at my ankles.
He’s going to rape me...he’s going to rape me. The epitome of fear shouts in my head.
I claw at his face, wildly trying to impede him, but he grabs my jaw and shoves to turn me to the side, squishing my throbbing cheek on the wall. The power of his muscled body is like gravity pinning me, subduing my fight. I screech for him to stop before he goes too far, desperately petrified of his silence, and that’s when my world submerges with darkness.
———
Charlie rears back and a powerful wallop! strikes my naked ass, going through my mind in a flash of red.
It’s so quick and so hard that I don’t register he’s hit me at first. My system blacks out, and warmth trickles down my inner thighs, soaking the floor at my feet.
I think I’ve peed myself. I struggle to feel between my thighs, frantically humiliated, but Charlie pulls back and slaps me again, and again, and again.
Wallop!
Wallop!
Wallop!
Hot welts come up all over my skin, thickening with each strike. I dance about on my toes to escape his abuse, screaming out the pain, but I’m choking from the belt. If I had any sense, I’d attack now while he’s at his most foolish. Men who fight in anger, fight stupid. They don’t think properly.
But I’m not thinking properly, either.
Please, stop hitting me.
“You’ll do as you’re fucking told from now on!” Charlie breaks his ominous silence and yells in a gust of smacks. “If I tell you to stay away from the guardhouse, you’ll stay away from the fucking guardhouse, do you fucking understand?!”
I cower under his mad yelling, eyes screwed shut to hide from what’s happening.
The guardhouse... He said I’m supposed to stay away from the guardhouse.
He also said he’d never hit me.
Wallop!
“What she said… I would never do anything like that to you. You know that, don't you?”
“I love you, Blaire.”
“Fucking answer me, Blaire!”
“Aargh!” I screech in emotional agony, with his promises and the illusion of safety suffocating me. “You-you said you wouldn’t do this!”
“Podgotovsja!”
“I don’t want to do anything that causes you harm...I love you, Blaire.”
“Podgotovsja!”
Wallop!
“Ow! Stop,” I cough, scratching at the belt around my neck. “Stop, stop...stop! Go away!”
He won’t stop, no matter how hard I plead and beg. I try to block it out, searching for that empty place in my mind, but I can’t. My head twitches as my consciousness confuses memories and present reality. I can hear them both, Charlie and Maksim morphing into one entity, tormenting me.
“You’re my little pet.”
“I stole you because I wanted you. I’m keeping you because I love you.”
“Kill him.”
“No!”
“No?” Charlie roars in disbelief, and my entire body sinks. He grips my upper arm and turns me to the side, yanking me in position, then I hear the soft whisper of his hand cutting through the air again.
WALLOP!
That smack takes my breath away, the hardest yet. It hits the bottom of my ass and the tops of my thighs, over a spot that already scalds. My head thumps the wall, causing a deep ringing to set in my ears, and my vision blurs.
My weight hangs, the strap around my neck pulling tighter, and everything feels slower now, more...hazy. I can barely make out shapes and colors. Fresh liquid skates down my inner thigh, forming another puddle under my feet. It’s thicker and warmer. It doesn’t feel like pee.
I blink about, snapping fuzzy shots of reality.
Charlie’s face is in mine, coiled with abhorrence while screaming at me to say something.
Blink.
Charlie yanks the belt off the wall, and I buckle at the knees, landing in his arms.
Blink.
Charlie cradles me in his lap, crying for Andres to help him.
Every time I blink, I see something different, and I’m so numb I don’t really feel like I’m here. Until a hand touches the flesh between my legs, hooking a finger inside my sex.
The most unexplainable thing happens inside. I rush with a fear so violent it breaks me. The blackness of my mind fades and I crumble, begging Charlie not to rape me. “Please! I’m sorry...I-I know what I did was wrong! Just please...please, don’t rape me!” It’s hard to beg, choking against the leather still cuffed around my neck, but I can’t stop. I can’t let him rape me. “Charlie, please”—I grab at his arm, pulling at the material of his sweater—“please, I’m begging you, don’t rape me!”
“I’m not gonna rape you...just relax, Blaire.” His voice echoes, unfocused. What’s happening? “Don’t tense, Blaire...don’t panic.”
Don’t panic?
“Please, don’t hit me any—agh!” I scream, pain shooting through my stomach. I curl over, crumpling my face to handle the agony. “Fuck—agh!” Before I can stop myself, I vomit across the floor, heaving so hard my eyes swell. It burns. It stings and it burns. I cough to get it out, but I’m choking.
“Andres!” Charlie yells, patting and rubbing my back. “Andres, you need to get in here! Call the MDs! Fucking call the MDs! S’all right, Blaire. Everything’s gonna be all right.”
The door whacks open, letting in a gust of cool air. It swamps me, making me shiver out of control. My lips feel blue, teeth chattering to the wild boom of my heart. I shakily reach between my legs, smothering my hand in ready liquid. Blood. The blurry sight of it coating my fingers rocks my head, causing another bout of dizziness to wash over me. I squeeze and blink through the fog but it increases, turning white and bright.
“What the hell have you done?” Andres shouts, and I hear mobile buttons bleep, bleep, bleep, in a haste of dials. “Pick up, Shyam. Fucking pick up!”
“I-I don’t know what happened to me...” Charlie’s voice is wrecked, and I feel his body jerking like he’s crying or something. “She’s bleeding, Andres. She’s in pain and she’s bleeding. She’s vomiting!”
“I told you to let me take her home! Fuck! Just keep her still! Hold her and keep her warm!”
“Charlie,” I heave his name, lifting my hazy eyes to his, “wha-what’s happening to me?”