Ivy
I pulled at the ropes wrapped tight around my wrists, but that only seemed to make them hurt more. Nausea rose in my belly as panic set in, a panic that I fought against, tooth and nail. Panicking isn’t going to do me any good here. It will only hurt me.
To calm myself, I looked around, trying to keep my brain busy. There were seventeen boxes, filled with who-knows-what, lined up against the far wall of my jail. The room was small, with a tiled floor. I counted one hundred and fifteen tiles; although several were hidden under the stacks of boxes and the twin-sized bed I was tied to, I managed to multiply the amount and guess the rest. There were twelve full-sized, ugly drop ceiling tiles.
But I was running out of things to count.
I leaned forward. If I stretched hard and pulled at the ropes, I could just catch a glance at Josh. He was allowed to sit in the other room, no ropes around his little wrists. They even gave him a pizza and some horrifying zombie movie to watch. He munched on his pizza rather happily, his little sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor he sat on.
The men who watched seemed to have taken a liking to him. I was grateful. At least he would be treated kindly, even if I wouldn’t.
“So, hermanito, who is the girl, eh?” one of them asked. Since the door to my little room was open, his voice wasn’t muffled at all. I froze at the question, holding my breath.
But Josh seemed to be ready with a lie. He made a noncommittal sound, probably shrugging his little shoulders as his eyes remained glued to the TV. “I think she lives on the same floor as me and my dad; she’s a nice lady. I don’t know her name, though.”
“Is that so, little man?” the voice answered, sounding skeptical.
Josh made another noncommittal noise like he had already forgotten what they were talking about. His father’s son, to be sure. “Can I have more pizza?”
“Anything you want, hermanito,” the second voice answered. His voice was less pleasant than the first, and I really hoped he wasn’t going to come in here with me.
The men kept talking, as if to themselves. “So, the girly has nothing to do with Creed?”
“Does that mean she’s free game?”
The voice I didn’t like seemed to be smiling evilly as he said, “I think it does, amigo. I think it does. How should we split her up?”
“One of us has to keep an eye on the boy; who goes first?”
Panic welled up in me, a layer of sweat sliding down over my body. I could feel my fast food chicken nuggets rising in my belly, threatening to make a very gross and very violent reappearance. These men talked about rape like I would talk to someone about eating a damn salad. They want to--
My mind seemed to go blank, the horror of what might be happening in here soon thundering through my veins. My blood seemed to turn to ice water in the face of the horrors in front of me.
Who the hell are these people anyway?
Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I had to relearn how to breathe around the lump in my throat. I was silent on the outside, but inside I was wailing, screaming, dreading, praying, and hoping for someone to save me. No matter how unlikely that was.
The sound of a door crashing open thundered through the room, and I nearly passed out from fright. The shotgun sound echoed through my skull like a migraine, shattering what calm I had left. I pulled hard at the ropes, yanking on them even when they cut deep into my skin. My already bloody hands chaffed and split, red blood oozing between the ropes and dripping down onto the mattress below me.
“You’ll do no such thing. If you touch the boy or touch that woman in there, I’ll gut you both myself,” a new voice boomed. There was no emotion in that voice, no threat. Just an icy cold promise. I shivered at the sound of it. There was a wet crackling sound and then silence. After that, a whispered order.
One of the men who had been talking so casually about raping me came into the room, his eye already swollen and his lip bleeding. Without looking me in the eye, the Hispanic-looking man reached for my hands. He managed to look sheepish under all of those tattoos and muscles, somehow. It was almost as though he’d shrunk in on himself.
I felt sick as he came closer, fear rising in my stomach as he got closer. But I needn’t have worried. With gentle fingers, he untied my hands and wrapped my bleeding wrists and fingers with Neosporin-laced bandages, careful not to pull too hard. I was surprised at his little touch. I wondered what would be waiting for me when I met the man with ice for a voice. When it was plain that the man had no other intentions but to wrap my hands and leave me alone, I took a deep breath. Relax. They aren’t going to hurt you. They said so. But the panic still waited in the back corner of my mind, waiting to overtake me again.
Creed, how could you get me into this? I could feel the sting of those last words we’d shared. I remembered lecturing him for supporting Kelly and his cartels. I also remembered those other words. The ones that still stung my soul.
“You are pathetic, Ivy. Sitting around in this dump, miserable and waiting for someone to come and fix your problems for you. I don’t need another child looking for protection.”
I wanted Creed to think better of me. And that meant I needed to grow a spine. And fast. What would Creed want me to do? I wished I knew. He’d want me to stop crying and man up. I took a deep breath, trying to square my shoulders under the weight of my current situation. I needed to be strong for Creed and for Josh.
So I sat up straight, took a deep breath, and waited, trying not to fidget. I didn’t have to wait long.
The man that appeared in the doorway was nothing like I expected. I was waiting for another tattooed tough guy with a mohawk and a sneer. But he looked so little like a gang member, I was pretty sure that he couldn’t have been the leader with the icy voice. He looked like a lawyer, dressed down for a game of golf. He wore khakis and a button down, collared shirt with Ralph Lauren logo on it. If this man had any tattoos, they were well-hidden.
But then I met his eyes.
They were so emotionless that I stopped breathing for a moment. There was a coldness about his face that made me believe he could kill a man in cold blood like some men ate a steak. I shivered under his gaze and had to force myself not to wince away from him when he sat down next to me on the bed.
“What is your name?” the cold man asked finally. His words were dripping with a heavy, Hispanic accent of some sort, matching his dark skin, hair, and eyes. He was handsome in a way, but he would have been much more attractive if he didn’t look quite so dark and sinister.
I took a deep, quivering breath trying to steady my nerves. “My name is Ivy.”
The man smiled, but it had no warmth in it. The sight of it sent shivers down my spine. “Well, Ms. Ivy. It looks like you’ve gotten tangled up in quite the mess. I do hope you’ll forgive the brutish ways of my crew.”
“Why am I here?” I asked, forcing myself to look into that unfeeling face.
The man tilted his head. “Because you were running away from my men with Josh Carver. We had to take you both. Now, if you’ll come with me, I’m sure you would like something to eat.”
As banal as it sounded, I was hungry. “I could really go for some pizza,” I answered, hoping my brave words covered up my shaking. “What is your name?”
“My name is Carlos Adams. I am the leader of the Carrion Club. We are part rival, part friend to the Devil’s Edge.”
I decided to play along with Josh’s lie. “Devil’s Edge?”
Carlos just smiled that icy smile again and held out a hand. I took it, surprised at how warm his skin was, considering how cold the rest of him looked. “We hold the same territory as the Edge has. It has been so for many years without issue. Until the Edge brought in a cartel’s wares to our territory. It is causing--” He paused, considering his words carefully. “It is causing a disturbance of the balance here. Which is why we have taken Josh. We know Creed, the future leader of the Edge, will come for his son. This will allow us to talk.”
Leading me into the main room, I blinked at the barrage of bright sunlight streaming through the high windows. This place looked like it might have once been a car repair garage once upon a time. But now, it reminded me of the Devil’s Edge and their clubhouse. There were decidedly fewer motorcycles, but more men. All of them looked wary but determined.
Considering what Kelly is doing, I can hardly blame them.
“We have lost the ear of the leader of the Edge, Kelly, but we believe his next in line will listen, if given the right incentives.”
“Josh’s dad is the next in line for a- a gang?” I whispered. Creed had never made any mention of it. Not that Creed keeping things from me would be surprising. He’d made it pretty clear that I was nothing more than a cheap night of sex. I swallowed, trying not to let the pain of those memories show up on my face.
“Come this way, Ivy. I want to show you something.”
So I followed, still tangled up in my own thoughts. I wonder if Creed will rescue me. The thought lit my whole body on fire. I wanted that. I wanted him. I wanted to know he wanted me just as much as he had that night we fucked in my bed.
But I was pretty sure that was something I would never have.
Feeling lost, I stayed close to Carlos, hoping I wasn’t following him to my death. Or something worse.