Twisted Secrets: Book 3 of the Twisted Minds Series- THE FINALE by Keta Kendric (3)

Bradley continued to stare as the muffled creek of the fire burning the man inside the incinerator reminded me of wood burning inside a fireplace. Only this wasn’t wood—it was the crackle of human bones burning. When Bradley finally caught on to my cold shoulder, the sound of the wheels on the cart signaled his departure.

“See you later, Regina,” he hollered back at me over his shoulder.

“Yeah. Later, Bradley,” I muttered, not bothering to glance in his direction.

As soon as the hum of the elevator registered, I locked myself into the windowless autopsy room with three corpses, a burning body, and a possible zombie.

“Dead men don’t sweat,” I mumbled the words aloud as I dashed over to the pale man who’d captured my attention.

Checking his neck for a pulse, nothing registered, but it didn’t mean I was misreading a sign of life. A bead of sweat had drizzled down the man’s clammy skin. Laying him flat on the floor, I checked several areas for a pulse and found the tiniest spark of life pulsing within him as I pinched his neck. 

My medical training rose to the surface of my brain as I applied life-saving techniques. Although he’d lost a significant amount of blood, he no longer appeared to be bleeding, which was a good sign.

After checking for swelling and discoloration, I didn’t find any other gunshot wounds other than the obvious entrance wound near his left temple and a smaller exit wound under his left ear. Since the exit wound was significantly smaller, it was safe to say he likely had bullet fragments lodged in his head.

I didn’t have to be a traumatic brain injury specialist to know that if he had any of that bullet left in his head, it would cause enough swelling that it would require that I drill a hole in his head to relieve the pressure. Otherwise, the sliver of a pulse running through him would vanish for good.

Bradley had tossed the man onto the floor like yesterday’s garbage, but I moved him with careful ease now, collapsing my smaller table so that I could lift him onto the larger table to examine him and figure out if he could be saved.

Cleaning the wounded areas quickly, I surveyed the damage. I was going to have to drill into this man’s head if he was going to see the light of day again.

“Then what, Regina?” I asked myself out loud. “He’s your family’s enemy. What are you going to do with him if you save him? Live happily ever after with him in your basement home?”

The part of my brain that made the logical decisions was right. Even if I saved this man, there was only one way off the farm for us and it was more than likely: death.

“You know what? Damn it,” I huffed out as the other more irrational part of my brain took control.

Once I was a hundred percent sure I’d talked myself into saving this man, I rummaged through the walk-in closet full of medical equipment until I found everything I needed and hooked him up to a ventilator.

I prepared an intravenous drip to send liquids into his body. I took care in cleaning him of all the blood and dirt that was stuck to his skin. I was such a pervert for admiring his body, especially with the knowledge that he was alive—barely alive, but alive enough that it felt strange.

The amount of art on his body also called my attention, causing me to study his tattoos as I cleaned him. “August,” I uttered out loud. August was a part of a large tattoo on his back in thick black font. The rest of the words were unreadable due to deep scratches and bruising in the area. “August, that’s what I’ll call you,” I informed the man like he could hear me.

Even in his damaged condition, August was strikingly good-looking with his shadowed chin. He had a nice head of hair that I’d had to wash three times to get the blood out. I’d peeled his eyes back a couple of times, to peek at them. The state of his condition left his eyes a dingy dark blue although I guessed they were usually a more vibrant, shiny blue. 

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” I sang the statement repeatedly into the musty death-filled air. The remaining three men sat there, forgotten as I attempted to do what a part of my brain kept telling me not to. In this case, any enemy of my family was my friend. Therefore, this man was worth saving. Since Bradley had a sneaking habit of walking up on me without warning, I was going to have to find a way to keep my new patient hidden.

A thousand questions fired off inside my brain as I worked to save the man. Had he lost too much blood to be saved? Was his brain injury too severe for him to recover? Was he going to be a vegetable if he woke up? I’d had a few second thoughts about attempting to save him, but something in me wouldn’t let me give up on this man. My problem would come with trying to hide him if he did survive.

 

 

Chapter Four

 

August

 

My mind was set adrift, teetering someplace between this world and the next. Sounds and vibrations echoed through me as if I were a sheet flapping in the wind. Adrift in an unfamiliar world, I wasn’t cold or in pain. I was just…lost.

“This is the motherfucker who brought death here today,” a voice said, catching my attention, but I couldn’t move or see, so I couldn’t react to what was being said. 

“I’d like to shake the hand of the man who shot this bastard,” the voice continued.

Were those words echoes in my head or had they come from another person? They sounded so crisp and clear. If I could move, I could alert someone that I needed help. But, what did I need help from? I had no real sense of what was wrong with me. Forcing myself to speak was as useless as trying to move or see. Was I dreaming?

A hard jolt awakened my awareness as an alarming amount of noise flooded my ears. But just as fast, I was evaporated in nothingness before an overwhelming sense of gloom encircled me. What was happening? Where was I? Where were the voices coming from? Why couldn’t I feel or see anything? The only senses that seemed to be working were my sense of smell and hearing.

My mind was filled with black fog and useless musings, no distinct memories. It hovered in the murkiness, frozen in regret and despair. One moment my mind teased, giving me a sense that a memory would spark, but the next moment, recalling my own name or age or anything that hinted as to who I was, became a frustrating task. I was lost inside my own head, not knowing up from down, left from right, or ass from dick. Maybe I was trapped in a dream and as soon as I was awakened, the world as I knew it would return.

Death. Death is what I smelled. The rancid odor floated up my nose, in my case, it must have floated into my mind because I couldn’t feel anything to know for certain that I had a nose.  I could do nothing but endure this state I was stuck in as I was unable to move or feel. I had to be asleep, trapped in a nightmare.

I struggled to think beyond the darkness, but my efforts pushed me further from what little awareness I had. The voices dwindled, and the only other sense I had dissipated and not even the scent of death existed anymore. 

My mind delved deeper, finding the deepest blackest closet to lock me into. The silence entombed me, shattering my remaining senses. It snuffed out everything, introducing me to the deafening sound of nothing before it left me in an endless black dream.

 

***

 

A jolt of thundering sounds coursed through my consciousness, but like before, not all my senses had returned. I had no awareness of time or space. My sense of smell and sound was all that I’d been granted. I didn’t know if I’d appreciated either sense before I was cast into this darkness, but I appreciated them now.

The sound of what I guessed was metal scraping against metal floated into my ears and continued in a repeating pattern that went on for what seemed like hours. Sight and touch remained out of my reach, my brain trying but failing to regain the use of them.

“Hey, Regina, here’s three more. I think there’s at least two more. When I bring the rest, you want me to stay and help you?”

“No, Bradley. My family won’t take too kindly to you helping me with what is supposed to be my job. I appreciate you asking, though.”

So crisp and clear were the words. An empty pause in words left me wondering if I’d faded back into my dream. Another harsh jolt opened the floodgates on my pain and an intense amount shot through my head but lasted only a few seconds before it disappeared again. The pain sparked awareness within me. I wasn’t dreaming. I was alive. I was clinging to reality, but I didn’t know how to stay on the correct plane. I didn’t know how to stay on the right side of life.

 

Chapter Five

 

Regina

 

It took time and work, but I turned the walk-in closet that was filled with supplies into my patient room. I’d found random places throughout the large autopsy room to stash most of the equipment I’d taken from the closet. Most of it, I placed in the empty drawers and body lockers that I rarely used.

August’s breathing had gotten stronger in the hours he’d been on the ventilator, but he was a far cry from being well enough to survive. He’d had several broken ribs, his fibula bone in his right leg was broken severely enough that it had cracked through the side of his lower leg. Someone had attempted to stabilize the wound with pipes and rags.

It appeared he’d attempted to sew up a knife wound in his side that had started to heal, but the gunshot to his head had nearly ended him. Thankfully, he had enough blood left in him that he didn’t require a transfusion.

He’d been shot, beaten, left with broken bones, and laying out someplace on my family’s farm for hours barely clinging to life. God was not through with this man. Based on some of his tattoos, he belonged to a motorcycle club, and a dear friend named Ryan had been killed.

August had been shot in the back once, appeared to have been stabbed in the back twice, and now, there were bullet fragments in his head. The fragments were deeply embedded, and it was too risky a surgery for me to try to extract them.

I’d studied cardiology, hoping to someday become a heart surgeon. Although I wasn’t a neurosurgeon and had only briefly studied neuroscience, I believed this man stood a better chance of survival if I left the bullet fragments in place without trying to probe around in his head to remove them.

I’d prepared my instruments with nervous hands. Drilling into his head had been easier than facing the anticipation of the task. I’d drilled the small hole and allowed the blood build-up to flow from his brain into a stack of towels I’d piled under his head. The time I’d invested in medical school was proving to be time well spent.

I’d worked an all-nighter. Actually, in my case, it had been all day, ensuring my patient was well hidden and medically stable. I also had to complete the task of taking care of the rest of the bodies before they started to decay.

Although I was allowed, I rarely left my underground prison because I didn’t like being watched. Each time I surfaced, all eyes landed on me. From the guards posted on the grounds to those in the lookout tower, I was always ogled like an alien who’d parked my UFO and threatened to probe their bodies. Except for food, an occasional outing for fresh outside air, and to travel to and from the few buildings that were in our community, I stayed out of sight and out of their minds. Since I had August to take care of now, the last thing I wanted was to call attention to myself. 

 

***

 

It took me three days to build up the courage to leave the cellar and August’s side. I’d bagged and tagged the ashes of eight dead men and stuffed them into a rucksack so I could deliver them to my cousin, Luis. In case Bradley and the other guard had given Luis a head count of the nine bodies they’d brought to me, I filled a ninth bag with ashes, using equal parts from the eight dead I’d cremated.

I eased up the splintered steps of the cellar, using my back to push the slanted wooden door open. The bright sunlight assaulted my eyes, and it took a moment for me to adjust. Once I was on solid ground, I kept my head down and forced my legs to get me to my destination as quickly as possible.

Usually, I took a moment to enjoy the sight of the clouds or a stray insect flying, anything that served as a reminder that there were still beautiful things left in the world. Today, my mission was to do everything I needed to do outside the cellar in a fast and unsuspicious manner.

My cousin, Luis, met me at the door of his workspace. His head went up once in greeting before he took the bag from my hand. Luis and I were the same age, only a month apart. He was one of those guys who was smart enough to be dangerous. He was short and stocky and perfectly content with making drugs that destroyed people’s lives.

Since I was out, I decided to walk over to the main house and stock up on food. I retrieved a shopping bag from under the kitchen counter and searched for nonperishable and microwavable food items.

“Looks like you’re stocking up, cousin.”

I cringed at the sound of my cousin, Sorio’s voice, wishing I could disappear into a cloud of smoke to avoid interacting with him. If there ever was a man I hated, it was my cousin, Sorio. He was a big part of the reason that I was a prisoner. He was the epitome of his father, Carlos, a misogynistic lunatic who saw women as disposable objects. 

“Yeah, I’ve been putting in a lot of extra work lately. I guess it’s given me more of an appetite.”

Sorio laughed, snorting as he pointed at me. What could be inside someone’s head to make them so vengeful and hateful?

“An appetite. Girl, as fat as you are, you don’t have one appetite, you have four of them.”

He continued to point and laugh as I hurriedly closed the cabinets and refrigerator and made my escape. If I’d had a gun, I would’ve unloaded it in his face. He loved to call me fat. Arrogant prick. I was a size ten, possibly a twelve, but in his mutated brain, I may as well have been five-hundred pounds.

It took less than a minute for me to go around the main house to the shabby wooden door that was the entrance to my home. I’d never been happier to see my basement home than I was at this moment. After stocking my food in the small refrigerator, and pantry area I had in my bedroom, I smiled at the thought that I had someone to come home to. Someone my mean cousin didn’t know about. Someone who I prayed would one day wake up and kill Sorio for me.

After I unlocked and stepped into the closet I’d transformed into August’s hospital room, I crept in with a ready smile. The hiss of the ventilator blended with the low whisper of the infusion pump that pushed fluids into his body. I checked his vitals and ensured he had enough liquids and vitamins going into his system. My palm brushed across his forehead before I cupped his stubbly chin.

“Hey, August, you’re looking better today,” I greeted him with a hint of excitement in my voice.

Although he wasn’t out of the woods, the fact he was alive after what could have been a fatal gunshot wound had pride springing up within me. He was the most interesting thing in this dreary place. He was also a good listener as I sat with him and spilled my family secrets, and my vow to someday escape them. 

August was the first long-term patient I’d had to myself. As a new doctor, we shared patients or observed as the seasoned physicians performed the more difficult procedures and treatments.

When I was certain he wasn’t going to wake up and recover right away, I’d introduced a feeding tube. A quick peek under the bandages I had wrapped around his head like a turban revealed that his head had started to scab over nicely. Only a doctor would think that scabs were nice, but the fact that his body was healing itself was all that mattered. He was going to have a wicked scar in his head that branched from his temple, where I’d been able to remove a few bullet fragments, but it didn’t really affect his appearance. If anything, I’d say the scar made him look more interesting.

A two-inch patch of hair had also been shaved from his scalp where I’d had to go in deeper, drilling into his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. 

Even with two black eyes and multicolored bruises decorating his body, August was a wonderful sight to stare at. A man like him would never glance twice at someone like me.

I considered myself friendly, not quiet-natured, but not boisterous either. I was more of a slow simmer versus a boil. The kind of men who found me interesting were the perverts like Bradley or those who wanted the one-night jump offs.

On the weeks that I was released from family prison, I used an escort service to have my needs satisfied. It was a secret that I’d never tell a soul. My situation didn’t leave me many options for dating. I didn’t have time to cultivate a relationship nor was I motivated to put forth the effort anymore. I glanced at August.

“Before you arrived, August, Bradley was all I had to talk to or socialize with. Even though he creeped me out, anything seemed better than the loneliness. But, I was never desperate enough to go there with him, if you know what I mean.”

I went on talking to August until I fell asleep next to him, holding his warm, limp hand. The act of holding on to a warm living hand was enough to provide me a certain level of happiness that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

The echoing footsteps that were growing louder by the second were what snatched me from my sleep. I was in such a lazy haze that I failed to move out of the closet fast enough. Someone was at the double metal doors and pushing into the room by the time I stepped out of the closet.

I was a kid who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. I certainly felt like one. Bradley stared at the door as I eased it closed behind me. The elongated screech it made called even more attention to it.

“Can I help you, Bradley?” I asked in a clipped tone, irritated that he’d disturbed my time with August. It was nine o’clock at night, and I was usually in bed at this hour or reading. Was this Bradley’s usual routine, to creep around the cellar while I slept?

“What are you doing in here at this time of night?” His glare traveled back to the closet door. “Are you hiding a man in that closet. Regina?”

The seriousness on his face had my lips hanging open. Speechless, I stood frozen, trying to but failing to think of a quick lie.

“Ha, ha,” he barked out, laughing. He pointed at my bemused expression.

“When’s your next break? This place is going to drive you crazy if you let it. I can keep you company anytime you need it,” he offered with that grin dancing across his thin, dry lips.

I bet you can, fluttered across my mind as I fought to contain the thoughts that my frown hardly concealed.

His tone insinuated more. I needed to tell him what I should have months ago.

“Bradley, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be hanging around me at all. If my family finds out, especially my cousin, Sorio, you could end up being one of the guys on my table. Then into the fire, I’d have to toss you.”

At those words, Bradley’s gaze found the incinerator before he glared at me with a hint of apprehension on his face.

My gaze remained pinned on Bradley’s as I continued to drive the statement home. “I don’t want to do that to you, Bradley because you have been too good to me. You know how Sorio is, though. He’d make me toss you into the flames while you were still alive just because he can. Then, into the red plastic bags your ashes would go and then—”

He raised his hand to stop my words. “I get the point, Regina. I was just checking on you. That’s all.” 

He glanced at the closet door once more, before lifting his gaze to meet mine since I hadn’t moved an inch away from it.

“Well, I better go.” His gaze landed on the closet door again. “See you later, Regina.”

He cursed under his breath in Spanish as he left, calling me a teasing bitch and my cousin a deranged asshole. The men didn’t know or had all forgotten that I spoke fluent Spanish. I never corrected them when they switched from Spanish to English when they had to talk to me about something. I never let on that I knew exactly what they were saying when they talked about me in Spanish.

“Later, Bradley,” I called after his back. My statement about him ending up alive in the incinerator must have spooked him because he took another quick look back at it before pushing at each of the exit doors. If I’d known crazy talk was all it would take to get rid of Bradley, I’d have started doing it long ago. 

After heaving a deep sigh, I walked over to and locked the doors, before going back into the closet to care for August.

 

Chapter Six

 

August

 

My eyes fluttered below my lids as sparks of life pinged in random parts of my body making me twitch. The darkness circled like a hungry vulture over its prey, and I had no way of knowing what shape my body was in. At least there was movement within me this time. Movement! Was my sense of touch returning? Had my eyes been moving, or had I been trapped here so long, my mind made me believe I’d felt movement?

There weren’t any words to describe the state I was in. I was helplessly trapped inside my own mind. Shit, maybe I was dead, and this was my hell.

The cozy voice of the stranger pierced the darkness and made my ears perk each time the sound rained over me. I clung to every word, every syllable, even when the tone faded in and out of focus—even when it had dwindled to a low murmur. The voice was my connection to the world outside of the darkness and led me to believe I was alive but physically unable to respond.

I couldn’t remember anything about my life, so I didn’t know if I’d been shot or hit by a car? Had someone attempted to kill me or had I failed at suicide? Was the sweet voice I’d been hearing all in my head or was someone out there watching over me? 

From what I could recall, the voice belonged to a woman named Regina. According to her, I was an enemy of her family, but she didn’t see me that way. She hated her family and found comfort in the fact that someone was brave enough to fight against them. She’d even admitted that one of her reasons for saving me was to spite her family.

She said she was lonely, and I seemed to be her main source of entertainment. The idea that I, someone who couldn’t move or speak or remember my own name, was her entertainment made me wonder what type of situation this woman was in. 

A tingle started at my toes and worked its way up my legs. If I could smile I would paste one on my face as more pangs of life started to spark back into my body. My toes. Were they moving? Was I wiggling them? It certainly felt like I was. Fuck, if I wasn’t. When the rest of my body started to tingle, I urged my brain to move my hands, my legs, anything that would listen to my commands.

My heart may as well have been the drumbeat to a Metallica song as loudly as it banged around inside my chest, sending blood through body parts that had been immobile for an unknown amount of time. Metallica, I knew the band and knew their songs, so why was it so difficult for me to recall my own name?

Finally, my fingers moved. One of my hands was wrapped around something warm, soft, and moving. Regina had taken hold of my hand. Her warm grip was a gift I welcomed as I attempted to squeeze my fingers around hers. 

The fluttering of my lids quickened, and the anticipation of seeing anything but darkness had me hysterical and full of impatience. My mouth worked back and forth, left and right. My legs and arms twitched and turned, but my stubborn fucking eyes remained closed. I sucked in a calming breath, hoping it would ease my anxiety enough for me to pour every ounce of willpower I had into opening my eyes.

When I thought I would explode with anxiousness, my eyes blinked open and blinding light filled them. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t care. I’d finally broken free of all that darkness. The calm voice soothed me as I attempted to lift my hand.

“Stay calm and give your body a chance to awaken slowly. You’re okay. I’m right here.”

It was hard not to listen to a voice so relaxing. After I’d forced my body to relax, pain reared its ugly head, trying to steal my joy. Sharp, poker hot pangs shot through my skull. Had Regina doused my chest in gas and set it on fire?

My leg felt like it had been put through a fucking shredder, backed out and put through again, but I didn’t care. I could feel. Squinting, I started to make out dark shapes and colors as my rapidly blinking eyes focused, pulling in my surroundings.

“August, you’re going to experience some pain and discomfort. I didn’t want to give you heavy doses of medication when it appeared you might wake up.”

My mouth moved, but my words remained stuck in my dry throat. Had I swallowed a fucking pail of hot sand? My damn Adam’s apple bobbed for dear life, signaling my dismay as my eyes struggled to stay open. 

“Here, I’m putting a cup of water up to your mouth. Drink slowly please.”

Drink slowly? Did she have any idea that my fucking throat was one move away from cracking and flaking into a thousand pieces?

As soon as the rim of the plastic cup touched my lips, my hand came to life and shoved the cup up, sending cool water all over my mouth and chin. I gulped and gasped, not caring that I was spilling more than I was drinking.

When there was none left, I wanted to ask for more, but my damn voice and mouth weren’t coordinating. However, the small amount of water that had gotten into my system seemed to rejuvenate my body even more. My focus cleared enough that I could see the blurred vision of a woman pouring me another cup of water at the foot my bed.

Her shadowy figure became clearer when she moved closer and stood at my shoulder. The way she’d talked about being lonely and of me being her only entertainment, I’d assumed she was a homely woman with a bad acne problem. To the contrary, Regina had golden skin that seemed to twinkle against the light. Her big, brown doe-shaped eyes shined with innocence, but there wasn’t enough innocence in the world to hide the amount of hurt and pain lingering in her gaze. Her aura exuded patience and genuine sincerity.

“Here, try to sip slower this time,” she instructed, her voice heavy with amusement. I think I shook my head, but my attention was taken by the refreshing water that I failed to drink at a gradual pace.

“That’s enough for now, August. I don’t want you to overextend yourself or over consume anything too soon. You’re still in a fragile state.”

“What’s…” my voice inched out, my vocal cords struggling to carry my words. “Wrong…” That was the only other word I could force out before I started coughing. Regina placed a calming hand over my aching head. My fucking head weighed a thousand pounds, and it had just occurred to me that I was sitting in a lean, trying, but failing to hold my head up.

Regina assisted in easing me back. “Please lay down so I can explain your situation to you.”

I calmed at her words because trying to do anything else had pain kicking me straight up and down my ass.

“You sustained a gunshot wound to the head. Judging from the injuries on your body, I believe you were tortured before you got shot. You have three cracked ribs, your right fibula was broken, and you had multiple lacerations and contusions all over your body. A few required stitching. You were nearly dead by the time you made it to me.”

When I sat motionless, the pain remained, but it didn’t bite as hard as it had when I sat up. Shot? My brain was slow to process the updates Regina had revealed. I’d been beaten and shot, but I couldn’t recall any of it.

“You are in Texas. You were captured and brought here by the men who work for my cousin. My cousin was the one who likely did this to you. No one knows you’re here with me. I’ve been hiding you from them.”

Bits and pieces of the conversations she’d been having with me while I was trapped in the darkness started to make more sense now. She hated her family and wanted to keep me alive to spite them. I also recalled her wishing I’d wake up and kill someone for her.

“My name?” I croaked out, my voice struggling to crawl from my throat.

Regina’s hand brushed my forehead as a sorrowful look remained etched on her face. Her touch made me aware of the fact that I had rags or bandages wrapped around my head.

“I was hoping you hadn’t suffered any memory loss, but with head injuries you can never be sure. I’m afraid I don’t know your name either. I’ve been calling you August. Your tattoos indicate that you’re a part of the August Knights Motorcycle club and you were their enforcer. Does any of that sound familiar?”

Seeing her more clearly, I shook my head. My mind refused to grasp its misplaced thoughts. 

“Based on some of your tattoos and the state of your body, you’ve lived a rough life. You survived another gunshot before this one, multiple stab wounds, and several other bones were broken previously.”

My eyes panned to my exposed arms. The tattoos didn’t look familiar nor did they spark any memories. One of my hands had a needle taped to it that had a tube running up to a bag of clear liquid. There were also tubes that ran under the white T-shirt I had on. The lower half of my body was draped in a pair of striped flannel pajamas. The covers were up over my knees, but my toes felt bare under the sheet and thin green wool blanket. 

The constant beep had been with me so long that I’d tuned it out and only now noticed its low chirp. I was in a makeshift medical facility, a small windowless room the size of a closet. Aside from the narrow bed and the machines next to it, there was only room for the small table that held the pitcher of water and medical supplies and a brown wooden stool that Regina sat on next to my bed.

I’d attempted to count the days I’d been stuck in the darkness, but I’d only managed to get up to three. “How long?” Those words managed to escape before my throat tightened and stopped me from saying more.

“Four and a half months,” Regina confirmed, obviously realizing what I was trying to ask.

No fucking way! I thought. There’s no way I’d been there for four and a half months. But I couldn’t voice my concerns out loud due to my inability to speak like I wanted to.

 

Chapter Seven

 

Regina

 

My neck snapped my head up from my chest at the sound of my name being yelled.

“Regina! Where the fuck are you?”

I must have fallen asleep watching August who was as stubborn as he was strong-willed.

For a moment, I was afraid I’d have to tie him down to keep him from trying to get out of bed. Even though he couldn’t remember a thing, August’s instincts had kicked in. He wasn’t used to being taken care of nor was he accustomed to sickness and vulnerability.

Shit!

It was my evil cousin, Sorio. The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention. What in hell was he doing down here? He never came down here.

August’s hand was still clenched in mine when I was jolted awake by Sorio’s monstrous voice. I tiptoed around the small bed as I struggled not to bump into anything. The sound of the metal doors springing open and my cousin’s heavy footsteps on the outside of the closet door indicated that he’d stepped into the morgue area.

I zipped out of the door, closing it behind me. I was seized by fear as I gripped the handle, not letting it go. My action led Sorio’s gaze to the area of my body that hid the door handle from his view. I dropped my hands away from the door and pasted a fake smile on my face.

“Can I help you?”

He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he frowned and stared me down like a detective who knew I was hiding something. I was one tremble away from freaking out. What if August coughed or stumbled while trying to get up? 

“What are you doing in this dreary ass place? You’ve been around so many dead people that you sleep in here too?”

He didn’t give me a chance to answer his questions because he was coming up with his own scenario. He usually did. It was not like he was going to listen to anything I had to say anyway, so I remained quiet. 

“What are you hiding down here?”

“Nothing,” I answered, my voice sounding nervous to even me.

He pointed an authoritative finger at the closet door, his brows pinching in curiosity.

“You got something in there you don’t want me to see? It’s eight in the morning, and you’re down here in the fucking closet of the morgue? I’m only going to ask you one more time. What the fuck are you hiding, Regina?”

His agitated tone had me such a nervous wreck that I rung my hands and bit into the inside of my cheek to chase away my fright.

I couldn’t let Sorio find August. Sorio was the reason he’d been tortured and shot in the first place. Now that he’d finally recovered enough to wake up, I had to do everything in my power to protect him. If Sorio found him, he was going to make me watch him kill August before he killed me.

My head dropped to my chest as my gaze landed on the floor. “It’s…it’s my dildo. All my sex toys, actually.”

My gaze remained aimed at the floor until Sorio’s voice grated across my skin.

“Why don’t you do that nasty shit in your fucking room? Is it even sanitary to be doing some shit like that around this smelly-ass place? You’re sick. I’m going to see about getting you moved someplace else. Frankly, I’m sick of seeing your sad fucking traitorous face anyway.”

Sorio hated me because I didn’t embrace the will of this family. I was also labeled the rebel because I’d run so many times. 

Sorio stepped closer, and I inched back, bumping into the door before gripping the handle again. He placed an authoritative finger in my face, his mean glare backing it up. His gaze ran up and down my body, my nervous reaction making his frown deepen.

“Are you kidding me right now? You think I want to go in there and see some shit you’re down here fucking yourself with? I don’t want to see that shit. I got more important things to worry about than the sick shit you’re down here doing. I came to let you know that we should have two bitches coming once my men round them up. I want you to bring their ashes to me instead of Luis. You understand?”

I inclined my head, glad he was more concerned about business than what I had behind the door. In the two years and seven and a half months I’d worked on the farm, there had only been three women I’d had to burn, and each time, Sorio wanted their ashes. I had no idea what he did with those women’s ashes, but I was sure it wasn’t something I wanted to know.

He walked off, glancing back at me with a mean scowl on his face like I was the one who had come bothering him. He shoved the doors open, sending them flying into the hallway before he exited. His heavy steps faded with each passing second, and I didn’t breathe until complete silence rained over the space around me.

My cousin had set his sights on two women who he intended to kill that likely had no idea they were in the crosshairs of a serial killer. Nine times out of ten, these people weren’t aware of the crime he was going to pin on them whether they’d committed it or not.

After I threw my head up to the ceiling and closed my eyes, I took in few deep, relaxing breaths of air. I didn’t even mind the lingering stench of death that I was breathing in because there weren’t many things I could think of that was worse than my cousin. He was the facilitator of my punishments each time I’d been captured after running. Each time was worse and had been meant to break me. And although my cousin scared the hell out of me, I wasn’t broken yet.

“Fucking asshole,” I said under my breath before I walked over and locked the doors to the morgue. I rarely cursed, but Sorio was a good reason to start.

When I stepped back into the closet, my patient was wide awake and attempting to sit up on his own.

“Wait. Let me help you. Take it easy.”

“Where? Who?”

It was going to be a difficult task trying to explain things to August, who didn’t have his memory and didn’t really know who he was in relation to me. He had no idea where he was or the situation he was in either.

After ten minutes of trying to get him settled down, he’d breathed out a shaky, “Thank you,” before his body shut down.

Those two words made me smile. He was developing the habit of thanking me whenever he knew he’d given me the most hell.

Now, with Sorio lurking, I was going to have to keep a close eye on August. He was the kind of man who delivered action and would find a way to figure out what was going on. Rest and calm were what his body and mind needed most, but August was not going to sit by and wait. As hard as he was going to make my job, I admired the determination in him.

 

Chapter Eight

 

August

 

I appreciated Regina more than I could express in words, but there was no goddamn way in hell I was staying here. I didn’t care about what she was telling me about a traumatic brain injury. If I was strong enough to stand, I was strong enough to fight.

It was becoming obvious that she was a prisoner. She would become jumpy, whether it was the walls settling, the pipes rumbling, or any stray sound that found its way in from outside.

She’d made a valiant effort but would fail to keep me confined to this bed. She couldn’t stand guard over me twenty-four hours a day. She’d stuck around for hours, waiting until I fell asleep after she’d had to practically beg me to stay still.

All I knew was her and the four walls surrounding me, and the walls had started to close in on me. Although my head felt like a band of drummers was constantly stomping around in there, it wasn’t going to stop me from getting out of this bed.

When I was in the darkness, there were no constant or concrete ideas that I’d been able to latch on to that allowed me to determine time. Being in this closet was barely a step up from where I’d been. Based on Regina’s estimates, I’d been in this cellar for nearly five months. It had been nine or ten days since I’d opened my eyes, and that was nine too many for me to be lying around on my ass being babied by her.

If she thought I was going to lie quietly and not figure out how to get away, she was more out of her mind than I was out of mine. Based on the constant nagging inside my head, I didn’t think I was built to roll over and play dead. I couldn’t remember who the hell I was, but I was sure I could remember how to whip someone’s ass. I slung my legs over the side of the bed and eased into a standing position.

My head swam, but after I adjusted to being upright, I reached up to switch off a machine I was hooked up to. I snatched the needle from the back of my hand. My gaze followed the trickle of blood that flowed from the thin vein. A tear-shaped droplet dripped to the floor before I cupped a piece of gauze over my hand.

Regina had recited a laundry list of injuries I’d suffered at the hands of who she claimed was her family. Thankfully, my wounds had healed while I was comatose, and I was able to stand and walk on my own.

After the first few steps, hot pain shot up my leg and reminded me of the trauma it had suffered. However, there wasn’t enough pain in the world to stop me from figuring out how to escape or kill whoever it was keeping me down.

Aware that Regina locked the door whenever she left me, I’d been eyeballing anything I could use to pick the lock open. Two pieces of metal from the underside of the bed I slept in were going to have to do.

As I jiggled the metal inside the lock, something told me I’d done this before, but the memories wouldn’t surface. A distinct click sounded, and a smile brightened my face as I gripped the metal tighter between my fingers and turned until the lock disengaged.

Removing the metal, I shoved the pieces into the pockets of the flannel pajama bottoms I had on. My feet were bare, and the button-up, short-sleeve, blue pajama top I wore didn’t match the white striped bottoms, but my state of dress was the last of my worries.

I didn’t know where I was going or how I was getting there, but I couldn’t hide in the closet while the rest of the world went on around me. I wanted nothing more than to rip off the gauze that was wrapped around my head. However, the way Regina had described drilling into my damn skull, the head-wrap might have been the only thing keeping my fucking brains tucked inside where they should be. The damn details she’d given about subdural and intracranial hematomas, cerebral contusions, and sensory deprivation sometimes made me feel like the doctor’s monster.

When I stepped into the open space of the next room, which was considerably larger than the closet I’d been stuffed into, the scent of death assaulted my nose. A strange feeling settled over me. A big metal table with tubes running into the floor, the meat-lockers built into the wall, and machines I didn’t know the names of were neatly displayed throughout the spotless but smelly room. A fucking morgue?

I was living in a morgue! So, the doctor had not been lying about the job her family had assigned her. She was disposing of the bodies they were stacking up, and I was supposed to have been one of those bodies. Who the hell were these people and why did they want me dead? What had I done to them?

I shuffled over to the double metal doors that swung in both directions and found that they were the only entrance and exit from the room. Thankfully, the doors were open. I clumped out of the room and cringed against the pain that made my body jittery. Sweat dotted my face. Droplets inched down my forehead and neck as I shuffled further into the dim hallway.

A brick wall stood to the right of me and in front of me, so I turned in the only direction I could go, careful not to make too much noise. A line of light shined under the crack of the door, the only other door on the hall—Regina’s living space that she’d mentioned. This meant she was probably awake and I needed to move faster. The eerie silence of this place was a living creature that tugged at that sixth sense we often ignored.

With each painful step I took, my body became heavier, but my newly-awakened mind wouldn’t let go of my will to escape. When I reached the end of the hall, I had a choice: elevator or stairs. The elevator was one of those old-fashioned ones with a metal sliding door that was nothing but an alarm system as far as I was concerned. I calculated, due to our ability to hear muffled sounds from the outside that we couldn’t have been but one level underground, so why the elevator?

My body teetered a bit when a stabbing pain shot through my head, drew itself in, and exploded out. Standing in place, I closed my eyes for a few seconds until the pain dwindled. I was determined not to stop and I didn’t care if I had to crawl away from this place. I sat on the steps and inched back and up, taking myself higher and higher until the top of my head thumped the tilted wooden door above me. 

I gripped the metal latch and pushed, but the door barely budged. My trip down the hall must have taken most of my strength. I cracked the door open enough for daylight to enter and blind me. The heat from outside pushed at the coldness of death that had a hold on this space.

“August, are you crazy? They are going to kill you!” Regina barked in an alarmed voice.

She ran up the shaky wooden steps and took a firm hold of me as I struggled to make my way out of the door. When it became obvious to her that I was determined to either die or escape, she stopped struggling with me.

“Okay. Listen please,” she begged. “It’s not just your life at stake if you go out there. My family is going to kill you before they kill me for saving you. I think I know a way we can get out of this place, but it’s going to take time. Please, August, come back.”

My hand dropped away from the latch, but the determination on my face remained even as I drooped from exhaustion. Regina stood in a hunched position with her back to the door as she took hold of the door latch. Her gaze was on mine the entire time, scolding me without words.

“Let me show you something, August.”

When she cracked the door to about twice as wide as I’d been able to, I slid up to the highest step and squinted against the brightness of the sun.

“Look to the left, August. You should see at least two guards, heavily armed with weapons, standing near a gate.”

My head swiveled in the direction she had indicated and like she’d stated, there were two heavily armed guards standing there talking to each other with automatic weapons and backup weapons strap around their waist.

“Turn your head in the opposite direction and look up,” she instructed. A warm dusty gust of wind flew into my eyes, causing me to rub them before I refocused and fixed my gaze on the area Regina had pointed out.

Although I could only see the far corner of it, I was able to figure out that it was an elevated guard tower. My gaze roved, taking in as much of my surroundings as I could. The cellar we lived in was in a separate space from the main house. The elevator opened to a small shed that stood directly to the right of the door we peeked from.

From my vantage point, the cellar sat behind the rear of the main house. A big barn sat at least two hundred or more feet away, and the tip of a smaller shack could be seen over my left shoulder. I noticed that a third guard had joined and was talking to the first two I’d seen. It appeared they were at the side of the main house, but it must have been the area where vehicles gained entrance onto the property.

The world outside, although brighter, wasn’t filled with any more vibrancy than the stuffy space I’d been trapped in.

“Those are only two of the posts you can see from here. There is another building on the other side of the barn. It’s the cookhouse where my cousins, Luis and Lonzo, cook batches of meth.”

She stepped down and waited until I dropped down a few steps before she eased the door closed, my view dwindling as the dimness folded around me. Regina sat next to me on the steps. Our breaths fell in sync and bounced off the walls of the dim, dank cellar as we stared into the darkness.

“If you leave, they will kill you, August. Everything I told you was the truth. You and I are prisoners in this place. I don’t know much about you, but I can tell even without your memory, you’ve never been anyone’s prisoner. All I ask is that you give your body time to heal. You survived a situation that would have easily killed others. Don’t waste the second chance you’ve been given because of male pride or impatience. Also, give me time to figure out how to get us out of here.” 

She shoved her arm under my shoulder and urged me to move when I didn’t reply.

“Don’t you think that I want to get away from here as badly as you do, August?”

I didn’t answer but considered her words as I poured every ounce of my energy into clumping down the steps and dragging my legs that were as wobbly as noodles along the scratchy wooden floor. By the time we made it into the morgue, Regina carried most of my weight, and I was barely conscious. My eyes were fighting to stay in focus.

Drenched in sweat and breathing like I’d run a marathon, I tumbled into the small bed and didn’t much care how I landed. Regina kept my head from striking the bed by placing her hand under my neck.

Once she had my head on the pillow, she reached down and lifted my feet to turn me into the bed.

“Thank you,” I whispered and drew a sad smile from Regina. I attempted to blink back the tiredness that had overtaken me, but it was too strong, so I drifted.

 

Chapter Nine

 

August

 

Darkness had swallowed me, but unlike before, I sensed the tightness around me and the ghost lingering in my head. This time, I found flashes of who I used to be in the darkness. Death, destruction, murder, guns, faces, names, and even love lived in my ripped-apart mind.

Making sense of what flashed in my brain was difficult. I couldn’t put any order to the chaos spooling through my mind. But there was one thing I was certain of. My brain was reconnecting itself to who I used to be, and the picture it painted gave me a hint of why I’d ended up in a basement right under the noses of an enemy who had tortured and almost killed me.

Since it was giving me answers, this was the first time I’d wanted to linger in the dark. Pain was the angry bastard that snapped me awake. Pain didn’t ease me from my limbering state. He slung me out as my head pounded. Bombs exploded in my brain, turning it into mush. Each heartbeat seemed to expand into aching vibrations that coursed through me. My sense of balance was off as I struggled to lift my heavy head. 

My eyes snapped opened to Regina staring down at me with pity on her face. “I’m aware that you’re in pain, August, but the kind of injury you sustained doesn’t leave me many choices as to what I can give you.” 

“Water,” rushed harshly past my dry lips and rattled in my throat, sounding like I’d swallowed an army of frogs.

After getting water into my system, I retook the doctor’s hand since she always seemed to be hanging onto my hand whenever I woke up. I’d wake to her either staring at me or asleep with her hand gripping mine.

What did I look like? Was I disfigured? She’d never looked at me with horror or surprise. It was starting to become abundantly clear that Regina was just as trapped as I was and as desperate to escape. I had to find a way to help her since she’d risked her life to save mine.

She gripped my hand, staring at me like I was something precious. 

“Plan?” I asked. The word sounded normal, so I added more. “What is your plan for breaking out of this place?”

She sat for a moment contemplating what she wanted to say.

“My family…well, my cousin allows me a few moments of occasional freedom. However, I’m not naïve enough to think that I’m not being watched or followed. Every six months, I’m allowed a week of freedom. It’s been over five months since my last reprieve, so if you can be patient enough to hang in here with me, I intend to try and sneak you out when I leave.”

Stress always lingered behind her kind eyes, but when she spoke of escaping, it filled her with tension. Her warm hand tightened around mine.

“The only problem is how to get you into my car. They keep it parked in the barn.”

I’d taken a long hard look at the barn where Regina was saying her car was parked. It was a good distance from the cellar, and the only pathway that would lead us to the barn was in direct line of sight of the guard tower.

As if she knew what I was thinking, she continued.

“There is also a guard who hangs out at the back of the barn. If I can figure out how to get you into the barn without either of us getting shot, we may be able to leave this place together.”

“Map. If you can make me a map of where the guards are posted and where the other buildings are located, I can help.”

Her smile spread wide across her face, revealing rows of gleaming straight white teeth. “I can do that. I can definitely do that,” she expressed with enthusiasm.

The idea that we may have a way out eased a bit of my tension. Regina didn’t know it, but as soon as I could stand without tipping over, I was going out of that door to survey what we were up against whether she thought it was a good idea or not. After seeing bits and pieces of my life, I was certain I was not the guy who laid around waiting to be saved.

“You were talking to someone the other day,” I stated, capturing her gaze. I couldn’t remember if it had been yesterday or the week prior that I’d heard her talking to someone, but I remembered their conversation. “You lied to keep him from coming in here to find me. It was your cousin, wasn’t it? He’s the one who hurts you, right?”

She attempted to hide her grief, but her eyes revealed her truth. “Yes. It was my cousin, Sorio. How do you know that he hurts me?”

“Because of the desperate lie you told about sex toys.”

She cupped her forehead in the palm of her hand and peeked at me from behind her fingers.

“I’m not a good liar, but it worked. Honestly, I would’ve said just about anything to make him leave. He was the one who ordered his men to take you from Florida.”

Based on the flashes of memory I’d gotten, I’d pieced together that I’d likely been from Florida and there was a chance I was just as dangerous as Regina’s cousin.

“Sorio is also the main reason I’m stuck underground working as my family’s glorified undertaker. He hates women and especially me because I refuse to embrace my family’s misguided principles. He is considering having me moved to a different location, which I pray won’t happen before we find a way to leave this place together.”

Thoughts of her cousin had her skin crinkling around her eyes as thin creases etched her forehead. The hatred she harbored for him ran deep, so deep that I didn’t think she would mind if I were to kill him.

“He’s talking about killing two women. He only came down to visit me so he could rub it in my face. I’ve taken beatings at his hands because I refused to burn women for him. He always wants the ashes of the females, and I’m sure he only wants them for some sick and disrespectful reason.”

“What about the other ashes?” I asked, curious as to why anyone would want human ashes. “Why do you bring them to your cousin? His name is Luis, right?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You could hear me when I was talking to you all those times, couldn’t you?”

My lips twitched into a smile. When I was in the darkness, some of the conversations she’d shared stayed with me.

“Yes, some I remember. When I was out, I could hear and sometimes smell, but nothing else worked. I remember you talking about the ashes and bringing them to your cousin. Why keep the ashes of the people they kill?”

She seemed to be having a difficult time gathering her words. What the hell were they doing with people’s ashes? The chirp and hiss of the machines filled in the silence as she gathered her thoughts. The thin wooden legs of the stool she was perched atop creaked as she shifted uncomfortably.

“My family deals mainly in meth,” she started, her face pinched in distaste. “My cousin, Luis is my family’s main chemist. Like me, he’s earned a medical degree. However, he is happy to create and cook up the most lethal and addictive batches of meth to hit the market. He takes pride in it, giving his batches names like Man Slaughter, Murder One, and Homicide. The names alone have addicts waiting in line to try it.”

Regina was unaware of how tightly she was squeezing my hand. Her worried expression increased in its intensity as her haunted gaze remained locked on mine.

“The key ingredient in my family’s meth supply is human ash. As a doctor, I can’t see—”

“Wait!”  I raised my free hand to stop her before I lifted my head higher to glance into her eyes that had started to sparkle with tears.

“You’re telling me that they have you down here turning their murder victims into ashes so that they can add them to their meth supply, drugs that are more than likely being distributed across this country.”

She nodded her head as a tear slipped down her cheek. “My family is known as DG6, and their meth is not only being distributed across this country, but it’s exported to four other countries. People have no idea what they are smoking. I don’t want to be a part of this madness. Medically, adding the human element to the drug should have no relevance to the addicts high, but the drugs speak for themselves. People will do anything for it, and other chemists are out there, every day trying to duplicate my cousin’s formula.”

Her family was doing the unthinkable, but she was the one embarrassed.

“I don’t want to disrespect the dead like this, but I’m only one woman, and my fight against my family has been useless so far.”

My brain hadn’t fully processed the notion that these crazy-ass people were putting human ashes in their meth supply. They had junkies smoking people. The shit boggled my mind, which was already out of sorts.

 

Chapter Ten

 

August

 

A week later and a somewhat put-together plan had me as positive as Regina had started to appear. Each time I closed my eyes, more of my memories returned. Every time Regina left me alone for any long period of time, I broke out of my closet and up the steps I went. Three days ago, I’d made it about ten feet out the door before I was almost caught by a roving guard. However, I did get far enough out in the open to spot three more guarded posts.

In my dreams, I’d seen glimpses of me on this farm and the escape attempt by my friends that had gone wrong. Those flashes of memories along with my spying had helped me get a better understanding of why the doctor and I were trapped in the cellar and why it was going to be difficult to hike to her car that was supposedly parked inside the barn.

I waited until nightfall this time so that I could travel farther than I had the last time. Once I was sure Regina was in the shower or sleeping, I crept through the door, hunched low and hugging the rough brick wall opposite her door.

The door of the cellar opened to the back of the main house, which kept me hidden from the guards whose voices sounded in the background. I eased the door open and peeked, ensuring the coast was clear before I crept out into the dimmed atmosphere. The sun had set, but a few orange sparks of day in the distance were hanging on, fighting to keep the night at bay. A few stars glistened overhead, providing a spark of energy to this bleak plot of land.

My gaze landed on the area where the guards stood at the gate as I crawled across the short expanse that would take me to the back of the house. Raised voices stopped me in my tracks as my neck swiveled in the men’s direction. None came my way, nor had any guns been aimed at me, so I continued, sliding along the grassy ground on my stomach.

Once I reached the back of the house, the structure kept me from the line of sight of the noisy guards who continued to carry on their lively conversation. I rose, putting my back to the house and slid along its scratchy surface in the opposite direction of the men. Chips of paint pricked my back, flaked off the wall, and sprinkled to the ground. 

My bare feet flirted with blades of grass as I peeked around the bend of the house for a full view of the tower that had two armed guards posted inside. The barn was farther than I’d initially assumed it was, and there was nothing that would keep me from the view of the guards in the tower or those on the ground.

Periodically, I’d see the men pacing in random areas, but they never lingered in one spot for long. Two were posted on the far side of the barn, likely guarding the building I couldn’t see, which was the meth lab Regina had talked about. 

My head darted in both directions before I reclaimed a position on the ground. My stomach raked the bristling grass as I inched my way into the dark opening. At any moment, I could have been spotted, nothing more than a human target. Approaching footsteps ahead of me sent me scrambling, rolling like an alligator to make it back to the tall frame of the house.

“Who the fuck are you?” a deep voice asked gruffly. The darkly shrouded figure peered at me, fighting the darkness to see me better as he inched closer with his weapon aimed at my head.

 

***

 

The metal struck his skull and the fleshy clank sounded off loud enough to alert the other guards. Regina had sneaked up on the man, surprising him as much as she’d surprised me. She’d struck him over the head with a large iron pipe and had somehow caught him before he fell on top of me.

With her hands under the man’s shoulders, she dragged him out of the opening and to the back of the house. I followed her because the doctor was certifying herself as being my guardian angel. She propped the door to the cellar open with the same pipe she’d used as her weapon and dragged the man down the steps. The man’s dangling legs thumped with every step she took down. Once I’d secured the door and caught up with them, I took the man from Regina and followed as she led the way to the morgue. 

No words were exchanged between us, but I could tell she was pissed by her pinched lips, the stormy fury in her gaze, her quick, hard movements, and heavy breathing. I stood to the inside of the double doors with my forearms tucked under the limp man’s shoulders.

Regina walked around us and locked the doors. From the corner of my eyes, I could see that she’d kept her hand against the doors as she breathed in her frustration. This incident could very well have messed up our plan for escape.

“We are going to have to kill him,” she gruffly concluded with her head tilted to the door.

It was my fault that this man was going to die, but I wasn’t the least bit sorry about it. I wished there was a way we could lure them all into this cellar so we could keep killing them. However, one missing man versus a dozen was easier to explain.

“Once they discover him missing, they are going search this farm for him.” She remained at the door, irritation almost palpable as her voice bounced off the wall. “I’m going to have to find you a better hiding place,” she stated, finally turning around to face me.

She walked past me as I dropped the man on the floor and relieved him of his knife and gun. I observed the gun in my hand, noticing it felt familiar. The weight and the smooth metal pressed into my palm as my finger caressed the trigger.

My gaze left the weapon to follow Regina’s movements as she went to the wall and pushed a few buttons that ignited flames inside the small glass door. I stepped closer for a better view, realizing it was the incinerator and how she was able to produce the ashes her family used in their meth.

Next, she pulled a pair of thin plastic gloves from a box sitting on a table filled with death instruments and took her time putting them on. She walked around the autopsy table where she gripped and pushed a skinny metal table in front of her, stopping at the man she’d knocked out. Blood gushed from the hole she’d opened in the man’s head, wetting his hair before sliding across his head and hitting the floor.

Regina folded the small table so that it collapsed and sat low to the floor. I assisted by lifting and rolling the man onto the table. I assumed she’d wheel the man over to the flames, but she took her time, undressing him. What did it matter if he had clothes on or not? The flames were going to turn it all into a pile of ash, right?

She stacked the clothes and his boots into a neat pile near the foot of the autopsy table and straightened the man on the smaller table, aligning him so that he was flat on his back. She went about her task, not rushing her process.

I could tell that she’d handled many bodies. She knew exactly where to grip and tug to maneuver and turn the man who probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds. Once she had the man aligned the way she wanted him, she lifted the small table as one would an ironing board until it rose to her chest level.

She wheeled the man towards the flames before placing her hands inside a pair of thick mittens. Her hands were always so soft and warm that it was hard to believe she constantly used them to handle the dead. She went about her task as I stood in place, observing. Once she had the man and table aligned with the incinerator’s entrance, she opened the small glass door.

The heat from the flames reached across the room and licked at my skin. Its bright dancing flames beckoned me closer, and I listened, taking a few steps in its direction.

This would have been my fate if she hadn’t saved me. It was hard to think that my remains would’ve ended up being ingested into a meth addict’s bloodstream. The thought of such a fate gave me a chill despite the heat of the flames that were starting to envelop me. 

The doctor shoved the table closer to the flames, lifted and dropped it so that the lip of the table overlapped the edge of the fiery opening. She took a firm grip on the man’s feet and pushed him, head first into the flames. The moment the heat stroked him, he jerked awake and fought his fiery death. His pleading screams vibrated across the room as I watched with unblinking eyes.

While keeping a wavering grip on one of the man’s thrashing feet, Regina reached up and pushed a red button. A conveyer roared to life and pulled the man farther in, thrashing and yelling into the flames.

She slammed the door behind his flailing limbs and shrieking voice. I continued to stare at his wild thrashing inside the incinerator. His feet kicked against the glass door, echoing throughout the room as his screams were being swallowed by the power of the flames. His cries dwindled with every second that passed.

I expected to see tears in Regina’s eyes when she turned to face me, but her defiant gaze, stiff posture, and her head, which she held high, revealed the irritation she continued to harbor towards me. Regina’s actions had dissolved any doubts I had left about where her loyalties lay. She wanted to be away from her family and she didn’t care if she had to kill to make her escape.

Her gaze remained on me, more specifically, my hands, which were holding the gun and the knife that previously belonged to the now deceased guard.

“August, we are going to have to trust each other. We only have eight more days to wait, and we could ride right out of this hellhole. I can’t have you trying to escape every time I turn my back.”

I protested, “I wasn’t trying to escape. I was trying to search for a way to get to the barn and to see if your car is even there.”

She pursed her lips. “The car is there, August.”

I could tell by the way she said my name that she was still upset with me. I reached up and massaged my temples, easing the headache that I’d been ignoring. Her voice drew my attention back to her.

“I went to the cookhouse yesterday, pretending I was lonely enough to chat with my cousin. On my way back, I checked the barn and had a gun aimed at my head for snooping. My car is there. And before you ask, I know it runs because the guards sometimes use it to go back and forth into town.”

All I could think about was killing these people, and it was clouding my judgment. “If we do this my way, it will end in death. So, we need to figure out how I’m going to get from here to the barn without being spotted,” I stated honestly.

Regina smiled at me before she cast her gaze down to the pile of clothes she’d left stacked at the foot of the autopsy table. “That’s a start. Those will help you blend in and at least look like one of them.” 

A smile bent the corners of my lips. I was starting to like Doctor Regina and her way of thinking. She was my twisted savior.

She shrugged. “I don’t know you, August, but at the same time, I do. Based on your determination, I know you’re willing to die to get out of here.”

She pointed her finger between us as she placed a lot of stress on the word we. “We will find a way out of this place together. Have some faith, August. We are leaving this place together, and we are going to be alive when we do it.”

I knew Regina had sparks of fire in her soul to go up against a family like hers, but I’d just started to grasp how much. I pointed at what was left of the man burning in the incinerator. “They are going to see the smoke coming from that incinerator.”

She shrugged, “They are, but if they ask, I’ll tell them that there were some clothes that I’d forgotten to deal with from the bodies they had me burn a few days ago.”

She glanced back at the incinerator.

“I’ll flush the ashes once he’s done, but I’m going to have to hide that gun, knife, and you, if they come searching for him. One of the guards has run off before, so they shouldn’t have a reason to come searching for him down here. But we need to be prepared in case they do.”

A mischievous smile spread across her face, revealing a bit more of the fire hidden below her prim and proper exterior. “It’s good that we have weapons now. I don’t like guns, but I get the feeling you haven’t forgotten how to use them.”

 

***

 

 I tossed and turned as I heard myself yelling out, but the dream refused to loosen its grip on me.

“August, wake up,” a comforting voice called, reaching past the chaos inside my head. The slow stroke of a soft hand grazed my bearded jaw, accompanied by a soothing tone. “You’re right here with me.”

Her delicate tone eased me from my crushing distress. My eyes opened to the view of Regina standing over me, her face covered in concern as her fingers traced along my forehead.

“I’m right here, August. You’re okay,” she said repeatedly until I settled down. Only when the last knots of tension left me, did Regina take a seat on the stool next to my bed. She seemed almost afraid to let my hand go.

“Who’s Megan?” she asked with a hint of a smile on her lips.

My memories weren’t easing back into my head—they were returning with a vengeance. I was reluctant to reveal the news to Regina. My life had been a hellish anarchy of blood and bodies and based on some of my memories, I don’t think I minded it.

A twinge of guilt wiggled its way into my fragmented thoughts as I observed the way Regina took care of me. I owed the woman my life, so she deserved to know who she was cozying up to.

“Megan was…” Fucking tell her! My mind screamed. She burned a fucking man alive because you couldn’t sit still. “I think Megan is the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

Regina smiled at me before squeezing my hand. “I figured that much. The one constant of all the yelling you’ve done in your dreams is calling out for Megan. Are your memories coming back?”

“Yes,” I answered honestly. “And I have to be straight with you. I’m not a nice person, Regina. I’ve killed and tortured people, and the worst part about it is I’m not sorry about it. I’m a fucking monster.”

Her grip tightened around my hand. “August, you watched as I burned a man alive. I’ve lost count of the number of bodies I’ve turned into the key ingredient for my family’s meth supply. And that first guard that went missing, he’d stumbled into this cellar drunk and tried to force himself on me. He ended up in the fire, August. You’re no more of a monster than I am.”

She appeared to be disappointed in herself, but I was proud of her. To deal with a group like her family, she needed the fight she had inside her.

She tilted her head slightly, her curiosity apparent. “Do you remember your name?”

I grinned at her. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

Her eyes widened and reflected her question as one of her brows knitted into a deep V over her forehead.

“What is it? What is it?” she questioned, shaking my hand to get the answer from me faster.

“August. My fucking real name is August.”

Surprise dropped from her gaze and turned into a mixture of disbelief or disappointment or both. She likely assumed I was messing with her.

“You’re serious,” she said questioningly. “So, did your family name you after your club or something?”

“I think so. I still can’t place everything, but I know that I don’t go by August. Everyone calls me by my middle name, Aaron.”

She wrinkled her nose up. “Aaron,” she voiced, testing the name out. “You don’t look like an Aaron. I’d like to keep calling you August. It seems to suit you better.”

“That’s because you don’t know me, Regina. But, if you like calling me August, that’s fine with me.”

Curiosity oozed through her pores. Regina wanted to know it all, every sordid detail of my crazy-ass life and if she could sit through the first hour, she may be able to live in my world when we left this damn farm.

 

Chapter Eleven

 

August

 

This day couldn’t have gotten here faster. If I could siphon the amount of anxious energy in my body, I probably could beat out Red Bull in the energy drink market.

The guards had entered the morgue once, searching for their missing comrade. Regina had hidden me, the gun, and knife inside her bedroom. Of all the places she could have placed me. I stood inside her shower with the gun cocked and ready to blow a hole in someone’s head.

At first, I thought she’d lost her mind, but the men never even crossed the threshold of her bathroom door, especially after she’d purposely sat a big box of tampons near the doorway and had singles of tampons and panty liners sitting out in the open.

Now, I sat impatiently in my closeted room, awaiting her return. The sound of her light steps registered along with the creaking of the walls surrounding me. When the door sprang open and Regina stumbled into the closet in tears, I tensed and curled my fingers into my palms. Were we going to be forced to shoot our way out of this damn cellar? I tugged her in and folded her into my arms, unsure of the reason, but hating to see her crying and upset.

“What’s wrong? Who the fuck am I going to have to kill?” I asked her before she backed out of my arms laughing as tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

“After some of the things you revealed about your life, I know you would be glad to kill that asshole cousin of mine.”

A laugh threatened to escape at hearing Regina curse, but her distressed state had caused me to worry. I couldn’t remember the asshole’s face, but the seething hatred Regina carried for her cousin, Sorio, wasn’t hard to miss.

“He made me get on my knees and beg him for my leave time.”

I leaned my head down to glance clearly into her eyes. “He’s going to die, Regina. He’s going to die in a bad way.”

She shivered while gazing at me through bloodshot eyes, tiny droplets of water still clinging to her long lashes. She’d picked up on the hints of darkness blazing behind my gaze.

“I believe you,” she whispered, her tone hushed like we were sharing a secret.

My declaration of her cousin’s fate seemed to have lifted her somber mood. It was either that or she was starting to know me well enough to realize I meant what I’d said.

“You ready to do this,” I asked her as I reached up and swiped a tear from her cheek. She nodded her head as she took in the dead guard’s attire I would later dress in. The man’s clothes rested at the foot of my bed as I gripped his gun, itching to put a bullet in somebody.

The bullet that had struck me in the head had put a tight grip on my fucking balls, but that shit was done, and I was starting to feel like my old self again. Regina had no idea I was crazy enough to attempt to kill every person on this farm, but I respected her enough not to risk her life to satisfy my twisted ego.

 

***

 

At three in the morning, we crept from the cellar door, into the stilted darkness. The unmoving air around us had me breathing harder. The cry of insects and the call of animals in the distant woods sounded hollow. The stars twinkled brightly overhead, despite the gloominess that encompassed the farm.

For the first time in five and a half months, Regina and I had decided to split up. She insisted on walking me out to the edge of the house. My goal was to make it to the barn and hang out until she was released to take her leave at daybreak. The plan was a good one, but the hardest part was getting to the barn without me attempting to kill anyone or without anyone killing me in the process. 

“Stay close, Regina,” I whispered as we inched along the back of the house, creeping towards the bend that opened to the wide, dark space before us. The usual guards who stood at the front gate weren’t at their post, but it didn’t mean they weren’t roving.

Turning on my heels, I faced Regina. “This is it. I’ll see you later.” She inclined her head once and released a shaky, “Okay.” I didn’t have to see her face clearly to know she was crying. I gripped her shoulders in a tight hold, making her glance up at me. “I will see you again, Regina,” I said, my words firm and confident.

Dropping her shoulders, I turned and stepped out into the opening, knowing the tower guards could see me if they were watching. I hiked along the wide, dark expanse at a brisk pace, thinking maybe they weren’t paying attention since I’d made it halfway across.

My feet stalled, scraping against a few pebbles that rested among the thinned grass. When I allowed myself to believe I was home free, a bright light was flipped on, shining from the elevated tower, blinding and stopping me in my sneaky tracks.

Fuck! The shadowy wall of the barn called me, but I’d been caught. I was about a hundred and fifty feet short of my destination, but it may as well have been a damn mile. I glanced back at Regina, who hadn’t taken her ass back into the cellar like she was supposed to. 

“Don’t,” I mouthed back at her, stopping her from revealing herself when she started to inch forward. The spotlight lit me up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but I hadn’t been shot yet. I turned slowly to face my destination and nonchalantly flashed a two-finger wave towards the tower like I’d observed the men do.

I continued towards the barn, knowing each step was possibly my last. The electricity of my determination powered my forward movement as I awaited the blazing impact of the bullet strike. Where would it hit this time? My chest? My back?

My shadow danced at the side of me as I gripped the gun I had shoved down the front of my pants. The sight of the barn demanded my gaze as my dangerous steps closed the distance. Eighty feet, sixty feet—only fifty feet remaining on my trek. Why hadn’t they shot me yet? Was the dead man’s attire I wore enough to have fooled them? 

When the bright light was flipped off, the tension that had coiled in my shoulders eased, and I loosened my grip on the pistol. The shit had worked. Now at the side of the barn, I placed my back to the wall and scanned my dark surroundings before I moved and prepared to turn around the bend, not knowing what awaited me. A quick peek around the bend revealed a clear moonlit path to the barn’s big shabby wooden doors.

By the dim light of the moon, I discovered that the tall doors were cracked and not locked. Voices carried someplace in the dark. Leaning outward and away from the wall, I investigated and spotted the edge of a smaller building. The meth lab. I would have liked to engage the guards, but I couldn’t. I’d be risking Regina’s life, and I’d already done that enough times.

When my hands touched the barn doors that hung lopsided on their hinges, the loud creaking and whining they produced caused my head to dart back and forth. As soon as I had enough room to squeeze my way past the door, I slipped in. Once inside, I didn’t move immediately as I allowed my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

My gaze skimmed my dark surroundings, searching for Regina’s car. Although my mind hadn’t returned a hundred percent, bits and pieces of memories of me being tortured inside this place started to filter in. My head swiveled in the direction of the stall they’d tied me in. Being inside this barn was sharpening my memory about what had happened.

The loud creaking of the doors sounded, alerting me that someone was coming in. I tiptoed over to an old tractor in the corner and ducked behind it. One of the guards had entered the barn, and I didn’t know if it was one from the tower or one from the meth lab. It didn’t matter because I couldn’t engage either of them. Any incident now could prevent Regina from leaving this place.

The man crept through the dark barn. His automatic weapon was aimed and pulled tight into his shoulder as he made sharp, precise turns. A flashlight was affixed to the weapon lighting his path.

“Hey, Sawyer, is that you? You don’t have to hide. We thought you had taken off. The tower radioed that they thought they saw you. We spent a day searching for you.”

They were assuming that I was the man who had disappeared, —clueless that Regina had burned his ass alive. The way the man searched and had his weapon at the ready, Sawyer was no longer their friend. He’d been placed on DG6’s hit list. 

The man left the barn, but I wasn’t naïve. If Sawyer was on their hit list, the guard was headed back to report to the others. I had to find Regina’s car. She’d explained to me in detail where it was parked. I stepped out from behind the tractor and headed deeper into the darkness.

Silky spider webs clung to my face, but I brushed them aside and forced my eyes to keep searching. Light quick steps took me across the dirt floor of the barn. A large shadowy image came into focus deeper inside, near the center of the barn. It sat next to a large hay baling machine and tall stacks of what I assumed to be hay. I rushed towards the shape, which revealed a dark-color, four-door sedan.

Hoping the car wasn’t locked, I lifted the door handle with ease. When the back door popped open, I climbed in and reached over the front seat to engage the automatic locks. If the men came back, they’d likely check the car, so I searched until I found the latch that released the top of the back seat. It took swift maneuvering, but I squeezed through the tight hole that sent me into the trunk. 

The air quality was stuffy inside the constricting space of the trunk, but it was tolerable given that I’d survived over four months inside my own head without the use of all my senses. Being inside the dark, stuffy trunk reminded me of that place, except this time I could feel. The hard press of the tire iron was in my back, and a prickly metal object clawed into my shoulder. My head pounded as a massive headache caused me to squeeze my eyes shut.

The sound was slight inside the trunk, but the groan of that barn door alerted me that the guard was back. The shuffle of feet scraping the hard-packed dirt of the barn floor grew louder as the steps grew closer to the car. Not so hushed chattering indicated that there were two this time. The car vibrated when the door handle was jiggled.

“Shit,” one of the men cursed. “Are you sure it was Sawyer?”

“I don’t know, but now, we have to stay in here until we find him or figure out that it wasn’t him.”

Fuck, I shouted inside my aching head. Now, I had company who wanted to hang out. If they weren’t going to search the car, it meant that Regina’s plan was still in play. Otherwise, I’d have to kill them and use the trunk as a body storage.

There was only one thing that eased my aches and pains when they were at their worst—thoughts of Megan. At first, it was her presence that kept me company in the darkness, but when my mind gave me the memory of her beautiful face, I considered it a gift.

When more memories of her returned, I couldn’t help thinking of her fresh peachy scent. I could see myself pushing my nose into her soft curly hair, kissing her soft plush lips, or caressing her silky soft body. I could sense the truth in her words when she’d stared into my eyes and told me she loved me.

Her images eased my headache and the stress of worrying about Regina. Was that asshole cousin of hers going to let her go? Was I going to have to kill everyone on this damn farm to get us both out of here?

Personally, I preferred the idea of killing every one of these bastards, but Regina had talked me out of it, insisting I’d get myself killed. She was probably right. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any regard for my life. I just couldn’t stomach the idea of not getting those bastards back for keeping her captive and for damn near killing me. Think of Megan, I reminded myself when my anger started to build.

It only seemed like moments later, but specks of light had started to sprinkle into the trunk. I’d gotten lost in my thoughts and must have dozed off. After listening for a movement, it appeared that I no longer had company.

 

Chapter Twelve

 

Regina

 

I’d paced a hole in my bedroom floor. My nails were going through hell as I gnawed them down to the quick. After August made it to the barn, I’d been able to breathe again. The blast from guns hadn’t sounded, so the guards must have mistaken him for one of their own.

Now, I had to face Sorio. I was more nervous about facing my cousin than I had been when the bright light was shined on August. Was Sorio going to give me my car keys? Was he going to go back on his word and not let me go?

The numbers on my digital clock changed from minute to minute. The seconds ticked by as I struggled with a bad case of nerves. My heart beat anxiously inside my chest as a cold sweat dampened my forehead. As soon as 8:00 a.m. flashed brightly in my face, I gripped the handle of my small carry bag and headed for the main house.

When I entered the living room, Sorio’s arrogant face met me first. Our eyes connected, and it took every muscle in my body to move me forward. Had he been sitting there waiting to torture me?

Sorio’s ten-year-old son, Edgar, was sitting in front of the television playing a video game as Sorio sat in the open dining area cleaning one of his guns atop the glass table.

He had seriously messed his son up. He’d taught the child to hate women, and the boy had called me so many bitches that I’d stopped acknowledging him altogether. His mother couldn’t handle him, so Sorio took him from time to time and exposed him to the vicious life he led. The kid was going to need serious therapy if he ever got away from his father.

My feet scraped the hardwood floor as I inched my way towards Sorio, gripping my bag in front of me as I eyed the gun in pieces in front of him.

Standing at the end of the table opposite Sorio, I waited like a dog with an abusive master. Sadly, I was willing to beg desperately for my car keys. Sorio continued to scrub the part of the gun he’d been cleaning, but his wicked gaze tormented me the entire time.

His sinister smile broadened, spanning from ear to ear, and all I could think about was tossing him into the incinerator and watching as he clawed and screamed for me to have mercy. The dreadful thought eased my frazzled nerves.

“Sorio, I came to see if I can get my keys, so I can take my leave?” my voice cracked as I was unable to hide my fear. His evil glare shot up and down my body before he sucked his teeth at me. I stood cemented in place, frozen in fear as I screamed internally for my brain to stop me from shaking. 

He pointed at the seat next to him using the metal part of the gun that had the trigger attached.

“Come here and sit next to me, Regina,” he commanded.

The razor-sharp teeth of my nerves tore into me again. The idea of going anywhere near him stole the smidgen of relief I’d struggled so hard to grasp. I forced my body to move closer to him as my legs threatened to buckle under my mechanical movements.

My gaze landed on his smudged hand as he reached around the table and pushed the chair out for me. Taking the seat, I didn’t scoot it closer. My grip tightened on my bag in my lap. I held it firmly against my chest as I forced my gaze up to my cousin’s.

“I’m going to let you go, Regina.”

A flood of relief filled me, but I suppressed my excitement since Sorio’s gaze fell like shards of glass over my body. 

“But,” he said, making my breath catch. His lips curled, baring his teeth as his gaze filled with chill-inducing evil. He glanced down at the expensive watch on his arm. “You have your black ass back here at eight o’clock sharp next Saturday morning.”

He reached around the table leg and gripped my thigh so tight that I knew I’d see his handprint there later. A tear slipped from my eye before I could stop it as I swallowed my yelp of pain.

“You know what’s going to fucking happen if I have to come searching for you, right?”

More tears slipped from my eyes as my bottom lip trembled. I nodded my head in the affirmative to his question. El Diablo had nothing on my cousin because he was the true devil. The amount of evil that resided inside him didn’t belong on earth.

He slipped my car keys from his pocket and slammed them down on the table in front of me. I jumped at his alarming action, so afraid that the trembles had taken over.

He raised his hand from the keys as evil bliss flashed in his gaze. A teasing smile surfaced before his snake-like tongue darted cross his lips. The sight of him made my skin crawl, and I was sure boils had popped up all over my body.

“Get the fuck away from me, Regina, before I change my mind,” he barked, finally releasing my thigh.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I snatched up my keys and ran for the front door. The guards knew the deal. They knew that if my cousin had given me the keys to my car that I was free to take my leave. When I pushed the front door open, the voice of the devil snatched at my back.

“Regina!” he called in a skin-peeling tone.

My feet came to a clunky stop at the edge of the door, my body stiffened with fear. The relief I’d felt flowed out of me, spilling to the floor before burning in the devil’s flames.

“Yes,” I answered afraid to glance back at him.

“Don’t make me look for you. I won’t be as nice as I was the last time.”

“I won’t,” I answered, knowing that if I made it off this farm with August, I was going to do whatever it would take to make sure I’d never return.

I shoved the door open and forced my legs to carry me faster. Before I took the steps down into the yard, I heard Sorio telling his son, “Now, that’s how you’re supposed to train a bitch.”

In my haste to get to the barn, I tripped over my own feet and almost fell twice, but it didn’t slow my pace. One of the guards called out in a teasing tone, “Have fun, Regina,” but I didn’t acknowledge the man. My mind was on one track, getting to my car, finding August, and getting the hell off this farm.

I shoved the noisy barn doors open and ran to my car. Snatching at the handle and finding the doors locked, I quickly disengaged them with one click from my key fob. I climbed into the driver’s seat and slung my bag over into the empty passenger’s seat.

“August,” I called out, hoping he’d gotten into the car. “August,” I called more loudly, turning to search the back of the car. I opened my door to get out to go and search for August, but one of the guards entered the barn and stopped me in my tracks.

“Boss man’s orders. He wants me to check your car before letting you leave. So, open the doors and trunk.”

Pressing the button on my key fob, I popped the door locks and the trunk. When the trunk didn’t spring open, I clicked the button a few more times. The guard stood in place as I walked around my car opening doors. When I pulled at the trunk, it would not budge.

“I can’t get the trunk open. I think it’s stuck.”

The man pursed his lips as he stepped closer to my car. I backed away from the trunk and allowed him to do his job, but all I could think about was finding August. We were so close to leaving this place.

The guard took his time peeking into every door. When he reached the trunk and couldn’t open it, he glanced back at me before he tightened his grip and poured more strength into prying it open. His plan worked, but when the trunk popped open, August jumped out, startling me and surprising the hell out of the guard.

August sent a boot to the man’s chin, snapping his head up before he staggered back. The man recovered enough to go for his holstered weapon, but August had climbed fully out of the trunk. His boot came down hard, connecting with the weapon and knocking it from the guard’s hand. The man attempted to go for the larger weapon that he had slung across his back, but August tackled him.

The two struggled for a moment, as loud heaves and grunts filled the barn. August quickly gained the upper hand by wrestling the man into a tight chokehold. I stood, stupefied by the scene and hoping that none of the other guards entered the barn. A gunshot at this point would not only derail our plan for escape, but Sorio would ensure that I never saw the light of day again.

The man clawed at August’s arms as fear filled his wide eyes. He was struggling for release and dirt was kicked up from the heels of his feet that smacked the ground. For the briefest moment, the man’s gaze met mine, as he silently pleaded for my help.

I stood there, frozen in place, not even sure if what I was seeing was real. When the man stopped fighting, and he started to go limp, August pulled the knife of the guard I’d burned alive and plunged it into the man’s chest. The plunging impact of the knife slicing though flesh and bone took the last of my breath away. The knife had gone into the man, ripping the khaki material of his long-sleeve top.

August had planted his knee in the man’s face, over his wide mouth muffling his tortured cries. The knife had clearly nicked his heart due to the large amount of blood bubbling under his shirt and wetting it like a thick flow of dark red paint.

“What?” That was the only word I could force out through exhaustion before August shook his head, telling me to be quiet as he continued twisting the knife into the man’s chest.

He held his deadly position as the man continued to shake and convulse, fighting death to stay alive.

August gestured for me to step closer.

“Why did you kill him?” I whispered, glaring at the man’s arm and leg as they twitched robotically. His eyes were wide open and frozen in fear as they seemingly stared up at me.

“We leave him here, and he tells everyone what happened, and they will be right on our asses. We take him with us, and it keeps us on plan.”

August yanked the knife from the man’s quivering chest as a squirt of blood shot out and splattered onto the ground through the hole the knife had left in the shirt. After wiping the bloody blade on the man’s pants leg, August shoved it back into the sheath on his hip.

August proceeded with disarming the man. When he handed me the man’s hand gun, I stood staring at the gun as if it were a disgusting object I didn’t want to touch. “I don’t like guns. I’ve never shot one.”

“Take it Regina. Put it under the seat where you can reach it. You aim and squeeze the trigger. The safety is not on.”

Instead of gripping the gun like I’d seen August and the guards do, I pinched it between my fingers, more afraid of it than I was afraid of the men that used them.

While the man continued to shiver, August lifted him and threw him into the trunk like a heavy bag of trash. The hard thump of the man’s body signified his finality. August kicked dirt over the blood that had spilled on the ground as I struggled to comprehend what I’d witnessed.

He had given me fair warning about who he was, but it was now that I’d gotten my first glimpse of the real August. When he started to climb into the trunk with the dead man, I leaned closer, questioning him in a loud whisper.

“August, what are you doing?” My eyes darted back and forth between him and the body.

“If they check the car again, I’d rather surprise them, than them surprise me.”

I simply stared as he climbed into the trunk and started to pull it down. Right before he closed it all the way, he glanced up and winked with a huge smile on his face. “Let’s go, Regina, and try to act natural.”

How was I supposed to act naturally with a dead body and fugitive in the trunk? Had I made a deal with a devil worse than my cousin? I carefully placed the gun on the top of my car before I ran to the barn doors and propped them open. Walking back to my car at a quick pace, I prayed, “God, please let me leave this place and never return.”

The dead guard in the trunk with August had closed each of my doors as he searched my car, so I snatched the driver’s side door open and hopped in. Before I closed myself inside, I realized I’d left the gun sitting on the top of the car.

My hand hovered over the gun for a moment as I was unsure of how to pick it up. I picked it up by the pistol grip and leaned into my car to place it under the seat like August suggested. Finally, I climbed in and pushed my car to a quick start. I drove towards the light shining into the barn through the large opening. Freedom was within my grasp, and I was desperate enough to do anything to get it.

When my car crossed the threshold of the barn and rolled into the full light of day, panic shot tremors through my already nervous body. All eyes were on me. The guards in the tower, the guards who stood outside the cookhouse, and even the guard who hung out behind the barn was walking towards my moving car, gawking at me. 

The profiles of the front gate guards grew closer as I fought to keep my trembling foot from smashing the gas too hard. My blood pressure spiked a few notches as one started to slide the gate open to allow me to pass.

When the edge of the front of my car crept past the gate, the guard who’d opened the gate approached signaling for me to roll my window down.

“Jamie was supposed to check your car, but he never radioed that he checked it.”

That’s because Jamie is in hell trying to convince the devil not to eat the rest of his worthless soul.

The forced smile on my face started to fade. “He checked it already,” I stated. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“Pop the trunk, I need to do a check,” the man said as he placed his hand on my car gripping the area between the window and inside door paneling.

I couldn’t let this man check my car. August and I were so close to freedom, I could taste it. The gun under my seat popped into my mind. My grip tightened around the stirring wheel as the man stood there waiting for me to open the trunk.

“You know what, I’m sick of you all treating me like I’m some criminal mastermind. I just spent six months in a cellar, cooking dead bodies. I’m on my time now, and I refuse to let you waste it conducting worthless searches.”

I shoved the man’s hand off my car and slammed my foot down on the accelerator, scratching up gravel and leaving a trail of dust behind. My rearview mirror reflected the man standing there laughing.

What?

My unusual behavior must have surprised him, and instead of him coming after me, he simply stood there laughing. Maybe being mean was the only language those sorts of people understood. It didn’t matter anymore because my goal now was to get as far away from this farm as possible and to lose whomever my cousin was going to have spying on me.

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

August

 

Regina had bigger balls than I’d given her credit for. Standing up for herself had paid off, and the guard had laughed after she’d demanded he get away from her car.

The stiff next to me wasn’t stinking yet, but the remnants of his death stench had started to creep out under the heat of the sun. I waited for about an hour before I shoved him out of my way and clicked the button that allowed me to squeeze into Regina’s back seat. 

“Don’t look back,” I instructed her. “Use the rearview mirror. Someone like your cousin probably has someone following you, and I’m sure he has a tracker someplace on this car.”

She didn’t say anything, only glanced at me as I worked my way into the back seat before lying across it, stretching my stiff back.

“Regina, head towards El Paso. It’s a long stretch, but it will get us closer to where we need to be.”

Although I couldn’t see her eyes, I sensed her staring into the rearview mirror.

“I thought you were from Florida? Don’t you want to go back home?”

“No. No one knows I’m alive, Regina. I want to keep it that way for a little while. I have family in California and believe me; he can help us better than my family in Florida. And, he also has Megan.”

“Oh,” Regina said. “Are you sure your family is going to help me too? Lord knows I don’t want to be, but I’m a Dominquez. How would you even introduce me?”

Reaching over the seat, I gripped her shoulder to reassure her. “You saved my life more than once, Regina. If you have any idea the kind of shit I’ve pulled with my family over Megan, you’d know why I know they’ll help you. Trust me. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you away from that farm, even if I have to blow it up.”

“Thank you, August. I’d rather die than go back there.”

“Good. That’s the kind of attitude you’re going to have to maintain if you plan to fight for your freedom. If you don’t accept the fact that you could die fighting for your life, you’re fooling yourself. As crazy as it sounds, if you’re willing to die for something you want, it makes you stronger.”

Her light chuckle sounded. “I get it, August.”

 

***

 

Regina

 

We’d been traveling nonstop for hours, and the body in the trunk had started to make its presence known. August never complained about being in pain, but I could tell that his head was killing him. He was a tough man. He’d been fighting through his mental demons as hard as he’d been pushing through the pain I knew he suffered.

“You ready to switch, Regina?” How did he do that? He was laid flat out on the backseat asleep as far as I knew.

“I’m a little tired,” I answered, as I rolled my stiff shoulders. The sound of him rising to take in our surroundings made my gaze shoot to the rearview mirror.

“Pull over here. I’ll take over,” he directed.

I gladly pulled over. The shoulder of the backwoods road was not paved but grassy. I hopped out of the car, stretching my legs and arms as I walked around.

August hopped out of the back and stood outside the car, staring around for a moment before he climbed in. He edged the driver’s seat back as far as it could go and didn’t bother with putting on his seatbelt before we drove off. 

I dug through my bag until I found my phone. When I pulled it out and turned it on, August stared at it and me.

“Let me see that,” he said in a gentle tone. I handed the phone over and sat staring as he nonchalantly rolled down the window and tossed it. I hadn’t been paying attention to the fact that he’d been slowing the car down. My mouth fell open, but I couldn’t force my words out. August stopped the car, threw it into reverse and backed over my phone.

“August!” I finally managed, appalled by his behavior.

“Your cousin is tracking you, Regina. If you want to lose him for good, you have to get rid of everything he could use to track you with.”

I inclined my head, knowing he was right. There was nothing more important than me being free of my family, especially my cousin. I used the passenger’s side mirror to stare at the small pile of broken parts that was my phone until they disappeared. I’d intended to use my phone to transfer some money into my account. But, August was right, I couldn’t risk my family finding me for any reason.

Later, my eyes peeled open slowly as I struggled to figure out where I was. When my focus grew sharper, August filled my view. He’d fully reclined my seat without waking me. I faced the window to wipe a little drool from my bottom lip.

“I dumped our passenger at the landfill about three hours back. I used the money he had on him for gas and some food and water for us.” He tilted his head in reverse towards the bag of goods sitting in the back seat.

“Now, we are about to ditch your car into the bottom of a quarry.”

What was I supposed to say? I loved my car. It was the only thing my father had given me that my cousin hadn’t destroyed. However, it could also lead my cousin to me. I inclined my head towards August and allowed my gaze to sweep my surroundings.

“Where are we,” I asked.

“Right outside of El Paso,” he answered as he turned the car into the woods, on a rutty dirt road. After a half hour of being tossed about inside the car, we finally arrived at the edge of the quarry where the dark water below started to appear.

The flat plain we drove along led to a steep vertical drop, straight into what appeared to be a quarry surrounded by fat rocks and boulders. It had to be a fifty or sixty feet drop. There didn’t appear to be any other way into the water except for the drop. It probably would take months for my car to be found, if ever. The water sat stagnant and black, making the quarry appear to be miles deep.

August drove so close to the edge that my breath hitched, thinking he would drive us over. He let down all the windows, popped the hood and trunk, and opened the sunroof. When he opened his door to get out, I grabbed my bag and our supplies and jumped out too. Twigs crackled under my feet as I backed away from Netta, my gray BMW I’d had for five years.

Surprisingly, I’d become more intrigued than worried about losing my car. August put the car in neutral before he went to the back and started to push. Netta hesitated to roll at first, but once the wheels started to turn, she went willingly, almost lurching forward. Her front end teetered over the edge for a second before she embraced her death and dived in.

August approached the bank to see how she’d landed. I didn’t care to see. The loud splat she made when she hit the water caused me to flinch, but instead of sadness filling me, a sense of peace started to spread over me.

I believed August was helping me peel away the constricting binds my family had tied around me. I was slowly allowing myself to be freed from a prison I’d been forcibly placed in. I was starting to believe that August was truly going to help me in my quest for freedom.

He carried my bag on our onwards journey. It took us two hours to hike back to something that resembled a town, but I didn’t mind the walk. In a way, the walk signified another step I’d taken along the path that was mapping me closer to freedom.

August pointed me to a bench in a small park near a library. I sat watching people carry on with their lives, wondering where August had gone. I saw a father tossing his son a colorful football and a couple snuggling as they watched their kids playing on the jungle gym. A teen girl with a mean scowl etched permanently on her face as she glared at her parents also caught my eye. The warm sun glowed brightly above them, filling them with the energy of life. Being held captive by your family allowed you to appreciate the simple beauty of life.

The loud honk of a horn gripped my attention, and my mouth dropped at the sight of August in an old brown Chevy pick-up truck. He waved me forward when I failed to move fast enough. After he slung the door open for me, I rushed towards the truck and climbed in.

I was scared and nervous about the path I’d chosen, but hope floated above my fears, tugging it apart piece by piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part III

 

Chapter One

 

Megan

 

“Aaron?”

My legs wobbled under my weight, and I forgot how to breathe. I’d finally lost my last pinch of sanity. Aaron’s death had destroyed me, and now I was seeing things. I stood, blinking, mouth agape, trying to convince my brain to unfreeze my stiff body.

Finally, I sucked in a breath and eased it past my shivering lips, my gaze locked on the image of Aaron standing in Ansel’s doorway. “You’re not real. You’re not real,” I kept repeating those words before rubbing my eyes. When he didn’t disappear, I started tapping at the sides of my head, trying to bring back normal, but knowing I was losing it.

“It’s me, Megan. You’re not going crazy.” 

The image stepped into the doorway and gripped my hands, preventing me from continuing to hit myself.

“Megan, baby, it’s really me. I’m not dead. I didn’t die.”

Although my wrists were trapped, I managed to point a finger at him. “You are dead. I saw you die. I wanted to die with you. You’re gone, and now I’ve truly gone crazy.”

“Megan!” He shook me hard, trying to convince me that it was truly him. If I allowed myself to believe what I was seeing, Ansel was likely going to have to send me to the nut house. He’d already spent months and a lot of time re-training me to be a human being again. He’d hired and kept a nurse in the house because he was afraid I’d hurt myself.

“Megan, it’s me. I’m not dead. I didn’t die in those woods. Touch me and see for yourself.”

He released my hands, but I kept them elevated, afraid to move.

“Aaron?” I reach out slowly, still not convinced that I hadn’t gone insane.

When my hand brushed along his bearded jaw, I flinched and jerked it back, staring into his face. He stood still, allowing me the time I needed to figure this out. I inched my hands towards his face again, cupping his chin before I forced my numb legs to take a step closer.

My hands slid over his jaw line until they were at either side of his neck.

“Aaron?” I didn’t know if I was asking a question or making a statement. His skin sliding under my fingers felt real. His familiar masculine scent drifting into my nose smelled real. His handsome face filling my gaze looked real.

“If you’re alive, tell me how? We left you. We…left…you, and you’re not dead?”

He pulled me to his strong chest, enfolding me into his arms. Breathing him in, I melted into his warm embrace. If I was going crazy, I didn’t care anymore. I’d gotten Aaron back whether it was all in my head or not. I tightened my grip on him, savoring his scent and loving the warmth he always enveloped me in.

“It’s a long story of how I survived and I’m still alive.” He released me and backed away, and I followed him out of the door, not wanting him to leave me again. My hands reached out desperately as fat tears pooled in my eyes. My fingers wiggled, frantically trying to will him back into my arms.

He signaled for someone to come closer, causing me to finally take my eyes off him. A pretty lady who resembled J-Lo, only darker, walked closer with a wide smile on her face. I stared from Aaron to the lady, wondering why my twisted mind would bring another woman into my fantasy.

“Megan, this is Dr. Regina, D-d…um…Davis. She saved my life.”

The lady could have been Native American, Middle Eastern, or Hispanic. Her beauty was praiseworthy. The sight of her brought back that nagging voice, telling me that I’d lost my whole mind.

She reached out, and I stared at her hand for a paused moment before I forced myself to take it. She felt as real as Aaron had felt. I felt her warmth and the grip of her hand over mine was real. I wasn’t crazy, was I?

Aaron retook his position in front of me. He isn’t dead? He isn’t dead? He isn’t dead. I repeated the words internally until I made myself believe them. The idea of having him back caused an overpowering amount of happiness to stream through me.

Aaron continued to stand in front of me and appeared as stunned as I was. His blue eyes softened, holding me in place and keeping me in the moment with him. I stared, not saying anything. I wasn’t even blinking. I teetered as my mind fought to keep me in the right head space and time, and I almost fell into Dr. Regina. 

My body wavered, and Regina caught me. “I’ve got you,” she said, catching me with a strong grip. She slid one of her arms under my shoulders and kept it there. It hadn’t dawned on me that Aaron had taken hold of my other arm until his hand slid around my waist, jarring me from my trance. 

“Let’s go in and have a seat,” Aaron suggested as he pointed into Ansel’s living room. “That way, I can tell you the story of how I’m alive and where I’ve been for the last six months.”

Sandwiched between my seemingly resurrected boyfriend and the doctor who saved him from death, I struggled on weak legs as I was nearly carried to the couch.

My feet scraped against the shiny ceramic floor as I stared up into Aaron’s face, fascinated that he was here with me. I wanted to talk. I wanted to tell him how much I’d missed him. I wanted him to know how much I loved him. I had so much to say to him, but I had developed a serious case of word jumbling. “Itz, I leez,” Everything I attempted to convey sounded like a load of gibberish.

Eventually, I stopped trying to talk because talking was obviously not working for me. I relied on my other senses, and at the moment, sight was what I focused on. Aaron had a large scar that ran from his temple to midway down the left side of his head, but he was still the most handsome man I’d ever met. I breathed him in and relished his all-consuming presence.

Once Aaron and the doctor had me standing in front of the sofa, I fell back into the stiff, leathery cushions, releasing a loud sigh with my eyes fixated at Aaron. I didn’t want to lose sight of him.

“Megan, where’s the kitchen? I’ll get you some water,” the doctor asked on the other side of me. Without glancing in her direction, I pointed absently towards the kitchen, not sure I had pointed in the right direction. My gaze was trained completely on Aaron. He’d been shot to death, yet here he stood, staring down at me, and looking like a handsome god. In loose-fitting jeans, a white T-shirt, and black boots, he had my full attention.

When he sat beside me, his warmth enveloped me, making me perk with an energy I hadn’t felt in months. His hands closed around mine that were still shaking.

“The doctor said my body must have found a way to shut itself down after I was shot, to preserve my life for as long as it could. Whatever happened, it worked. By the time I was handed over to the doctor to toss in the incinerator, she’d noticed I wasn’t dead and took care of me.”

The story Aaron was telling me was almost unreal. He’d cheated death more times in one day than a deer crossing six lanes of rush hour traffic. I couldn’t stop smiling at him, staring, and squeezing his hand, ensuring myself over and over that he was real.

I’d all but forgotten about the doctor until she returned from the kitchen. She opened and handed me the cold bottle of water, which I gulped while my gaze volleyed between her and Aaron. I didn’t stop until I’d taken in more than half of the bottle. The doctor was there, standing in front of me. She took the half-finished bottle back, leaving me sitting there, dumbstruck, without anything to occupy my mind except the image of Aaron.

“Regina was a prisoner of DG6 like I was, so when we escaped, we escaped together. I wouldn’t have made it off that farm without her. I wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for her.”  

When I didn’t respond, he reassured me. “It’s me, Megan.” He pulled me to his chest, folding me snuggly in his strong arms. I was starting to accept that it really was him, but I was so flooded with emotions, I couldn’t decide what to do first.

I jumped up onto the couch, my crazed movements causing the doctor to lean away from me. Kneeling next to Aaron, I cupped his face. My fingers tapped across his strong shoulders and rubbed the firm lines of his muscular arms. I was like a kid who’d gotten the one gift that made all the others worthless. 

“Come here,” he said in that low husky voice that always did things to my body. My lips collided into his as my body followed. Next thing I knew, I was straddling him, so deep into the hot kiss that I’d forgotten the doctor until the sound of her throat clearing registered.

Aaron and I glanced at her, who had a wide smile spread across her lips. “Now, I see why he couldn’t forget you, memory loss and all.”

“Memory loss?” I questioned, glancing back into Aaron’s unreadable gaze.

“Minor setback,” he said with confidence, but I knew him well enough to know that he’d been to hell and back.

Dr. Regina stood. “Is it okay if I take a shower?” She patted the black bag she carried that I’d noticed for the first time. “August wouldn’t stop at any hotels, so I had to rough it, taking turns driving and catching naps in the four vehicles we acquired along the way. Not to mention, us driving hundreds of miles off course to throw off potential followers.”

August?

It didn’t matter what the doctor called him. She’d saved him. The last thing I wanted to do was leave Aaron, but the doctor was the reason he was here, so I left his warmth to accompany her to one of Ansel’s spare bathrooms.

I kept glancing back at Aaron who was smiling the entire time as I led the doctor deeper into Ansel’s house.

I could sense her gaze on me as I remained standing in the hall and opened the door to one of the spare bathrooms.

“I’ve never seen a couple like you two,” she volunteered. “That man was at death’s door, couldn’t remember his own name, but he was calling your name in his sleep. I’ve seen and studied a lot, but this is the first time I’ve seen a couple react to each other the way you two do. It’s pretty amazing.”

I didn’t know what the doctor saw when she’d observed Aaron and me. We were just us. I didn’t know what to say to her, so I shrugged. “I can’t explain it. We just get each other.”

I gestured for her to enter. I was so anxious to get back to Aaron that my left leg started jumping.

“Towels are in that cabinet and soap choices are inside the shower on the caddy,” I informed her, my leg picking up its pace, trying to tame my anxiousness to get back to the one thing that meant everything to me. 

“Thanks,” she said as she walked past me. I closed the door and started to take off at a run, but I didn’t have to because Aaron was standing in the hallway waiting for me. I literally flew into his arms. We squeezed and hugged and kissed, enjoying each other.

“You are everything to me, Aaron—the peace I need for my mind to heal and the strength my heart needs to mend old wounds. The—” He kissed me, stopping my words that had finally started to flow. Only when I was thoroughly kissed and breathless did Aaron ease back.

His lips sat next to my ear, “I need you to call Ansel. His men said he was at a business meeting. See if you can get him to come back, but don’t tell him I’m here. I want to shock his ass.”

 

Chapter Two

 

Ansel

 

An urgent call from Megan was never a good thing. The poor girl had finally started to function like a normal person again. “I knew I shouldn’t have left her at the house alone,” I fussed at myself. I’d done it before, now that she wasn’t on suicide watch anymore, but I was always wary of leaving her alone. Aaron’s death had sent her so far into the depths of depression that I’d had to hire a nurse to take care of her for the first three months.

I’d been so busy lately working on my master plan to take the head off DG6 that I hadn’t had much time with Megan. Like Aaron, she’d somehow wiggled her way into my heart, and as much as I hated to admit it to myself, I’d been weakened by the connection I shared with her.

There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep her safe, just like there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to avenge my cousin. That’s why after nearly six months of patience, the heads of DG6’s empire were about to get chopped clean off. I, along with D, Dax, Scott, Marcus, and more of my friends who were acting as guards at my house, were going to take DG6 down.

When I drove up to my gate, Rob avoided my eyes and hurriedly waved me through. His post near the front gate was an underground station, so why was he standing out in the opening? The tension around the edges of his mouth gave way to a forced smile.

“Something wrong, Rob?”

“No, nothing. All good,” he answered, but I didn’t believe him.

Dude stood at his post, ramrod straight like one of those soldiers that guarded Buckingham Palace.

I drove through the gate at a leisurely pace, taking in the men’s bemused expressions. I sat my gun in my lap in case they were trying to signal me somehow. What the hell could have been wrong with Megan if the men were outside and still alive at their posts? 

The house wasn’t on fire. Because of the men’s weird expressions, a certain level of uneasiness plagued me. I was anxious to see what the hell was going on, but I intended to be careful about it.

I pulled my car into the garage, left the garage open, and walked around to the back of the house. What the fuck was going on around my fucking house? Nothing was in disarray. However, the sense that something was amiss rode my back with bucking legs, heels dug into my sides.

My best bet was to go in through the back door in case something was going down. If someone had gotten in there with Megan, they’d better have a fucking army with them because my trigger finger was itching like a motherfucker, and I damn sure had backup.

My gaze traveled to JG’s and Hwang’s hidden posts, although I knew the men weren’t on duty. Everything appeared to be okay, so why was my fucking danger meter going haywire?  I turned the knob to my back door after easing the key into the lock and turning it as quietly as I could. Slipping into my kitchen, I didn’t hear anything, but the sight of a beautiful woman sitting at my table eating a plate of whatever Megan had cooked, stopped me in my tracks.

“Hello,” fell from my lips as I loosened the grip on my gun, but I wasn’t foolish enough to put it away. 

“Hello,” she greeted as her sexy lips went into a tight smile. Her gaze panned down to the gun in my hand before lifting and reconnecting with mine. Although the sight of my gun put some tension in her body, a hint of mischief lingered in her gaze and hinted that she knew a secret that I didn’t know. The woman was gorgeous, smoking hot. But, who the hell was she and more importantly, where the hell was Megan?

On cue, Megan walked into the kitchen. She rushed me, throwing her arms around my neck before placing a sweet kiss on my cheek. When she backed away, she waved her hand towards the woman who ran her hands over her jean-clad legs as she stood.

“Ansel, I’d like you to meet Dr. Regina…Davis.”

Doctor? I took her offered hand after I switched my gun over to my left hand, squeezing her hand between mine. Her hand was soft and warm like the way I just knew the rest of her was.

“Pleased to meet you, An…sel?”

“Ansel,” I repeated, eyeballing the hell out of her. I bit into my bottom lip, unable to keep myself from admiring the full-frontal view of her. Those big, brown, gorgeous, bedroom eyes called my name. That long flowing ponytail that sat over her shoulder was waiting for me to give it a tug. That honey-hued skin that did a remarkable job of hiding her true ethnicity was aching for my caress. She was brown enough to be African-American, but her features were exotic, so she could have also been Hispanic or Native American. She had real woman curves, nice full breasts, a slim waist and curvy hips. I couldn’t see her ass, but I knew she had a nice round one, the kind I could picture myself spanking.

Keeping the doctor’s hand in mine, I turned to glance at Megan. Her gaze skimmed the gun in my hand and the doctor’s hand still locked in my other. I noticed the doctor hadn’t bothered pulling her hand away from mine. She was either brave or unaware of just how crazy I was.

When I finally let the doctor’s hand go, she backed away and retook her seat at the table. Megan needed to start explaining some shit. I’d been working on my patience since Aaron’s death, but that had been in small doses.

Megan glanced up at me with a tight smile. The amount of fucking innocence the woman could dredge up should have been against the damn law. “I’m sorry if my call stressed you out, Ansel, but there is something you have to see.”

She’d sounded stressed and anxious on the phone. Now, all I wanted to know was who this doctor was and how the hell she’d gotten into my house. The guards had specific orders to shoot to kill if they didn’t know who it was and if that person or persons insisted on coming in.

Megan must have read my mind because she started to explain. “Ansel, I wanted you to meet Regina because she gave us a priceless gift, one that I know you’re going to be as happy to receive as I was.”

“What in the hell are you talking about Megan?” I asked as my gaze bounced back and forth between Megan and Regina. I didn’t know this woman. However, I could see her tied to my bed as I sexed her crazy. Mind over impulses, Ansel, I reminded myself, thinking of the situation at hand.

“How the fuck could this woman who I don’t know give us a gift?” I asked Megan, my patience wavering.

Megan was used to my abrasive tone, so her expression didn’t change.

“Megan, if your secretive little ass has more friends out there that I don’t know about, I’m going to throttle you.” I leveled a mean glare at Megan, knowing my ass couldn’t stay mad at her for any length of time.

She raised her hand towards me in a pleading manner. “Ansel, will you put the gun away please?”

A heaving sigh left me, but I reluctantly reached under my jacket and tucked the gun into the back of my pants, ensuring it could be easily reached.

“Come in here!” Megan called over her shoulder. My gaze followed her voice towards the entrance to my kitchen. The first sight of him froze me in place. My fucking heart was about to slide clean from my chest. This couldn’t be a sick and twisted joke, could it?

“Ansel,” he called. His voice was one I’d never forget, one that had fed strength into me many times over.

I was staring at a fucking ghost. I couldn’t move. My bad ass couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even think. My lips moved, but my words remained lodged in my bobbing throat. Those eyes had invaded my dreams for months. I’d stared into them as life drained from his body. That fucking face had been haunting me since the day he’d died.

He approached with a cautious stride and stopped within a few feet of me as I stood, staring at him staring at me. To say that I was speechless was a fucking understatement.

“Aaron?” I questioned, my mind not fully accepting that my cousin was standing in my kitchen right in front of me. At nearly the same height, we mirrored each other. His hair was chopped low now like mine, and he’d just started to grow his beard back. Except for a wicked scar on the top of his head, he looked like my damn cousin.

“Yes. It’s me,” he said, his tone low but assuring.

“I thought you were…were…” I couldn’t form a complete sentence to save my fucking life.

“I was,” Aaron confirmed.  “At least, I thought I was dead until I woke up four and a half months later at that damn farm under Dr. Regina’s care. It’s a long fucking story, Ansel.”

My gazed scanned him, still trying to decide if he was there. Before I could catch myself, I launched myself at him, holding him in a tight grip that he returned. I didn’t know how the fuck he’d survived death, but I’d seen him die. Now, he was here, flesh and fucking blood, still among the living. The toughest motherfucker I knew. 

“What the fuck is going on? How the fuck did you?” I sputtered, backing away to get a better look at him.

My neck snapped back and forth between the sexy doctor, Megan, and Aaron to make sure my ass hadn’t caught Megan’s crazy disease.

“How man? How the fuck did you survive that shit? We left you because we thought you were dead. I can’t believe we fucking left you. D and I went back for you, but they had taken your body.” 

I was a sack of shit for leaving him, but Aaron must have noticed my regret because he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“As far as you knew, I was dead. You didn’t do anything wrong. The doctor literally dragged my ass away from death’s door. I was camped outside hell, waiting to be let in. That black-hearted motherfucker had a tight grip on me, kept me in the dark for four and a half months before I woke up. When I first got shot, I think I even saw the white light and all the things dead folks are supposed to see.”

Aaron gestured his head towards the table. “Take a seat, so I can tell you how I’m still standing.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice because my damn legs were threatening to give out on me.

 

Chapter Three

 

Ansel

 

I hung on to Aaron’s words as he revealed the most extraordinary story I’d heard since he’d introduced me to Megan. The man had more lives than a fucking cat and managed to stumble upon the most amazing women.

“So, let me get this shit straight,” I started as I pointed at the doctor. “You were going to burn my cousin and turn him into ash so that he could become an ingredient in your family’s meth supply?”

Those words were the only ones that tore Megan’s gaze away from Aaron. He hadn’t fooled me by introducing the doctor as Davis. My fucking mind was twisted, but my ass had learned to think around corners.

I pointed at Regina who dropped her head at my tensed stare. “She’s a fucking Dominquez and she’s sitting at my table inside my house. What if this whole saving you was a setup for her to lead her people right here to my fucking doorstep? Aaron, you are the only one I told about this damn house, and you brought the enemy inside?”

Since Aaron was back, there was no reason to try to be the cool and level-headed one anymore. That was what he was for.

Without saying one word, I pulled my pistol out and placed it on the table. The loud clink of metal made Regina jump before three sets of eyes landed on my gun. My piercing gaze remained glued to the doctor’s.

“Ansel, she’s good. I can vouch for her. She saved my fucking life multiple times. I watched her burn a man alive to keep him from discovering me.”

She burned a man alive? Damn! This information helped me dial down my tension, but not nearly enough to make me pull my blazing gaze from the doctor’s.

“You know as well as I do how hard it is to get onto and off that fucking farm. She plotted against her people to get me out of there,” Aaron argued, his voice demanding my attention.

My cousin’s statements, however convincing they were, didn’t do a damn thing to ease the suffocating amount of tension that coursed through me. His brain had been tortured by hot lead, so maybe he wasn’t firing on all cylinders anymore.

“Ansel!” Aaron shouted across the table, pulling my attention away from the doctor who sat frozen in fear. Her glazed eyes stared down at the table as my crazed expression ripped her to shreds.

Was I attracted to the doctor? Fuck, yeah, I was, but I’d kill her in the blink of an eye if she was a part of the reason Aaron got shot or Megan was being hunted. My gaze turned and rose to my cousin’s, creeping across the wood of the table.

“She’s good, Ansel. If I weren’t sure, she’d be dead already.”

Those sounded like the words of my cousin and based on the certainty in his gaze, I believed him. Aaron and I sat staring at each other, coming to an understanding with only our locked gazes. If the doctor wasn’t legit, he knew I wouldn’t waste a second putting a fucking bullet in her head.

Aaron took a quick glance at Megan sitting next to him and then looked back at me, face alive with a mixture of concern and something unreadable.

“We need to talk,” he insisted, knowing I knew the subject he intended to broach.

A devious smile crept across my lips as I sat, knowing what was coming next. He wanted to know what had gone down between Megan and me during those six months he was dead. I aimed a finger at him.

“The last thing I told you as far as Megan was concerned was that if you got yourself killed over her, all bets were off.”

He didn’t move. He just sat there staring at me. Aaron knew me and he knew I’d do everything in my power to make Megan mine once he was dead.

“I’ll get us some refreshments,” Megan offered, breaking into our stare-off. She may have been bat-shit crazy, but she was smart enough to move away from Aaron before we broached the one subject that probably had those bullet fragments embedded in his brain blazing with heat.

The doctor sat quietly assessing us, probably glad the spotlight had been taken off her. Megan walked towards the refrigerator, opened it, and started to rummage through it. With her behind the refrigerator door, mine and Aaron’s gazes locked once more.

Before I revealed a damn thing to him, I wanted Aaron to suffer a bit longer for the hurt and pain he’d caused me after his death. Aaron’s death was the one thing to break me. It allowed me to realize that there were a few things in the world that I gave a damn about. His death had awakened my heart, letting me know that it hadn’t been destroyed by our family and the way we’d grown up. Aaron and I had been trading women since we were in our early teens, but Megan was the first one he’d outright refused to share with me.

His posture stiffened as his words started to edge out. “I’d likely have to torture her to get the information I want, and you know that I’ve never put my hands on a woman, so I need you to be straight with me. It’s been damn near six months, and I noticed how cozy the two of you were before I walked into this kitchen.”

Something behind us fell, loud and clanging. The doctor jumped, and Aaron and I simply glanced over at the refrigerator where the noise had come from and where the open door blocked Megan from our view.

I shifted in my seat, leaning over the table a bit. From the corner of my eye, the doctor eased back, glancing at my gun that I’d never removed from the table.

“Cousin, your last words were for me to take care of her. And I warned you with my own lips what was going to happen if you fucking got yourself killed over her.”

The doctor’s gaze bounced nervously between the two of us as I continued to torture my cousin by taking forever to get to the point. Aaron’s gaze hadn’t dropped away from me and at any moment, he was going to erupt into the monster I knew he could be.

“But…”

That single word put a twinge of hope in his stressed gaze, but if I didn’t get to the point in the next second, there was going to be a double homicide. Aaron had given Megan a free pass once, when she didn’t tell him about her and his father. Although it had happened before they’d even met, I still didn’t understand how she’d dodged that clip of bullets.

Zombie back from the dead or reanimated—it didn’t matter. Aaron wasn’t going to forgive her ass twice, no matter how crazy they were for each other.  

“I couldn’t fucking do it, Aaron. I couldn’t fucking go there with her. Did I want to? Fucking right, I wanted to. But after you died, it fucking…it…it just wasn’t fucking right. Besides, she probably would have slit my damn throat if I had tried anything. You think I wanted to end up stabbed eighty-something fucking times like the doctor’s uncle?”

I pointed at the doctor after the statement, which sent her confused gaze roaming back and forth between me, Aaron, and the refrigerator. I shoved my thumb over my shoulder, pointing at Megan who’d finally let the refrigerator door close.

“I’m like a fucking brother to her now.” My face pinched into a deep frown. “The idea of even going there with her seems incestuous.” A light shiver made me twitch. “Can you believe that shit? I’m like someone’s fucking brother. What the fuck is this world coming to?”

The smile on Aaron’s face warmed my heart. Having him back was the single best thing that had ever happened to me.

 

***

 

I’d left briefly and returned with Aaron’s phone. I handed it to him. “As soon as you two reunite, we need to talk about how we’re going to take down this DG6 clan once and for all.”

Regina didn’t even flinch when I mentioned taking down her family. Instead, a flash of intrigue shined through her gaze as she rose higher in her seat, eager for more information. Maybe she did hate her family as much as Aaron had suggested.

Aaron turned the phone over in his hands. The face had one thin diagonal crack across it. “You’ve had this the entire time?”

“Yep. And it’s a good thing I kept it too. You remember Beverly and Laura?”

Aaron inclined his head, eyeing me with suspicion.

“Beverly called your phone, thinking you were some detective. Although she’d been in contact with Megan, she hadn’t connected the link between you and her. You know how Megan loves to keep her secrets.”

I stated the last part louder as I leaned my head towards Megan, who’d dropped her gaze. The woman hung on to the kind of secrets that could affect national security, and Aaron’s earlier statement had been right. You’d have to damn near torture her to make her spill them.  

“Long story short, DG6 had likely been watching Megan since she first approached the MC. When you went tracking her to Texas, it may have led them to her friends. Laura got snatched, and I called D and Dax up to go down there to handle business. The good thing for us is we have two very capable guys in Texas whose presence can improve our plan to rid the world of DG6 quicker and maybe even smoother than I’d imagined. But enough about that for now. I saw the way you two were staring at each other and about to burn my damn kitchen down. Don’t let me hold you up. I’ll get to know Dr. Regina Dominquez a little better.”