Page 69 of Judge's Mercy

“You’re in love with my sister?” Tinleigh asks, a hand pressed to her temple. “I can’t believe I was so absorbed in my own life that I missed so much of hers. Does she love you back?”

Fuck, if that question doesn’t hurt more than any swing Cy could take at me because the truth is, I don’t fucking know. Maybe she loves me, or maybe she used me as an escape. Either way, she’s mine.

Apparently, my watery eyes are answer enough because Tinleigh’s hugging me again. “We’ll get her back and figure all this out.”

“I hope so.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MYLA

“Help!” I shout, feeling for a latch on the metal bars.

“Shut up,” a girl’s voice comes from my right, sounding lazy and slow. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Oh, thank god, there’s someone else in here. Are you okay? What is this place?”

“Fuck, lady. You should hear yourself.” She giggles belligerently. Great, she’s high. Clearly, she won’t be of any help to me.

It’s then I hear a sniffle coming from my left. “Who else is in here?”

“She won’t answer you,” the first girl says.

“Why not?”

“They pulled her teeth out for hollering the way you’re doing now. Next time, they’ll take her tongue.” She lets out a maniacal laugh, but the realization that the man who put me here is capable of such torture alerts me to just how dire my situation is. I double over and retch violently for the second time, bile burning its way up my throat. I straighten up, gasping for breath as vomit sputters down my chin.

It’s disgusting, and I don’t have anything to clean it off with, so I’m forced to deal with the stench. Thinking about bodily functions makes me wonder where we’re supposed to go to the bathroom. Maybe it stinks so badly because we’re supposed to piss in the corner.

This can’t be real. It has to be a nightmare. That’s the only explanation. The other girl’s laugh dies down, and I lower back to the ground on wobbly knees so I don’t fall and injure myself more, though I don’t know why it matters. I’m going to die here; might as well speed up the process. Lying down, I close my eyes, needing a reprieve from reality. I picture Judge sitting on my couch, his book open, and he’s so beautiful that I want to cry.

I conjure up memories of all the times he took care of me despite my prickly attitude. If anything, he seemed to enjoy it. Maybe that’s why I never stopped. If my behavior started to push him away for real, I would’ve backed off because I liked him being there. I think we both knew it.

Wanting to leave my reality for a while, I allow my mind to drift, not caring that I’m only sleepy because of the concussion I no doubt have. Honestly, how much worse can it get? I hold tight to the vision of Judge, hoping to take him with me into my dreams.

Unsure how long I slept, I wake with a gasp, hearing heavy footsteps descend the stairs. Is it him? Someone else? The Sons? Could they have found me? I shut that train of thought down fast. The only thing hope will bring is disappointment. No one knows where you are, remember? You did everything you could to make it that way.

Without warning, the bright white lights flip on and hum, startling me as much as the dark did. I’m digging my fingers into my eye sockets when I hear the clang of keys twisting in a lock. It’s close enough to be my cell, though I never did finish touring the perimeter, so I don’t know the layout.

“Good. You’re awake.” I recognize David’s voice immediately.

“Fuck you.” The room slowly comes into focus, though there’s not much to see—two long rows of jail cells, the length of the house, with a pathway between, and that’s it. I can count maybe six of them filled with girls ranging from early to late teens, all naked. None of them move, either too scared or too high.

I look down at my upper arm and wince. My skin is flayed open with a gash that stretches across the side of my arm, at least four inches wide. Small chunks of flesh and coagulated blood sit on top of the exposed muscle. It’s the goriest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve stabbed people to death.

“Tsk tsk. Good girls don’t talk to their daddies like that.”

If I had anything left in my stomach, it would come up right now. What a sick and twisted bastard. He doesn’t know this about me yet, but I’d rather die than let another man violate me. And when I say die, I mean by any means necessary just to not feel the humiliation again. Even if I have to end my own life.

“Come on. We have some things to discuss.” He yanks me up by my injured arm, and I cry out in pain, blackness narrowing my vision. “Oops. I forgot you have an ouchie. Don’t worry, Daddy will put a Band-Aid on it and kiss it better.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you sicko?” I spit out, and he squeezes around my arm tighter. An otherworldly scream comes from deep inside me, a sound I don’t recognize as my own, though I’ve never been in pain like this before, either.

“You’ll learn to hold your tongue.” He jerks me to the left once we’re outside my cell and holds me in front of a trembling girl whose eyes are on me. “Sweet Lucy, why don’t you tell your new sister what happens to naughty girls?” Lucy, if that’s even her name, doesn’t move a muscle. “Come on. Sit up for Daddy.”

She pushes herself up, and god, she’s so skinny. Her body is covered in little scabs, and there are track marks up and down her arms. She looks remorseful as she opens her mouth. I couldn’t hold in my gasp if I tried because every single one of her teeth are missing, leaving divots in her gums where they used to be. Drool escapes the sides of her mouth before she closes it again and lowers back to the hard concrete.

David turns to me. “Poor thing. We’re auctioning her off as we speak. You’d be surprised how many men have a crack whore fantasy, especially when they’re given the okay to kill her after they’ve used her for everything she has left.”

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