Page 14 of Vicious King

It would just be… over.

The guard went on a moment later. “I see. Can you arrange for him to fly out here and oversee the evacuation? I know it’s a rough situation, but the island is owned by your family, so I thought you might want—” He stopped and paused, listening to Tobias again. “All right. Thank you, sir. Yes, I understand. We’ll start packing everything we can and rounding up all the girls and staff while we wait for the helicopters. There’s also several society members here at the moment. We’ll get the first rescue helicopters to evacuate them as soon as they land.”

Of course.The lives of Crown and Dagger members were far more important than any of us lowly slaves.

When the guard was finished with his call, he pulled a flashlight off his belt and switched it on, waving it in the air to attract everyone’s attention. “Listen up, girls! Today’s storm is a bad one, so the island needs to be evacuated. Mr. King is having several choppers sent over from the mainland, and he’s getting his son to fly in to help coordinate the effort. There’s sixty-two people here on the island altogether, so it’s going to take a while, but we need to try and stay as calm as possible. Got it?”

Completely counter to his words, several of the girls in the gym started screaming and crying.

“Jesus Christ,” another guard muttered.

The one with the flashlight raised his hands. “Girls, calm down and wait here! You’re perfectly safe. In about an hour, you’ll start heading down to the front entryway in an orderly manner. You’ll wait there until your helicopters start landing.” He waved a hand at the other guards. “Cullen, you go and alert all the kitchen and cleaning staff. Oh, and Nurse Fernandez too. I’ll get Hilson and Adams to keep an eye on the situation below-ground, and I’ll ask Smith to alert the members currently staying here. They’ll be the first to leave. I’ll work on rounding up all our guys on the other floors.”

“Right. Let’s head out.”

One guard remained in the gym in front of the door to make sure we didn’t try to go anywhere before the helicopters were ready for us. Some of the girls were quiet like me as they waited, while others sobbed their hearts out in fear.

About thirty minutes later, I heard a faint whirring sound above the wind. I glanced outside to see three slate gray helicopters circling above, preparing to land. They weren’t for us. They were for the society members. We had to wait for another convoy to arrive.

Finally, another forty or so minutes later, a radio bleeped in the guard’s pocket, and he waved his hand at us. “Okay. Let’s go!”

The girls began to move toward the door in one heaving mass, blubbering and whimpering. “God, what if we get hit by a tsunami before we make it off?” I heard one blonde girl sob.

I wouldn’t mind, if I was being honest. There’d be a moment of terror, which was no different to most moments here on the island, and then there’d be nothing but coldness and pressure as the great wall of water slammed into us, sweeping us all away to oblivion. Nonexistence….

I shouldn’t exist.

I’m nothing. Nothing but a contemptible, unworthy girl. My life is pitiful, unjustifiable, valueless.

The dark thoughts swam through my head as I trudged down the main hall of the first floor with the other girls. I didn’t want to escape the island with them. I didn’t even want to exist anymore. I was too drained, too weary. Why should I bother existing when all I did was hurt people? Why should I bother going through all the daily motions when my owner didn’t even see a point to visiting me?

I didn’t blame him for not wanting me anymore. Not at all. Why would he want a lowly piece of trash like me?

I was the only one to blame.

I waited in silence in the expansive entryway. The girl next to me impatiently tapped her feet on the black and white tiles. I barely even registered the sound, or the guard’s voice near my ear a moment later when he announced that our rescue helicopters were landing. I was too busy concentrating on the sound of the wind outside, the smell of the salty air, the thought of the jagged cliffs surrounding the island….

A few weeks ago, those cliffs were terrifying to behold, but now, they were like a magnet, drawing my mind and my will. I wanted nothing more than to find my way to them; give myself what I truly deserved in the end.

“We can fit five girls in the helicopter that just landed, and five more in the one that’s about to land,” I heard a male voice saying. It sounded distant, warbled, like he was speaking through the walls of an aquarium. “Please, stay calm! There are more coming.”

The girls didn’t listen. Even though only ten of us could go, everyone clamoring in the entryway surged toward the door as two guards held it open. “He said ten! Jesus!” one of them shouted, grabbing at girls’ sleeves and collars to try and stop the rush.

I used the flurry of desperation and confusion to slip outside in front of a much taller girl. The guards could only see her, and they grabbed at her and told her to stay back inside. I quickly ducked around to the right side of the mansion instead of running toward the helipad which stood only a few hundred feet from the front of the place.

Not far ahead of me, the ocean heaved and swelled in the gusting winds and pouring rain. I stood with my head raised to the clouds for a moment, watching the droplets cascade from the sky until they reached the sea, quickly becoming part of the briny depths and moving with the surging waves. It was almost mesmerizing in all its chaos.

Gulls squawked overhead, tossed around in the air like paper planes, flashes of white against stormy gray. Beneath them, the waves began to rise like great mountains, turbulent and unforgiving as they smashed against the rocks below the cliffs.

The cliffs….

I stepped forward, heaving my legs against the gale. It felt like I was walking through molasses, and the pressure from the wind hit my face so hard I had to squint my eyes, but I didn’t slow down. Each step drew me closer to my fate, closer to peace.

The air grew thick with briny mist as I moved toward the cliff’s edge, and the wind pummeled me harder. There was no mercy in this storm, only wrath and tempest.

No mercy. I didn’t deserve it, did I?

I closed my eyes, preparing to step right off the cliff so I could be sucked into a vortex of cold black emptiness. The thought was peaceful, calming. So calming…

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