Page 92 of Tear Me Down
Not to a God who shows favorites, or to an entity that will take advantage of the sorrow, but to my sister. The one who, besides Ashia, knew me best.
Emma…
Fuck, my throat tightens again to the thought of talking to her.
“D! Get the fuck over here! Tony’s got something!” Carter calls out from afar, and my eyes snap open to the smell of fresh cut grass and flowers, a smell I haven’t experienced in almost two decades, and one that definitely wouldn’t normally be present in the current surroundings. It’s the only sign I needed that she’s here, and even in death is always that smart-ass, barely older sister, waiting until I finally caved to give me what I needed. As if my father could smell the same fragrance as me, without saying a word, he slaps my shoulder and leads me back to the truck.
Chapter thirty-two
Ashia
I'm in limbo. That point where I can feel myself return to consciousness but can’t open my eyes yet. The room is really cold this morning—did it rain over night? Did someone turn the AC down and forget to change it back? My head is pounding, and as I scrunch my face to force myself to wake up, I can feel something crusty on the side of it. What the hell did we do last night?
“Damien?” I call out for him as I finally open my eyes. Everything is blurry and merging together as my groggy vision begins to settle, but it’s clearly not our home. The floors, or what I can barely see of them, are concrete, and while the room is clearly lit, I can’t see the walls. There’s nothing but a black void all around me, apart from two bright lights pointed in my direction, and something slim and black in the middle. Is that a camera?
It all rushes back… The test… Us racing back to the Attic… The men in our room… A weak whimper escapes my mouth, and I shiver in fear at the realization that I’m not home, and this isn’t some bondage play like we used to do.
I manage to lift my heavy, pounding head and look up, suddenly feeling the sting of rope cutting into the skin on my arms. They’re tied above me, and the twine is wrapped around my limbs in three separate spots. My wrists, forearms, and elbows. I flex my numb, tingling fingers and twist my sore wrists, trying to test the stability of these knots, but I can barely move them as the rope scrapes my skin. My toes barely graze the floor as I attempt to gain some traction. I was hoping to push up and release some of the tension from the ropes, but that’s no longer an option.
“I was wondering when you’d wake. You’ve been out for quite some time and wouldn’t be much use to me already dead. That gash looks awfully nasty.” A faintly familiar, haunting voice echoes throughout the room, causing a tremble to run down my spine.
Dranan Hugo steps into the light from the shadows with a smug grin plastered on his face. His dark hair is slicked back, and his black, devoid of humanity eyes are boring into me with an amused intensity, as his scar rises lightly with his smirk. Almost as if he’s won—a fantasy that I’m sure Damien will ruin for him.
“You’re a dead man,” I seethe.
“Oh, I don’t think so. Your fiancé is going to have a hard time finding us when we’re not even in the same state.” He chuckles and shakes his head in amusement, sticking his hands in his pockets like this is a friendly poker game. How long was I out? If we’re not in Virginia anymore, where are we? I glance around, trying to spot any windows or doors in the small space, but the ropesonly allow me to look so far. “There’s no escaping, dear. It’ll be better for you if you don’t struggle.”
“Like you care what’s better for me,” I snarl.
“I hate that it had to go this far, but your fiancé has made things very difficult for me. I'm not interested in playing his games. He’s fucking withmymoney, and my boss isn’t too happy about the lack of product circulating.” He steps in front of the lights, casting a shadow over me. I blink to try and adjust to the darkness quickly, but he’s already making his way up to me with calculated steps.
“What do you want from him?”
“Either his cooperation, or his death. I’d prefer his cooperation for the next couple of days.”
“You think taking me is going to convince him to help you?”
“No. I thinkthreateningyou is going to convince him of that. He can either help me distribute my drug effectively or watch your slow and painful death through that camera there.” He turns and points to what I already assumed was a camera. I shake my head and attempt to wiggle a little to loosen the rope, but again, it doesn’t budge.
“He'llneverhelp you.”
“You don't think you're worth that much to him?” He cocks his head and heckles.
“I know I am, but he’s a good person. He’s not going to intentionally hurt thousands of people.”
“He will for you though, won’t he?” he cuts in, and I can feel my stomach drop. He’s right, and I don’t know how to respond, because I know he will. He’d kill a million people if it meant I was safe, even if that meant destroying himself in the process. “He’s frantic. Tearing that city of yours apart looking for you, even with how injured he is after my surprise. Desperate men do desperate things, and I’m betting that there isn’t a single thing he wouldn’t do to get you back.”
“You won’t get a reaction from me,” I declare. “You won’t break me.”
“I figured as much. You'll do anything to protect him. I'm counting on it, in fact. You'll try to be tough, and you'll try to hide your pain from him, but he’ll see right through it anyway. Won’t he?”
I take a shaky breath in, trying to gather any strength I have to get through this. In any normal circumstance, there’s nothing that he could do to me that hasn’t already been done, but now that I know there’s a life growing inside of me, things areverydifferent. I can only hope he doesn’t know and that he won’t try to use that against us.
“How could he possibly help you?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation going in hopes that I can delay his plans as long as possible.Damien knows I’m gone, and I can only imagine how our city skyline looks right now with all of the destruction and havoc he’s wreaking.
“Distribution. Your fiancé has many resources—resources I could use to distribute my drug effectively and quickly.”
That last word has a light bulb going off in my head, and between the escalations from Dust and the crime rate, we knew that they were planning something. We just never considered the fact that there was a deadline.
