Page 45 of Redemption
Instinctively, I go to lift my hand to get a better feel of the damage, but instead, I’m met with debilitating numbness and the metallic clank of chains. It’s an unexpected sound to hear when you first wake up but is annoyingly confirmed when I look over and—with barely any help from the waning light peeking through the tiny, barred egress window—see just how far up Shit’s Creek I am.
Both my wrists and ankles are secured by the heavy links. My arms spread out above my head, while my splayed legs complete the picture, forming my body into a crude X; a sadist’s wet dream.
Well, that’s inconvenient, to say the least. And it brings up a few more pressing questions I’d like answers to sooner rather than later. Like why my nuts are currently emulating CoverGirl makeup models.
Easy, breezy, and beautiful, bitches.
Fucking chained to a damn wall. And naked, to boot. Completely exposed to the wandering masses. Anyone curious enough to look into the dark and dank room might wonder how I ended up in this position.
Myself included. Especially since I’m almost positive I wore a pair of Jockeys to bed last night....
Shit.
The memory of this morning hits me like a sack of potatoes, which just adds to the pain of what I'm already dealing with. We were infiltrated. Snuck up on by some rats in our sleep.How the hell did that even happen? The amount of perimeter checks and room clearing we did should have kept us safe from everything. Zombies and douchebags alike. There wasn’t even anyone in that godforsaken town to know we took over the place.
“A two-for-one special.”That’s what those guys said before they knocked me on my ass. The thought causes my heartbeat to race.
Cole. I saw him get hit by something. A bullet, maybe? He went down before I did. Before I fought those guys with every waning beat in my pulse and inevitably wound up on the floor right with him.
Fuck, I hope he’s ok. But, then again, I was shot too. A couple of times, in fact.
I look down at my torso—where IknowI was hit—and see only a small bruise where a decent-sized bullet wound should be.
If I don’t have a bullet wound... what the hell did they shoot us with?
Must have been some sort of tranquilizer or drugs. Nothing else would have knocked me on my ass like that if it wasn’t.
Aly’s beautiful face floods my mind along with Jax. Fuck, where were they? Did they get taken as well?
I pull on the chains overhead, grunting, groaning, and growling in the growing darkness as I strain my muscles in a feeble attempt to loosen the bolts buried in the wall. “Come on, you useless motherfucker!” Planting my feet at the base, I twist my torso, nearly dislocating my shoulders as I try over and over again to dislodge the metal from the concrete. I need to get to her. To them. My mind spins at not knowing where they are or if they’re even safe.
Times aren’t like they used to be. Being a woman has always been treacherous—never being able to go out at night without some sort of protection, always covering your drinks at bars—but nowadays? It’s fucking worse.
She’d already been abducted once that I know of. Earl and his little fuckboy crew managed to snatch her right off the road last year. Jax took care of him and his gaggle of degenerates, though, leaving pieces of every one of them scattered all over the property like little flecks of celebratory confetti.
Don’t you love it when vengeance is reaped and you end up redecorating at the same time? Multi-tasking, am I right?
His dipshit of a brother decided to trespass and rain on our parade a few days later, which definitely fucked up our morning. At the end of the day, however, he was nothing but a bullet point in the long list of casualties we racked up.
Regardless, even though we collectively managed to rid the world of a couple dozen fuckwits, there unfortunately will always be more. Especially with the creepy-ass Phoenix Rising fuckers out and about.
Now there’s an idea....
Shit... Could they be the ones to blame for taking me? Us?
If it was, they must have been out looking for us, or people like us, to enter Beaufort. Shit, maybe they’re smarter than we thought and set up Tryon Palace to be a fucking Trojan Horse. If so, it certainly worked! We were drawn to the place like moths to a flame. And then, after not encountering any further threats, relaxed enough for them to come right on in and snatch us. I don’t know.
All I do know is the cement wall at my back is chafing my ass something fierce, and there’s no fucking way I can get out ofhere to confirm any of my theories or find the others. Not while I’m in this position.
Coming to terms with the fact that I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, I take a moment to look around the room. Thankfully, my one eye has adjusted to the now full-blown darkness—after the sun has decided to up and quit on me too—but I end up finding more than what I’ve certainly bargained for.
My eyebrows meet my hairline as the vision in my one eye comes into focus, gazing at not only the restraints I’ve been strapped into but also the dozens of other less than humble offerings surrounding me.
Well, would you look at that? I’ve found another sex dungeon... Lucky me.
Surprisingly, it’s a lot like the one I found back near the lake. Same contraptions for the most part, only this one seems to cater to pain more than anything else. Whips and floggers hang from the walls opposite me, while various crosses flank my sides. Chains ominously hang from the ceiling here and there, matching my own.
A memory shot straight from the ass crack of my past barrels into me as I use my one good eye to scan the entirety of the room for the thing that has the power to send me into full-blown panic mode.
