Page 21 of In The Darkness

What he would do.

“Well, let’s go!” one of them near the door barked.

They all began to yell their lust for him to fuck her. She looked at Nick and began begging him not to do it, but her pleas were drowned out by their voices.

“Like I want to fuck her in front of you all,” he said with all the bravado he could find inside.

All five of them seemed confused by his reluctance to have sex with Persephone with them watching. For a moment, he thought he’d gotten out of it, but Ponytail wasn’t having any of that.

Stepping toward her, he grinned. “Well, if you won’t fuck her, I’m going to.”

Nick’s heartbeat pounded in his ears as he realized he couldn’t back out. No amount of bravado or shit talk would distract them from what they wanted. They’d consumed too many energy drinks and played too much of that zombie video game and now they needed something to sate their need for excitement.

And if he didn’t do it, one of them would and he couldn’t risk her getting hurt by one of these guys so filled with rage and dying to direct it at her in any way possible.

“She’s mine,” he said in a voice full of possession. “If you want to watch like a bunch of fucking ladies in waiting, whatever. But she’s mine for all I’ve had to take from this bitch.”

Before Ponytail or any of them decided to challenge him on that claim, Nick walked over to where Persephone sat and began untying the ropes holding her firm to the chair. She looked at him in stunned silence, her eyes pleading with him not to go through with this.

He roughly lifted her from the chair and turned to toss her on the bed to the cheers of the men around him. She landed hard, and before she could move to fight him, he leaned down next to her face as he pinned her hands above her head.

In a voice he hoped they couldn’t hear, he whispered in her ear, “Don’t look anywhere but in my eyes. I promise I won’t let them hurt you.”

As he leaned back to unzip his jeans, he saw the look of betrayal in her eyes. It nearly broke him, but if he didn’t do this, one of them would. There was no other choice.

“Do her!” one of them screamed, and the others repeated his command over and over.

Nick roughly stuck his hand into her green scrubs and yanked them off her legs. She cried out, begging him to stop, but he couldn’t. Tearing her panties off, he laid on top of her and thrust into her body, never taking his eyes off her face.

Her sobs filled his ears, drowning out the cheers from the men around them. Lifting his body off hers so he didn’t crush her, he continued to thrust into her. She stared up at him, just as he’d told her, and he slid his hand around her neck to feel something in the act other than the sickening feeling of betrayal.

Never before in his life had he seen such pain in someone’s eyes and all because of him. With every thrust into her body, he knew that would never leave him for the rest of his life. That it shouldn’t leave him.

Finally, she closed her eyes, and he sensed every word he’d said to her fading away, replaced by hatred and distrust.

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Chapter Eight

In the darkness,Persephone sat tied to that kitchen chair wishing she could curl up in a ball and die. She’d dared to let herself believe that Nick would protect her, but he’d shown her no one could protect her anymore.

Her stomach roiled, the bile rising in her throat as her mind replayed every moment of those men cheering him on like he was doing something worthy of applause. Hate surged through her for those pigs and him because he was no different from them.

She wanted to hide her shame, but she couldn’t. Instead, she had to sit there in that room alone as the memory of what had been done to her refused to go away. Powerless and terrified, she waited for the moment when the next one would come in and take their turn with her.

Persephone closed her eyes and hung her head. How could he have done that to her? How could he have promised to protect her in one breath and then forced himself into her in the next?

She didn’t want to cry anymore. She had no more tears anyway. They’d all been used up with every time she cried out for him to stop.

For the first time in days, she felt utterly hopeless. Everything she’d built up in her mind—all the possibilities Nick offered, all the chances she believed would come because he was on her side—all of that disintegrated the moment he gave in to the cheers from those animals hours before.

Now the reality of what would happen to her couldn’t be denied. They’d keep her alive as long as her father continued to pay them or until they got as much as they needed, and then they’d kill her. In the meantime, they’d use her as a sex slave, torturing her with rape to punish her for whatever crimes they’d convinced themselves she’d committed because of who she was.

A tiny flame of resistance still existed somewhere deep in her mind telling her to keep working to loosen the ropes around her wrists and keep trying to wriggle out of the rope keeping her in that chair. It quietly whispered that she was stronger than anything any of them—even Nick—could do to her.

She wanted to believe that voice. She wanted to remember how it felt to be truly strong again. But after what he’d done, she didn’t know if she had enough strength inside her to continue fighting.

All she knew now was if she did escape from this hell, it would be because of herself and no one else.

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