Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 199879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 999(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 999(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
I enter the double doors of the hospital, and Devin waits for me. He is our main doctor here at Carnage. Has been since I was little.
I bring the table to a stop, and he takes over. I watch him push her into a room as her muffled cries and screams fade to nothing when the doors close behind them.
She’s a mother…was a mother. She traded her only child in for a life that she thought was better than this. Her husband was informed that his daughter was found dead of an overdose in an alley last week. She had never done drugs a day in her life. So he said. He had went through his wife’s cell and their banking accounts to find where she had set it up to have their daughter killed. Paid five grand to an old boyfriend of the daughter’s to make it look like a suicide. He had messaged his ex that he missed her and talked her into going out on a date with him. After they finished dinner, they went to a friends of his house where they shot her up with drugs and raped her before tossing her into an alley once done.
I knew of their daughter. She would be a senior at Barrington next year, and her mother didn’t want her living the life that her husband had planned for their daughter.
I grew up in this life around death and torture every day, so I’m desensitized by all of it. But this one gets to me because that could have been Ashtyn. Her mother has been so hell-bent on her not being my chosen that I know just how far she went to keep that from happening. I was lucky that Altus shared what he knew with me.
Now we’ve each got a secret. And that’s what bothers me the most. My hands are tied, and I can’t do shit about it. Not now anyway and maybe never. It’s eating at me, and I hate to let shit go.
“Hey, man.”
I turn to see Kashton walking toward me with an ice pack in his hand. “What the hell happened to you?” I ask, seeing the blood dripping from his busted nose.
“Trying to help Devin earlier with a patient. The bastard knocked the shit out of me.”
I laugh. “It happens.”
We both turn and exit the hospital to head back to the basement, and he looks around and sees we’re alone before he speaks. “Has anyone said anything about Ashtyn?”
“Nope.” Haidyn and I filled him in on what happened, but none of our dads have said anything to me. And as far as I know, Altus has been staying here at Carnage.
I haven’t told my brothers what Altus showed me, but I know that he’s on Ashtyn’s side. If the other dads found out, they would probably force his hand, but for right now, she’s safe. And I intend to keep it that way.
TWENTY-TWO
ASHTYN
I’ve been staying at my parents' house for five days, so my mother knows something is up. I never choose to stay here. She hasn’t mentioned anything about the stranger being here the other night and spotting my car.
I’ve also noticed that my father hasn’t been home since I’ve been here either, which makes me think he’s been at Carnage. I haven’t had any contact with Saint either, and I’m not sure how I feel about that just yet. He’s tried, but I’ve ignored him. I’m not sure what to do or how to proceed at this point. Too many moving parts that I just can’t trust.
One minute, I worry if he’s okay. Then the next, I remember him branding a woman tied to a chair in a straitjacket.
“Honey, I made us an appointment tomorrow,” my mother says, entering my room.
I’m on my third pint of Ben & Jerry’s mint chocolate cookie and my second bottle of wine. I close my eyes, and I see the woman begging them not to kill her. I see Saint just watching, not an ounce of emotion in his cold eyes. And I hear Haidyn telling me to stay quiet or they’ll replace the woman with me. “I’m not going,” I tell her. The last thing I’m going to do is tell her fucking therapist what I saw. One, they won’t believe me, and two, they won’t fucking care.
She huffs, her hands on her narrow hips. “You’re going, and that’s final.” She turns and exits my room, slamming my door shut.
I look at my cell and see that it’s almost dead. I haven’t charged it the last couple of days.
Rolling out of bed, I decide I need a shower to try to get out of this funk that I’ve fallen into. Maybe I’ll feel better if I clean myself up.
An hour later, I stand in my bathroom, drying my hair, when I hear a sound. I shut the blow dryer off and lay it on my counter. “Mom?” I call out. After a few seconds of silence, I exit my bathroom and enter my adjoining bedroom. Walking over to my closed door, I twist the knob. “Mom—?”