Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
* * * * *
I heard them before I found them.
Laughter and grunts.
Glee and despair.
Stepping from the seam that’d grown so narrow I’d had to travel sideways, I blinked at the brightness of lanterns. The four Masters didn’t notice me as two of them fucked two jewels on the ground while the other two watched.
Their paintball guns were tossed in the corner, forgotten. My stolen one clung to my back, occasionally pressing against a bruise. My jeans and t-shirt hadn’t dried. My feet were blocks of ice. And I had no doubt I was now filthy as well as orange.
Five hours I’d been stuck in this hellhole.
Five hours was a long fucking time to stay sane when every bend and shadow whispered with nightmares.
A jewel screamed as a Master rutted into her like an animal.
The cries from these jewels weren’t like the ones with Stewart and Ben. They weren’t given with an edge of acceptance or trust that their Masters wouldn’t go too far.
These men weren’t here just because they had nowhere else to go.
These men were here for pain.
Seconds ticked past as I watched.
The longer I witnessed their monstrosity, the less control I had over my sanity.
Their thrusts scrambled my mind.
Their lust seeped through me like a disease.
The loneliness of my childhood twisted into a toxic thing.
I didn’t know if it was the silence down here. The burial down here. The vacuum of everything I thought I knew and all the hauntings of memories I daren’t recall, but I’d never felt so…adrift. So lost. So fucking confused.
I’d been alone for so long.
But now I’d found men who shared my sins.
My bare feet shifted to join in.
I grew hard.
My heart pumped for the first time in hours.
I wanted Ily.
I wanted her on her back.
I wanted her heat, her fight, her kiss.
Fuck, that goddamn kiss.
I wanted to lick her again, taste her again.
I needed her to yank me back from this abyss.
This timeless, endless abyss where I became nothing more than death.
My hands balled.
The axe grew heavy.
I backed deeper into the shadows as my instincts roared into power.
As one Master came with a snarl and another moved to take his place, I fell.
Deeper into darkness.
Harder into sickness.
I no longer knew who I was.
Boy or man. Saint or sinner. Good or bad.
Watching these men…seeing myself in them…it enraged me, corrupted me, gutted me, redeemed me.
Why was I fighting it?
Why exist in such suffering?
I could be free if I—
Stop it.
Wedging a fist in my belly, I rode out the sadistic urges.
You need to get out.
I needed sunlight to banish this nightmare.
I needed open skies to resurrect me from this crypt.
I need…
I need—
Blood.
And pain.
And her.
I crashed against the wall as my floodgates smashed wide.
My teeth ached. My senses heightened. I lost myself to a creature with no name, no rules, no master.
Ily.
I have to find Ily.
I’d made the mistake of walking in darkness.
Of killing in darkness.
We were one and the same now.
Bonded by all the bad things I had done.
While Masters raped and celebrated, I stared into the black, and the black stared back, and it was over.
It opened its jaws and swallowed me down.
I sank into its belly and…ran.
Threading myself back through the chasm, I scuttled like a crab, sideways and breathing hard.
I had to get away.
I have to get the fuck out of here!
I wriggled and burrowed, desperation rising, claustrophobia clawing.
Desperate to taste fresh air.
Gasping for freedom.
Panic.
Fuck, panic.
It vised around my chest, gluing my ribcage to my heart so every breath wrenched and suffocated.
I tripped and stumbled.
Fumbled at the black wall.
Blinked with blind eyes.
With a groan that sounded as if it came from a tortured, pitiful thing, I tumbled out of the alley and back into the cave of wonders.
The glow worms flickered with indignation at my arrival.
They judged me as I collapsed to my knees like a pauper and gasped for redemption like a thief.
Pressing my sweaty forehead to the damp cave floor, I fell to my side and flopped onto my back.
Darkness.
Everywhere.
Fucking everywhere.
In me. On me. Around me.
But pinpricks.
Staring back.
Glittering like glowing sapphires, forming an entire galaxy above me.
I focused on them.
I clung to their light.
The angelical luminescence wasn’t strong enough to forgive or absolve me.
I was unforgivable.
Unredeemable.
I was nothing but blackness and death.
Chapter Five
………………………….
Ily
“WHICH WAY, PETER?” RACHEL TAPPED OUR broken friend on his pasty cheek.
Peter mumbled something and tried to lift his head, but unlike all the other moments when he’d been able to power through his pain…he no longer had the strength.
With the softest groan, he tumbled sideways where we’d placed him against the wall.
“Oh no.” I caught him before his head cracked against stone, gently lowering his cheek to the cave floor. “Peter?” I shook his lax shoulder. “Jaagate raho, Paavak. Chalo bhee. Aap theek hain.” (Stay awake, Paavak. Come on. You’re okay.)
Nothing.
None of us spoke for the longest time, all of us hoping for a miracle where Peter opened his eyes, sprang to his feet, and led us to victory.