Collateral Damage (16 page)

Knowing didn't change what I felt. Pain wasn't absent, but it was a shallow thing. Beneath it the current of pleasure lifted me. My lips curved in a smile.
So nice.

I must tell Vince—must thank him.

A rough finger pressed against my lips. Tapped twice.

No speaking. How could I forget? I groaned as the fire curled around my nipples.

Something cold and moist brushed my lips. I opened my mouth. A tangy burst, sour—too sour. My lips puckered as I tried to scrape the taste off my tongue with my teeth. The scent of gasoline filled the air. Vince tapped my lips again.

I got the impression he wanted me to open my mouth again. Not happening. I clenched my teeth and pressed my lips together.

A hand curved under my chin, and fingers dug into my jaw muscles. Not a shallow pain. Not one I could absorb or ignore.

I whimpered as something metallic was jammed between my teeth, forcing my mouth to stay open. A
jug jug jug
and a plastic tube slid over my tongue.

Breathing through my nose, I evaded a threatening panic attack. Part of my brain still felt like I'd smoked some really good shit—without the icky aftertaste.

The other part stayed on track.
Trust him.

Smooth, thick liquid . . . sweetness flowed out of the tube. Hitting the wrong part of my tongue and sliding down my throat before I could get a good taste. I rolled my tongue over the roof of my mouth. The metal tainted the flavor, but . . . yes! Milk chocolate. A bit like the truffle ice cream I loved.

A shriek caught me off guard, and I choked. Vince took away the tube and the metal and rubbed my chest, right between my breasts. Then he put something else against my lips. Stroked my throat with his fingers.

I sucked. A straw. Water.

Gulping greedily, I managed to get past the feeling of needing to cough. Ready to continue, I released the straw and turned my head.

Vince took my hand and rubbed my fingers. He gave them a little squeeze just as the crowd grew quiet and still.

"What do you say we offer our performers a bit of a challenge?" Cyrus' voice rose above the stuttering sound of some tool being turned off. He didn't say anything as the background music reached a climax. As the drumbeats slowed and the chorus whispered their haunting outro, he said softly. "They've done so well with their own victims. Would they do as well with another?"

I shook my head and mouthed,
Don't let him do this
.

"Men. Please switch places." Cyrus said.

Footsteps trailed away. Others approached.

"Thank you." Cyrus sounded thoroughly amused. He probably knew I hadn't panicked because I felt safe with Vince. He'd taken that security away. "You may continue."

A monstrous roar of a very big power tool. I didn't know which one. All I knew was my heart pounded in my chest and in my skull, and my teeth were chattering. If it got any closer, I was going to scream.

Not a wordless scream, but Vince's name. To end this. Maybe if I was eliminated, he'd be forced to act. To choose.

The air vibrated around me as the tool hovered by my side. I sucked in air.

"Vince!"

* * * * *

The roaring died down. I tossed my head from side to side. He had to come back.

I couldn't be wrong about him. "Vince!"

"Finish it." Cyrus said with a heavy sigh. "I won't keep these good people waiting."

Gloved hands lifted my breasts, and cool lips kissed between them, moving down to where my skin tightened around the butterfly. The wet tip of a tongue traced the outline of the wings, pressing just enough to send a fluttery sensation along my flesh.

A hand slipped between my thighs. Two fingers, thick and smooth, encased in leather, sunk into me. Curved inward, thrusting slowly, then faster and faster.

"A-Ah!" I jerked my bound hands as all the sensations built up and up and overflowed. Flooding, undulating, rising . . . like riding a high tide to the edge of a cliff.

As the waves receded, I teetered, saw myself fall. But not far.

Because I still had the wings Vince had given me.

"Well done, I must say." The sound of a light smack followed Cyrus' words. "Go ahead. Get her out of here."

The black went away, and light scorched my eyes. A white flare cut across my vision. Then everything keeping me from drifting away disappeared. My arms flailed.

My feet scrambled for something solid.

"Nicole." Vince framed my face with his hands, making blinders with his palms.

"Stop."

"You're here." I touched his lips, his hair, the little dents in his cheeks where the staples had pressed into them. "I'm sorry. I tried."

"You did very well." He leaned forward to whisper against my lips. "You won.

You're safe."

"I'm safe?" I glanced at the other tables. Tobi and Steve were still chained, lying motionless, maybe even dead. The other cloaked men—Eddie and Darryl—stood between them, ribbing one another and laughing. "But I spoke."

"We'll talk about that later." He swept his cloak off and draped it over my shoulders. Then he wrapped my arms around his neck. "Hold on tight."

As he cradled me in his arms, the heavy cloak enveloped me. My body fit nice and snug against his chest. His tight grip made me feel a little floaty again. I couldn't fly high because my wings were wet, but I got caught up a little in the breeze as Vince moved faster and faster.

"How about a hand for the lovely couple!" Cyrus called out.

Vince sped up. Thunder rolled around us, and the lights dimmed. Everywhere lightning seemed to flash in flesh-colored clouds.

"Keep your head down." Vince pulled the folds of the cloak up over my face.

"And don't let go of me."

"If you could direct your attention to the losers . . . ." Cyrus laughed. "Or not. She does smell divine, doesn't she?" His voice rose above the humming rancor of the clouds.

"I won't lose guards holding them off, Vince. You better run."

Hunched over me, Vince bolted forward, driving his shoulder into the door. The impact created a shockwave that shuddered right through my bones. I returned to myself as he hit the door again. I still felt a little buzzed, but I knew we were in trouble.

"Put me down, Vince." I shoved at his chest when he shook his head and hit the door again. I glanced over his shoulder and saw people cramming the stairway. Several broke free of the others and stated towards us. "Vince they're coming!"

He took a few backwards steps and then rushed forward, kicking the door right between the handles. As the door burst open, he put me down and shoved me into the hall. "Go!"

Go?
I watched him turn back to the frenzy of the arena and shook my head.
As in
go without you?
"I don't fucking think so."

Snarling, he grabbed me by the wrist and wrenched me further into the hall. He elbowed a door, and it cracked a lunging man in the face. Then he threw me over his shoulder and made a run for it.

The pretty butterfly on my stomach seemed to tear at me with every one of his long strides. When he cleared the basement stairs, I twisted, and then smacked his back as his grip tightened. "Put me down!"

"You're not fast enough." He reached the second set of steps and took them two at a time. "Cyrus will give his 'guests' the run of the house until they've had their fill.

Alrik's room is secure. I'm putting you in there with him."

I nodded and stopped struggling until he put me down by Alrik's door. Before he could turn the door handle, something inside me snapped. I slapped him.

He stared at me, stunned.

"Don't you ever do that again!" I hiccupped over a sob and shoved him. "Alrik needs you just as much as he needs me! Those freaks could have killed you!"

Rubbing his cheek, he gave me a crooked grin. "I'm not that easy to kill."

"If you laugh at me, I'll—" I gulped back the rest of the threat as he slammed his hands on the wall at either side of my head.

"You'll what?" He nudged my chin with the edge of his jaw and lowered his lips to my throat. "Tell me, I'm curious."

This flip from near panic mode to . . . teasing seductiveness threw me off.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins, such a rush on top of the lingering effects from what he'd done to me that I felt a little stoned. But the screams from below were coming closer.

Teeth chattering, I eyed the door beside me. "I thought we were going in—"

"The screams are getting louder." He licked up the length of my throat. "We have a bit of time."

Like that made sense. "Please . . . I'm bleeding. I need—"

"Shut up." A low growl vibrated deep in his chest. "I have more control than this."

"Vince?" I cupped his jaw and forced his head up. His eyes flashed an inner light, like molten gold. "Are you okay?"

"No. But I will be." He pushed away from me and gestured to the door. "I appreciate your concern, but Alrik needs you now. Just you. I don't trust myself around him." Combing his fingers through his hair, he shook his head. "Or you."

As much as I wanted to help him, I couldn't really say I trusted him either at this moment. And if I had to choose between him and Alrik . . . well, the decision wasn't a hard one to make.

Reaching for the doorknob, I hesitated and gazed up at him. "All right, but can you promise me something?"

"What?"

I worried my bottom lip with my teeth. "Don't go back down there."

"For fuck's sake!" He ripped my hand off the doorknob and threw the door open.

"No, Nicole. I can't promise you that." Grabbing my arm, he propelled me into the room. "Those monsters you saw down there . . . I am one of them. You'd do well to remember that."

The door shut behind me. I turned the lock on the doorknob and found my way to Alrik's bed by the faint glow of the nightlight. His eyes were wide open, glistening with tears.

"Are they coming, Miss Reed?"

Holding Vince's robes closed over my chest with one hand, I reached out with the other and smoothed the sweat-soaked hair off his brow. "No way, buddy. I just came in here to make sure the noises hadn't scared you."

"I'm not scared, it's just . . . ." He pressed his lips together. "I wish my dad would come get me."

His dad. Forbidden topic. But we were alone.

"Do you want to talk about your dad? Or your mom?"

"Uh uh." He cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered. "His job is secret.

So secret I don't even know what it is. But he had Cyrus come get me, so the bad guys can't find me."

"I see."
I smiled a tight smile, holding back all the foul names I wanted to call Cyrus. "He must be a very good man."

"Oh he is." Alrik's lips curved, and his eyes fluttered shut. "I'm going to be just like him when I grow up. Or like Vince. I like Vince."

I watched him fall asleep, and then tucked his blankets under his chin.

"You'll never be like Vince, Alrik. Not if I can help it."

Not unless Vince becomes something other than Cyrus' toy.

I gathered all our reading-time cushions together to make an impromptu bed.

My eyes burned as I stared unblinking at the ceiling, holding a mental scalpel over my heart and soul, prepared to cut Vince out for good.

Chapter Fourteen

The cushions had either become very comfortable during the night, or I wasn't on the floor in Alrik's room anymore. Of course, Vince wouldn't have unlocked the door and taken me out unless things had quieted down . . . .

Despite how pissed I'd been at his behavior, I couldn't help but be a little pleased he'd come for me. Sprawled out naked on his bed, I felt something wet dabbing at the wounds on my stomach and smiled. He was taking care of me. Underneath the twisted way he'd been raised, he was still a decent person. I wasn't ready to give up on him.

Not yet. And an apology would go a long way in convincing me there was hope for him.

"Good to see you made it out alive." I draped my arm over my eyes to block the light. "You had me worried."

"Touching, really." A rumbling laugh tore away my drowsiness and put me on high alert. This wasn't Vince. "But as chaotic as it seemed, I was never in any danger."

I rolled to the other side of the bed and then stood to glare at Cyrus. "Where's Vince?"

"Around." Cyrus dropped the damp rag he'd used on the bed and frowned at me. "You know, a little gratitude would be nice, Nicole. I made sure the odds leaned in your favor in the arena. Tobi would have been much easier to deal with."

"Did she even have a shot?" I noticed a robe flung over the foot of the bed and grabbed it. Keeping my eyes on him, I put it on. "Or was the whole thing rigged?"

He shrugged. "If she'd managed not to scream and cry and beg whoever was playing with her to stop . . . she might have won."

"And Steve?"

"He came the second Eddie touched his dick."

"So how long were they out before I screamed for Vince?" Irrelevant, maybe, but I had a sick feeling I already knew, and I needed to be sure.

Cyrus' eyes narrowed. "Why does it matter?"

"How long?"

The bed creaked as he stood. He crossed the room to the closet, disappeared inside, then emerged with a gold gown so exquisite my mind went blank for a moment.

I'd never cared that much about clothes—shoes were more my thing—but, even on the hanger, this dress was stunning.

Before I had a chance to consider what I was doing, I'd circled the bed and approached him. I traced the embroidered, one-shouldered bodice with my fingertips.

Ran my hand over the trailing chiffon.

The flesh around his eyes crinkled. "Do you want to try it on?"

Yes!

My stalled brain sputtered to life.
You're going to play dress up with Cyrus? Really?

"I want you to answer my question."

"It truly
amazes
me how easily you delude yourself into believing I
actually
give a shit." Cyrus chuckled, hanging the dress over his dresser mirror. "Put the dress on.

You're going out."