Hellraiser (The Devil's Own #2) (2 page)

Eddy handed me another red cup. He raised his in the air. “Cheers.”

I forced a smile, lifting my cup to his. “Cheers.”

I’m not sure how long after that drink I found myself stumbling up the stairs, in search of a bed to lay my head down on. Big arms caught me just as my foot slipped on a step leading up to the bedrooms. “Whoa, you alright?” Eddy surveyed me.

“Yeah,” I answered, my eyebrows drawing together in confusion. I raised my hand to my head, the pounding of the music and my heart beating together in unison only adding to my panic. “I don’t understand,” I whispered to Eddy, who directed me up the stairs. Blurry couples making out against the wall passed me with scattered little groups of guys laughing and talking along the long dim hallway.

“Confused about what?” he asked, his grip tightening around my arm.

“I didn’t drink much and my legs are beginning to feel numb.”

He pushed open one of the bedroom doors, guiding me into the darkness before the door clicked shut, breaking the silence.

I swallowed. “Why’s it so dark in here?”

“Shhhh,” he murmured from behind me, the stale smell of beer prominent on his breath that fell over my shoulder.

My legs began to wobble before they gave away and I dropped to the floor. With my tired eyes now struggling to stay open, I started to murmur softly, not recognizing where I was or what was happening. Hands wrapped around my shoulder blades, bringing me to my feet and backing my body up against the foot of the bed. Strong hands shoved me back until I fell flat against the mattress.

“No,” I wept. “Please, what’s going on?”

Every movement sent tremors throughout my body. With my hair sprawled out everywhere, the bed dipped beside me and a low laugh echoed around the room.

“Cheers, geek,” a foreign voice snickered from the other side of the room before the darkness that surrounded me was gone with the flick of a switch. My panic began to intensify as my lids started to close. I looked around to see the other three men there, all leaning against walls, drinking their drinks and smirking at me. Eddy crawled over my body, his hand gripping around my upper thigh, dragging me down toward him.

“No!” I attempted to shake my head vigorously, only it came out slow. Numbness continued to wash through me, my heart rate picking up erratically before the dark pits of sleep pulled me in and my eyes shut.

My body had failed me, and for that, my mind will pay.

My eyelashes fluttered open, my head still ponderous. A heavy body weighed down over me, molding my body into the mattress. The bed moved faster and faster from my weight shifting, my head smashing against the headboard with each thrust. The overpowering numbing sensation tingled throughout my body. “No,” I mumbled, my eyes cracking open a little. It wasn’t Eddy on top of me this time. Before I could protest, they shut again, overpowered by sleepiness and sedation.
No!
I think to myself.
Stay awake, you need to stay—st—stay—wake.
My thoughts shut off again. This happened multiple times. Four times, to be exact. Every time I would come into semiconsciousness, it would only last a few seconds before I realized it was one of the other boys on top of me. My heart hurt and my legs were pained. I broke into two that night, the old me and the new me.

The next morning, my lids peeled open to find I was in the same bed. Memories from last night came flashing through my brain and my throat hitched. My hand flew up to cover my whimpers. My mousy blonde hair was matted down on top of my head, my skin sticky with leftover sweat and residue. When I lifted the sheet, I was greeted by the evidence of what had happened. Four men stole my virginity that night. My attempts at “living in the fast lane” backfired in my face and I’ll now have to live the rest of my life with the flashbacks in the back of my brain. Dropping my hand onto the bed, tears fell silently down my cheek, rolling over my chest. My head dropped, my eyes defeated, and my heart beat with anger.

I hated men.

Hate them.

I will never let another man get to me.

Two months later

The door to the drugstore dinged as I walked through with my hoodie covering my face and sunglasses shading my eyes. When I got home that morning, I went back to my dorm and thought about what my options were. I sat in the scorching hot shower and closed my eyes as the steam licked over my skin gently. Beads of condensation curled on my hands and I scrubbed my skin viciously, thinking that would wipe away what had happened. I thought about going to the police, but truth was, these boys’ parents probably had enough pull in this town to end anyone in a courthouse. That would mean I would have to wear the shame of people knowing about what happened, being called a liar and a slut. That’s what would’ve happened. Those boys had beautiful girlfriends and dated cheerleaders. Why would anyone believe they’d raped a girl like me? Then what would happen with my mother? She wouldn’t be able to afford to take them through court—and she would want to, God knows she would. If she found out what happened, she would take everyone down with her. It would kill her, and I couldn’t do that. The best thing I could do was put my head down and ignore them. Getting on with my schoolwork sounds difficult, but our campus was large and it’d only be for a couple more years. That was, of course, until I found out I had missed my period, which brings me back to the now.

I quickly snatched the first test I could see off the shelf and walked towards the counter.

“Miss?” The man said behind the desk. “You’re going to need to take off the hoodie and the glasses.”

“Why?” My body tensed.

“Because it’s the rules. We’re a drugstore. We have cameras for a reason, but right now, you look like you’re going to hold up my store,” he said softly with a gentle smile.

“Right,” I said, bringing my hand up to the rim of my hoodie around the same time the doorbell dinged again. I dropped it down to cover the back of my neck and removed my glasses. He smiled, nodding at me in thanks.

I felt him before I saw him. My whole body tensed. My heart hammered against my chest as shame washed over me. He walked to the counter and I kept my head down, watching as his hand reached out and grasped the little box on the counter. The clerk looked between who I’m assuming was Eddy and me nervously before putting his hand out. “Can I take that, please?”

Eddy handed it to him slowly, keeping quiet before spinning around and walking back out the door without so much as a word.

I exhaled the breath I didn’t know I was holding. The clerk handed it back to me in a paper bag. I nodded and ran out of the store, deciding not to stop there, continuing to run all the way back to the dorms. I pushed open our dorm door, shoved off my hoodie, and threw it onto the bed. Billie was laying on the bed with her headphones on in her punk alternative attire.

“Hey.” She removed the buds from her ears.

“Hi. I just need to go to the bathroom, I’ll be back.” I smiled at her, taking the hoodie back out of the room and down to the communal bathrooms.

I sat on the closed toilet bowl, tapping the white stick in my hand to a silent beat. The water from the dripping tap dropped every two seconds like it always had. I wondered why the maintenance man hadn’t gotten that fixed yet; isn’t that their job? And surely that would be affecting the water bill.

Looking down to my watch, I noticed the right amount of minutes had passed, so I took a deep breath before flipping the test over and exhaling slowly.

“Fuck.”

Later that evening, I was on my nightly run when I pulled my ear buds out of my ears and leaned over, resting my palms onto my knees and catching my breath. My hair was pulled up to a high ponytail and my eyes were free from my glasses, now that I had purchased contact lenses.

The full moon lit up the campus lighter than any other night, but for some reason, an eerie chill ran up my spine before spreading out to my fingers. I sat up straight, assessing the area, and noticed that there actually wasn’t anyone out tonight. The campus was dead. Wrapping my ear buds up, I began walking back to my dorm.

I was rounding the building of the library, my head looking over my shoulder when I came crashing into a big chest. Hands wrapped around my throat instantly, pushing my back until it was colliding with the brick wall. The sting in my back was nothing compared to the tight grip that was around my throat, cutting off my breathing. Eyes that I had mistaken to be gentle were now peering into me in disgust from behind a ski mask.

“Was it positive?” he growled as Shane, Mathew, and Julian followed closely behind him, all with hoods thrown over their heads and ski masks also covering their faces.

Panic began to rise in my throat. I shook my head. “No, it was negative.”

“Bullshit,” Julian spat, eyeing me up and down in disgust.

“I swear!” I lied, looking up at Eddy.

Eddy laughed, peering over his shoulder before bringing his eyes back to me. “Better make sure.” His arm drew back before coming fist first into my gut. All the air left my body as I curled over, clutching my stomach.

“Please!” I pleaded with them. “Leave me alone! I didn’t press charges, I kept my mouth shut!”

Julian walked up to me, the back of his hand flying in the air until it collided against my cheek, knocking me to the cold, hard concrete and leaving a deep throbbing in its wake. “Tell them what?” he said, bending down, wrapping his fist around my ponytail and pulling me up forcefully. “You wanted it, pleading for my dick. So I figured, I may as well fuck your ass too, and I did.”

Bile was rising up my throat, threatening to surface while tears pricked the corner of my eyes. My cheek stung and my stomach ached. I wrapped my arms around it protectively and they all laughed.

Eddy walked towards me, backing me up against the wall. I begged him, “Please, please leave me alone.”

“Can’t do that, geek. Just start praying you make it out of this alive.” His fist went flying into my face at the same time a foot pushed into my stomach again, this time setting off a crippling pain that spread out all the way around to my lower back. A damp puddle formed in my underwear and I dropped to the concrete, bringing my knees up to my chest with my arms covering my head, all while they continued their assault on me. This was the night I realized two things:

1) Geek Melissa was over. I would never be a doormat ever again.

And

2) If you can’t beat ‘em, you join ‘em. From now on, I swore to myself that I would never let my feelings get the better of me. They were switched off.

Hella

“Hold up!” I raise my hand as Beast, my best friend and president of The Devil’s Own motorcycle club, was about to drop the gavel. “I get it, I really do. But fuck, man, this isn’t our war.” I met Beast when I was fifteen. The men who took me were a part of a government undercover operation named “The Army”. Its cult-like tendencies were extreme. Beast had been there all his life, unlike me. I still remember the first time I met him.

Armed men were leading me down worn stairs, the creaking from the old floorboards heavy under my steps. I don’t know how long I had been out or how many days had passed, and questions were getting the better of me. The sack was back over my head as they continued to drag me down the steep stairs. “Where the fuck am I? What the fuck is going on?” I spat, the arms that were on each side of me tightening.

“You’ll know soon,” a low voice mumbled beside me.

“Fuck that! That’s not good enough!”

The sound of clinking keys sounded before a heavy metal door slid open. My head turned from side to side as the cuffs that were locked around my wrist suddenly became free. A hand pushed me in before the door slid closed behind me again. I brought my hands up to the bottom of the sack, ripping it off and attempting to bring my eyes into focus. I was in a gloomy metal room that was about the size of a midsized living room. My head moved from side to side, trying to focus on what the fuck was going on when I saw someone sitting in the corner, the light coming from the stairs showing his shoes where the rest of him was hidden in the shadows. “Ah, are you supposed to be trying to hide? Because I can see you,” I said, feeling uneasy and well aware of how I was caged in here with a complete stranger. The foot moved, the man rising to his feet. When his body came toward me, I swallowed roughly. He must have only been a couple years older than me, if that. “Jesus, what do you bench?” I asked, sizing him up. I could probably still take him.

He nudged his head, bringing his hand out to me. “Beast.”

“Your name’s Beast? Kinda name is that?” I asked, taking his hand in mine before retreating it. “My street name is Hella, real name is Brax.”

“Hella?” he threw back with a chuckle. “The fuck kinda name is that? What do you mean ‘street name’?” he threw back.

“My name so people didn’t know who I was…” I add, watching his blank stare. Jesus, this fucker had no idea. “I was homeless, living under a bridge, in and out of foster care all my life. When I started dealing, I needed a name to give people that wasn’t my real name.” Nothing. His bleak eyes were just staring into me as if I was speaking a different language. “How fucking long have you been in here for anyway?”

“Turn around,” he said, brushing me off and twisting his finger in the air.

My eyes narrowed. “Why?”

His arms grasped around my shoulders before he spun my body around, pulling the back of my collar down. “That’s not your name now. In here, you’re Agent 112.”

“What? Agent? What the hell is this place?” I spun back around, running my fingers over the back of my neck where three numbers had swelled into my skin.

“Putting it short? They’ll train you to become you, only more detached, more lethal.”

“Why? And why me?”

“To kill. And you were blacklisted, a lost boy, they’ll have their reasons.”

“What do the numbers mean?” I ask, bringing my hand up to the back of my neck.

Beast shoves his hands into his pockets. “They’re in threes. If your number begins with one, that means you were a recruit, blacklisted. If your number begins with a two, you were bought in by your family affiliations. If your number is three, you were born into it. There have been whispers that there is an agent 000. Don’t know if it’s true, but they call him the executioner. Never seen him with my own eyes.”

“Holy shit,” I whisper, shaking my head. “What’s your number start with?” I asked, my eyes running to his neck.

“Three, and I’m the only one as of today.”

Since then, we became brothers, and I knew in a second that I would lay down my life for him.

“Hella!” Beast beamed from his position, pulling me out of my memory. “You were saying?”

Beast leaned back into his chair while running his hand over his chin. “Does our history mean nothing to you? The history between Zane and his crew?”

“Not really, don’t give a fuck about them, Beast. This is our club. We must watch ours first.”

His eyebrows rose. “Are you fighting me on this?”

I glanced around the table at the brothers who were there and willing to lay their life down for this club. I shook my head. “Nah, prez, I gotchu.”

And I do. I have his back no matter what, and that’s not just because he’s my president, but because we were brothers before this patch bonded us together, and maybe even before The Army bonded us together. He’s my bromate.

He slammed the gavel down and pushed off his chair. “Good, then it’s final. We ride out tonight.”

Slouching back in my chair, I put a cigarette into my mouth and Frost throws me his Zippo. “I’m with you on this one. Doesn’t seem right.”

I watched as everyone cleared out of the boardroom. Our clubhouse was big, but the land it was on was even bigger. The day I got patched in was when Beast had gone out on a run one night after finding out who his biological dad was. His dad brought me back here to Las Vegas and admired my loyalty toward Beast. I think he knew how deep my loyalty ran, and also that Beast would be taking the gavel one day, so he put me as Sgt. Of Arms automatically over boys who had been rolling with him for years. At first, I thought it was fucked up that he would do that. That was, until I saw in his eyes how much he loved Beast. Since that day, I never second-guessed his decision. After he died, Beast assigned me as Vice President, his right-hand man. It came as less of a shock, since all the brothers knew he would. Becoming a member of an MC came almost naturally to us. For Beast, it was all he had ever known to be part of a group, whereas for me, I was used to being on my own, yet I craved a brotherhood.

“Westbeach, huh,” I said, flicking my ash.

Frost laughed, running his hand over his chin. “Yeah, Westbeach.”