Rock Bottom (26 page)

Chapter Fifty-eight

“Stop!”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Brian shift his attention over my shoulder and my finger eased off the trigger. All the color had drained from Damien’s face, but I was too busy splitting my attention between Brian and a new fifth member of our entourage to enjoy the sight. 

Echoing footsteps preceded him around the corner of the shipping container and I immediately recognized the second half of Rafe’s Dynamic Duo. And he wasn’t alone.

“We’ve got a complication.” My sobriety sponsor shoved a wild-eyed Elijah ahead of him and came to a dead stop. “What the hell is going on in here?”

“Bitch got the jump on me. Stole my damn weapon,” a voice behind me growled. I hadn’t been paying him enough attention and he was closer than I’d expected.

“Back up,” I warned and he took a single step back, a smug grin tugging at his lips.

Elijah’s eyes collided with mine and I swear I saw pride in them before his escort gave him one more shove forward toward the rest of us. “Boz, you friggin’ idiot.”

“Well, where the hell were you, Hariri?” Boz demanded.

“Thought I spotted a tail on the way here. And looky what I found snooping around outside.”

All eyes turned to Elijah, including Damien’s, and a cold lump formed in the pit of my stomach.

“I know you.” Damien scanned Elijah through narrowed eyes, searching his memories. I crossed my fingers and hoped like hell he wouldn’t put it together, but hope is a fragile thing. “You catered my last party. Got awfully cozy with Star when you thought no one was looking.”

His gaze cut back to me and I trembled at the razor sharp malice I saw in it.

“Isn’t that right, Star? Still planning to shoot me?” He waited for my response, but words failed me. “Bring him here.”

The gun wavered in my hands as Hariri guided Elijah closer to our group. He had a gash on his left temple and blood streaked down the side of his face. I could feel his eyes on me, but Damien commanded my full attention.

“Put the gun down, Star, or Hariri will blow his head off.” Damien shook his head and tsked when I hesitated to do as ordered. “I’ll count to five. One . . . Two . . . Three . . .”

My life I had no problem forfeiting in exchange for Damien’s, but not Elijah’s. Never Elijah’s. “Okay!”

“Rylie, don’t—” A sucker punch to the gut silenced Elijah’s protest and made me flinch.

Lifting my hands in surrender, I bent slowly at the waist and placed the gun on the floor.

Boz was quick to retrieve it. “Now what?”

He was talking about Elijah, but Damien’s focused remained locked solely on me.

I’d woken the beast.

“
Rylie
, is it?” He strode toward me, appearing completely in control, but I’d rattled him. I could see the rage bubbling beneath his finely polished surface. “I liked you better as Star.”

He grabbed my wrist, spinning me around and wrenching my arm up behind my back until it felt as though something was going to snap. I went up on my tiptoes to ease the pain, but nothing helped. A quiet mewling sound escaped my throat and I wanted to shoot myself in the foot for being so weak.

“
Get off her!
” Elijah struggled, forcing Hariri to holster his weapon in order to get a better grip on him. “Leave her alone.
Rylie!”

I bit my lip to hold back any more cries as Damien bent me forward over the hood of the van and followed me down.

“Plan stays the same,” he told the others and then brushed his lips against my ear to whisper loud enough for all to hear, “Load her in the container with the others. The truck should be here any minute to pick them up for delivery.”

Elijah quit fighting. He went stock-still. I thought maybe he was in shock. Then, out of nowhere, he blurred into motion, wrenching his arm from Hariri’s grasp and spinning around behind him to use the man as a human shield.

All of which did him zero good when Boz’s weapon swung in my direction.

Alone, either one of us might have stood a chance, but together . . . we were each other’s greatest weakness.

“One more step and I put a bullet in her brain.”

Elijah hesitated and I could have screamed. So I did. “Go, Elijah! Get out of here!”

A bullet was still preferable to getting in that container.

Damien shoved my arm higher and something popped. A wave of heat and pain washed over me unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I thought I might pass out, but I wasn’t that lucky.

“Stop!
Please
.” My eyes were squeezed shut against the tears building in them, but I heard the scuffle as Elijah surrendered. “Don’t hurt her.”

Damien released me, but I continued to lay slumped over the hood of the van, struggling to breathe through the pain. A tingling sensation raced from my shoulder to my fingers.

“Rylie?” Elijah’s voice was the only thing to reach me through the haze of red buzzing in my brain. I forced my eyes open a sliver. He was being held by both Hariri and Boz, but he wasn’t fighting them anymore. “Are you alright?”

I wanted to say that I was. That his sacrifice meant something. That he’d saved me somehow. That everything would be alright. But none of that was true. Tears scorching twin paths down my cheeks were my only response.

“What do you want to do with him?” Boz gave Elijah a nasty shake and his face tightened.

Damien looked right at
me
when he answered. “Kill him.”

My whole world slammed to a stop.

“
No!
” My sight splintered and the room broke apart around me like a kaleidoscope as I forced myself up, my arm swinging uselessly by my side. I turned to Damien, looking for . . . what? Mercy? The pieces of his face slowly fell back into place. “Don’t. You win, okay? I give up.”

“Rylie, don’t,” Elijah pleaded in the background, but I tuned him out.

“I’ll do whatever you want. Go wherever you send me. I won’t fight you. I won’t try to escape. I won’t cause any more trouble. I swear. Just let him go, and I’m yours.
Please.
”

“My shining Star.” Damien’s fingers traced the curve of my cheek in a mock display of affection. “You’re so beautiful when you beg.” Then, his eyes turned cold and a ruthless slap made my ears ring.

Or maybe it wasn’t my ears because Damien reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, black phone. “What is it?”

His gaze sliced toward Elijah and narrowed as he listened to whatever the person on the other end was telling him.

“It seems . . .” He hung up without another word and tucked away the phone. “. . . our little spymaster here decided to call the police before joining us.”

A general rumble of alarm flowed through the men. More than a few obscenities were uttered.

“What do we do?” Boz was the first to recover.

“Finish him. Dispose of the body and get back here. Brian and I will deal with the girls.”

“
Noooo!
” Tears choked me as screams tore up my throat. “
Elijah! No!
”

Boz bent at the waist and a small, black object slipped from his back pocket, the clatter masked by my wailing. No one appeared to notice, but when he stood again and turned to shove Elijah ahead of him, his foot slid back, sending the item skidding silently across the cement where it bumped into my sneaker.

“Rylie!” Elijah’s feet dragged over the floor as they hauled him toward a red Exit sign glowing in the corner.

My knees buckled and Damien lost his grip, but it did me no good. I sank to the cold hard floor, a lifeless corpse, watching her soul being dragged away.

.

Chapter Fifty-nine

“What about this one?” Brian’s boot nudged my knee.

“Leave her.” Damien’s tone was laced with ice. “She’s not going anywhere. She has nowhere left to go, do you, Star? I’ll deal with her.”

He’d deal with me? The way he
dealt
with Elijah? The way he was
dealing
with the other girls? Rounding them up and herding them toward the vans.

Brian moved along, unlocking cuffs and pointing them at the vehicles. They went without argument. The gun tucked into his waistband might’ve had something to do with it, but mostly they didn’t put up a fight because they had no more fight left in them.

My injured arm lay uselessly in my lap. Pressing my fingers together one at a time confirmed that each of the tips had gone numb. That probably wasn’t a good sign. My other palm glided methodically over the rough flooring, seeking something to ground myself.

All these women . . . Elijah . . . there has to be something I can—

Textured plastic brushed against my thumb. Thick and black inlaid on a silver metal frame about the size of my palm. I flipped it over and found a small, round button. A quiet
snick
accompanied the flash of a blade. 

One-by-one, the women climbed into the vans. All except for the short blonde at the end. The instant the cuff left her wrist she took a wild swing at Damien. Even with the full force of her body weight behind the assault it did little good, but I admired her for it. There she was, unarmed and outnumbered, and still she fought to defend herself. I had a knife. And the element of surprise.

Shutting the damn thing with one hand proved impossible, so I slid it into my pocket, blade open, as I stood and hoped for the best.

Damien snatched the girl’s wrist and pinned it to the wall with enough force to cause her to cry out. I couldn’t hear what vile words he whispered to her, but tears smeared the grime on her face.

My gaze shifted from them to the door in the rear corner of the building and back again. Damien was distracted. Brain had disappeared into one of the vans. I could make a break for it. The odds weren’t great, but they were better than nothing. There was a chance Elijah was still alive. Maybe I could—

“
Ahh-ah-ah-ah.
” Damien held the sobbing, terrified girl by the throat. “Please. I’m soooorry.
Plea—.
” Her pleas sputtered away, replaced by horrible gasping noises.

Her hands pulled at his wrist, swatted at his face, shoved at his shoulders. None of it affected him. He took his time, using his free hand to fondle her breast while she struggled in his grasp.

An image of her dangling from a dragon’s claws flashed through my mind and I shuddered. It was an image I knew would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life if I didn’t do something.

The exit sign glowed, beckoning me. I turned away.
Elijah, forgive me. I’m sorry.

“Damien? Sir?” The interruption drew his ire in my direction.

“Star.” A layer of frost coated his eyes, but beneath it . . . He hadn’t stopped touching the girl and lust heated his gaze.

“I . . .”
What the hell am I doing?
Wide, wet eyes pleaded with me.
Dammit.
“I don’t want . . .” My eyes darted between him and the gaping black hole that was the back of the van.
Closer, I need to get closer.
“Please, sir, don’t send me away.” I shuffled closer and his grip on the girl eased. “I’m sorry. Please. Let me make it up to you.” I probably would have dropped to my knees and crawled if it would have closed the distance between us any faster, but with only one arm it was impossible. “I can be good for you. Let me show you.”

“We don’t have time for this shit. The cops are on their way.” Brian glared at me, but Damien dismissed his concern.

His eyes traced the curves of my figure. Even buried beneath a sweater, he knew every last one of them and managed to make me feel as though I stood before him stark naked.

“They’re at least ten minutes out.” Damien shoved the girl—retching and sputtering—into Brian’s arms. “Put her in the fucking van. I’ll deal with this. You won’t take more than ten minutes now, will you, my shining Star?”

I
almost retched. “N-no, sir.”

“Such a good girl when you want to be.” Heat burned into the base of my spine where Damien’s hand urged me around the shipping container. “Desperation does funny things to people. And you
are
desperate, aren’t you? How does it feel, Star? How does it feel knowing your boyfriend is out there taking his last breath while you’re in here . . .
with me
?”

Any response I might have had for him got trapped behind the knot of emotion clogging my throat. A clang echoed through the massive space as my back was slammed against the side of the container and millions of white-hot needles stabbed at my shoulder. Damien’s laugh had a hard, ugly edge to it.

“Oh, Star,” he purred, running a long finger down the curve of my throat. He paused for a moment over a pulse point that I knew was rabbiting out of control and smiled. “The things I can do to you to make you truly mine. The things I
will
do. To you. To them.” His head rolled idly to indicate the women in the vans. “To others.”

Others?
Happy, healthy women out there, living their lives, blissfully unaware of what monsters like Damien Cross had in store for their futures. My fingers curved around the handle of the knife.

When I was six, my father bought me a book on anatomy for my birthday. I poured over the pages morning, noon, and night, trying to prove to him how much I appreciated the gift. A black and white sketch of the human body flashed into my mind as I sank the blade to the hilt just below his ribcage, angling upward. Kidney, gallbladder, liver . . . I knew I hit
something
important.

Hot blood washed over my hand, making me gag on its sickly sweet stench. Damien stumbled backward, blinking at the handle still protruding from his gut. Once more, he’d underestimated me. The truth was, I was more like him than either one of us wanted to admit. His gaze—fraught with disbelief—lifted to me as he collapsed.

It was then that I saw him. Not the disguise that he wore or the beast underneath, but the little boy. The one trapped within the stone heart of the dragon. The one that looked unmistakably like the boy in the frame in his living room. The one that had been forced to watch his father struggle. His brother die. His family suffer.  The little boy who had learned far too early a lesson that I was still being taught: Sometimes, no matter how good you are or how hard you try, the bad guys win.

But not today.

I sank to my knees beside him, watching the light fade from his wide, confused eyes as he tried to understand why
not
today? Why
not
him? Why
me
? As usual, I had no answers.

“I’m sorry.”

He gasped for breath and I slid my hand into his. Cold fingers clutched mine. He may have been a monster—one of the bad guys—but that didn’t mean he deserved to die alone.

“I’m sorry.” Tears for a man I loathed blurred my vision and clogged my throat. “I’m sorry.”

I lost track of how many times I repeated the useless phrase before his gaze turned vacant and his hand sagged in mine.

I’d taken a man’s life. A family’s son. Somewhere, someone would mourn his loss and I was responsible. The weight of my actions settled on my shoulders, crushing me. My thoughts splintered.

In the corner of my mind, I registered movement to my right. It was there, I just couldn’t grasp it.

“Zip it up, Cross. Time to move. You can bag the slut lat—
Fuck!
” Brian reached around his back, fumbling for his weapon. “You bitch. You’re gonna pay for . . .”

Whatever else he said was drowned out by a ferocious roar. All of my fragmented thoughts coalesced into a single undeniable, heart-searing fact . . .
Elijah’s alive
!

“
Rylie!”
Whole chunks of hair had escaped the leather tie at the nape of his neck and whipped around his face as he hurtled towards me. “
No!
”

Life seemed to move in slow motion. Snapshots of time as Elijah lunged at me. There was the flash of a weapon, the
crack
of a gunshot, the bone-jarring collision of bodies rolling across the hard concrete floor.

I blinked up at the ceiling, trying to get my bearings. A heavy weight rested on my chest. Elijah. He was lying over me, making it difficult to catch my breath. I nudged him, but he didn’t move.

“Elijah.” I pushed harder. “Elijah, you’re crushing me.”

No response.

“Elijah?”

My heart lurched and renewed fear flooded my system with adrenaline, giving me the strength to roll him off of me. He landed none-too-softly at my side.

“Elijah?”

The fronts of both our shirts were soaked with blood.
Whose? Mine? His?

“Elijah!” I grabbed a hold of his shoulders and without care or thought to his injuries, I shook him. “
Elijah!
”

Slowly, so slowly, his eyes peeled open. A maelstrom of emotion—pain, fear, relief—swirled in them.

“Elijah?” His named seemed all I was capable of speaking.

“Ry—” Elijah’s eyes went wide and I twisted to find one royally pissed off Brian. His gun hovered two inches from my head. There would be no missing this time.

I fisted Elijah’s shirt and shut my eyes as a gunshot blasted through my eardrums, hoping to find a way to attach myself to him even in death. But death never came. Not for me. No pain. No blood. No bullet.

Boz tucked away his weapon and knelt to check for a pulse on Brian’s lifeless body.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “But . . . why would you—?”

“Rylie?” Elijah gasped. “You’re okay?”

“Yes.” I nodded as a fire lit behind my eyes.

A sense of peace eased some of the tightness in his face. “You’re okay.”

“Elijah, where are you hurt?” My hand, already tacky with blood, ran over his torso, seeking the source.

“You’re okay.” He swallowed hard and flinched when my exploring hand came across a hole in his left shoulder.

Anatomy facts blasted through my brain. No vital organs, but he was losing blood fast.
Too
fast. Too much blood. I knelt in a puddle of it.

“Hold on.” I pressed my only working hand to his wound, eliciting a pained groan I felt to my soul. “Just hold on. You’re going to be alright.”

Men in black uniforms with guns that looked like something right out of a video game swarmed the warehouse, surrounding us. The cavalry had arrived. But they were too damn late.

With what looked like the last dregs of his strength, Elijah lifted his right hand to cup my face. His silver eyes cleared of their pained haze as he focused on mine. “
Everything
. . . will be . . . alright . . . now. I . . . p-promise.”