The Fallen (A Sons of Wrath Prequel) (20 page)

Blood shot from the wound, and his eyes widened. He released her throat and grasped for his own.

Crimson rivulets trickled between his fingers, and his mouth fish-gaped as if he couldn’t suck in enough air. He fell onto his back, still clutching his neck.

Karinna rolled up, and sucked in long, heaving breaths, until the spots in front of her eyes disappeared and the light-headed sensation settled.

Remy, too lost in his struggle to survive, paid no attention as she stood over him. One blow could knock him out. Instead, she stepped over his flopping
soon-to-be-
carcass.

Before she reached the door, two large men in black security shirts burst inside and accosted her on either side.

Karinna punched, jabbed and kicked, back and forth as both males closed in on her. She nailed a sharp blow to Lefty’s Adam’s apple, leaving him gasping for air, and hammered her hand in an upward strike to the nose of Righty. He stumbled forward and she planted her foot in his gut.

Arms gripped her from behind, into a bear hug, and she flew across the room into the wall. As she thrust to her feet, a force from behind smashed her cheek into the cold concrete. Karinna flinched as her hands were drawn behind her body. The click of cuffs followed, and a push against her shoulders dropped her to her knees.

“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day.” Jimmy stepped through the doorway. As his gaze fell toward Remy, his brow kicked up. “Impressive.” Arms behind his back, he strolled across the room toward her. “Never liked the idea of allowing mortals into the club.” He shook his head. “Remy was never my favorite.” He sucked in a breath through his nose. “See, I had a feeling there was something screwy about you. Then Katka said you were Xander’s date from earlier and now,”—his eyes trailed to the left of her, toward Remy, and back—“I’m convinced he’s our wolf, and you, his little lamb.”

Karinna’s muscles stiffened as he stood before her.

“I don’t care who you are. What you know. If killing you brings that motherfucker to his knees, that’s all that matters.” He gave a nod to Lefty. “Take her to the old food bank. Prep her with the others.”

CHAPTER 20

Karinna huddled herself in the corner, farthest from the girl chained to the wall across from her. Faint cries told her there were other girls nearby. The cold basement walls of the abandoned warehouse seeped into her skin. She, at least, had a shirt on. The other girl lay naked. The chain extended from the back of her neck to a hook below the window, out of reach. She twitched. Beside her, plates of food crawled with bugs.

Moon’s light scarcely touched her. Spots of flesh dotted her matted brown hair, where it looked as if chunks had been pulled out. Long spindly arms covered her face, and from beneath, she whispered something. Repetitive.

Karinna strained to listen.

Feed it. Fuck it. Eat it.

“What are you saying?”

She merely continued to repeat the words.

“What does that mean?” She’d heard the words before.
Lita
.

The girl lifted her head, and Karinna drew back. Dilated eyes gave her a demonic look. Deep circles emphasized sunken cheeks and the mask of sheer terror that clung to her face in her upturned brows and gaping mouth.

“Feed it. Fuck it. Eat it.” Laughter had her head bowing and rocking across the cement floor. “I refuse the food. Maybe … I’ll be too skinny for them.” The whimsy in her voice didn’t match the words she spoke. She’d clearly lost her mind. “The last girl … she was bigger. I watched them rape her. They ate her.” Her head shook hysterically. “The monsters … they like flesh. I watched the
pigs
eat it like slop from a trough.” Her gaze trailed the ceiling like a schizoid. “I’ll waste away. They won’t want me.” She rose up onto her knees, showing her sickening, skeletal form, marred with gouges and bruises, cuts and small darkened spots that could’ve easily been burns.

A tickle in Karinna’s stomach erupted into a gag, and she flung her palms flat to the cement, holding back the vomit climbing her throat. The walls closed in around her and breath arrived in short spurts.

Laughter. Masks. Burns. Blood. Rape.

The hell that kept Lolita up at night, screaming.

No, no, no
. She had to find a way out. Unlike the other girl, Karinna didn’t have a collar. Xander had removed hers sometime in the night, after they’d made love.

A chance for escape.

Part of her wanted to die. To sob and let the hell of her surroundings pull her under. Except, something feral inside called out to her. Survival.

Kill them. Kill them before they kill you.

Yes, she would kill them all before she’d let them have her.

She cast her gaze back on the girl. “I’ll find a way to get us out of here.” The calm in her own voice surprised her, considering the panic brimming in her gut.

Sounds like crying, or maybe laughter, crawled across her skin. The girl’s eyes locked on hers, lip peeled back in repulsion. “There is no way out.” She lifted the chain attached to her neck and her head tipped to the side. “No. This is where we die.”

Karinna had often heard that victims pulled together in captivity. The woman had already accepted her fate. Delusional. Like trying to convince a corpse to fight for life.

“You, maybe. Not me. I’ve been tracked. Someone is coming for me.”

The girl smiled, her body jerking with laughter. “Stupid. Fucking. Girl.” She shook her head. From behind one of her food bowls, she lifted an object and threw it across the distance, where it landed in front of Karinna.

Picking it up, Karinna examined the tiny golden bracelet that looked identical to the one Xander had given her.

“Tell me something. Did he give it as a gift? Tell you how beautiful you are and how he’s fallen for you? Did he say he’d protect you?” She crawled toward her, stopping when the chain tugged at her spine and forced a wince. As the pain seemed to subside, her face slackened. “The bracelet? It’s to let the others know you’re ready. You’ve been broken in. No one’s coming for you.” The fading smile battled the tears forming in her eyes. “I hope they eat you first.” She burst into hysterical laughter that had Karinna’s stomach gurgling with sickness.

Vomit forced its way out of her mouth, splashing against the floor.

Not me
. She closed her eyes and tucked her chin to her chest.
Think. Find a way out
.

Boots thudded across the floor above them.

Her tormentors had returned.

***

The clatter of chains broke Xander from dreams as he lay sprawled across his bed. With sleep still trying to claim him, a flashback from earlier in the evening drifted through his mind.

Karinna’s screams.

“Oh, God! Xander! Please!”

He’d strapped her to the cross. Infiltrated her darkest fear—the only bit of hope that Karinna clung to—her control. Xander plucked it from her as easy as if he’d taken a rattle from a baby, while he watched her writhe in nervous anticipation of each strike from the whip. Cut of the blade. Heat from the flame. All of which never physically came to be. He’d toyed with her mind, commandeered her fears and brought her to the pinnacle of physical torment before he shattered her suffering with pleasure—pure, relentless indulgence on his part.

Fear and pain came easy enough as long as he could worship that body afterward.

He brought his arm down to tug her against him but paused.

Resistance.

Xander’s eyes flipped open, and a zing of panic flooded his veins as he stared at the cuffs binding his wrists to the bed. Tight. He looked around the room, his eyes taking in nothing more than Karinna’s absence.

Fuck. Fuck.

He wrenched against the steel, jaw clenched, until the chain broke away.

Details from the night before slipped through his mind like a View-master.
Karinna tied to the cross. Hanging from the suspension cables. Riding him in the bathtub and his bed
.

At no point had Xander been left at her mercy up until she finally collapsed into him.

How did he sleep so soundly?

Had he been drugged? Her making herself a drink and then getting him to chug it as she’d poured it over her tits flashed in his head.

Fuck
. He’d been Shined.

He bolted toward the window. His bike was gone.

“Karinna!” he called out as he tugged on pants and a shirt, before sliding into his boots. “Answer me!”

Dread churned inside his stomach. As he passed Karinna’s room, he paused.

No. Please, no.

With a slow turn of the knob, Xander entered the room. A stillness clung to the air, her scent lingering, calling to him.

“Karinna,” he spoke softly.

No answer.

An object lying on the bed caught his eye, and he pounded across the room toward it. A note. Folded in half, the etching of a pen punched through the tiny print of the bible passages. He opened it, catching the thin gold chain enveloped inside:

You know why I’m here. It’s time.

His muscles slackened.

The note fell from his grasp.

Xander stared down at the necklace crumpled in his palm—the same one Karinna had worn. He strode from the room, down the hall, the staircase, straight to the cellar. Every instinct screamed to go after her, but it had to be done right or Karinna might end up killed—and that’d be the merciful end of it. What might happen in between if he showed up, guns blazing, without a plan, left a cold sting in his gut. Some punishments made hell seem like heaven, and no doubt, they’d take their time with her.

For Karinna, he had to make sure every one of those bastards paid for what they did.

Had to ensure that she’d come out of it alive.

Memories flooded his mind like a tidal wave, ready to take him under.

Memories of that night.

The night that’d changed him forever.

Stalking through the shadows, Xander reached the rutting male who pounded away at the girl, gripped his throat, and tore away the mask. Mayor Garrett Knox stared back, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

Red shirt pulled out of the girl’s mouth and leaped onto the concrete, wrapping an arm around Xander’s throat. Three punches of his blade in the male’s stomach, and a long zip up his abdomen, left him doubled over, struggling to grasp at the entrails falling out of his gut onto the girl’s bare legs.

Xander slammed Mayor Knox onto the cement floor and pounded his fist into the man’s face. Over and over, until nothing but smashed bones and blood coated his skin. Yanking a dagger from his holster, he rose up and set the girl free, casting an earnest stare that told her to stay the fuck back.

She shook violently on the concrete. Through tattoos and piercings, she bore the evidence of harsh abuse: burns, cuts, tiny holes where hooks had been lodged into her skin.

Xander removed his jacket and wrapped it around her. The T-shirt he removed bandaged the series of cigar burns still fresh on her thigh. He lifted her, set her on wavering legs, and held her shoulders until she gained some measure of balance, like a foal standing for the first time. Once she seemed steady, he backed a step toward the bloodied man lying on the floor.

“You’re going to want to leave now.” His voice was level, unaffected by her obvious fear.

Something changed in her at that moment.

He’d seen battered females—like lost kittens, trembling and frightened. Damaged. Her eyes turned cold, merciless. Before he could react, she sprang forward and snatched his blade. Falling to her knees, she screamed as she stabbed Knox’s genitals—over and over.

Xander knelt beside her. His hands covered hers and the blade fell with a clang to the floor. He expelled a breath as the force of her body vaulted straight for his chest, and she wrapped her arms around him, squeezing as if she’d try to crush the life right out of him.

She whispered in his ear, a passage he recognized from the bible.

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the children of the Kingdom; and the darnel weeds are the children of the evil one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. As therefore the darnel weeds are gathered up and burned with fire; so will it be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and those who do iniquity, and will cast them into the furnace of fire.

Hands in the air, Xander remained knelt to the floor, frozen. Part of him wanted to push her away, push her across the room.

He didn’t, though.

Lowering his arms, he pulled her up into him, running his hands through her hair, returning the embrace. It felt good. It felt right.

For once, after decades of working in the shit underground scene, Xander felt like a good guy. He’d saved a mortal—against the rules of the heavens. Why? Why would the heavens deny them of such … satisfaction? He held her tighter, savoring the moment, the joy of having protected such a fragile thing. Her trembling seeped into his bones, reached down inside his dark soul, to the place he hadn’t been touched in centuries, and like volts of electricity, brought him back to life.

“I need to finish this.” He rubbed his hand along her abused skin and forced the energy to heal the welts on her back. Her quiet moan let him know she’d felt it.

Sitting back on her heels, her gaze fell to the tattoo on his ribs.  “What is it?”

“A nightingale.”

Tracing the ink with her fingertips, she peered up at him.  “What does it mean?”

“Some believe their song is a plea of souls trapped in purgatory.”

She wiped her eyes on her shoulder, crawled forward on hands and knees, and picked up the volto mask lying beside the man on the floor. She slipped it over Xander’s face, hands shaky, and planted a kiss on the top of his head before backing herself away into the shadows.

Xander twisted on his boot to face his prey. He’d done slow and merciless before. The heavens would curse him for what he was about to do just then.

From the black bag, Xander lifted a stack of papers and spread them across his desk. Medical transcriptions. He dug deeper into the bag, rifling through the pictures, and lifted one from the assortment at the bottom.

Karinna.

Taken five months before. Her hair rested shoulder length, returning to her natural brown, eyes still dark and troubled, but the wounds had finally begun to heal.

Xander scanned the documents on the desk. He’d read them so many times before, every night like a fucking bedtime story.

One screwed up enough to incite nightmares.

Words from the notes almost seemed to spring to life right off the pages:

ABUSE. TORTURE. RAPE. CULT ACTIVITY. SADISMEN.

MONITORED PEDIATRIC FLOOR.

He eyed the page at the top, upon which a diagnosis had been scrawled:

Multiple Personality Disorder

Xander piled the last of the limbs and rose to his feet, taking great pride in his work. Both males had remained alive long enough to see most of their body cut away. Considering the blood loss of the one whose belly Xander had gutted, he considered that a feat.

Sniffles reached his ear, and Xander spun around.

The female.

In the corner of the cellar, huddled beside the chimney, she hid in shadows. She’d seen the whole thing. What he’d done. The demons lying on the floor, torn apart like the discarded meat of a slaughterhouse.

He prowled closer, and the girl kicked back with a gasp.

“You’re … you’re one of them?” Fear claimed her voice, and for a moment, Xander could sense something he hadn’t felt before—remorse.

He longed for the trust and affection she’d shown him earlier. Lifting the mask away, he took another step toward her.

“Please don’t hurt me. Please.” She trembled, hiding her face inside his jacket like a child.

Xander reached out a hand.

She flinched.

“Lolita.” The only human female whose name he bothered to remember.

Her brow furrowed. “Take me to my sister. I want to see her.”