DEPRAVED Page 2

  “Oh, that’s right.” I took the pills and tossed them back, swallowing them without water. “That was just one giant disaster when the guy I dated was all hot and heavy to take my virginity, yet when I finally said yes, he stood me up. What guy says no to getting laid?”

  Red rubbed her forehead, deep in thought. “Will we ever know what the fuck happened that night?”

  I grabbed my bag and pulled it over my shoulder. “It’s been a year, Red. I’m over it.”

  “Yeah, but aren’t you curious, though? I mean, Terence stood you up, disappeared for a few days, only to return with a broken leg, avoiding you like the fucking plague.”

  “Don’t care.” I walked to the front of the shop, spotting a couple looking at tattoo images on the wall.

  The beads clattered behind me as Red followed. “I still think your father has something to do with it. And the fact that no guy has come near you since then screams conspiracy.”

  I leaned my head to the side as I turned to face her. “You need help.”

  “Ha,” she scoffed. “Says the one with ballet shoes and a fresh tattoo.”

  With an amused grin, I pulled my friend in for a hug. “Thanks, Red. Let me know what I owe you.”

  “Dude, you can pay me by telling me the story behind that specific tattoo someday.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Seriously, Red,” I pulled away, “there’s no story. Promise.” After giving her a peck on the cheek, I opened the door. “Love you, psycho.”

  “Love you, bitch.”

  The couple looked at us, and I smiled when I walked out the door. The friendship Red and I shared was unique, special. We were exact opposites. Ying and Yang. Always had been. Yet I wouldn’t trade her for anything or anyone in the world. Her free spirit was the only thing that kept me grounded, kept me sane when everyone else around me drove me crazy. One could have said I lived the free life I yearned for through my best friend. Besides her constant need to feed me carbs and sugar, Red understood me. Never judged me. Even knowing the kind of relationship I had with my mother, she never criticized my choices or questioned the decisions I made when it was based on what my mother wanted, and not what I wanted.

  On my way to my car, I spotted the familiar SUV parked farther down the road. Maybe Red was right. Maybe my father had something to do with Terence and the way it all played out. Even after countless fights, my father still had private bodyguards follow me wherever I went, keeping tabs on me and those I interacted with. But I’d long made peace with it. I had an overprotective dad, and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. A part of me could understand why. He was the police commissioner and knew what kind of world we lived in. But I also wished he would give me the space I needed to just…be me.

  I reached my car, about to disable the alarm, when I felt it. Someone was watching me, and it wasn’t my father’s bodyguards. I could feel it in the chill running through my bones. The sense of being watched tingled at the back of my neck, my every instinct on high alert.

  I was about to turn around when my phone started ringing, and I hastily got into the car before answering.

  “Hello?”

  “Alyxandria, where are you?”

  I rolled my eyes when I heard my mom’s voice. “I’m on my way home now.”

  “It’s past eleven. Honestly, Alyxandria, what respectable woman is still out on the streets at this ungodly hour?”

  I pushed the key into the ignition. “As I’m sure you already know, I was visiting Red. I’m on my way home now, so relax.”

  “Have you eaten anything?”

  “No, Mom, I haven’t. Are you happy?”

  “Do not take that tone with me, young lady. I’ll leave a handful of almonds on the kitchen table. Eat it when you get home. Nothing else.”

  I let my head fall back against my seat. “Really, Mother?”

  “Need I remind you that you can’t afford to pick up any weight? Not now.”

  “I hear you, Mother. Loud and clear.” I wiped my forehead with my fingers, the sound of my mom’s nagging aggravating my lingering migraine. Every word coming out of her mouth made my heart beat faster and faster. Anger simmered beneath the surface of my tongue, urging me to scream at her. Swear at her. I wanted to tell her all the things I never had the courage to. But I couldn’t. Apparently, I suffered from what Red called “approval addiction.” Disappointing my parents seemed far worse than purging myself from the anger and resentment they so expertly evoked.

  “I’ll be home in twenty. If you need assurance, ask the men you and dad have following me.” I hung up, tossing my phone to the passenger seat.

  Frustration caused me to grip the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. This had been my life, living with a mother who constantly fretted about what I ate and how much I weighed. Ever since the day I turned eight, my mom weighed me every goddamn morning, and whenever I picked up an amount that wasn’t in accordance to my growth, she’d have me on a diet faster than I could say “Twinkie.”

  “God.” I slammed my hand against the wheel. Red warned me this would happen one day, that I would wake up and suddenly find myself hating my life. Her warning came after my mom and I had a huge fight and I decided to go rogue by stuffing every bar of chocolate I could get my hands on into my mouth—only to vomit it all out two hours later because my body wasn’t used to a sugar overload. And that wasn’t the first time I vomited because of my mother’s obsession with my weight.

  With a sigh, I took the keys between my fingers, about to turn the ignition. A loud cracking sound came from my window, and glass exploded everywhere. My first instinct was to cover my face as glass pieces shattered around me. It happened so fast, within a split second my ears were ringing and my mind hazy. I didn’t know what the hell was going on until I was pulled through the broken window.

  Glass sliced my palms as I tried to grab hold of the window frame, but it was no use. I was yanked out of the car within seconds, my ass slamming against the pavement while hands came out of nowhere, grabbing me everywhere while I thrashed and fought to get free.

  I was sure I screamed, but there was no sound. Everything was on mute besides the loud ringing in my ears. Too much was happening at once, my mind unable to make sense of it. Hands grabbed my ankles, and there was pressure around my throat. When I reached up, gasping for air, there was an arm around my neck, choking me. Desperate to take a breath, I scratched and tried to pull at it while my legs thrashed violently. My entire body was jerking and squirming, but I had no control. Every muscle, every movement was automatic. Instinct. Somehow, while trying to free myself, I managed to glance down the road, trying to see if my dad’s men were on their way to help me. But the SUV was gone. There wasn’t a single car parked down the road. My next thought was Red. But with the heavy metal music and constant buzz of the tattoo machine, Red wouldn’t hear me scream. God, I couldn’t hear myself scream. I was alone. Terrified.

  Manically, I started to thrash. “What the hell are you doing? Who are you?”

  No one answered. Even if they did, I doubted I’d be able to hear. All I could hear was the rapid beating of my heart, a terrifying thump that knocked against my chest.

  I tried to look at them. I tried to focus. But it seemed like a hundred masks blurred together, and I couldn’t figure out how many of them there were. Two. Three. Five. Ten. I didn’t know.

  “Who the hell are you?” I screamed, and pain erupted on my cheek, burning my skin. The fist came out of nowhere, leaving me with the taste of my own blood on my tongue. Hands violently tugged at my hair, pulling the strands from their roots with excruciating pain. I didn’t know where to grab, how to fight back. All I knew was I needed to get away.

  The grip one of them had around my arm was so tight, it ached all the way to the bone. But I didn’t care if he broke my fucking arm; all I cared about was surviving.

  “Please stop! Don’t do this. Stop!”

  Whether it was a fist or an elbow, I wasn’t sure. But it slam
med right into my nose, and my head exploded with stars. My body went numb, my hearing muffled and sight blurry. The wild thump of my heartbeat against my ribs was violent, panicked, as if my heart could leap out of my chest any second. My adrenaline spiked, and I had the sense of things moving too quickly, making it impossible to process what was happening.

  The next thing I knew, I was in the trunk of a car with my hands tied behind my back, my feet tightly bound together. Once they closed the trunk, I was cloaked within darkness, my sight stripped away. I heard the ignition start, and my body thrashed against the hard panel of the trunk as the car sped off. Judging by the sound of tires spinning on the asphalt, the car was driving fast—too fast. It was mere seconds when men started screaming, and what sounded like gunshots being fired. But among the different sounds of chaos, I heard something else. Something familiar. But my senses were scattered, and I couldn’t place it.

  “Lose the fucking tail, man.”

  “I’m trying, okay? Fuck!”

  Between rapid breaths, I heard the panic in their voices while I struggled to free myself from the ropes.

  “Where the fuck did these assholes come from?”

  “I don’t know, but you better fucking lose them, or we’ll all be corpses by dawn.”

  My jaw clenched as I tried to swallow the threatening tears. I didn’t know what was going on, or where they were taking me. All I knew…I had been kidnapped.

  The car jerked and swerved to the side, sending my back slamming against the metal of the trunk. A sharp ache jolted up my spine, but the adrenaline made me forget about the pain instantly. Harsh braking, sudden turns, and rough acceleration had me crashing into all corners of the trunk. But no matter how much it hurt, the only thing I could think about was getting away. Even while tied up, my legs felt jittery, as if ready to run.

  “Jesus Christ. This was supposed to be a simple job. Kidnap the girl, make the delivery. Done. Now we have the goddamn Kings on our asses.”

  Kings?

  That was when I heard it again, the familiar sound I couldn’t place. It came closer and closer until I realized what it was. The roar of engines. Motorcycles.

  “Come on, guys, what are you waiting for? Shoot the fuckers!”

  My heart was no longer inside my chest. It was lodged in my throat, and I couldn’t breathe, choking on my own panic.

  “Please.” My voice was nothing but a whisper, fear squeezing the air out of my lungs. I wanted to beg and plead. I wanted to promise these men the world if they would only fucking let me go.

  My hands shook behind my back as I tried to feel around me, to see if I could find the trunk release. But I couldn’t find it. This had to be some old junker with a souped-up engine.

  Another sharp swerve, and I slammed headfirst into the corner of the small, confined space. Light exploded through the darkness, and a high-pitched ringing cut out every other sound around me. The loud sound of more gunshots forced its way into my throbbing head.

  “We’re running out of options here, man. These fuckers have us surrounded.”

  “Shoot them!”

  More gunshots, screeching tires, and a loud crash as my body jerked in every direction. Fear. Adrenaline. It all ran amok inside me. Every bone in my body erupted with pain, my mind still scattered. After only a few seconds, I realized there was no sound. Nothing. Just an eerie silence.

  The car wasn’t moving. The men weren’t shouting, and the familiar sound of roaring motorcycles was gone.

  I remained still. But the sudden silence turned my rapid breaths into a deafening sound in the dark.

  Oh, God. What’s happening?

  Tears slipped down my cheeks, and I tasted the saltiness with the metallic tang of blood. My mind was a whirlpool of the most horrifying thoughts any girl could have. Was this my last night on Earth? Would I die while being beaten and raped? Would pain be the last thing I experienced while my heart still had a beat?

  Please, God, no.

  The smell of gasoline mixed with burnt rubber was pungent, singeing my nostrils before settling in the pit of my stomach. Nausea was starting to fight its way up my throat as I lay completely still, too scared to move.

  The sound of footsteps on the outside of the car made me hold my breath. Dried leaves and tree branches cracked in the distance.

  I refused to let out a breath, praying whoever was on the outside of this car wasn’t the last person whose eyes I’d stare into before I died.

  There was a loud thump as the lid was popped, and the flashlight burned my eyes.

  “Let’s get the girl out of here.”

  “Please—” I still tried to plead, to beg. But as I was lifted out, there was a hard jerk, the man falling to the ground, and I was about to fall as well when two arms grabbed me.

  “Not so fast, fuckers,” a man snarled beside my face, pulling my back against his chest while cold steel pressed against my temple. It was a gun. The man was holding a gun against my head, and I started to sob uncontrollably.

  “Please, God. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

  “Put the gun down, man.”

  I managed to open my eyes, seeing a tall, well-built man standing across from us. But it was dark. I couldn’t see his face. Yet in that moment, something seemed familiar about him.

  “Let the girl go.” The warning was there in his voice, low and menacing.

  The man holding me pressed the muzzle deeper into my temple, and I whimpered, pinching my eyes closed. I didn’t want to die. Not like this.

  “You have no fucking business here, man. This ain’t got nothing to do with you.” His spit coated my cheeks, his nasty breath filling my nostrils.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, prospect. It has everything to do with us.”

  “Fuck off!” he yelled over my shoulder. “I swear to fucking God, I will put a bullet in this pretty little head of hers. So back the fuck up.”

  “Please,” I started to beg, but he only pressed the gun harder against my head.

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up, bitch!”

  I cried. Like a little girl, I sobbed and felt the overwhelming urge to relieve myself. Coming face to face with death was horrifying—especially at the prospect of death taking you so violently and unexpectedly.

  “Give me the girl!” the man in the darkness shouted, his voice breaking the eerie silence of night. “If you hurt her, I will feed you to the sharks, piece by fucking piece.”

  My captor laughed manically behind me. “Are you sure you want to toss fucking threats around when I’m the one pressing steel against this whore’s head? A whore you seem to really want unhurt.”

  Branches cracked in the distance, alerting the man to movement on our right. He jerked in that direction, taking me with him, pulling me harder against his chest. “Who’s there?”

  Another guy holding a gun pointed at us emerged from the shadows. “So, here’s the deal. You kill the girl, and I’ll have a bullet inside your skull before you can turn that gun on me or my brother over there.” He gestured to the other man whose face I couldn’t see.

  “Onyx, back the fuck up,” the man in the shadows warned.

  “I got this, brother.”

  “You’ll kill her. Back the fuck up!”

  “Nah, you know I never miss a shot.” He moved forward slowly. Carefully. Gun still aimed straight at us.

  The man who held me tightened his arm around my throat, and instinctively I grabbed at his forearm. “Both of you fuckers back off, or I’ll kill her. I swear to God.”

  “Not happening. We’re not leaving without the girl.”

  “Last warning, prospect.” The one with the gun moved closer.

  “Onyx, don’t!”

  There were so many voices, so many unfamiliar people around me, my mind could no longer distinguish between who was who.

  I glanced from the man in the dark, to the one holding the gun pointed at us. His fingers moved, tightening his grip on the trigger. Our eyes met, and he winked. “D
on’t worry, sweetheart, I never miss.”

  “Onyx, don’t!”

  I closed my eyes the instant I heard the loud crack of a gunshot. My body went rigid, bracing itself for impact. Within a split second, my life flashed before my eyes.

  My mom.

  My dad.

  Red.

  The tattoo.

  Each and every recital I’d ever danced in.

  My mom’s face of disapproval.

  The fights.

  The tears.

  The pain.

  My pink ballet slippers hanging behind my bedroom door.

  It felt like I was drifting from one memory to the other, then got pulled back to reality as my body slammed into the ground.

  Blurry. Hazy. My ears ringing and body aching, I pushed myself up on all fours. I heard men scream in the background, but I only looked down at the dry, brown leaves beneath my hands. Unable to comprehend what had just happened, I closed my fist around a handful of leaves, crunching and breaking them in my palm. When I opened my fist, everything around me faded to gray…everything but the crimson red covering my hand.

  A sudden coldness hit me in my core. Shocked. Disorientated. Breathless.

  I turned my head to the side and looked right into the eyes of…a dead man. Blood oozed out of his head, his wide-open eyes glazed over and mouth gaping. It was the man who had the gun against my head only three seconds ago.

  The bloody scene in front of me was grotesque—surreal and distorted in a way I couldn’t explain.

  I couldn’t move. No matter how much I told myself to look away, to get up and run…I couldn’t. A man was dead, and I was staring at the corpse.

  Two strong hands grabbed me and hoisted me up. If I had any fight left in me, I would have squirmed to get free. But my mind just didn’t allow me to look away from the dead man, and I didn’t care that I was being carried away by a strange man.

  It was like a movie, and this was the part where they carried the woman away from a bloody scene on mute and in slow motion.

  I was slid off the broad shoulder that carried me, and for a second, I managed to tear my gaze away from the bloody body. As I looked up at the man who carried me, I sucked in a breath. “You.”