Beast, Part Four

  BEAST 4.

  An Erotic Fairy Tale

  ELLA JAMES

  *DPGROUP.ORG*

  CHAPTER 1

  Beast

  I step through the doorway from the showers into the hall, and there he is: Robert Ryan, pointing a gun at my head.

  My synapses fire, registering his presence and working to make sense of it. My brain flips frantically through possibilities, and the first I entertain is that I’m dreaming. This thing with Angel—fucking her in solitary, after I’ve been ousted by the Agency—is nothing but a medicated dream.

  I reach behind me, torn between hoping she’s there and praying she’s not.

  My fingers touch soft skin, and my pulse goes haywire.

  There’ve been times when Ryan came into my cell alone—with a syringe, with a club, with pepper spray—but this is different.

  Angel is here.

  I’ve got to protect her!

  I kick the gun out of his hands, and it clatters to the floor behind him. His eyes bulge, and he lunges for me. My instinct is to dodge, but Angel is behind me. I’ve got to protect her! I hesitate a fraction of a second, and Ryan plunges a needle into my neck...

  Tugged under and tossed backward. Static fills my head. My body tingles like I’m nothing but a bunch of dust, floating in a stream of sunlight.

  Something…

  There’s something going on! I try to look around, but all I see is white. White walls? White ceiling? Where am I?

  My heart is flopping like a fucking fish. My lungs pump frantically, but I’m not getting any air. My head throbs and my chest feels too tight, but the rest of my body is still dust.

  I drift beside her as she points the gun at Ryan.

  Oh, her.

  I blink up at her, and I feel tugged toward this pretty woman—Angel.

  I want to cry, I shouldn’t cry but I could cry, because there’s something wrong—so wrong. I’m fucking worried—so fucking worried about what she’s doing here, but it’s hard to figure out what’s going on when my heart is beating so fast.

  Milliseconds later, my body manages to process a little of whatever was in the syringe, and GAME ON, BABY.

  I push up on my elbows, lifting my head and shoulders off the floor. I’m still numb, but I feel strong and powerful. Unbreakable.

  I’m sitting up, pulling one knee up to my chest, marveling at how strange and indestructible I feel, when Angel’s face tightens, her outstretched arms jolt, and Ryan hits the floor in front of me in a spray of blood.

  Goddamnittheblood!

  It’s spreading out around his ruined head, dark and thick. I’m on my feet before it touches me.

  Somewhere vague and far away, I hear Angel sobbing and it troubles me. My dazed eyes bounce around the hall and find her on the floor right by me, clutching the gun and wailing.

  I wrench it from her hands and rip the top of my jumpsuit off my shoulders, using it to wipe away her prints.

  HAWK HUNT.

  The words tumble into my mind before their meaning, leaving me grasping… Looking down at Angel.

  There’s blood on her pretty face. From Ryan’s head. She’s really upset and HAWK HUNT.

  I don’t—

  HAWK HUNT.

  A tidal wave of dread washed over me.

  I remember something Mack, another of the solitary guards, told me recently. About how the new warden was uneasy about Ryan’s frequent visits, worried he’d get caught letting the DA fuck with me.

  “He’s sorta a stickler,” the guard told me.

  Which means when the new warden finds out what just happened, there’s gonna be a hawk hunt.

  A hawk hunt is when trouble prisoners get killed. Usually when bad shit goes down, and the bosses need to cover their asses. Guilt and innocence don’t matter in a hawk hunt. Anybody involved in the incident—anybody who might tell a story that could cause the prison staff to get in trouble—is put down.

  Angel is here. I’m here. Both of us can—will—blow this Ryan thing up.

  Angel just did. I blink at the blood pooling around him, struggling to think.

  The Agency was using him to take me out. If they hadn’t been, he’d never have been able to throw me down here into solitary. I had too much power for that before they turned on me.

  But they wanted me out. They wanted Juarez in charge.

  Rocker strolls out of the guard station. The cameras are off, so he didn’t see what happened, and the gunshot was silent, so he didn’t hear it either. It must’ve been Angel’s sobs that drew him away from computer solitaire.

  Rocker gets a good look at the blood bath in the hall and his eyes bulge.

  And then I snap out of my stupor and I kick him in the fucking face.

  He goes down like a sack of flour and I throw Angel over my shoulder, wrapping one arm around her back and wielding Ryan’s gun with the other. The weight of her in my arms cuts through the numbness. Makes my chest ache. Makes me want to scream. But there’s no time for that. My iron legs race up the stairs.

  As I reach the door that divides solitary from the rest of La Rosa, I catch the scent of blood. It almost gets me, but I’m juiced up now. My body sings benzoylmethylecgonine as I punch pass codes into the keypad by the door, striking out once, twice, three times before my mind spits out one that works.

  The door clicks its acquiescence, and I throw it open. Angel is still wailing, so I hiss “Quiet” before I tighten my grip on her and run toward the library.

  I’m energized by the thought that I can fix this. I can save my Angel. All I have to do is get us out the emergency library exit and hotwire a car in the employee parking lot. If I can get Angel home before anyone notices I’ve gone…

  If I can get Angel off the prison grounds…

  I don’t care what happens to me.

  I’m already fucking dead.

  *

  Annabelle

  I’m nothing but my terror. Not a person, not a body, not even a soul. Nothing but pure, animal terror.

  I cling to Beast as he rushes through the halls. My hands are clamped around his shoulders. My heart is beating like a drum.

  I killed someone.

  I might have killed a district attorney.

  Will I be in prison soon?

  Who will raise Adrian?

  The questions come like pop-up ads on a computer screen, and I “x” them away.

  I think I’ve stopped screaming. Yes, my mouth is shut.

  I wonder if Beast can get us out of here.

  I brush a tangle out of my face, and I feel the stickiness of blood on my cheeks and in my eyes. I can even taste it.

  And—oh shit. My stomach heaves, and I’m puking over Beast’s shoulder, sobbing as he hauls me down the hall.

  CHAPTER 2

  Beast

  I’m in sight of the library door when the static comes over the intercom. A new warden trying to figure out how to issue an SOS? A new warden knocking the intercom mouthpiece off its holder as he reaches for the circuit board to issue a lockdown?

  My fingers tremble as I tuck the gun under my arm and punch the working pass code in. The library door clicks, and we hurry through it.

  The partially constructed room is quiet and empty. I shift Angel down off of my shoulder, into my arms. Her face is blood-splattered, streaked with tears. I can’t feel anything because I’m so strung out, but I know on a cerebral level that I hate her sadness. It isn’t right. I’m going to fix it.

  Her name rolls off my heavy tongue. “Angel.”

  Tears well in her eyes, and I pull her close to me, because I think that’s what she needs. She’s scared. She’s scared and it’s my fault that she’s scared.

  I’m going to fix this.

  I squeeze her hand, then turn to lead
her to the emergency exit door. This is the moment that the sirens start to scream. All the keypads and cameras around the room start flashing bright red. Which means the exit door in front of us won’t work.

  FUCK!

  I whip toward one of the bay windows.

  Goddamn—plastic!

  I let go of Angel and dash to a pile of junk where I keep some industrial pliers. I was here when the windows were installed, I remember how they’re skewered into the pane. I grab the pliers and jump onto the window seat, moving like the fucking Flash.

  Using both my left hand and the pliers, I start tearing out the sheetrock all around the wooden window pane.

  The joists are right where I thought they were. I cut through three before I realize this window isn’t budging.

  Down off the window seat. Angel runs at me. She’s sobbing, clinging to me, but I push her off. I need to get us outside right now.

  I grab her by the arm and haul her with me to the door. Her hands on my shoulder. Her arms around my waist. I push her off again and start punching passcodes in.

  9-2-5-6-1.

  Nothing!

  0-1-3-5-2.

  Fuck!

  8-2-6-1-5.

  “FUCK!”

  My fingertips sweat.

  8-1-8-0-0.

  Fuck!

  On a crazy whim I try my own pass code. The keypad flashes red.

  “FUCK ME!”

  I whirl toward the door to the hallway, where I think I hear the sound of boots.

  Angel is clinging to my waist. I look down at her bloody face and see pure terror.

  Stuck here.

  We’re stuck here.

  Goddamnit!

  I dash to a work bench, grab a coil of rope. I snatch Angel’s wrists in front of her and twine the rope around them—fast. I tug it tighter than I should, because I want to be convincing. Then I grab onto her elbows and look into her eyes.

  “Play along, Angel. I killed Ryan. When they come through the door, struggle against me and run to them for help. You heard what was going on with Ryan and me. You came to check on me and saw me kill him.”

  Her eyes widen. “He’s dead?”

  I stroke my thumbs over her cheeks. “Don’t think about that, Angel. Do what I say and get yourself out of here.”

  “No.” Tears fall off her chin as she shakes her head. “I’m not doing that to you.”

  “Yes—you are. In just a second. Do what I say, Angel. I fucking mean it.”

  I’m right in front of the exit door and she’s facing me, so her back’s to the hall door. It’s me who sees them first—the group of guards as they burst into the room, guns drawn and pointed. My gaze bounces over familiar faces, friends and foes.

  “Struggle,” I hiss.

  A look of uncertainty passes over her face, but it’s gone an instant later. She wrenches her shoulders out of my grasp, and I can see the confusion flicker over the guards’ faces. The adrenaline and blow leave my blood stream in an instant. My muscles start to tremble. I’m not even breathing as I hiss, “fight.” I grab her arm and shove her up against the wall. She head-butts my shoulder, then kicks me in the thigh, then runs toward the group of guards.

  Relief streams through me, so I’m a half second delayed in dashing after her. The guards engulf her before I can reach her, and three of them split off and come for me. I hold up my hands to avoid the fucking Taser, and as I do, a few gears shift inside my head: 9-9-9-9-1. The riot password.

  I bet the riot password would’ve worked on the exit door!

  I bet no one thought to change it after Holt left.

  The guards grab my arms, and I feel the familiar shape of a Taser pressed against the back of my neck. I barely care. I’m watching Angel as one of the new guards puts his hands on her shoulders. I can see her crying. Another guard, Terry—one of the ones who used to readily take my payoffs—cuts through the rope around her hands. I see them shaking their heads and looking stern. I hear her voice, but I can’t track it. My head is buzzing.

  I wonder dimly what will happen to me now, but I can’t summon the emotion to go along with it. All I want is to know she is safely gone and is never coming back. I’m consumed by thoughts of Angel at her house, cuddling her younger sister. Watching over her sick Mom.

  So I’m a little slow to comprehend what’s going on when I see Angel waving her arms around. When I see her run at me.

  It takes me a full second and the horror on their faces to realize she’s fucked it up.

  I gave her an out, and Angel didn’t take it.

  *

  Annabelle

  I was going to do what he said. I told myself I couldn’t help him if I was in prison, too. I told myself—I didn’t have to tell myself—that Ad needs me. It happened so fast, there was no time for me to think.

  I ran to them.

  I had no trouble acting scared. I was scared out of my wits.

  And then they shouted, “slow down,” and asked “what happened,” and I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t let him take the fall for something I did.

  I sob, “I shot the DA. It was self-defense.”

  Then I dart across the room to Beast.

  My eyes are too blurry to see the reaction on his face, but I know he’s opening his arms to me.

  He grabs me tightly and spins around, putting me between him and the wall as every guard in the room starts rushing at us. I’m caught up in the scuffle, pushed and pulled. And then Beast tugs me out the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  Beast

  Years ago, I used to dream of this moment.

  Before prison, I would use the family jet to travel everywhere. Anywhere. When things got to be too much, I’d just go. I had a yacht called Mistress of the Seas. One year, I sailed her all the way to Greece.

  I don’t think I ever spent more than a few weeks in one city until the start of my sentence at La Rosa. The first few months, I used to wake up at night, checking my ceiling for patterns. Expecting to see the popcorn ceiling of my suite on Mistress, the dramatic indention where a chandler hung in my room at my house in Napa. The smooth beige of the Ritz in Central Park. Instead, there was this crack running the length of the room I shared with a man named Poohbar. My first reaction to it would be to freeze, because the only way I’d be sleeping in a building with structural problems was if an earthquake wrecked the foundation while I slept. Then I’d get thrown off, because things were shaking. But it wasn’t the floor. It was me.

  I lunge out of the emergency exit, and when my bare feet smack the cool dirt it’s such a shock I almost freeze.

  I don’t, of course, but I think it slows me down.

  This isn’t good, because when the first guard hits the ground behind us, bullets start zipping by.

  For the first few dozen yards, they’re rubber bullets. I know their sound, having heard them fired at other inmates many times, and even once at myself, by a guard who didn’t know that I was Beast and never to be fucked with.

  Still, rubber bullets hurt, and the last thing Angel needs is to be hit by one. I sweep her into my arms, press her head against my chest, and run so fast I might as well be flying.

  I run in a zig-zag pattern with Ryan’s gun out, hoping none of the new hires can shoot for shit—or run fast. We’ve got maybe a twenty yard lead on them, but it might not be enough.

  I run into a copse of trees that frames the parking lot, and hear real bullets slice the air around me as the footsteps on my tail grow louder.

  I reach behind me and fire a few shots blind.

  I lead them away from the parking lot, then cut back toward it. I realize they’re too close, so I drop Angel and go at the guard behind me. He fires a shot that hits me in the shoulder, but the pain only pisses me the fuck off. I scoop Angel under my arm and after shooting another guard in the neck, I run toward the back of the parking lot, still trying to stay hidden in the trees.

  All I think of as I move is her.

  I have to protect her like she protected
me.

  We’re found again when we get near the parking lot. I’m a fuck good shot—lots of target-practice for action roles—so it’s not hard to shoot the guard in the hip.

  I notice as I move that there are sirens coming from the prison. I know the exit gate is on lockdown, but it’s the staff gate, and I think I have the codes.

  No one knows what codes I have, so they don’t know to disable all of them. I bet these dumbasses haven’t even disabled the riot code I used to get out.

  I run into the parking lot, toss Angel under a truck, and bust the driver’s side window out of a car across the way. I go slick with sweat in my panic to hotwire the car—it’s been years—but I manage, though I get pinged again in the hip and have to shoot two more guards. I scoop Angel up as a half-dozen guards run out of the grove, and bullets start to flow again.

  I throw her in the passenger’s seat and hit the gas so hard we clip another car as I turn toward the gate.

  I fly, then hit the brakes at the pass code tower before glancing up and realizing the big gate is pushed back. The idiots left it open on default, and there’s only a white and yellow plastic arm in front of us.

  I punch through it as one of the guards whizzes up behind us in his truck, but I chose a Pontiac Grand Am and I know I’ll outrun them.

  We fly for a minute, and they drop way behind.

  “Buckle up,” I tell Angel, and she’s screaming something, but I can’t hear what. “Buckle up!” I scream louder, because I just hit one oh five and she hasn’t done it yet and memories.

  I think I see her snap her belt out of the corner of my eye, and I go faster. It doesn’t matter that she buckled, though. My stomach is churning. I think I might be sick but I can’t be sick, I’m not going to be sick, I’m not going to crash.

  Handling the wheel and working the gas and brakes sobers me some, strips my apathetic, drug-hazed armor off.

  I can’t look over at her, but that doesn’t stop my mouth from moving. “Sorry, Angel. Christ, I’m so damn sorry. I’m so sorry. We had to leave. In the library they said— there is this code word— they were gonna shoot us.”