more than to just lay down the fucking law, tell Abel what we're doing and
that if he doesn't like it then he can shove it up his ass, and then grab my girl
and go to bed, but that's not how we do things. Carters may lead Eastpoint,
but I am determined to not end up like my father.
He doesn't even talk to Brax’s and Abel's dads unless absolutely
necessary. They're nothing like us and we're nothing like them. We're a
fucking team. That means I need to convince them, not order them.
"Abel, I want to take Avalon out of town for a bit," I continue. "Not just
because I think she needs the break, but I think we all need it."
"I agree," Brax says. "It can't hurt, man. I don't know why you're being so
stubborn about this."
"What about the chick?" Abel demands, stopping his pacing and turning
on me.
I blink. "What chick?" I ask. "You can find one when we get to the city."
Hell, he's never been hard up for companionship. Neither him nor Brax. What
the hell is his problem now? Does he have a girl I don't know about?
Before he can respond, however, Ava snorts into her soda. "He means
Rylie," she answers for him.
Abel whirls on her and narrows his eyes.
Realization hits me and I turn my gaze to Abel as I drop my hand. "Are
you fucking her?" I demand.
Abel turns back. "No." It's all the explanation he gives and from the cold
hard look in his eyes, I won't be getting any more.
A frustrated sigh works its way up my chest. "If you are—"
"I said I’m not," he snaps, interrupting me.
"But you want to," Brax says casually.
Tension fills the room as Abel's shoulders tighten and his fingers curl into
fists at his sides. There's a wild look in his eyes. Something full of both rage
and pain. Yeah, Brax is right. He does want the girl. Doesn't take a genius to
figure out what his issue is. He wants her and if it was just for a hard fuck,
he'd do it and be done. Rylie, though, is the most promising recruit we've had
—aside from Ava.
The girl is smart and versatile. She's also got a past that allows us to use
her to full capacity because as long as she lives on Eastpoint campus, as long
as she remains under our thumb, she remains safe. I have to wonder if he's
taken a look into her file. He wouldn't be asking to bring her with us if he
knew. Then again, it's not like she can't leave campus. She can. She has.
Since coming here, though, she for sure hasn't left the town, and that's
another matter entirely.
"Enough," I finally say, cutting through the growing silence with one
word and a shake of my head. I shoot a glare at Brax. "You're not helping."
"I'm not going to fuck her," Abel says again.
"Fine, I believe you," I reply. "But that still doesn't solve the issue of why
you don't want to go to the city with us. You want us to bring her?"
"I don't think she'd like that, Frontman," Avalon says from her position on
the couch.
Abel blows out a breath and from the look on his face, he knows she's
right. That doesn't make him any happier though. He runs a hand up through
the messy hair sticking up at the top of his head and scrubs it back down his
face before cursing. "Fuck," he breathes. "Fine. Just … do whatever. I'll go to
the city with you."
I watch him for a moment before making a decision. "I'll ask Marcus to
keep an eye out for her," I tell him.
All at once, the tension drains from him. He slowly exhales and nods.
"Yeah, that'll be good. Thanks."
I clap him on the shoulder. "Any time, man," I assure him. "You forgot
she's important to us as well.”
Avalon watches this from over the rim of her soda can, curiosity shining
in her eyes. Without a doubt, I know she'll be asking me questions as soon as
doors close behind us tonight.
"Great," I continue. "Now that it's settled, we should leave here tomorrow
morning. Brax—"
"I'll call and get our regular suite," Brax cuts me off before I can even
ask.
"Good."
"Abel?"
"Got it," he says.
He takes a step away and then another and another until he's closer to the
wet bar than anything else in the room. Then I watch as he reaches for a
bottle and a glass. He doesn't even look at what he's pouring when he downs
the first drink and starts on another. I sigh and give a nod to Brax to keep
watch over him tonight. He'll go, at least, but there's no way he'll be in any
condition to drive in the morning. Whatever is going on between him and the
girl, I have no doubt that it, combined with whatever happened between him
and Ava after she killed her mother, is something he'll have to work through
on his own.
Avalon doesn't say anything. She doesn't appear happy, but neither does
she seem angry. She just looks … contemplative. Honestly, that scares me
more than any of her other moods.
"Baby?" I move towards her and hold my hand out. She looks at it with
lifted brows before reaching forward and taking it. She lets me pull her off
the couch. "Let’s get packed," I suggest. "And get some rest."
"You never asked me if I wanted to leave," she comments lightly as she
leaves her soda on the coffee table and pushes forward, heading for the
staircase ahead of me.
I freeze at the bottom landing, my eyes trailing her ass as she takes the
first couple of steps. "Don't need to," I reply. "You're going."
She laughs, the sound low and husky. It sends an immediate pulse straight
to my dick. The damn thing jumps in my pants, raring and ready to go.
Halfway up the stairs, she pauses and looks back. "You're fucking lucky I let
you boss me around sometimes," she says. "If I didn't feel like it, you
wouldn't be taking me anywhere."
I know. Avalon isn't the type to let anyone tell her what to do, but she lets
me. Sometimes. Because to this girl, I'm special. I'm more important than
anyone in her fucking life and never before has anything made me feel as
powerful as she does. What man can truly say they've claimed their alpha
queen and made her bow? Any man who claims to have made a bitch submit
isn't a man at all. She doesn't bow for anyone, but I'll be damned if I don't
bow to her.
27
AVALON
ROUGH FINGERS GRAB AT THE BACK OF MY HEAD. MY FACE PRESSES INTO THE
dirty vinyl tile floor. My vision blurs in front of me as confusion swims
through my mind. What's happening? What's going on? Where am I?
I'm flipped over onto my back and a dark figure hovers over of me and I
realize what’s happening.
I’m dreaming. A nightmare, by the looks of it.
The face of Roger Murphy leans in close and the stench of rotten breath
hits me full on. The smell is so overwhelming that on instinct, I gag. Vomit
comes up my esophagus, threatening to drown me. Roger just grins as it
burns and I have to turn my head and release it or let it choke me to death.
Panting, shaking, I try to lift my limbs when Roger moves forward again,
digging his grimy fingers beneath the neckline of my shirt. He rips it straight
down the middle. My hands fa
il to stop him. In fact, my entire body is failing
to stop him because I can't seem to move.
The rest of the room is a blur. All I can see is him, the floor, and the
stupid chipped kitchen table that's quite literally held together by duct tape
and prayers.
This isn't happening, I think to myself. This can't be happening because
this already happened. This is a memory—a distorted one. This isn't exactly
how it happened, but it's like my mind is reliving it regardless of the fact that
it's fucked up. Despite the fact that it's wrong, it still feels like everything is
being redone in excruciating horrible detail. Some things are familiar—the
smell of his breath. The feel of his body hard over mine. My pants are gone—
were they completely off when it actually happened? I can't recall. But I do
know that this happened. That he did this. That I suffered this.
No! I scream at myself. I already survived this. Not again. Tears burn at
the inside of my eyelids.
Violent anger curdles in my bloodstream. Why again? Why must I
fucking go through this again? I'm over it. It doesn't matter. Nothing he did
can hurt me now. Roger's dead.
"If that's true," the ghost of Roger Murphy says. "Then why am I here
now?"
My eyes widen but before I can ask him how the fuck he can hear my
thoughts, he grips my hips, turns me over, and props up my ass. I'm going to
be sick again. I want to scream, lash out, punch, kick, anything! Where is
Dean?
"Dean..." I try to scream his name, but when my lips part, it only comes
out as a quiet croak. The dream swallows the rest of the noise and lets it drift
around—like lights sparkling over our heads.
Harsh fingers grip my hips and the sound of a belt buckle undoing comes
through clear as a bell. I begin to shake. Trembling. More bile burns up my
throat. No. No. No!
The press of hard flesh touches my pussy, and I almost fucking lose it
right then and there. My eyes dart behind me to the door of my mother's
trailer. Dean is there. He's on the other side of that door. He's coming
through any moment.
Roger slams himself into me and I feel ripped open—like some disgusting
pike has been shoved into my internal organs and it's tearing through my
stomach. My lips part again, but no sound erupts this time. Not even the
broken hoarse whisper from earlier emits. There's nothing. Just silence from
me and the chilling sounds of Roger's grunts as he fucks me.
A hard hand presses into the back of my head, keeping it down as he
humps against my ass, his cock driving in and out. Sickness gathers inside.
No, not just sickness—something else.
Evil.
Wickedness.
Hate.
Droplets of his sweat fall onto the skin of my back. How the hell can this
feel so real? I wonder. When it's just a nightmare? Is it because this
nightmare comes from my reality? Is it because I lived through this once
before?
My entire focus zeroes in on that fucking door, and for the first time in my
life, I pray. I pray that this nightmare will follow reality and that Dean will
come shooting through that door at any fucking second. Him and Abel and
Braxton. Almost … almost …
"Almost..." Roger laughs, the sound breathless as he continues behind
me. I shake under him, my body shoved up the vinyl as he gasps and groans.
Each thrust drives something home inside of me. Not just his cock, but the
monster—the thing I am inside. The sick, twisted girl created from this act.
"I'm almost there, li'l runt," he says. "Gonna fucking cum inside you so
good."
His words float in one ear and out of the other. I hear them, but I don't
respond.
Where is Dean? Why isn’t he here yet?
Roger’s lips lock down on my shoulder and bite through the fabric still
clinging to my muscles. He bites harder until a sharp pain seizes me and
wetness trickles from the wound he's opened.
Murder.
Maim.
Hurt.
Kill.
My back is fucking killing me. His cock is so fucking small, it hardly feels
there, and yet, just knowing that it is—that it's thrusting into me—is the worst
insult. If he was going to rape me, why the fuck couldn't he have a real cock
instead of this pathetic excuse dangling between his saggy fucking thighs?
The blow to the back of my head takes me by surprise. "The fuck did you
say, bitch?" he snarls.
Shit … I forgot. He can hear these thoughts. A laugh bubbles up out past
my lips. "What?" I reply. "Don't like the truth being shoved in your face like
that?" Another punch lands against the side of my head and another laugh
escapes.
He fucks me. I laugh. He punches. I laugh. It's really too fucking funny.
"Stop." Punch. "Fucking." Punch. "Laughing." Punch. "Bitch." But I
don't. I don't stop laughing. Even when he pulls out and turns me over and
hovers between my legs. Roger reaches behind him and then comes back, a
needle filled with liquid in his hand. "This'll teach you to fucking laugh at me.
Let's see how you like my cock with a little bit more of this in yo system. Bet
yer just like yer Momma."
dead!
My stomach cramps as Roger looms above me, grinning down as his
sweat drips onto my face, making me blink away the tears of agony. My
hands ball into fists as I imagine what I'll do to him when this is all over.
Even if Dean doesn't come for me in this dream the end will be the same. I'm
going to kill this fucker and this time, I'll make it last.
I'm going to cut him open and drag out his entrails and then make him eat
his own dick. Hearing that oath makes Roger laugh, though. He roars with
hilarity as he continues pumping his dick into me. Blood runs down under
me, sticking to the small of my back. The needle presses into my skin and he
presses the plunger down, letting the vile liquid fill me up before he removes
it and tosses it away. The ping of the syringe hitting the floor next to our
bodies hits my ears, an odd detail for a dream to have.
"You think you can?" he asks me. This time, when he smiles, his teeth turn
gray with decay. An eye falls out and lands on my chest. "Tell me something,
li'l runt..." His other eye falls out and rolls down my stomach. I can feel them
—the gross, squishy flesh of them on my skin. His flesh peels down over his
chest and arms and shoulders until he's a half-mutilated corpse of a man. His
lips are gone, but he keeps talking, his voice resounding in my head. "How
can you kill a dead man?"
I jerk my head to the side and catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure
approaching. Pain rips through me. Anger. Fury. And something else ...
another emotion that I can't seem to name.
That shadowy figure moves forward until it becomes clear, and I stare up
into deadened eyes and a hollowed out face. My mother strides across the
vinyl until she's right next to where I lay underneath Roger. Then, slowly—as
if she's got all the time in the world—she crouches down and reaches for
my
face. I try to jerk away. I don't want her touch. It's too fucking maternal for a
moment like this. If she's going to be here, the least she can do is help me.
The least she can do is stop this horrible madness.
"Oh, Ava..." Her fingers brush against my cheek. My asshole hurts. Roger
doesn't even flinch. He keeps moving. "You deserve this; you know that
right?" she asks.
A knife stabs into my chest, making me cry out in shock. Tears pop up in
my eyes.
"No!" I scream. I don't. I never did. I was a child. I was her child. Why?
Why are two dead people showing up here? Now? Everything is over for
them!
"But it isn't for you, is it, Avalon?" Patricia asks.
I clench my teeth as another wave of agony assails me. I feel like I'm
being ripped apart. The blood is drying against my skin. My face feels dry—
drier than it's ever been—and yet my eyes feel wet. Like the tears are filling
me up inside and can't be released.
Don't cry, I tell myself. Don't you fucking cry. Not in front of her. Not in
front of him. Don't give them that satisfaction.
"You always were strong," Patricia continues. "It's such a pity that it's all
a façade. You'll break before too long. This is just the start."
"I won't," I hiss out between thrusts. "I won't fucking break. I'm not you ."
"No, you're not," she says, and suddenly her gentle hands become cold
and talon-like. Her nails dig into my cheeks, cutting my flesh to ribbons.
More blood drips down my chin. "You're worse. You're the reason my love
died. You're the reason this happened in the first place. You're getting what
you deserve!"
On the last word, she screams into my ear, making my head ring. Roger
fucks me hard, his cock ramming in and out of my pussy until I feel something
inside me break. Until I feel like I'm just a broken doll, lying underneath him.
Strong only on the inside because the body on the outside is shattered into a
million pieces. So small and tiny that no one will ever be able to put me back
together.
There's no stopping this. No helping it. I open my mouth and scream. I
scream as he fucks me. I scream as he digs into my body and fills me with his
fucking disgusting self. I scream until my throat is hoarse and numb and only
then do I realize that it's no use. All while Patricia watches and smiles.