Bitter Angel (7 page)

What the hell is wrong with me?
Then I realized—this was a good thing. It meant that whatever poison that had been put in
my system was now more than likely out of it. Still, I knew alcohol was weighing me down, and I didn’t feel any better. With the back of my arm, I wiped leftover spit from my mouth and came to a wobbly stand.

H poked his head out. “She has a pulse, you psycho bitch. Now shut your mouth, and maybe we’ll let you remember tonight.”

In my haze, I hadn’t realized Trigger was behind me. With both hands, he practically lifted me onto the front bench seat. He sat next to me and held my shoulder tight. Whether it was for comfort or to restrain me, I couldn’t tell. The car jerked into motion.

Still half out of it, I continued my watery plea. “Please. Let her go. I’ll do anything. You can do anything you want to me. Just drop her off at the ER.”

That was a lie. There was no way in hell they were laying a pinky on me. Once Heather and Nilah were safe, I was getting out
of this freak show.

Trigger’s arm was a vice around me. He whispered hot in my ear, “Shut up or they’ll make it worse.”

With slit eyes and flaring nostrils, I eyed H, plotting ten different ways to wring his neck and take control of the vehicle. An idea snagged my attention, and I eyeballed the door I was butted against. The street we were racing down now was lined with bars and laughing patrons stumbling about. Again, I couldn’t jump ship without Heather and Nilah. I had to figure out where we were going, or find a way to get the attention of someone outside.

Discreetly, I reached a hand to the window control. Trigger must’ve felt me moving or noticed the demonized look in my eyes because he added even quieter, “And don’t get any ideas. It wouldn’t be…wise.”

The way he said “wise” made me sicker to my stomach, but I didn’t care. I was not the kind that went quietly.

I began kicking the back of H’s seat hysterically. “LET US OUT! LET US OUT! LET US OUT!”

H bellowed a mouthful of obscenities and jerked the car to the curb once more. Facing the window, I screamed even louder. I kicked my legs, trying to rock this tank of a vehicle and yanked furiously at the door handle. It didn’t budge. The drunks staggered past us. I was invisible to them.
Is this thing soundproof?

H gave Trigger a deathly glare from the rearview mirror. “You got the needle?”

I felt Trigger shiver next to me. “That’s only a just-in-case.”

“I don’t give a shit!” H reached under his seat and pulled out something long and skinny. “Tie her up and dose her, or this ends now, and it won’t be fucking pretty!”

“Goddamn it, H,” Brandon griped. “This is why we don’t do three. Something always goes wrong.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

H jerked the car back onto the road, and I watched my chances of being noticed blow away like dust particles in a light breeze.

Trigger took the thing from H’s hands and locked my wrists together behind my back. For his skinny stature, he was surprisingly damn strong. The long thing was a zip tie, and I freaked even more when he tried to restrain me for real.

“No.” My panic sounded more like a pathetic whine. I wasn’t in a good position to knee him in the balls or try any other defensive maneuvers. With all the alcohol and whatever else still in my system, I was running out of steam. “No, please. I’ll be quiet. I’ll be good.” I was disgusted at how weak I sounded.

This was not me. I’d never given up, and I sure as hell had never gotten myself into these kinds of situations.

Not that I could fully blame myself. Who would’ve seen this coming? But I couldn’t stop the question:
how could I have let this happen?
It was plaguing me, becoming the tempo my head thumped to.

I squirmed and fought the zip tie as best as I could until Brandon was forced to unbuckle and hold me down.

“No, no, no, no.” I was crying again and twisting my head toward my unconscious friends.

My one possibly dead friend.

That concept was not something I would let sink in though.
I have to fight!
Using my heels to my advantage, I rammed Brandon in the shin.

“Ow! Shit!” He crouched against his seat, rubbing his leg.

“Trigger!” H barked.

Trigger’s face twisted with aggravation, a look that said,
I told you so
. Brandon found his footing again and tacked my feet to the floor while Trigger pulled the zip tie so tight it cut into my wrists. I cried out in pain only to realize the horror wasn’t over. Trigger had turned away. I heard a soft click, and then a needle glimmered in the glow of the streetlights.

Instantly going still, I swallowed a whimper and backed into the window so hard that I really thought my fingers might break. Liquid squirted from the needle.

“Hold her good,” Trigger told Brandon, quiet and resigned.

After the needle emptied into my arm, it was an excruciatingly long minute before I felt the drug take affect. The whole time I couldn’t see Trigger’s face. All I saw was Brandon. His eyes were pumped with malicious desire as he watched me go unconscious, a greedy, evil spark that I imagined must match a serial killer’s while he watched the life go out of his victim’s eyes. The only thing I could think in those last few seconds before the drug towed me under was,
how could I have missed that?

Saturday, Early a.m.

Somehow I knew that it was still the middle of the night because my body was so exhausted it was telling me to sleep. As I exited my daze, eyes adjusting to the light, my pulse shot into the hot zone. Everything that’d happened in the car and beforehand came back in pieces, fractured and distorted like a shattered house of mirrors. Yet I instantly registered that I was in an unfamiliar place.

I moved to sit it up but was sucked backward. I was on a soft surface, hands bound above my head. As I tried to make a noise, I felt something on my mouth. It was sticky and unyielding.
Tape.

“Ah, she wakes.”

I heard a voice to my left, and my head jerked toward the sound. It wasn’t H, Brandon, or Trigger. It was a new guy with brown hair, lighter than Brandon’s, and blue eyes. He was a little older but just as good-looking as H and Brandon. I was pretty certain he had a black heart to match.

I could hear my breath pouring out fast and loud from my nostrils.

The stranger came around to the right side of the bed and sat next to me, but I couldn’t look at him. My gaze flitted around the room, calculating quickly to figure out where I was. We were in a bedroom. The walls were peeling and rotting. The smell confirmed mold. In front of me was a closed door. To my left was another door, slightly ajar.
A bathroom, maybe?
I was on cheap flowery bedding. Across the room was a rickety-looking coffee table with a crappy fifteen-year-old TV.

When my eyes rolled over my body, I shuddered, whimpering quietly. I was naked save my bra and underwear, wearing the black lacy lingerie I had, of course, chosen for tonight because I originally thought I would be spending it with Jay. My legs curled instinctively inward to cover my bareness. I couldn’t see either side of the bed to tell if my clothes were even in the room.

When my eyes met his, I gave him the hardest, most convincingly hateful glare I owned. Hopefully, it had no trace of fear. Now was not the time to be weak. As I had proven to myself in the car, it had gotten me nowhere, not that the fighting did either. My lips moved beneath the tape, forming a sneer.

He tapped his fingers on my mouth. “Sorry about this. Just had to make sure we’d have no more trouble from you.” In one sweep, he wrenched the tape away.

I couldn’t help but cry out.
Shit, that hurt!
I moved my lips around to alleviate the sting.

He was smiling at me, eyes bloodshot. He must’ve been on something.
X maybe? Coke?
I’d never done drugs. Just the thought of it and this situation was making me boil again.

“I’m Alpha,” he said, putting his whole hand to my throat.

So, this is the asshole they were talking about in the car? Well, well.
The pack leader has arrived.
Even in my dire circumstance, I was thinking,
Alpha, how original.
I yanked at my bound hands, desperate to protect myself as his fingers moved down my chest to my belly button. The lower they got, the more my nausea returned.

Not on purpose, but definitely to my advantage, I leaned over and threw up on him. That was three. Now I was really starting to think that I had food poisoning or something. Or maybe it was whatever Trigger had shot me up with before I blacked out. Or maybe it was just the idea that this sicko had his nasty fingers all over me.

Not much came up though, just some liquids. It was enough to piss him off and send him backward, shaking his hands toward the hideously stained carpet.

He glanced down at his now wet clothes like I’d spoiled a sacred garment. “You bitch.” With one step forward, he raised his arm and backhanded me across the face.

Trying to catch my breath from the blow, I licked a bit of blood off the inside of my cheek. “Serves you right, prick. Now let me the fuck
out of here
!”

Unfortunately, my words didn’t faze him. He just laughed and wiped his hands on a dry piece of his shirt. “Oh man. We haven’t had one as feisty as you in…” He rested his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Well, a long time.”

My heart hammered, but I put venom in my tone. “What the hell kind of operation are you running here? And where are my friends? I want to see them.” I strained forward, listening for anything that would tell me they were okay and alive.

I could hear music, loud and vulgar. Voices, all male. Laughter. Bottles clinking. I could smell the crusty scent of cigarette smoke.

He pointed to the closed door. “They’re out there, being taken care of. Don’t worry. They’ll be fine. It’s you that I’m not so sure about.”

“You sick son of a bitch. My friend could be on the brink of death, and you’re just gonna do nothing? If she dies on your hands, I swear—”

“Relax,” he cut me off. “She’s still breathing. Enough. We’ll drop her somewhere when everyone’s done. She’ll be fine.”

As I had kicked H’s seat earlier, I just as frantically pulled on my arms. “Let me out!” I screamed, hoping beyond hope that someone, inside or out, upstairs or down, could hear me in this hellhole. I had no idea if we were in a house or apartment building, if this was the only bedroom, or if there were others. From the looks of it and guessing the age of these guys, my bet was that this was their place of business where they brought all the girls just for this purpose. I highly doubted that they lived here, but I had nothing to back up my theory.

Alpha rounded the bed. It creaked as he sat on the clean side. He caressed my jaw, my bloody lip. I cringed, ripping away from him, and he gripped me harder. From his pocket, he retrieved a knife. The blade winked at me in the dim light. I swallowed. He grinned.

“Still wanna scream?” He waved the knife at me like it was my choice.

I clamped my mouth shut, my breath quickening, eyes narrowing. I was way too close to tears.
Jay. How did I let this happen?
I should’ve stayed home. I should’ve…but no, I couldn’t have stayed back. Then Heather…

The idea of what could happen and what was probably happening right now to my friends flooded my imagination faster than blood was pumping to my brain. I felt lightheaded.

I watched the knife inch up to where my wrists were bound, and then I heard a snapping sound. My head—I realized I’d been holding it up this whole time—collapsed against the flat pillow. My arms fell loosely to my sides. Angry red marks wrapped around my wrists, and I rolled into a ball, holding them close to me as I tried to rub some feeling back into them.

I heard Alpha’s voice float from behind me. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice. Now let’s take a bath because I’m not gonna fuck a puker, and then we can have some fun.”

I couldn’t believe how cavalier he sounded.

I scrambled from the bed before he could touch me, but a pain ripped through my head and I swayed, almost colliding with the wall.
Dizzy, so dizzy
. Whatever Trigger had given me must not have completely worn off yet.