Authors: Miss Merikan
Asty stopped screaming for help long ago.
The tape on her lips was surprisingly resistant and didn’t let all that much
noise come through. Having lost hope for catching the attention of the staff,
she tried to wiggle her wrist out of the cuff that seemed a bit wider on her,
twisting and pulling to the rhythm of an old Britney Spears song that played on
the television. The metal already chafed her skin, but she kept going, unable
to think of anything else but what Dad would do to Hunter once he found out the
truth. Finding her vibrator under the pillow as she wiggled around didn’t make
her situation one bit better. Why didn’t Hunter hide something that she could
actually use to go and save him?
Tug after tug, the cuff dug into her flesh,
but somehow, her thumb wouldn’t dislocate to let it pass through. What was she
doing wrong? A brief thought made her shudder in fear. If Hunter died, maybe at
least leaving the rest of her family behind wouldn’t be so painful, but it only
ended up with her sobbing, which wasn’t the greatest idea with her mouth
blocked.
She told Hunter too early. She led herself
to believe he was ready, that he’d understand the logic behind her words, but
his upbringing must have reared its ugly head and made him refuse all her
claims without question. She’d never see him again. But even as she struggled,
the question he asked kept coming back. If the body growing inside her would
become Bell’s, what would happen to the baby she and Hunter had created
together? She loved Bell so much, and yet she loved that little thing too, even
if she hadn’t heard its voice yet.
The sudden sound of the door opening made
her groan in both relief and anger. She didn’t manage to free herself, but at
least Hunter was back and they could talk this out. Her heart stopped when
instead of Hunter’s face, she saw Prince’s pale beard.
“Oh, fuck. Asty … I’ll get you right out of
those,” Prince said in that ridiculously polite-sounding accent of his and
kneeled on the bed next to her with the key to her handcuffs. The pink vibrator
rolled into his lap, and when he looked at it, his cheeks went aflame.
Asty rattled the handcuffs against the bed
frame, screaming at him, so he finally leaned down and freed her hand. When the
cuff opened, her chest sagged with relief, and she tugged on the tape, only to
find out it was glued firmer than she expected. She eventually succeeded, even
though the pain of it made her hiss.
“Fucking hell.” Prince shook his head and
quickly tucked the vibrator under the pillow, as if he intended to pretend it
never rolled out of there. “I can’t believe that scumbag would do this to you.
No wonder your father’s gone mental.”
Asty had to hold on to him the moment she
stood on her feet. “He didn’t do anything ... fuck ...” she uttered and grabbed
her phone out of the bag, already rushing into the corridor. By the time she
reached the elevator, the automated voice told her that her dad was out of
reach, which only heightened her anxiety.
Prince was right on her heels. “Wait! Asty!
Come on, don’t make this hard on me. I need to take you to the club.”
She pushed the elevator button like a
maniac. “That’s where they are?” she asked, watching an elderly couple get into
the glass-encased elevator a floor above them. The elevator began to rise up
again, and she hit the wall in anger.
Prince scowled. “Um … maybe?” He knew but
he wasn’t supposed to tell her. No one would ever tell her anything, but she
wasn’t a child. She knew damn well about many things that went on in her dad’s
club. She was a good listener. She also knew where Tooth got his nickname. And
it wasn’t, as the official version stated, because he used to apprentice at a
dentist’s.
Asty clenched her teeth and looked up at
him. “You will take me where they are, or there will be hell to pay,” she barked
at him, watching the numbers of the floors gradually light and dim on the
console by the door.
“I will, but let’s just get your coat,
okay?” He tried to pull her back to the room, but she was having none of that.
“Let go of me. Who told you, you can touch
me?” she hissed, even though there were tears pushing at her eyes. She hated
being pregnant. It was as if her emotions were constantly thumping on her skin
from the inside. “This is gonna take forever,” she hissed and quickly rushed
down the stairs next to the elevator.
Prince groaned, but followed her just as
fast. “There’s no need for this. You’ll get to talk to Priest soon. A few
minutes won’t change anything.”
“Yes, they can. You know they can. What did
they do to him?” she asked and once again tried to reach her Dad’s phone. When
that didn’t work, she tried the stationary phone in the office, but no one was
picking it up either.
Prince rushed past her once they got down
to the underground parking and led the way to a club-owned car. “I didn’t see
anything, I had gate duty.” Yet another lie. He must have seen or heard
something
,
especially on guard duty.
“Of course, you didn’t,” she said and
quickly ran up to the car. There shouldn’t be much traffic at this time of
night. Maybe they could be back at the club soon, and she could somehow
intervene. The constant negative answer she was getting on her phone was making
her delirious with worry. It was squeezing around her throat and not letting
her breathe right. “Just take me there. We need to hurry.”
Prince didn’t even answer, just sat in the
driver’s seat and switched on the engine as soon as she closed the door on her
side.
*
Asty’s skin was numb with anxiety by the
time they reached the clubhouse. She hopped outside, rubbing her arms
frantically to chase away the freezing cold as Prince unlocked the gate. She
choked on the cool air when she saw the familiar van standing alongside two
bikes that belonged to her dad and Tooth. She couldn’t wait anymore as her
heart drummed despite the lethargy brought upon by the cold, and she pushed
past Prince before he could grab her. Ignoring his shouts, she ran to the main
door, glad she chose flat platform shoes that day. Each step on the asphalt
pushed a cloud of vapor out of her lungs as she all but flew across the front
yard and burst into the dark lounge. She hit the light switch instinctively,
and the lamps blinked two times before illuminating the whole room.
“Dad? Hunter?” she yelled, running inside
with her heart up her throat. “Where are you?”
Prince was there in seconds. “Seriously,
just wait in the office, okay? I told you he’ll be here.” He pointed to the
office, and Asty froze at the sight of glass from the inner window all over the
floor, some even bloodied. “Um … We were chasing a cat,” Prince mumbled and
curled his shoulders briefly, when their eyes met.
Asty swallowed and started slowly backing
away, even though she felt as if she were to lose balance any minute from the
sudden lightheadedness. A red streak drew a crooked line on the floor, most
likely left by someone’s hand. Hunter’s. She closed her eyes and exhaled,
trying to calm down despite all the alarms ringing inside her body. “Of course.
I’ll wait. Just get him here quick.”
Prince waited to see her walk into the
office before turning toward the lounge. “You can make some coffee in the
meanwhile!” he yelled to her before the door of the office slammed behind him.
She unzipped her shoes behind the desk,
where he couldn’t see them through the broken window. The pulsing in her ears
could have muted her footsteps, but as she skirted toward the door, she hoped
Prince couldn’t hear her as well. Taught by experience how to sneak out while
her parents were home, she grabbed the handle with both hands, pulled the door
harder into its frame, and slowly pushed down. Relief flooded her chest when it
turned out it was well oiled and didn’t really make much noise, but this was
only the beginning. Asty ran out of the office on her toes and made a large
circle around the glass, hoping no lost shard would get into her skin, but her
thoughts drifted somewhere once she reached the entrance to the members only
area where she saw Prince disappear to. The door was only halfway closed, and
when she looked through the opening, Prince’s tall form came into view before
disappearing behind the turn of the corridor. He wasn’t quiet either, stomping
forward and making himself an easy target to follow in the silent clubhouse.
Asty heard a door creak open before
Prince’s voice broke the silence yet again. “Prez? She’s here. She’s waiting in
the office.”
A whimper and a muffled mumble that came
afterward made her blood freeze. Hunter. They had Hunter, and they were doing
horrible things to him. She clenched her teeth and slid over the floor, silent
despite her body being so loud in her own ears. When she walked past the bend
of the corridor, Prince was right there, standing in an open doorway that had
always been locked whenever she was visiting. Blood rushed to her head, and as
he looked at her, surprise painted all over his face, she pushed past him at
full speed.
Her stomach clenched when she realized her
feet weren’t touching the floor, but a split second was enough to realize there
was a flight of stairs starting right beyond the doorway, and she grabbed the
metal railing, landing safely on one of the steps.
“Fuck! Asty! You’re pregnant, stop it!”
Prince grabbed her arm and pulled her back, but when she heard a deep moan from
downstairs, she blindly punched back with her fist. Without being able to put
much force into it, it was by sheer luck that she hit a sensitive spot, as
Prince released her with a low hiss, and she stormed downstairs, jumping past two
steps at once.
“Prospect! Get her out of here!” Dad
yelled, but it was too late. No one could stop her.
She almost tripped on the second flight of
stairs, but the moment an open doorway came to view at the bottom of the steps,
she steadied herself and burst inside, her stockings sliding over white tiles
of a room so tall that it could have fit in a second floor. She stopped
breathing, perplexed by what looked like a movie set for a creepy asylum-themed
shoot with trays of steel tools on a wheeled table and a large circular lamp
casting its clinical light on a medical chair. She touched her face and
screamed.
Hunter’s face was streaked with blood and
bruised, but when he turned his head to her slightly, she realized why he
couldn’t yell back to her. He had a metal mouth spreader between his lips, and
just looking at the contraption was painful. Bloodied spittle drizzled from the
side of his mouth where it was most swollen, and both his arms and legs were
strapped to the chair with worn leather belts. Blood dripped to the floor from
his hands, and she noticed shards of glass glistening in his skin.
Dad looked at her with a scowl. “Can you
ever listen to what you are told?” He stood between her and Hunter, and pointed
to the stairs. “To the office. Now.”
Asty glanced at him but ignored the order
and rushed to Hunter’s side. She didn’t expect the strong arms of her Dad
grabbing her. She looked up, stunned. “Let go,” she hissed through clenched
teeth. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing that he didn’t deserve,” Priest
said, but Tooth wouldn’t meet her gaze, and just stood in the corner with a
pair of scary-looking steel forceps in his hand.
The ball of fire that gathered in Asty’s
chest on the way here wouldn’t be stopped, and with Dad holding her by the
arms, she jumped up and pushed the heel of her hand straight into the underside
of his nose.
“Let go of me!”
The hit made Dad’s head tilt back, and his
fingers loosened around her arms. She pushed at his stomach and dove under his
arm, falling straight at the chair. Her eyes met Hunter’s glossy ones, and she
touched his cheeks, shocked by the bruises, the cuts, the spreader that forced
his mouth so unnaturally wide open. She instinctively looked into his mouth,
searching for any missing teeth, but none were missing. While bloody, his jaws
seemed as complete as they always were.
“I’m so sorry,” she uttered, petting him.
Her heart was breaking with fear of what damage could have been already done.
She couldn’t believe her dad could do this to someone for no reason. “Take this
off him ...”
Dad growled and turned to her, holding his
nose. “He deserves this! Getting you pregnant, sneaking around in my club? You
don’t need to protect him. If he’s got some blackmail on you, don’t worry about
it, I’ll make it all go away.”
She didn’t even turn back, too focused on
the intense look in Hunter’s green eyes. She sniffed and slowly touched her
forehead to his, sliding her hands to the bruises on his neck. “Do you think
I’m stupid?” she hissed through her teeth and fought against her instinct to
lash out at him for once. “Why would you do this? He did nothing wrong! Are you
insane
?” Her gaze moved to Tooth, who stood by the wall with a grim
face. “Tooth, take this off him.”
The man grumbled and looked up, first at
her, then at her father. Priest took a deep breath and rubbed his nose again.
“Fine.”
Tooth shook his head as he approached. When
he brushed past Priest, she caught the tiniest whisper in his low voice. “And
this is what I get pulled out of bed for.”