The Space Beyond (The Book of Phoenix) (29 page)

With one hand still on my throat with enough pressure that I could barely breathe, Mason used the tip of the glass to lift the pieces of my shirt and bra to the sides. My eyes widened and my chest heaved as he traced the point of the shard lightly over my breastbone and then down to circle each breast like he was drawing the infinity symbol across my boobs in blood. His eyes never left my face as he did so.

“Are you ready to cooperate now?” he asked. “Ready to tell me you love me and forgive me?”

His green eyes stared into mine, and I held his gaze, locked it into place as I searched into his eyes and found nothing but a dangerous darkness. The man of my dreams, the one I thought I knew and loved as my soul mate, was nowhere in there. I didn’t know if he ever really existed or if everything had been a charade since the beginning, acted out by this heartless, soulless nightmare hovering over me. What was left of my broken heart crumbled to pieces. My soul shattered into fragments.

But I would not cry. I would not give him the pleasure of seeing that he’d destroyed me. Very slowly, I slid my tongue over my swollen bottom lip, tasting more blood. His pupils dilated slightly, and his head lifted in a nod. And then I rasped out against the razor blades in my throat, “
Never
.”

He frowned.

“Not the answer I was expecting,” he said with a sigh, and then with a slow twist of his wrist, he carved a circle around my areola, nearly taking it off. I watched in horror as blood flooded over my nipple and down the curve of my boob.

With a delayed reaction, sharp pain rocketed through my breast, and I screamed. My back arched, and I kicked my free leg out, connecting with something. More glass broke. Mason looked down at his feet. He looked back at me with annoyance, but then smirked as he leaned down, reaching for the floor. His hand still gripped my throat as he pulled me slightly off the bed while he bent down, and my breast felt like it was on fire. Then he stood and pressed me into the mattress while lifting his free hand. The edges of my vision blurred with tears and blood and lack of air, but I could clearly see what he held: the broken neck of the champagne bottle.

“If I can’t have you, Bex, then no one can.” He pushed my legs apart with his knees, tightened his hand on my throat, and at the same time, thrust the jagged end of the bottleneck in between my thighs.

I blacked out with the rush of pain.

Chapter 27

“Jeric, dude, this isn’t good,” Brock said as we entered the parking lot and drove toward Mason’s building.

I stared up through the windshield at all of the Lakari swarmed over the roof like vultures waiting for their meal to finally die.

“Shit,” Asia said under her breath.

“Bex,” Leni gasped.

As soon as Brock pulled to a stop, Leni was pushing impatiently on my seat. I threw open the door and was barely on my feet when she jumped out and ran past me. She took the stairs three at a time, soaring upward like a gazelle more than climbing the steps like a human. I rushed after her, arriving at the door only a split second later. Leni didn’t bother knocking. Didn’t need to when we heard glass breaking and a girl screaming. She threw open the door, and we both bolted inside.

Glass, green stems, and flower petals littered the white tiles, and we skidded in puddles of water. A body lay huddled on the floor in a pool of blood. Leni fell to her knees next to the girl and gently turned her head to the side. Sissy.

Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I gave a warning look to Leni, telling her to stay by Sissy, before rushing over to a bedroom door hanging halfway open. The scene sent my stomach to the floor and my blood rushing through my veins.

Bex lay on her back, her eyes closed, her head tilted to the side, her face swollen and covered in blood. Her shirt hung open, exposing everything to her hips, including blood pouring from where her left nipple should have been. Her jean shorts were still on, but the denim was shredded and soaked in blood. On the bed next to her was a bloodied piece of glass that looked like the neck of a wine bottle.

And standing over her with his hand jerking his dick was Mason Hayes.

Rage overcame me. My vision tunneled. And with a beastly roar, I charged.

I rammed into him with my shoulder, and we crashed into the nightstand. He tried to push me off, but I shoved my body weight into him again until we fell to the floor. I sat on top of him, pinned his arms with my knees, held his throat with one hand, and pummeled my fist into his face over and over and over again.

“How do you fucking like it, asshole?” I spat at him as I continued to punch him. “How do you like being the weaker one? How do you like being the girl? You fucking coward.”

His cheek shattered under my fist. Then his nose broke and blood spurted. His skin turned red and purple, looking more like raw meat than human flesh.

“Jeric,” Leni said quietly from behind me.

“Let’s get Bex,” Brock said, also close. He didn’t try to stop me while I continued pounding the sack of shit underneath me. If he did, it would only be so he could have a turn. Real men didn’t hit girls. No matter what. Real men had a code for those limp-dick, sick fucks who did: Make sure they never forgot what a real man’s fist felt like just as the girl they hit would never forget. Brock was a real man. The cop last night probably was, too.

Like I’d always been in the cage, I became hyper-aware of everything around me. Leni and Asia covering Bex up, then Brock lifting her into his arms. The smell of roses and sweet alcohol mixed with coppery blood. Pieces of glass all over the floor. The wet bedding stained with blood. Mason’s body jerking and twitching under me. Music playing lyrics that said, “You are mine.”

“You
are
mine, asshole,” I snarled.

Brock left with the girls. I rocked back to my feet and fisted my hand into Mason’s wife-beater. How appropriate. I pulled him up with me and slammed him into the wall a few times, then punched him again for good measure. His body fell limp, slid down the wall and collapsed into a heap. I spit on him, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted more than anything to kill the fucker. I gave him a few kicks to the side, hearing the toe of my boot crunch into his ribs.

“
Enough!
” Leni’s voice rang in my head, the first time I’d heard it like that since before we were Forged. My anger must have been overwhelming her. Her fear and concern for me rolled through me.

“Jeric, let’s go,” Brock called from the doorway.

“Sirens are coming,” Asia said as she came running into the room.

She halted next to me, and we both stared at the cocksucker in front of us for another moment. Asia looked around the room, and her gaze landed on the bed … and the bottleneck. I froze, riveted, as she stepped over to the bed and grabbed the glass. Then she squatted in front of Mason, grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head back. His eyes rolled up at her, barely visible through the swelling.

“Since we have to let you live,” she said, “you don’t deserve these.”

She slammed the pointed glass into his balls and twisted. He grunted and mewled like the animal he was, and blood blossomed immediately around the bottleneck as it stuck out of his crotch. The stink of human shit filled the air.

“Asia! Jeric!” Brock yelled. “Move it!”

Asia backed away from Mason’s slumped form slowly at first, until she reached me. Without a word or a glance my way, she spun and took off, and I jogged after her for the door, down the stairs and to the car. Before Brock and I could jump in, though, three Lakari dropped from the sky, taking human form as soon as they hit the ground. They always landed dressed in black pants and black hoodies with the hoods up, covering their heads and putting their faces in shadow. Only their inky black eyes could be seen against pale skin. Brock and I went after them.

Still hyped on adrenaline, I swung fast and violently, punching one in the head and the other in the throat. Brock attacked the third. The tallest one kicked me in the gut while the other one I’d hit went after Brock. I elbowed the Shadowman in the ribs, then shoved the heel of my hand upwards into his chin. He disintegrated into smoke. I spun on one of the guys on Brock and kicked him in the lower back. As I threw my fist into his face, making him shatter, more Shadowmen dropped down.

And the sirens came louder and closer.

“Fuck ’em,” Brock said as he ran for the car. “We gotta go.”

I jumped in the passenger’s seat and was still pulling the door shut when Brock peeled away. Expecting them to follow, I watched the Shadowmen in the side mirror. They all ran upstairs for Mason’s condo, not a single one wanting anything to do with us. I let out a breath of relief. As we turned onto the main road, cop cars came from the other way and turned into the condo parking lot.

“A little damn late for Sissy and Bex,” Asia muttered.

“Let’s hope they’re too late for him,” Brock said.

“Pretty sure they are,” I answered under my breath, probably feeling more satisfied than I should about what the Lakari were doing to him now. “Was Sissy dead?”

“I hadn’t been able to find a pulse,” Leni said quietly, and her grief rocked through me. “And Bex isn’t going to make it, either.”

I turned in my seat. Bex was draped across the backseat, wrapped in a sheet, her head in Leni’s lap and her legs on Asia’s thighs. Blood soaked through the white sheet almost everywhere it touched her body. Renewed anger surged through me.

“We’re almost to the hospital,” Brock said.

“No.” Leni stroked back Bex’s hair that was matted to her face. “We take her to the Gate.”

“She won’t make it,” I said.

“She might, but if she doesn’t, that’s exactly why we have to take her,” Leni said.

Asia nodded. “She’s right. We have to try to get her to the Gate so at least her soul can be saved before the Lakari get it.”

“We have to try to get her to Nathayden,” Leni corrected. “So they both can be saved.”

I glared at her. “She needs help
now
, not two hours from now. She won’t make it that long.”

“Dude, I can get us there in less than in an hour,” Brock said.

“And what are we going to say at the hospital anyway? The police will come, and it’ll get real messy real fast,” Asia pointed out. “You’ll get arrested, Jeric.”

Our gazes locked for a long moment, both of us acknowledging that she’d said
I’d
get arrested, not
we
would. She didn’t want Brock to know what she’d done. I wondered if he even knew about whatever had happened to her—there had to be something that filled her with so much rage that would drive her to do such a thing. As if understanding my unspoken question, her head shook slightly. Brock needed to know. She frowned and broke our locked gaze to look out the window.

I turned back in my seat to face forward. “I don’t care. He fucking deserved it.”

My fingers dug into my thighs. I couldn’t believe we were arguing over this.

“But we don’t have time for that!” Asia snapped. “Bex—Rebethannah—needs us to do what we’re supposed to do.”

“She’ll bleed out!”

“Most of her bleeding has stopped,” Leni said, her voice calm and cool although I could feel the mess of emotions swirling through her. “It’s just her … her breast.”

“Cocksucker,” Brock muttered.

“And her crotch?” I asked through a clenched jaw.

“I checked when they went back upstairs to get you,” Leni said, her voice quieter than it had been a moment ago. “It’s not good, but all surface wounds. Thank God she was wearing denim. She has lots of other injuries, though. He … he practically murdered her, too. And in a lot worse way than he did Sissy.”

“Mother
fucking
cocksucker,” Brock said. “I hope you killed him.”

I stared out the window, rubbing my chin, not sure if I could agree. Sure, one part of me hoped he’d bled out nice and slowly with my face and my fists as his last memory. Or of Asia’s face as she did what she did. My balls tightened again at the thought. But death was quick. Easy. He didn’t deserve that. He deserved to live long at the state pen with the mangled parts that used to be his jewels and the memory of what he’d done replaying every time he tried to get a hard-on but couldn’t.

Brock slowed down as we approached the hospital and cut his eyes sideways to me. “What do you want to do?”

“Can we use the Book to get her to the Gate?” I asked Leni. “At least closer?”

“I don’t know. We couldn’t open it until we were together, remember?” Leni said. “She hasn’t found her Twin Flame, so the teleporting bit might not work with her. And we don’t want to disappear and leave her here alone.”

Probably a dumb idea anyway, since we didn’t know how the Book really worked with that stuff. If it dumped us at a nearby portal, we could still be miles away from the Gate with no transportation. I doubted the Book would bring the car with us.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brock said, “but I need a decision, dude.”

He was asking me to be the leader I was supposed to be and to choose. To decide between Bex’s life and Rebethannah’s soul. Between being human and being a Phoenix. Between my life as Jeric and my role as Jeremicah, leader of the Guardians, Twin Flame to Jacquelena, who was to light my way.

And she’d lit the path we were supposed to take. I only had to choose to follow it. I just hoped we were both right.

“Let’s take her to the Gate.”