Marked: Chapter 14

My stomach flutters as we pull into a storage facility. It’s one of those places that looks like a bunch of garages butted up against each other.

“Here we go.” Zack drives right up to the last garage door in the row. It’s three thirty in the morning, but the parking lot lamps are dead.

“Is he going to be able to talk?” I climb out of the car and meet Zack at the trunk where he’s put the mystery man.

“Yeah. The sedative’s probably already worn off. But he won’t be able to move.” He opens the trunk and there he is.

Fearful eyes land on me as the man looks up at us.

Dread rips through me, and I have to take a step back from the trunk. I need space from this man.

“What’s wrong?” Zack turns to me.

I shake my head.

“I don’t know. He’s…I think I’ve seen him before.” I swallow. “Do you need help with him?” I force myself forward. There can’t be any hiding from what needs to happen. If I’m ever going to find out the truth of what happened to my sister, to find those responsible, I need to be brave. I can’t let the anxiety and fear drown me.

“I got him, but can you open the door?” He hands me a ring of keys from his pocket. “The square one.” He’s already bending into the trunk, grabbing the guy.

The metal door bangs as I yank it up, and it rolls back on the tracks. Inside is a small space. The concrete floor is covered in thick plastic, and there’ a chair in the middle of it. A toolbox sits on a card table.

“This is your place?” I ask him as he passes me, the guy draped over his shoulder.

“In a way.” His voice is strained, but that’s not surprising with the massive man weighing him down.

“In what way?” I draw the garage door back down until it slams shut. A shiver runs up my spine. Pulling my shoulders up to my ears, I try to block out the sound.

There’s a grunt, then plastic rustles in the dark. A light turns on.

Zack’s on me in the next second.

“Are you all right?” He cups my chin and drags my face toward him.

I swallow.

“Yeah. It’s just…” I take a calming breath. “That sound. The garage door. The metal…it hurts.” I tap my temple.

He glances at the man slumped forward in the chair.

“Do you want me to handle this? You can go to the car if you feel more comfortable.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m fine.” I take another deep breath. “It just startled me.”

He searches my face, then gives a short nod. “All right, but if you need me take over, little bird, you tell me.” There’s a warning in his tone that sends warmth coursing through my veins.

My protector.

“I promise.” I tug my chin from his grasp. “Let’s get what we came for.”

I walk behind him as we circle the man slumped in the chair. His arms dangle off to the sides and his chin is buried in his chest.

Zack grabs his hair, yanking his head back so we can see his face better.

Drool slides down his cheek.

“Gross.” He looks half dead the way his face slouches.

“It’s the drug. He’s completely paralyzed from the neck down. But it makes the muscles of the face pretty numb too,” Zack explains.

Faded blue eyes frantically search the space, and us.

“I think he’s scared,” I say, leaning over him a little.

“He should be.” Zack laughs.

“Fuck.” The man moves his jaw from side to side, like he’s oiling a rusty joint.

“What’s your name?” Zack leans over him with his hands pressing down on the man’s shoulders.

“You’re gonna kill me no matter what I say, so why would I tell you anything?” Our captive slurs his words. He’s saying them right, and in the right order, but he sounds like he’s drunk a few bottles of whiskey.

“Because.” Zack moves behind him, turning our captive’s head toward the card table. “Everything I need to draw this out for days is in that toolbox. And I know you don’t want that. You want a quick death.” He leaves his head hanging back against the chair. At least he’s able to look at us now without dropping forward.

“People aren’t going to just be okay with me dead. You’re gonna be hunted down.” It’s hard to take the threat seriously when every word sounds like it’s weighed down with an anchor.

“His wallet’s in his back pocket.” I point at the square bulge.

Zack smiles at me. “He can’t be that stupid, can he?” He laughs, jerking the guy forward so he can get to the pocket.

He pulls out a leather billfold and flips it open.

“Fuck. He is.” He shakes his head like he’s disappointed. When he shoves the guy back to a sitting position, he frowns at him.

“You were supposed to be asleep. Easy kill,” he says, his words getting easier to understand with each new sentence.

“But why?” Zack opens the wallet. Arthur Anderson,” Zack reads the license inside.

I walk around to the front of Arthur, and he brings his eyes level with mine again. “Oh, god.” I cover my mouth, jumping back from him.

“Oh. God.” I suck in a breath.

“Harley.” My name drops hard from Zack’s mouth. “You’re okay, little bird. Take a breath.”

I suck in another breath.

“You.” I point a finger at him, at the man who touched me, touched my sister. Who kept us bound for days, starving and thirsty and scared. Who took our mother away so we would have no comfort.

“Ah, I guess your memory really is coming back.” He shakes his head. “Fucking shame.”

I step up to him and slap him as hard as I can across his face. He tumbles out of the chair onto the plastic covering. He grunts, shakes his head.

“Good hit.” Zack grabs hold of his arms and picks him up like some sleeping toddler and shoves him back in the chair.

Once Artie is upright, Zack grabs his face and pushes it back.

“Laurens sent you?” he asks, but we already know. Who else would have done it?

“I’m not telling you shit.” Artie’s starting to get some of his bravado back. At least he’s stopped drooling.

Zack throws a fist into his nose. Right after the crunch of cartilage breaking, blood spurts out.

Artie howls.

“Who does she work for?” Zack pulls a knife out from the holster beneath the leg of his jeans.

“Fuck off.” Artie spits blood from his mouth. He’s a dead man, and he knows it. Giving us information might speed up his death, but to his twisted mind, going out without becoming a rat gives him something to be proud of. Some sort of legacy.

Zack stabs the knife into Artie’s thigh.

Artie howls. Tears fall while he bellows his pain.

“See.” Zack yanks the knife back out and wipes it clean on Artie’s black shirt. “You can’t move, but you can still feel everything.” He pats the flat of the blade against Artie’s cheek.

“Artie. Artie!” I yell at him until he finally looks at me. “Who killed Quinn? Who was the other guy there that day?”

His sniffling turns to laughing.

“Just kill me.” He shakes his head. “I’m not telling you anything. You don’t understand. You can get rid of me, but it won’t matter.”

“Why? Why won’t it matter?” I ask, panicked he’s not going to give us any information. And we’ll be no better off than yesterday.

Zack plunges the knife into his uninjured thigh, and Artie goes back to howling. Blood drips from his legs onto the plastic below.

“Who do you work for other than Laurens? Who else was there? Why were we picked?” I blurt out my questions, seeing how pale he’s getting from the blood loss.

If Zack hit a major artery, Artie will pass out soon.

Artie stares at me for a long moment.

“You don’t know how you got picked?” he asks with a twisted grin. “It wasn’t random, I’ll tell you that.” He licks his teeth. “You were there on purpose.”

Anger I’ve never felt before courses through me.

“Why would you want to hurt us? Why?”

“Your mom wasn’t hurt,” he argues.

“Who else is involved?” Zack demands, pressing the knife to his neck so hard, small pearls of blood appear. “Who brought the girls to you?”

“It was someone else. It wasn’t you. Some other guys were there,” I add so he knows I remember at least that much.

He shakes his head.

Zack moves the knife to his face and jams it into his cheek, dragging it up toward his ear. Blood pours down his face as he bellows with the pain.

“Dustin!” he finally yells. “It was Dustin Hastings,” he spits the answer out when Zack brings the knife to his other cheek.

“And who else?” I push. It wasn’t just one guy. I don’t think. If the memories would just get clearer, I could be certain.

“Not positive.” He rolls his gaze downward, like he’s trying to see the tip of Zack’s blade.

“And who the fuck do you work for?” Zack asks, the tip of the blade already cutting into his skin.

“I won’t.” He clamps his mouth shut even while Zack carves this side of his face.

There’s a buzzing coming from the front pocket of Artie’s sweatshirt.

“What’s that?” Zack pulls his knife back and searches Artie’s pockets. He pulls out a cell phone as it buzzes again.

“Got another for you, you got room?” Zack reads the message on the screen and looks up at Artie. “It’s from Vince.” He shows him the screen, but Artie’s not paying much attention. He’s still whimpering from the all the cutting.

I punch him in the thigh, right on the first stab wound. “He asked you a question. Who is Vince, and what is he talking about?” I shout in his ear.

Artie blinks while looking at me through tears and sweat. Gone is the man with the wrinkled smiles and sadistic laughs. This man is sad. Pathetic. And he’s not done paying for what he’s done.

“You’re…you’re sick,” he huffs.

“Who is Vince?” I ask again, softer this time.

“He’s the guy you’re looking for. He took Dustin with him that day. I don’t know who else was there.” He rolls his head to the side.

“Who does he work for?” Zack demands. “We need more names.”

Vince.

I search my memory, but I don’t find the name. Walking away from Artie, I pace behind Zack while he finds new piece of Artie to cut.

It’s all there. In my mind, I know it is, but I can’t reach it.

Fuck, this is annoying!

And Artie won’t stop screaming. The sound proofing tiles on the walls soak up his cries, but it’s like nails on a damn chalkboard to my brain.

“Zack.” I tug on the back of his shirt. “He’s not going to tell us anything else. We have his phone and a name.” I see the fear in Artie’s eyes. It has nothing to do with what we’re doing to him, and everything to do with what will happen if he tells us.

Zack’s shirt is covered in blood, his knuckles are drenched in it.

“You’re right.” He nods, pressing the tip of the knife to the man’s throat.

“You hurt me. You hurt my sister,” I say, reaching over to Zack’s hand and covering it with my own.

Zack glances at me; pride fills his beautiful eyes. “Are you sure, little bird? There’s no going back.”

“He’s a monster.” I grip his hand. “And monsters need to be slain.”

“That’s right.” He nods and turns back to Artie.

“No!” Artie cries out, but it’s too late.

We’re finished with him.

Together, we push the knife into his throat until the blade is completely in.

He gurgles, choking on the blood filling his throat.

Zack guides my hand, and we slice across hard, until his throat opens up, and blood pours out.

Pulling back, we let him fall to the floor. His blood pools around him as his head rolls to the side and all life drains from his eyes.

My heart beats against my eardrums, blocking out Zack. His mouth is moving. His eyes are drilled into mine, but I can’t hear him over the thunder clapping in my ears.

I squat down and touch Artie’s cheek. He’s still warm, but there’s nothing to him.

Any soul, as corrupt and wicked as it was, is gone.

“Harley.” Zack’s voice finally cracks through the noise, and I look up at him. His brows are knit together.

Slowly, I get back up and turn to him. Blood is on my fingertips. I rub them together.

He grabs my wrist and pulls my attention to him.

“Are you all right?” His question is so small. Am I all right?

I smile.

“He hurt me,” I say. “He hurt other people. And he didn’t care.”

He nods. “He was a monster, you were right.”

I look down at Artie again. A limp little man is all that’s left of the terror he was to me in those days, in all the years following. Nothing but a shriveled-up dead man.

“There are more out there,” I say, barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” A single word crashes down between us.

“We need to find them.” I pull my hand from Zack’s grasp.

I stare at his lips. His mouth is so full, so beautiful.

“We killed him,” I say softly, waiting for the weight of guilt to crush me.

“We did.” He brushes the back of his knuckles across my cheek.

“Am I evil?” I question. “This is the first time in years I’ve felt…well…normal. That has to be a bad thing, right?”

He shakes his head.

“No, Harley. Not at all.” He cups my cheek. “You’re taking back what they stole from you. You’re not evil.”

I draw in a shaky breath.

“You are so beautiful right now.” He grins. “Like a light has flipped on inside you.”

I nod. The knot in my chest has loosened. Breathing is easier.

Zack slips his fingers through mine, wipes the blood from my hand, and lifts his hand to my cheek.

Slowly, he smears the blood across my lips.

“Much better,” he whispers then presses his mouth against mine.

His hand dives into my hair as he pushes me back against the cabinet, deepening the kiss. Through his jeans, his cock presses into my pelvis and I push my hips at him.

There’s a hunger in me, and only he can feed it.

He tears my shirt off and shoves my pants down. I kick them away. His jeans are gone in a matter of a breath, and he has his cock in me.

“Oh, god. Oh!” I dig my fingernails into his shoulders as he pumps upward into me.

“So fucking good.” He thrusts harder. I reach for him, kissing him hard as he plows into me.

We sink to the ground; he has me pinned and he’s shoving my legs back. I roll my eyes back as his lips kiss down my collarbone, over my breasts.

I’ve never felt so alive.

“Harley,” he mutters my name against my skin as he thrusts into me, his pelvis grinds into my clit. “So good.”

My insides coil tighter.

His hand slides between our bodies and he rolls my clit beneath his fingertip.

“Such a good girl,” he whispers in my ear as he bites down on my earlobe. “Such a good, good girl.”

His praise courses through my veins like cocaine. My heart gallops, and my clit swells beneath his touch.

“Oh!” I arch my back, needing him, wanting him.

“Come for me, my little bird,” he orders me and it’s the authority, the confidence in his voice that’s my undoing.

I scream as my body unravels, following his rule and exploding into a million pieces. I hope I never come back together.

“Such a good girl.” He bites down on my neck, plowing harder and harder into me. Again and again, until he freezes. Arching his back, he lifts up as his own release carries him away.

I have never seen a more beautiful sight than these small moments when he loses his control.

Slowly, he comes back to me and lowers his mouth to mine. Gentle kisses now, soft, and yielding as he makes his way to my cheek.

“You’re my perfect girl, Harley,” he says, gingerly rolling away from me.

I smile. How can I not? I’m his perfect girl.

He collects my clothing and helps me get put back together.

“I suppose we need to take down this Dustin Hastings now,” I say wiping my hands off on a rag Zack gives me.

“He can’t help us,” he says, sounding regretful.

I turn to him. “Why not? He helped Artie, and he might know who Vince is.”

He frowns.

“Because I killed the fucker last week.”