“No.” I shake my head. “Screw you.” Pushing off his rock hard chest, I turn toward my car and I’m almost there when a strong grip around my arm pulls me back.
My back pushes up against Hella’s tight chest where he drops his lips down to my ear and whispers, “It was a setup, Meadow. We knew he was going to get taken, we knew everything.”
My chest rising and falling deepens as I turn in his hold. “What do you mean?” I ask, wiping the tears from my cheeks.
He nudges his head to the barn. “Come on, I’ll tell you in there.”
“No, tell me now.”
He rolls his eyes. “So stubborn. Beast is going to have lots of fun with you.”
“Get to it, Hella.”
Running his hands through his hair, he exasperates a breath of air while dropping his arms to the side of his body. “There was no way we would be able to just roll in and kill them all. We needed to get Beast in there.”
“Why couldn’t he just walk in and say take me?”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Because they would have questioned his motives, Meadow. Beast and I have been running from this organization for a long fucking time. Don’t you think it would be a little shady if Beast just walks in there one day throwing up a flag? No, he needed them to think we failed with our mission. We needed them to think that they have won.”
“And have they?” I ask, tilting my head. Some of the uneasiness loosening.
“Have they what?” he asks, pushing his hands into his pockets.
“Won… have they won?”
He smirks, hooding his eyes. “Not even close.”
He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me into him. “Come on, I don’t want to share this twice.”
“Hella,” I whisper. “Whatever is happening, I want in.”
He stops in his tracks. “Pardon?”
Tilting my head, I widen my eyes. “You heard me. I’m coming.”
He shakes his head, laughing. “You definitely are not coming.”
This was like a bad case of flashbacks. My wrists are bound to the roof, rings of fire wrapping around them—just as I remember. My heavy head is hooded between my arms when I hear the sound of the heavy steel door swinging open. I rise up, looking out to see who just came through.
“Beast?” Kurr’s voice vibrates through me like a jolt of electricity that makes me want to rip his head clean off with my bare hands. “I believe you’ve never met the brains behind the entire operation? The woman who created Schyronide,” he asks, eyebrows cocked.
I drag my eyes to the figure that’s standing beside him and smile.
“Who? The bitch that’s obviously riding your dick?”
He laughs, walking closer to me so I pick up my head and peer down at him.
“Actually…” he states, waving the woman over. I haven’t had a good look at her yet, but I can see she’s wearing a long white trench jacket and has her hair in a tight bun that’s sitting on top of her head. “She’s not mine. But she is yours,” he says, looking at me up and down. I bring my eyes to hers and her lips drop along with her head.
“Beast?” she whispers under her breath. I pull on the bonds around my wrists, baring my teeth at Kurr.
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“Get with it, Beast. This is Dr Carrisa Kurnikiva to you.” He smirks, bringing a cigarette to his mouth. “But her real name is Courtney Kurnikiva AKA your mother.”
Pulling on the cuffs that surround my wrists, I shake my head. “You’re fucking lying.”
He lets out a deep, smoky chuckle. “Oh no, son. I’m not.”
I bring my eyes back to the woman and she lifts her head up to face me. “I’m so sorry, Beast. I didn’t know.”
“Shut up,” Kurr says to her, rounding a little table that sits in the middle of the floor. I know that table, and I know what it contains. I pull on the cuffs again when a sharp sting strikes through my wrists and the dropping of blood begins to trickle down my arm.
With my chest heaving, I bring my eyes back to her. “Is it true?”
She swallows down, placing her hands into her pockets of her jacket. “Yes, I’m so sorry.”
A deep, sadistic chuckle escapes my mouth. “You’re kidding, right? ‘You’re sorry’? Are you fucking shitting me, woman! You! You created the fucking acid they pumped through me—through all of us!”
She drops her shoulders and walks to me. “Look, I had to, I had no—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I seethe, boring my eyes deep into hers. She flinches and steps back.
“Kurr, give me a minute please.”