Three Years(32)

“We’re being shot at. Until it’s safe, you have to go back downstairs.”

He pulls me into the hallway and wrenches the door shut behind us, glancing furtively up and down the long corridor.

“Come on.”

I plant my feet, unwilling to move until he tells me what’s going on. “Who’s shooting?” I demand. “And where are you taking me? If you think I’m going back to that fucking room—”

“That’s exactly where you’re going,” a voice says behind me. I jolt, turning around to see my lover standing there, but he’s not that man at the moment. He’s somebody else right now.

“Jase?” I say breathlessly.

He looks like the grim reaper, dressed entirely in black and holding an assault rifle in his hand, his expression tight and focused.

At this point, I don’t know if he’s here to save my life, or take my life.

“Walk,” he says, pushing me with the tip of his rifle.

“You won’t shoot me,” I say, instantly regretting my choice of words.

“I will if he doesn’t,” The Prospect says, leveling his own handgun at me. “Boss says we gotta keep you safe. So hurry the fuck up and move!”

Fuck. I start walking, my own heartbeat thumping wildly in my ears. I want to turn and scream at Jase—I’m so fucking confused—but the gunfire all around us is only getting louder and more frequent, and I seem to have lost the ability to think for myself. The startling realization I had while bound and stuck listening to the death metal comes back to kick me in the guts, literally. I gasp as I feel something push against my thin skin from the inside.

Holy shit. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was the baby kicking. Isn’t it too soon for that?

A few minutes later, we’re back in that dank little dungeon. I stop in the doorway, staring painfully at the bare bed where Dornan tied me down and raped me. Where he excised my flesh. Where he marked me and shot me full of drugs and tried to destroy me.

I think of the poor baby who was in my womb that entire time, and I wonder how anything could possibly survive such a prolonged onslaught.

Still. I’m here. I’m not dead yet.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask the guys as I’m pushed into the room. They ignore me, The Prospect nodding at Jase before leaving the room.

“Where is he going?” I ask Jase worriedly. “Jason, what the hell is happening?”

He strides over to me, his cheeks flushed, his presence overpowering. “Listen to me,” he says desperately. “If anyone comes in here, you’re scared of me. Terrified. Do you understand?”

I nod. It’s true. I am scared of him.

Jase looks around the room, as if only now realizing where he is. “Jesus,” he chokes. “This is where you’ve been this entire time?”

I can’t help myself. I’m a bitch and I shouldn’t say it, but I do.

“Why didn’t you come and save me?” I ask brokenly.

Jase grabs my arms and shakes me. “You ran away!” he says, his eyes wild and glassy. “I didn’t even know he had you. And then Elliot called me—”

“Elliot called you?” I interrupt. “Elliot’s here?” Oh Jesus, this is getting worse by the second. “Jason, what the hell is going on?”

Jase motions for me to stay put, stepping out into the hallway and glancing around before coming back to join me, where I stay rooted to the spot. I’m so confused right now, and if Jase isn’t here to help me, he’d better just shoot me in the face right here and now.

“Listen to me,” Jase says quietly, looking at the doorway over his shoulder. “Three years, I was in here. In this goddamn room. After I watched your father die…after he died in my arms…they brought me down here. Shut the door. And left me. I tried to wipe away his blood, but it dried on my skin. Seeped into my pores, until finally, it was like it became a part of me. He became a part of me.”

“You’re not the only one who wanted revenge, sweet girl. I thirsted for it the way a dying man in the desert thirsts for water. I wanted it so badly. I fought. I resisted. I fucking raged. But three years may as well be three hundred. May as well be forever.”

I think of the three months I spent in this room, and how I might die here, tonight.

I don’t want to die.

I’ve never wanted to live more than I do right now.

“I don’t know how you survived,” I whisper, my heart breaking.

He smiles sadly. “I thought of you. And how much I loved you. And how, when I finally got out, I was going to kill every last fucking Gypsy Brother for what they did to us.”