Tess was in Brazil.

I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the child and squeezed her before passing her off to Franco. “Pay the girl and make sure you take her wherever she wants. Buy a house, I don’t care, just repay her.”

The girl squealed as Franco hoisted her into his arms and strode out the bar, heading toward bright sunlight.

At last the sun wasn’t mocking me. It wasn’t saying life would go on without the woman of my dreams; now it was telling me to go on the final hunt. The final battle to free her.

Striding out the door with Frederick at my heels, I muttered, “You should leave, Roux. You don’t have to be a part of this.”

I planned on having copious amounts of blood on my hands tonight. I would dance in hell for what I would do to motherfucker Smith.

Frederick muttered, “I’m not going anywhere. I want to see you tear this bastard limb from f**king limb.”

My soul burned with the urge to kill. No ounce of humanity existed—tonight it was all about death.

I’m coming for you, you bastard.

And I’d make damn sure he’d f**king cry before I was through.

Chapter 12

Save me, enslave me, you will never cave me.

Taunt me, flaunt me, kill what haunts me…

Two days? A week? A month? A Year?

I no longer knew how long I existed in this hell.

It no longer mattered as my body was broken, my mind unrepairable.

I existed in turmoil and grief. I lost weight as I no longer ate. My bones stuck out in stark relief and my mouth was always desiccated. The drugs never granted me a moment’s peace—taking me from a monstrous reality to a nightmare encrusted subconscious. The fog, the smog, kept me from realizing just how close I was to the end.

Leather Jacket kept taunting me—making me hurt the two blonde women until I obeyed without question. If I didn’t hit them, he did.

If I didn’t wallop them with the baseball bat, he did.

If I broke down and cried, he hit them harder, breaking a bone or drawing blood.

I wallowed in drugs and apologized and cried. He laughed and prodded and thrilled to hurt.

He made me hate myself for being alive. He made me doubt everything that I was and all the good things I thought I’d been. There was nothing left.

Who could love me when I was a devil’s protégé?

My mind tortured me with visions of a happier place: of Q’s bed, Suzette’s laugh, and warmth.

I wanted to be home. I wanted to sleep in a patch of sunlight and never be cold again. I’d never been so cold.

Sparrows visited me often in my dreams. At first they helped fly me away, taking me upward and beyond Leather Jacket’s reach, but the longer I tortured and mutilated others the more their black eyes went from condolences to hatred. Now their wings weren’t my salvation. They pecked my flesh with sharp little beaks, hopping around me like tiny vultures.

Every time my thoughts turned to Q, I shut down. The pain was insurmountable, and I couldn’t handle the hard hatred in his eyes.

“Your soul is rotten, esclave. Bound by darkness and I can no longer save you.” He leaned over me, smelling so fresh and citrusy pure. “Je ne suis plus à toi.” I’m no longer yours.

It was those words that unthreaded the rest of my ragged mind. I was no longer Q’s. I was unbelonging once again and instead of old hurt, all I felt was relief. Relief because soon, I wouldn’t exist. Soon I would die, and then I would no longer have to suffer hurting others.

Something shot me back into the present. I looked down at my shuffling feet, my arm braced in Ryan’s meaty grip.

Another block of time. Gone. Never to be recalled or remembered. What was I doing before walking?

Forcing my tongue to work, I mumbled, “Wh—where are you taking…” My strength left and I could no longer remember what I wanted to know.

My mother appeared in front of me, watching with her arms crossed as I shambled closer to her. “Look at you, child. You need a bath. You look like a homeless ragamuffin. How many times did I tell you to eat?” Her concern for my wellbeing felt nice, until she snarled. “If you are all skin and bones, what will be left for the Wolverines at dinner?”

The illusion shattered as Ryan jerked me into a room at the far end of the eternity-long corridor. “Time for your final lesson before you graduate, lovely.” He patted my head like I was his favourite pet. “I’ll miss our fun and games. Your nails are f**king sharp. Loved watching you scratch like a baby kitten.”

I swayed on the spot, mortifyingly enjoying his petting. After so long in the dark with only freezing concrete for company it was heaven to feel the comfort of another’s hand. Even though the same hand had beaten a girl within the inch of her life.

Deep inside, I managed to find the strength to stumble away.

Leather Jacket appeared from nowhere, chuckling. “Still fighting, even after all this time, slut.” He grabbed my face and I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see him and his piercing black gaze.

“Tessie, why did you leave me? For this? You left my kindness and respect for this? To chase a life of pain and ruin?” Brax swirled into being before me; I swallowed hard. Brax represented everything I no longer was.

He was untouched and pure and sweet, and I wasn’t worthy for him to talk to me.

“Don’t look at me! Please.” I buried my face in my hands, but Brax came forward and unpried my fingers to look into my eyes.

His sky-blue gaze rendered me helpless. “I may not understand your decisions, Tessie. But I’ll always be your friend. I’ll always be a safe haven for you.”

Leather Jacket shattered my drug-induced daydream by grabbing my hair and throwing me to the floor.

It hurt. It degraded. I didn’t care; I just lay there.

Someone threw something heavy at me. It bruised my spine before bouncing off and clattering to the floor.

I curled into a ball, wracked with shivers from whatever fever I’d caught. The coughs were getting explosive, and slowly my lungs filled with more and more liquid until I felt as if I floated in an ocean as well as fog.

“Pick it up, puta.” Leather Jacket nudged my hip with his foot. “Now. Don’t make me ask you again. You know what will happen.”

I didn’t think I had the strength to obey, but one moment I was lying, the next I sat on my knees, staring blankly at the cracked floor.

Something cool rested in my hands.

Something heavy and black and sinister.

A gun.

My heart rate peaked for the first time in days, racing fast against the comatose of the drugs. Why am I holding a gun?

“Final lesson.” Leather Jacket pointed at the girl in front of me. The gentle blonde with the small br**sts and hummingbird tattoo on her hipbone.

She was gagged and her red-rimmed eyes were dry. She’d stopped crying days ago when Ryan broke her left arm. It was as if her mind had already gone.

I tried to smile at her, both of us locked in this horrible prison, but she just stared blankly at me.

“Kill her, cunt. Or I’ll cut her fingers off and then her toes until she dies slowly.”

The drugs couldn’t hold down my horror. I dropped the gun and crawled away. “No!”

“No,” he chuckled. “Did you just say no?” He stood in front of me, his legs barring my passage. “You really should’ve said yes.” He looked over my head. “Ryan.”

The glass-shattering scream made me retch as Ryan cut off one of the girl’s fingers.

I couldn’t look.

I can’t look.

Don’t look.

“Tessie, leave this place. It isn’t what you want,” Brax murmured.

“Esclave, you’re not one of them. If you even think of giving up and dying, I’ll hunt you for eternity.” Q’s passion shocked me. For days he’d been telling me to die. To give up and let myself go. Was it my mind telling me not to be so weak? Could Q really still care for me after all I’d done?

“Shoot her.” Leather Jacket pushed me backward. “Go on.”

Another moment ticked past and another scream rose.

I kept my eyes downcast, but it didn’t stop me seeing the puddle of blood forming around the girl. Even though she screamed for mercy, she still didn’t cry.

My heart squeezed to death at the thought that she couldn’t even find relief in tears. Her life was gone. Whether I shot her or not, her life was over.

She wouldn’t survive.

Save her. Shoot her. Set her free.

“One last time, slut. Shoot her.” Leather Jacket crouched to my eye level, placing the gun in my grip. “Do it.” He stood and backed away.

Every last shred of decency in me imploded. To save a girl from horror, I would steal her life.

With shaking hands, I raised the muzzle and pressed the trigger.

Some divine guidance took hold of the racing bullet, lodging it directly in her forehead. The life in her eyes instantly extinguished and a small smile tugged her lips before she fell sideways into silence.

I did it. I killed a bird that Q would’ve given everything to save. I was truly the devil and I couldn’t live with myself anymore.

Do it again, Tess. You set her free. Set yourself free.

Yes. I could escape everything.

I angled the gun into my mouth, sucked on the sulphur-laced muzzle, and pulled the trigger for the second and final time.

*****

“So, you punched her because she tried to kill herself?”

“Yes, boss. I did as you said and only put one bullet in the gun, but she still tried to swallow a fast one.”

“Good work. You succeeded. A strong bitch would never try to take such a chicken-shit way out.”

The voices weaved and plaited together, making me dizzy.

A steady throb in my temple brought me back from serene blankness to a freezing, emaciated reality.

“She’s coming around. We need to end this tonight. I have no more use for her.”

I cracked my eyes open just as White Man loomed above me. He smiled his crocodile smile. “I hear you tried to put yourself down like a dog, little girl?”

I moaned, reaching for my head. The pain was stronger for some reason, the fog not as thick or syrupy.

The drugs…they were wearing off. Clarity started coming back along with a terrible racking shiver. My jaw locked as I fought the trembles.

“Ah, do you know what that is?” White Man caressed my cheek. My reaction time was quicker and I jerked away. “That’s the first stage of withdrawal. You’re dependant on what we’ve given you. It’s the perfect key for any master to keep you inline.”

He sighed, grabbing a lock of my dirty hair and twirling it around his finger. “Do you know what would happen if you didn’t get a fix in an hour or two?”

“You’d shake so hard you’d probably bite off your own tongue,” Leather Jacket announced happily, adding, “You’d be so consumed with the need for a fix you’d pick at your own flesh. You’d climb the walls. Tear off your fingernails… You’d willingly sell your body for a meagre drop of what you need.”

I shoved White Man away, hunching with my head in my arms.

Is it true? Would that happen?

But I didn’t have to believe them for it to be real. Already my skin itched for relief and my mouth watered for something other than food. I couldn’t exist in this world. I wanted the endless smog, the warm comfort of oblivion.

I looked up. I sat on a desk in the corner of a large room with threadbare carpeting and filing cabinets. A tatty cobweb-covered lightshade hung in the centre of the room.

I squinted, trying to focus. I didn’t know if it was the drugs or lack of food, but my vision was fading. My hearing was dulling. My body failing.

Coughing loudly, I almost fell off the desk with the wracking episode. I wheezed and every rib dug into my skinny sides. I didn’t need to be a doctor to know I had pneumonia.

The constant chill, the heavy, lethargic limbs, the sloshing in my lungs when I went from lying to standing all pointed to the illness.

White Man clucked his tongue. He stood over me looking regal and collected in his baby blue polo and jeans, belying the true evilness inside him. At least Leather Jacket wore his intentions on every inch of his body. White Man looked like a favourite uncle or distinguished businessman.

“You passed your final lesson today. How does it feel to be a killer?”

I sucked in a breath, trying to stop the memories from overtaking me.

The loud boom as the gun went off.

The kickback of the heavy weapon.

The smell of gunpowder and bloom of red on the innocent girl’s forehead.

I squeezed my eyes shut as my fingernails scratched my forearm, finding some relief from the slowly building itch.

White Man didn’t leave me alone. “Did you enjoy breaking that girl’s leg?”

Slamming my hands over my ears, I forced myself to forget.

Forget the thwack of the bat against her femur.

The snap of bone as it gave way under the force.

I whimpered, rocking on the desk.

White Man grabbed my hands and inspected my fingernails. Broken, dirty, a thick layer of filth wedged under the tips.

“Did you like scratching that girl until her br**sts ran red? It’s her blood under your nails.”

My mouth hung open as I stared at the horrible evidence.

Images of scratching her, sobbing as I dragged my claws across her stomach and br**sts haunted me. By the time Leather Jacket let me stop she looked like she’d gone head to head with a cheetah.

I wanted to collapse into a puddle and cry. I wanted my soul to leak free from my eyes and escape this ruin. These memories of what I’d done.

White Man stroked my cheek. “You did well. And your action today proved to me that you’re ready.” His lips twisted in a sadistic bow. “Do you want to know what you’re ready for?”