Key to Hell (Hell Night Series Book 4), page 15
Her hand squeezes mine, reminding me she’s waiting on me to answer.
“There’s nothing wrong, but Trouble and I have to leave town for the day. We’ll be back sometime tonight or tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She glances down at our hands. “Where are you going?”
“Just a couple of hours away.”
“What are y’all doing?” she asks, lifting her head.
I pause, not wanting to outright lie, but not wanting to tell her what we’ll be doing either. It’s not that I don’t want her to know. On the contrary, I do want her to know. Just not yet. I want it done and over with first.
“Taking care of business. I’ll explain once we get back.”
She nods, but her expression turns troubled. “Okay.”
The thought of leaving her, of not seeing her for hours, burns like acid in my stomach. But knowing that I get to slaughter the bastards who’ve caused her fourteen years’ worth of pain helps. That’ll be one threat taken care of.
She peeks at me through her lashes, her cheeks turning pink. “I’ll miss you,” she says quietly, almost shyly.
My heart jumps into my throat, and I swallow thickly. “I’ll miss you too.”
That earns me a smile, and fuck if it doesn’t make me feel good. Her smiles are coming more and more frequently, and I feel so damn proud when I’m the cause.
Trouble shows up a few minutes later. While he talks to Remi, Rella and I go up to our room and she helps me pack. We’ll make a pit stop at my house so I can get a couple more things before heading out of town.
As we pull out of his driveway, Rella and Remi on the porch watching us go, my mind plays havoc with itself. Anticipation rocks through me at what’s to come, while at the same time I’m already anxious to get back.
I SETTLE BACK IN THE shadows as the front door clicks open. Nauseating giggles and disgusting chuckles fill the air before the couple walks through the door. The man flips the switch by the door, and a small lamp by the couch turns on. The light doesn’t reach where I’m standing. Rage boils in my blood as the man cups the woman’s face, leans down, and kisses her passionately.
“God, Gabby, can you imagine how sweet she’s going to be?” he groans into her mouth.
She moans, her hands sliding up her husband’s chest and lacing through his hair. “Sweet, little, and innocent. The best kind there is,” she answers in a husky tone. “And to think, she’ll be with us in just a few weeks.”
I grind my molars together. They’re talking about an infant girl named Angelina they’re in the final stages of adopting. Only three fucking months old. How they managed to pass the extensive applications the state puts all potential adoptive parents through is beyond me. It just goes to show how fucked-up and uncaring our government is. I’m sure Rella wasn’t the first girl they sexually abused, and I’m certain she wasn’t the last. There’s no telling how many girls were in between Rella and Angelina. The thought makes me sick and further ignites my fury.
“Fuck, it’s going to be so good to have a fresh one with us again,” he groans, kissing his way up Gabriela’s neck. “To train her from the beginning just the way we like.”
“Yes,” she hisses, tossing her head back in ecstasy.
I’ve heard enough. My muscles are tense, and I can barely see past the red haze clouding my vision as I stalk over to the demented couple. They don’t see me coming.
Sliding my knife from its sheath, I press the tip against the side of Marco’s neck. I grab a fistful of hair, and yank his head back so hard it has to be close to snapping his neck. I immediately pin the woman with my hate-filled glare. Her eyes widen and her face drains of color. She opens her mouth to scream, and I press the blade harder against Marco’s neck. He grunts when the tip pierces his skin.
“Either of you make a fuckin’ sound, and I’ll hack through his neck and spray your disgusting face with his blood.”
Neither makes a sound or so much as twitches a muscle. Trouble leaves his hiding spot and strides over to us, moving behind Gabriela. She sucks in a sharp breath when she’s suddenly in a choke hold. Marco begins to struggle, which is a stupid move on his part, because it only causes the knife to cut into his neck more. He lets out a pathetic cry and stops moving.
“W-What do you want from us?” he croaks, barely able to talk because of the angle of his head.
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Trouble answers, yanking Gabriela around and marching her toward the bedroom we scoped out when we first got here.
I knee Marco in the back of the thighs. “Move,” I growl in his ear. It’s awkward for him with his head still yanked back, but he steps forward, following his wife and Trouble down the hallway.
Trouble shoves Gabriela onto the bed, and I reluctantly do the same with Marco, when all I want to do is sink my knife into his gut and drag it through every inch of his flesh.
Gabriela scrambles over to Marco, and he wraps his arm around her shoulders. She huddles against him, tears cascading down her pale cheeks as she visibly trembles.
“Do you know who we are?” Trouble demands, his eyes shooting fire.
“No,” Marco answers. “Should we?”
“Twenty-four years ago, you were given a little girl. Her name was Daisy,” he says casually, pulling a vial and syringe from his pocket. He pushes the needle into the vial and starts drawing the liquid. His eyes slide to Marco. “She was my baby sister.” He puts the needle down on the bedside table and pulls out the other one to fill.
The lack of color in Marco’s face now matches his wife’s. His mouth flops open several times before he manages to speak. What he says sets off my temper even more.
“We don’t know a Daisy. You must have the wrong couple.”
Quicker than either of them can notice, I lurch forward and jam my knife in the soft part of Marco’s thigh. Before he can scream, my hand is gripping his throat, crushing his windpipe. He feebly claws at my hand, but he’s old, weak, and overweight.
I drag his face closer to me. “Do not fuckin’ lie,” I seethe and twist the blade.
Gabriela’s cries are starting to annoy me, so I grip the front of her shirt and shove her across the bed. Trouble catches her by her hair, turning her to face her husband.
“W-What do y-you w-want with us?” she sobs.
Grabbing the full needle, he yanks her head back so she’s looking at him. “What in the hell do you think?” he snarls in her face. “You repeatedly raped my sister for fourteen fucking years. And were going to do the same to another little girl. A goddamn baby,” he growls. “And I’m pretty fuckin’ sure there were others between them.”
Her face scrunches, and snot runs down her nose to mix with her tears. “You’re going to kill us,” she guesses on a sob.
The smile Trouble gives her has her trying to slink away from him, but she gets nowhere with his hand still in her hair.
“Not just kill you, but make you suffer.”
Marco starts struggling again, so I force him down on the bed by his neck, tightening my grip. The knife sinks further into the meat of his thigh, and I give it another jerky twist. I feel his neck working beneath my hand, trying to scream, but no sound comes out.
“No,” his wife whimpers. “Please. We didn’t mean to hurt anyone. We’re sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Trouble laughs sardonically. “You’re sorry? You hear that, Emo? They’re fuckin’ sorry.”
I grunt, because it’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. As if an apology would make it okay that they sexually abused a young girl for half of her life. There’s not a damn thing that could ever make that okay.
“No, sweetheart, you ain’t sorry, but you will be when we get done with you.”
With that, he jams the needle into the side of her neck and presses the plunger. He pushes her away from him, and she falls to her side.
“Oh, God, what did you just give me?” she cries, rubbing furiously at the spot.
He tosses the used needle on the bedside table and picks up the other. “Something that will make this much easier on us. You’ll feel every goddamn thing we do to you, but you won’t be able to move. Pretty fuckin’ awesome, right?”
She slumps down, the effects of the drug already hitting her. Her eyes are wide open and unmoving, but I can still see the fear in them.
Trouble heads around the bed with the other needle, but I stop him. “No. I want to see and feel him struggle.”
With a clipped nod, he goes back to his side. Using a move I’ve used several times before, I tighten my hold on his throat until I feel his larynx crush. He’ll still be able to move, unlike Gabriela, but he won’t be able to scream, ensuring no neighbors will come investigate.
I plan to enjoy every single second of my time tearing him apart.
Ripping my knife from his thigh, I climb up on the bed and straddle his waist. He’s become weaker with blood loss, so when he begins struggling again, I easily overpower him with one hand. With his hands trapped above his head, I slice away his shirt and slowly start to carve away the flesh on his chest. I purposely keep my knife dull because it hurts so much more when you have to saw back and forth through skin, meat, and tendons.
I stop several times just to enjoy the pure horror and pain on his face. I make sure not to go to deep or hit anything vital yet. I want this to last longer than a quick kill.
Trouble’s dragged Gabriela off the bed and is extracting his own form of torture. I don’t take the time to look; my sole focus is on the man writhing beneath me. I relish every moment, already wishing I could go back in time and do it over and over a thousand times.
Blood soaks my clothes, my glove-covered hands, and the bed beneath Marco. Underneath all the blood on his face, his skin is pasty and pale. He’s long since stopped struggling. The only sound he makes are pain-filled grunts each time my knife pierces his flesh.
By the time I’m done, his heart rate is sluggish and coming slower and slower with each beat; there’s not an inch of skin that hasn’t been touched by me or my blade. I set the tip of my knife on his pec, just to the left of his sternum. Looking down into the eyes of pure evil, I slowly push down, leaning my weight on the butt of the handle when there’s resistance. It sinks deep, all the way to the hilt. Marco grunts one last time before his eyes glaze over, his chest rising once before stopping on an exhale.
Lifting my arm, I use the sleeve of my shirt and wipe my brow, uncaring that all I’m doing is smearing even more on my forehead. Using the knife still embedded in Marco’s chest for leverage, I hoist myself up from the bed, then yank it from his body. Satisfaction and adrenaline pump through me as I look at the carnage I’ve caused.
Glancing around, I spot Trouble leaning against a nearby wall, his eyes filled with revulsion. Not at what we’ve done, but at the man and woman to blame for such actions. At Trouble’s feet is Gabriela. Her body is a bloody mess, her sightless eyes staring up at nothing. It’s out of the norm for Trouble’s kills to be so gruesome; he’s usually a clean killer. But even with her guts lying on the floor beside her, her body isn’t close to the mess I made with Marco.
We both go to the en suite bathroom and wash away as much blood as we can from our arms and faces. We’ll take care of our clothes when we get back to the truck. I make sure there’s nothing in the room that could lead back to us while Trouble grabs the vial and syringes from the bedside table. We leave a few moments later, not sparing either of the bodies another look.
It’s after six in the morning by the time we get on the road, the sky turning from black to a dark purple as the sun begins to rise. Neither of us speak, both in our own minds. Trouble calls Mae at the halfway mark, letting her know we’re going to be stopping by her house to shower before going home. We’ve changed our clothes and pitched the old ones, but we still have blood residue all over us. Neither of us wants to show up at the house with that shit on us.
The key in my pocket feels hot against my thigh. I pull it out and flip it over several times before I put it in the center of my hand. I curl my fingers around it and squeeze. Not enough to break skin, because I still have the blood of that bastard on me, but enough for me to not forget it’s there.
Looking out of the windshield, I watch as the trees pass by us. Every mile we cross brings me closer to the one thing I really want right now. The one thing I crave more than anything else.
To set my eyes on Rella again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
RELLA
I LIE ON MY SIDE WITH my hands tucked under my cheek and just stare at Aziah. I could probably stare at him all day, every day and never get tired of looking at him. His thick black hair is messy, and his long eyelashes rest against his cheeks as he sleeps. His face looks peaceful, more so than I’ve ever seen him, even as kids. There’s dark stubble on his chin, jaw, and above his full top lip, like it’s been a couple of days since he’s shaved. My eyes move down to his chest and arms. I’ve noticed he’s like me and likes to wear long-sleeved shirts, and I wonder if it’s to hide his own scars.
As a kid, he was the smallest out of him, my brother, Judge, and JW. While that’s still the case, he’s in no way small. His torso is stout as it stretches the black shirt, but not bulky, and his biceps bulge with muscles. His forearms are all veiny.
Something warm settles in my stomach as I notice not for the first time how devastatingly handsome he is. My eyes move back up to his lips. Amazingly, I wonder what it would feel like to kiss him. I blush, even though he’s asleep and can’t possibly know what I’m thinking.
My thoughts move to yesterday morning when he and Trouble came back from their trip. Something was different about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He seemed on edge, but there was also something calm about him. His eyes, which always carry demons in them, seemed a tiny bit lighter. When I asked where he and my brother went, he said he’d explain it to me tomorrow. Which is today.
Last night, I woke up from another nightmare. This one was from one of my times with Aziah. His father was being unusually cruel toward him as he raped his son, which in turn caused more pain for me. Physically and emotionally. I not only hurt because of what Aziah was forced to do to me, but it was always more painful because I knew he was hurting too from what his father was doing to him.
I woke up to Aziah down on his knees on the floor beside my bed. His fingers were gently stroking my forehead, and he was murmuring soft, soothing words. Thankfully, when I woke, I did so fully, not still gripped in my nightmare. I immediately recognized Aziah. He hesitated when I asked him to hold me again, but after a moment, he agreed, with the stipulation that he would stay above the covers and I would be beneath them. He was stiff as he held me, and I knew he was fighting with himself. He still feels guilty for touching me a few nights ago. For the few moments I was in between sleep and consciousness, I’ll admit, I was terrified. But as soon as I realized it was Aziah, that fear went away. I hate that he blames himself for something out of his control.
Curiosity has me lifting my hand slowly. As a kid, I was always fascinated with his hair, because it was so dark, thick, and shiny. Tentatively, I allow my fingers to run through it. I’m not surprised when his eyes slide open. I’ve noticed he’s a very light sleeper. Black eyes meet my blue ones, and a small V forms between his brows. When he doesn’t stop me, but watches me curiously, I continue to feather my fingers through the strands. It’s so soft and silky.
After a moment, I glide my fingers down his temple and over his scruffy cheek. I use my nails and scrape them across the stubble. It almost feels like Velcro. Looking back at him, I see his pupils are more dilated than before and his eyes are half-closed.
All of a sudden, he grabs my wrist gently and lays my hand back down on the bed. I’m wondering if I’ve done something wrong when he flips my hand over so my wrist is facing up. I see what he’s looking at, and an ache forms in my chest. I want to cover it up and not let him see the two-inch scar on my wrist. I wear shirts with long sleeves that come up over my palms so no one can. My sleeve must have ridden up in my sleep.
Pain etches Aziah’s face as he stares at my shame. His hand shakes as he traces the scar with his finger.
“Aziah,” I whisper, my voice hoarse with emotion.
“Did it hurt?” he asks quietly.
“Yes.” I clear away the lump forming in my throat. “But at the time, I wanted the pain. It wasn’t as bad as what we were forced to go through. I just wanted it all to stop.”
This is the first time we’ve really talked about my attempted suicide. I knew we would eventually, and I knew it would be hard. The pain Aziah, Trouble, and the others went through is my biggest regret.
“I should have killed him the first time he made me touch you.”
I ball my hand into a fist, the tendons making the scar move. He continues to trace it.
“You were eight years old, Aziah. There’s no way you could have killed him. He would have killed you first had you tried.”
“Maybe that would have been better,” he rumbles.
“No.” I shake my head against the pillow. Tears form and slide down my cheeks. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like had something happened to him. “Losing you would have been much worse than what he made us do. Besides, that wouldn’t have stopped him. He would have picked someone else or done it himself.”
The muscle in his jaw twitches as he clenches his teeth. I hold my breath as he leans over and places a soft kiss over the scar. The move is so sudden and unexpected. Butterflies flutter in my stomach. His lips feel so warm and soft against my skin.
He leans away and settles back on his pillow. The touch was short and sweet, and a small part of me wishes he would do it again.
