Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(55)

Leather Jacket shook his head. “Goddamn, you are strong. You should’ve buckled under the mix by now.” He ran hands through his greasy hair, thoughts racing in his eyes. “Ryan. Give me the stick.”

Ryan gave him a baton. The same type police used on bad guys and men like Leather Jacket. “Take this, puta.” He held it out to me.

I growled like a feral cat, backing toward the door. I tried the knob, knowing full well it wouldn’t turn.

He didn’t try to stop me, just watched with a cocked head and twisted smile. “I won’t ask you again, bitch. Take this.” He waved the stick in my direction and I shook my head, succumbing to the drugs again.

Why didn’t I want to take the stick?

No reason. Stop fighting. It’s such a waste of energy. You’re right. I’m hungry. I’m cold. I want to go home. Where am I?

My mind turned traitorous, leaving me in the dark completely. Q had turned my body against me, but these bastards were doing it to my mind.

Leather Jacket nodded. “Have it your way.” He passed the baton to Ogre. He didn’t say a thing. The man accepted it and in one fierce strike broke a blonde girl’s leg.

Her screech echoed in my ears and I knew I would never forget it. Never erase the pain and horror of her voice. I would live the rest of my days listening to her scream. I could’ve prevented that. I could’ve stopped that!

“Stop!” I sobbed, tears waterfalled down my cheeks. “Stop. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it…” I couldn’t stop repeating and repeating. The thought ran around and around in my head. “I’ll do it!”

Leather Jacket grinned, coming toward me to tuck me under his arm. “Good, bitch. Now that we’ve broken through. Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

The fog sucked me deeper, and this time I didn’t fight. I allowed the clouds to smother me. I let the blankness and strange soothing softness ransack my mind and prevent myself from ever remembering what I was about to do.

Agonising centimetre by centimetre, I let Leather Jacket guide me to stand in front of the two sobbing women. He patted my head, murmuring. “Good girl. Now, do what I say.”

I hung my head. A brutal headache formed and I welcomed the pain.

I deserved pain.

Pain was terrible.

Pain was awful.

I would always run from any form of pain from now on.

Oh, God. I’ll always run from pain. Gone was my future with Q. Gone was any hope of finding happiness with him.

The drugs sucked me deeper. You’ll never see him again, so there’s nothing to grieve. I would die here. And I would rot in hell for what they made me do.

“Hit the blonde on the right. No hesitation or else Ryan will have a go.”

I didn’t move; I just stared at the two women. We became trapped in our own little blonde cocoon. Their hair colour was symbolic. By beating them, I beat myself. I willingly helped Leather Jacket break me. And the realization did nothing but send me spiralling deeper into insanity.

I’m cold. I’m hungry. I want to go home. Where am I?

A huge barrel of coughs erupted from my throat as I stood shivering from head to toe. Leather Jacket prodded my back, and I stumbled into the blonde on the left. I fell against her; we flinched. She had a belly button piercing of a star and hanging diamantés. Her eyes were green, her breasts soft against my body.

More tears fell from my eyes as I surrendered to everything. “I’m so sorry.” My words slurred and thick.

Leather Jacket murmured, “Hate to break up this lesbian party, but you have five seconds, puta.”

Five seconds to hit this woman in order to save her more pain. Five seconds to grant her my destruction, to ruin both of us.

Kill her and be done with it. If she represents you, kill yourself. It’s the only way to be free.

I struck and slapped her. Her eyes glassed and tears spilled, but she bit her lip, and in a heartbreaking, mind-tripping, life-ending move, she nodded. Fucking nodded, accepting what would happen. What I would do to her.

The other blonde sobbed quietly, her small breasts rising and falling with panicked breaths.

It didn’t matter how many drugs Leather Jacket forced into me, I would never do this willingly. I would never hit another or take a life.

He gave me no choice. If I was weaker, I might’ve given up and let Ryan take my place. Their blood would be on his hands, not mine. But I couldn’t do that. Their lives were mine to protect.

Leather Jacket pulled my shoulders, moving me to stand in front of the blonde with small breasts. She didn’t have a belly button piercing, but she had a small tattoo of a hummingbird on her hipbone.

A bird.

I was about to crush a bird that Q would do everything in his power to protect. I was about to become the exact opposite of the man I loved.

Leather Jacket whispered in my ear, “Punch her. I’m sure there’s more vomit in her gut.”

I stood for an eternity, trying to befuddle myself out of the drug-fog. There must be a way out of this. Think!

I’m cold… I’m hungry…

Leather Jacket growled, “Five…four…three…two…”

The drugs roiled and I punched the girl in the stomach. Even though the drugs cushioned the horribleness of what I did, I shattered inside.

A whirlwind of sparrows filled my head and their tiny talons grabbed my last remaining sanity and flew me far, far away. Either to heaven, hell, or limbo—I didn’t care. All I knew was I’d never be whole again. My mind had protected itself by flying free, soaring back to Q, leaving me to die.