Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(66)

What’s happening?!

“Make it stop!”

Leather Jacket and White Man looked on as the sensation crept up my arms, into my fingers, my toes, my stomach, my chest. My heart became infested with cockroaches. My tongue chewed on by locusts.

And then it hit my brain.

I screamed as if my soul could fly free and evict itself from this prison of a body. This prison fast filling with murdering beetles and bugs. White Man morphed into a giant rodent, his perfect teeth elongated into yellow fangs. Leather Jacket evolved into a jackal, slobbering and laughing, growling and raging.

The girl next to me stayed pure and virginal, glowing white and silver with all the goodness in the world while the room began to dissolve, walls melted, paint dripped from the ceiling, scalding me as it landed on my naked body.

Leather Jacket with his jackal head started undressing. He removed his black jacket and slung it to the rapidly eroding floor. Flames licked the awful carpet, singeing a fiery path toward us.

I couldn’t breathe. I can’t breathe. This can’t be real. It can’t be real.

Once Leather Jackal removed his shirt and trousers, he eased off his disgusting underwear and stood with his small bent cock jutting out from a thicket of black hair. His groin crawled with spiders, a mass seething between his legs.

I closed my eyes but the visions found me there, too. If possible they were worse.

Q featured and he morphed from naked perfection with his sparrow tattoo, into a raging black-winged angel. His back sprouted three-metre-wide wings, glistening ebony with oil-slicked raven feathers. His pale jade eyes glowed with ferocity.

He shook his head in weighted disappointment and turned his back on me. His wings encompassed him into a black cocoon until he exploded into a million birds and took wing.

He left me.

Left me with Jackal and Rodent.

Something grabbed my ankle and my eyes flew open. White Man Rodent trailed his fingertips up my shin, my thigh, right to my hipbone, cutting me like a dagger even though he had no weapon. Phantom blood wept from where he touched, crying with red.

“This is for your own good.” He raised his fist and punched me in the jaw.

My head snapped sideways and I latched onto Blonde’s eyes. She panted, looking manic and wild. Undrugged, her eyes were clear and panicked. She looked like an angel, and I went from wanting to protect her to wanting her to protect me.

Please save me.

Another punch, but this time to my stomach. Lying down made the hit resonate through my tummy to my kidneys and liver.

Leather Jackal climbed onto the bed and came forward on all fours, gawking at Blonde Angel and me. His knee went between my open legs, and I cried out as he slurped his horrible feral tongue into my belly button and down. He nipped at my clit, dripping with burning saliva.

I screamed and screamed as his saliva ignited into flames, burning me to a cinder. It hurt. Fuck, it hurt. Make it stop!

White Rodent ordered, “Pay attention to the other one. Let the drugs fade a little. She won’t cope otherwise.”

Jackal nodded, breathing deep and gruff. One long paw grabbed me between the legs, probing me, raking me. He groaned as he forced a shredding nail inside. “You won’t be dry for long, puta. You wait for those drugs to switch. Soon you’ll be begging me.” He removed his touch and clambered on top of poor Blonde Angel. She keened as he settled between her legs. His hairy, untoned ass thrust hard as he rested his elbows on either side of her face.

“Lesh her go—go—you bastard!” Was that me? That slurring, broken, wild-sounding thing?

White Rodent punched me again, this time in the ribcage. I cried out as my old cracked rib wailed in agony. Did he rebreak it? It felt like it—every breath punctured my lungs, letting the build-up of liquid trickle out, filling my body with slime.

“Every time you tell Ignacio to stop, I’ll hit you. Do you hear me? You have to learn that speaking without permission equals pain. You have to learn that obeying is the only thing left for you. Do you understand, little girl?”

I raised my heavy eyes to look at the massive rodent standing over me in his blue polo and jeans.

Why is a rat dressed? It’s speaking to me.

“It’s here to rape you, Tessie. Do things to you that I would never do. You left me,” Brax murmured in my mind.

I knew it wasn’t real, but no matter how hard I tried to snap out of it, I couldn’t. The horror wouldn’t let me free.

Leather Jackal kissed Blonde Angel, rubbing his horrible snout all over her face. She cried and wriggled.

“St—stop it!” I yelled.

Instantly, a sharp ringing slap blazed my cheek. “What did I just say, precious?” White Rodent shook his head, admonishing me. “You need to learn.”

He said something about pain. Disobeying? Don’t disobey?

“Disobey. Fight. I’m coming for you, Tess!” Q raged in my head.

But if I fight, I get hurt. Why would I keep inviting such pain? That’s stupid.

“It’s who you are. You’re too strong to let them do this to you.”

Q fizzled away, replaced with White Rodent again. He asked, “Are you still with me, little girl?” He peered into my eyes, but I couldn’t bring him into focus. He stayed blurry and furry and vague.

Jackal spat on his paw and rubbed his claws between Blonde Angel’s legs. Her whimpers turned into ragged gasps and pleas. “Stop. Please. I’ll do anything you want. Please. Don’t do this!”