Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(75)

He looked like a monster. A man who killed for me.

My heart raced with fear. Would he kill me, too? After everything I did, I deserved the same fate.

“You did it?” Did what…what am I asking?

Q held up something demonic. Something riddled with fat and sinew, dripping horribly in his palm. “I took his heart. I took everything from him, Tess.” He bowed at my feet, placing the grisly muscle on the floor. “For you. May it give you the strength to come back to me.”

Whirs of helicopter blades shattered my little daydream and for the first time in ages, I thought of sex. I thought about Q spanking and f*cking me in the helicopter. I thought about the way he captured my wrists and made me so vulnerable.

No slow, sensual burn started in my belly. No need to have Q’s touch rendered me lust-filled. I only felt empty.

Time merged into one big jumbled hallucination where helicopter blades tore me to shreds and plane engines gobbled me up to spit me out, burned to a char and on fire.

A jolt woke me and I moaned with the terrible pain in my hand. Someone, please cut it off. I couldn’t stand the excruciation anymore.

“Get her inside,” someone said. “I’ve already called the doctor.”

I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t escape the prison my brain had become.

“Learn, girl. Retaliation equals pain. Next time, I won’t be so kind.” White Man roared inside my mind. The memory of being hurt took centre place in my stupor, replaying, hitting me around the head with the hard-learned lessons over and over until I became afraid of my inner thoughts. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even think. What if I spoke out of turn? The poor blonde would be killed and I’d be hurt.

Slowly, the fog turned into tremors and pinpricks of agony. The itch from before crept back under my skin and I moaned. I couldn’t go through withdrawal. It would be used against me. They’d withhold the drug until I did whatever they wanted. And I would do whatever they wanted, as I was weak. So f*cking weak.

“She’s convulsing. Hurry!”

I bounced and jiggled in some weird sort of transport. The bruises screamed and my lungs sloshed with liquid. I coughed hard, tearing my throat up with phlegm. I didn’t know what was happening, but my body didn’t like it.

My skin temperature developed schizophrenia. One second chilling me to deep Antarctica, the next turning me into a bubbling volcano.

The bugs were back; their little feelers and legs tickling my insides, making me wish I could scratch my brain out.

“No!” I thrashed and someone slammed to a halt, tightening their grip on me.

“Tess. Stay with me. Please. Help is here. You’ll be fine soon.” Q’s voice cut through the beetle-laden fog and I latched on to it.

“Put her down. I can’t work if she’s in your arms.”

I felt sick and nauseous one second, then ravenous and ready to fight the next. The drugs faded, leaving me in a turmoil. My system couldn’t find an equilibrium no matter how hard it tried.

“Hold her down. She’s doing more damage by moving.”

Something pinned my shoulders and I lashed out. “Don’t touch me. Not again. Please not again.” Tears erupted from my eyes and I sobbed, remembering the snaps of broken bones and blood of other girls beneath my nails. “No! Please. I won’t do it anymore. I won’t hurt any more hummingbirds. I won’t. Kill me. I want to die.” I coughed and coughed and coughed, unable to breathe past the thick liquid in my lungs. My fingers bent and I scratched my face, trying to peel the skin back to get at the gnawing bugs in my brain.

A band of pressure landed on my chest as someone pressed me onto something soft. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Tess. Forgive me.” Q’s tortured voice murmured in my ear as he caught my hand and I felt a needle puncture my skin.

Him.

He was just the same as them. Keeping me drugged. Keeping me dependent.

I drifted into dreamland cursing him to the depths of hell.





You crawled into the darkness, set my monster free, so scream, bleed, call out to me, but never say stop, never flee…



Suzette wrung her hands as the doctor administered the anaesthetic.

Franco waited in the doorway, watching me come apart. I couldn’t see straight, my heart was a f*cking rabbit in my chest, and my body felt like it would never calm down.

I held Tess’s hand as she slipped away into sleep, and I wanted to throw the heart I’d cut from the ringleader into the fire and watch it f*cking burn.

“Move away from my patient. I want this room to myself while I work,” the doctor said, pushing me aside.

“No f*cking chance. I’m staying right here.” I crossed my arms, daring him to argue. The rage inside was ready to smash him if he tried to separate me from Tess again. We scowled at each other before his eyes dropped to my bloody clothes.

“It’s not sanitary for you to be near while I operate. Go have a shower and come back. Your maid can keep watch.”

Suzette blinked, coming out of her shock at the state of Tess. I didn’t blame her for looking like a ghost—Tess was no longer recognisable. Her golden hair lay dank against the pillow in clumps. Her collarbone pierced her skin with hunger, and her beautiful bruised cheekbones looked too stark for her beauty. The sheet wrapped around her broken finger was crusted dry with blood, and that was without seeing all the contusions.