Days later, I did just that.
Then I fucking blew it.
“Need back-up?”
“No,” I snap, hanging up, then head out the door, using the secret stairs again, I’m pretty sure that now Dad’s getting close, probably rehearsing an entire speech on what I should and shouldn’t do, like I’m the type to stand there like a dumb fuck fool, listening to a man who wasn’t man enough to protect Aiden from Courtney because of a stupid piece of paper.
A piece of paper you’re bound to sign anyway, asshat.
Yeah, well, not if it means losing Mia. All bets are fucking off.
Sneaking into the garage, I quickly get in my car and back out as soon as the garage door opens.
By the time I speed past dad, hearing him honk for me to stop, I’m flying down the private road, knowing that this car doesn’t have some GPS shit for him to locate me.
My jaw is clenched as tightly as my fists on the steering wheel, what I’m about to do playing like a fucked-up tape in my head.
I wait for the remorse, for the guilt to churn in my gut or the fear of taking a life but nothing hits me. I stood there since this afternoon after getting that text and now and did fucking nothing. Now, it’s nighttime and the demons are out to fucking war! I’m going to get my girl.
Chapter Nine
Mia
I feel my hair being smoothed out, pulled back softly as I come to, my consciousness filtering in as slow as before.
At first, I feel like I’m in a bit of Heaven, time is irrelevant as I feel the gentle touch, soothing me but all too soon, the bubble burst as I hear my name being called in an urgent voice.
“Mia.”
I want to roll over onto my side and fall back into slumber. In the dark abyss, there’s nothing but goodness and some semblance of peace. Nothing else seems to matter and nothing is real.
“Damn you, Mia!”
See, I’ve been friends with the dark for a long time, it understands me and knows me. Why would I bother waking up again?
“Mia, wake up for fuck’s sake!”
This time, my eyes snap open at the vehemence of those words.
Blinking, I look up and stare confused into a face that’s peering down at me with wild curiosity, fear and something else I can’t place as I come to.
“Oh, thank God,” the person breathes. “I thought you were dead.”
I groan and then try to get up, but the pain snaps my awareness back into action.
“No, don’t try to get up and don’t make a fucking sound, Ice Queen,” the girl whispers hotly, looking around as she tries to stabilize me, pushing me to lie back again. “You don’t want them to know you’re awake.”
Them? Ah yes, the assholes who did this to me.
“Where… where am I?” I croak, my teeth still chattering but I no longer feel the cold gusts of wind blowing over my body from before. “What happened to me?”
Wasn’t I in the freezer? I’m still on the dingy bed. And slowly, everything rushes back to me and again, the agony of my father’s betrayal and what he did to me ignites a new wave of fury in me.
“Ah man, I fucking told you this would happen,” the girl says nervously but angrily at the same time as if she’s pretty pissed at me. “You’re so fucking dumb, Mia, I told you to stay away and get out of this town because I knew if they found you…” she trails off, but I get the message.
I look up at her through barely open eyelids, not really seeing her face as it’s cast in shadows. But her voice though, is extremely familiar.
She’s the girl I heard almost pleading for me to taken out of the freezer where I was lying on the floor, freezing to death. But more than that, this girl seems to know me.
But why can’t I remember her name?
Why are my thoughts sluggishly slow and impossible to piece anything together again?
“Who…who are you?” I sound like a drunk, old trucker with lung problems and on my way for dialysis at a crappy hospital, complaining about shitty healthcare as I go.
“Fuck, your memory is shit too,” the girl says. “Probably due to that nasty head bash. The drug they used to knock you out isn’t helping either.”
I try to move again, on the bed, but unlike before when Sean sat there, fully naked as his brother took pictures of us to send to Julian, this time, there’s a thin sheet covering my body.
I’m still cold, but at least I’m not as naked as I was before.
“Did… did you do this?” I ask, tugging at the sheet with numb, stiff fingers, painfully aware that beneath this thin layer, I’m naked and bruised up badly.
I can still smell the blood on me, and now that I’m not in the freezer, some of my nerve endings are thawing and with that… agony.
I moan, tears welling up in my eyes.
“Shh,” the girl says. “I know you’re used to bringing attention to yourself but for once stop or you’ll get us both killed in this slaughterhouse.” Slaughterhouse? Jesus Christ. “And just because I covered you, don’t go thinking it’s some kind of gesture or anything, bitch,” she whispers hotly. “I just grew sick and tired of watching your naked ass shiver and twitch every few seconds while you were knocked out.”
She’s rude this girl, just like someone else I—
“Kristine?” I croak out, hardly believing that it’s her.
“Bingo!” she says sarcastically, her voice still slightly trembling with fear and so damn low like she doesn’t want to be heard even though I’m sure we’re alone. At least for now. “It’s good to know you don’t stay down for long.”
“What-t are you d-doing h-here?” I stutter, my teeth chattering like the cold in trapped in my teeth and bones and there’s no way I’m ever going to be warm again. “Y-you shouldn’t b-be here.”
What is she doing here with them? With the people that hurt me, beat me up and threw me in some kind of industrial freezer in an attempt to fucking cool me down?
At my question, she looks down at me and the fear I see in her eyes chokes me up.
“Kristine, why are you here?” I repeat. She shakes her head, and I realize she can’t even talk as her throat works like she’s drowning in the words she can’t say.
She opens her mouth to say something but quickly snaps it shut, her lips trembling as if she’s trying not to burst in tears.
“Okay, where are we?” I ask softly, feeling like I’m talking to a wounded animal.
“In hell, Mia,” she whispers. “And this is all your fault!”
Not knowing what to say at first, I just blink up at her, my body shivering under the thin sheet, trying not to make a sound as my teeth chatter.
“What do you mean?”
“You caused this when you came barging into my house that time when you should’ve been far away from this shitty gilded cage town, Ice Queen,” she whispers vehemently, looking over her shoulders as if her time is running out. “They knew someone came and they forced it out of me until I had no choice but to give you up.”
Forced it out of her?
“What do you mean by that?” I whisper. “How did they—”