Page 25 of I Was Born Ruined (Death by Daybreak MC 1)
Dropping to my own knees, I lean down and peer under the door.
I can see Queenie, slowly lowering herself to the marble tiles, her eyes wide, her lips stained with blood. Everything goes into slow motion then, a world of shadows and smoke.
The man standing in front of her drops the barrel of a gun to Queenie's head, pressing it into her forehead.
“This is for Kian,” he says firmly, and then without any preamble, any requests or threats or rants, he pulls the trigger.
My own gun falls from my hands and hits the floor, but the sound is masked by the awful noise of Queenie's body crumpling to the side, going limp in a pool of bright red blood.
If there is a god, he steals the words from my throat, the breath from my lungs, the love from my soul. It's like a specter, passing through me and chilling me to the bone. My hands start to shake and I try to stand up. Instead, I stumble back, and fall to my knees again. My kneecaps crack and pain ricochets through me, bright and white and hot.
Even that isn't enough to jolt my addled brain, wake me up from a world of nightmares and pain.
What's happening? I wonder, completely lost in denial. Why is this happening? I'm making chicken. I need to check the chicken. It'll burn if I don't, that fucking chicken.
A wail escapes my throat, this penetrating sound that echoes around the pantry like a banshee's scream. Underneath the door, my sister's blood pools, still warm from her body. When I reach out to touch it, it's sticky and thick and so completely surreal that for several minutes, I have no idea what it is that I'm looking at.
I surge to my feet and throw my body at the door, smashing through it, dislodging the flimsy lock. Right away, I slip on Queenie's blood and crash to the ground, my chin hitting the stone with such a violent impact that I can feel it all the way inside my skull, right in that mushy bit that used to be my brain.
“Queenie!” I scream as I drag her into my lap, her body limp but still warm.
Warm.
That's good right, the warmth?
“I love you, okay? So much, so so much.” I hold her and push strands of loose blonde hair back from her face, my tears falling on eyes open and wide and locked on the ceiling without a shred of acknowledgment in them.
I don't have to check Queenie's pulse to know that she's dead.
Setting her aside, I take the gun with me and stand up, my entire body quivering like I'm in the middle of a grand mal seizure. I almost wish that I were, that I were unconscious on the ground, that I didn't have to think through my own pain.
Since I have no idea if the men are still here, I move as quietly as I can over to my phone and pull it off the speaker dock.
Instead of dialing 911, I call Cat.
I'm the daughter of an outlaw motorcycle club president.
This is just what we do.
“What?” he asks gruffly, oblivious to the pain and violence and suffering that's filling up the room around me, choking me, making me sick to my stomach.
“Queenie is dead and I can't find Posey. There are men here,” I whisper, my voice detached, coming from my lips but not registering in my ears. Am I really talking? Is that me? Am I the one saying those awful things?
The phone falls to the ground at my feet and the screen shatters.
Its broken pieces mesmerize me for several seconds.
Broken pieces. Shattered. Is that what my heart looks like? I wonder, but then a warm breeze crawls through the cracked sliding door behind me, caressing my skin like a hug.
Posey.
I need to find Posey.
I wish I'd never had that thought.
I wish I'd never gone out those doors.
“Posey!” I scream, because at this point, I don't care if those men are still here. If I see them, I will kill them. All of them.
I burst out the French doors in the back, holding the gun in two shaking hands, looking for my older sister.
What's left of my heart begs the universe to spare me from more pain. She left. She went over the wall and bailed. She's out with some hang-around and if I just wait, she'll come back. She'll come home and even though I can barely imagine living without Queenie, I'll have Posey to hold onto.
But around the corner, there she is, her blood snaking across the ground and into the inset drain in the bricks.
Naked.
Battered.
Dead.
My only thought then is … that I wish it were me.Now …Big hands close over my own and tug them away from my face, snapping me out of the awful memories with a rush of heat and flame. I lift my face up and find Beast watching me, his blue eyes darker now, a deep sapphire, like the sea without the sun. Normally, they're as bright as a summer sky.
