“I wouldn’t. I won’t.” He opens his eyes and looks at me with an apology hiding somewhere behind the fear. “I just want to go to the dance.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Tom snaps, and David scrambles to his feet, taking off while I’m left to lie there in a prone-ass position, as helpless as the day I was born. Anger rushes up to clog my throat, but I’m not stupid enough to mouth off against a psychopath with a shotgun while all four of my limbs are handcuffed to the wooden frame of a bed. Strength and bravery don’t come from outright defiance; you have to temper that shit with intelligence. “You.” Tom laughs as he takes the shotgun and presses it against my flaccid cock. A cold fear runs through me, but I take a deep breath and look the man in his dark eyes without flinching. Monsters feed on fear. There’s a reason the villain never just kills the protagonist, right? Because death is boring. Fear, on the other hand, is something that can be consumed and licked like dark chocolate. I remain still. “You’re a little old, but I bet we could still find a buyer with a dick this big. Fluff up that chestnut hair on your head …”
“When your time comes, you’re going to die choking on blood,” I respond coolly, and Tom laughs. He jams his gun against my dick again and pain shoots through me, causing my vision to go splotchy. Oh fuck, that hurts. But I don’t flinch. I don’t do anything. Instead, to deal with the pain, I just think about my girl. At the very least, this arrangement we have with Bernadette … if something happened to my cock, she could still get her needs met with Havoc, and we could still be together. The thought makes me twitchy, so I decide not to even go there.
“Big talk for a man chained to a bed with his dick hanging out,” Tom says, shrugging his weak-ass shoulders. “But don’t worry. You’re not worth much without a cock.” He swings the shotgun up to his shoulder and then moves over to a dresser on the opposite side of the room, removing a small box and gesturing at me with it, as if I care. “Forgot the engagement ring,” he tells me, cracking the box and smiling. “I’ll be asking Ophelia to marry me tonight.”
“Gotta make sure you’re legally bound before she gets her money, eh?” I ask, and Tom laughs.
“Damn straight, kid,” he says, smirking at me as he tucks the ring in the pocket of his slacks and then runs his palm over his meticulously styled hair. Looks like he was aiming for that fifties greaser look but failed miserably. Trust me: any Prescott boy worth his weight in salt knows how to get his hair slicked back properly. This ain’t proper. “I’ll be back with some benzos, so enjoy your last few hours awake.”
Tom slams the door so hard that the framed pictures on the wall rattle. One of them—some hideous oil painting of a buck—falls to the ground.
Benzos.
Benzodiazepines are a type of drug which includes rohypnol aka roofies aka the date rape drug.
Motherfucker.
My breathing quickens, and I tilt my head up to look at my wrists. The cuffs are attached to these thick ass wood spindles, but there’s a better chance of me getting them free than if I try my feet. The footboard is solid as fuck, and I am not sitting around to wait for Tom Muller to drug me. No goddamn way.
“You can do this Aaron,” I say aloud, taking slow, controlled breaths until my pulse has slowed. “For Kara, for Ashley, for Heather … for Bernadette.” Bracing myself, I yank on my right arm as hard as I can. Pain shoots through me, blinding and hot. I can feel my bones and joints protesting, but I don’t care. If I have to chew my own arm off like a coyote trapped in a canyon, I’ll do it.
I’m getting out of here.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
I close my eyes and think about that night when Hael and I took Bernie’s dress from her. She fought like a wildcat, scratched up our arms and faces. I remember getting back in the car and seeing Hael put his face in his hands.
“What are we doing, Aaron?” he asked me, his voice muffled by his palms. I didn’t know what to say to that. “If she wants to live this life with us, who are we to stop her?”
“Sometimes you have to love someone enough to let them go,” is what I’d said.
I yank on my arm again, so hard that for a moment my heart stops, and a strange sensation shoots from my fingertips to my brain. Pretty sure I just broke something. I ignore it.
