Page 102 of Juniper Unraveling

“Poor bastard could use it right now. Tripp had to chain ‘im again,” another voice says.

Chain?

A creak reverberates off the walls, and we pass another biker in leather pants and vest, wearing his skull mask bunched at his neck. Through a door, the cave opens to another smaller cavern, and my captor sets me down, smacking my bottom against the cold sand beneath me.

To my left is yet another heavy wooden door, with black iron details, that reminds me of a castle drawbridge. A third biker stands guard outside it, and what sounds like a woman’s scream bleeds through the wood. The wail wraps around my spine, stiffening my muscles, and my gaze lifts to the entrance ahead of me. Rigs knocks and enters the room to my left, leaving me with the guard.

Moving slow and deliberately, I slide my knees beneath me, setting my mark to take off as soon as I get to my feet.

Cold steel hits my throat.

I lift my gaze to the guard, whose eyes are dark, almost black, and the scars on his face, paired with a scowl, tell me he’s neither gentle, nor kind. His head is shaved bald and covered in tattoos. He pulls the mask down to reveal a lip deformed by deep gashes. The perfect spacing of them makes me wonder if he put them there himself.

Another male comes out of nowhere, skidding to a halt in front of Scarboy and me, and pushes him out of the way. Squatting in front of me, he’s already yanked his mask away from his face, showing thick stubble and a set of green eyes that shift back and forth over mine. He pats at my shirt, my pants, and when he cups me between the thighs, I tighten my muscles and grit my teeth.

“Hey!” I growl, clapping my knees together.

The blade finds its way to my throat once more, lifting my chin into the air, and with a frown, the biker pushes away from me and continues on through the same door Rigs entered moments before.

Once again, Scarboy takes a momentary interest, eyeing me up and down, before backing himself against the wall.

“Are you fucking nuts?” The shout comes from a voice other than Rig’s on the other side of the door. “She could be carrying a goddamn bomb. You never just bring them in without patting them down, Rigs! Fuck!”

“She’s for Rhys. Came from the other side of the wall.”

“Other side?” The pitch of intrigue in the voice that seconds ago held venom sets my teeth on edge.

What the hell does that mean to these people, when I’ve already offered Rigs my supplies on the other side of the wall.

Perhaps a bargaining chip.

And I’m damn good at striking a deal.

A young boy and girl, maybe five years old, enter the cavern, and I glance back at Scarboy, waiting for him to rain his unholy hell on them.

He doesn’t.

The children kneel in front of me, eyes wandering, assessing, and I tighten my hold on the book. The boy reaches out for a strand of my hair and holds it to his nose, sniffing. The girl pulls at one of the leather strings in my shirt, then opens it to peer inside.

I push her away, but the boy runs his fingers over my choker and tugs on the charm.

“Stop!”

The children outside the wall used to pick at me this way, too, but the difference is, I wasn’t then sitting outside someone’s door, preparing myself for sexual slavery. I find their curiosity annoying while my head’s in this place.

The door flies open, and Rigs shoos the children off before tugging me to stand. With a gentle push, he guides me through the door, into a dimly lit cavern.

Flickering sconces cast dancing shadows across the stone, and somehow the temperature inside has dropped, skating over my skin like a cold blanket. Painted on the wall ahead of me is an enormous skull, with deep-set black sockets and a missing jaw. At the foot of the wall, skulls sit lined in perfect rows, each about the same size, some with straight teeth and others with crooked. Two other skulls sit propped on metal posts, in some kind of morbid display, and it’s only then it occurs to me they’re all real.

Every skull is a life taken.

Beside them sits a bed covered in a dull black bedspread, beneath a chandelier, like something straight out of the Villa back in the compound. Beautiful, but odd in this place. A large brown lion hide is spread out on the floor, which is made up of square etchings of what was once brick, now covered in rubble and dust.

The wailing I heard before swings my attention to across the room.

Off to the right, a scantily-clad woman lies writhing on the floor, her bony ass hiked in the air. She screams as if in pain, and I don’t realize I’m gripping Rig’s arm, until he leans in and whispers, “Peyote trip.”

I’m familiar with peyote as a medicinal plant, one that Papa sometimes offered during painful childbirths back in Szolen, but this woman clearly took too much. Her body is lanky and bony, the edge of her breasts small peaks that stands out from her otherwise flat chest. She scratches and claws at the ground, her too-skinny body propped up on her knees, and I wonder if she’s taken the drug for pain, or pleasure.