Brick Brick (Knights Corruption MC - Next Generation, #4) - S. Nelson Page 0,70

and out of consciousness too many times to count.

My body ached.

My head hurt.

My brain raced, then froze, only to resume the panic moments later.

Braylen was unconscious on the floor next to me, her breathing evened out. Was she dreaming? Was she even aware of what happened, even in her subconscious? There was no way for me to tell how long we’d been here. Was it an hour? Two? A day?

I winced at the invasion of light when the door jerked open, sounds of heavy footsteps slicing through the silence. The temperature in the room seemingly dropping twenty degrees in seconds. Closing my eyes propelled me further into darkness, but the obscurity couldn’t save me from being hauled to my feet. I tried to scream, but my throat was dry. The sound erupting was nothing more than a groan.

The man holding me against him smelled like a mixture of cheap body spray, smoke, and alcohol. This wasn’t the guy who attacked me, but I feared he was here to do the same thing.

“I heard about you,” he said, his voice harsh and raspy. “He said you were good.” Keeping my eyes shut amplified all my other senses, but I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want his image to fill my nightmares. It was better if the void remained, like the first time. “I wonder if your friend is any better.” One minute he clutched me close and the next I was thrown to the ground, a jolt of pain searing up my back from the impact.

Left with no other choice, needing to protect Braylen and her baby, my eyes flew open, and although the room was still bathed in darkness, there was ample lighting from the hallway illumination that I was able to at least see the form of the man hovering over my stepmother, even if I couldn’t readily make out his every feature.

“Leave her alone,” I yelled, or at least attempted to. I scrambled closer when he snatched her arm. He was quick, dragging her unconscious body across the floor, but I caught her ankle before he could disappear with her. I had no idea if he was going to take her out of this room or prop her against the wall like the other man had done to me. “Let her go.” That time, my voice was stronger.

He dropped her arm and walked back toward me, grabbing a fistful of my hair, and craning my neck back so I had no other choice but to look up at him. He had long hair, his strands falling forward and shrouding the sides of his face.

“You offerin’ yourself instead?”

“Wh-what?” I stuttered.

“Doesn’t make a difference to me.” His hold intensified and I wrapped my fingers around his wrist. Touching him made me sick, but I didn’t have a choice, trying to save more clumps of my hair from being ripped from my scalp.

“What do you want with us?”

“What do you think?” He yanked me to my unsteady feet once more. “I’ll let you choose this time. You or her.”

“Please don’t do this,” I pleaded, dangling next to him without a clue as how to escape, let alone convince him to leave this room without touching either of us.

“Choose.” His voice was calm. Too calm, and I feared him more than if he chose to shout. “Fine, I’ll try her.”

“No, no, no. I’ll go.” Tears drifted down my cheeks at the realization of what was about to happen, again. But I couldn’t let him hurt Braylen.

I stepped on something sharp, the jagged edge of a pebble cutting into the center of my foot. I winced but welcomed the distraction, a different sensation of pain I wanted to hold on to as he dragged me from the room and up a narrow stairwell. We didn’t fit side by side, which meant I tripped several times as he pulled me roughly behind him, the edge of the steps hitting against my shin, another smash of pain that was welcome over the alternative.

“Look what I got, boys.” Shoved into the middle of what appeared to be a living room, I was suddenly surrounded by three men. The one who brought me up from what I now knew to be the cellar of the house, which struck me as odd seeing as how basements weren’t common anymore in California, and his two buddies, one more menacing than the other.

“Please let us go. We won’t tell anyone.” They mocked my fear, repeating my words in a