inside, the sooner I could get out. But even as car doors slammed, the voices didn’t dissipate.
Dammit.
I glanced around the room I was in and then up. It had a low ceiling, probably faux since it was all warehouse. I could go up through it and onto it, maybe. Then watch for when it was quiet. Another door nestled at the back. It had a giant bar lock on it. The kind you used to keep someone from opening it from the other side.
Like on emergency exits. You could pop them from the inside, but they had nothing on the other. What I thought was a closet, was more of an office. Well, a dusty one that didn’t seem in use.
There was a desk. An old ratty chair. Some buckets with stained cloths in them.
Probably better to not know what that was.
I leaned against the closed door and listened. Two men were arguing. I really wished I could hear what they were saying. But they didn’t sound in a hurry to end it.
Fine.
Fingers crossed, this door opened to the outside. I didn’t think it was close enough to the outer wall, but I’d take a hallway and some windows right now. The lock was hard to pop, and I had to twist it to release the bar. Shoving the door open, I narrowly swallowed a scream as the lights came on overhead and in the room that I’d opened. A cold, stone room, with one person sitting on the floor, slumped really.
Half of his face was swollen and bruised, nearly unrecognizable. His wheezing breaths told me he was alive. There was blood on his feet. And his arm hung oddly, or he was clutching it to himself in a weird way.
Bile crawled up my throat because the room stank of piss and shit and blood.
I really was in a horror movie.
Then he opened his eyes, and I slammed a hand over my mouth to keep the sound inside.
“Emersyn,” he wheezed.
Eric.
Oh God.
It was Eric.
“You…”
What had they…
“…cunt.”
The door behind me slammed open, and I jerked, retreating into the cell with a monster to get away from the monsters coming for me.
It slammed shut behind me, leaving me trapped in darkness.
A scrape of sound against the floor like he was getting up. Then the door shoved open, and Jasper filled the entrance, his gray eyes fixed on me and then jerked toward Eric, who was up.
Shit.
He lumbered right at me, and dammit, better the monster I didn’t know in this instance. I went to Jasper, even as he caught Eric by the throat and slammed the man back against the wall.
“Don’t look at her,” he ordered, and I stared as he rammed his forearm into Eric’s trachea, choking him.
Eric was a big guy. He’d always towered over me and used that strength and size to his advantage. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized that Jasper and Eric were almost the same height. Jasper might actually be taller.
Then Eric whimpered, and the sound cracked right through the center of the fear floating in my veins.
“Cunt…caused…this.” The choked words and spittle flew out of his mouth like Jasper squeezed them out with the force of his hold.
Instead of answering him, Jasper drove his fist into Eric’s side. Once. Twice. On the third, there was a faint snap, and I flinched.
The crack of a rib was a familiar noise.
I retreated, the bile burning in my throat and souring my stomach, threatening to make me sick, when warmth pressed right up against my back. I flinched again and yanked away, only to be caged by a pair of colorful arms, trapping me against him.
“Easy, Dove.” The familiar croon of Vaughn’s voice washed over me, and I nearly sagged. The adrenaline rush from the escape crashed, even as the fear and disgust at finding a beaten Eric trapped here as well swam through me. “Easy, we got you. Big stupid dancer boy is not going to hurt you again. Promise.”
Wait…what?
“Get her the fuck out of here,” Jasper said over his shoulder, but when I looked up, he was staring right at me, not at Vaughn. Despite his harsh tone, his expression was neither twisted nor furious. “Go.”
Was that a request? Not an order?
That didn’t make any sense.
I was still trying to sort that out when Vaughn walked backward, taking me with him. He didn’t drag so much as just lifted me and moved. Then we were back out in the main warehouse, and there were a dozen guys