down the front of my shoulders, sucking in sharply when he spots the familiar circular singe of a bullet wound. “I hurt you.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t shoot me. You pushed me out of the way.”
Justine is only halfway through interpreting what I said when a gruff, accented voice interrupts, “I’m only finding four pills.” Although I can’t one hundred percent testify it is Eight speaking, I’m reasonably sure it is. He has quite a twang to his tone considering he lives in the city. “There are only four pills. Are you sure she’s overdosing on codeine?”
“I assumed that’s what she took since it was what Dok prescribed. Did you find anything near her when you found her?” When Eight shakes his head, Trey lowers his eyes to mine. The panic in them has me wanting to fold in two. “What did you take, K? Was it pills? Coke? Did you shoot up?”
Even knowing there won’t be any, he checks my arms for puncture wounds. It isn’t that he trusts me, he just knows I wouldn’t take anything that would make me more vulnerable than I already am. Drugs would do that.
When he fails to find the cause for my near-comatose state, Trey requests for Eight to reach out to Dok. “If she’s OD’ing on heroine, pumping her stomach won’t be enough.”
While Eight rushes off to do as ordered, Trey pulls me out of one of the shower stalls across from the dorm where the other women are. When I shudder through the toxins wreaking havoc with my senses, he requests for Justine to fetch some towels from a linen closet partway down the hall. When she darts out of the bathroom, I wrack my brain as to what’s happening. I’m so confused. The last thing I remember is waking up in Trey’s bed screaming, but that’s on the other side of the compound, so how did I get here?
As panic drudges through me, my eyes pop open. I’m not just scared about the horrifying memories slowly filtering into my woozy head. I’m petrified Trey’s wet shirt is amplifying the zap of electricity surging through his body from him being tasered.
The charge of electricity buckles his knees in an instant and has him slumping to the floor as if he’s dead. If that isn’t already terrifying, with a mocking grin, a monster from my nightmares steps out from the shower stall next to the one Trey and I just exited.
With his head slanted to the side like a naughty dog, Achim says, “That was more fun than I thought it would be… even with his sickening display of chivalry. He has quite the fascination for you, doesn’t he? Come back to me, K. Fight for me.” He gags like he’s physically repulsed before he steps over Trey’s lifeless form. “Doesn’t he know he can buy you for a couple of nickels and a stick of gum?”
Determination spirals through me when he has the nerve to laugh. Those are the objects he tossed at me the first time he forced me to give him head. I took the gum willingly, needing anything to remove the putrid taste of his cum from my mouth.
When I say that to Achim, he backhands me so fiercely, the crunch of my neck isn’t natural. “Don’t you dare speak down to me. You’re nothing but the help.”
Something inside me snaps. I don’t know if it’s grit or pure hate, but whatever it is, it roars so loudly, the force of its rumble shunts Achim back almost as much as my hands.
When Achim trips over Trey’s still legs, his gun skitters away from him. I’m tempted to snatch it up, but he recognizes my game plan in an instant, and just as quickly, he pulls a second pistol out of the breast pocket of his jacket.
With my heart in my throat, I sprint out of the bathroom, praying Achim will be so angry about my disobedience, he will take his frustration out on me instead of Trey.
Mercifully, my plan works. A bullet pierces the drywall next to my head a mere second before I burst into the corridor.
With Justine being hogtied by a man with icy blue eyes and black hair on my right and Eight gargling blood and clutching his stomach on my left, I head straight, praying the shard of glass Trey kicked away from me yesterday is still in the corner of the large space. It might not be as powerful as a