Chapter Sixteen
Sam
He was standing with immaculate posture, his hands neatly pulled behind his back, wearing a look I hadn’t seen on his face since the first time I kissed him. The first time I got him to feel something.
He looked emotionless. Indifferent.
“D-Damien?” I asked, my voice even more hoarse and softer than before. “What’s going on?”
A burst of maniac laughter behind me had me gulping with terror.
I didn’t even turn around when I heard him get off his seat. I stared straight ahead, my eyes boring into Damien’s detached ones.
I shivered when I felt his breath on my neck.
“Oh we’re going to have fun with you.”
I slammed my eyes shut, praying this was only just a terribly horrible dream and that I would wake up in Damien’s arms and he would be smiling and everything would be fine.
But when I opened my eyes, he wasn’t smiling.
“Dame?” I tried again, my voice and stare pleading. But he was unmovable. Suddenly the loud clanging of metal on metal behind me had me whipping around to see the doors now bolted shut cutting off any potential escape.
“Oh this is just adorable!” the boy exclaimed from my side, the surprise of his voice and proximity of his hot breath and sarcasm making my stomach drop. “Nicknames and ‘I loves you’s?” I felt my face turn hot at the reference to my call from earlier. Of course it wasn’t Damien on the phone. And of course Dame didn’t even flinch at the mention of the three words. “I knew Damien was a good actor,” he went on. “But I didn’t know he was that good!”
My heart stopped beating.
Actor?
Damien was acting?
He stepped out from behind me and latched his hooded eyes onto mine, sticking out his hand.
“I’m Darius, by the way. Damien’s older brother. It’s great to finally meet you.”
He was scrawny and too bitterly sarcastic for my liking. His hands shook as he spoke and his curious orange orbs were deathly frightening if you looked into them for too long.
Instead of taking his hand, I glanced over my shoulder at Damien, the word actor pulsating through my brain uncontrollably.
He still looked impassable, his lips sealed in a straight line. I did notice one thing though. The small jerking movement of his wrists told me he was wringing his hands out behind his back; something I had never seen him do before in my life.
Deep breaths Sam. He doesn’t know what he’s taking about. He’s insane.
The faint possibility that Darius is just a mentally fragmented liar was the only thing that kept me from breaking down into tears. But the heavy breathing of Darius, the dead stare of Dame, and the rapidly beating heart of Mason still had my head spinning.
“Just tell me what the hell you want from me, let Mason go,” I demanded, the confusing jumbling in my mind escaping as a forceful command.
Darius chuckled, taking a few steps towards me. “We can’t do that Sammy,” he said in a sickly sweet tone that made me want to barf, the nickname not seeming so entrancing any longer. “Otherwise,” he continued, taking a final step so he was only an arms-width from me. “We wouldn’t have any leverage, my sweet.” And with his final words he reached up and delicately ran his fingers along my jaw line, making my nose wrinkle with disgust. I wretched myself away from his touch and he grinned in response.
“But I will,” he began, taking a few steps away so I could finally breathe again. “I will tell you what I want from you. But first, let me tell you a little about myself.”
I snorted at the irony of it all, but Darius didn’t like that. His twisted grin fell and stared at me while his eyes rapidly darted across my body.
“My parents are dead,” he spat, the contorted element absent from his voice as he leaned into my face. “They’re dead and I’m insane and it’s your fucking fault so shut your mouth before I cut you open so painfully slowly that you’ll beg me to put a bullet in your brain.”
He stared at me narrow-eyed with his chest heaving for a few seconds while both us recovered from our heightened heartbeats. He blew out a breath of air, making my skin crawl, before he pulled away from me. It didn’t seem like he was going to continue speaking, and Mason was potential seconds away from being slaughtered, while my boyfriend refused to make any indication that he actually was my boyfriend, so I spoke up hoping to move the process along.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said slowly, my eyes flashing to Damien regarding the mention of the parents I didn’t know he ever had. “But how does this have anything to do with me?”
“It has everything to do with you,” he said, surprisingly calm. “It started with you, now it will end with you.”
I glanced at Damien yet again for any hint that he knew what the fuck was going on, or if he was going to swoop in and save me from his mentally incompetent brother, or if he even cared about me at all.
His bored stare told me I was right about at least one thing.
“Sam, did you love your family?” Darius asked me, his head tilted to the right.
A pain in my chest arose at the word “did.”
“Do. I do love my family,” I told him firmly.
“Well aren’t they all dead?” he asked with a stupid smile that made my blood boil.
“Yes,” I seethed. “but just because they’re dead, doesn’t mean I stopped loving them.”
The question forced my mind to flash back to images of my life in California. My forged relationship with my dad. How we was never around due to his busy life as a beta. My mother’s tired but loving eyes as she read me to sleep at night. The image of her sitting alone at my middle school graduation. Her face as she said goodbye before the disease finally took the last of her life. Getting the news my father had been kidnapped and killed by rogues. Living with Dallas’ family. Being alone and heartbroken at 17 years old.
I didn’t have the easiest childhood, but I was taught to love and be loved and to let nothing come between me and my dreams. So I kept on. I knew my parents loved me, and I them. And even after their death, I wasn’t alone. I had my boys. My pack. My uncle. And now I had Damien.
Or at least that was what he made me believe.
“I did,” Darius said forcefully, startling me out of my memories. “I stopped loving my good-for-nothing father once he died. Your little Romeo killed our mother when he was born, leaving our father to take care of us alone.”
My eyes darted to Damien for what felt like the 100th time in the last minute. How come he never told me? Why did he tell me he was completely familyless when he clearly had two dead parents and a PSHYCOTIC brother on the loose?
“And he did a great job. He was the best dad two half-demons could have asked for. He was a human taking care of hell-raising children and we loved him unconditionally. But then… then he fucked us over, little wolf. He made a mistake,” Darius took a step forward, slowly beginning to circle around me. “He made a big mistake. He put his trust in the wrong person, Sammy. This person told him he could turn my fathers twenty thousand dollars into twenty million dollars. So foolishly, my father agreed. But he didn’t know a crappy businessman from a crappy businessman with a set of canines that could rip out his intestines in 3 seconds flat. So when this person turned dad’s 20,000 into absolutely nothing, we hired a lawyer. And when the lawyer turned up dead 24 hours later, I stopped loving my father.”
I felt my stomach churn as Darius circled me, cracking his knuckles rapidly and ticking subconsciously. Damien still hadn’t said a word.
Darius stopped once he made a full circle, coming back to look into my eyes with his frighteningly bright orange ones.
“My baby brother was only 16 years old, Sam. 16 years old when our father died. Dad took matters into his own hands like the idiot he was, instead of letting his bloodthirsty son help him. I could have ripped that man apart. A wolf is no match for a demon, Sammy. I could have destroyed his arrogance with the flick of my wrist. I could have gotten all the money back with one snapped neck. But he wouldn’t let me, and now he’s the one rotting 6 feet under ground. All because your father and his greedy pack of douche bag wolves wanted to make a pretty penny.”
“My father? My father was not a fucking mobster! MY father was the beta of The Legions of The Moon. How dare you dishonor him,” I heard myself retaliate, my chest pumping with rage.
Darius snorted, then pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and pressed it against my chest. “Read this. Your ignorance is unattractive, especially with a face… and body like that.” His stare roamed all over my body making me shudder with contempt. How dare he accuse my family of such a thing, then turn around and objectify my body!?
But it didn’t matter. Because none of it mattered once I heard a small, almost non-existent throaty growl from Damien. It wasn’t quite a growl, his lips didn’t even part, but it was definitely something. And when I looked back at him—a small smile on my lips—he was glaring at his brother, placing a small balloon of hope in my chest.
“Read it,” Darius insisted, obviously he hadn’t noticed any change in Damien’s demeanor. So I gripped the piece of paper and looked down. It seemed as if it had been folded and unfolded thousands of times. It was almost deteriorating. But it was still legible. It read:
To The Family of Mr. James Rush:
We deeply regret to inform you of the death of James Rush. His life was lost in an unfortunate car accident in which he did not get out alive. The driver did survive, however, and sends his deepest condolences. We will send flowers within the week.
Regretfully,
Tom Powers and Associates.
I read it twice to be sure. He dotted every I with a small dash and crossed every t higher then most people did. My dad’s signature couldn’t easily be forged; I tried it enough times in middle school.
This was undeniably his handwriting.
Slowly, I raised my eyes to meet his. He was already staring.
“ ‘We will send flowers within the week’,” Darius repeated, his eyes drifting upwards as he recalled the words he has probably read more times than I count. “Flowers. Your father thought flowers could make up for the fact he staged my father’s accidental death while he brutally murdered him for threatening their operation? Flowers?!”
Darius stopped and shut his eyes, seemingly collecting himself. I gulped, pushing the anger towards my traitor of a father to the back of my brain. I couldn’t think about that right now. Mason still had a blade to his neck and I was still being interrogated by a psychiatric patient.
“So now you’re probably wondering where you fit into this whole thing,” Darius said, eyes now opened wide, fingers shaking a mile a minute. “After we were left on the streets with no money and no family, my baby Damien and I began plotting. We were going to get that money back if it took us forever. But one thing was for sure, Sam. You. We needed you. And what better way to get you then to make you fall in love with my little brother?”
Frozen. That’s how I felt. I couldn’t move and my heart was cold as stone. I couldn’t feel anything as I stared at Damien who stared blankly back at me. No apologetic smile. No guilt stricken eyes. He just stood there while my frozen heart shattered.
“And look how well that worked out! Now we have you—completely love struck and undeniably vulnerable—and everything is falling into place. And since we have your pack mate behind the blade of a very experienced executioner, we know you will cooperate.”
Actor. Plotting. Vulnerable. Make you fall in love. Cooperate.
I could barely even think clearly. His phrases and words and sarcasm and humor circled and circled my mind until I could barely see what was in front of me.
Until Darius pressed yet another item to my chest. I gripped it tightly, the feel of slender hard wood underneath my fingers sparking my curiosity and temporarily relieving my head and my heart from the dooming feeling that I was about to implode.
I glanced down at it through the stinging blur of wetness in my eyes. It was a thin piece of wood that looked impermeable. The top had five small half moon shapes revolving in a circle, but other then that the wood was sealed. It seemed completely solid… until I shook it.
It rattled. The box was hollow inside. Curiosity killed me, and I glanced up at Darius, brows furrowed.
“I’ve tried throwing it, smashing it, shattering it, you name it and it hasn’t worked,” he deadpanned, once again coming closer to me. He reached up with both his hands, a shining glint in his eye, and gripped both sides of my face. His orange orbs so close captivated me, and I couldn’t move.
“That’s why… that’s why we need you, beautiful. We need you to open the box. It was the only thing we picked off your dead fathers body.”
My eyes closed at the mention of my father. I took a deep breath, trying to ease the wrenching in my stomach.
“Want to know why we need you?” Darius asked with a whisper, and I nodded, somewhat entranced by the swirling orange and red colors of his sickly gorgeous eyes. “Flip the box over.”
He let go of my face and I did just that. On the lower righthand corner, a small inscription was carved in an unmistakable Tom Powers scrawl.
For My Sam
A small gasp escaped my lips, and an overwhelming desire to run my fingers over his carving came over me. The pad of my thumb traced the indented letters as I took a deep breath in. He never got to give it to me.
“Open it,” Darius demanded, his soothing tone now absent, force and intimidation taking over.
“I-I’ve never seen this before in my life,” I sputtered out, looking up at the swirling fire in his eyes.
“I don’t give a fuck, just open it!” he screamed, jolting my entire body.
I flipped it over in my hands, fingering the entire slab of wood with shaking hands, hoping and praying for a way to get inside of it. After a few seconds of mercilessly trying to pry open sealed wood, I glanced back at the fuming Darius.
“It doesn’t open.”
He blew a gust of air out of his nose. “Yes. It. Does. NOW DO IT!”
I cowered away from his scream and frantically began examining the box again while Darius heavily breathed down my face.
I flipped it over and over, the sweat from my hands causing it to slide around in my grasp. Darius’ heart rate escalated by the second, telling me he wasn’t going to sit and wait around for much longer.
“What are you waiting for?!” he seethed, his fingers clenching in to fists.
“It doesn’t fucking open okay?! Get over it!” I responded, fed up with his disgusting breath on my face.
But I guess that wasn’t the smartest idea because within a second his fist connected with my gut and I was on the ground gasping for breath as he kicked my stomach over and over shouting, “open it, open it, open it.”
I counted to ten.
Then he stopped, finally realizing kicking my stomach wasn’t going to get the damn thing open. He stepped back and pulled on the ends of his hair, growling in frustration as he paced in front of me.
Slowly I sat up on my knees, still gripping the wooden box to my chest. Carefully I set it down in front of me and stared at it, willing myself to figure it out.
“I’m giving you 30 seconds until I cut off your friends head.”
I gulped and glanced at Mase for the first time in what felt like hours. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead as his eyelids fluttered closed. He was sucking in his bottom lip, trying not to cry as the executioner dug the blade into his adams apple, drawing blood.
“One,” Darius deadpanned, driving his knee into my back to remind me of the stakes. I took a deep breath and went back to the box, praying to every religious figure in the world as my heart pounded and my fingers shook and my heart broke.
I stared at it for another 10 seconds, paralyzed.
“Twelve,” Darius reminded me, his sharp breath on my ear heightening my senses and contributing to the closing of my throat.
I was about to have another anxiety attack.
“I-I don’t-“ I started, but couldn’t finish.
“JUST DO IT YOU INCOMPETANT BASTARD!”
“I can’t—“
“YES YOU CAN! JUST FUCKING DO IT!”
“Damien please,” I wheezed, my breathing so labored I could barely get the words out as I latched my pleading eyes on to his unforgiving ones. His wrist twitches were increasing but he did nothing.
“Twenty-one,” he seethed in my ear, my vision blurring with tears and my head spinning with all the moments I’ve spent with Mason. In nine seconds I would never see him again.
“Tell Casp I love him,” Mason choked out, his voice dripping with his now shed-tears. I heard myself gasp for breath, trying to convince him everything would be okay. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak.
“PROMISE ME, SAM. PROMISE ME YOU’LL TELL HIM I LOVE HIM!”
All I could do was wheeze.
“Tell Casp,” he breathed, wincing from the pressure of the blade that dug deeper with every second Darius counted down. “I love him.”
“Twenty-seven.”
My eyes were now flowing with salty tears, filling my mouth and making my face itch. The only thing I could do was watch the man cut into the side of Mason’s neck as cried out in pain, extracting his nails in pure agony.
Wait a minute.
Extracting… his nails?
“Off him, Jason,” Darius said with a wave of his hand. “He’s had enough time.”
EXTRACTING HIS NAILS!
Quickly I forced my own set of werewolf daggers out of my right hand and dug them into the five half-moon cravings into the top of the slender box.
Darius’ heart stopped beating when the box began to glow a very subtle blue. It shook on the concrete floor, rattling the walls and sending an echo throughout the steel container we were in.
And with a small click, the box popped open.
~~
xooxo