Page 25 of Depraved

Her face remained stoic. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

I rubbed my fingers up and down my beard, my mind filled with the most entertaining thoughts. Her. Me. And one hell of a fight to see who would end up on top—pun intended.

“Okay, then.” I got up, grabbed the salad off the bed, and tossed the paper bag on the ground in front of her feet. “Eat. It’s a mommy-approved meal, so you don’t have to worry about all those extra calories.”

Feeling amused, I turned and started to walk out the room, but not before she called out after me, “Screw you, you son of a bitch.”

I stilled. I smiled.

I left.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALYX

Tears stung my eyes, my jaw aching as I refused to let them loose. My newfound determination to not show weakness, to not give him the satisfaction of witnessing how he intimidated me, was exhausting. Even for just ten minutes, it managed to drain the little energy and courage I had. But I managed to keep my shit together until he closed the door behind him. Then I let go, and my fear slipped down my cheeks one tear at a time.

All those nights I stared at him from my window, he seemed like a beautiful rogue. But it turned out he was a savage beast.

Infatuation. It was a dangerous thing. My being here proved that. My infatuation with a man I didn’t know ended up being the worst mistake. The disappointment was almost as strong as the fear and the uncertainty of what he planned to do to me now.

Was I being held for ransom? Blackmail? Revenge?

The latter sent chills throughout my body.

I wiped at my nose then cringed as pain brought more tears to my eyes. Blood mixed with my tears as I wiped it with the back of my hand. God, I couldn’t imagine what I looked like. Judging by the pain, hideous came to mind.

As the seconds ticked by, my tears became more until I cried so hard it hurt. My tummy ached, my head pounded, and I pressed my legs harder against my chest. Funny how I had always felt alone in a house with two parents who never saw me for who I was. Now, while I sat here in this room alone with the kind of uncertainty and fear that could gnaw through bone, I would have welcomed the loneliness of living with my parents.

My eye caught the paper bag Granite had tossed by my feet. Who knew how long I had been here, but even through the panic, my stomach burned with hunger. Luckily, hunger wasn’t something new to me. Curbing my appetite and moving past it without caving was something I had mastered years ago. But I had never been so happy about my talent to shut down my body’s need for food. Fuck human instinct. Fuck the human’s basic need to survive by giving the body what it needed. I didn’t want to eat so I could toss these assholes one huge “fuck you.” But I was curious as to what his definition was of a “mommy-approved” meal, so I reached for the bag and pulled out the plastic container inside.

I had to laugh. A fucking salad. It was exactly the kind of meal my mom would approve. How the hell did he know me so well? How did he know so much of my life, of my mom?

This meal. My stuff on the cabinet. It was like he had torn a chapter from my life and placed it right here, with him. Question was…why?

As I pushed the fork into a piece of cucumber, thinking that eating might be a good idea so I could keep my strength up, I couldn’t help but feel like a pig being fattened up only to be slaughtered. My stomach turned, the hunger pangs instantly gone as rage consumed me. Who the fuck did he think he was? Just because I stared at him from my goddamn window a few nights did not give him the right to kidnap me, to hold me here against my will.

For a second, I lost my shit, throwing the salad across the room. The bed and floors all the way to the door were scattered with lettuce, cucumber, and tomatoes.

A scream ripped out of my throat, coming from deep within, my soul letting go of anger with a shriek of pain. It didn’t even sound like me. Nothing about anything that was happening felt real. Just the pain. The fear. And now the anger. Those were the only things that didn’t feel surreal. Even him, my stranger in the dark, was no longer real. All those times I spent daydreaming about him, his motorcycle, and how we would whisk me off into the sunset, were nothing but proof of a naïve girl’s stupidity. We no longer lived in a world where anything was innocent. Not even fantasy and dreams of love were innocent anymore. Everything was corrupted. Everything was wrong.

Seconds after my scream sliced through the room, Granite came storming back in. “What the fuck?”

I looked up at him, feeling nothing but sadness and anger. For some unexplainable reason, I felt betrayed by him. It was my own fault; I knew that. In my head, I made him into something he wasn’t.

Granite saw the salad on the floor, closing the door behind him as he walked in. “Seems like you think you have a point to prove?”

I lifted myself off the floor but kept my back steady against the wall. “You might think I’m a weak, small, insignificant ballerina girl. But if you think for one second I plan on making this easy for you, you should think again.” I spat out the words like they were red-hot coals. But my words weren’t even cold when he came at me like a giant bulldozer.

I pushed myself off the wall trying to get away, but he was too fast. He grabbed my arm, pulled me back, and slammed me against the wall, pain shooting down my spine. I tried to take a breath, but his fingers wrapped around my throat, tightening.

Wild eyes glared at me, lips curled, and he was breathing rapidly. Granite was six-foot-five of pure muscle and malice, easily able to have crushed my five-foot-two body against the cold cement wall.

The door opened behind him. “What the fuck is going on here? I heard a scream.”

“Leave, Onyx,” Granite growled, but his brother didn’t leave. Granite glanced over his shoulder, nostrils flaring when he saw his brother still standing by the door. “I said leave.”

Onyx stood silent for a few seconds, blue eyes narrowed, scowling at his brother before he stepped out. But he didn’t close the door behind him, and I got the idea it was on purpose, to make it known we weren’t alone. Another kind gesture.