Broken Songbird (Vicious Games #2)

29. Chapter 29

“ D o I have to?” I ask Mama. “I don’t like the closet.”

She sighs, her breath all gross again. It smells like the cleaner in the cupboard that I’m not allowed to touch again since last time I spilled it, and it burned me.

“Come on, missy. It won’t be for long.” She smiles, showing her yellow teeth. “Afterwards we can go buy you some cereal.”

I smile back at her. “And milk, too?”

“We’ll see.”

Cereal days are my favourite days. They don’t happen a lot, but they’re the best. It’s extra special when I can eat it with milk, but I’ll still eat it from the box. It’s better than eating the canned peas or beans Dad gives me when he remembers.

She pats me on the back, nudging me closer to the closet. “Come on. Before he gets here.”

I take a breath, and climb in, sitting on my usual pile of old clothes, and Mama starts closing the door.

“Wait!” I shout, stopping the door. “I need Bunny.”

Someone knocks on the front door.

“Not now, Scarlett,” Mama says, pushing harder between my shoulders to get me into the closet.

“Mama, please ,” I protest.

She makes a disgusted sound in her throat. “Don’t call me that. I don’t need the reminder. Now get in.”

She shoves me hard, and I fall into the closet, then she slams the door closed.

I start breathing really hard. I can’t see anything. I don’t like the dark.

I whimper, then cover my mouth. I can’t make any noise, or Mama will get mad and then she won’t let me out.

But it’s too dark.

I cry quietly, listening to the muffled sounds outside.

I’m trapped.

I want Bunny.

I want to get out.

Someone, please, let me out.

I jolt awake, clawing to sit up, blinking rapidly, the memory of that putrid vodka smell and muffled slapping sounds burning through my mind.

Pain knifes through the right side of my torso, forcing me back to the floor as it steals my breath, white spots dancing across my vision. I take short inhales, but not too fast, waiting for the pain to change from a knifing sensation to a deep throb.

Recent events come filtering back—the kidnapping, the van.

Lucas. I pull myself out of that train of thought before I dissolve into a mess, concentrating on my injuries.

At least one of my ribs is broken, I note to myself. A draft comes from somewhere, making me shiver, so I look around without moving.

My stomach drops as my environment registers.

I’m in a small room with worn wood floors, wallpaper peeling from the walls, sitting on a pile of filthy scraps of fabric that might have been blankets at some point in time. The only furniture in here is a small wooden table on the far side with two matching chairs.

There’s a large gap under the door, letting in that draft I’m feeling. I focus on that gap—there’s a light outside the door, but I can’t hear or see any movement.

My body relaxes incrementally, but my next concern makes me stiffen up again.

Where the hell is Del?

“Del?” I wheeze out quietly, not daring to say anything too loud.

“Behind you,” she murmurs low.

I gather myself before rolling over, biting down the curses threatening to burst through me as the pain in my ribs tries to steal my consciousness.

As I end up on my left, some of the pressure eases on my injured side and I blink through the tears leaking down my face, my eyes landing on Del. She’s sitting near my legs, her back against a radiator, staring blankly at the floor.

I need to sit up. I pull my knees up and then something tugs on my leg. What the fuck? I lift my foot to see a metal cuff around my ankle connected to a chain that’s attached to the radiator.

“What the fuck?” I say out loud this time.

I look over at Del, checking all her limbs; she doesn’t seem to be chained up.

“He knew I wouldn’t leave you,” she says, knowing what I was looking for.

“You should,” I urge.

“He took you as well, because he fucking knows .” Her voice is cold, empty.

I suck in a breath and fight the nausea from the insurmountable pain as I sit up. “Go, Del.”

She shakes her head. “No.”

I reach for her wrist, but she shuffles away from me. “Please. Go.”

Before she can respond, the sound of the doorknob turning echoes through the room. I turn, facing the door, putting myself between the person entering and Del.

A man walks in, and without meeting or seeing him before, I know this is Adrian. Dressed in an expensive-looking grey suit, he appears so…normal.

He’s tall with a slender build, has brown skin with minimal signs of aging, neat and styled dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes regarding us evenly like he doesn’t have us here against our will.

Despite his non-threatening appearance, if I look a little closer at the glint in his eyes, the too-easy smile and demeanour—the man screams danger.

“Kitty.” He directs the name at Del as he sits gracefully on a chair. The familiarity and warmth in his tone makes my stomach roll. “Introduce me to your friend.”

I don’t cower as his eyes land on me.

“You know who I am,” I say instead of allowing Del to speak. He doesn’t deserve to hear her voice.

He narrows his eyes at me slightly in irritation. “I’m sure your parents taught you not to interrupt a conversation.”

“There isn’t a conversation happening. Just you enjoying the sound of your own voice.”

The pleasant exterior slips off this vile man for a second, revealing the monster beneath, but he composes himself and looks back at Del.

“I really thought you’d have better taste in friends, mi ni?a.” He stands, approaching us slowly. “We’ll make sure you’re surrounded by the right people when we get home.”

I back up further, pressing myself into Del’s trembling body. Once he’s close enough, I kick out with my free leg, connecting hard with his knee.

He grunts in pain, then strikes out and grabs a handful of my hair. Pain shoots through my skull as he pulls me out of the way, some of my hair ripping out as he releases me, dropping me on my right side.

I’m blind with agony, unable to breathe, but he must have grabbed Del because she’s screaming.

I blink rapidly, clearing my vision to see him holding onto Del’s left wrist and right bicep, trying to pull her up as she thrashes around, bearing down and trying to kick out his legs.

I try to move, but I’m sluggish and can barely breathe.

“Enough,” Adrian barks, wrenching Del’s wrist at an odd angle.

She shrieks in pain, becoming dead weight as she sobs.

Adrian sighs, disappointed, and drops Del completely. She curls up, cradling her injured wrist to her chest. He probably dislocated it.

He lowers to his haunches, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear, making her recoil further. “You know what happens when you act out, Delphine. So why do you do it?”

He waits on his haunches for an answer which doesn’t come. Once Del’s sobs quieten to sniffles, he then holds out his hand out, palm up. “Right arm, please.”

She lays her forearm in his hand without question, and his hand slides up until he cradles her bicep again. His fingers move almost like he’s massaging the muscle, and then his grip tightens, and he turns her bicep.

He suddenly has a knife in his free hand. I use all my willpower to sit up again as Del’s eyes widen in terror, trying to tug her arm out of his grip.

“Be still,” he admonishes, the knife edging closer to her skin. “We don’t want to hit an artery or a nerve.”

Del goes deathly still, but as he digs the tip into her flesh, she yelps and flinches.

He makes comforting hushing sounds as he digs around with the tip of the knife, making his wound a little wider, Del’s blood sliding down her arm and his hand gripping it.

A sick, satisfied smile crosses his face as he pulls his knife out and starts pressing on the skin around the wound, and it dawns on me what he’s doing.

He’s taking out her fucking contraceptive implant.

He pinches the tip of the implant and pulls the rod out. I empty the contents of my stomach all over the floor.

He stands abruptly and tries to dart out of the spray, but some of it ends up on his suit pants. A lot of it gets over Del’s jeans and over my legs and shoes.

Adrian shouts out commands in Spanish and another man comes in with a pile of linen, putting them on the table. He avoids looking over at us, then leaves.

Adrian walks over to the pile, takes a towel and wipes off his pants as much as he can, then throws the soiled linen at me. “Clean it up.”

Not wanting any more injuries, I quickly wipe down my face with a clean part of the towel, then get to work wiping down my legs and the floor.

I see Adrian pick up the other towels and approach Del, crouching down on his haunches again.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he says. My skin crawls at the warm tone, and my stomach turns.

He takes a smaller towel and wraps it around the wound on Del’s arm, tying it securely, then his hands slide down to the waistband of her jeans. Del pushes at his hands with her non-injured one, whimpering, trying to scramble away at the same time, but she’s already pressed into the wall.

“Be reasonable, Delphine. Your pants are covered in her filth,” Adrian says, batting her hand away and continuing to unbutton her jeans and tug them down her hips. “I’ll have someone laun—”

He stills from peeling her jeans midway down her thigh. He lashes out and grabs her right thigh. “What the fuck is this?”

Shit, he’s looking at the ‘E’ scar that Enzo gave her.

She lets out a wheeze that I think is actually some sort of distorted laugh as her watery green eyes burn with victory as she regards Adrian. “Ownership.”

Adrian stands abruptly, backing away in horror. “You let him mark you?”

Wild, hysterical laughter bellows out of Del, new tears leaking down her face as she breathes heavily. “Yeah, and I’d let him do it again.”

Adrian stands abruptly and starts pacing, fury pouring off him in waves, as Del continues to laugh. Adrian stops suddenly and picks up a chair, tossing it into the wall across the room, the wood splintering in pieces.

“You let him mark what’s mine ,” he rages at Del.

“I was never, and will never be yours ,” she declares.

Adrian chuckles, the sound wrong. “You can’t say that, Delphine, not when the Lord blessed our union.”

Blessed their union?

“And I cut that curse out of me the first chance I got,” she spits at him with venom.

I feel the blood drain from my face, understanding what she means. I know what he did to her, what that can result in… My stomach spasms. She was a fucking child .

“The Lord will forgive you of your heinous sin and bless our union again,” he says with such conviction, I have to fight to swallow the bile rising in my throat.

“I will kill myself before I let that happen,” Del promises.

“But for now,” he continues, like she said nothing. “How will I punish you for that grave sin? And for allowing that beast to mark my property.”

He taps his bottom lip a few times in thought, regarding Del carefully. “I don’t like to hurt you, Delphine. But you must be taught a lesson.”

His attention suddenly turns to me, and I freeze. A deer under the gaze of a predator. His dark eyes flash with a sadistic glint as he nods to himself in decision and approaches me.

Terror floods me as I scramble back until I crash into the radiator. He grips my ankle painfully and tugs, dragging me closer to him. There’s a knife in his other hand.

“What are you doing?” Del says, panic laced in her words.

He tsks . “It will make it worse for her if you interfere.”

I kick, trying to get out of his grip, my breathing laboured. Whatever the fuck he wants to do is not happening without a fight.

Adrian huffs in annoyance, and then his elbow comes crashing into my temple. Pain blasts through my head, and I still as my vision goes blurry.

“You let him mark what’s mine,” I hear Adrian say, his voice muffled under the pounding in my head. I’m sure I have a concussion by now.

“Now, I’m going to mark what’s yours .”

The knife digs into my thigh, and I scream. Warm blood slides down my leg as he carves at my flesh, my consciousness waning, the sweet serenity of nothingness pulling me closer.

This could be the end, and all I can think is that I never told Creed I love him.