The Rise (The Kings and Gods #3)

Chapter 2

Lana

I bend over and throw up once more. I can’t handle seeing their faces. It makes me sick to even think about what happens to them after these bastards take them. Where they go, who gets them, and for what purpose? It all makes me sick.

My head is jerked back, and I’m dragged back to my feet before I receive another blow to the stomach. This time, there’s no doubling over. He holds me up, forcing me to take hit after hit.

“You’re fucking weak! He should have never have sent you here,” my brother, Ray, screams in my face. Fuck him. Fuck all of them. One fucking day they’re all going to die for what they do, and I’m going to sit back and enjoy the view.

“Fuck. You.” I manage to say between gasps for air. Ray laughs in my face, his fist slamming into my stomach once more. Pain explodes inside of me, and this time, he lets me go. I fall to my knees and wrap my arm around my stomach. Then I feel the blood. The warmth as it trickles down my thighs and seeps into my jeans. I didn’t take a test; I didn’t want to, but I knew. I knew I was pregnant and now I’m not.

I lie on the floor and curl into a ball, holding myself tightly. Ray leaves, and I don’t give a shit where it is he’s going as long as he’s gone. Tears burn my eyes, and I try my best not to let them fall, but one always manages to slip through.

I stay like this for what seems like hours, and it may have been when someone comes in. I hear him curse before he drops down next to me.

“What the hell did he do to you now?” Gabe asks. Gabe. Fucking Gabe. I should tell him it was his baby but I’m not going to. Fuck him. Gabe is just like Ray in most ways. In others, he’s different. He acts like he cares but won’t stop doing what he does.

Trafficking. How fucking sick is that shit? Why? Why take those kids? Why sell them to the highest bidder? You don’t know what those sick fuckers are after with those poor kids. But then again, I know their pain.

Gabe lifts me off the floor and carries me into the bathroom, sitting me on the toilet and starting the shower. My stomach cramps. It hurts, but that doesn’t matter.

Once the shower is on, Gabe comes back to pull my clothes off and winces when he spots the bruises.

“Fuck,”’ he hisses under his breath, but I ignore him. He’s too weak to go up against Ray. All of them are. “Did you start your period?” he asks as he looks between my thighs at the blood running down them.

“No.”

“Did he … rape you?” I shake my head once more as he lifts me and carries me to the shower. He stands me inside and grabs the sprayer, spraying me off.

“You were pregnant,” he states without me saying a word.

“It was for the best, right?”

“How the fuck can you say that?” he snaps at me as I begin to laugh.

“Do you think for one minute my father or Ray would have let me keep it? I’d much rather it be gone now than to be sold at your hands!” I scream at him. He doesn’t know what to say to me, and that’s for the best. I don’t want him to say anything. I don’t want to hear it. There’s nothing he can say to make this better.

“How can you say that, Lana?”

“Because it’s true. I don’t want a baby who’s going to be taken away from me and sold to some sick bastards,” I hiss at him.

“You think I’d let them do that to you?” Now I laugh.

“I know you would. You’re a fucking coward. You’re his little puppet.” Gabe huffs out a breath before shaking his head. I see the anger in his eyes, and that’s just another reason I don’t want a kid with him. I see it before it comes. His hand snaps out, grabbing me around the throat as he pulls my face toward his.

“Was it mine?” he growls.

“Fuck you.”

“Was it mine, Lana?” He roars this time. I laugh. Fuck him. I’ll never tell him shit, not a single fucking thing. He squeezes tighter and tighter until I can’t breathe. I don’t even try to fight him. My instincts to fight back have all been depleted. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care if I live or die.

He knows as much which is why he releases me at the last minute before I pass out. I cough and suck air into my lungs before I lose it. I lunge at him, punching and hitting.

“Why don’t you just do it? Why don’t you just finish me?” I scream at him. I hate it when they do this. Take my breath and then give it back. Why not just end me? Why not just finish me off?

“Stop, Lana.”

“No! You’re all fucking cowards! You take me there, you show me the darkness, and then you pull me right back into the light. I don’t want to do this anymore!” I cry as I keep punching him. When he’s had enough, he grabs me, spins me, and pins my body against his.

“You’re not allowed to die, Lana. That’s why!”

“But why not? I don’t want to do this anymore,” I finally break down and sob. My heart can’t handle it anymore. My mind is breaking. I’m breaking.

Gabe holds onto me and I don’t know why. If Ray came in here right now and ordered him away, he’d go. He claims to care about me, but he doesn’t. None of them do. I’m a tool, something they use, and that’s all I’ll ever be until someone bigger, stronger, more powerful comes and takes these bastards away. One day it’ll happen, and I’ll fucking laugh the whole time. I’ll sit back and watch as they kill every single one of them.

“Let me go,” I tell Gabe. He doesn’t. He holds me tighter as if that means anything. It doesn’t, I don’t want his touch. I don’t want anything from him.

“You can’t leave me, Lana. That’s not how this works.”

“How what works?”

“Any of this. I can’t be here alone,” he tells me.

“Why not?”

“There are days when it all becomes too much, and you’re the only hope I have left,” he admits to me, and my heart nearly breaks. He could leave. He could walk away from this, but I can’t. And I’ll never be able to. There’s no way around it. This is my life until the day I take my last breath.

I shove out of his arms and walk over to the sink, grabbing a towel to dry myself before moving into the room and getting dressed.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to check on the kids,” I snap.

“Lana, you just lost the baby. You need to rest,” he argues. I laugh in his face.

“Do you really think Ray cares?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Leave me alone, Gabe,” I sigh as I stuff my feet into my shoes and go back into the bathroom to find a pad.