I wasn’t sure what woke me, the apartment was silent, dark, barely any light filtered in through the curtains blocking out the city, and yet I stirred with a jolt only seconds ago. My heart thumps inside my chest, a wild, rampaging beast that makes my blood roar inside my veins.
Sitting up, I push the sheet down, untangling my legs as I turn towards the door of my bedroom, brows pulling low as I strain to hear anything from the other side.
Kingston, my brother, sleeps in the bedroom down the hall, and as far as I can tell, he’s still tucked away in his room.
After growing up in a world like mine, I knew when to trust my instincts and currently, they were screaming for me to hide, to run.
I glance towards my walk-in closet, inside, on the right, is a small space hidden behind the railing that holds my dresses, I could hide in there. It was a good idea, I think, moving towards it only to freeze right there, halfway out of bed.
There’s no time to do anything when a huge boom sounds from the front room of my apartment. The blast is so loud that my ears ring and the windows vibrate in their frames, and then voices fill the apartment. Loud, angry voices, men shouting demands, orders that both confuse and terrify me all the same.
“Find her,” A man yells.
“Check the bedrooms,” Another demands.
My heart drops into my stomach, and if my life was normal, if I lived a mundane life like those I went to school with, maybe I would have thought this a terrible mistake. But I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t like everyone else who went home to a loving family, where their parents cooked them dinner, and helped them with their homework, I didn’t go home to a full house or people who wanted to know how my day went. I went home to violence and chaos, to blood and murder and corruption, so these men, the men that have found my apartment, me and my brother, it didn’t surprise me.
But it did scare me.
I slip from my bed, crouching down the side furthest from the door. If I can just get to the closet, there at least, I have a chance of hiding.
The ‘her’ they are looking for can only be me.
I didn’t know how many there were, what weapons they carried. My brother was a force on his own, but even he had his limits.
The hard floor hurts against my knees as I crawl towards the doors to my closet where it was safer. I refused to keep weapons in my room, but I was quickly regretting that decision, kicking myself for all the times I fought my brother when he insisted I keep something within reach.
A sudden bang has my spine straightening, the hair on the back of my neck rising. A gun shot.
“Get the fuck out!” Kington’s voice booms through the apartment, “Get the fuck out before I kill you all.”
There’s a chorus of laughter before a rough voice answers, “You think you can win against us, boy,” he mocks, “come at me, let’s see what you can do.”
“You fuckers,” Kingston bellows, “Who sent you!? What do you want?”
A few seconds of silence, and I’m almost at the closet doors, “Your pretty little sister is what we want.”
My blood runs cold.
No.
No, I refuse. I know what happens to girls in this life. I know where they end up, what happens to them.
I had plans. So many plans.
I wanted out of this life, I wanted to learn and grow, to get my degree and travel the world. I wanted away from this bloodshed and corruption, but if they got me, I knew I’d never have that. I’d be lucky if I was still breathing by the time the sun rose in the morning.
“You can go to hell,” Kingston growls, “I’ll kill you all.”
Another loud bang makes me jump where I’m frozen on my bedroom floor, another gunshot.
Fear is a heady, heavy weight inside my body. I couldn’t lose my brother. I may not have the life I want, the life any normal person deserved, but Kingston was everything. My brother, my best friend and I knew he would go down fighting for me.
I can’t move, I’m too scared but I hear it all. I hear the bangs and thuds of bodies; I hear the grunts and hisses of pain, but I can’t move. I can’t fucking move.
Suddenly, a silence as heavy as a ton of bricks falls over the apartment before it’s quickly erased by the sound of boots against the hard wood floor.
My door handle creaks as it’s compressed.
I shove myself back against my bed, using it to shield myself from whoever it is that’s just entered my room.
Had Kingston fallen? Had the one person who cared for me and loved me as much as I loved him fallen?
I wasn’t sure what I would do without my brother.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” The voice that speaks did not belong to my brother. “Little Isobel, what a prize you’ll be.”
Sickness rises, my throat closing.
“I will find you,” He promises, “There’s a high price on your pretty little head.”
My fingers curl into my palms, nails digging in hard enough to break the skin, and tears sting my eyes.
A quietness that screams doom settles around me and then suddenly a hand tangles into my hair, fingers curling tightly until my scalp burns. I cry out, following him as he pulls me up from my hiding spot, the burn of him yanking my hair making my eyes water.
“They didn’t lie,” he drawls as he forces me around to face him. His face is hidden from me, covered by a balaclava, but his eyes are the deepest shade of brown I’d ever seen, but they weren’t beautiful, they were damning and without life, no soul. There was a promise in his eyes, and I wasn’t going to like it.
His fingers tighten in my hair, “A pretty penny you’ll bring, even more if you’re a virgin,” he growls violently, his free hand coming down to cup me between the legs. Tears freely fall now, and his eyes appear to smile.
“Time to go,” he tells me before he plunges a needle into my arm.
The sharp sting of pain has me gasping, but whatever drug he just forced into my body quickly takes hold, slowing down my limbs, making my head fuzzy and the sounds around me to become muffled, like I had my head buried beneath a pillow. When my legs give out and my knees buckle, the man hauls me up, but I have nothing in me to fight him.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to lash out, but I couldn’t. My tongue was heavy, my vocal chords redundant, even when my mouth forms the shapes of words but no sound comes out. I was helpless, defenseless, it was over.
He carries me out into the living room where I see four more guys, their shapes blurry but clear all the same, dressed exactly like the guy carrying me, and they stand around a body on the floor. Blood pours freely from a large gash on Kingston’s head and he tries to rise from the floor, weak but moving. He wasn’t dead but injured. Badly.
“We have what we came for,” the guy holding me declares. I push on him, trying and failing to free myself from him. He just tightens his arms, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. He tilts his head to look down at me and those soulless eyes seem to smile. A cruelty I’d never witnessed before seeps into that gaze, and then he leans in and presses his mouth to my ear, “I’ll be sure to be the first to try you out.”