Fractured Brotherhood (Devil's Knights 2nd Generation 7)

Chapter Two

Tess

My heart pounded frantically in my chest, and I willed it to slow.

The man had been passed out for hours, and I had been starting to worry that he wouldn’t wake up. I had checked his pulse a few times through the night when I couldn’t hear his breathing, but other than that, I had kept my distance from him.

I didn’t know who he was or why he was there.

He was obviously someone who had pissed off Malcom, but I didn’t know any more than that.

His fingers curled around my wrist, and they pressed against my pulse.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

A whimper left my lips, and I tried to yank my arm away from him.

He tightened his hold and moved closer.

I folded my legs under me and pressed them into the hard concrete floor.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised. “I can’t see you.”

My eyes had assimilated to the darkness more than his. I could see the outline of his face and that he was kneeling in front of me. He kept a hold of my arm and blindly reached toward my face with his other hand. I shifted to the side and dodged his hand.

His hand smashed into the concrete wall. “Fuck,” he grunted. “I can’t see shit,” he grumbled. “I thought you were right in front of me.”

I had been.

His hand moved up my arm, and he grabbed my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I was alive. I nodded my head but remembered he couldn’t see me. The word yes was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t get it out.

Most times, I couldn’t get any words to come out of my mouth. “Ye-ye-ye,” I stuttered. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for the floor to swallow me whole.

Every doctor my mother had taken me to had diagnosed me with Select Mutism. They all said I could speak, but I chose not to. So, every time we would leave the doctor, my mom would be mad because I chose not to speak.

I had spoken the first few years of my life, but I stuttered every fourth or fifth word. At least, that was what my mom had told me. Did anyone really remember when they were two or three?

She had said there were days I wouldn’t stutter, but then somedays I couldn’t get a word out without tripping over my own tongue.

When I was five, I remembered, though.

On the first day of preschool, I had bopped into class thinking this was going to be the best day ever, only to have Heather Chonk and Devin Smith ruin it all.

Kids could be mean, and those two were exactly that.

Heather had ridiculed me ruthlessly on the playground and had even managed to get all of the other kids to call me Re-re-repeat Tess.

From that day on, I didn’t speak out loud.

I couldn’t. My voice had been taken from me whenever I was around people—even my own family.

The thought of being ridiculed and made fun of was too much for me to handle.

This wasn’t my choice. Anxiety robbed me of my words. I was too afraid to speak because I didn’t know what would be said back to me.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t get the words out.

I knew what I wanted to say, but the fear of saying the words was too much.

I had learned sign language and got used to being treated like a mute. I had made it through school and managed to find a remote job I could do from home that didn’t require any talking. As long as my work was done on time, I barely ever talked to my boss.

My mom had died three years ago, and up until that day, she tried to get me to talk more freely.

“Shh,” the man in front of me cooed. “You’re safe with me.”

This man had no idea who I was, and he was trying to comfort me. Who did something like that?

“You got any clue who did this to us?” A flat laugh rumbled from his chest. “A name to go with the voice coming from the ceiling?”

For the past twenty-eight years of my life, I had managed to make it through without speaking much. I could motion, write, or sign my way out of anything.

Not now.

Not when this guy couldn’t see past his own nose.

I needed to speak to help us both get out of here alive.

My body tensed, and I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“Sugar,” the man called. “I need you to talk to me. I swear I’m not going to hurt you.”

I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. The psycho upstairs was another story, though. I closed my eyes and willed the words to come out of my mouth. They had to. “I-I-I am fi-n-n-ne.”

“What’s your name?” he asked. He didn’t hesitate or make a snide comment.

“Tess,” I managed to say clearly.

“I’m Zag, sugar. You happen to know who the voice in the ceiling is?”

What kind of name was Zag? “He is m-m-my step-b-b-brother.”

“Your stepbrother is keeping you locked up in a dark basement?”

Normally, no.

Hell, I hadn’t even seen Malcom for the past eight years. My mother had divorced his dad when I was twenty, and I hadn’t seen him since. “S-s-s-so it would s-s-seem.” The urge to clamp my lips closed was overwhelming. I didn’t want to talk anymore.