Perfect Rage (Unyielding 3)

I gritted my teeth as the familiar sound of chains being rolled through the pulley echoed in the cell. There was one bright light above me like a spotlight and it gave off intense heat onto my naked bleeding back.

I knew torture tactics. Shit, I’d seen them and whoever these people were, they had a handbook on them. I embraced fear. Lived my life as an adrenaline junky, liked the rush, the anticipation of doing something that could kill you.

There was no adrenaline rush for what was to come in this underground hell; instead, I felt calm. Fear ate your sanity. It took your control and I was also a control junky. Fuck, it wasn’t always a great quality, but I wasn’t perfect.

The chains grew taut and my muscles strained as they stretched, legs kept locked to the end of the table. I closed my eyes, cheek resting against the hard, smooth surface of the table then concentrated on my breathing.

The clinking of chains stopped with a bang as they were locked in place. Burning pain tore through my limbs and despite trying to relax, my body trembled under the pressure of being stretched past its limits.

“You going to say something one of these fuckin’ days?” I asked. The words were difficult to get out with my dry throat and I coughed several times which jerked the chains and hurt like a fucker.

There was a shuffle of feet and low, indistinguishable whispers behind me. A door opened and closed.

Fuck.

I’d be here a while, probably until I passed out and then they’d find a way to keep me awake. And they seemed to know when I was about to pass out so I knew they had a camera in the cell.

Fuck them.

Fuck all of them.

I was a crap singer, at least my sister told me I was, which made this all the sweeter if they were listening.

My throat killed and it hurt like hell, but I sang anyway.

I fuckin’ sang the Canadian national anthem twelve times before some guy came and gagged me.Question 5: How do you take your coffee?I WOKE TO knocking and then a girl’s muffled call. “Alina?”

It was London.

I moaned, flopping onto my back, arm over my eyes to block the morning sun and wishing I’d closed the window and the drapes last night.

Last night.

Then it all flooded back.

Connor.

Inside me.

His mouth on mine.

Punching the wall.

The anguish on his face.

I darted upright and looked at the empty spot beside me where Connor had been hours before.

He was gone, but then I’d seen him leave.

And I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.

I closed my eyes as an intense ache hit my chest. No, it was more than an ache; it was emptiness which was far worse. Pain meant I felt. This… this was nothing, just a cold¸ dark hole left inside me. He took it with him.

He told me he couldn’t stay. I knew that before I slept with him. It didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Pet, you need to cool it with the knocking.” I frowned at the accented, unfamiliar male voice. Who was that?

The door slamming last night. It had been the guy living downstairs.

I strained to hear London’s reply, but it was muffled.

“Flew in late last night…” His voice lowered and I couldn’t hear what else he said.

But I heard London retort. “You did not just ask me that?”

He laughed then, “Guess that’s a no.”

“It’s a hell no.”

Then he said, “Spare key is under the blue gnome with the red overalls.”

Oh, my God, the guy knew where a key was to the house? Well, my part of the house.

I threw my legs over the side of the bed, my feet hitting the smooth hardwood, then grabbed my pants from the oversized lounge chair in the corner of the room and tugged them on. I snagged a light pullover and put it on as I ran down the hall, down the stairs and yanked open the front door.

London stood looking a little flustered as she held her cell in her hand. Shit, I’d turned my ringer off at work and never thought to turn it back on with everything that happened.

“I tried calling first,” she said.

“Sorry, I had the ringer off.”

My eyes shifted to the guy leaning against the porch railing watching us. Wow. He was so not like Deck or any of the other guys.

He was covered in tattoos and I mean covered. Arms. Neck. Throat. And he had a trimmed, neat beard with dark brown hair chin-length in the front and cropped short in the back. He had an attractive face, defined and masculine with eyes that drooped in the outer corners giving him a doleful look, but it contradicted the twinkle in the hazel depths.

He also smelled like coffee and cigarettes with a hint of aftershave.