Sicko

“We wait.”

I remembered nothing. Blank spots filled my memory as I lifted my hand up to touch my head. Blindfolded. “Fuck!”

“Roy?” Orson called out from somewhere in the room.

“Yeah, bro. It’s me. Storm?”

Storm grunted roughly from behind me. “Here.”

“Are you all blindfolded too?”

“Yes,” Orson hollered, with the sound of his jeans shuffling against the ground. “You remember anything after being in your room?”

“No,” I answered tightly, my muscles tensing as I tugged on the binds around my wrists. “Nothing after falling asleep.” We all crashed in my room eventually, waiting for my dad to “handle it.”

Hands tucked beneath my blindfold, tearing it off. A boy around my age with wide shoulders and short hair was glaring down at me with cold, distant eyes. “Don’t try to fight anything,” he says. “Just go with it.” I reared back from him, snarling.

“How do I know that Diamond isn’t you?”

Wicked stares at me blankly. Unnerved and unfazed. “Because I’m not.”

“And we’re supposed to believe you?” Orson said, snarling. “Boy, take my blindfold off.”

“I’d listen to him,” I said, spitting the blood that’s pooling in my mouth. He moves to Orson, removing his blindfold and ties around his wrist before shifting to Storm.

“I’m Lenox, and I ain’t fucking him.”

He finally came back to me, removing the tight ropes around my wrists. I flexed them around in circles. A loud crackle of sound echoed through speakers as I finally took in the room. Dark walls, one bed, one chair. No windows, no mirrors, one door—with a small window in the front. It smelled of bleach and expensive perfume. Maybe we’re in a lab inside a house.

“Welcome, boys. Since you decided to defy me and attempt to run, consider this your warning and your punishment.” His voice was the same. The unnatural robotic undertones a dead giveaway that whoever this bastard was, he didn’t want anyone knowing. “I’m going to starve you to within an inch of your life, and then I will feed you whatever I wish to feed you. You will do as I say while you’re in here or I will start killing off each of your family members, starting with Jade.” My blood turned cold again. “You will do everything I tell you to do, and if you oblige to all, I will free you on the sixteenth day with your vehicles, your necessities, but not your dignity. You will be required to perform tasks to meet my needs. All tasks must be completed. All you will have is each other in this den. All you will see is each other, all you will fuck is each other, and all you will eat, will be each other. If you don’t listen, that is. Otherwise, I might be kind and feed you someone in my freezer.”

I stilled, all of us foraging around the room while every now and then our eyes would land on each other.

“I’m a powerful man. Don’t believe me? When you get out of here—if you do—Google Diamond. You’ll get an idea.”

I’m squeezing the steering wheel, refusing to relive the sixteen days we spent together in what Diamond called The Den. “What happened when we left?” My voice is cold, distant.

I wish I could say that we obeyed him from the second we were abducted into The Den, but fuck, of course we didn’t. He lived up to everything he promised, though. In a way, I think that’s why the four of us formed an even stronger bond. We left on the sixteenth day, but Wicked stayed behind. He wasn’t released until the twenty-first day, which is why we’re having this tense fucking conversation. I was pretty fucked up after it all happened. The club healed me; Lion saved me. I could have lost myself the day that I walked into Patches, but instead I found myself. A new family. I tried therapy anyway, because I was young and fresh out of being in the millionaire kids’ club. It was the answer to everything growing up. Something your parents can’t handle? Off to a flashy therapist who’d drain your parents’ pockets dry while making you feel like a colossal fuck up. You don’t need therapy when you’re around people who don’t make you feel like you’re alone or crazy or fucked up for surviving the shit you did.

Wicked clears his throat. I already know that I won’t like anything that comes out of his mouth. But like a sucker for pain, I need to know. I need to know every single fucking detail.

“You want to do this now?” Wicked says as I floor it forward, picking up speed. Motorbikes swerve in and out in the rearview mirror, catching up quickly.

“Yeah, I fucking do. Just can’t promise I won’t crash this fucking car and kill us both.”

Wicked doesn’t answer. After a beat of silence—a long fucking beat—the words I didn’t want to hear left his mouth. “He made me do shit to her. Brought her into my Den, same rules. Said she was fresh meat—” Wicked pauses and my breathing catches up heavily. The pulsing in my head is only intensifying, my jealousy rearing its fat fucking head. “—that only he had taken a bite out of.” My control snaps and I swerve into the other lane and drop down, gaining more speed. “Brother, I need you to know that I had no choice.”