Desolation Road (Torpedo Ink 4)

“What do you have, Code?” Absinthe asked, needing something else to concentrate on.

It was difficult to breathe. He knew already exactly who was broadcasting that kind of rage. There was only one person who had the kinds of demons that ate him up from the inside out. None of them had found a way to help and all of them had tried. The room was large, the windows open, but still it didn’t matter. At times, the rage inside of Savage built and built until there was no way to contain it. He was at a breaking point. Absinthe didn’t have to touch him to feel the way the past haunted him.

Absinthe heard the screams in Savage’s mind. Pleas. Smelled blood. The scent of sex. Heard whispered words of promises and then the whistle of whips or floggers. Not the kinds of whips found in adult toy stores. Whips that could cause permanent damage if not wielded by a master. He tried not to see the images pressing into his mind. He didn’t want them there. He didn’t want to see writhing bodies marked with red streaks and tears. He didn’t want to smell burning flesh or hear the screams as a young child was encouraged to practice whipping, branding, piercing and eventually breath play.

It was all he could do not to put his hands over his ears and rush from the room. It was years of discipline that saved him. That was always what saved him. He’d been sharing the demons of the other Torpedo Ink members since he was a young boy.

“Her name really is Scarlet Foley,” Code said. “She’s twenty-seven years old.”

Absinthe was relieved. He loved her name. Scarlet suited her with all that long red hair. He forced himself away from rage and hurt and the need for violence in order to crawl out from under the past and concentrated on breathing, needing to see his librarian, the woman who had the ability to save his sanity.

“When she was seventeen, she was convicted of attempted murder. Three men, college friends. Frat brothers. One, by the name of Holden—Robert Barnes-Holden the Third—apparently brought her to a party. She was already in her second year of college and he was dating her. I pulled up the trial itself,” Code continued, “and it looks to me as though it was a clear case of self-defense, but Holden’s family is very wealthy and her family not so much. Daddy Holden bought off the defense attorney. I know he did because I dug deeper and found the payoff.”

Absinthe had to move around the table away from Savage to one of the windows so he could take a deep enough breath to fill his lungs with air. He made certain it looked natural, as if he had to pace, but his own rage, ever present, twisted with Savage’s again, making it nearly impossible to control. She’d been seventeen.

“They tried her as an adult,” Code added.

There was silence in the room. Absinthe stayed by the window, needing to know details, but afraid to ask, to hear. It was going to be bad. Code always read his reports in that same tone, but this one held a note of warning. Of underlying anger.

Or was Savage’s rage feeding everyone’s? That could happen. They were going to lose him if something wasn’t done soon. Absinthe risked a look at him. Savage had his head down, one hand over his eyes, pressing his fingers deep, as if his head was pounding. Absinthe knew it was. He was angry on Scarlet’s behalf as well as at the fuckers who had taken a little boy and shaped him into a monster.

“What happened?” Lana was the one who eventually asked.

Czar snagged a bottle of cold water and handed it to Absinthe, who was standing almost directly behind him. Absinthe was careful to avoid brushing fingers.

“Holden tried to get her drunk. He must have slipped her some kind of drug. During her testimony, she said she didn’t remember how she got upstairs to the bedroom, but when she did, she didn’t object to having sex with Holden. He was her boyfriend and she liked him. She was very honest and open about that. She agreed she would have sex with him. Unfortunately, here’s where things get murky. Holden Jr. testified that Scarlet was freaky in bed. That she got off on him telling her what to do. She didn’t like regular sex. On the stand, when his lawyer asked if that was the truth, she admitted it was.”

Absinthe swore under his breath. That was private between two people, not something for a courtroom or newspapers. Naturally, Holden Sr. would make certain everyone heard that piece of information about a teenage girl. Now he understood why Scarlet was worried about his thinking she was weird for her wanting him to take the lead. It would also make it more difficult for him when he did explain more of what he needed from her. What fucking bastards they were.