“Yes.” One of them growled as he took a step towards me. I didn’t see any kindness in his eyes and I started to tremble with terror.
“Hel—” Before the words could come out of my mouth, he closed the distance between us and clamped a hand over my mouth.
“You’ll do plenty of screaming when we get you to the west wing, but right now I think you should just keep quiet.” The beast behind the one with his hand clamped over my mouth snarled as he spoke.
The one who had spoken reached down and grabbed my legs while the other kept a hand clamped over my mouth. They carried me out of the library and while I tried to struggle, they were much too powerful for me. I was alone in the castle except for Alexander and he was likely still sleeping if he hadn’t returned to the library. They carried me down a dark corridor that seemed to stretch on for miles. The others had told me about the twins, but they said they never ventured out of the west wing. They carried me to a large room that had a roaring fire and a lot of wolf pelts on the floor. Something was shoved into my mouth once we arrived, but I couldn’t see what it was. The one that held my feet dropped them onto the floor and grabbed a piece of rope. They secured it to my hands and then did the same to my feet. I looked up at them as they circled me like wolves staring at their prey.
“I’m going to remove the gag from your mouth, but if you scream, you won’t like what I do to you,” one of them said angrily.
“Yes.” My words were muffled through the gag, but they were audible enough for them to understand.
“My name is Braden. This is my twin brother Shane.” He pulled my gag away and stared into my eyes.
“We’ve been watching you, Anabelle.” Shane chuckled. “We really like what we see.”
“We like it a lot.” Braden nodded and stood back up, tossing the gag towards the fireplace.
Chapter 12: Braden
1987
I was supposed to be the good twin. Nobody would know that if they walked in and saw me standing over the body of a drug dealer with a briefcase of money in one hand and well over a million dollars worth of cocaine at my feet. My brother started gathering it as I tucked my gun back into the back of my pants. The money and the drugs were our retirement plan. We had been selling cocaine in Miami for nearly three years and we were wealthy, but as long as the kingpin of Miami’s drug trade had us on his payroll, we would never be able to enjoy it. We planned the hit for months, carefully moving the chess pieces until we had everything in place. It would look like a drug deal gone bad and nobody was going to mourn the bastard we killed. We had practically did the police a favor, even if it was only for our benefit. The only thing that we had to do was walk out the warehouse, get into our Porsche, and ride off into the sunset. New York seemed like a good place to unload the product and start over with a new life.
“We did it!” Shane let out a howl as I cranked up the car and put it in drive.
“Yes we did.” I looked over at him and smiled.
“I bet that was a bigger rush that scoring a touchdown—fuck the NFL. You’re still getting your million dollars.” He slammed his fist into the dashboard several times and let out another howl.
When I was the good twin, football was my life. I was the hottest quarterback coming out of high school, so I naturally chose to commit to Miami State College. They already had one national championship under their belt and I planned to bring several more home before I moved on to the NFL and lived out my fantasy of becoming a professional football player. My brother came along for the ride. They gave him a scholarship, but he didn’t have coaches throwing money at him, so he found another way to make it. I chastised him for his choices until I went down in the last game of my college career with a hit to my knee that snapped my leg in half. I went from being the number one prospect in the draft to facing a career ending injury. Surgery was unsuccessful, and a year after I played my last game, I was working at a bank instead of scoring touchdowns. I wanted the life I thought I deserved and when my brother said I could make a whole month’s salary in one night, I gave in and joined his cocaine crusade.
“Nobody will even know us in New York. We’ll unload this coke a little at a time and when it is gone, we’ll never have to work again.” He stared at the bag of powder. “But maybe just a taste?”
“We’re definitely not selling all of it.” I winked at him and he opened one of the bags.
New York was a dream come true. We no longer had to worry about one of our deals going bad because people knew how much product we were moving. We were literally nobodies in a city that loved cocaine. We could sell what we could move without much effort and our pockets were always full of cash without touching our retirement fund. We snorted our way through a couple of bags while we enjoyed the city and the beautiful women in it. Life was a party seven days a week. Our spending habit attracted a bit of attention, but most of it was good. If someone crossed us, we knew how to deal with them. Most of the time it was just a back-alley brawl or a dispute we settled in the parking lot without ever having to brandish a weapon. We were so high that we didn’t think we would ever have to come down and that was just fine with us. Life was a gift and we intended to enjoy every second of it until we had our fill and settled down.
“Do you ever miss Miami?” My brother ran a hundred-dollar bill through a line of cocaine and leaned back with a smile when the sting hit his nostril.
“Not at all.” I shook my head and followed his lead.
“Someone certainly misses you...” A voice broke our drug fueled laughter and I turned to see a woman with emerald eyes walking towards us. “Or rather they miss the money and the drugs you stole.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I stood up and towered over the woman.
“Someone who doesn’t like thieves, especially when they steal from me.” As she got closer, I noticed what appeared to be a faint green glow around her.
“We didn’t steal from you.” Shane stood up. “We don’t even know you.”
“But you did...” Her eyes narrowed, almost covering the shimmer that reflected off of them. “Every time I find someone I care about—every fucking time—someone like you comes along and takes him from me.”
“What?” I looked at my brother.
“Lady, we don’t know you.” He held up his hands.
It seemed like nobody else in the club was even paying attention to the woman or the green glow she was surrounded by. I tried to take a step forward, but my foot wouldn’t move. It felt like it was rooted in place or glued to the floor. The woman got closer and I looked to Shane in a panic but I saw the same reflection of fear in his eyes. My hand went to the back of my pants, but my gun wasn’t there. I desperately felt around but there was no sign of it. When I looked back towards the woman who was approaching, I saw it in her hand. She tossed it to the side and it landed right next to a group of people who were talking, but they didn’t even look our way. It was like we were completely invisible to them. I started to yell, trying to get their attention, but they didn’t even look my way. The woman got so close that I could feel her breath on my face before she lifted her hand.
“The two of you will suffer for eternity for what you have done.” With a flick of her wrist the world collapsed on itself and I was spinning in darkness with Shane right beside me.