Three years before
“Isobel,” I rasp, throat raw, “Isobel, baby.”
She’s been stirring for a few minutes now, and it wouldn’t be long before she woke. I needed to see her and speak to her before they came back. I needed to make her understand.
“Snow, please, wake up.”
Her head rolls to the side as she struggles to lift it and open her eyes. The whimper of pain that comes from her breaks me.
“Baby, it’s okay.”
“Hunter?” She says with a rattle.
“It’s me, Snow, open your eyes for me.”
“What happened?” Tears spill from her eyes, leaving clear tracks over her dirtied skin but then she goes deadly still, and her eyes widen as she remembers it all. “Who are you?”
“Isobel, it’s me.”
“No, you’re one of them.”
“Listen to me, Snow, I–”
The door slams open and Clayton, Derek and Tobias walk in followed by several bigger men. Their personal bodyguards. I was going to kill them all. I was going to rip them apart. I could already picture it, see it with my eyes and feel their death on my hands. I wanted their screams.
I would start with Clayton first. I would sever his hands while he watched, I’d do it slowly and that’s just for what he did to her back up in that dining room. After his hands were removed, I’d start on the rest of him. Slowly.
Isobel jerks up her chin as the three men circle her but keep their eyes on me. I knew why they were doing this. Why they were doing this to her.
“You’ve been working with us for two years now,” Clayton says, “You’ve seen what we do to those who disappoint.”
“I am not your employee.”
“You’re right, you’re not,” Clayton agrees, “But nonetheless, you are a disappointment. We gave you a job and you did not fulfil your end. Have I not been generous?”
“Fuck you!” I growl.
“I think we have been more than generous with you, Hunter. You asked for the girl,” my eyes snap to Isobel, “We gave her to you. She was yours as you asked. We’ve been lenient, no one touched her, she was your property, and your respect was earned but now, now you go and fuck us over and for what?”
I think back to the job that led us here, to the woman in that small house with her children. She looked like Isobel, she looked like my Snow, and I couldn’t. Seeing her in that house, with her children and life all around her, I could picture that being us, that being me and my Snow and I couldn’t do it. That had never happened to me before, I never failed on a target.
“A bit of used pussy?”
My temper flares hotter than the sun. I risk a glance at Isobel but her face, it reveals nothing. There’s no emotion in her eyes, no shock or horror or even sadness, there’s nothing. She stares blankly at me, doesn’t react to the words, she doesn’t do anything.
It’s shock I tell myself, it can only be shock.
“But you see, Hunter, I can’t punish you, despite the fuck up, you are far too valuable to harm but her,” Clayton grips Isobel’s chin and snaps her head up, forcing her to look at him. She reacts to this, crying out at the angle he’s making her sit in, a slight move the wrong way and he’ll snap her neck, “Her, I can punish and make you watch.”
“Take your fucking hands off her,” The chains they have on me rattle, and clang as I thrash, trying to get out of them. I could feel this blooming pit of darkness opening inside of me, and I was about to let it eat me alive, eat us all.
I tug my hands, trying to get them through the cuffs, pulling and ripping at my skin but I can’t free them, and I have to watch as Clayton runs his hand through her hair and grabs a fistful, yanking it until tears stream from her eyes, and her mouth opens in a scream.
“You live for the screams, don’t you, Hunter? This is why you were so highly coveted; your depravity had no bounds.”
Isobel looks at me. While a part of her remained dead, she was pleading. Pleading for it to stop. For me to end it.
But this was just the start.
Tobias and Derek stand to the side, only spectators to Clayton’s beating on Isobel. He backhands her.
“Get off her!”
Blood trickles from the side of her mouth.
Clayton smiles and withdraws an ancient looking blade, twisting the ivory handle in his palm, the blade sheathed in leather. He takes it from the leather and inspects the tip, the sharp edge of it glinting in the low lighting of the cell we’re being held in.
“Will this teach you a lesson, Hunter?” Clayton asks, “That you may be the killer, but we’re the masters.”
I go very still as he places the tip against her throat.
She whimpers, tears streaming.
“I don’t want to die,” she sobs, “Please. I don’t want to die.”
Clayton laughs.
“Even your little pet knows, Hunter, actions have consequences.”
“Clayton,” I warn, my wrists bleeding.
He presses it in harder and I watch as a droplet of blood wells and then rolls down her throat.
Her cries turn silent as if she just simply accepts her fate.
She would die because of me.
How did I not see this coming? Why did I keep her here? I could have gotten her out. Why didn’t I get her fucking out!?
It all happens quickly, one minute he’s at her throat with the blade, the next he’s moved and slammed the thing into her thigh, so hard and brutally it goes all the way through and into the chair beneath her leg.
She screams.
My eyes widen, sickness and fear, real fear, fear I’d never felt before floods my veins.
Blood pools and drips off the rim of the chair, dropping like a steady beat to the floor. Drip. Drip. Drip.
So much blood. My Snow. My precious Snow.
“I will do this all night, Hunter, you will learn.”
He twists the knife, making her scream once more.
“Isobel,” I call out to her, “Isobel, look at me, baby.”
Her glassy eyes latch onto mine. Pain and terror etching into every line of her face, “Look at me, Snow, I’m here. I’m with you.”
“How precious,” Clayton mocks, “it’s foolish of you to show your weakness like this, I thought better of you and for it to be a woman?” He scoffs, “How fucking pathetic.”
I ignore him.
“It’s just you and me, baby. I’ve got you, remember? I’ll never let you go.”
Clayton snatches out the knife, letting her blood rush from the open wound, over her naked thigh. It runs rivers over her pale dirty skin.
Her cries of pain echo inside my head, latch onto my soul and bury so deep the screams will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“How much can you take, Hunter?”
Isobel breathes unevenly, her eyelids drooping, her consciousness slipping.
“Isobel, stay with me.”
“Just let me go,” she whispers, “It’s okay.”
“No!”
“How much can you take, Hunter!?” Clayton bellows.
He rips the knife up the centre of her night gown, exposing her naked body beneath, save for the simple white cotton underwear, she’s completely exposed, all the scars and dirt and blood.
“She takes it so well,” Clayton comments, “Do you want to see!?”
“I’ll work for you!” I blurt, “I’ll do whatever you want!”
Clayton pauses.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, I’ll work for you. No more freelance, no more walking away. I’m yours, but you let her go. You let her out of this cell right now.”
“You know we can’t let her go, Hunter.”
“Then you take her back to her room and no one fucking touches her. Those are my terms.”
“You’ll hand yourself over to the Syndicate for her?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“You have me. Let her go.”
At some point during the conversation Isobel lost consciousness. She slumps over, her body only remaining in the chair because of the restraints.
Clayton grabs her chin, forcing her head up but she remains unconscious. Her blood continues to flow from the wound in her leg, bruises blooming on her face, and he must have caught her with the knife as he ran it up her clothes because there’s a thin line of blood in the centre of her chest, a thin scratch that’s split her skin.
“But she’s so pretty, Hunter, why would I let this go?”
“You have me, Clayton. I will do whatever you want, but you touch her, you lay one more finger on her, I will hunt you down and I will kill you. The only way you will stop me is if you put a bullet in my brain, but you won’t do that will you? I’m far too valuable.”
His nostrils flare.
“You know I speak the truth and you know I won’t make your death quick. It will be slow. I will peel the skin from your bones. This is your choice, choose wisely.”
He finally shows his fear.
The man was scared of death, but little did he know he’d just invited death right through his front door.
“I accept your terms,” he clicks his fingers, “Treat the wound and put her in her cell.”
The guards go to Isobel, untying her before lifting her from the chair, a glare from me has them cradling her gently, holding her bridal style rather than over the shoulder that I know they would have done.
“Terms,” Clayton begins, “There will be many.”
The pressure in my chest eases as I watch them take her from this space, though it doesn’t go far as I note the blood dripping from her leg, leaving a path behind her. If the blood loss didn’t kill her then infection would. She needed to be treated.
“Have a doctor tend to her,” I demand.
Clayton pauses.
“It’s the only thing I care about, Clayton,” I admit my truth, “I care about nothing else, not you, not money or fame or glory, just her. I will do everything you ask of me. I will kill and maim and hunt, but you look after her, or there is no me to use.”
He smirks, thinking he has me.
What he doesn’t realize is I’ve just planned out the next five years of our lives and memorized exactly how each one of them would suffer.