I slammed my head forward into Chase's.
The next time I opened my eyes, I was alone. The lights were on. Chains hung from the ceiling. I tried not to focus on anything for too long. The walls were melting—no they were bleeding. I pushed my hands down against the floor and shoved myself upward.
Blood crusted my nails. The skin over my knuckles was littered with bruises and scrapes. My panting breaths came in faster, shallower gulps. I had to slow it down. Calm down. I peeked at the bleeding walls again—yeah, still bleeding.
Slowly, because my stomach lurched at the idea of moving, I turned in a circle.
Alone.
Good.
Now... door.
If I put one foot in front of the other, I could get to the door.
Then I could figure out how to open it.
One problem at a time.
"You're so pathetic," a voice as familiar as my own said in an almost bored tone. "How the fuck did you take over the Timberwolves again?"
Head turning, I fought against my reaction. The woman leaning against the far wall was me. Her expression was cool, remote, unapproachable. Every inch Hades. The woman Cass had been so reluctant to even touch.
"This is pathetic." She motioned to me. "Why are you sniveling?"
"I'm not," I argued, even as my voice cracked and a sob tried to escape.
"I just think it's sad.” Daria Wolff shook her head. She wasn't alone. Hannah stood at her side taking notes. "You had so much potential. But look where you ended up."
"Right back where you started," Hayden decried. "How the hell did you fuck up what we spent years dreaming of?"
"Because she let the boys into her bed and into her heart." Dare's voice cut the worst of all. "Zed rejected us before, but did we remember that? Nah. Not when he fucked us until we needed a damn ice pack. And now where is he? Off sucking Chase's dick or something? You should get that man an Oscar. It only took them twelve years, but they finally beat you."
"They haven't beaten me."
"No?" Hades snorted. "From where I'm standing...you're done. You're finished. The Timberwolves are going to scatter unless Zed takes the mantle. They might follow him, you know. He knows where all the bodies are buried. He even helped you bury a few."
And dig some up—even bodies that weren't there.
A slap caught me across the cheek and knocked my head to the side. I spat blood and looked back at myself.
"Zed. Zed. Zed. What the fuck has Zed ever done for you? Really? He couldn't even bring himself to touch you until he thought he was losing you again. How many times did he make a point of fucking women in front of you?"
"It doesn't matter."
"How can you say that?" Dare demanded. "He could have saved us, and he didn't."
"It doesn't matter."
"She's a lost cause," Daria stated. "This woman has no head for business. She's just a mess of chaotic emotions and drugs."
"We had Lucas," Hayden whispered. "Remember that."
"We don't need him." Hades sliced a hand through the air. "And we don't need you."
She hit me again.
Then again.
I welcomed the blows.
One after another until my eyes ached and my jaw didn't quite work right and all I could taste was blood.
"You done?" I asked in a voice hoarse from choking. I didn't wait for her answer. I went for her. "I'm Hades."
"I always was your better half, Darling," Chase mocked as Hades melted into him and the others vanished. He caught my next fist, but not my knee. I didn't care what I tore or broke. I was taking him to Hell with me.
3
When the scene finally faded, my sobs echoed hauntingly through the dark. But no one came. Not when the walls started dripping with burning lava. Not when the ceiling started closing down on me and spikes shot up from the floor.
Thankfully, the drugs in my system allowed me to detach from my own body. I couldn't feel the bite of the leather straps restraining me. The chill in the room had no meaning to me. My body was not my own. I had no physical form anymore. Yet my mind remained tethered to that bed. To that cell of horrors. To the heartbreaking, soul-crushing delusions I was helpless to escape.
The cell door slammed open, deafening, and the harsh light flared to life above me, blinding. So I barely even registered Chase looming over me until he spoke.
"Are we having fun yet, sweet little demon?" He swiped his tongue over his lower lip, and his presence was more tangible this time.
My gaze ducked past him, seeking the patch of floor where Lucas had knelt. Where he'd stared back at me with accusation and betrayal in his eyes as Zed held a gun to his head. It was spotless, though, the floor. Not a single droplet of blood.
I'd imagined it. Of course I had. I should have known my hallucinations would be so much more vivid, more real and painful now. Because unlike the last time I'd been at Chase's mercy, now I had so much more to lose. Lucas, Cass, Seph... Zed. But I didn't need drugs to make me feel the acidic burn of Zed's betrayal. He'd done that all on his own before I’d landed in Chase's dirty clutches.
That clarity alone told me the drugs were wearing off. How long had it been since Chase injected me?
Humming a happy sound, he groped my body again, making me stiffen with revulsion. The drugs were wearing off, and I was back inside my body again. Able to feel once again.
Chase smirked as he twisted my nipple, and I clenched my jaw tight to swallow the scream of pain. "Oh good, I timed this beautifully," he murmured. The same knife he'd used to cut my clothes was in his hand once more, and the mattress dipped as he placed a knee on the side of the bed.
Holding my gaze, he climbed on top of me, straddling my bare stomach and barely bothering to hold his own weight as he leaned in close. His nose trailed a line down the side of my neck as I turned my face away, and the tip of his knife scraped over my ribs, taunting me.
"I wanted to wait until that first high wore off a bit," he confessed in a low murmur. "I'd hate for you to not feel anything when I did this..." Sitting up again, he raised his knife, then slammed it down.
A scream tore from my throat as agony blazed through my shoulder, but Chase just shushed me with his finger over my lips. He left the blade buried in my flesh, right below my collarbone, and unbuckled his pants.
Licking his lips, he gripped his hard dick and started stroking it right there on top of me. I flinched, bile rising in my throat at the sight of his erection. But I'd known it was coming from the second he captured me. He'd taken such delight in abusing my body when we'd been together; why the fuck would he pull his punches now? After all these years of festering, plotting, obsessing... Nah, I'd known full fucking well that given half a chance, Chase would rape me.
Gritting my teeth, I focused on the pain in my shoulder. I ignored the weight of Chase sitting across my torso, ignored his harsh, heavy breathing as he jerked himself off. But that wasn't good enough for him. He raised a hand and cracked it across my face hard enough to make me see stars and jostle the knife.
Fuck me, that hurt.
"Look at me!" he demanded, more than an edge of madness in his voice.