Page 168 of Darling Psycho

He grew more desperate.

Colder.

He heard sounds, and they didn’t penetrate through his numbed breathing.

Step after step.

The boys called out her name.

And then he saw it.

Almost fell into it was more correct.

A hole near the wire fencing, and using the light on his phone, showed him an old wooden trunk, no bigger than that ottoman Angela made him carry into his bedroom to keep blankets and pillows inside.

“Holy fuck, is she in there?”

“Christ,” someone else said, “that sick motherfucker. PB, we’re gonna need a crowbar.”

The sense of dread in his chest intensified.

They’d been about to fucking bury her alive.

That’s if she was even breathing still in that tiny coffin.

Then he heard it.

It was faint, at first, over the rushing blood through his ears.

Singing. He heard singing coming from inside the box.

Lawless’ heart restarted, and he yelled out for the crowbar in his black bag. It came from PB as Lawless jumped down into the grave hole.

The others shone lights down.

It took only seconds to prize the trunk open, but it felt like a lifetime.

His fear tasted bitter in his throat.

Impatient.

Coming out of his fucking skin.

“Grumpy...” she exhaled, eyes blinking away from the flashlights.

Lawless’ heart restarted seeing her, hearing her, and there was no thinking about it when he reached down and lifted her out of the box. “I got you, baby.”

Angela whined in pain from being bent into an awkward shape while Pretty-boy came down into the hole to cut through the zip ties from her limbs.

“Thank god,” she said into his chest, “I was about to perspire to death in this sweatbox. They put me in a fucking box, grumpy, like I was a puppet.”

At least she hadn’t lost her sense of humor.

She climbed him like a spider monkey, and Lawless boosted her higher with his hands under her ass until she started pelting kisses all over his face. “I’ve never been happier to see anyone. Happier it’s you, grumpy. I knew if I kept my head, you’d come.”

“We got her,” he heard Snake call to the others.

Things happened fast after that.

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