Page 27 of Cole: Bloodlines
“Just do what you’re gonna fucking do,” Gabe growled at the man.
“At least, hear the end of the story. Where the Papa Bear hung the bodies in the park for the friends of Goldilocks and the pretty boys to find.”
Horror widened Gabe’s eyes.
“Did you really think I would let them go?” the madman huffed. “There’s only one way Iletpeople go.”
“Youfuck!”Gabe lunged at the man—and hit the ice-cold floor an instant later as the deputy nailed him in the back. Gabe didn’t move as he gasped against the filthy, freezing concrete, just inches from a puddle of coagulated blood. Musty dirt and grime surged up his nostrils along with the coppery scent of blood, the intense pain of his wounds immobilizing him.
The madman stepped over and, with the tip of his boot, lifted Gabe’s chin, forcing his eyes upward. “The blood you’re inhaling,” he murmured. “That’s where I gutted the boy—while Goldilocks and her pretty brother watched.”
“No…”Gabe choked, teeth gritted as tears spilled down his face. “I’ll fucking… kill you…”
The deputy squatted beside him, grabbed his hair, and craned his head back until the tendons in his neck strained and popped. “I ask again…howdo you plan to do that?”
Gabe stared at him through bulging eyes, glazed with tears, his face flushing hot from the strain on his neck. The deputy chuckled coldly and shoved Gabe’s head forward, smacking his face on the concrete as he released his hair and stood up.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Where are they?!” Angel's plea tore through the night air as his gaze swept frantically across the park. His gaze jumped frantically between the towering trees, their bare branches clawing at the night sky. Shadows pooled beneath them, drowning the grounds in darkness so complete it seemed to swallow sound itself. Dane reached blindly into the glove box, fingers closing around a flashlight that cut a thin, trembling paththrough the blackness, while the others held up phones whose dim screens offered little comfort against the void surrounding them.
“Maddy!” Angel cried out. “Maddy!”
Only the vast, indifferent silence of the night answered, thick and cold around them.
“He lied,” Angel choked out, a raw, primal terror seizing him. “Helied, Dane!They’re not here!They’re not here!”His voice cracked, splintering into hysteria.
“Wait…” Cole’s hand shot out, a sudden stillness in his posture. From the impenetrable black, a faint, disquieting sound drifted—a low, rhythmicthump-thump-thump, like something heavy shifting or swaying. “Over there. I hear something.”
The men moved as one, their footsteps hushed, flashlights carving nervous tunnels through the gloom, revealing only the glistening, frost-tipped grass beneath their feet.
“I don’t see anything…” Devlin whispered, his voice a strained tremor.
Then Cole saw it. A flash of bone-white skin against the void, crumpled at the base of a massive oak.Abel. His name exploded in Cole's brain like a gunshot, and he lunged forward, heart hammering so violently he tasted copper. The flashlight beam stuttered wildly across Abel's naked torso—revealing ropes that bit deep enough to draw blood at wrists and ankles, the bark scraping raw patches on his spine, a filthy rag wedged so brutally between his teeth that his jaw stretched at an impossible angle, eyes bulging with animal terror.
“ABEL!” The name ripped from Cole's throat like something clawed and feral. He crashed to his knees, the impact sending lightning through his bones. “Baby—” The word strangled into a guttural sound as the light revealed Abel's body—a grotesque canvas of purple-black bruises blooming across ribs, cheekbones, jaw. Rivulets of half-dried blood snaked from hishairline, pooled in the hollow of his throat, smeared across his inner thighs in rust-dark handprints.
Cole fumbled frantically at the knot of the ropes, his fingers slipping on the blood-slicked hemp, nails breaking against the impossible tightness. Abel thrashed his head violently, tendons standing out like cords on his neck, eyes bulging white with terror. A guttural, desperate wail tore from behind the filthy gag, the sound barely human. Cole's trembling hand brushed against Abel's bare thigh, slick and warm, and he recoiled instantly, his vision blurring into a kaleidoscope of shadows. His palm was smeared crimson, the blood so dark it looked black in the moonlight, glistening between his fingers like oil. “You're bleeding...” he whispered, the words catching in his throat like broken glass.
Abel screamed again, a desperate, muffled sound that vibrated through his entire body. Cole worked the gag free with shaking hands, the sodden cloth peeling away from cracked, bleeding lips. Abel gasped, a ragged, choking sob that seemed to tear from the depths of his soul, his body wracked with hysterical tremors that rattled his teeth. “Stop him!” he shrieked, his voice raw and shredded, spittle flying from his mouth. “Don't let Angel close!Stop him!”
“What—” Cole's question died as something warm and sticky splattered his cheek with a sick wet sound. His lungs seized. Time fractured as his gaze dragged upward through the darkness, each millimeter an eternity of dread. The scream that erupted from him wasn't human—it shredded his throat raw as he crashed backward, spine slamming against frozen earth hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. The image above burned into his retinas like acid, his body convulsing as if electrocuted. Blood roared in his ears as he scrambled up, legs nearly buckling, lunging toward the others with the desperate strength of pure terror. He collided with Angel, fingers digginginto flesh as he wrenched him around, crushing the younger man against his chest with such force their ribs seemed to fuse. “No-No-No—don’t look!”
“Let me go!”Angel's shriek pierced the night, his body twisting with inhuman strength, fingernails ripping through Cole's shirt and into his skin. Blood welled as Angel clawed for freedom. “Where is Maddy?!Maddy! MADDEEE!!”
Dane stood paralyzed, jaw slack, pupils blown wide as his brain struggled to process the nightmare materializing before him. Angel exploded from Cole's grip with the feral strength of a trapped animal, lunging forward. Dane's body reacted before his mind could—he tackled Angel mid-stride, arms locking around him like steel cables, crushing him against his chest hard enough to crack ribs.
“No, baby!” The words ripped from Dane's throat like barbed wire, his voice shattering with his own escalating horror.“No!”
“Where is he?!”Angel's scream split the night, his neck tendons bulging as spittle flew from his contorted lips. His fingers clawed empty air, drawing blood from his own palms.“Where’s Maddy—where’s my brother?!”
Cole lurched toward Abel, his vision tunneling. Devlin's fingers tore at the blood-slick ropes, skin shredding against the hemp. The instant Abel's wrists broke free, he launched himself at Devlin with such force they nearly toppled, a desperate, guttural wail tearing from him, the sound so primal it barely registered as human. His broken fingernails gouged trenches in his husband's flesh as he clung to Devlin, a desperate anchor as his nearly naked body, slick with sweat and blood, convulsed with the force of his hysterical cries.
Angel, with a final, animalistic shriek that clawed its way from the depths of his throat, tore free from Dane's grasp, his tendons straining beneath sweat-slicked skin. He scrambled forward, a broken, stumbling figure driven by a primal need,his feet catching on frozen tufts of grass. “Maddy—” he choked out, the name fragmenting on his tongue like shattered glass, his voice already dissolving into incoherent pleas that steamed in the frigid air. His knees struck the frost-crusted ground with a sickening thud, the impact splintering through his femurs and up his spine as he collapsed, abruptly silent, frozen like a deer in headlights.
He knelt there, a statue carved from pure disbelief, his pupils dilated to black pools that swallowed his irises. His head began to tremble, a slow, agonizing tremor that started at the base of his skull and rapidly escalated into violent, desperate shaking that sent droplets of sweat flying from his hair. “No… no… no-no-NOOO!!” The sound that erupted from him was a guttural, soul-shattering scream that seemed to vibrate at a frequency that made the night itself shudder. It sliced through Cole's eardrums like serrated metal, reverberating in the hollow of his chest until his ribs felt splintered, the sound crawling beneath his skin like insects burrowing into his marrow.
Angel pitched forward onto his hands and knees, fingernails splitting as they clawed at the frozen earth, his body a crumpled, convulsing mass of raw anguish. Mucus and saliva hung in glistening strands from his contorted lips as he scrambled blindly through frost-tipped grass, each shriek tearing his throat until copper-tasting blood coated his tongue. When Dane reached him, Angel's skin was ice-cold yet slick with sweat, his pulse a frantic butterfly beneath Dane's trembling fingers. As Dane pulled him upward, Angel's spine arched in one last, futile burst of resistance, tendons standing out along his neck. Then he collapsed against Dane's chest, his entire frame shuddering with each ragged inhalation, clinging with such desperate force that his knuckles blanched bloodless white.
