Page 60 of Cole: Bloodlines
“Cole—stop it. For fuck's sake, you're not the one causing this shit! It’s not your faulthecame afteryou.” Gabe grabbed his shoulders, fingers digging into the sweat-soaked cotton, feeling the rigid tension underneath. “You fought back. You wounded him and sent him running. Don't let that fucker back inside your head, or hewillwin.”
Cole squeezed his eyes shut, crow's feet deepening at the corners, then opened them slowly, tears streaming down his stubbled cheeks. “If we don't get out of here...” his voice trembled, “...then he's already won. Because even if we take them out—but they've already hurt the kids—then where is the fucking victory?”
“I'm just saying,” Gabe spoke calmly, his breath visible in the chill air between them, “that we have to figure out a way to escape this room. And I can't do that alone. I need your head to be clear.”
Cole cleared his throat and nodded, the muscles in his jaw working beneath skin gone pale as chalk. “Okay,” he rasped, looking around the large, shadowy room where water stains spread like dark continents across the ceiling. “If we don't get out through the door...” he sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of a trembling hand. “...then how do we get out?”
Following the path of Cole's gaze around the room, Gabe sighed and shook his head, shoulders slumping beneath his blood-stained shirt. “I don't—”
The door latch disengaged from the outside with a metallic scrape that sliced through the silence like a blade.
Cole raised the gun his dad dropped, his fingers closing around the grip. “Get behind me,” he told Gabe, his voice dropping to a whisper as he widened his stance and steadied his aim. His hands, which had trembled with panic moments before, now held the weapon with eerie stillness, a predatory focus replacing the desperate fear in his eyes.
CHAPTER 26: DEATH GRIP
Maddy stopped abruptlywhen he spotted a faint, silvery glow ahead, filtering weakly from the next corridor to the left and cutting through the suffocating darkness. His heart fluttered with hope. He moved forward again, the soles of his bare feet crunching over crumbling plaster and broken pieces of metal, each step faster. If there were windows, maybe he could squeeze through, drop outside, and run for help—he'd been wandering these maze-like hallways for what felt like hours, though it surely wasn’t that long, and he might never find Savannah on his own. The thought of her alone somewhere in this nightmare made a cold sweat trickle down his spine. Maddy picked up the pace, lungs burning as he sprinted toward the pale light that seemed natural, like moonlight streaming through fog.
He was practically running when he rounded the corner. It wasn’t moonlight, but the faint graying of dawn that filtered through the tall, jagged windows, casting just enough light to show a massive figure—shoulders as wide as a doorframe—coming from the far end of the corridor, like some fucking monstrous giant ripped straight from the boss level of a horror game.
“Shit!”Maddy's scream tore his throat raw as a section of the giant's shoulderdetachedand leapt through the moonlight. His body reacted before his brain could process—spinning mid-stride, feet skidding across slick concrete. The floor rushed up, cracking him in the face. His palms shredded on jagged debris, blood instantly warm between his fingers as glass sliced into his knees. He scrambled up, leaving skin behind, the taste of blood in his mouth where he’d bitten down on his tongue when he hit the floor.
The corridor behind him erupted with wet, guttural panting, almost animal-like and feral.Shit-shit-shit!Maddy's lungs burned, acid-scorched, as he careened through blackness, ankles twisting over invisible rubble. The thing's breath hit his neck—hot, fetid—before he heard the sound that stopped his heart: teeth snapping at air where his flesh had been a millisecond before. A high-pitched cackle pierced his eardrums, the sound of something that enjoyed the chase. Maddy's vision tunneled, legs pumping on pure terror.
Oh fuck-fuck-fuck—
A weight slammed into his back with the force of a wrecking ball, driving him face-first into the concrete. His chest collapsed, lungs emptying in a violent rush that left stars bursting behind his eyelids. Before he could suck in a breath, razored teeth punctured the tender flesh at his nape, crunching down until vertebrae creaked. Maddy's scream died in his throat. His heart hammered so violently he felt it might rupture as dust clogged his flaring nostrils.
Blood roared in his ears as he gasped for breath through a mouthful of grit and rust. The creature's claws—no,fingernails—dug between his ribs, seeking purchase in the spaces between bone, trembling with barely restrained violence.
The thing straddling him was human; he could feel the shape of the body as it wrapped around him. Its erection pulsed against Maddy's lower back, twitching with each whimper that escaped his throat. Rancid breath scalded his skin as the teeth broke deeper, and blood trickled down his neck. Maddy's fingers scrabbled uselessly against shattered glass and twisted metal, slicing open as thunderous footfalls approached—the giant coming to claim what hishellhoundhad caught. Terror crystallized in Maddy's chest, a jagged shard of ice that spread outward until even his tears felt frozen.
The horror of his kidnappers paled against whatever monstrosity now claimed him as prey. With every heartbeat, this place birthed new horrors.
The boy's natural scent—sweat-soaked and fear-soured skin—mingled with the metallic tang of blood coating Jitterbug's tongue, sending electric pulses of excitement from his taste buds straight to his groin. His yellowed, knife-sharp nails dug into the boy's ribs, the flesh beneath his fingertips paradoxically both winter-chilled and summer-warm, like meat left to thaw. Jitterbug dragged his ragged nails across the goosebumped terrain, counting each rib with sadistic precision, savoring the way they protruded slightly beneath the taut skin. He ground his hips forward in small, twitching circles, his engorged flesh straining against filthy fabric as it nestled against the boy's quivering butt cheeks, feeling every tremor of terror through the threadbare, grime-encrusted underwear that separated predator from prey—a flimsy shield against the gnawing, bottomless hunger that clawed at Jitterbug's insides like a beast of its own.
Jitterbug detached his yellowed, needle-like teeth from the kid's neck with a wet sucking sound, then dragged his sandpaper tongue across the puncture wounds, leaving glistening trails of saliva mixed with crimson. His jaw chattered uncontrollably like a wind-up toy as a fresh surge of excitement flooded his slight frame, making his limbs twitch and spasm.“You taste good...”he tittered, voice cracking between octaves as he licked the boy's chilled, dirt-streaked skin, savoring the salt-copper-fear flavor that bloomed across his taste buds.
Hunger and lust heated his blood until it simmered beneath his pale skin, his consciousness narrowing to pinprick focus until his whole existence was comprised solely of theboy beneath him—the intoxicating musk of terror-sweat, the metallic flavor of youth, the exquisite softness of unblemished flesh yielding beneath his trembling, eager fingers with their cracked, jagged nails.
When Bram moved closer, Jitterbug's throat produced a sound like rusty hinges, his bony arms constricting around the boy, sharp nails puncturing the skin between ribs. “Mine…”
Bram towered over the scene, a monolithic silhouette against the dim corridor, utterly unintimidated by the small, feral creature hunched over its prey. “Release him,” he rumbled, each syllable rolling like distant thunder. Not an order or command; simply a request. His deep, almost guttural voice resonated through the dank corridor like an entity all its own, vibrating the very molecules of stagnant air.
Still, Jitterbug clung to his prey, spine arching, growling through phlegm-coated vocal cords. His mind remained shrouded in primitive darkness, unable to perceive anything beyond the shadows of his own hunger. Something familiar and deadly bubbled deep in his core, a sticky, tar-like substance refusing to allow him to obey Bram's words. “Mine,”he hissed through clenched teeth, flecks of bloody spittle spraying with each possessive syllable.
“Bug.” Bram's voice scraped like boots on gravel, dropping to a register so low it vibrated the filth-encrusted floor beneath them. The sound made Jitterbug's head twitch to the right, tendons standing out like guitar strings beneath his sallow skin. “Not yours. Release him.”
Jitterbug twitched again, his entire body convulsing like a marionette with tangled strings. The shadows coating his brain shifted and swirled like oil in murky water, disrupting the cloying darkness that had enveloped his consciousness. Another warning growl emitted from his throat, wet and feral.
Bram reached down, and Jitterbug's reaction was instantaneous—he snapped, sinking his jagged, yellow-brown teeth into the man's hand, puncturing the calloused flesh until warm blood flooded his mouth. He held on, snarling with flecks of crimson foam bubbling at the corners of his cracked lips.
The big man didn't flinch, curse him, or strike him; his face remained impassive as granite beneath his matted beard. “Bug,” he rumbled without reprimand, his voice like stones tumbling down a mountainside. “Remember the pretty baby.” His free hand touched Jitterbug's head, his thick fingers pushing through the creature's stringy, grease-slicked strands that hung like dead vines. “You will hurt her.”
His head twitching in violent, birdlike jerks, Jitterbug unclamped his jaws from Bram's bleeding hand. Bloody saliva dripped from his chin as he gazed up at the mountainous figure looming above him. The blackness in his head began to thin, like morning fog, turning ashen gray as his tunnel vision slowly widened, and the world's edges bled back into his awareness. He frowned, confused by Bram's words, his brow furrowing into deep ravines across his sallow forehead.“I don't hurt...”he whispered, voice cracking,“...pretty babies.”
Maddy lay frozen in terror, his breath hitching in staccato bursts against the filthy floor as tears streamed down his face, dripping onto the ice-cold concrete. His mind was paralyzed, incapable of grasping what the fuck was happening—andhowit was happening. He felt trapped in a horror movie, pinned down by something not quite human—yet ithadto be, because thiswasn’ta horror movie, as much as it felt like one.
The giant, though terrifying in sheer size alone, was less frightening than the thing on his back, clutching him like prey.Maddy tried not to focus on the thing’scock, hard against his cheeks, wedged into the cleft of his ass. He had thought nothing would be worse than his kidnapper raping him. But somehow, getting raped by thisthingfelt worse.
