Page 39 of Stolen

Before the guard finished his sentence, a strange sound sliced the air followed by a harsh guttural gasp. I instantly jolted in place, shock locking up my limbs as I watched the guard look down to find his abdomen bleeding profusely until his intestines suddenly burst through and fell into his hands. The other guard immediately took off, running from the grotesque scene, but he didn’t get very far as the owner quickly turned and threw his knife. It landed right in the middle of his back, sending him crashing to the floor on his belly.

With a sure stride, the owner stopped beside the struggling guard, leaned down, and pushed the knife in deeper, causing the guard to scream. The horrid sound made me cringe so hard my muscles strained as I tucked my knees into my chest, clutching my ears to drown out the noise. The screaming finally stopped when the owner removed the knife only to slash it across the guard’s throat, his blood spilling forth to splash and pool all over the floor.

My stomach revolted in disgust, the sickening feeling moving along my spine, causing the room to spin and my vision to blur. Closing my eyes, I turned my focus from the blood and gore to my breathing, counting the erratic beats of my racing heart, willing myself to calm down. But at the sound of the slow approaching footsteps, it was no longer possible.

Carefully opening my eyes, they landed on the dark blue gaze of the owner, penetrating me down to my very bones. All I could do was watch him watch me as he casually knelt to the floor and pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe the blood clean from his knife. When he was finished, he tossed the now red-stained cloth over his shoulder and sheathed the knife back into the holster attached to his belt. The most disturbing part of the entire encounter was his calm and casual demeanor as if the acts he’d just committed were nothing to him and he’d done them a hundred times without a care in the world. It made me shudder at the realization that this man was no ordinary criminal. He was something far more heinous.

“Well,” he said casually. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

I still didn’t have the courage to speak, my motor functions rendered utterly useless in his harrowing presence. But as he cocked an eyebrow, I felt compelled to reveal my misplaced gratitude.

In the midst of his brutal and disturbing actions, I hadn’t realized it had all been done as some type of fucked-up rescue. He’d saved me from what would have surely been a horrible gang-rape, but considering he’d only just done the same thing to me a day before, it was difficult to summon the words.

“Thank you,” I managed to whisper.

He nodded in acknowledgment, but his eyes remained sharp as ever, capturing my attention until he was satisfied with whatever he’d been searching for.

Rising back to his full height, he turned to the doorway and spoke to someone I hadn’t even noticed had been standing there the entire time.

“Summon the rest of the guards. A lesson needs to be learned here,” the owner said to him. The man actually chuckled and shook his head before he pulled out a phone and stepped away to make a call.

Fear swept over me again as I noted I was now alone in the storage room with the owner and three mutilated dead bodies. I don’t know why I did it, but I allowed my gaze to sweep over the floor. The amount of blood that had pooled and splattered all over the room made my stomach clench and twist. The metallic smell of gore and death assaulted my nostrils, creating another horrid memory I didn’t want in my bank. Yet as I collected every scent, every vision, and every feeling, the worst thing of it all was the burn I felt all over my body from the constant scrutiny of the owner. And as my gaze returned to his, I had only one word on my mind.

Why?

Why had he done that? He could have let them do what they wanted. Why should he care? He’d done worse to me anyway, so why would it even matter? I knew if I didn’t get an answer, that question would haunt me for the rest of my life. But I didn’t get the chance to find out before the man at the door had returned and stood just against the wall. His frame and build were similar to the owner’s. With spikey black hair and a hard face, he looked like a damn soldier.

“Could you have made a bigger mess?” he said with a smirk.

The owner just shrugged at him.

Seconds later, about a dozen guards gathered into the room, their stances suddenly stiff as their eyes locked with the bloody scene before them. The owner allowed for a few moments of observation before he moved from the wall he’d been leaning against to address them.

“Does anyone else need a reminder of what happens when my orders are disobeyed?” he asked them.

A collection of “no, sirs” and shaken heads followed in response.

“Good. Now clean this shit up,” he continued before walking away toward the door. He stopped to speak to the man he’d come with and then turned his attention back to me. I didn’t move as his eyes pierced into mine, that deep ocean blue swallowing me into a pit of darkness I feared I would never escape from. Something had changed tonight, and it left me with the most grave of warnings.

The moment he finally left the room, the man he’d spoken to called two guards to have me cleaned up and returned to my cage. Without a single protest from me, they carried my limp body to the showers and let me sit under the warm spray for about five minutes until all the blood had been washed away. I knew I was in shock. I didn’t speak; I barely moved of my own accord, letting them guide me however was necessary until I was gently placed back into my cage and left alone for the night.

I didn’t even know if I slept at all, fearful I would witness everything all over again in my dreams. It was one thing to experience the ass kicking my body had been through. It was another thing entirely to witness the massacre I had just experienced. It wasn’t comparable, and barely comprehendible. Like my brain wanted to believe it was just a movie scene playing out in front of me, but it wasn’t even close. You couldn’t smell movie scenes. And you certainly couldn’t taste them on your tongue while they lingered in the air. But all that just couldn’t compete with the face of the man who’d turned it into reality.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the look of the owner out of my head. Like what I had seen was not reserved for me and that witnessing what he was clearly capable of was a special privilege. Wearing the blood of his kill felt like an unprecedented christening that would leave me cursed for the rest of my life. I doubted he slaughtered his own employees on the regular like that. Who would want to work for him then? But the show wasn’t just for me, it was for his staff as well, reminding us all of who made the rules here. Message received. Everything had changed now that I had a deeper glimpse into the world of my enemy, and it was a far deeper glimpse than I ever wanted to experience again.

11

Projection

The following morning, I woke to a tsunami of dizziness and nausea. My body strained with the kind of tension that could snap a rubber band. If this was what trauma felt like, I wanted none of it. The effects of physical and emotional distress competing against each other for my attention were too great. Everything hurt way too much, and my only remedy was to just keep breathing through it.

“Jaden? Are you okay?” Kayla’s soft voice called to me. “You don’t look so good.”

Fuck, I could feel myself start to shiver.

“I’m fine. Just a little nauseous for some reason.”

“You look really pale. Paler than usual.”

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