“I’ll just chop a few inches off him then, he’s got plenty to spare. Though if I take those inches from the top, I can’t promise he’ll be all that pretty when I’m done.”
Niall shook me off, leaning down and holding his machete against Jack’s cheek before lowering it to his chin, then his neck like he was deciding where to strike.
Jack glared up at him with his teeth bared and I ducked under Niall’s arm, throwing myself onto AJ’s lap.
I hissed at Niall, spreading myself over Jack like a starfish and Jack’s rough stubble grazed my cheek, starting a fire in my blood that quickly got out of control.
“Ah for the love of Christ, not this again. Move outa the way, Spider,” Niall demanded, pointing the machete at Jack’s head, but I shifted so my face was in the way and the machete grazed my lips.
Niall yanked the blade back just as a shadow came up behind him and locked a muscular arm around his throat, dragging him backwards. Niall cursed, falling into a kerfuffle with Mateo and I twisted around in Jack’s lap, sitting up and working to untie him, but the knots were too knotty.
“Rook,” he said gruffly and I looked into his deep grey eyes which were like two whirlpools, dragging me in and pulling me all the way to the bottom of the ocean.
His arms bulged against his restraints and the rope creaked from the power of him, but it didn’t give. I could read a hundred stories in his gaze and I got lost as I brushed my fingers along the perfect line of his jaw.
“I know, AJ, you want to smash things. I’ll get you some things to smash, kay? I’ll bring you porcelain plates and vases and all the best things to smash,” I promised then leaned in close as his eyes travelled over my face, roaming like a wandering man lost in the desert hunting for water. “Do you want to smash me?” I whispered and his eyebrows arched. “You can smash me if you want. Throw me around and make me bounce off of things. I think I’d like that, AJ. I might even like it when my bones go crunch.” My pulse skipped around like a girl in a school uniform and Jack’s throat rose and fell, my fingers gliding down to feel it move like that.
The sound of Niall roaring made me whip around and I pouted as Mateo hit the ground beneath him under the onslaught of his shock collar. He was always playing with Shocky McZaps without me, and I was getting sick of it.
Niall left Mateo there to twitch through the aftermath of the electricity, swiping up the machete which had been lost beneath the coffee table and striding back towards me, his inked neck reddened from Mateo’s attack.
I snuggled closer to Jack, nuzzling him like a cat and Niall’s eyes flashed with rage.
“Enough of this. You’re my psycho. I ain’t sharin’ ya. I bought ya fair and square.” Niall grabbed me, yanking me off of Jack and tossing me on the floor.
I rolled like a ninja, bumping into Mateo and leaping back to my feet in a panic as Niall raised the machete above his head.
“Stop!” I screamed, running forward in desperation to save my AJ but the machete came cleaving down through the air and I swear it tore a hole in the fabric of the universe before it collided with Niall’s target.
But somehow, impossibly, it wasn’t Jack. It was the rope binding him to the chair and Niall hauled him out of it as the tatters came loose and he held his machete to Jack’s throat as he dragged him along.
He yanked the front door open and shoved Jack out of it. “There, you’re free, ya big bastard. Now get outa my sight,” Niall barked, throwing the door shut in his face just as Jack looked to me, a furious expression on his face.
“Wait,” I gasped, running across the room and trying to get the door open again, but Niall twisted the lock and stood in my way.
“He can’t leave, he’s part of the club,” I insisted, panic rising in me as I tried to get past him again.
Niall knocked me away with a glint in his gaze. “Nah, he’s a goner now, love. Bye bye, Jack.” He waved out the window then yanked the blind down just before Jack’s fist slammed into it.
“Rook,” he growled.
“Off you go!” Niall called to him. “Go back to your mountain, Bigfoot.”
I turned around, looking to Mateo for support but he was still on the floor, no desire to help in his eyes.
“I need him. He’s my Angry J. He was there when no one else was there. He was there when Madam Lucille did her taunting and taking and hurting.” I launched myself at Niall again with a snarl, but he knocked me off with a dark laugh.
“He ain’t even got thoughts rattling around in that big head of his, Spider. He’ll be happier off in the wild, living off the land like some kinda giant horse. It’s what’s best for him.”
“No,” I snarled through my teeth, but Niall leaned his chin down and shadows fell over his face.
“Yes,” he growled. “I’m the boss here, and I say he’s out.”
Tears burned my eyes and my lower lip wobbled. I whipped around, my wet hair slapping him in the face as I ran to the couch, throwing myself on it and sobbing into a pillow. I threw some fists into it too, rage and hurt stomping through my chest like an elephant.
“It’s not fair!” I screamed into the pillow.
“Life ain’t fair, little psycho,” Niall chuckled. “Get used to it.”
I stood in the yard of the imposing house, staying utterly still and staring up at the windows while I waited. After realising I couldn’t break back into the fortress of a house, I’d simply circled the building and come to stand before the huge windows which looked back into the lounge and begun my wait.
I’d had a lot of practice at this kind of patience while I was incarcerated within Eden Heights Psychiatric Facility, so it wasn’t hard. I just let my mind wander, take me back to a place of sea and sunshine where I’d once spent my days, and concentrated on the feelings and sounds associated with that memory until I might as well have really been there. Or at least somewhere between here and there.
I didn’t move, didn’t shift or fidget. Not even when the rain poured down harder on me and my long hair was plastered to my cheeks and my shirt clung to my frame. Not even as the cold wind blew and the chill in the air bit into me.
I stayed where I was, staring up at the windows of the house and waiting.
One way or another they would have to do something about me standing here like this. It was disconcerting even if it was harmless.
They wouldn’t be able to leave me here. And I wasn’t going anywhere. Niall may have decided he no longer wanted me in his house, but now I was free, I found myself still chained to the girl he kept within those walls.
She had been my secret obsession when we’d been locked up together and now that we’d stolen this freedom, I found that I was ready to let that secret out. I’d wanted her for too long, fantasised over her too often, and now she was within my reach I wouldn’t be backing away.
I wasn’t going to allow them to move me away from here, from her. So that would leave Niall with a choice. Let me in or end me now.
I found myself comfortable with that ultimatum.
I had seen enough of the set up here and the kinds of people they were to know that they weren’t doing anything legal in this place. There was a torture chamber in the basement and the hollow, compassionless look in Niall’s eyes let me know exactly what he was. The Mexican one, it seemed, was a prisoner too. Though he was offered some amount of freedom to move about the place. I didn’t miss the way he watched my Rook either, my motionless gaze drinking in everything that had played out within that house in the hours that had passed since I’d taken up this position.