“Brutus found a trail!” Brooklyn cried, sprinting away from me across the wet grass and forcing me to follow yet again. But I was content to stay in her shadow. She brought me peace in the maelstrom of my mind and offered me a taste of solace which I didn’t deserve to sample.
She ran to the door of the outbuilding, scowling at it like she thought it was in on this plan to deny her of her favourite food and reaching for the latch with hesitant fingers.
The knob rattled as she tried to open it, the wooden door creaking but not budging as it remained locked.
“Fuck biscuits,” she cursed, looking around at me. “What now?”
I took hold of her wrist and tugged her back a step then grasped the door handle myself and yanked on it so hard that the whole thing ripped off in my hand with a loud bang.
The wooden door swung open slowly without the latch left to secure it and the low creak it made was followed by an excited squeal from Brooklyn as she tore into the dark space inside.
Brutus raced past me, smacking against the side of my leg with almost enough force to knock me over and I stumbled aside a step before following the snarling creature into the dark outbuilding.
The second I stepped over the threshold, electricity exploded from my collar and I cursed as I fell backwards, thrashing and twitching in the mud outside the door through the agony of the blast as it ebbed away again.
“Ooooh yeah, Niall said you can’t go into the sheds,” Brooklyn cooed as she came to stand over me, her dark hair tumbling down to caress my cheeks while she smiled at me. “I’ll bring the Pops out once I find them, kay?”
I grunted, no words escaping me as the pain of that shock continued to echo through my skull and she grinned before skipping away into the darkness of the building once more, leaving me to roll over and scramble to my feet.
The back of my clothes were drenched from the dew-soaked grass and mud stained my knees as I stood once again, looking back towards the house and scowling in Niall’s direction even though he was far too occupied with Mateo to see or care.
I moved to lean against the doorframe, gazing into the outbuilding while Brooklyn began to rummage around the piled-up boxes and move between dusty workbenches. It didn’t look like this place was used often and I wasn’t certain she’d find what she was looking for, but she hunted with a keen determination which said she believed she would find her prize.
I spotted the light switch just inside the door and carefully reached in to flick it on for her, making sure my collar didn’t cross the threshold to shock me again.
Brooklyn gasped loudly as the lights came on, swooping down and grabbing something from the dusty floor before raising it high into the air with a triumphant cry.
“I knew we were on the trail!” she called, rushing over to me to show me a little brown thing between her fingers. It could have been a Coco Pop. It also could have been a rat dropping.
Brooklyn tossed it into her mouth and moaned loudly in delight before whipping around once more and narrowing her eyes on the room. To the right of the door was a tall cabinet, the path between it and the exit suspiciously free of dust in comparison to the rest of the space.
“There,” I said, pointing towards it and Brooklyn twisted around, hurrying towards the cupboard and grabbing the handle just as I noticed a long, thin wire which was drawn tight across the ceiling and connected to the top of the door.
“Rook!” I roared in warning as she yanked the door open and I threw myself inside after her, my body colliding with hers just as the sharp hiss and thwack of the trap being set off filled the air.
Brooklyn screamed bloody murder as a pair of arrows slammed into her chest before I could throw her aside and the final two struck me in the back just as an explosion of electricity ripped through my being and sent me crashing to the ground on top of her.
Brutus began barking wildly somewhere far away from me as the hot wetness of blood spilled across my flesh and the agony from the collar made it hard for my thoughts to stick together, but one kept rattling through my mind over and over on repeat.
She has to be okay. She has to.
P ain was zapping through me, zap, zap, ZAP.
I liked those fiery rockets of electricity normally, but they weren’t playing so nice this time. They were hurty and I couldn’t make it stop because Jack was weighing me down, and the two of us were locked in the furious grip of lightning which was tearing from his collar right through to my soul.
The hot splash of blood dripped onto my cheek and I knew it wasn’t mine. It was my big man’s, my AJ’s, and panic cleaved my chest in two and let all my demons come rushing out as I tried to move. But I was trapped in a dark, dark palace of pain. Fire was coursing through my skull and washing down my spine. My nerves were screaming, every single one of them crying out in a choir of agony.
My heart was beating too hard and poor Glenda couldn’t break free, her wings flapping frantically against the inside of that meaty organ which kept me here on this earth, with my Hellfire, Dead Man, AJ.
And I found for the first time ever, I didn’t embrace death, I didn’t call for the Devil to come take me away, glad to walk into his arms. In fact, I didn’t want him to touch me at all anymore. Niall had been right, he’d claimed me from him and there was no going back, but he wasn’t the only one who had stocks and shares in my soul now.
A bellow reached my ears and the crushing weight of Jack lifted from my body, making the electricity stop, but my eyes wouldn’t open. Wetness seeped through my chest and I suddenly remembered the arrows. The ca-whooshing noise then the quick thud-thud sound of them striking me.
I was in the lap of someone big and strong who smelled like cigarettes and the echo of a hundred kills.
“Spider!” Hellfire cried and fear coloured that word red as he cupped my cheek and spoke to me in a frantic voice. “Yer gonna need to open your eyes now, love. Show me you’re still with me, or I’ll take us all down to hell after ya.”
My eyelids weighed a ton, but I managed to peel them back and Niall’s deep green gaze burned me alive.
“Oh, thank fuck,” he sighed, leaning down and kissing me hard. I reached up to cling to him, my thoughts torn apart and nothing existing but him in that second as I tried to remember how I’d gotten here.
“Is she alright?” Mateo barked and I looked for him, but as Niall leaned back, he kept hold of my cheek so I couldn’t break his gaze.
“She’s fine,” he said gruffly, then released a long breath of relief, leaning down and kissing my forehead. “Bad Spider. Silly, stupid Spider.”
“Did my tatas make it?” I whispered, reaching for my boobs and finding a mess of juice soaking through my shirt and the two arrows sticking right out of the melons within it.
Niall pulled my dress down and yanked the arrows out of the skewered fruit, tossing the melons after them and inspecting my uninjured flesh beneath. “They made it, little psycho.”
A growl of pain made me bolt upright in alarm and I spotted Jack outside the shed on his front with Mateo kneeling over him, tugging an arrow out of his shoulder.
“AJ!” I cried in horror, leaping out of Niall’s lap and running to him, finding Brutus barking beside him.
The dog jumped up at me and I thought I was about to be snapped up in his snappies, but then he licked my arm and wagged his stumpy tail instead. I scruffed his head, dropping down beside Jack and looking to Mateo in horror.
“Is he going to be okay?” I begged, realising I was shaking and tears were burning the backs of my eyes.
“He’ll be fine if he stops jerking about,” Mateo said before sitting on Jack’s back to hold him down and gripping a second arrow still stuck in the lower part of his shoulder, ripping it out without mercy.
“Motherfucker,” Jack spat.