Up in Smoke (King #8)

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

He crouches down again. He lifts his hand to grab my face, and when I turn away, he forcefully turns me back by grabbing my chin, his fingers digging painfully into my skin. His breath on my lips.

“Nothing about this will be on your terms. NOTHING.”

What he doesn’t know is that nothing about my life has ever been on my terms. This might be the first time I’ve ever been kidnapped.

But I’ve been a prisoner for years.





Chapter Ten





“Do you want to know what’s going to happen to you if you don’t tell me where your father is?” The man asks, staring at me with cold, hard eyes.

I shake my head. What does it matter?

He tells me anyway. “I’m going to do more than just kill you.” He lifts my hand in his and pulls on my index finger until the knuckle cracks. “I’ll start by removing your fingernails.”

I try to yank my hand away but he holds tighter and presses down on my thumbnail until I’m breathing through the searing pain. He releases me, and I wrap my hand around my finger like a brace.

“Then, I’ll remove your fingers, one at a time.” He grabs my wrist. “Then your hands.”

He slides his hand up to my forearm right below my elbow squeezing painfully at the joint. My mouth opens in a silent cry.

“It’s amazing how you can remain conscious and alert while getting your arms and legs hacked off. I’ve seen men watch their limbs be removed one by one until more parts of them are hanging around the room than are left attached to their bodies. The human body can take a lot before it gives up. But I won’t bore you with all the details. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough.”

He digs his fingers into the most menacing looking purple bruise on my bicep. I hiss and glare hatred into his eyes.

“You’ll feel every fucking thing. Every snap of bone. Every severed muscle. Every pop of a vein.” He pushes into the bruise once more before releasing me.

I rub my aching arm while he stays close, looking at me. Watching my every reaction like he’s studying me. His gaze darts from where I’m rubbing the bruise to my face then back again. He looks like he’s thinking about something and whatever it is, I don’t want to know.

For a long while we just breath the same air, staring hatred into each other. He’s waiting for me to crack and tell him where my father is, but I can’t crack even if I wanted to.

I curse my father in my head. “Listen. Please. Frank wasn’t a very good father, and later, I found out he wasn’t a good person either. Honestly, I would hand him over to you if I could. He deserves whatever he has coming to him, but I can’t do that. It’s not possible.”

The man says nothing but continues to stare at me for a long time.

“Get the fuck up,” he finally orders.

Dread courses through me. I can hear it too. It’s louder than my own heartbeat which is thudding in my ears like the heel of a hand beating out an unsteady rhythm on a drum.

I freeze.

“Get up, and take off your fucking clothes.”

My stomach rolls. My eyes widen. My pulse quickens and my fingers begin to twitch. “Please,” I beg. “No. No. Please no. Don’t. I’m sorry.”

“Get. Up.” This time, he repeats it through tightly clenched teeth.

He lifts me off the floor. His hands are large and rough as they wrap around my shoulders. I kick against him, but he subdues me easily, turning me around so my back is pressed tightly to his chest.

I’m trembling as he shoves his hand into a hole in my sweater and yanks. “No!” I yell as he tears what’s left of my school uniform from my body, the sound of ripping fabric slicing through my last shred of hope. I’d rather have him take my limbs then take my body by force. I’m weeping for the first time in my entire life.

The man moves to my skirt next, and it only takes a few tugs at the seam before it, too, is in shreds, and I’m standing before him in only my panties and sports bra.

I’m terrified, but I resist the urge to cover myself with my arms. I tell myself that when it comes to it, I’ll fight him off with all I’ve got, but if that doesn’t work, which given our size and strength difference seems likely, then I’ll try and think of a happier place and happier times. It doesn’t take me long to realize that won’t work either. I haven’t had a real happy time since…well, ever.

His fingers trace the thick strap of my sports bra. I suck in a strangled breath. The hair on the backs of my arms stands on end. He chuckles as he circles me.

“As I said,” he whispers, “so smart, yet so fucking stupid.”

“What…what are you going to do to me?” I manage to squeak out. The heat from his chest warms my back as he comes to stand behind me once more. “I’ll fight back. I won’t let you. Please. Please don’t…”

“Please don’t what?” he asks, coming to stand in front of me, crossing his big muscular arms over his chest. He’s looking down at me at me as if my very presence offends him.

“Please. Just… don’t.” I can’t find the right words, but I hope it’s enough. I close my eyes and drop my chin to my chest. I’m pushed backward. I land harshly onto a rickety wooden chair with legs almost as wobbly as mine. My tailbone screams out in pain but it’s nothing compared to the pain of not being able to do a damn thing to save myself. “Cut me or even kill me if you have to, just don’t do...that. Please.”

He looks me over like a spider assessing the fly caught in his web. Panic rises in my chest and gets stuck in my throat. I try, but I can’t swallow it down. I’m prepared for most things, but I’m not prepared for that. No one could be.

He comes closer. His knees bump against mine. I open my mouth to scream, but he covers it with his hand. “Have it your way, hellion.”

Suddenly, there’s a gun pressed to my forehead.



I go blank. I register nothing but white, then the man standing above me holding a gun to my head. The image is shifting in and out of focus.

“I’m not going to suddenly be able to deliver my father to you just because you have a gun to my head,” a much stronger version of myself says.

My heart is trembling in fear, but my soul wants to fight like a suicidal gladiator and I want to live because I have to live. I’ve spent several years fighting for the lives of others and if I die, they die.

I shut my eyes tightly, preparing for the end. I make silent apologies to all the people I’ve never met who don’t even know they’re counting on me.

I’m so sorry I failed you.

I’m wondering what it’s going to feel like, if anything at all, when the bullet sends bits of my brain splattering onto the wall behind me.

“I hope I make a big fucking mess, and you have to clean it up yourself.” I say, coming back into my body, and staring up into his dark evil pools. The corner of his eyes wrinkle like a smile that doesn’t reach his lips.

My heart is hammering in my chest when his phone buzzes, and he answers it on speaker without saying a word.

“Smoke,” the man on the other end greets.