“No!” Juliette blurted. “You were a child. You had nothing to do with what happened to his mother. He would never have hurt you.”
“That was his mistake, wasn’t it?” Cyril set his glass aside. “He gave me ten years to study him, to learn his weaknesses, waiting for the day I would finally put an end to him.” His nostrils flared. “I lost everything that night and I will make him lose everything. Starting with you. Once I am satisfied I have tortured him enough, I will start all over again with his sister. I would have kept that fat cow of his for the same purpose, but she disgusted me too much.”
Juliette gasped. “You killed Molly?”
Cyril grunted, lips curling back. “Cutting into her was like slaughtering a pig. She practically exploded. Had a harder time with her husband. All bones,” he explained like that too was appalling. “Nevertheless, while it wasn’t exactly satisfying, I enjoyed watching Killian’s misery.”
You need help! Juliette wanted to scream.
“Killian will kill you,” she said instead. “If you hurt me or Maraveet, there won’t be anywhere you can hide.”
Cyril seemed unfazed by her declaration. He sighed quietly and turned his head away in clear boredom.
“What time is it, Delgado?” he asked the man on his right.
The man checked his watch. “Nearly one, sir.”
Cyril pursed his lips. “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get started.”
Juliette stiffened. “Start what? What’s going on?”
Cyril fixed his attention back on her even as Alcorn and Calhoun rose to their feet. “Our man inside has gone silent. While I don’t think we’ll be found here, I don’t relish being proven wrong.”
“Man inside?” Juliette mimicked, needing to keep him talking. “You mean Marco? How did you get him to work for you?”
“I didn’t. He used to work for my father. I found his name in my father’s old records. I knew one day, he might come in handy. Clearly, I was right.”
The heel of her boot nearly caught the carpet when she shuffled back a step, a pathetic attempt at putting distance between herself and the men closing in on her. Her heart drummed between her ears, a sound of panic and desperation that was clouding her thoughts.
“What … what about your mother?” she blurted. “Surely she doesn’t want this kind of life for you.”
All traces of emotion erased from Cyril’s face. Even the arrogance washed away. He stared at her with dead, doll eyes that seemed to drill straight into her.
“He killed her,” he stated evenly. “By destroying her family, he took away her desire to live. She ended the suffering three months later.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, actually meaning it. “You were so young.”
His lashes drooped, severing the connection. “Doesn’t matter now. I have finally accomplished what I promised her I would and she will finally rest in peace. But that is enough of that. The time for talking has ended, Juliette. We’re going to make one final video to leave behind just in case he does find us.”
Another video. A follow up to the one they’d made just earlier that day. She wasn’t stupid enough not to realize what was coming.
She staggered back, her heart trapped in her throat as paralyzing numbness washed through her veins. Cyril remained seated, watching the show with mild interest while idly tapping one finger on the armrest.
“It’ll be less painful if you don’t fight,” he remarked casually.
Bells shrieked in her ear, drowning everything but the roar of her own blood humming between the walls of her skull. Cold sweat dampened her top beneath her coat and yet the bile that rose up her chest felt scalding hot.
“Please don’t.”
Her plea for even a hint of humanity went ignored. The four advanced, a pack of wolves at the scent of blood. Their eyes seemed to reflect, the eyes of predators stalking out of the shadows in the night. Their dark, inner light prickled along her skin in phantom chills. They pressed forward in a half circle, driving her back into the bar. The sharp corner stabbed into her back, holding her at point without room to escape. Her rapid panting was the only sound amongst them.
“Finally,” Alcorn murmured with a lick of his lips. “Been waiting for this.”
His hands were already undoing his jeans. The belt jingled loudly in the deafening silence. The zipper hissed and the V parted to a thick cock jutting out from a circle of straggly, sandy brown hair. The others began removing their sweaters and unfastening their own pants.
“Get her to the camera first for Christ sakes!” Cyril commanded, irritation making his voice high.
“With pleasure.”
Alcorn made a grab for her arm and something inside her snapped. It roared over her in a thick film of desperation, an animal instinct that drove her to fight. The entire room seemed to fade. Everything, except the four hulking figures threatening her sanity. Time itself seemed to creep to a standstill as her heart pumped adrenaline through her veins like crack from a needle.
Juliette thrust. She didn’t pause to consider where. She just let sheer panic propel her as she drew back her arm and drove her makeshift weapon out of her sleeve and straight into the soft bit of skin just above Alcorn’s cock. The jagged point pierced through skin with disturbing ease. Blood welled and then gushed with the jerk of her hand. It poured down the front of his jeans, turning the powder blue to dark red. Alcorn screamed, the sound chilling as it recoiled off the walls. It raked over her nerves the way the sound of nails on chalkboard would. He grabbed at his crotch, his face absolutely void of color and dropped to his knees. His howls continued as blood continued to rush freely from between his fingers.
The others shot back in surprise, maybe even fear. Juliette didn’t wait for them to regain their senses. She ducked around Calhoun and tore towards the other side of the ship, away from the secret hatch. The patio doors glinted as though beaconing her to them, but she knew she would never make it. There were too many obstacles in between, too many unnecessary seats and sofas and tables. Getting around them would take too much time and she couldn’t trust her legs to leap over them.
At the last second, she veered right, going straight for the makeshift film studio and the number of items she could use as a weapon.
“Get her!”
Cyril’s bellow was muffled by the clack of the tripod legs as she snapped them shut. She hefted the hefty weight over her shoulder swung blindly. She hadn’t expected to make contact, but the bulky camera collided with the side of Calhoun’s face with a glorious crunch of bones and plastic. His grunt was a spray of blood as his head snapped to the side. The momentum flung him backwards and he crashed into Delgado. The pair went down in a tangled heap of limbs.
“Harmon! Get her!”
Cyril sounded downright enraged. He was on his feet, his face the exact shade of red as the blood pooling rapidly around Alcorn’s writhing body. His pale hair was not so neat as it was abused beneath his agitated hands. Seeing him coming undone only urged her further to escape, to get help, to get Killian.