Carnage by Sarah Bailey

Sixteen

Drake

SEVEN YEARS AGO

His scream echoed around the room, ringing in my ears like a fucking siren.

“Please, please, no more.”

Standing with my hands behind my back, I eyed Den with no small amount of disgust. The man was bound to the table he lay on. Blood dripped down the sides of it. He wouldn’t survive this ordeal, but I didn’t exactly care about the waste of life in front of me. He didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. No one did except the four of us and what we were searching for.

West stood beside him, his amber eyes full of violence. Something he revelled in. In some ways, all of us did. He trailed the knife he held up Den’s chest. The one he’d used to bleed the man. West liked to get his hands dirty. Shit like this got him going. None of us gave him a hard time for it. We were all sick in our own ways.

“It’s really very simple,” I murmured, my voice soft and unassuming. “Tell us where she is.”

We’d searched high and fucking low for almost three years. The four of us were done waiting. It had gone on long enough. She was out there somewhere and we were going to get her back no matter what it took.

Francis leant against the wall, a joint dangling from his fingers, watching the scene without a trace of emotion on his face. He’d found this fuck after months of chasing down dead ends. Getting this lead meant everything to us. It was the only thing we had left to cling onto. We needed this. It was our fucking chance to make things right.

Only Den didn’t want to talk. No, he wanted to be a fucking martyr for whoever had a hold of our missing piece.

“I can’t tell you.”

Den needed to get with the program. We would be keeping him alive until he told us the truth. If he wanted us to end it, he needed to give us what we came for.

Prescott stepped forward, twirling around a hammer in his hand. His blue eyes betrayed his ire. He was about as done with this shit as I was.

“No? Have we not given you enough incentive?” he taunted.

Before Den could say another word, Prescott brought the hammer down on his fingers in one fell swoop. The noise of bones shattering made me smile. A scream followed seconds later. And he soon dissolved into sobbing.

“Please.”

“Begging doesn’t work on us, or have you not got that into your thick skull yet?”

We weren’t always like this. The loss of something precious twisted us into men who were unrecognisable from the boys we’d been. Ones with no morals or decency left inside. She’d been our humanity. And with her gone, we had no reason left not to give into our baser needs. Our sick, fucked up desires. We did as we pleased. We cared little about the consequences. All we cared about was getting back our Little Nyx.

Francis stepped forward when Den kept his mouth firmly closed, except for his whimpering. He tilted his head to the side, observing the bloodied man on the table without a hint of remorse for what we’d done to the guy. Well, mostly for what West had done, considering he was the reason for the deep cuts across Den’s chest.

“We’ll put you out of your misery if you tell us the truth,” Francis said, his voice hard.

“Just do it now, end it,” Den cried out. “I’m done.”

A slow smile spread across Francis’ features. His silver eyes glinted with something akin to excitement.

“Oh, Denny, we want to. Trust me, we’ll take great pleasure in ending your sad, pathetic life.”

West set the knife down next to Den’s torso before picking up a different one. A butcher’s knife. He showed it to Den, whose eyes widened.

“Fingers or toes? I wonder which will hurt more… though I suppose it doesn’t matter since you’re going to lose them all one way or another if you don’t talk.”

Den’s only response was to cry. He must think we were complete psychopathic monsters. Pity he didn’t understand. He didn’t know how many times we’d gone through this same process only to reach a dead end. We’d do this a thousand times over if it meant we got Little Nyx back.

A man who has lost it all is deadly.

Four men who have lost everything is a recipe for carnage and complete annihilation.

“What’s it to be, Den? A quick death or a long, slow, drawn out one?” I asked, wanting this to be over and fucking done with.

Silence descended over the five of us for a long minute. I could feel West growing impatient but he would have to wait.

“I’ll tell you,” Den whispered. “I’ll tell you everything… but you’re not going to like it.”

The four of us stiffened at his words. We knew she was alive. She had to be. We wouldn’t entertain any other option.

“And why is that?”

Den closed his eyes as if what he’d say next would change everything for us, and he didn’t want to see the result.

“She doesn’t remember anything from the first sixteen years of her life.”

Confirmation she was alive filled me with a sense of relief. But Den’s other words? Those filled me with fucking dread.

“What do you mean?”

“The accident… it left her with amnesia.”

The four of us looked at each other. We couldn’t afford to deal with that revelation right then. We needed to know the rest. All of it. Who had her. Why they had her. And what the fuck we were going to do next.

“Who took her?”

Den opened his eyes, staring at us with abject misery on his face. And when he uttered the words none of us wanted to hear, West brought the butcher’s knife down. It dug into the wood, leaving a huge indent. He stalked away the next moment. His fist hit the wall, and a harsh, guttural moan of agony fell from his lips.

Den continued talking, but I was only half listening. My attention was on West and the way his body trembled with anger as he flattened his palms on the wall and bowed his head. There was no mistaking a man in immeasurable pain.

“Is that everything?” Francis asked.

I turned my attention back to the bloody mess in front of me.

“Yes,” Den replied.

Knowing West wasn’t in a fit state to do a thing, I rounded the table, picking up the knife left there on my way. My hand wrapped around Den’s face, tipping it backwards to expose his neck. He stared at me as if resigned to what would happen next.

“Death comes for all of us,” I murmured as I sliced across his neck, digging the knife in deep enough to make it quick.

Blood spilt from the wound. I let go of his face, placing the knife down on the table. Den gurgled. I watched the life draining from his eyes, feeling nothing at all. He mattered not to me and the others.

“What do we do now?” Prescott asked.

I raised my head and met his eyes. They were full of conflicting emotions. In all honesty, I had no idea how to feel about the information Den had provided us with.

“We can’t go after them head-on. You know that as well as I do.”

Francis dug something out of his pocket and walked over to West. He placed a hand on his shoulder, making West tense.

“I have something to take the edge off.”

West let go of the wall, his arms dropping as he turned to Francis, who put his hand out. Sitting in it was a single pill. West grabbed it and stuffed it in his mouth, swallowing it dry. Sometimes those two could be at each other’s throats, but they always had each other’s backs. We all did.

“We do what we always do,” I said, turning back to Prescott. “We find a way.”

He nodded as the other two joined us with grim expressions on their faces. We had to clean up this mess. Then we needed to evaluate what our next steps were.

One thing was for sure… we would have to play the long game if we had a chance in fucking hell of getting our girl back.

I swear, Little Nyx, I fucking swear we’ll come for you. And we’ll remind you exactly you who are if it’s the last fucking thing we do on this godforsaken piece of shit we call Earth.