Chaotic (L.O.R.D.S. #7) — Chapter no 2

TWO

KASH TON INI TI ATION

DE VO TION SOPHO MORE YEAR AT BAR RING TON UNI VER SITY groan at the gnaw ing pain in the back of my head. A poundingI fuck ing headache.

“The fuck?” I get to my wobbly legs. Placing my hand on the wall, I run the other down my face to see if I’m bleeding. Noth ing. Then why do I feel like I got the shit beaten out of me?

“Hello?” I call out and look around. I’m in the ele vator at Carnage.

Of course I’m fuck ing here. I hate this goddamn place, and my fa‐ ther knows it. I’m only here when the Spade broth ers force me to be.

I notice it’s descend ing, and the button controls inform me I’m headed to the basement. “Fuck.”

It’s my initiation. Last thing I re member is my father calling me to his office. I thought it was odd, but he’s al ways doing things that don’t make sense to me. He offered me a brandy snifter that I couldn’t object to.

Now I know why—he drugged me. The headache confirms it.

The door slides open and the cold air rushes into the confined space, followed by the smell of blood. More than usual.

Stepping off the ele vator, I see the plastic strip curtains. Blood is splattered all over them and dripping off the bottom onto the floor.

This is supposed to be my greatest fear. But he better try harder than this. Blood? It doesn’t faze me.

A blood-curdling scream echoes throughout the concrete room, making my heart leap in my chest. “No.” A sob follows. “Please…

don’t…” she con tinues to beg.

I rush through the curtains, letting them slap me in the face. The pits are filled with blood. “What?” I rush over to them, dropping to my knees and shoving my hands through the bars, sloshing the blood around, trying to feel for a body, but there’s nothing in them. I do the same to the others. Also empty.

“Where did all this blood come from?” I grind out.

“Please, don’t hurt me…” the fe male cries.

I know that voice. “Ashtyn?” I shout, getting to my feet and rush ing down the hallway to the cells. “Ashtyn?” It’s Adam’s twin sister. We grew up with her. He would kill me if I allowed anything to happen to her. Same with Saint. He’s one of my best friends, and he’s in love with her.

“Pl-ease?” Her voice cracks and my breathing accel erates.

“I’m com ing, Ash. Where are you?” I quickly scan each cell on the left and right as I frantically make my way down the hallway.

“Ashtyn?” I shout, starting to panic.

Coming to the last one on the right, I see her inside. “Ash—”

“Oh, thank God, Kash. Please, Kash. Please save me,” she begs through a sob.

There’s a metal ta ble in the center of the cell. She’s bent over the side, arms out, with her wrists se cured to the front legs. Her legs are spread wide and connected to the table legs as well.

“Help me,” she screams, pulling on the re straints.

I try to open the cell, but it’s locked. “Fuck,” I shout. “Hang on. I’ve

got to get a key.”

“Wait. No. Don’t leave…”

I’m already running down the hallway back toward the pits. I go over to the locker and quickly scan the keys hang ing there. Finding the one I want, I rush back to her. “I’m here, Ash. I’m here.” I try to unlock it, but it’s not working.

“Goddammit,” I grind out, knowing this is the correct key. It has to be. “I—” My eyes scan the cell, and my words trail off when I see she now has a gag in her mouth. It’s an O-ring, se cured tightly around her cheeks and shoved behind her teeth. It’s old. Rusted and jagged. Blood runs from her pried-open mouth and drips to the floor.

She’s sob bing and yanking on the re straints.

A man steps out of the dark corner. He’s dressed in black jeans, a Lords mask cover ing his face. He’s shirtless, and I can see the Lords crest branded on his chest. “Don’t fuck ing touch her,” I shout. “Hang on, Ash. I’m coming.”

The lock shakes in my hand while I try and shove the key into it, but it doesn’t work. “Fuck.” I drop the key, and I watch the Lord walk over to the ta ble. Her wide, red-rimmed eyes look at him over her shoulder in hor ror. I wrap my bloody hands around the bars and yank on them in a desperate attempt to get to her.

She sobs through the gag and her small body trembles. “Hang on, Ashtyn.” I run down the hallway again. I rush back to the locker to grab more keys. Maybe I’m not think ing clearly. The drugs are fog‐ ging my brain, and I just grabbed the wrong one. But they’re all gone. There’s nothing there.

I run both blood-covered hands through my hair and sprint back down the hall. My heart racing at the possibility of what the Lord could do to her if I don’t save her.

My steps slow as I approach her cell. She’s lying across the ta ble she’s tied to. The Lord standing behind her. His jeans are undone, down by his ankles. The ta ble rattles from his hard thrusts while he rapes her.

“I’m go ing to kill you,” I shout, slamming my hand against the bars.

He leans over her trembling body, grabs a hand ful of her hair, and yanks her head back.

“No. No. No. No,” I shout, wrapping my hands around the bars.

His free hand is hold ing a knife, and he places it up against her neck before he slices the blade across her throat from ear to ear.

Blood gushes from the wound and her body goes slack before he lets go of her head.

I fall backward into the wall and bow my head. My fingers tighten in my hair, and I let out a scream of frustration. My chest begins to burn, and I slap a hand over my mouth to stop from vom iting. I failed her. Once again, I couldn’t save a woman who needed me.

I might as well let the Lords kill me, too. My broth ers will never for‐ give me for failing one of our own. She’s from a Spade brother and

Saint has already claimed her as his.

Looking up from my place on the wall, I see the Lord is no longer in her cell. He left. I place my hands on the bars, and the door squeaks, opening.

I enter and walk over to her body. I untie her wrists and ankles and then pull her limp body off the edge of the ta ble and pick her up in my arms.

“I’m sorry,” I say through the knot in my throat.

Ex iting the cell, I take a right, and my heavy boots guide me to an opening. I come to a stop to see my broth ers.

My stomach drops when I see them all hang ing side by side with their hands se cured to the ceiling. Their heads are down, looking at the floor that their feet aren’t able to touch.

I lay Ashtyn on a ta ble to the left and rush to them. “Haidyn.” I shove his head up, and blood runs from his neck and down his body.

I jump back as it splashes me. I begin to gag from the over whelm‐ ing smell. Rushing over to Saint, I find he’s also had his neck slashed. My throat burns with bile as my brother’s blood covers my hand and arm. I do the same with Adam.

I take a stumbling step back to see them all hang ing there with their throats slit. Hearing a sound behind me, I turn just in time to see the Lord’s fist hurtling at my face.

“Fuck,” I groan.

I blink to clear my blurry vision. I’m still in the basement, now sit‐ ting in a chair, my hands cuffed behind it. My father sits on the edge of the table in front of me.

The chair rattles when I go to get up, but my hair is grabbed from behind, and I’m forced back into the seat. They pull my head back at an ex treme angle, pinching the back of my neck. I bare my teeth at my father. “You fuck ing piece of shit.” I spit on him.

He glances down at it but makes no move to wipe it off.

His silence makes my anger grow. “Why?” I demand, my mus cles tense and my breathing er ratic. I’m all alone. My broth ers and Ashtyn are gone.

“Why what?” he asks, checking his watch. A sign that I’m keeping him from some thing important. As if his broth ers’ sons being dead isn’t his main priority.

“Why kill them? They didn’t do anything wrong.” They could have failed their initiations. But that still wouldn’t explain Ashtyn. She didn’t have one. A fe male Spade has never run Carnage, as far as I know. Unless she was collateral damage.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His nonchalant attitude makes me fuck ing livid. “You killed them,” I shout, and the fin gers in my hair tighten, holding my head in place.

“Adam, Saint, Haidyn, and Ashtyn. You killed them all.” I give a manic laugh. “Your brothers are going to make you suffer.” That’s some thing I don’t want to miss. My father deserved death long be‐ fore now. But what’s that saying? The good die young. Evil lives for fuck ing ever.

“No,” he argues. “They’re going to make you suffer.”

“Don’t fucking put this shit on me,” I scream, yanking on the cuffs that dig into my wrists. “You—”

“You did this, Kashton.” His voice is much calmer than mine. “You didn’t get to them in time.”

What? He can’t be se ri ous. “You didn’t even let me try.” Panic grips my chest and my breathing becomes la bored. He set me up. My fa‐ ther has al ways hated me. I was never going to be good enough for him.

Now he’s gone and done the unspeakable. He’s killed his broth ers’ only sons and framed me for it.

He stands from the ta ble and re moves a re volver from the inside of his suit jacket. Opening up the cylinder, he empties all the bullets into his free hand and pockets them. Then he places one on the ta‐ ble next to the gun and moves to stand in front of me. He nods to the man behind me, who lets go of my hair and then undoes the cuffs.

I jump to my feet, and the force kicks the chair over. “Going to fuck ing kill me, Father?” I challenge. “Then run to your broth ers and blame me for you killing their children?”

“I’m not go ing to do anything, son. You’re going to do it your self.”

“No—”

He punches me in the face, and it sends me falling to the floor. I’m off bal ance from the drugs. Getting to my hands and knees, I spit blood onto the concrete.

“I wanted to teach you a lesson, Kashton. Your mother…” He pauses. “She was too soft with you. Wanted you to be a ‘good boy.’ It’s pathetic and embarrassing,” he shouts. After taking a deep breath, he huffs. “I left you one bullet, son. As you said, your broth‐ ers are dead and so is Ashtyn. You failed them. You let them die.

Suffer. Now it’s your turn to do the same.”

I get to my feet and sway. My vision is a little blurry from the hard hit to the side of my face. I’m so tired. All the anger has left my body and it’s drained me. I’m like a balloon deflated.

“You have sixty seconds.” He pulls the cuff back on his suit jacket and watches the seconds on his Bre itling.

My eyes fall to the re volver that is sitting on the ta ble. I’m all alone.

My broth ers made this horri ble life tolerable.

The thought of suicide has never crossed my mind, but I’ve never thought about living alone, either. My broth ers and I were in this life together. I had their backs and they had mine. I let them down.

They needed me and I didn’t help.

I’ve got one more initiation to pass before I have any power in our world. Right now, I’m just a son of a Spade brother, and my best friends are dead.

Their deaths are on me. My father was right. It doesn’t matter that he rigged the game. He set me up and I fell right into his trap.

“Twenty seconds,” he warns.

Stepping forward, I pick up the gun with shaking hands and open the cylinder. I slip the bullet in, lining it up with the barrel and close

it.

“Fifteen,” he calls out.

I lift the gun and point it at his chest. His eyes find mine and the corner of his lips twitch. I hate myself even more. He knew I’d make this move. He fuck ing knows everything.

“Going to kill me?” He snorts. “Just like you did your brothers?”

“I didn’t kill them,” I scream in his face. “I was trying to save them.”

“Time’s up, Kash.” He steps into the gun, and it trembles in my hand. “You or me?”

As much as I want to kill him, it won’t solve anything. My father de‐ serves to be miserable; he deserves to know what it feels like to suf‐ fer, and I’m the only one who can do that. There’s no one left to punish him.

I move the gun to the right of him and fire. “Fuck you,” I shout over the ringing in my ears.

He begins to laugh as he pulls my cell phone from his suit jacket.

“You’ve always been weak, Kashton. Not killing your self proves just how much.” Placing it on the ta ble, he shakes his head before he disappears through the plastic strip curtains.

“Goddammit.” I slam the gun down on the table.

I’m shaking and tears sting my eyes. I fuck ing hate the Lords. Ev‐ erything about them. My father, most of all. He wants me to hate life. We’re tested to see just how low we’ll go, and I will not give him the satis faction of killing myself. I’d rather live and disappoint him.

No matter how alone I am.

My cell begins to vibrate next to the gun, and I tense seeing HAI ‐ DYN flash across the screen. “Hell-hello?” I stammer.

“Hey, man. Where the fuck are you?” Haidyn asks. “You were sup‐ posed to meet us at the House of Lords twenty min utes ago.”

“I—” Scanning the basement, I notice the plastic curtains aren’t covered in blood like they were before. Maybe they cleaned them. I

glance at the pits and they are empty.

“Kash?”

I make my way down the hallway and see the cell that Ashtyn was in is also clear of any blood, and there’s no ta ble in the center. I con‐ tinue on to see the room where my broth ers’ dead bodies were hanging. Nothing.

I clear my throat. My heart is hammer ing in my chest. What the fuck is happening? I saw them. The blood, the sound of Ashtyn

screaming for help.

“Us? Who are you with?”

“Saint is here with me. Adam is on his way with Ashtyn.”

I run a shaking hand down my face. “I’ll be right there.” Hanging up, I place my cell in my pocket and pick up the re volver on my way to leave.

My father is standing next to the ele vator with a scowl on his face.

“What did you do to me?” I demand. “They were dead. I…I saw them.”

“I gave you a hallucino gen,” he answers. “This isn’t on me, Kash‐ ton. That was your mind. Your hallucination. You told me your broth‐ ers and Ashtyn were dead. I just twisted it to make you be lieve that it was your fault.”

“I can’t…no.” I shake my head. “I know what I saw,” I shout.

His eyes drop to the re volver still gripped in my hand. His de‐ meanor is much calmer than mine. I think I’m having an out-of-body experi ence. “Keep it,” he says, re fer ring to the gun. “Maybe one day, you’ll grow some balls and decide to put it to good use.”