thirty-five: in which she meets the mcnallys

"Can you fall asleep with a panic switch?" -Silversun Pickups, Panic Switch

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Sebastian made several attempts to start a conversation with me, but between being scared out of my mind and trying to deal with the sharp pain in my head, I wasn't in the mood to indulge him.

It was pitch-black outside, something that was made clear by the pale moonlight filtering through the small window high above our heads. It was too small for a head to slip through, let alone a body, and it was just too far away.

No one had come in to see us, which was probably a good thing since I was sure I was about to be killed. Then again, they'd kept Sebastian alive in here for over a week. There was hope. Hope was a good thing, even if it was false.

"They found out I was contacting Jacob."

That got my attention, and I tried to focus on the outline of Sebastian's body across from me. "And in all that time, you never told Jake where they were holding you?" I asked. My voice sounded hoarse and I desperately needed something to drink.

"I don't know where we are, Maya. They put a bag over my head, beat me unconscious, and since then, I've been disoriented." I heard him shift around a bit. "I'm actually glad to be in here, away from all those crazies."

Guilt gnawed at me. "Do they have their money? Did you manage to get it back for them?"

Sebastian let out a bitter laugh. "They got their money a long time ago, Maya. It was never about the money. It was about the principle." I heard him shift around some more. "They just needed an in-house hacker, I guess. Someone to kick around, too. I've mostly been busy hacking police records, erasing fingerprints in the federal system. That kind of thing. Stuff I could do in my sleep."

I couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"When Jacob brought me to them, do you know what he promised me?"

"No," I whispered.

"He promised that he'd make sure they didn't kill me." He let out a loud breath. "I wish they'd killed me, Maya."

"Sebastian -"

"It's okay. Really, it's okay. This is my mess. I have to clean it up."

"But I want to say... I want to say that..." My voice trailed off because I didn't really know what I wanted to say. Sorry? Sorry that things ended up this way?

Sebastian offered no assistance and I closed my mouth, sitting ramrod straight so that my back was against the cold wall.

"Maya?" he said suddenly, his voice tentative.

"What, Seb?"

"Did you... Did you have friends at that clubhouse?"

"What kind of a question is that?"

"It's just...I heard them bragging, McNally's guys. About how they gunned down most of the men they found where you were," he mumbled. "And the women... They -"

"Oh, God."

Pain spliced through me, much worse than the aching in my skull. I thought of Sticks, of Daisy, of Bree...of Baron. Had he been there? Or had he gone out? Who had been left in the compound? Mostly young guys - the Candidates, the Prospects, the hopefuls. Whatever you wanted to call them. Lives cut short.

I turned to my side and threw up, tears stinging my eyes. The room already stank to the high heavens - what was a little vomit? Sobbing, I brought my knees up and pressed my forehead against them. Moments later, I felt Sebastian's arm come around me and I sobbed even harder, allowing his body heat to give me comfort.

*~*~*

"Hey, Maya? You awake?" Sebastian was gently shaking me.

"I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to," I choked out, my face half-turned into his chest.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "about your friends. About everything."

"I know you are, Seb."

He was stroking my hair, and it reminded me of how Jake would do that. I felt tears stream down my cheeks again and I didn't bother to wipe them away.

"For what it's worth, I did love you," Sebastian murmured, fingers still in my hair. "My parents - they never showed each other any real affection. Never said they loved each other. Or me. I guess I...I guess I figured that was normal. And I'm sorry I let you down."

I swallowed, reaching for his hand. I felt his promise ring on his index finger, amazed that he still had it. "I loved you, too. But not the way we were supposed to love each other. We were like...family. Maybe that was what I wanted."

"You were it for me, though. I had this plan about how I was going to propose and we could finally make mad love to each other." He let out a humourless laugh. "I'm gonna die a virgin. Isn't that the ultimate punishment?"

"Seb, listen to me." I sat up so that I could look at the outline of his face in the dark. "We're going to get out of here. Jake is going to get us out."

"You are going to get out. I'll make sure you do. You didn't deserve this, Maya, and I owe it to you to make sure you don't get hurt."

Oh, God. I owe you... I owe this to you...

"Seb, listen to me. We. Will. Get. Out," I said fiercely, squeezing his hand. "The both of us. Understood?

"Okay."

"Yes. Everything is going to be okay."

If I said it enough times, maybe I would end up believing it.

*~*~*

"Wake up!"

Please just make this all a dream...

"Look at the two lovebirds. Doesn't it make you sick to your stomach seeing this, Ewan?"

"Wake the fuсk up, or I'm shooting the pair of you!"

I couldn't move much because Sebastian was practically covering me with his body and when he eventually stirred, it was because he was being yanked off of me. Sunlight pierced my eyeballs and my eyes squeezed shut again as I winced painfully.

Daylight.

I'd slept through the night?

Pulling myself into a seating position proved nearly impossible: My joints creaked and my limbs complained, but at least the pain in my head had dulled to next to nothing.

When I opened my eyes again, it was to look into the green eyes of a scarred woman in jeans and a white dress shirt crouching to make us eye level.

"Yeah, let's get the cringing out of the way, then, shall we?" she said, rolling her eyes at me. "I'm an ugly fuсking bitch and I know it. So make that face. I've seen it all before."

"I'm not... It's your eyes. They're...familiar." Emotionless yet full of evil at the same time. I could see what those eyes had seen, and it wasn't pretty.

The woman's eyes narrowed at me. "You're telling me this" - she pointed at her face - "doesn't bother you?"

"Why would it bother me?"

She laughed. "You're a goddamn liar. I don't particularly like liars. Take that boyfriend of yours, for example." She tucked a clump of hair behind her right ear. "Not a liar, but a coward. I would've finished gutting him like a trout for all the shit he's done if he didn't have his friend jump to his rescue. That really pissed me off. I always finish a job."

"You did that? To Jake and Sin?" I spluttered.

The woman rose to her feet and I could only follow her ascent with my eyes to determine that she was short. And tiny. Her curly hair was auburn and fell in small ringlets around her face. And what a face that was.

Gruesomely scarred, it looked like someone had taken a knife to her and tried to dice her up. Every inch of the creamy, freckled skin on her face had become a patchwork of crisscrosses. Her eyes were big and jade-green, the only perfection she had there.

"Ewan," she said, head tilting towards the man standing behind her, "get her ready for breakfast. My brother does not tolerate tardiness."

"Yes, ma'am."

With one last look at me, she turned and left the cell. It was only then that I got a good look at Sebastian.

He looked like crap on a warm day.

Jake had given him beatings. McNally's men had given him near-death experiences.

I could see what looked like ligature marks on his neck and it was a wonder he had even managed to talk, considering most of his face was unrecognizable as a part of his body.

Blood spatters were present on his blue dress shirt, and his right hand was bent in an unnatural manner at the wrist.

Ewan didn't give me a moment to react before he was hauling me onto my feet and dragging me out the cell. I didn't put up a fight - what was the point? - and for the most part, he wasn't rough. He was a sizeable guy, thickset and broad-shouldered and inked from his bald scalp down to his biceps, but his grip on my upper arm wasn't hurting me.

As I'd suspected, the cells were downstairs, and Ewan let me walk in front of him as we climbed the rickety wooden staircase, promising to shoot me in the spine if I so much as breathed wrong.

When we reached the top of the flight of steps, Ewan tugged me down a hallway and into a bedroom. It was large, but sparsely furnished. The floor was bare and the peach wallpaper was peeling. A single bed was pushed against one wall and a chest of drawers sat on its other side.

"Strip," said Ewan.

"You must be insane," I told him.

He went to the drawers and took out a shapeless black dress. He flung it at me. "Strip, and put this on. I won't ask you again."

His eyes were practically black and when he fixed them on me, violating me with them, there was no mistake about what he wanted to see. With shaking hands, I held the dress out, giving him my back. I bent to put my feet into the dress, pulling it up over my hips, holding it there while I got out of the puke-spattered T-shirt I was wearing. Once it was up and my arms went through the long sleeves, I pulled my sweatpants down.

"Well, aren't you a smart little bitch," Ewan remarked, laughing darkly as I turned to face him. "If I wanted to fuсk you, I would've had you by now. You could've at least shown me your pussy, considering."

"Go screw yourself, you pathetic excuse of a man."

The grin fell from his face. "What'd you call me?" He raised his hand, and I braced myself for the impact - until he wrapped his fist around a hank of my hair, yanking me to him. "Your biker shit-stain of a boyfriend killed my brother, d'you know that? My sixteen-year-old brother. A fuсking kid. You know what I wanna do to you? Stick my gun up your cunt and blow your fuсking ovaries out your stomach. Send you back to your boyfriend looking like roadkill. Keep talking to me like that and I'll go against the Boss' orders and do it. Got it?"

I couldn't nod because his grasp of my hair was too painful. Instead, I whispered, "Yes," when all I wanted to do was gouge his eyes out.

Ewan shoved me away from him and I stumbled backwards, panting for air.

"Come with me," he commanded, leading the way out the room, confident that I would follow.

I followed.

My eyes flitted around, trying to piece together where I was. Every door we passed was closed, though, and I didn't learn much until we entered the big dining room. It was huge - probably twice the size of my entire apartment - and the sunlight made me blink repeatedly.

Fear constricted my lungs when I noticed James McNally sitting at the head of the elaborately set dining table. He was casually reading the newspaper, holding it out in front of him, and the scarred woman from the basement sat at his right, buttering toast.

Ewan left. I stood there, trying to remember that I had to breathe in and out in order to stay alive.

"Well? Don't just stand there like a piece of fucking furniture," the woman scolded, looking at me. "Sit."

She was gesturing at the empty seat at McNally's left with a butter knife.

I couldn't move.

"Are you throwing our hospitality in our faces, you ungrateful cow?"

McNally turned the page, completely ignoring me, but I was so aware of him. He was in a suit and his ginger hair was combed out of his face, so that I was able to see the Roman numerals, 'II', inked into his forehead. The two pieces of toast that he had on his plate were untouched.

"Don't be scared," he said suddenly, his voice deep.

My feet moved of their own accord. I pulled the chair out and sat at McNally's left side.

"Roisin," McNally murmured, not looking away from his newspaper, "don't curse in front of me. It's unladylike."

Roh-sheen, huh? I managed to look at her without flinching. Her eyes, identical to her brother's, were currently narrowed at him.

"It's a good thing I'm not a lady, then, isn't it?" she responded, taking a big bite out of her toast. Her attention returned to me. "I suppose you are, hm? The type to say 'please' when you want an orgasm, and 'thank you' afterwards?"

I bit into my lower lip, holding her gaze but saying nothing.

"Roisin." McNally's voice was harsh this time.

His sister sighed. "Forgive me, Jay. How many Hail Marys do you want me to say this time?"

"Very funny."

I watched this back and forth in awe. I'd never known that the McNally twins even had a sister, let alone one as deranged as they clearly were. Why was I here, eating breakfast with these psychos? Why were they pretending that this was normal? Ewan had basically just told me that I was dead, so were they giving me my last meal?

I eyed the hearty spread in front of me and my stomach rumbled. McNally, as observant as he was, said softly, "You should eat. You must be famished."

"Why are you being so...pleasant?" The words seemed to be out of my mouth before I could even process them.

Roisin snorted. "Pleasant? Dear God." She leaned forward, making me lean back into my chair. "We're trying to fatten you up before we eat the flesh off your scrawny little bones," she hissed, flashing me a wide smile.

I recoiled - not because of her ridiculous threat, but because her grin showed me how all her teeth had been sharpened into tiny, pointy incisors. That, coupled with her disfigured face, made her look all the more terrifying.

"Roisin! Final warning."

"Jay, you're no fun these days."

McNally looked at me. "Didn't I say eat?"

Out of self-preservation, I poured myself a glass of juice. My hand shook and most of it landed on the table, but no one said anything about that, and I gulped down the cold liquid to wash away the taste of my regurgitated food.

"Ripper," McNally spoke softly. "Does he fuсk you, or love you?"

If I'd still been drinking the juice, I would've spat it across the table at Roisin. I was glad I'd finished my drink.

As it was, my mouth just hung open like a drawbridge.

"I asked you a question, Miss Fenton. I expect an answer. That's how this works."

"I... What..." I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry, but what the hell does that have to do with you?"

McNally's lips twitched, as if he wanted to smile and was stopping himself from doing it. "It will help me decide on how to kill you, love."

I swallowed back bile. "You're wasting your time with me."

"Not at all," he said. "You see, if it's just dirty, sweaty fuсking that goes on between you two, he won't give a damn if you die. Just another poor, unfortunate whore with a heavenly сunt. But if he loves you - if he's totally batshit without you - your death will wreck him. I don't want to waste my time with heavenly cunt, Miss Fenton. So tell me what you are to Ripper."

I looked him in the eye. "What does it matter what I tell you? You're going to kill me anyway."

"What I know is this, Miss Fenton: Ripper has already bent over backwards to protect you, right from the start." His voice was low, his words ominous. "You know what that tells me? It tells me that your death needs to be long and excruciating. It tells me that your death will be his death. I've known the answer to that question for a while now, just like I know how I'm going to put you out of your misery."

His jade-green eyes were as empty as my glass, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief when he tore them away from me and returned to reading the paper.

"Have some coffee. You have bags under your eyes," he stated matter-of-factly, turning the page. "Rosh, you should read what that сunt, Trump, has said this time."

"Not interested, Jay," his sister replied, flicking out a switchblade. With deft fingers, she twirled it about, keeping her eyes trained on me. "Not interested."

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One other thing: My #TheRoyalsOnE fanfiction,Rock & Royalty, is coming to an end (maybe next week) so if you haven't checkedthat out yet, please do! It's on the official @TheRoyalsOnE Wattpad account.Lots of love! -Kim