Mated To The King’s Gamma novel Chapter 81

Chapter 81

Abbie POV

The only place I thought to go to was Azzy’s room with the king. How could he rob me of my peace, I just wanted to go home and let this end. I was no good to anyone, I wasn’t good enough for anyone, much less myself. I don’t know how long I laid there before I noticed Azalea laying next to me. I could see her but it was like she wasn’t even there.

“Abbie?” she whispered. The look of pity on her face made the reason I wanted to end it more evident. I was tired of people looking at me like the weakling I was. Azalea suffered enough because of me. Here she was trying to save me again. She has suffered more than enough because of me, so has Tandi. Everyone has paid the price for me.

The memories kept pulling me under, replaying over and over again. I couldn’t get them to stop! The butcher, Daley, Kade on repeat. It was like a hever ending carousel of horrors I couldn’t escape. They were sucking me under, drowning me in misery. I should have fought harder, but I didn’t. I should have listened to Gannon, but I didn’t. I should never have gone down to that basement. That one haunts me the most and I felt myself sucked into it, I fought trying to forget, trying to make it stop but nothing I did worked and I found myself back there.

We were 15 and I just finished helping Azalea hang out the washing, I remember that day so clearly, remember everything. I could still feel the breeze as we walked back inside and I retrieved the mop buckets from the closet and saw how dirty they were.

“I will quickly wash these,” I tell her and she nods Moving toward the stairs, clutching the railing tightly as she went to move on to the next chore I watched her go, her lashes tearing open and staining the back of her dress with each movement. She paused halfway up and I chewed my lip with worry. She had been having dizzy spells, we hadn’t eaten in days and her hands shook as she clutched the banister trying not to pass out.

“Ivy?” she had whispered. She waves me off.

“It’ll pass,” she tells me yet she was as pale as a sheet. She kept climbing the last of the steps disappearing and I clutch the mop bucket and move toward the kitchen to see the butcher talking to Mrs. Daley. They both stopped and glanced at me and I went to stop and turn back around.

“Be a love and help me carry the meat from the truck down,” the butcher told me. He always creeped me out, something was off about him, he was always trying to touch me. I shake my head.

“No I can’t, I am busy,” I tell him, holding up the bucket. I turn to leave.

“That can wait, you will help Doyle,” Mrs. Daley says and I freeze, turning back to look at her.

“Go start bringing it in, I will send Abbie to help in a minute,” she assures him. I swallowed looking at Mrs. Daley frantically. “Ma’am, I really can’t,” I tell her grasping at any excuse I could when she holds up a hand making me stop.

“You will help him, it will take you only a few minutes,” she snaps but I shake my head and start backing up.

“You will help him Abbie, Or I will make Ivy help him,” she snapped at me and I should have known something was up because she said Ivy’s name, she never referred to us by name, always you, or rogue or some other filthy vile thing she would call us.

We hadn’t eaten in three days. Mrs. Daley used to make us share whatever scraps were left over. We hadn’t eaten in three days. There was nothing left over for the last three days and I knew Azalea wouldn’t last much longer, she was fainting frequently and each time Mrs. Daley would catch her, would accuse her of slacking and whip her more, she couldn’t handle much more, she needed food and time to heal.

“You just need to help him stack the freezers, if you do, I will let you eat with the rest of the children tonight. A reward, I know you girls have been working hard today,”

“You’ll let us eat?”

“Of course,” she smiles. I swallowed glancing at the basement door where the freezers were kept.

C

“Will only take you a few minutes, he has already put half of it down there,” she tells me and I shiver runs up my spine, I ignore it, I shouldn’t have.

“So chop, chop, then you can prepare dinner and eat with the rest of them,” Mrs. Daley says. So I helped, I rushed around, helping carry the meat down. Taking the last box down and setting in the freezer I turn toward the stairs just as Doyle sauntered down them, I step aside letting him pass with the chicken he had but he doesn’t.

“Excuse me,” I murmured, keeping my gaze on the floor. He clears his throat and I look up to see Mrs. Daley closed the basement door. My heart beat like a drum in my chest before I heard the TV turn up. Too loud. Too loud I thought.

The butcher reaches for me and I shriek at the look on his face before he grabs my hair, shoving me toward the back of the basement where the freezers were.

I want to leave, you’re scaring me,” I tell him trying to pass him when he grabs my hair, bending me over the freezer as I struggle and kick. I almost froze in fear when I felt his breath on the back of my neck as he pinned me down.

I feel his calloused fingers skimming my thighs as he gripped my tunic and yanked at it tearing the bottom open.

Then the sting of my flesh as he ripped my underwear down and felt the warmth of my blood as it cascaded down my legs when he shoved his way inside me and made me scream. His hand closed over my mouth to muffle me. His scent was putrid, like rotting meat and steel as I choked on the breath stolen by the pain.

“I have waited so long for this!” he groaned, using his other hand to hold my head against the cold freezer top. The taste of his fingers as he muffled my screams of agony made me gag and retch

The voices above us coming from the TV grew louder, and I knew Mrs. Daley turned it up so the

kids wouldn’t hear me. The tune that played at the start of it I would never forget. It taunted me as I tried to focus on it instead of the agony tearing up my backside as he raped me. It felt like it stretched on hours before he was finally done. I remained frozen in place staring off at the wall covered in cobwebs as I heard him zip his pants before he pressed his lips to my cheek. I squeeze my eyes shut. “Good, girl, hopefully by next week you’ll be ready for round two” he purred before I listened to his footsteps climb the stairs.

I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed with fear, paralyzed with the humiliation I felt as my blood streamed down my legs, I wanted it to stop, when I noticed the rope hanging on the wall. My hands shook as I reached for it and tossed it over the banister above before dragging a chair over to it as I made a noose. He would come back for me, he would come back. So I slipped it over my head.

I wouldnt let him do that again, I thought as tears streamed down my face. The chair wobbles and I am about to take a step off when I hear the door open. Fear momentarily paralyzes me again wondering if he came back when I see her.

Azalea had stepped into the basement and ehr eyes roamed over me and widened in horror as they take in my torn tunic, my thighs covered in blood. Then the rope around my neck.

“Abbie,” she had whispered, taking a step toward me but I shook my head, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t live like this.

“Go, Ivy,” I sobbed, my shoulders shaking with each breath I took and tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Not without you,” she chokes. I shake my head and she moves closer before looking around the room. She moves toward a chair and places it next to mine. She climbed up on it and loosened the noose, slipping her head in beside mine.

“More than my life. Mine isn’t worth living if you aren’t in it, if you go, we go together because am not without you,” she tells me.

We both jumped, but the rope didn’t hold our weight. I felt the burn of the rope as it slashed through my neck and our heads clanged together before we hit the floor.

Azalea POV 

I could feel every beat of my heart through every pulse point in my body. I could hear it in my ears as the scent of her blood wafted to my nose. I follow her scent, and the blood drops on the floor before finding Abbie soaking wet and lying on the bathroom floor. Her ear pressed to the tiles as

she stared vacantly at the bottom of the sink başin.

“Abbie?” I whispered, my heart breaking at the sight of her. I hadn’t seen her like this in ages. Not

since she first returned home and before was after what the butcher did to her.

Abbie doesn’t answer, and I watch a tear slip down her cheek. When I saw Gannon, I had first thought he hurt her, and I am sure he did, but not in the way I first thought. I thought he had murdered her, but the moment I stepped into the bathroom, I realized she had hurt herself.

She had been through so much, and everyone broke, though I didn’t think it would ever be Gannon that would cause her to snap. We were all waiting for it. I knew it would eventually come because, at some point, everything weighing us down and suffocating us becomes unbearable.

We just dealt with it in different ways.

Kyson, with his drinking, me with the way I shut down and turned everything inward. Liam with his sick games of torture and then Abbie. Abbie always fights hers because there is no comeback from the sort of vice she fights, and that is death.

I kneel on the tiles before lying down beside her, resting my head on the tiles beside her. She blinked at me, and by the hollow look in her eyes, I knew she was somewhere else, somewhere far away. A place that lives inside us and haunts us, plagues and destroys us, the past.

Moving my hand, I swallow as I place it on her cold cheek, brushing my thumb below her eye. Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall as she just stared back at me. “I can still feel it,” she murmurs.

“Feel what Ab’s?” I whisper.

“The noose. It’s still there, so tightly wound I can’t breathe,” she whispers. I touch the scar behind her ear, the one that matches mine, a death we almost shared.

“I can feel it growing tighter, digging into my skin and burning through my flesh. I can feel the way it slides over my skin, growing tighter and tighter. Feel my blood rushing in my ears. I don’t want to feel it anymore.”

“What happened?” I whisper, needing to know. I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know what put her back in this dark place. A place I had only escaped from recently myself.

“I can’t be what he needs me to be,” she says, sniffling. She wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve. “He shouldn’t be punished because I am broken,”

“You’re not broken, Abbie,”

“And what does Gannon need, Abbie?” I asked, and her brows furrowed. “A mate. Someone to love him that won’t hurt him as she did,” Abbie whispers.

“Gannon wants you, Abbie. Tyson wants you. And me? I want you, Abbie,” I tell her, but she slips back away to some dark place again while I fight to bring her back. When I hear movement behind me, my eyes dart toward the door to find Gannon silently slipping into the room.

“I don’t know how to help her,” he admits through the mind-link. But I was as baffled as he was. I was no doctor, no shrink, and I knew Abbie would never spill her secrets to strangers. So I knew we wouldn’t get far with that suggestion.

“Abbie?” I whisper, and she blinks.

“They already did. They don’t have to live with what they did, but I do, and I will live with it for the rest of my life. I will live with it, not them, me. And me living with it makes them live with it. I can’t do that to Gannon and Tyson, don’t you get it? I can’t, Azzy.” she says, sitting up. Her eyes burned with rage.