The North Star | COMPLETED ✔️

Chapter 3 ~ Job Hunting

Chapter 3

"You shouldn't have run, Jessie," Drake's voice echoed into the space between my ears.

I gasped, eyes flying open, wild and wide. My wrists and ankles twisted against rope, and a solitary lightbulb swung overhead, illuminating the familiar setting. The garage. The chair. That chair. I jerked against the restraints, knowing it would do no good. Bolts secured the chair to the concrete floor, and I'd seen grown men try and fail to break free of it.

"You want out," Drake said.

My gaze fixed on the object in his hand, and every single one of my muscles tightened in unison. I shook my head and whimpered a non-verbal plea.

Drake's grip on the iron tightened, and a sadistic smile slashed his face. "You already know, don't you?" He tilted it back and forth, and steam billowed the air with a hiss. His attention turned to the tattoo on my shoulder and mine did the same.

The onyx eagle stood bold against my pale skin, my other artwork mere additions in the midst of its importance. The eagle meant the club. The eagle meant the family, and once a person stopped being a part of that, they lost the right to have it.

As if my thoughts had been a starting signal, Drake yanked my elbow up and pushed the burning plate into the mark.

A scream so strong my throat could bleed ripped the air as fire melted my flesh, sizzling, hissing. "Please! I won't– I won't–"

"You did." Drake seemed entranced, transfixed. His lips parted on a breath as he pulled away and my skin came with him. "Don't worry, Jessie," he said, voice detached. "I don't want to kill you."

I shot upright, covered in a cool sweat, gulping lungful after lungful of hollow, empty air. Another nightmare.

Each night when I closed my eyes, Drake found me. This time had been different. A premonition, a distortion of a memory I'd never been able to rid myself of. Every detail of the dream still lingered on my skin like blisters, and I couldn't help but recall the time I'd watched him do it before. When he'd forced me to watch poor Greg sit in that chair and scream and writhe in agony.

I'd needed to learn. Greg wasn't my friend, and our playful banter hadn't been the innocent passage of time I'd told him it was. I was a whore to have affection for the boy so young and new to our world, and Greg... Greg was a dead man.

It was then that my young girl's mind learned the truth about Prince Charmings. Prince Charmings were only charming until you got inside the carriage. Once they closed the door...

I shook my head. Thinking about him wouldn't help me. The memory of the dream echoed through my mind too vividly, and I focused on my surroundings in a fight to bring myself back to the present. Early dawn painted the world in hues of pink, yellow and light blue. The rain had ceased in the night hours, but the puddles left behind still peppered the cement, and the view beyond our safe hold seemed to shine with the residual moisture.

All around, sleeping forms propped into corners, huddled in crannies, and stretched out onto flattened boxes. A few early risers stood around one dwindled fire, wrapped tight in torn blankets. They rubbed their hands together and murmured wistful conversation about the long, forgotten comforts of another life.

How did I get here? My whole life had been a rollercoaster ride of disparity, leading me to this one specific point. This single moment. My mother chose drugs over me. My father was a mystery. Whatever family I had didn't want the burden. I didn't even know their names.

Why? Why were some people born into good homes, with love and prospects and opportunities, while the rest of us got stuck with... this?

With a set jaw, I forced my thoughts away and unwrapped the blanket from my shoulders. Nobody was going to come save me or any of these people here. If I wanted a different life, I had to take it. I stuffed my pack full, zipped it shut, and smoothed my hair as best I could with an old broken comb I'd found on the street.