Lost and Found

Chapter Nineteen

Trubel's POV

I had finally gotten my cuts to stop bleeding. Roy grabbed some steri-strips from his car and used them to put himself back together; he gave me some steri-strips for my cuts, too.

We were sitting on the stairs, still, and I wondered what he was still doing down here. I wasn't allowed to leave the basement, but he was.

"Can I ask you something?" Roy spoke up after a few minutes of silence.

"I don't know. Can you?" I asked. I wasn't agreeing to answer a question that I might not be able to answer.

"They did this to you," he said, looking at me. "And you could have stopped them, right?"

He thought I could take Andre, Orion, Marcus, Zach, and Julian all at once. He thought I could have defended myself. I probably could have if I had tried to... But trying to hurt them could put Nick and me in danger.

"Wrong," I disagreed, trying to get him to stop talking.

"When are you going to stop lying to me?" he asked. He could see right through me, which I should have seen coming since he was a Mavais Dentes. He was supposed to be known for his manipulative nature, but Roy himself didn't really seem like that kind of guy.

"I'm not lying," I said, mentally begging for him to just drop the subject.

"See? There you go again," he said, sounding frustrated and slightly dumbfounded.

He was getting on my nerves. "What do you want from me?" I asked, standing up.

"What? Nothing!" he denied.

I was glaring at him. "Then what are you doing down here. Why don't you go and spend some quality time with your psycho friends?"

"Is it so crazy to want to know a little more about you?" he asked. 

"Yes," I said bluntly.

"You saved my life, and now you're acting like you hate me again," Roy said. He was starting to yell, too. "So sorry if my curiosity bothers you... Why don't you just kill me and everyone else?!"

"Because I can't!" I screamed. Oops. I wasn't supposed to say that. Too late. Roy was already onto me. "If I leave here or hurt someone, 7th Street is going to look for me. And they're going to look for Nick and his friends." I was right in Roy's face when I said, "If I make one wrong move, they're all dead."

"That's why you let them do that to you," Roy said quietly, gesturing to my bloody arm. He looked guilty. He should look guilty.

I heard the door open. I looked past Roy and saw Andre walking down the stairs.

I looked away. After what he did to me, I couldn't look at him without feeling so much hatred it made me sick.

"What's going on down here?" Andre demanded. He must have heard me yelling.

"Nothing," I hissed.

"Right," Andre said skeptically. I glanced at him for a brief second and saw that he was glaring at me. Andre looked like he was going to say something, but a phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and I saw that it was mine.

Andre looked at the screen before holding the phone up so Roy and I could see. "Nick Burkhardt," Andre said frustratedly.

Why couldn't Nick leave this alone? He was putting himself and everyone he knew in danger. I could only do so much to keep Seventh Street's bloodlust in check.

On the other hand, I could only imagine how pissed he was. And if I was being honest, watching the phone ring with his name on it was driving me a little crazy. I wanted so badly to answer it and tell him I was okay... But I couldn't.

"Well, he's not calling to talk to me," I said grumpily.

Andre shook his head angrily. "That's it," he grumbled. He disappeared up the stairs and returned a few minutes later with a hammer.

Andre set my phone on the table next to the couch and held the hammer up.

"Andre, do you really need to-?" Roy started asking.

"Shut up," Andre yelled before turning to me. "Nick is never going to find out you're alive. You're with us whether you like it or not."

"I know," I said submissively. "That was our deal."

"And if you break it," Andre threatened. "You and Burkhardt are going to end up like this." Andre brought the hammer to the phone three times.

We all paused and stared at it. The phone was completely undamaged. The screen wasn't even cracked.

Apparently, government-issued phones were pretty durable. Andre brought the hammer down on the phone about ten more times, still not causing any damage. It took all of my self-control not to laugh at his baffled expression.

"Where the hell did you get this thing?" Andre asked.

I shrugged. "Stole it."

"Is that how you get everything?" Andre questioned.

I lied again. "Pretty much, yeah."

"If you didn't irritate me, I'd like you," Andre said, pocketing the phone. He liked the power of having a Grimm in his gang, but he didn't like the hassle of dealing with one which, I guess, is why I was being kept out of sight.

Andre started walking past me but stopped at the foot of the stairs. "Roy, get your ass upstairs," he yelled over his shoulder at Roy before turning to me. "And, you. Keep your mouth shut. I don't want to hear you or see you-"

"Until you want something from me?" I finished.

Andre backhanded me, and the cut on my lip started bleeding again. Damn it. I had just gotten it to stop. For a human, Andre hit pretty damn hard.

Don't hit him back, don't hit him back, don't hit him back, don't hit him back.

"I mean it. You do what I say, or we'll take another walk out to the backyard," he threatened coldly.

I wiped the blood from my face and glared at Andre coldly. "Maybe I'd do what you say if you didn't treat me like a dog," I replied bitterly. "How am I supposed to become part of 7th Street when you keep me locked up in a freaking basement?"

"Shut it," Andre growled and stomped upstairs. Roy looked at me nervously before wordlessly following Andre. I heard the lock on the door click into place when they left.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I couldn't leave, but I didn't know how much longer I could keep doing this. I did everything Andre asked, and I only lost my temper a few times; if we were in any other situation, I would have killed him and everyone one of his friends twenty times over by now.

I was doing the best I could, but it wasn't good enough. Everyone here expected me to bow down and let them keep me locked away like a caged animal, but I couldn't do that. I shouldn't do that. I was already starting to lose my mind.

It was ridiculous, and it felt like I had no escape. None of them actually wanted me here; they just wanted my abilities and my reputation. Nick and I would be dead if Andre didn't need me to deal with North End Crew. But they still hated me as a person, and they would probably keep using me and abusing me until they didn't need me anymore.

It scared me. If I ever snapped, if the day came that I couldn't handle being backhanded, tied up, locked away, or told to shut up, they would get rid of me. And then they would go after Nick and our friends simply because they knew me.

I could kill some of them, but I would never be able to get them all. I didn't know what else I could do aside from bearing the pain and hatred to protect the people I cared about, but even that looked less and less like a solution as time went on.