Page 10 of Burn For Me

“Bullshit, where’s the cup?” Adalyn hesitated a breath, and Jim’s face morphed into pure rage. “You like this psycho…like actually like him.” Jim took a couple of steps further into the room, and Adalyn held her head high as she squared off with the head orderly.

“Jim, you’re being an asshole, and I don’t appreciate….”

Jim’s arm was as quick as a whip, his hand cracking Adalyn across her face. She cried out as she grabbed her cheek and fell to the floor. The ball of white-hot fury was instant in my chest, and all common sense and logic flew out the window.

Leaping for Jim, my fist connected like a sledgehammer to the side of his face. He stumbled back, his head snapping to the side as a tooth flew from his mouth. Ignoring the pain in my hand, I turned to the next man closest to me and ducked under his right hook. Then landed a hard jab to his kidneys before driving my elbow into his chin. The man doubled over, so I grabbed the back of his head, forcing his face down into my knee. A distinct crunch sound reached my ears with the force of bone meeting bone. The blow knocked him out and I dropped him to the floor. My knee pinched with pain as I took a blow to leg just before I was tackled to the ground by dipshit number four. We landed hard and his weight knocked the wind out of me as my head cracked hard against the bed frame.

Wincing at the pain in my head, I managed to get a few short jabs in at his ear as we wrestled along the ground like a pair of bears. We rolled into one of the other guys, and he yelled out as our combined body weight sent him into the wall. The crash rang through my ears.

If they’d been hoping this would be a quiet beat down, they’d been mistaken. My blood coursed through my veins, spurring me on as my elbow caught the guy I was wrestling with in the jaw.

Oh, how my energy fed off this shit.

Two more quick jabs to the dipshit hanging onto my waist, and he let go. He scrambled to control the blood from his now very broken nose. As I jumped to my feet, the room spun like I’d been stuck with drugs but didn’t remember getting jabbed. Touching the spot where I hit my head, it was moist. I stared at the red on my fingers.

That’s fucking great.

The guy I thought I knocked out was stumbling to his feet. We were all breathing hard as we stared at one another in a standoff.

“Fuck, grab him already.” I heard Jim yell, and a fist came out of nowhere to slam into my gut.

I suddenly couldn’t breathe. Tackled to the floor once more, I couldn’t get up with the weight of three of the men pressing down on me. Jim walked around the guys and stared at me as I snarled and struggled to free myself.

He smirked, his eyes showing the true man that lived under his skin as he slammed one of his boots down onto the scarred side of my face. The pain was excruciating as the tread scraped along the side of the old injury. Warm drops of blood splattered my cheek.

The instant fog made it hard to fight, and I could feel myself being dragged. My body was forcefully flopped onto the shitty mattress. Like a wildling, I thrashed and yelled, managing to hit the guy I didn’t know in the crotch. He hollered and fell backward. Two of the guys, both of them bloody, flopped their weight onto me as Jim grabbed my feet. He strapped them tight faster than I could yank them away.

“Don’t hurt him!” I heard Adalyn yell, my rage mounting.

“Grab her,” Jim growled.

I was still pulling hard on my arms, my workout regime coming in handy as I fought with everything I had. With sheer will alone, I managed to get in another cheap shot to the solar plexus of one of the guys I did recognize. My eyes met his, my stare promising death as he groaned.

I’d kill them. I’d kill them all.

Jim marched around to the other side of the bed and leaned all two hundred and fifty pounds of his muscled form down on my shoulder and arm.

Breathing hard, I roared as I continued to battle the straps hoping they would miraculously give way. I really did love seeing the blood pouring out of Jim’s nose and a bruise already forming by his eye. He was breathing just as hard as I was. Our hatred matched as we stared at one another.

Jim wiped the blood off with the back of his hand and snarled down at me. “I was just going to come in here and rough you up, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to take something from you that’s a whole lot sweeter.”

Jim stood straight, his height exaggerated by my now horizontal position. He held a wild menacing look on his face.

“Let go of me,” Adalyn yelled.

My eyes searched for her by the sound of her voice and found her struggling in one of the large orderly’s grip. He had his arms wrapped around her small body like a vice, holding her off the ground until her feet dangled.

As Jim waved to the man holding her over the floor, panic gripped my heart.

She’d never make it out of the room.

Why hadn’t she run? Why hadn’t she gone to get help?

The guy I didn’t know finally put her on her feet and held her by her arms. She was impressive as she twisted and fought against the grip that was leaving red handprints on the bare skin of her arms. She managed to get an arm free and cracked her hand across the side of Jim’s face. I would’ve cheered if Jim hadn’t smacked her back. He knocked her head to the side so hard that her hair splayed over her face.

“Don’t touch her,” I roared and hauled on the straps so hard that the bed they were attached to groaned.

“Want me to tranq him,” one of the other men asked.