Confession of a King

My vision was blurry, everything was fading in and out; I didn’t know what was going on. At one point I was pulled up from my fetal position by Ashley, a needle shoved into my neck as some liquid entered my blood stream. As my body began to go limp, I felt the chain release from my ankle and someone lift me up. I was so strung out that I couldn’t fight back, slowly feeling myself slipping into some form of a deep sleep. Matt’s voice booming for me upstairs still rang through my head, my hearing not coming back to normal yet. I wiggled a bit, feeling myself tied to a chair. I coughed, my mouth drier than ever before. My throat was scratchy enough that my cough sounded like a smoker of thirty years.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I scrunched my eyes tight, then opened them, desperately wishing I could rub them so my vision would become right again. I blinked a few times, looking over the room. I turned my head to look beside me, seeing that the hand on my shoulder belonged to Ashley. I shuddered in fear as he grabbed my chin, a dark smile on his face as he looked down at me.

“Where am I?” I asked quietly, looking up into his devilish eyes. He said nothing and dropped his hand from my face. I turned my head to see the remainder of the room. It was small, one window that overlooked outside. We had to have been on a top floor. How did he get me up here without Matt interfering? Where the hell was Matt? “Is he still here?”

“Yes,” Ashley said with a smile. “But not for long, because once he finds you up here he’ll be drowning in a pool of his own blood on the floor.”

My stomach twisted and I looked down to the floor, wishing I still had tears to cry inside of my body. I wasn’t even sure how I had enough moisture to be alive right now, between all the tears I had cried previously, what I urinated and that I had been refusing to drink for days now. Another gun shot sounded from the floors below us, but I wasn’t phased by this one. I just kept telling myself, this is it. If Matt even made it up here, or if he was dead and Ashley was just saying that to torture me, I would be dead soon. How long had I even been up here?

I could hear feet running on our floor, the footsteps heavy and quick. The door to the room busted open directly in front of me, revealing the love of my life. He had a cut on his forehead, by his left eyebrow, one on his left cheek, and his bottom lip was bruised and bloody. His black shirt had a rip in it, exposing a wound to his left shoulder blade. His clothes were covered in dirt and blood, rips and tears in different places. His eyes were dark as he was panting, his gun drawn and pointing to the right of me, directly at Ashley.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ashley snickered, running his left hand through my hair and tugging at the roots.

“Why the fuck shouldn’t I?” Matt growled, not breaking eye contact with the man to my right.

That’s when I felt it, the eyes on me. Someone was behind me, and it wasn’t just someone. It had to be him. It had to be Behemoth. My hair was yanked, pulling my head toward Ashley. Matt’s eyes shifted to behind me, widening then narrowing at the man behind me. I saw Matt’s nose scrunch up quickly, his lip quivering, but he still had the gun raised.

“I’ll blow her fucking brains out, Shadows,” Behemoth’s voice sounded from behind me. I could hear him stand up from whatever he was sitting on, it creaking as he moved. “Drop your weapon or you’ll watch her die.”

Ashley let go of my head, pushing it back to where it was prior, almost knocking the chair I was tied to completely over. I looked to Matt with pleading eyes, but he kept his gaze off of me. His jaw was now tight as he stared at Behemoth, his gun still pointing at Ashley at this moment. Matt licked over his lips, “Let her go and fight me yourself.”

“But what’s the fun in that?” Behemoth chuckled from behind me. “No wound I could inflict on you would hurt as bad as losing your sweet Ivy.” Matt let out a completely animalistic growl, holding his gun up toward the window in the room and shooting straight through it, sending glass shattering outside and onto the floor. Behemoth laughed again, “Not playing out how you wanted it to, huh Shadows?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Matt snarled and now pointed the gun at Behemoth. He cocked his head at Ashley, “This has nothing to do with him. It’s between us. Get him out of here.”

Ashley laughed and grabbed my throat, holding it in his hands and looking toward Matt, “You could’ve picked a prettier one to obsess over, Shadows. I’m sure you only stuck it out with her because she birthed your soon-to-be bastard child, or because you heard Cristina moved onto bigger and better things, like me.”

A gun shot erupted in the room, sending my head toward the ground, expecting that I would be getting a blow to mine in a mere second. Instead there was a cold laugh behind me as Ashley’s body fell onto the ground beside me. I looked up to meet eyes with Matt, who was now pointing his gun at Behemoth again. “Whoops,” Matt smirked and looked up to make eye contact with the monster behind me. “Better call one of your men to take out the trash… Too bad they’re all dead, too.”

“You’re not getting out of here alive, Shadows,” Behemoth stated coldly, putting one of his hands on my shoulder and squeezing it. “I’m just trying to decide when the proper time to start breaking you down is? Should I hurt her first then kill her? Or should I just kill her? What do you think would be best?”

“If you hurt her so help me god…” Matt started.

“What? You’ll kill me? She’ll be dead too,” Behemoth chuckled. “Then you’ll be alone and face it, you might as well just kill yourself at that point. Now answer the question, should I hurt her first or just cut to the chase and kill her?”

Matt’s eyes met mine and I let out a shaky breath, looking up into the hazel orbs I’ve grown to love so much, “Matt, please.”

“Please what, Ivy?” He snapped, staring right at me, but his gun still drawn above me. “Please let him kill you? Is that what you want? Because I don’t fucking want that.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Behemoth added.

“Shut the fuck up!” Matt howled, shooting at the light in the room, then bringing his gun back to face Behemoth.

The glass shattered, mostly falling onto my lap. I let out a scream and Behemoth laughed from behind me, I heard him taking a step back, “Maybe I should just let you hurt her, Shadows. She likes it rough with you, doesn’t she?”

“Fuck you,” Matt spat and took a step closer.

I felt the cold resemblance of a gun held under my chin, Behemoth’s hand in my hair holding my head cocked, “Not a smart move, Matthew.”

Reality must’ve hit Matt’s eyes as he backed up toward the door again, looking down at me with a slight hint of fear in his face. He looked up to Behemoth, “What do I have to do for you to let her go?”

“No!” I screamed, now tears falling down my face, realizing that I could potentially watch Matt die in front of me. “Fuck you, no!”

“Shut up, Ivy,” he growled at me and looked back to Behemoth. “What will let you her go?”

“Drop your gun and I’ll let her go,” Behemoth chuckled. “Unload the bullets and drop them all to the floor, the gun following them.”

Matt nodded and pulled the gun from Behemoth’s direction, looking down at it as he emptied the bullets. The sound of them hitting the floor echoed through the room, as soon as he dropped the gun itself I felt Behemoth lift his gun off of my chin.

I heard the safety click off and I screamed, “Matt!”

The sound of a gunshot rang out through my head as I now watched Matt stumble backwards, collapsing against the wall. My chair was kicked over and Behemoth darted out the room, slamming the door behind himself. I could hear his feet down the hallway. Tears fell from my eyes, looking at Matt leaning against the wall, a pained expression on his face as he held onto his shoulder, blood gushing through his fingers.

“Fucking pussy,” Matt winced as he came toward me slowly, his hands reaching for the rope that tied me to the chair. “Hold still, baby. I’m going to get you out of here.”

I leaned into his chest, my cheek pressed against his bleeding shoulder as he untied the rope. I steadied myself off the ground, helping him up with me. I could feel his blood on my face as I stared at his shoulder, realizing how bad this wound was. He winced in pain as both of his hands came toward my cheeks, pulling them toward his face. Our lips met in a fiery kiss; a kiss like we would never kiss again.

“I love you, let’s get out of here,” he said while throwing his non-injured arm over my shoulders, holding me close to him as he opened the door of the room, peeking out in the hallway.

“I love you too, Matty…” I sighed and walked along with him. “Does it seem fishy to you that he didn’t kill you? He easily could’ve, but he shot and ran?”

“I don't have time to think about that right now, Ivy. I just need to get you to safety and then I will deal with him myself. I’m never leaving you home alone again, and if I am I’m locking you in a closet with a passcode only I know,” Matt muttered, reaching into his waistband, grabbing a second gun and drawing it, pointing it out at each room we walked past.

I laughed to myself at his statement, trying to throw it out of my mind that Behemoth was hiding somewhere in here, probably knowing that we were trying to make a run for it. I was just going to make the best out of the moments we had together, because these could possibly be our last. If I died with Matt’s arm around me it wouldn’t be okay, but it would be much better than tied to a chair with him watching me or him dead in front of me.

We made it down the second flight of stairs when the smell hit us like a runaway train. Gasoline. I looked up at Matt, a worried expression on my face, if my face could get anymore worried than it had been looking the whole walk down. He told me to hold on as he opened up a door leading into the warehouse itself, away from the stairs. He peeked out and then turned back around, his eyes wide. He grabbed me and lifted me bridal style, hissing out loud as he forgot about the wound in his shoulder.

“Matt, what the fuck did you see?” I asked as he held me close to him, my head resting dangerously close to his new shot wound.

“Just keep your face against my shoulder and whatever you do don’t open your eyes,” he stated while running down the stairs.

I instantly got hit with a heat wave, pulling my head from his shoulder and looking around to see that the main floor of the warehouse that we were a flight of stairs away from now, now on exposed stairs, was up in flames. Behemoth was standing by the entrance door, a large metal trashcan in his arms. He tossed it into the flames and darted out of the building, the flames growing. My eyes widened as immense fear set into me. He poured gasoline all over and lit a fucking match.

“He’s going to burn us alive,” I shook in Matt’s arms. He looked down at me with a pained expression, obviously unsure of how to get out of this mess. I could tell he was scared and I let out a deep breath, “We just have to somehow get to that door over there.” I pointed across the flames, “That’s the basement. That’s where they were keeping me. We get down there and climb out the windows.”

“At this point I’m thinking jumping from the second story may be better than going through that,” Matt stated while looking down at the flames, his eyes still wide.

“Let me down and trust me, Matt. There’s no way we could break that fall from up there without severely hurting something. We can do this,” I said as I lightly thrashed in his arms, surprised that I was now the one who was being forceful.

He let me out of his arms and I grabbed his hand, pulling him down the steps with me. As we got onto the main level, the flames were taller than both of us. I squeezed his hand as I pulled him around, trying to find a route that wasn’t covered by the flames. Right as we were reaching the door to the basement a piece of framing fell in front of us, immediately igniting and trapping us in a small section that hadn’t caught fire yet. I let out a yelp as I jumped back into Matt’s arms, feeling him wrap them around me tightly. I turned and looked up at him, seeing his wide, hazel eyes now filled with water, tears falling down his face as he looked at me. I gulped and stood on my toes, kissing him passionately for the last time as he mumbled that he loved me more than anything in the world against my lips.

Notes