SAGE MONTERO.

@puckmedaddy: ‘Gah, I understand why he’s the captain; he looks like he handles a puck the same way he does a woman. Rough.’

Yeah, until he chokes you to death.

@rookslapmepls: ‘I volunteer. I volunteer. I volunteer as tribute…sorry I meant puck.’

If desperate had a label, it’d be you, sweetheart.

@rookmehard: ‘I know they call him the Angel cause he’s a devil in the sheets. Argue with the wall, everyone.’

I’d rather argue with my fake cactus. And it barely cost me a dollar.

@lowlightsdrex: ‘Hear me out, dim lights, waterbed and some slow music. Oh did I mention Drex Rhodes in that equation?’

@ruthlessdrex: ‘Drex, shirtless. I’’ll leave that here, girls. Go crazy, look it up, you’ll see the obsession.’

@dirtytalklevi: ‘My uterus just put on skates and asked for his jersey number. He’s so hot.’

I don’t know what’s more depressing: reading every comment on NVU’s Instagram sports page with bitterness clogging my throat or watching some of the girls from my squad thirst over potential serial killers in the comments.

They had a game today. I crashed said game and it did nothing because not only did they win but they went to a party at some frat house in campus to celebrate.

Placing my phone on the marble countertop, I move to the fridge and the minute I open it and see Sax’s marmalade jam next to my strawberry jam, the bitterness and the grief are back and they wrap around my heart like a damn noose.

“I’m…I-I’m sorry”, I whisper to no one, closing the fridge fast and leaning my back against it.

My boyfriend, Ford says the only way to let the grief go is to just not think about it.

I’d listen to him if it weren’t for the fact that he was high on weed when he was telling me that. Oh and he couldn’t give a shit about my grief, there’s that.

So I choose to listen to the one person who knew me from the inside out.

Breathe, Sage.

You are alright.

No monster is gonna get you.

The monsters under the bed aren’t real.

I breathe, I replay Sax’s words in my mind over and over till they sink in yet when I open my eyes, I realize…

My sister lied.

The monsters are very real because one of them is standing in front of me, looking right through me the way a predator does when he knows he has the prey caught in his snare.

“W-What are y-you…”

Somewhere between realizing I have an intruder in my home and the fear erupting in every damn vein inside me, I lose my voice and the man with the muddy boots and the Ted Bundy face knows it.

“Don’t run”, he commands, his voice falling on my skin like shards of ice that have my heart looking for a way outside my body.

Six feet three, muddy boots, a dark tank top, jeans that cling to his muscular thighs and a face carved like granite, the man in front of me looks and probably weighs ten times more than I do.

I can’t fight him. I’m not stupid.

My entire body shaking, I chance a look at the phone that’s resting on the marble countertop.

If I can just reach it…

“Mali zeko”, he croons, taking a step forward.

What the fuck is zeko?

What is he…what is he doing here?

“I’m…I’m not Sax”, I mumble, willing my feet to move. Move, damn it.

“You are not. You are you”, he takes another step forward, scaring me, suffocating me.

I could scream but no one’s here. Dad’s at a conference in New York and our house is at the outskirts of town.

The CCTVs inside here could probably catch him but by the time he stabs me in the heart with a knife, they won’t matter. I won’t matter.

This is the perfect place for murder.

“I won’t g-go down without a fight”, I bark, tears welling in my eyes, “I won’t just stand here while you attempt to kill me, Ronan Rhodes. I’m not my sister!”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I make a run for it for my phone.

I never get to my phone though.

Ronan Rhodes, the guy built like a tank and the man I’ve seen in passing and never spoken to until today, grabs me by the waist.

I thrash; my nails drag against his hands but my efforts are of no use.

Not when he pins my face against the fridge, hand covering my mouth, his entire back swallowing my frame like he was made to rule over all the men and women…women like me…women like his ex’s sister who’s been parading around town calling him and his brothers, murderers.

Do your worst, I scream against his hand.

His other hand comes down to the line on my back right above my ass then he leans in and I almost regret my words because this is not how I’m going out.

I don’t want to—die like this.

“You are Sage”, he grits, burying his nose against my neck like a maniac.

Then he adds another cryptic note that makes me realize this is the end of the run for me, “Ljubav je rat.”

The tears I’ve tried to hold back fall down my cheeks with a bang and so does the fear.

Did they corner Sax like this?

Did they kill her slowly?

One slash to the neck and it was done?

“Cry, mali zeko. I like the salt in the tears”, he groans, his nose moving up my neck before he stops near my earlobe.

Reading my fear and my helplessness, he breathes one last command, “Sleep. It’s a long ride.”

Xxx

I wasn’t the wondering type. That was my sister’s thing. The kind of hippie who wondered how a world without trees would function, how reaching a hundred years old would look like, how the earth was the only planet with life…

I never wondered about shit until I got taken from my house on a Friday night by the goalie of the Mallow Reapers who might have aided in my sister’s death and had been MIA for almost two weeks.

My head throbs like someone hit me with a mallet for hours non-stop.

My body’s limp, I can’t move, I can’t lift a finger.

And when I open my eyes, I expect to wake up in my bed, a jar of strawberry jam in hand but instead I’m met with three pairs of assessing eyes.

“Her majesty’s finally awake. How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Drex crouches in front of me as confusion slams me harder than the scream begging to be released from my throat.

“Shh. Don’t even think about it. You scream you wake him up. You wake him up, you die Sage. You are familiar with death, aren’t you?” Rook’s voice is clipped, out of patience.

I want to ask ‘wake who up’ but the other man in the room glares at me the same way he did at my sister’s funeral.

“You don’t know when to quit, do you little Montero? Now he’s got you and the only way you are getting out of this cage is if he kills you.”

“My f-father will—.”

“Your father?” Tatum continues, chuckling in disbelief like I’m the mouse caught in the trap and it hasn’t hit me yet. “Sage, your daddy isn’t getting you out of this cage. Neither can we. You did this to yourself and you deserve it.”

They stand to their feet before I can even ask.

They move away, one by one.

When Tatum looks me in the eye and locks the door, only then does it register to me that they locked me inside a literal cell.

And when I push the blanket covering me away, staring at the huge arm snagged around my waist, panic eats me up and chews me right out.

They…locked me in a cage with Ronan?