My Stepbrother, My Enemy {BL}-Chapter 144: Waking Up To A Nightmare

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Noah’s POV

The first thing I noticed was how heavy my body felt. It was as if every muscle was weighed down with sandbags, making me feel sluggish, and my eyelids were glued shut, no matter how hard I tried to open them. A dull, nauseating headache throbbed behind my eyes, and for a moment, I just lay there, taking shallow breaths and trying to understand why everything felt so off.

When I finally managed to pry my eyes open, I was met with a dim ceiling, marked with rust stains and old oil smudges. The air was thick with the scents of gasoline, metal, and a faint chemical sourness. Blinking slowly, the world tilted a bit, and I realized I was on a thin mattress on the floor, the scratchy fabric brushing against my cheek.

A sickening twist of fear knotted in my stomach.

This was definitely not my blue themed bedroom. This wasn’t anywhere familiar.

Where the hell was I?

I tried to push myself up, but my limbs felt weak and disconnected, as if they weren’t mine. My hands trembled as I pressed them against the mattress, and I only made it halfway up before a wave of dizziness crashed over me, forcing me back down. My heart raced, pounding in my throat as fragments of memory flickered in my mind walking through the garden, checking my phone, that weird text from Ethan, turning around, and then—

Pain.

A hand gripping my arm.

A needle.

Laughter.

I swallowed hard, trying to calm my breathing, but panic was already tightening around my chest. I pulled myself up again, much slower this time, gripping the edge of the mattress like it was my only lifeline. My head spun, but I couldn’t lie back down, not when every instinct screamed that I needed to get out of there.

It was the sound of low, male voices coming from somewhere deeper in the building that made my blood run cold.

They were close, too close and laughing.

The sound raised the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.

"No, no, no..." I whispered, terrified that if I spoke any louder, they’d hear me.

Before I could finish that thought, the memories crashed into me like a tidal wave: Liam grabbing me, Jace looking like a demon, Patrick pushing the needle into my arm, my scream drowned by his palm. The world tipped. Their voices echoed.

And then...darkness.

Shit...did I get kidnapped?!

My breathing hitched. Tears blurred my vision, mixing with the dizziness, warping the room even more. I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep quiet because the footsteps were getting louder, shuffling, uneven, moving around on the concrete floor just beyond a half-open metal door.

"Oh God..." I murmured again, struggling to think clearly amidst the fear.

I had no idea what they were planning, but I knew enough to understand that staying put meant something terrible was coming.

I needed to move.

Even if my body felt like it was underwater, even if my arms shook so badly I could barely hold myself up, I had to get out of there.

Using all the strength I had left, I slid off the mattress onto my knees, my palms scraping against the cold concrete. The ground felt frigid, biting into my skin, but the shock helped keep me alert. I bit down hard on my lip, focusing on anything in front of me, an old toolbox, a cluttered workbench, a wall full of dusty license plates.

I couldn’t stand; my legs wouldn’t cooperate, so I crawled.

It was slow, awkward, and pathetic, but it was the only way I could move.

The voices in the other room became clearer, the words muffled yet distinctly entertained. Someone cursed, another one laughed, and then something clattered to the ground like a tool knocked over.

I instantly froze, body tense, breath caught in my throat.

If they came in here right now, I didn’t stand a chance.

My heart raced, pounding against my ribs as if it wanted to break free. Tears slipped silently down my cheeks as I forced myself to keep crawling, dragging toward a darker corner behind a stack of crates. Each movement hit me with another wave of dizziness, but I clenched my jaw and pressed on.

"Come on, come on, move..." I urged myself quietly, scared that any second the door might swing open and they’d see me struggling, weak, drugged, and helpless. Just thinking about it made me choke back a sob.

I finally reached the crates, barely and pressed my back against one, trying to shrink down as much as possible and become invisible. My chest rose and fell in shaky breaths as I strained to hear what the guys were saying, holding onto the hope that maybe... just maybe they hadn’t realized I was awake yet.

But that hope shattered when Jace’s voice pierced through— 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"...he should be out for at least another hour."

I squeezed my eyes shut.

A whimper escaped before I could stop it.

And the footsteps turned.

The murmur of voices drifted toward me long before my eyes could fully adjust. At first, it was distant, like a conversation happening underwater, but as the fog in my head started to clear, the words became sharper, each one more horrifying than the last.

I forced myself to stay still on the grimy mattress, even though every instinct screamed at me to get up and run. My limbs felt heavy and weak, almost alien, the aftereffects of whatever they had injected me with. Just lifting my head felt like trying to lift a weight.

But their voices spilled out from the small office-like room attached to the workshop, and the more I listened, the colder I got.

"Just do it now," Jace snapped, irritation thick in his tone. I heard something being adjusted, metal scraping, plastic snapping into place. "He’s still out. Now’s the time."

Liam let out a sharp, disgusted breath. "You really are an idiot, you know?" I could imagine him rolling his eyes without even seeing him. "If he’s unconscious while Patrick’s on top of him, people will know it wasn’t consensual. Even your shit-for-brain should get that."

On top...?

"Who cares?" Jace shot back. "We don’t have all night. Someone’s going to notice he’s gone and start searching. Or worse, He might wake up soon and start swinging. You know how difficult he can be."

A loud, mocking laugh escaped Patrick. "Have you even seen the twink? He’s tiny. If he wakes up, he’ll just flail a bit—that’s it. I can pin him down before he understands what’s happening."

More metal scraping. I imagined him adjusting the camera lens.

My throat tightened so suddenly that swallowing was impossible. A slow, creeping horror slithered beneath my skin as the realization hit me. The text message. The garden. The shadows behind me. The sting in my arm. Waking up here. The mattress. The locked doors.

This wasn’t a prank.

This was far worse.

So much darker than I could have ever imagined.

Just what were they planning to do to me?!

My fingers dug into the grimy concrete as I fought to breathe without making a sound. My heart pounded too loudly, thudding painfully against my ribs like it wanted to burst free.

Liam sighed, scrolling through his phone with a bored detachment that twisted my stomach. "If we mess this up, it’s you who’s going down, not me. Not Patrick."

"Well, we can’t just sit around forever," Jace muttered. "The longer he’s out, the more likely someone will come in and ruin things."

"And whose fault is that?" Liam shot back. "You should’ve chosen a better spot—not some family workshop with open windows and nosy neighbors."

Patrick snorted. "Whatever. I’m ready when you two stop arguing."

A small sound escaped me, barely more than a breath, but it felt loud in the oppressive silence of the workshop, freezing me in terror that someone had heard.

Footsteps shuffled in the room. Jace lowered his voice. "Did you hear that?"

My blood turned to ice.

Liam scoffed. "Probably just a rat. This place is a dump."

Patrick chuckled softly. "Perfect vibes for what we’re about to do, right?"

I squeezed my eyes shut, nausea rising in my throat. I felt too weak to defend myself, too slow, too unsteady. Panic churned behind my ribs like a living beast, pushing me to crawl, to hide, to do something, anything, but the drug still clouded my mind, making everything seem far away.

They hadn’t brought me here to scare me.

They hadn’t pulled me from that garden just for a prank, or to dump me somewhere cold and laugh about it later.

They had planned something I couldn’t even let myself fully comprehend, because if I did, I might start screaming and once I started, I knew it would all be over.

My breath quaked as I clamped my hand over my mouth again, hoping they couldn’t hear how terrified I was.

And deep down, I knew...if I didn’t find a way out soon, I wasn’t getting out at all.