by Skye Warren
And get Abby killed.
I don’t know when she started to matter. She does, though. She matters. I couldn’t shoot her in the back as she ran away from the truck. I couldn’t let her suffocate in that damned jail.
Something has changed inside me. A weakness? I’m not sure yet.
I’m driving and keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, but I decide I don’t like how she’s sleeping, with her neck all crooked. In a way, it would serve her right to wake up with an ache in her neck, but I shift her anyway, her cheek to my thigh, which is as close to a pillow as she’ll get. I press two fingers to her throat, and only then do I realize my hand is shaking even though there’s nothing to worry about: her pulse is strong and even.
She’s going to be okay.
Everything is going to be okay. I survived three guys in the shower room trying to pin me down. Yeah, I broke a couple of ribs and cracked my skull, but I made it out alive. That’s my mantra. I can survive anything. Even her.
I stroke her hair. My voice starts out thready. “Why did you run? Could’ve gotten yourself killed. But then, you knew that, didn’t you?”
She doesn’t answer, of course. That’s okay. If she can hear me, if she recognizes my voice, maybe she’ll feel safe. But what am I thinking? She’ll always fear me. Always associate me with darkness.
The way I do the governor.
“How’d you get out of those knots, huh?” Either I was sloppy or my little bird knew a trick.
She shifts and her hand rests on my thigh just above my knee. Maybe she thinks it’s a pillow, I don’t know. I just know how bad I want her to keep it there. I trace the curve of her ear, the hollow of her neck. I should be watching the road, but I can’t take my eyes off her.
I imagine her waiting for me to sleep, her breathing so even that my senses would be fooled. I imagine her ripping her wrists from the ties, clenching through the pain. I can’t help but like her.
“Where’d you learn that, baby?” I murmur.
Her calm expression is my only answer.
Even a shitty motel would feel like a luxury at this point, but that’s too risky now. I force myself to drive the extra hundred miles.
It’s night by the time we reach Nate’s place. The gate leading into the long driveway is unlocked, which tells me Stone got my message and let Nate know we were coming. I turn in. Dr. Nate is set up in an old farmhouse with different barns, pens, and outbuildings scattered around. He’s a large-animal veterinarian. Cows, horses, pigs. And guys like me.
As soon as we hit the gravel, Abby pushes herself off my thigh, looking around, dazed. And agitated. Her hands go to her face, her arms, her movements still jerky and uncoordinated.
“You’re okay,” I say, doing everything I can to keep from touching her. It wouldn’t calm her, me touching her right now.
She’s looking out the window. You can’t see shit except the porch light up ahead. I know what she’s doing—assessing the place, maybe thinking about making a run for it. I take her by the arm so I don’t have to hurt her wrists any worse. She yanks back, nearly ramming herself into the door of the car.
“Don’t,” I say wearily. “Just don’t.”
“Where are we?” Her voice is slurred, but at least she’s awake.
“Visiting a friend.”
“Where?”
“Michigan.”
A shocked breath goes out of her, like I took her to Mars or something. “How long have we been driving?”
“A long time.”
Her eyes dart to the dashboard clock. The beater I stole from the motel has an old-fashioned clock with actual hands, and it says 10:52. “Yeah, it’s right,” I add. We’re near enough to the porch now to see bugs buzzing around the light. A light inside flips on too.
Nate won’t like me bringing her here, but he won’t do anything about it. Because we go way back. There are some bonds you can’t break.
“I need you to do something for me.” I hand her the strip of cloth I dug out of the backseat some hours ago. “I can’t let you see this guy.”
“I already saw your other friend.”
“Do you want me to kill you? I’m clearly still caring what you see and what you don’t see. Right? Maybe that should tell you something.”
“Or maybe you just like messing with my head. I’m not stupid. I know you can’t keep me with you forever, and I know you can’t let me go.”
Frustration surges through me. Because she’s right. Because that’s what my crew is going to say. Because I need some water and some food and some goddamn sleep.
“Here’s your choice right now—you spend the next few hours in the trunk of this car, or you put on the blindfold and come in with me.”
She throws the cloth at my face. “I’ll take the trunk.”
“Really? So you’re not hungry? Not thirsty? Not in the mood for a nice, cold glass of lemonade?”
She swallows. Salivating. Deliberating, when we both know what she’ll do. She sticks out her hand.
I give her the blindfold. “And you definitely don’t want to make me chase you again.”
“Fine.” She puts it on. I go around and open the passenger door and guide her out and up the three steps to the big wraparound porch and up to Nate’s front door, which swings open.
“The fuck?” Nate mutters under his breath, glaring as we walk in.
“Don’t mind me,” Abby says.
“No talking,” I growl.
Nate widens his eyes.
“It’s fine,” I tell him. Then I shake Abby a little, partly to get her attention and partly in punishment. She’s got a mouth on her. “You need to use the bathroom?”
She shakes her head, but I do have to go. I need to shower while someone else watches her, since I can’t trust her by herself.
My body demanded rest several hours ago. I ignored it. Now it’s forcibly shutting down on me. I’ve lost whatever thin hold I had on politeness or patience. I guide Abby into Nate’s kitchen and push her into a chair. Stay, I tell her with a squeeze of her shoulders.
Her soft sigh promises that she will. Never can believe her.
I set my hand on her forehead. “Does she seem feverish to you?”
“I’m fine,” she says, jerking her head away.
Nate scrubs his hand over his short, kinky hair, eyeing me unhappily.
“See what you think,” I urge him. “Go on.”
He sighs and presses his hand to her forehead. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?” She doesn’t answer. “Aches or pains?”
“Besides the obvious?”
He turns an accusing glance at me. “I’d imagine she’s just overwrought.”
“I need a few minutes. She hasn’t eaten for… She needs to at least drink.” Then I turn to her. She sits primly. Even blindfolded and with that cut on her cheek, she takes my breath away. “If you run, he’ll shoot you. He’s not nice like me.”
Her lips firm.
I exchange glances with Nate, who isn’t amused. He’s a good guy—or he tries to be. That’s what makes him different. But the past…that’s the part we have in common. And you can’t escape your past. Not Nate. Not me. Not even Abby.
Twenty-Three
~Abigail~
I follow Grayson’s footsteps as he goes into some other part of the house. He’s leaving me alone with this other man. I should be thinking about escape, but it turned out so badly last time…
There’s a small knock, and then the light rumble of heavy glass over wood.
“Orange juice in front of you,” the stranger says.
I ignore him. I want Grayson back, perverse as that sounds.
“You should drink. You can’t think straight when you’re dehydrated.”
“Why should I trust you?” I demand. “I don’t know you.”
I can almost hear his shrug. “You don’t want to keep up your energy? To fight at a moment’s notice?” He has a deep voice. A nice voice.
“Is that what you think I should do? Figh
t you? Fight Grayson?”
He doesn’t answer, and I get the feeling he isn’t so comfortable with this.
“But you’re not going to help me.” The words come out bitterly. Grayson wouldn’t have brought me here if he didn’t trust this man.
“I’m not going to help you, no,” he says.
I wonder how he and Grayson met. I wonder what happened to make this man loyal to Grayson, and make Grayson trust him completely.
“How long have you known him?” I feel like a supplicant at his secret stash of answers. But I can’t help going to him, empty bowl in hand. Whatever truths he might give me about Grayson are food for survival, and I’m starving here—dying.
There’s silence, and I think he might not answer. But then he does, with the weight of reluctance in his voice. “A long time.” I feel each word drawn out of him, heavy with meaning. “Since we were children.”
“Did you go to the same school?”
“No,” he says simply.
“You were neighbors or something?”
“No,” he says softly, thoughtfully. “We…wound up together, that’s all.”
The darkness in his tone grips my belly with an icy hand, because I’m suddenly thinking about the rat. The basement. We wound up together. I assumed the rat story was a lie, created to get a message out. Grayson laughed and let me think it was a lie. Wasn’t it?
The sound of pipes stretching in the walls tells me Grayson is finishing his shower. I need more, in whatever minutes I have before Grayson returns.
“I get it.” I set my hands flat on the table so he can’t see them tremble. “The basement.”
The sound of a quick inhale fills the quiet. “He told you?”
I stiffen. It’s true, then? He didn’t make it all up? “Of course,” I say in as natural a tone as I can manage through the shock. “He told me.” Which is true. In a way.
He pushes the glass toward me. I can feel it cold against my knuckle. My heart pounds as I think through his vignette in this new light. Kept in a basement. They broke my arm.
“Just tell me one thing,” I say softly. “How long? You won’t help me. Fine. Just tell me that.”
“If Grayson didn’t feel like telling you that…”
“Oh, come on,” I say, trying to think what might sway this strange honor-bound friend of Grayson’s. “He told me the whole thing. Even the rat.”
I wait, straining to know so much more, to know everything. But I can’t ask too much. How long; that’s an easy question.
“Please,” I say. “I don’t want to hate him.”
I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth—they feel too true, and I shouldn’t feel bad for him. Being trapped in a basement as a kid doesn’t give him the right to kill people and take people captive.
After a long silence where I think he won’t even answer me, he says, “Six years.”
My heart stops and then begins thudding wildly. Six days, I wouldn’t have been shocked. Six weeks would have made sense. There would have been time for him to go missing, time to have those cartons printed and distributed to schools, for other children, safer children to wonder over at lunchtime.
Six months…well, that hurt to think about.
I can’t even fathom six years. In a basement for six years. Captive for six years. No TV. No games.
The stranger’s laugh is rusty. “I’ve shocked you. And now I think…I think you let me believe you knew more than you did. Smart. Know your captor.”
“Is that what Grayson is?” I ask, and I know I’ve gone too far.
The air shifts. I feel the man moving away from me. “You’ll have to ask him,” he says.
Then he’s gone. But there isn’t time to contemplate an escape, because just as quickly, the kitchen is filled with familiar footsteps. I guess I already took the stranger’s advice, because I do know my captor. And even though I’m blindfolded, I know it’s him in front of me.
Twenty-Four
~Grayson~
Nate doesn’t quite meet my eyes when I pass him. He’s just outside the kitchen, checking his phone, well in my line of sight but removed. Separate. As if an extra four feet can keep him apart from what I’m doing to Abby in here. The way he’s acting, he must have said something about me, something I won’t like. But I’m not worried about it. We’d never move against each other. We’d kill for each other. We already have.
Abby is sitting where I left her, in the kitchen chair, blindfolded. The glass of orange juice in front of her is full. She hasn’t touched it.
I need sleep. Which means she needs sleep. I crush the pills I pulled from Nate’s stash. A sedative meant for dogs and cats. I stir it into the juice.
She’ll be able to taste it, but that won’t matter. I’m not trying to hide the fact that I’m drugging her.
“Here,” I murmur, taking her hands and showing her where the glass is, making sure she has a grip on it.
She takes a sip and makes a face. I catch the glass before she can knock it away.
“What is that?” she asks, sputtering.
“Something to help you sleep.”
“You drugged me?”
“Not yet,” I say evenly. “One sip isn’t going to do anything. You’re going to drink this whole glass.”
“Like hell.”
Her swearing gets me hot. And that’s a problem, because in an hour she’s going to be asleep. “You are going to drink it, because the alternative involves cages and metal handcuffs. And then I’d probably stick a needle of horse tranquilizer in you for good measure.”
Because judging from her bruised wrists, she might be willing to break her arm to get out. Most people think they’ll do anything to escape, but they won’t.
Something about her is different. She’s fierce and a little bit crazy. It means I can’t trust her. It also means I really, really want her. To have all that wildness beneath me.
“But why?” Her voice is thready, afraid. She’s afraid. It twists something in my chest.
“It’s just a light dose, Abby. But the truth is, I can’t trust you after what happened at the motel.”
She flinches as if I hurt her. Maybe I did. But I can’t risk her getting loose from me while I sleep here. I can’t make Nate watch her.
And, above all, I don’t want to have to tie up her wrists when they’re already fucked up. I won’t hurt her any more than I have to.
“Drink it,” I say, more gently. “It’s just enough for a dog. Twenty pounds. It’s going to make you groggy. Not unconscious.”
And just like that, she obeys me. Her hands are shaking as she lifts the glass to her lips. I help her hold it in place while she drinks it down, almost greedy now that she’s decided to give in.
I think she wants oblivion as much as I want to give it to her.
I watch her drink, watch the way each sip leaves shiny little specks of pulp scattered across her top lip like stars. And then she licks them off.
“That’s good,” I tell her. “You won’t cause me any trouble tonight.”
“Yeah,” she says softly.
I look up and find Nate staring at us with an expression I can’t quite read. I don’t care. Let him think whatever fucked-up thing he wants. I peek into his fridge. “You like blueberries?”
She nods.
I pull out the bowl and pick the biggest blueberry, fat and almost purple. “Here,” I say, pressing it against her lips.
She opens for me, and I imagine the sweet-tart juice bursting against her tongue. I wish I could see her eyes, watch them flicker and spark.
But there’s only my heartbeat and the faintest sound as she swallows. I imagine her tongue turning a deep purple, stained by blueberry juice. My body reacts almost violently. Exhaustion has drained every part of me except my cock. That part of me is ready to go, ready to press into her, ready to rub against that dark tongue, hungry for the soft, wet friction. Years of being locked up are finally taking their toll. I’ve been so long without a woma
n that even a woman eating fruit is a pornographic production.
The phone rings. Nate answers tersely.
Someone on the other end of the line is worked up. Nate has mastered the balance of soothing and authoritative. When he hangs up the phone, his expression is grim. “I’ve got a surgery out in Blainsville. I need to be on the road five minutes ago. Not sure when I’ll get back.”
“Got it.”
Unable to help myself, I smooth the back of Abby’s hair. She doesn’t even react. She’s exhausted and drugged, no fight left in her. She’ll be mine for the night. Helpless. The only question that remains is what I’m going to do with her. I’m still not sure about the answer.
I walk Nate to the front door. We stop on the porch, where I can keep Abby in sight through the window.
Nate lets out a long breath. “You got a plan? Because I don’t know what that is in there.”
“Get to the Bradford. Do the governor. That’s the plan.” But he knows all that.
“The girl,” he clarifies.
“I know.”
“She’s innocent.”
That’s why I like Nate. Stone doesn’t give a shit about innocence, but it matters. It has to; otherwise justice doesn’t mean anything. Vengeance doesn’t mean anything.
“I’m just tired,” I say finally. It’s the best I can do. Bone-deep tired. Razor’s edge tired.
He studies me with world-weary brown eyes. I’d trust Nate with my life, and he trusts me the same. We figured out a long time ago that no one else was going to protect us.
“I’ve never seen you like this,” he says.
I laugh, low and rough. “You don’t remember? Fucking sleep deprivation. Fucking starvation. The whole nightmare.”
He looks surprised that I’d mention it. “Her. We’re not them. We don’t have to be like them.”
“This is different. I’m not going to hurt her.” I lower my voice. “I’m taking care of her—I’d do anything for her,” I add, surprising even myself. Not so surprising considering I raided a police station to get her back a few hours ago. Probably broke twenty laws.