She pulls in a shuddered breath and walks forward, away from me. Her back strains as she continues to breathe heavily. Is she crying? I catch up to her and grab her arm, pulling her to turn around. Her eyes are wide and red, but she's not crying. "I'm fine. Let's just get to the basement."
The silence continued until we reached the metal doors of the basement. The sun is completely gone and the moon is large and bright, which has caught Reese's attention. I turn to let her down the steps first, but she's staring up to the sky with a small smile stretched across her lips. I realize now she hasn't seen the moon or the stars in three years. "The only normal thing in my life right now is the sun and the moon," she says.
"I hear ya." I take her by the elbow and tug her down the steps. I flip the lights on first and close the doors behind her. "Stay here for a second." Taking a lap around the basement, I check everything to make sure no one got in. The prisoners know not to come down here, but the caretakers also used to do a much better job of securing the safe area. No one secures shit now. Regardless, most of the prisoners stay out only for the fact that they know what will happen if they're caught. Oddly enough, everyone here fights for their survival, with some kind of fake hope that they're going to get out of this place alive. "Coast is clear."
I grab mom's old mattress out of the corner and drag it to the middle of the floor. I look around for some sheets, but I don't see anything, so I open the closet back up—the one place that kills me to look inside of. There's a blanket on the top shelf, which I grab quickly before closing the door—blocking Mom's scent back out.
"I've got a blanket. It'll have to do," I tell her.
"Sin, I have slept without a blanket for three years. This will feel like heaven."
She kicks her boots off and curls up on the edge of the mattress, folding her hands under the side of her face. She looks content. I wish I could feel content.
I sit down on the floor and lean my back up against the wall. When I let out a sigh of relief after this God-awful day, Reese opens her eyes, looking at me with question. "I don't bite," she says. "You don't need to sleep sitting up against the wall. Plus, you should rest your head."
"I didn't want to assume anything," I say. Some of the times, she seems more mature than I am. Other times, I know she's missed out on everything between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. I want to be mindful of that.
"I think it would be okay if you slept beside me," she says softly. "In fact, I think I might like it if you would."
The way her words sound on her tongue make me question what will happen if I do sleep next to her. Maybe I shouldn't wonder. I stand up and walk over to the mattress, keeping my focus glued on her eyes for any hint of uncertainty.
But there is none of that.
I lie down beside her and she turns over to face me. "Thank you for saving me," she says.
"Thank you for taking care of me today," I tell her.
Her hand loops around my neck as she scoots in closer to me. "You know, this whole thing sucks so much, but there is some good mixed in with it all."
"What's that?" I ask.
"You." She leans in and kisses me gently. Her gentleness is a hardcore turn on.
I wrap her in my arms and kiss her harder, parting her lips with my tongue, savoring the taste. I slip my hands under the back of her shirt, noticing how her skin feels like silk against my hands. This wasn't in my cards. I'm cheating the system and winning big. Freeing my hands from her body for just a second, I pull my shirt over my head, and she quickly follows my lead with hers, pulling the straps of the overalls off and then her shirt. I pull her back into me, needing to feel her skin against mine. The second contact is made, it's like I’m feeling the sun for the first time after being locked up in the dark. It's like a warm day after a winter's freeze.
I kiss her neck, hearing a small moan escape her lips, which encourages me to kiss lower until I reach the cotton of her thin bra. "I've never done—" she breathes.
"I know," I interrupt her. My experience is also limited with being locked up at eighteen, but I don't need experience to know what I want to do. Traveling down her torso until I hit the waistband of her pants, I tug gently, letting them fall to her knees. I place a kiss on her hip bone as her waist lifts from the mattress. Her breaths quicken, telling me this is okay. And thank God this is okay because I just realized how badly I need this girl. With my finger curled around the waistband of her panties, I tug those down as well.
"Sin," she cries. "What's that?"
"What?" I ask, looking over at her.
"That!" she yells, pointing over to the corner.
Shit.
12
Chapter Twelve
REESE
"Don't move," Sin says calmly. I pull the blanket up to my neck as he steps off of the mattress and walks to the corner. I watch as he scratches the side of his face before he rips the thing down, or tries to rip it down. A thin rope tied tightly around a doll's neck hangs from the ceiling, but the rope is tucked under a ceiling panel.
Sin pulls the rope off of the doll's head and brings it over, dropping it on the bed. The doll is covered in dry blood. "A doll," I confirm.
"Someone was in here," Sin says, returning back to the hanging rope.
I lift the doll from the bed and take a closer look, noticing the blonde, yarn hair, the blue eyes, and the pink satin dress. It looks like a doll I had as a child, exactly like the doll I had. I remember putting her hair into pigtails like my hair always was. And the pink dress was like the one my mother had sewn for me because pink was my favorite color and the doll came with a purple dress. I turn the doll over and unclasp the top button. Swallowing hard, I peel the fabric to the side, feeling a sickness grow in the bottom of my stomach. This is my doll. My name is written down the spine. I wrote it there. "This is my doll from when I was a child," I tell Sin.
He nods his head, but with confusion set in his eyes. "No one comes in or out of Chipley except—"
"Except who?"
"Well, Jackson Crownwell has a care taker drop in prisoners from Applebrook once every few weeks. It's like the food drop, except, well, people. But they're usually unconscious when they arrive and none of them would have had access to your things." Sin turns back around to fuss with the rope, yanking at it harder, but it doesn't budge. "I'll end up taking the ceiling down if I pull any harder." He punches the ceiling tile until it loosens and moves to the side, watching as some loose debris falls. When the dust settles, he hoists himself up into the hole and looks around for a second before dropping back down.
"Did you see anything?"
"Yeah, we got a problem." I peel my shirt off the ground and pull it back over my head. Sin must have a million thoughts running through his head by the look in his eyes. I keep forgetting he should be resting, but I'm guessing if I even mentioned that to him right now, he'd snap. "We can either do this the hard way or the harder way."
"What do you mean by that?" I know whatever it is, is going to require us to keep moving. I slide my legs off the mattress, still feeling a tingle in places I've never felt anything. Slipping my feet into my boots, I glance back at Sin again, now noticing the sweat glistening over his hard and very defined chest. He's much larger with his shirt off—muscles everywhere and tattoos. Lots of them. I try to determine what the artwork is on his shoulder, but it looks like words in a different language. There's a skull on his opposite arm with smoke coming out of the eyes. Then there's the whole left side of his body, which is covered with bars, like prison bars.
"Hey, eyes up here," he says with a wry grin. "You can focus on me later, but right now, we need to go into my dad's house."
Snatcher. "Will he be there?"
He tugs on the rope again, pulling harder this time. And I hear a thump. "Yeah, he'll be there."
"But, Sin…" He captured me, tortured me, and held me as a prisoner for three years. Surely he doesn't need to be reminded of this.
He walks over to me, pulling me up from the mat
tress. "Look me in the eyes, Reese."
I do as he says, wanting to look nowhere else right now. Wanting to pretend like nothing else exists. I want to wake up and find that this has been nothing more than a bad dream. But if that were the case, Sin would be a part of that, and I don't want him to be a part of this bad dream. "I won't let him hurt you. I won't let him take you. I will kill him if he tries."
"He's your dad," I remind him, only because I could never imagine saying something as easy as “I'll kill my dad”. Actually, I would do anything for my dad to be alive. Life takes away the good and leaves us with the bad. That has been so clearly defined to me over the past three years. Why me? Why here?
"That doesn't matter to me." I give him a look because I don't understand how anyone could feel that way about their parents. "A dad is more than just the person supplying sperm, and that's pretty much all he's done besides torture the shit out of my mother and me." Was Sin tortured too? I want to ask him if Snatcher is the one who really killed his mother, but I'm not opening that can of worms again. Sin is innocent. I know it. He has to be.
"Okay," I agree. Although I want to fight him on this, I have to assume his reason for going in there is a good one, but there's a part of me questioning everything, as I should be. "Why?"
"Because I'm getting us out of here." Such a simple answer, yet from what I can tell, it is the least likely outcome. Although any attempt at escape is a good enough reason for me. I just have to wonder why Snatcher hasn't gotten himself out of here if that's the case. Does he want to be here? I can't imagine anyone wanting to be here.
Sin opens the closet door and swooshes all his mother's clothes to the side. "Ready?" Without waiting for me to answer, he kicks his foot into the wall. Or as I get closer, I see that it's a door inside of the closet. The lock on the door breaks off and a set of unlit stairs greets us.
"Did you grow up here?" I ask before he starts walking.
"Kind of," he says. "I lived here for five years before I was convicted." Convicted of murder. Of his mother. What if Sin isn't who I think he is? What if I'm walking into the lion's den? Is that what this is? A trick. A plot to get me trust him so he can lock me back up, torture me, or worse. He made me fall for him, and now…and now I don't know what I should do.
"Let's go," he urges in a loud whisper. I stand, staring at him, debating what I'm going to do. "Reese." He waves his hand in the air to break my cold stare. "We need to go now. He's going to hear us, and I don't want him to be waiting for us at the top of the stairs."
"Maybe I should wait here. You already said he won't come down here, so maybe I'm safer staying here." Yeah, I should stay here.
"I'm not leaving your side, Reese. So either you come with me, or we die here." But you said we would survive.
Sin backs away from the door and reaches for my hand. "The doll is a warning. Okay? You want to look like that? Because I'm guessing not. So trust me, and let's go handle this the way I know this has to be handled."
"Why do you think the doll was covered in blood? Whose blood do you think it is? Tell me what you think it means, Sin."
"You can ask me anything you want, but I don't have an answer for you, and I won't until we go up there and find out."
"You don't have a weapon. How would you kill him?" I ask.
His eye twitches as he lets out a small sigh. "With my hands." You could kill me with your hands too.
"Look, I want to get the hell out of this place, so if you don't come willingly, I'll drag you upstairs. But after the nice moments we had a few minutes ago, I'd rather not be rude or…an asshole as you like to put it." I have no choice. I take the steps toward him and slip my hand into his. My heart is achingly pounding against the inside of my chest. My throat is dry and I can hardly swallow. Please, God, don't let this be a trap.
I walk up the steps in Sin's shadow, one by one, regret growing larger the closer to the door we get. "Sin, I don't think this is a good idea."
"My mother didn't think it was a good idea either," he says. My hand slips out of his and I nearly fall backward down the steps, but he grabs me by the arm. "That's not what I meant."
"You killed your mother, though."
"No, Reese. I take back what I just said. I wasn't thinking properly. I—" he sighs. "I didn't kill her, okay. Just, please keep walking. I'll explain everything later."
I’m shaking beneath his grip, and he must feel it. "I want you to explain everything to me now. You didn't kill her?" We're almost at the top of the stairs. I’m running out of time. "Because you said—"
"I know what I said."
He twists the knob on the door and it opens with a swishing sound. Sin pulls me into a tarnished kitchen, lit only with orange lights. Pots and pans are stacked in the sink and the trash is overflowing. It smells like something died in here, so I do my best to breathe in through my mouth and not my nose.
Sin's hand grips tighter around my arm as he pulls me into an adjacent room with burnt-orange carpeting and wooden paneled walls. It's like we just stepped back into the fifties. The room smells of smoke and urine—how could anyone live here? As we walk into the room, we find Snatcher sitting in a torn up, brown recliner, one leg crossed over the other. He's watching a small box TV, displaying only black and white images with more snow than picture. Snatcher looks over at the two of us and at our clasped hands, then looks directly up at me. "There's one thing you need to know, Reese. You may have escaped, but—" he laughs a wheezy laugh. "You can't escape Chipley. I was trying to keep you alive and safe. You probably see that now. "Sin here, he took you away from safety. He introduced you to the hungry prisoners of this town—people who wouldn't bat an eyelash at cannibalism. That's what hunger does to people, girl."
"Why am I here?" I ask him, gritting my teeth, ignoring my wrenching fear.
"Well, that's easy. You're here because of Sin." He pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and places it between his lips. "You can call it retribution."
"For what?" I beg.
"Dad," Sin says, looking at him with an expression I can't decipher.
"And you. It shouldn't have taken you so long to bring her back here. You know better."
No. No. No. Please, no.
* * *
Want more Sin?
Locked Out is next in the No Way Out Series.
II
Locked Out - Book Two
13
Chapter One
Reese
Snatcher is on his feet, staring me down with a deadly look in his eyes. I only hold my focus on him for a brief moment before looking over at Sin, gauging his reaction to everything Snatcher just said. This was a setup.
Rage blazes through me, my anger directed more toward Sin than Snatcher right now. That asshole took me for a fool. I search the room, taking in my surroundings during the few short seconds I have to make a move. Without thinking twice about it, I lunge toward the fireplace and grab the iron poker. I swing it around in front of me, unsure who to attack first. I've had it. I've had it so badly.
"Whoa," Sin says, placing his hands up in defense. "Take it easy, Reese."
"Let me go. Now," I seethe.
"Reese!" Sin jumps toward me and tries to rip the poker out of my hand, but I fight him. I fight him hard, falling to my knees, pulling it toward me. Sin is stronger, though. This isn't a fight I could ever win, but I refuse to go out without trying. I fall flat to the ground as the poker slips from my grip, burning against my skin along the way.
"Just do it," I grunt.
When nothing happens, I push myself up on my hands and knees, looking up to stare this bad ending in the face. I look up just in time to see Sin spin around and thrash the poker against the side of Snatcher's head. Snatcher falls immediately, his head slamming into the small, worn table on the way down. Blood trickles from his ear and again, I'm left wondering if he's dead or alive.
Looking over at Sin, I clench my teeth together until a pain sears through my jaw. There's so much I want to say to him ri
ght now, but I refuse to give him the benefit of knowing what's going through my head.
"That wasn't true," he says. "He didn't tell me to bring you back here." Whether I believe him or not, it doesn't matter. I'm getting the hell out of here…with or without him.
"Whatever."
He reaches his hand out to me, thinking I'm actually going to take it. "I'm not the bad guy here," he adds in.
Except that's not what you have been telling me from the moment I met you.
"Did you kill your mother or not?" I ask him. "Don't brush me off this time. If you don't answer me, I'm leaving and I'll find my own way out of this shit-hole without you."
"You're starting to talk like me. I'm rubbing off on you," he grins. I suck in a deep inhale and grit my teeth. I'm not backing down again. "Can we at least discuss this after we get out of here?" Walking over to Snatcher, he squats down by his head and places his fingers over the artery on his neck as he looks up at me with a blank look.
"Well?" It is his father. And I hope he's dead. From what Sin has told me, he'd be okay with that outcome too; although, I'm not sure what to believe right now.
"I didn't kill her," he says, looking back down at Snatcher. "And he isn't dead yet." Sin stands up quickly and takes me by the arm, pulling me down the short, dark hall.
The rest of the house looks the same as the living room and kitchen—yellowed, and worn. The scent of stale cigarette smoke is more pungent in the enclosed hallway and it's making my stomach churn.
Sin pulls me into one of the two bedrooms and makes his way over to the dresser. He tears out every drawer, dumping them all over. I don't know what he's looking for, but he shoves small items into his pockets. I can't tell what they are. I move a little closer toward him, curious to see what else he's going to take. He doesn't seem to care that I'm watching as he pulls out a few envelopes and shoves them in his back pocket. Moving over to the mattress, he flips it onto its side and looks underneath. "Nothing," he says.
Locked In: No Way Out Series - Book One Page 7