by Fox, Logan
That’s why Indi’s necklace matched that bracelet so perfectly. It was part of the same set her father commissioned mine to make. The one he tried to pay off with his wife’s painting.
I almost drop my phone how my hands are shaking. I stab on my father’s name and pray to God that just this once he’ll answer.
“Please,” I murmur, my thumb in my mouth as I tear off a strip of nail.
“Where are you?” Edward answers, voice dangerously low.
“Doesn’t matter. Dad, please, just listen.”
And through some strange miracle or strange twist of fate, he does.
“I need the address for the client you made that blue bracelet for.”
“What?”
“The bracelet. The painting? The one in front of your safe. I need that address!”
Edward lets out a mirthless laugh. “Why the fuck are you asking me? You already—”
“I wasn’t involved, okay? It was all Marcus, Dad. I need that address, okay?”
“Sure son,” Dad says casually. “I’ll give you the address.”
My skin prickles in warning. “Okay,” I say through numb lips. “Thanks.”
“Soon as the police department’s IT guys are done trying to bring my computer back to life.”
My heart beats in my throat.
“What?”
“Bit difficult getting anything off the hard drive you two crashed, isn’t it?”
Chapter Forty-Three
Indi
I get myself under control about the same time Marcus is done stripping Addy, which I’m only assuming is the case, based on the sounds I hear and the way Addy’s head shifts on my lap. The rip of a knife slicing through fabric.
My wrists are aching from the pressure of the ropes bound so tightly against them, but it’s nothing compared with the fluttery uncertainty preying on my nerves.
Especially when I hear a zipper being drawn down.
Addy moans around her gag, and presses against me as if she’s trying to get away. Suddenly, it’s not just her head on my lap but her entire upper body. I hurriedly straighten when I feel warm air on the back of my neck, and lean back to get away from what must be Marcus’s hot breath.
There’s a muffled gasp from Addy, a grunt from Marcus. Then the unmistakable sound of two people fucking.
You’d think it would be different. That it wouldn’t sound so downright pornographic. But it does. I guess it’s still just skin slapping against skin. Breath forced out by every thrust — consensual or not.
“For a whore, you still got a tight little cunt, Addy.”
I try to take my mind away, to leave this ungodly moment behind, but I can’t. Not with Addy’s head bumping into my belly. Not with Marcus’s groans filling my ears.
A hand grasps at my breast, and I jerk in surprise at the touch. I try to move away and almost succeed when fingers wrap around my throat and start to squeeze.
I struggle, fighting for breath. Sobs wrack Addy’s body as Marcus fucks her harder and harder against me.
My limbs go cold.
Tingles spread into my fingers and toes.
Suddenly, I don’t give a fuck about anything anymore. It’s black, and so quiet now. There’s pain in my chest, my lungs contracting as my body involuntarily heaves for air, but I still have zero fucks to give.
Because it’ll all be over real soon
I know he’s a liar, but I’m willing to believe him now. I want to believe him. I’m done with this fucking world and my pathetic excuse of a life.
“Ah, fuck, princess,” Marcus groans. His fingers tense even more, and a deeper darkness than the one cast by the pillowcase over my head swarms into me.
Through me.
Around me.
I black out a second after Marcus comes, the sickeningly guttural sound he makes echoing in my ears.
* * *
Briar
Grit crunches under my shoes as I head for my family home. A few cops turn to look my way, but none seem that interested in my presence. Why should they be? My dad’s been pissed off at me before. But he protected me before too.
It was probably the only time he ever flew back to Fool’s Gold County because I called. And then it wasn’t even technically me that made the phone call — it was my lawyer.
I’ll never forget the look on his face when he walked into that interrogation room at the local sheriff’s office. How his eyes scoured me and my clothing, as if he was utterly disappointed that I wasn’t wearing handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit.
Rape.
He hadn’t even flinched. But he’d always been good at schooling his emotions, my father.
Except now, looking back, he’d left a trail of clues a freeway wide — I’d just never bothered to question him.
Claim them as yours, son. Claim them and never let anyone else take them from you.
That has been his mantra since I could remember. It was his way of directing his anger at a cheating wife while warning me to make sure my future partner doesn’t fuck around.
A cop starts walking toward me — casual like, a spring in his step — when my cellphone vibrates with a new message.
I almost don’t look at it. It’s not like it could be good news. Either Dylan and Zak finally decided to speak to me again — although their intel would be fucking useless to me now — or someone’s just informed me that I qualify for a credit card.
But I have no idea what to say to the cop approaching me, so I buy myself some time by checking my phone.
The phone case creaks between my fingers when I see the name on the screen.
It had never even occurred to me to call Marcus. To just ask him where he was. I guess, deep down inside, I knew he’d never have told me.
How fucking wrong I am.
We’re having so much fun without you, but it would be better if you joined. Bring the money. Don’t tell the cops. I see anything I don’t like, I’ll kill them both.
The address below makes my heart skip a fucking beat.
12 Northenden Drive, Lakeview.
I pivot on my heel, ignoring the cop’s quizzical, “Hey, are you Prince?”
He could have drawn a gun and shot me right then and I wouldn’t have noticed until my head hit the fucking tarmac.
The instant I touch on the address, it opens the map application on my phone.
Five hours, thirty minutes.
I stop in my tracks, and then speed up again. The final yard to my car is a full out sprint.
Five fucking hours?
I’m gritting my teeth so hard, the enamel creaks inside my mouth.
* * *
Indi
A slap to my cheek hard enough to whip my head to the side rouses me. I cough, splutter, and fight my bonds to escape.
“Relax, princess.”
I freeze, my breath getting trapped somewhere deep in my throat. I lick my lips, and then do it again when I realize the gag isn’t in my mouth anymore.
But I still can’t see. And this time, it’s not because of a pillowcase. There’s something over my eyes, something bound tight around my head.
Why, it’s a satin blindfold, Indi. Now all you need are some rose petals and champagne.
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Fingers grip my jaw, shaking my head. “What’s so funny?”
Marcus almost sounds cheerful. I shift, and realize there’s no weight in my lap anymore.
“Where is she?” I croak, and then cough when the words scrape through a dry, rusted throat.
“Who, Addy?” Marcus says, and playfully taps my cheek with his fingertips. “Oh, she was being a drag.”
I swallow hard, desperately attempting not to let the full force of his statement sweep me away into madness. “Can I please have some water?”
Because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Remind your captor that you’re human, after all.
He already knows my name. He already knows I’ll be missed — even if it’s just by
Briar and my gran.
“So polite,” he murmurs, running a knuckle down the center of my nose. “How could I possibly say no?”
He moves away, his shoes crunching over whatever debris is scattered on the ground.
I tip my head to the side and rub my shoulder against my blindfold. It shifts a quarter of an inch, then another, then—
Something strikes my belly hard enough to make me bend over and retch at the impact. While I’m still gasping, saliva threading the space between my mouth and my thighs, Marcus grabs my hair in a fist and wrenches back my head.
Water splashes over my face, and I splutter when a few stray drops go down my windpipe instead of my larynx.
“Had enough?” Marcus snarls. “Or would you like some more?”
Another deluge pours over my mouth. I open my lips and gather as much as I can before closing my mouth and swallowing. It burns, and I get some up and down my nose, but it’s worth it.
Marcus releases my hair. My head bobs forward before I can stiffen my neck. I cough as quietly as I can, shivering when a breeze cools my now soaked hoody.
Marcus laughs. “You caught me off guard, you know that?”
He pauses, like he’s waiting for something, so I shrug a little as I tamper down a last cough.
“First time I saw you,” he says. His voice pans left and right as if he’s pacing in front of me. I’m itching to see something — any-fucking-thing — but I don’t want to suffer another round of punishment for trying to look.
“Scared the living bejesus out of me, I’ll be honest.” Another laugh, this one a higher octave than the one before. Goosebumps break out on my skin at the manic tone in his voice when he continues.
Just keep him talking, Indi. The more distracted he is, the better chance you have at catching him unaware.
And do what, exactly?
Fuck it, one step at a time.
Step one? Getting loose.
“Why?” I ask, and I’m shocked at how steady my voice is. Deep, rough, but steady.
Guess all that crying helped. I haven’t got a shred of terror left in me anymore. I cried it all out. All that’s driving me right now is primal instincts. Survival of the fittest style of thing.
Or, in this case, the sanest.
“Weird how that works, isn’t it?” Marcus says. “Kids looking like their parents?”
My skin starts to crawl, but I ignore the sensation in favor of focusing on something productive. Like trying to work out the fucking knots Marcus has used to tie me up. They feel complicated as fuck. Overly so.
Arrogant, psychotic prick. Couldn’t just have done rabbit ears, could you? Bet you were the despised know-it-all of your fucking Boy Scout club.
“Dad says I look like her. My mother,” he adds, as if I’m rocking a single-digit IQ. “But Briar doesn’t. Guess he takes after his father then.”
Oh my God. He’s gone off the edge, hasn’t he? How the hell am I supposed to outsmart a lunatic? It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a triangular hole. The math just doesn’t work out.
“I wouldn’t know, of course,” Marcus goes on, his voice panning to the left again. “Barely remember her. You know I was six when she fucked off? Back then, we were still living in downtown Lavish, close to the train tracks.” He laughs. “Not anymore! Got my dad to thank for that. Picked us up by our fucking bootstraps, he did, after she dumped us.”
Mommy issues? I’m not even remotely surprised. By the fact that he has them, and that she abandoned him and his father, especially if psychosis runs in the family. And I can’t even blame her — I’d also get the fuck out of Dodge.
I find a bit of give by my wrists, and wriggle for all I’m worth while Marcus goes on talking with his voice aimed away from me.
“But then I saw a photo in Briar’s house, and I kinda had to believe pa.”
I don’t even bother trying to understand. He’s still facing away from me, and I’ve managed to undo a loop in this intricate knot.
“I can really see myself in her,” Marcus goes on.
Another loop. There’s finally enough give for me to wriggle my hands out of the ropes. I let out a soft sigh, massaging my wrists as discretely as possible behind my back so Marcus won’t notice. My fingertips tingle furiously as blood rushes back into them, and I’m rewarded with a flush of bravery that makes me sit up straight in my seat.
“Just like I can see her in you.” The angle of his voice changes, and I freeze, willing my heart to slow its furious pounding.
Now he thinks we’re related? I can’t even.
But I shrug, and drop my chin to my chest in some approximation of meekness, hoping he’ll buy it and carry on pacing.
“Who?” I manage, twisting my hands and getting ready to launch myself at him with clawed fingers.
“Chantelle,” he says through a laugh.
My body turns to ice. I force a swallow before I can urge myself to speak. “Wh-what?”
“The woman who lived here with you. Your mother?”
I wrench my blindfold off and stand in a rush. Marcus is a few feet away, his head tilted to one side, hands behind his back. The epitome of a patient teacher.
My head turns on its own as I force myself to focus on my environment.
The char in the air had me confused. My hard seat. But there’s no mistaking it now.
I’m standing in the middle of my gutted house, surrounded by blackened walls and tattered ribbons of yellow police tape.
It wasn’t a pew I was sitting on. It was a wooden chest my mother’d kept in her studio. I think she kept spare canvasses in it, but fuck knows.
Marcus steps closer, holds out a hand, and bends a little at the waist. “Shall we dance, while we wait?”
Instead of taking his hands, I press my palms against my belly, trying to still my suddenly twisting stomach. “While we wait for what?” I breathe.
“Briar, of course.” Marcus tilts his head again, and steps forward to snatch my hand away from my belly.
He drags me closer. With my ankles still bound, I stumble against him. I don’t know if he takes the gesture as me wanting to be close, but his smile certainly makes me believe that he does. When I struggle, he slides an arm around my back and holds me so close I can feel his erection jutting into my tummy.
“I feel bad about what I did last time,” Marcus whispers down to me, for all the world like we’re conspiring lovers. “I think, this time, he should get to watch.”
* * *
Briar
I don’t care about traffic cameras. I fly right through stoplights.
They’ll have to catch me first. They’ll have to have to T-bone me with a truck before I’ll slow down or stop.
Fifteen minutes. That’s what my GPS tells me. Fuck knows if it adjusts based on my speed. For all I know, Google’s already alerted the authorities to a speeding Mustang traveling at breakneck speed down Lakeview’s only freeway.
Couldn’t. Give. A. Fuck.
Everything up to this point’s been a fucking blur. My tank’s almost empty, but I care as much about that as I do whether I die or not before I reach Indi’s house.
I don’t think for a minute Marcus would have kept her alive just to torture her in front of me. If it’s one thing I’ve recently come to realize about him — he’s seriously unbalanced. It took him all of what, one minute, to decide on raping Jessica.
True, he was strung out on drugs, but judging from what he did to Indi’s mother, he’s only grown bolder since then.
How long did he toy with Indi before ending her?
With Jessica, it took him almost a day to gather the courage to throw her over the bridge at Angel Falls. Indi’s mother? A couple of hours.
He’s had Indi for five hours, maybe longer.
I don’t hold out any hope of seeing Indi alive.
But there’s enough furious vengeance flowing through my veins to make up for that. Little does he know I wouldn’t even think about involving the cops. All they’d
do is arrest him, charge him, send him to jail.
Or, possibly, Mallhaven Mental Institute. I hear it’s really fucking cushy over there.
No…I don’t plan on handing Marcus over to the cops.
I intend on being his judge, jury, and fucking executioner.
And you know what? I’m gonna make him suffer.
Chapter Forty-Four
Indi
I wondered briefly what we would dance to once Marcus had me against him. But then he started humming and it all made sense.
At first, I kept stumbling. Then weakly apologizing when he growled at me. Soon, he realized that the best dance partners don’t have knots around their ankles. So he got rid of those.
Now we’re sweeping around the ruins of my living room, his hand at the small of my back, and my cheek on his chest as he leads me through a surprisingly good waltz.
Maybe he had lessons when he was young. You know, in-between torturing animals, setting fires, and wetting his bed?
But I jest. This shit’s fucking serious as hell, and I only wish I could form some kind of plan that didn’t involve a random meteorite crashing into the house.
Even now, dancing a crazy waltz through the remnants of my home, I can feel how strong he is. How the muscles along his spine bunch as he moves. How tightly he grasps my hand. The sure-footedness of every step he takes.
Bet you wish you had your switchblade now, don’t ya?
Oh, you bet I do!
Then again, I wish for many things right now. Like enough backbone to attempt to seduce him. I could do that. But every time I look up and see that vacant, dreamy look in his eyes, everything inside me shrivels up.
Then all I can do is gently rest my head on his chest and wish myself the fuck away from this place.
But dear God, it’s not a fuck working.