by Logan Fox
She hurriedly located the ‘new mail’ icon and clicked on it. She typed in Greg’s email address, casting another glance at the sleeping Tanner, and then typed out a quick message.
Clicking send, she brought a finger to her lips and began gnawing at her nail as she waited. Her foot twitched in its shoe, and her leg began to bounce. Her eyes roamed over the email program, nervously twitching from message to message.
Tanner had it set up so that simply clicking on the email showed a few lines of its contents without the need to open it.
Her eyes fixed on a line of text.
Fox Adoption
The message came from Caden. Pearl glanced at the inbox, but no new messages had arrived yet. She tore off the tip of her nail and picked it out of her mouth.
Come on, Greg. Read your fucking emails.
She clicked on the email from Caden.
It opened a long email — a conversation between Caden and Tanner that had taken place over the course of a few days, the last message having come in two days ago. Her eyes skittered nervously over the words as she went to work on another nail.
From: Caden Davis
To: Tanner Stark
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fox Adoption
You’re such a fucking child.
Kind Regards,
Caden Davis
Executive Assistant
The Fox Pit
You Ask: We Provide
From: Tanner Stark
To: Caden Davis
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fox Adoption
I hope she gives him rabies.
Tanner
From: Caden Davis
To: Tanner Stark
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Fox Adoption
Drake said he’ll collect her in person. He’s not willing to entrust such precious cargo to a courier.
Kind Regards,
Caden Davis
Executive Assistant
The Fox Pit
You Ask: We Provide
From: Tanner Stark
To: Caden Davis
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Fox Adoption
And here I thought I actually had a choice in the fucking matter.
Have her shipped out today.
Call “Drake” and let him know. He’d want a heads-up so he can go and buy more lube, I’m sure. Oh, and don’t mention the fact that she’s overdue for her vaccinations — he’ll probably lower his offer if he finds out.
Tanner
From: Caden Davis
To: Tanner Stark
Subject: Re: Re: Fox Adoption
Mr. Jet is urging you to reconsider his request for adoption. He’s doubled his initial bid. This is an offer you should duly consider before dismissing.
I understand you may have become attached to your pet, but I will ensure you receive a suitable replacement.
Kind Regards,
Caden Davis
Executive Assistant
The Fox Pit
You Ask: We Provide
From: Tanner Stark
To: Caden Davis
Subject: Re: Fox Adoption
No.
Tanner
From: Caden Davis
To: Tanner Stark
Subject: Fox Adoption
Patron Drake Jet has put in a request for the adoption of Sylvia. He is particularly impressed with the fox’s traits and temperament.
He’s forwarded a very generous bid in the hopes that we could expedite the sale. He’s expecting company in the next—
A flash of bold text caught her eye. A new message. Greg. Pearl hurriedly double-clicked on the email. It popped open in a new window, filling the screen.
From: Greg
To: Tanner Stark
Subject: Re: Where were you?
This is an automatic message.
Please note that I am currently out of the office. If you wish to reach me urgently, please try me on my mobile.
Cheers,
Greg.
Pearl stared at the line of text until the numbness in her fingertips began spreading into her arms. She squeezed her bottom lip, re-reading the message again. And again. And again.
No. This wasn’t… they’d done this, hadn’t they?
Tanner murmured in his sleep and turned over. Pearl’s eyes flashed up, fixing on the man’s face. To think, she’d thought he was handsome the first time she’d seen him. He still was, obviously. But she could see through those layers of synthetic boyish charm to the monster beneath.
Her mind reeled.
Greg was gone.
Ivy was gone.
Gia and Seth were gone.
And she was trapped here behind these innocuous walls, waiting out her uncertain fate.
Would they be monitoring Greg’s emails? She hadn’t even considered that when she’d sent her message. Which meant that, if they did, she would have precious little time to make a move. They would know she’d tried to make contact. That Greg had been her accomplice. They’d keep her under lock and key — more so than they already were — making any form of escape or cry for help impossible.
She deleted Greg’s message from the inbox, and the one she’d sent him from the sent folder. Closing the email program, Pearl returned to the internet application. The woman with the ball-gag had two guys in her now, the spreader bar attached to her ankles ensuring there enough room between her legs for both.
Pearl opened a new tab and browsed to Google Maps. Luckily, Tanner either didn’t know how to turn it off or couldn’t care about leaving it on — his laptop’s location service was on. The map zoomed in, showing her a blurry, aerial view of the Fox Pit. The building itself was a pale ‘U’ nestled inside its dark green grounds. Roads curved away from it like Medusa’s hair. An arterial road passed within a few miles of the property, skimming its northern boundary before twisting away into the base of the mountains.
She stared at the map, willing the image to burn itself into her retinas.
If she went north, toward the labyrinth, through the sports fields and alongside the stables… there was a brief stretch of darkness, its spikiness suggesting fir trees — and then the road. That wide, pale sliver of road.
Maze, sports fields, stables, forest. Maybe, that far out, there wasn’t even a fence. Or, if there was one, it would be short enough to climb over without too much effort.
Then freedom.
“That good, huh?”
Four fingers folded over the top of the laptop’s screen. Pearl’s hand slid away from the touch pad before she could close the map.
She leaned back, squeezing her eyes shut as her body steeled itself for something — a blow? A slap? Tanner yawned.
“Good for you,” he murmured, scooting her aside with the back of his hand and plonking down beside her on the bench. “Never give up. Never surrender.”
He slung an arm over her shoulder, tugging her close.
“Now let’s see what you found me. Hmm… Yeah, I’ve seen this one before. But it’s good — good enough to watch twice.”
Pearl’s eyes slid away from the laptop’s screen where a girl with pigtails and a tramp stamp that read ‘baby’ was wailing at the man behind her to fuck her harder, to rip her in two with his gigantic cock.
Tanner wore only a pair of boxers, yellow and patterned in happy faces. Her gaze settled on the splash of orange on his breast; the only tattoo that bore a stain of color. It looked luminous against the backdrop of black ink.
A fox, slowly disintegrating as it pounced, claws reaching for its invisible prey.
“You killed them, didn’t you?” When she heard the words, she almost didn’t recognize the voice. Especially because it was hers. Especially because it didn’t quiver or wobble like she would have expected. It was low and firm. Steady. Insistent.
Tanner shifted against her, his finger flicking over the touchpad as he went to one of the other tabs. The video had just reached halfway, and it seemed the tiny woman had either fainted from pleasure or passed out from pain. She’d been suspended in
a web of rope — beige, not like the red that the Fox Pit used — and was being spun around for the camera to get a good look at the artist’s handiwork.
“Who now?” Tanner asked, rewinding the video with a touch of the mouse cursor.
“Gia. Ivy. You killed them, didn’t you? And the others. Is Seth in on it? Or he is just your patsy?”
Tanner’s hand paused. Then he tugged down the laptop’s lid, shutting it. He drew it off her lap, twisting to put it behind them on the dresser.
When he faced her again, her momentary flash of courage dissolved. His grey eyes were the color of fireplace ash smudged on a flesh.
“I killed them,” he repeated slowly, sliding his elbow onto the dresser and lacing his fingers between them. Resting his chin on his knuckles, Tanner studied her, his mouth an unsmiling line. “What tipped you off, Sherlock?”
Pearl’s mouth was dusty, her saliva thick as glue and twice as sticky. She tried to swallow, failed, and dropped her gaze instead. It found his tattoo, settled, stared.
“I know it was you,” she said.
He touched a fingertip to her cheek. “That’s all you got, baby girl? A feeling? No hard evidence? No clues?”
“They found the dead bodies,” she whispered, cringing away from that soft touch. “It’s just a matter of time before they—”
“They? They who?”
“The FBI.” Pearl’s stomach churned with bitter acid. She couldn’t control her tongue anymore than she could control her shaking, quivering hands. He had to know. Because, maybe, if he knew they were onto him, he’d stop. Who’d commit a crime when they knew they had eyes on them, watching them, scrutinizing? No rational man—
“So they sent you?” Tanner’s finger brushed against her eyelashes. “Are you here to arrest me, baby girl?”
Pearl let out a strange, strangled little laugh. It was touched with hysteria, laced with filaments of panic.
“Me? No, Eth—” she bit into her bottom lip, severing the word.
Copper tainted her saliva. She brought a shaking hand to her mouth, but Tanner reached her lips first. He ran a thumb over the tiny tear in her lip, smearing blood over her lower lip.
“Ethan,” he murmured. “Quite a nasty slip of the tongue there, baby girl. But you still don’t have any proof. Other than someone else’s suspicions, what makes you think I’m even capable of ending someone’s life? Or multiple lives?”
His touch made her lip tremble, as if he was infecting her with a debilitating muscle weakness. Her jaw began to vibrate, her teeth clicking together. He caught hold of her chin in a painful grip, tipping her head up.
“You’re th-the o-only one—” Pearl began, gaze reluctantly reaching his eyes again.
Tanner cut her off with a loud, easy laugh. Suzie jerked, sitting up with a murmur in his bed. Tanner looked at the girl, threw back his head, and carried on laughing at the vaulted ceiling.
The rain had finally stopped. The air was fresh and crisp, the sky as faultless as a virgin’s virtue. The snow-topped mountains were perfectly detailed, the colors of the Fox Pit’s rolling landscape as bright as a freshly inked canvas.
Pearl sat at the patio table, her yellow chiffon dress fluttering against her arms as a cool breeze scented with ozone and honeysuckle teased her. Scotty had just started the barbecue — the smoke pluming out dusted the air with oily traces of scorched wood.
Jarred wasn’t in his seat. Caden and Tanner were — they were sitting diagonally across from her. Seth’s side of the table was empty, as were Gia and Ivy’s seat. Tina was sitting in Jarred’s seat, chattering to Pearl despite Pearl’s lack of response.
Tanner, for once, wasn’t engaging the two girls on either side of him. Instead, he watched Pearl with the intensity of a fox studying a snared rabbit. Watching as it tugged and fought its bonds, mouth dripping with saliva and lips slowly pulling back from its canines. She’d tried staring back. Tried looking away. Both were equally poor options.
“—was it something I said?” came Caden’s voice.
The two girls on either side of him — the sleepy-eyed brunette that had seen Pearl slipping out of their den the other night and another girl that looked vaguely familiar — giggled.
Morgan and Opal had both looked surprised to see Pearl when they’d stepped out onto the patio. Perhaps they’d thought she’d disappeared along with Gia and Ivy.
They both kept glancing at Seth’s empty seat, and there was a lull over their end of the table as they both silently stared into their drinks.
“In case you girls were wondering,” Tanner called out, pointing toward Morgan and Opal with a cheese stick, “Seth’s on leave for a couple of days.”
Morgan nodded her head, giving Pearl a quick, furtive glance. Opal craned to look past Morgan, trying — and failing — to catch Caden’s eye.
The man had one hand in front of him, fidgeting with the rolled up sleeve of a straw he’d filched from the table. He wore a button-up shirt today — rare for him — dark and lustrous. It looked too formal for the brisk, outdoor backdrop framing him, but it gave his skin a luminescence and made his lips look redder than they were. Tanner was wearing a green, creased t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans with holes in the knees. Everyone else wore yellow.
Pearl’s hand tightened around her coffee cup. “Leave? That was sudden.”
Her voice seemed to echo in the sudden silence.
Tanner leaned back, giving her a wide grin and resting his palm flat on the table in front of him. Pearl dropped her gaze to the trembling surface of her coffee.
“He suddenly decided he needed a break,” Tanner said, laughter in his voice. “Turns out, Gia convinced him to give her a lift to California.”
Pearl flinched at mention of Gia’s name. When she looked up, Tanner’s smile had frozen in place. He gave her a small shrug, and lifted his fingers from the table.
“Hey, who are we to judge?”
“What about Melanie?” Morgan’s voice was tight. “She still here? Doesn’t she—”
“Wifey went with,” Tanner interrupted, briefly ducking his head forward so he could bathe Morgan with the radiance of his smile. “I guess he’s just a lucky guy.”
He sat back again, rubbing the heel of his hand against the table. Another plume of wood smoke drifted over the table, tainting the air. Pearl’s nose twitched, and she forced herself to sit back in her chair.
“He’ll be back tomorrow, so you can all just chillax.”
“Doesn’t solve our current predicament,” Caden put in quietly.
“Of course not, buddy.” Tanner lifted his beer and drained it, stifling his burp with the side of the empty can. Crumbling the can in his hand, he tossed it into the waste basket on the far side of the grill, narrowly missing Scotty’s head. He threw a punch in the air, sobering when he glanced back and saw Caden’s stony expression. “Which is why I asked our old mate Ethan to come back.”
“Ethan?” Caden spluttered.
Pearl was milliseconds behind him with a breathless, “What?”
Tanner looked between them, a mischievous grin tugging at his mouth. The cut on his lip was almost healed, but if he kept up that insane grinning it would surely split apart again.
“Gosh, I didn’t realize you were both crushing on him,” Tanner said. “You’ll just have to share.”
Caden lurched forward in his chair, two spots of color appearing on his cheeks. The foxes to either side of him shrank away, perhaps sensing the sudden tensing in his lithe frame.
“Tanner, we discussed—”
“No, you discussed,” the man cut in, waving his half-eaten cheese stick at Caden. “I listened and nodded and made the appropriate noises.” Tanner got to his feet, ambling over to the fridge. He pinched Scotty’s ass through her chef’s uniform, earning a hard slap to his bicep as he lifted his arm to ward off her fierce attack.
Laughing, he tugged open the fridge. “You’re stressed out, Caden. And it’ll take ages for us to find someone else, what with all
the red tape you insist on.” He drew out a beer, cracked it open, and kicked the fridge closed with his foot as he turned back to the table.
“You’ve got only yourself to blame.” Tanner shrugged. “This way, you can relax, Pearl can get back to work, and I get to watch you two fight over him.”
Tanner took a long swallow from his beer, throwing Pearl a wink.
She sat ramrod stiff in her seat, her breath trapped somewhere between her lungs and her lips. Tanner came around the table, heading straight for her. Pearl tried to turn, tried to get to her feet, but every muscle inside her had gone numb.
The only thing that still told of a flicker of life in her ruined body was her fluttering heart and the pinpricks of fire and ice pattering over her lips.
“Don’t thank me. It was Pearl’s idea,” Tanner said.
What? This hadn’t been her idea. She’d told him about Ethan, sure, but why the hell was he pinning his decision on her? Was this some kind of punishment?
He stopped beside her, setting his can down beside her arm. She could feel cold pulsing off it in waves. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Tanner’s insidious smile, his laughing, grey eyes.
“Pearl? Why would you—” came Caden’s voice from across the table.
Pearl tore her eyes away, giving Caden a bewildered, open-mouthed stare. “I didn’t—I never—”
“Such modesty,” Tanner said.
He slid his hand over her cheek, turning her to face him. His fingertips slid into her hair, cupping her ear. He bent down, pressing his lips to her other ear in a soft kiss.