by Vi Carter
I don’t move, I try to breathe as quietly as possible. I’m not quiet enough. His gaze zeroes in on me, I can’t decipher what I see in his eyes but it sends a shiver skittering along my skin. I feel it bounce and vibrate deep inside me, it’s unsettling. I want to apologize to stop whatever is about to come.
He faces me now and I don’t dare move as he takes careful steps towards me. He stops at a drawer and opens it. My heart ping pongs in my chest as he holds up my pendant. My father's gift.
He doesn’t look at it, he’s too focused on me. “Your name is on the back of this.” He shakes the pendant and I want to tell him to be gentle with it, his large hand could snap the fragile silver in a second.
I nod as tears clog my eyes. “Yes, it is.”
His nostrils flare and his dark eyes seem to grow in and out of focus. I have no idea what internal battle he is fighting.
“You want to know my name?” I ask as my stomach twists. I am willing to give it up because right now, there is something in his eyes that is telling me if I don’t pull him back, something bad might happen.
He blinks at my question and the pendant is dropped back into the drawer.
“No. You can no longer speak, Kate. If you disobey me you’ll have no food or clothes.”
He slams the drawer and leaves the kitchen. He doesn’t go down the hall, instead he goes to the door that leads to the outside world. To freedom.
The door opens and he leaves without a second glance. I cover my mouth with my hands. Something between has changed. Something in his eyes is different.
I’m moving, not wasting a second. My feet are loud on the wooden floor as I race down to the small sitting room. I push the bookcase aside. I had noticed a small hole in the wooden floor when I had been searching through the books earlier. The blood in my veins roars as the small hole comes fully into view. I’m on my knees, my finger fits into the hole. Elation pours through me as I pull the floor board up. A red and black small passport book sits in the hidden compartment on the floor. My hand shakes as I pull out the black one. Opening it, a fist curls in my stomach as I meet his brown eyes. He’s clean shaven in this image and my stomach tightens further. Wow! He’s gorgeous. His lips are set in a serious expression making him look dangerous. He is dangerous. My gaze roams across the passport.
Dean Kelsie. Aged 34. Dean, his name is Dean. I close the passport and open the second one. This one is more recent: same name, a different picture, he’s sporting his beard in this one.
I can’t stop the pure excitement as my hands curl around a small black box. I open it quickly and it’s a gun, with bullets. I quickly stuff everything back in and replace the floorboard before pushing the shelf back in place. My heart rate skyrockets as I leave the room. I want to get the gun and be ready, but I’m trembling. I need to make sure that when I take my shot, I don’t miss. I leave and enter the bathroom. Splashing my face with water, I meet the wide eyes of a terrified girl. I want to hug her and tell her it’s okay. It’s nearly over. That we have been through so much and we would make it out alive. I had to make that promise to myself.
I return to the kitchen and decide to sit back on the couch and wait for Dean to come back. Knowing his name makes this worse. He looks like a Dean. If I survive this, anyone with the name Dean will be someone with dark and dangerous eyes, who’s a sniper and kidnaps girls. If I survive this, I will run from every Dean.
I’m cold. I don’t know if it’s the air or the exhaustion that’s pulling at my body. I have no idea if it’s day or night. Time is funny down here. My mind starts to wander off and I pull it back. Being alone like this with nothing to do is different for me. After spending so much time on the streets, I was constantly on alert, searching for shelter or food. Singing for money.
Singing—that’s my happy place—and instead of going to the darkest corners of my mind, I stay present and start to sing. I sing like my life depends on it, because right now it feels like it does. I feel the difference in the air a while later. The door opens and it's like fresh air filters in. I shiver and pull my feet off the floor. My song dies in my throat as I wait for my fate.
Dean, it’s so weird knowing his name, enters and he won’t look at me. Dread curls around my spine. He won’t look at me. He’s closing the door and moving through the kitchen, fear has me speaking.
“Should I clean up the pasta?” The broken dish still lies in the kitchen sink. The pasta is crusting onto his gray tiles. He looks at the mess before he glares at me and I want to disappear. I don’t want his attention. I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have spoken. It was a lapse in judgement. He’s moving so fast towards me again and I’m shaking my head.
Apologize, Scarlett.
“I told you not to speak.” He’s close to me now, too close. He is leaning in and I feel blocked. I press my lips firmly together.
“Why aren’t you afraid?” His question fans across my face and I hate how aware I am of the closeness of his body, or how his fist is pressed into the couch at the right side of my head. His cologne messes with my logic.
“I am,” I whisper, as his eyes dance from my eyes and then to my lips.
“I told you not to speak.” This time when he speaks, he sounds tired. Fear shoots through me again. He’s withdrawing and I make another bad decision. I move quickly and press my lips against his. His eyes remain open and he doesn’t respond to me. I move back and his gaze darts across my face. My heart is ready to come out of my chest as he pushes himself away from me, while staring down at me like he can’t figure out what just happened. I’m as stunned as he is.
I’m ready to say sorry again, but I know speaking is a really bad idea.
He’s breathing heavy and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He could be shocked or disgusted. I don’t have a clue.
“Get up.” I’m on my feet. He doesn’t say anything else as he stares at me. I hate how his shoulders rise and fall in quick succession. My vision blurs and he turns away from me. I don’t move as he leaves the living space. I stand still as I hear him making noises. One sound registers with me. It’s a click-a-click like I made with his guns earlier. My vision swims and I hold still as he returns to the room holding a gun. He pulls the chamber back, he won’t meet my eye as he keeps it hanging at his side.
“Walk.”
He motions towards the door with the gun. I take a step and pause as I hang my head, a lump in my throat is choking me and I swallow around it.
“Please.” My lip trembles and I suck it in between my teeth. When Dean looks at me, his eyes are inky black with no compassion. He points at the door again with the gun. My stomach lurches as I walk.
Outside the breeze races across my face, whipping my hair into the air as it carries it in all directions. My feet sink into long grass that’s still damp from the recent rainfall. Fields and trees, that’s all I see as I spin three hundred and sixty degrees. When I stop, I am looking at a large figure all dressed in black. The gun is menacing, but it’s his eyes. They are so devoid of life. He’s going to kill me. He’s brought me out here to shoot me. A calm settles across my shoulders and melts into my bones. I don’t look away from him as he raises the gun, there is a moment the walls start to close in and panic consumes me in one huge rush.
Run!
“Don’t move.” His warning has my bare feet sinking deeper into the grass. I’m shaking my head trying to think of what I did that prompted him to kill me. My mind is a jumble that makes no sense. The last thing I can think of is that I kissed him. Was it that? Did it matter? I had known this was how it would end.
Tears burn my eyes, and I’m so tired. “Can you put my pendant on?” I ask. My voice is small and I wonder if he heard me. I needed my daddy right now.
“Turn around.”
I try to plead with him as he raises the gun. My chin tucks into my chest and I hunch my shoulders forward and turn around. The wind continues to whip my hair around and I want to grab it and pull it back down but I don’t dare move.
I don’t want to die. Not here in a field with Dean. There is so much I still want to do. I want to create a life, I want to watch my hair change from brown to gray.
A sob seeps from my trembling lips. I had so many places I wanted to see. I wanted to stand on the Great wall of China, or visit the Pyramids. I had too much in me and I had things I never said out loud. Right now they bubble up my throat as I stand hunched waiting for the bullet.
“I was abused!” I shout to the wind. The air is thin and my chest tightens. I open my eyes and catch glimpses of the trees through strands of brown hair. “My uncle abused me for years.”
There is something freeing in saying it. “I never told anyone. I kept it hidden.”
Tears trickle down my face. “I left my auntie’s home when she died. I didn’t want to be abused anymore.” Maybe this was the only way the abuse would truly stop. Maybe it would take for me to be six feet under. I want to scream at God for the injustice that seemed to be my life. But deep down I knew it was my fault.
“I never said no. I never told him to stop. I never said no.” Tears fall faster, yet something more blossoms in my chest. It was a secret that weighed too heavily on my soul, which was eating me inside out.
“I’m not ready to die, Dean!” I roar. I need to heal, I need to live. I need to live in a world where I didn’t hurt. It existed. I knew it did.
“Please, Dean.”
The ground to my left explodes twice, sending clay into the air. I cower and cover my head from the bang of the gun that erupts twice. There is a moment where it’s like the world is suspended before it crashes.
My scalp burns and I’m twirling, the world rotates as Dean’s hand tightens on my hair. He turns me, making me look at him. I recoil from his anger but I can’t get far from his painfully tight fingers.
His roar is fueled with rage that has the child in me running. I shrivel as he roars again into my face before he releases me abruptly and I tumble to the ground. The gun is still in his hand as he walks away from me.
All I can think of is that, I’m. Still. Alive. My hand slides across Dean’s top that has no holes in it. Tears continue to race down my face and I’m watching him pace back and forth across from me. He’s fighting some internal battle that I don’t want to be on the losing side of.
The trees aren’t far away, they are so green, they are hope. They are a new start and I’m up running, tearing through the grass under my feet. I make it into the trees; the branches tear at me like clawed hands as I run blindly. The bang of a gun has me hitting the ground hard.
I roll onto my back. His military boot lands on my chest and keeps me down. I can’t breathe as I try to get him off me. The weight is gone and he drags me to my feet. I have to lean back to see his angry eyes. I’m waiting for him to drag me back to the field or the house but he doesn’t. Instead he buries his head in my neck and I’m sure he’s sniffing me.
My hands reach up to his shoulders. He doesn’t stop the contact and I’m all messed up but right now I need some form of a human touch. Even if it’s rough, it means I’m alive. I’m here.
I move closer to him and he doesn’t stop me as I lean my head against his chest and listen to his heart crash around inside him.
We stay in this oddness for a while. My aching feet and the cold of the evening have me leaning out. He doesn’t let me go far as his hand moves down to my arm, he directs me back to the house. I feel each bite of the forest floor.
Dean stops walking and before I can ask why, he scoops me up into his arms without saying a word. I can’t look away from him but his eyes are focused on the house. He doesn’t look at me once as he carries me back. When we pass the spot where I had thought I would die, I keep looking at it over his shoulder.
The barren room we step into has a doorway that leads to his domain. My fingers tighten around his neck, and it’s the first time he looks at me. This time I swear I can see gold swirl in his dark eyes.
“Close your eyes.” He speaks so gently but I do as he asks. I don’t know why. I think he might kiss me, and since I’m alive, I think I’d like that.
I hear the punch of the buttons and realize that he is putting in the code.
I’m waiting for him to move or to tell me to open my eyes, but neither happens. I tighten my hold on his neck. Colors burst behind my lids and I follow the red dots as my heart slowly picks up. I want to open my eyes but worry has me keeping them closed. Time ticks away and I finally give in and open them slowly. My heart stills when my eyes clash with his, he’s watching me. He’s looking at me.
He sees me.
I feel more naked than I did without clothes. But I won’t look away. I want to say something to end this interrogation on my heart.
No, not my heart. It’s my soul that I have bared to him. My nose and throat burn with a rush of pain that comes from deep inside me. My grief leaks over and all I can think is I am in the arms of a monster; yet, right now, he is all I have. He might be all I ever have. I might not leave this place.
He nods like we have established something. I have no idea what it is, but he walks into the bunker with me firmly in his arms.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEAN
I’ve killed more people than I care to admit. I’ve never seen them as people, they have always been a target, a means to an end. But with Kate, I couldn’t pull the trigger. I think I knew that the moment I told her to come outside. The moment she looked around her like it was the last time she’d see the sky or the trees, but when she had turned around and faced away from me, her small body had curled in on itself and I knew I couldn’t pull the fucking trigger.
“I was abused.” When the words about her abuse started to leave her lips, I had wanted to kill like I was a man fighting for air. Emptying the gun into the ground did nothing for me. I wanted her to stop, I didn’t want to hear her confession about blaming herself. All I wanted was to find her uncle and chop his fucking head off. A bullet would be too good for him.
She’s still in my arms, I know she’s terrified. I don’t fucking blame her but right now I need to hold her. I want her to find comfort in me. I can sense her battle and I pull her closer as I sit down on the couch. Blood drips from her feet, but those cuts will heal, the damage inside her is so much worse. I want to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but I can’t speak right now without wanting to roar. So I continue to hold her. She’s so small in my arms and I’m aware of where my hands touch. Her back heaves against my arm. I like her warm breath on my chest. My lips press against her head, she stiffens in my arms. I have so many questions I want to ask, but so many I don’t want the answers to. What age was she when he had first put his hands on her? Where the fuck was her father or auntie? Why did she blame herself?
“Dean.” My name. She says it again. She had said it outside and I was so sure I had misheard her, how did she know my name? I didn’t want her to be involved with the blackmailer but it is looking that way. She must have set me up. Anger laces my hands tighter on her and I feel her panic as she starts to squirm.
Let her go.
I release her quickly and grab her before she tumbles to the ground. She has lines of tiredness under her eyes.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
I nod and she slides off the couch. Small droplets of blood drip from her feet. I need to bandage them up for her. I focus on the wall in front of me as she closes the bathroom door.
I imagine her uncle: I see him walking down a sidewalk, I place a newspaper under his arm. He’s wearing heavy brown boots and a matching belt. He’s sure of himself, comfortable in his own skin. He thinks he’s someone special. I’m ready to take my shot. I’m always so still, but now I make a sound because I want the fucker to see it coming, his blue eyes look up at mine and they widen, color drains from his face and I pull the trigger. The bullet tears through his forehead, ripping skin and smashing bone. It enters his brain, dragging everything with it until it reaches the back of his skull and explodes against the whit
e—wash wall of the coffee shop behind him. He tumbles to the ground with that same expression of shock and I lie still and watch the pool of blood grow wider. It’s satisfying for a second, but he won’t die that way. It has to be so much fucking worse.
I glance towards the hall. I don’t hear any noise and that has me moving. The water is running when I enter the bathroom. She’s in the shower, sitting on the floor fully clothed. I don’t ask her what she’s doing, she’s a fucking mess. Lowering myself to the floor, I sit across from the shower where I can see her. She doesn’t look up at me. The blood from her feet dilutes as it washes down the drain. I’ve seen so much blood, I’ve spilt so much blood and I’ve never blinked before. Watching Kate’s blood swirl down the drain has the oddest effect on me. It makes the substance have value, it’s like her body is crying. She has her head bent, I’m tempted to crawl into the space and lift her chin up. I want to see those ocean eyes, even swimming in pain they are still beautiful. Her shoulders shake as she cries and I focus on the ceiling and smile as I picture cutting her uncle up, then I decide that the auntie is still alive and I make the uncle watch me butcher her first before I kill him. It passes the time blissfully for me.
She’s shivering and I think it's shock. Shock from what she admitted, shock from almost dying. Guilt churns in my stomach and I stand up. She doesn’t move as I step in and turn off the water. Kneeling down, my boots splash in pockets of water.
“Kate,” I say her name and she doesn’t respond. It reminds me it’s not her name.
I touch her arm gently and her head snaps up to me, her eyes are haunted and I wonder what’s playing on the big screen for her. I wish I could watch, I wish I could see what the motherfucker looks like. I help her to her feet. She doesn’t object as I pull the wet jumper over her head. Her large breasts bounce free and I can’t stop the blood that rushes to my cock. I pull down the sweat pants; leaning down, she holds onto my shoulders. She steps out of them. She’s so perfect. Her eyes slowly move up to mine and it takes everything in me not to grab her and take her against the wall. I occupy my mind with getting her a towel for her body. My cock grows harder as I wrap the towel around her.