by L A Cotton
I left the O’Hare’s in a daze. I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it. Kendall had broken down, speaking faster than I could keep up. Her attempt to ruin Becca wasn’t random—some campaign of jealousy because Becca had grown up with a better life than us. No, it all came down to family and the things you’d do for them. I knew all about that. I did things to shelter Eli from a life he should never have to grow up in. But, Jesus, where was the line?
Apparently for Kendall, the buck stopped with her. Things had gotten out of control, and she no longer felt safe. It didn’t matter that she’d tried to ruin Becca, Lilly and Jay, and Peters’ lives; they were disposable. But when it no longer felt like a game, she panicked … and she wanted out.
But it was too late.
He was here, in Credence. Kane Larson was here, and he had Becca.
I’d wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her, but I saw it in her eyes—the guilt, the realization that she’d fucked up. I felt no sympathy for her, not after what she’d done to Becca, to Becca’s friends, but I wasn’t cruel either. We might have been family, but Kendall and I were cut from a different cloth. She lacked empathy and had a cold heart. But one day, she’d have to pay for her sins.
I just hoped today wasn’t that day.
I’d left her crying into her hands and got the hell out of there with one thought in mind. Find Becca. Kendall said there were only three places he’d take her. Rogues, the old water plant on the outskirts of town, or his childhood home. It was almost ten, which meant Becca had been gone for at least three hours. I drove straight to Rogues. I knew it was unlikely he’d be there, but kids were always hanging around, so maybe they saw something.
They hadn’t.
I’d left with a sinking feeling in my chest. The water plant was the other side of town, and his childhood home was in a neighborhood near the school. I couldn’t cover both; I needed help. So I’d left Rogues and headed straight to Becca’s house.
I sat outside their house, knuckles white from the iron tight grip on the wheel. What was I supposed to say to them? “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, slamming my fists against the leather. There wasn’t any time to waste. Not if Kane was as unstable as Kendall made out. We needed to find Becca before something happened … if it hadn’t already. I clamped my eyes shut, inhaling a shaky breath. She would be fine. She had to be.
Just as I opened the door, a truck pulled onto the drive. “Evan?” Mr. Torrence climbed out. He took one look at my face and said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I think Kane Larson took Becca.” God, I was going to puke.
Mr. Torrence staggered back, the blood draining from his face, and propped himself up on the car door. “No. He isn’t … He can’t be …”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. This was not a conversation I ever planned on having with the father of the girl I’d fallen in love with.
“I-I thought she was home sick?”
It wasn’t lost on me that he hadn’t asked what the hell I was talking about or how I knew. He just accepted it because it was the truth. This was really happening.
“She was,” I said. “But Mrs. Torrence said she left the house earlier. I think she was set up, and now I think he has her.” Acid rushed up my throat, and I swallowed hard, forcing it down. “I think I know where she might be.”
He glanced around, but looking for what, I didn’t know. “Come inside; I need to make a call.”
He wanted to make a call, a fucking phone call? We needed to go and look for her right now, but before I could protest, Mr. Torrence ushered me into the house.
“Geary? Evan? What are you doing here?” Her eyes searched for answers, her face paling when she sensed the mood. “Oh god, what happened? Where’s Becca? No, no, no, what’s happened to my daughter?”
“Melinda, go into the kitchen and make some tea, please.” His voice was unnervingly calm. A stark contrast from the man outside only seconds earlier, devastated by the news his daughter was missing. “Evan, will you help my wife, please?”
What the actual fuck?
His eyes were stony with resolve, something I hadn’t witnessed before, and it occurred to me that Becca never told me what it was her father did for a living. From the murderous look on his face, I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.
I nodded, following Mrs. Torrence into the kitchen. Her hands quivered uncontrollably as she began making tea. She didn’t speak, and I didn’t try to console her, the reality of the situation weighing heavily on us both. Finally, she was the one to break the silence. “I … I thought she was going to Lilly’s.”
“She wasn’t going to Lilly’s, Mrs. Torrence,” I said, unable to hide the annoyance in my voice.
She was so quick to write me off as unworthy of her daughter, but she hadn’t thought to question Becca leaving the house unannounced? If only she’d stopped her … Shit. It wasn’t her fault. Deep down, I knew that. Becca was stubborn to boot. One way or another, she would have found a way to slip out unnoticed. Mrs. Torrence didn’t deserve my anger, but with every minute that passed, I felt Becca slip through my fingers.
Why the hell were we still here when we needed to call the cops and get out there looking for her?
“This is bullsh—”
“Melinda, Evan.” Mr. Torrence reappeared, his lips pressed together in a flat line. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, and my heart sank. “You were right.” His voice was directed at me. “Kane Larson boarded a train this morning. I don’t know how he got under our radar, but he did. He’s here.”
My thoughts couldn’t process everything quick enough. Train? Radar? There were so many things I wanted to ask, but a high-pitched shriek pierced the air as Mrs. Torrence started crying hysterically. Her husband pulled up a chair and tried to comfort his wife. I felt like an outsider invading a private moment. There were clearly things I still didn’t understand about this family, about the secrets they kept.
“Son.” His voice cut through the tension pressing down on us. “I need you to sit tight. Can you do that for me?” I sensed it wasn’t a request. Was he kidding?
“No,” I said. “We need to be out there looking for Becca, right now. We need to call the cops, and we need to go.” The chair scraped across the floor as I pushed back and stood.
“Evan.” There was his calm voice again. “I know you’re scared—I am too—but we can’t call the cops. Things are …” His face flashed with indecision. “Complicated. Let me handle it, please. As her father, I’m asking you to let me handle it.”
Handle it? What the fuck did that mean? He was terrified; I saw it in the depths of his eyes—eyes that reminded me of Becca every time I looked at him—so why was he doing this?
“Geary, you can’t let him hurt her.” Mrs. Torrence pulled her head out of his chest, her eyes already swollen from the force of her tears. “You can’t let her …”
“Shh.” He crushed her to him again, and I jammed my fingers into my hair, scraping my scalp. This was messed up on so many levels. Fire burned through me, a restless energy that refused to let me sit by and do nothing while Becca was out there.
“I can’t just do nothing. Not while she’s—”
“Evan …” His voice trailed off, and I finished. “I love her. I can’t just do nothing.”
A knock on the front door silenced us. Mr. Torrence patted his wife and left her draped over the table, sniffling into her arms, while he went to answer it.
“Tell me you have a location?” I heard him ask whoever was at the door.
“Water plant …” The voice faded into a low rumble, but it was enough for me. I ran out into the hallway, straight toward the two men. Their heads snapped up at the sight of me, and Mr. Torrence said, “Evan, this is Mac. He’s here to help.”
But I was done waiting.
Becca was at the water plant, and I would find her. I walked straight past them both, ignoring their pleas, as I jogged to the Impala and climbed inside. It would take fi
fteen minutes to get there, ten if I stepped on the gas.
But all I could think was, what if I was already too late?
Becca
Kane cradled my face gently in his hands, feathering my skin with kisses. Tender and soft, his touch made my skin crawl.
“Kane.” I tried again to appeal to his rational side, the part of him that had pulled me under his spell all those months ago.
“Just let me love you,” he whispered. His voice changed as if more than one person was inside him. Gentle Kane. Mean Kane. Vulnerable Kane. Angry Kane. It was unnerving. His hands moved down, taking in the curves of my body and skating over my shoulders and along my waist to come to rest on my thighs. “God, you feel so good.”
“No, no,” I whimpered. “Please, don’t do this.” Memories of that night rushed to the surface, and I clamped my eyes tight.
Kane ripped himself away from me, his face contorting with anguish. “You don’t want this? You don’t want me to make you feel good?”
“Stop, please.” I didn’t want to anger him further, but I couldn’t just sit here and let him do this to me. I wouldn’t. “People will be looking for me. My dad, he’ll—”
A loud crack sounded as my head snapped back and pain exploded across my cheekbone. “Don’t fucking talk to me about him. Never talk to me about him. He took you from me. They’re always taking. Always stealing things that don’t belong to them.”
When I’d first met Kane, he seemed like a well-put-together guy. He worked hard and enjoyed partying. Sure, he was older, but he blended with our crowd with ease. The Rosens often invited him to join their parties as a guest because he fit in so well. But as time went on, I realized it was all a show. Because underneath the devastatingly handsome bad boy exterior was a very troubled young man.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he soothed. “I just get so fucking mad thinking about it. Come here.” Kane wrapped me into his arms, stroking my damp hair as I sobbed into his hoodie.
“You have to let me go, Kane. Please, just let me go.”
His grip tightened, long fingers digging into my scalp. “Never,” he growled. “You’re mine, Becca. I’m not losing you again.”
We sat there on the dank floor for what felt like forever. Kane relaxed, shifting against the wall and pulling me into his lap. He held me like a mother might cradle her child while a million thoughts raced through my head. Where were we? Was anyone looking for me? How long had I been gone? My face burned where his hand had connected with my cheekbone, and I knew if I caught my reflection in a mirror, a bruise would be forming.
I didn’t fight his touch. I didn’t move, too scared of the repercussions. At least like this, he wasn’t hurting me or trying to take things from me that I didn’t want to surrender. At some point, his breathing leveled out, growing shallow. Kane had fallen asleep. My eyes searched frantically for anything that might help me escape this nightmare, but it was futile.
The silence stretched out before us. Only Kane’s steady breath and the drip, drip, drip of water penetrated the quiet. Located on the edge of town was an old water plant. Dad had pointed it out when we first arrived. Maybe we were there under the derelict facility in one of the sewer tunnels. But it didn’t feel airy. It felt small. Like a holding cell, and since I couldn’t see farther than the shadows cast by the small lamp on the floor, it was impossible to tell.
Kane mumbled something, his fingers biting into my skin. My body tensed, prepared for him to wake. I didn’t want to think about him, about the things he might be dreaming, but I couldn’t help it. In a strange way, we were bound. He’d tried to hurt me, and I had hurt him.
I’d almost killed him.
I’d never given much thought to how different things might have been if Dad had called it in. It was self-defense; Kane had attacked me, and I’d defended myself. No judge could dispute that. I was also a minor at the time, which meant if the truth came out about our relationship, Kane could be charged with statutory rape. But we didn’t know if Kane would survive. Until Dad arrived and said he was breathing, I thought I’d killed him. He knew that in a place like Montecito, the gossip mongers would latch onto the first sniff of a scandal and burn it into the town’s history. It wouldn’t just blow over. It would stay with me. Follow me around like a bad smell, and people would forever remember me as that girl. That would be my legacy. Dad might have been the law, but he knew the law couldn’t protect me from the claws of the gossip-hungry socialites of Montecito. And, in the end, he made a choice.
To protect me.
To erase any connection between me and Kane. But something plagued my thoughts. Kane had said, “Your daddy brought you right home for me.” If my suspicions were right, Kane meant he was from Credence. But it didn’t make sense—how did he end up in Montecito, and me here? And why was I kept out of the loop again? Dad had kept Kane’s recovery a secret from me … What else had he hidden in hopes of protecting me?
My cold body ached, heavy with the weight of Kane’s arms wrapped around me, holding me captive. I shuffled, trying to put some feeling back into my legs. He roused, grumbling something, his hot breath hitting my shoulder.
“So many nights I’ve dreamed of waking up like this with your body next to mine.” His lips pressed to my skin, and a full body shiver zipped through me. But it wasn’t the good kind, the kind I felt when Evan touched me. It was the kind that made you feel like a thousand tiny ants were crawling underneath your skin.
“Kane, we need to get out of here. I’m cold and tired, and my head hurts.” The pain had numbed into a dull throb, making it difficult to focus.
“Shh, everything’s going to be fine. We’re together now.”
“Where will we go? My family will be worried.” Evan will be worried. “How long have we been out here? Where are we, Kane?” The questions wouldn’t stop. They poured out of me like a desperate jumble of words.
Kane lifted me as if I weighed nothing more than a feather and dropped me back onto the cold floor while he stood, stretching his arms above his head and stretching his neck from side to side. “Stop talking. I need to think … I need to figure this out.”
It hit me. He didn’t have a plan or an end game. His mind didn’t work like that. He was impulsive, driven by need, and what I only assumed were deep rooted mental issues. High one minute, low the next, Kane wasn’t in control of the situation—his unhinged thoughts were.
I scrambled up, but my sore body protested, and my legs gave out underneath me. How long had I been out? Had he done something to me? Drugged me to keep me compliant? Something felt wrong. Why wouldn’t my goddamn legs work? “Kane, what did you do?”
He stopped pacing and crouched down, his eyes cutting to mine. His fingers reached out, grazing my jaw and sliding up my tender cheek. “I hurt you.”
“Please, just let me go.”
“Never. You’re mine, Becca. Let me make it better.” Kane inched his face closer, his hungry gaze on my mouth.
No.
I pressed back against the wall, turning my head away from him. A feral growl filled the room, and I waited for it.
One.
Two.
Three…
“Shit,” he roared. It was so guttural, so pained that my body went rigid. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to … You just looked so beautiful, like an angel, and I wanted to have a chance to talk. To make you see that we belong together.”
Slowly, I turned and met his eyes, my face damp with tears. “This is wrong, and you know it is.” He felt remorse; I could see it. “Kane, please.”
He didn’t move. No words passed between us. He just watched, moving his eyes over my face like he was searching for something. Something I could never give him. Kane was sick—he needed help. My fingers reached for him, dancing across his face until my palm lay flat against the stubble on his jaw. It was hard to believe he was twenty-five. He looked so vulnerable, so unsure, barely resembling the self-assured guy I met all those months ago in Montecito.
Kane’s ey
es shuttered as he leaned into my touch, a serene expression washing over his hardened features. “Becca.”
“You have to let me go. If you love me, Kane, you have to let me go.”
Kane didn’t love me, but he felt something. Lust. Need. Obsession. Whatever it was, it was destructive and violent, but at this moment, he needed this. He needed to know he wasn’t alone.
“Kane.”
When his eyes opened, I didn’t know what I hoped to see, but it wasn’t two obsidian pools staring back at me. His whole face morphed into something sharper, determined.
Terrifying.
Oh god. What had I done? Had I pushed him too far? “K-Kane?” My voice cracked as my hand slipped away.
“AGH!” He lurched away from me with a roar, and I pressed back against the wall, trying to shield myself from the fury radiating deep from within him.
“It’s all their fault. I hate them. I HATE THEM.” He clawed at his face, his hair, pacing in front of me, lost to his demons.
“Kane, you’re scaring me,” I whispered, holding myself together with my arms.
Then he stilled, his eyes snapping to mine. “I have to go now,” he said so calmly it made my blood turn cold.
“Go? Go where?”
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my head, no sign of the maniacal guy from only seconds earlier. “I’ll remember you, always.”
And then he was gone.
~
“Shit.” The word echoed around the room as I tried to reach the lamp. It was one of those old-fashioned oil lamps that threw out as much heat as it did light. My legs tingled as I willed them into action.
I’d managed to roll and push myself onto all fours and drag myself farther into the room. The shadows moved with me, illuminating new sections of the area, the closer I got to the lamp. It was definitely a room. I could make out three walls from my new position, but I still couldn’t see a door, just a vast darkness. Kane had disappeared into the shadows only minutes earlier, so I knew the way in and out must be in that direction. Now, if only I could make my body do as it was told.