Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

  “But how do you know he won’t change the plan mid-game? We need to know where to find you.”

  “You mean where to find Mom and Tessa.”

  The beep of his phone sent a painful jolt though Jonah and he tightened his sweaty hold on it.

  564 Hidden Hills Drive. The house he’d been raised in.

  “Something about this seems so personal,” Micki said.

  “You think? The guy’s only been trying to kill people around me. That wasn’t personal enough for you?” And right now, he didn’t have the luxury of time to scratch his head over why Keith Benery would be pissed enough to come after his family and him. Because whether she believed it or not, Tessa was his family. Part of the small group of people he would do anything for.

  He wanted a lifetime with her if she wanted him back. For the first time in years, he believed that was possible for him. For them together.

  His dad placed a steady hand on his back. Jonah wanted to shrug away from it, but he held on to his composure. The old man was here to help and that had to count for something.

  “I know we can’t talk you out of meeting him, so Micki and I will be in charge of rounding up Maggie and her team.”

  Jonah’s brain was on overload, working all the angles of how he might take down Benery. The guy wanted to play? Then Jonah would go old-school. “Tell Maggie to have Reid and Britt set up the old tiger trap behind the house. They’ll know what I mean. They have to use caution. He has two hostages.”

  “Your cousin knows her business and so do your brothers,” his dad said. “And you need to have some faith in your friend and your mom. Women are a lot stronger than we give them credit for most of the time.”

  “That doesn’t mean I plan to let them fend for themselves.”

  His dad’s grip tightened, and his eyes hardened. “Sometimes that’s the best way to keep them safe. Hiding the truth hurts the ones you love most. It always comes back to bite you on the ass.”

  “Thanks.” For what, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but his dad was making an effort. But Jonah didn’t have time for family therapy hour right now. He snatched up the gauntlet controllers and fumbled to secure them.

  “Let me do it.” Micki latched the plastic sleeves and held on when he would’ve pulled away. “Dad’s right.”

  Micki, too? Didn’t they realize he had to go? Now.

  He had to save his mom and Tessa. He had to get her out of this before…

  His mind squeezed to the point of physical pain as it all gelled. Tessa’s attack had been defining his relationship with her because he didn’t trust the world not to hurt her, and he didn’t trust her to rescue herself when she was in trouble. He’d taken it upon himself to right the wrongs done to her. Without her permission.

  The only person he’d been protecting was himself.

  Tessa was smart. Strong. Resilient.

  She needed a partner, not some kind of avenging guardian angel.

  “What you’re saying is that if I want both Tessa and Mom to come out of this thing okay, I have to stop thinking of Tessa as a helpless girl. I have to stop thinking that I let her down and start believing she has as much control as any of us do.”

  Micki’s smile was tight and sad, but it was a smile. “Remember that. She’s not anyone’s victim.”

  28

  Although Tessa’s heart was pounding so hard she thought she could hear it herself, she was relieved that Keith was keeping his gun pointed at her. As they made their way farther into the woods, he remained between Tessa and Jonah’s mother.

  Miss Joan lagged a step and shot a look at Tessa behind Keith’s back, but Tessa had no idea what she was trying to communicate.

  He herded them toward a massive red spruce with branches draping the ground. “Get under there,” he ordered. Once they were all hunched underneath the low prickly branches, he told Tessa, “Get the duct tape out of the bag and strap her to the tree.”

  Oh, she didn’t like the sound of that. It would mean Miss Joan had no chance of escape. “But how will she play that way?”

  “I decided she won’t. She’d drag down the pace,” he said. “That’s not her purpose.” No explanation for what her purpose was though.

  Miss Joan awkwardly put her back against the tree between two branches, and Tessa began weaving the tape over the wood, behind her back but over her wrists. If she could just…

  “Not that way,” he barked. “Strap her down at the waist, hips, and shoulders. I don’t want her interrupting the game.”

  Tessa tried to convey how sorry she was through her facial expression alone, and Miss Joan gave her a small smile. When Tessa made a lap around her waist, Jonah’s mom whispered, “I’ll be fine. You just take care of yourself. You can do this.”

  Her words shook Tessa. Obviously, Miss Joan believed wholeheartedly that Tessa could hold her own, that she didn’t have to rely on Jonah to get them out of this situation. Something Tessa had spent the past ten years trying to prove to everyone, including herself. Only to find out she wasn’t exactly the self-made woman she’d believed.

  How could Jonah have taken that from her? He’d manipulated things behind the scenes while she was completely unaware. No, it wasn’t physical victimization, but he’d still taken away her choice.

  “Tessa,” Miss Joan said. “Whatever my son did, he did because he wanted to protect you, because he cares for you.”

  “People who care for one another treat each other as equals.”

  “Equality isn’t the same thing as equity, sweetheart. He wanted justice for you.”

  That should’ve been her choice, not his.

  When she had Jonah’s mom secured, Tessa turned to Keith. “What now?” Because it was time to get on with whatever he had planned. That was the only way to stop him.

  “Turn around.” He lifted the back of her shirt and checked the battery pack on her vest. Good thing she hadn’t been able to disengage the wires on this one. He tinkered with the goggles perched on her head and yanked them down over her eyes.

  That’s when something dawned on her. She and Miss Joan were suited up, but Keith hadn’t put on gear. Tessa had no understanding of the rules, and she suddenly felt as if she’d been plopped down in the middle of the Hunger Games.

  His stomach a mess, rolling and cramping, Jonah pulled to the side of the road in front of the house he’d grown up in. His worry wasn’t about defeating Keith Benery in a game of Steele Survivor. Screw the mods. He knew this game backward and forward.

  But what if winning couldn’t save his mother and Tessa? Benery had already proven he couldn’t be trusted to play by the rules he himself had set.

  In his rearview, Jonah caught sight of an unmarked car casually pulling to the curb a football field length behind him. Another turned into a driveway on the other side of the street.

  Jonah got out of the car and under the pretense of adjusting his VR goggles, he inserted a second earpiece and mic. “Everything on target?”

  In his ear, Maggie said, “Ready in less than five.”

  That meant his brothers were doing as he’d asked, so he tucked the earpiece and mic into his shirt because he didn’t want Benery to realize he was wired. He ignored Maggie’s tinny voice coming from the vicinity of his collarbone.

  Jonah pulled down his VR goggles, pressed the attached headset into place and swung the mic up to his mouth. “I’m here, Benery. Let’s play.”

  “In the backyard.” For a fucking madman, Benery sounded remarkably sane. And based on the setting for the game, he knew about the significance of this location.

  It wasn’t a secret that Jonah had first played a sort of real-life version of Steele Survivor with his brothers in the woods behind this house. Once the game had begun to gain real traction, he’d become more careful about telling that story. A few overzealous players had found the address and come by to leave tributes of marbles and trading cards—game treasure—behind the house.

  Once he’d walked in at Thanksgiving
to find his mom had invited a trio of dudes from Minnesota to dinner because they’d been running around whacking at each other with wooden swords on her property.

  Now, with the VR goggles on, Jonah was plunged back into the surreal zombie landscape Benery had created. The windows on the house had no panes, their emptiness like gaping dead eyes. Shingles that looked like strips of dried skin lay on the ground.

  Keeping his back to the brick that he knew in reality did not look as if blood had been spattered on it, Jonah edged his way down the side of the house. At the corner, he peeked into the backyard, trying to spot Benery.

  Nothing.

  Yeah, playing out in the open would’ve been too easy. Which was the reason Jonah and his brothers had rarely done it. They’d preferred to wage their battles in the thick trees and underbrush between this house and the one a half mile behind it.

  “Benery, you gutless fuck, come out and fight,” he said into his mic.

  “You know where this has to happen,” Benery taunted. “So come get me.”

  The lack of leaves on some trees made visibility slightly better, but these woods were filled with pines, hemlocks, and cedars. Benery still had plenty of cover.

  His brothers were supposed to be setting up on the west side of the property, so Jonah went east, his pulse thumping.

  Yes, Tessa was strong and smart. She might even be out in the woods right now getting herself and his mom out of this mess. But he had to confront Benery because he couldn’t bear to take chances with two of the women he loved.

  29

  Tessa picked her way through the dead underbrush and the trees with their grasping skeletal branches. Keith hadn’t outfitted her with a headset or mic before he told her to move out and play the game, so she was down two huge advantages. Of course, he hadn’t wanted her to be able to communicate with Jonah.

  But talking was only one of many ways to communicate. What if she could make Jonah understand what was happening here? She looked around for something sharp, but the best she could find was a stick.

  She was trying to maneuver it to scratch a T in the trunk of a tree when it felt as if her back had been flayed open. She was hit. Was it real or just the game?

  Her knees succumbed to the pain and she fell face first against the tree.

  Don’t let him send you to the ground.

  That was the worst possible position for personal defense.

  Her back was throbbing, sending searing pulses through her. She touched her lower back, and her fingers came away dry. These sensors did more than burn. They simulated the painful damage of the opponent’s weapon. How had Jonah survived them?

  Tessa forced herself to move, with an awkward shuffle around the tree trunk, and stumbled behind some stubby evergreen shrubbery.

  When she got a good look at her attacker, her heart felt as if it had been run through with an icepick. Her mind knew everything she was seeing had been distorted by Keith’s tech changes to Jonah’s game, but that knowledge did nothing to thaw her frozen muscles.

  The person in front of her didn’t look like Keith, nor did he resemble Jonah.

  He looked like the teenaged version of Harrison Shaw, except zombified. Ragged khakis and a dark green repp polo with one arm dangling around his elbow. His light red hair partially ripped out, but the smirk… That was the exact leer Harrison had given her that night, not long before he’d slipped her a roofie.

  That isn’t really Harrison. You know that. He’s in prison. This is Keith Benery.

  She swallowed, trying to separate nightmare from reality.

  The other player—it had to be Keith—turned as if looking for her, giving Tessa a chance to come at him from behind as he’d done to her. But self-preservation kept her from getting too close. Instead, she used her gauntlet as a gun, hoping she remembered the right sequence of movements.

  Her virtual shot went high and caught him in the shoulder. The force of the bullet made him stagger forward and drop to his knees. Virtual blood bloomed in a dark circle on his back.

  If she finished him here, would that mean the game was over?

  She didn’t get the chance to find out. Her attacker rose to his feet and whirled around, holding his hands as if he was brandishing a heavy sword. He came at her and swung his invisible weapon. It caught her across her abdomen, and Tessa looked down. The VR goggles made it look as though she’d been gutted side to side, her insides sagging out. Unable to help herself, she tried to push them back in.

  Intellectually, she knew she was still whole, but the pain was excruciating. The mental toll from distinguishing reality from augmented reality was forcing her body into a state of shock.

  Although she was mortally wounded, her attacker kept coming. A jab in her right arm set off the sensors high on her shoulder, rendering her entire arm useless. It hung loose as if the muscle and ligaments had been severed.

  It went against every speck of her sense of self-preservation, but Tessa released her hold on her stomach and tried not to look at the visual trickery of her intestines looping down her abdomen.

  She had to fight back, because with all this gear on, she’d never outrun him.

  In all the years she’d studied self-defense, she’d always pictured herself fighting off a rapist. No other threat. But she’d been trying to protect herself from a past that she couldn’t change. Trying to insulate herself from needing anyone else’s help. Trying to remain removed from other people’s traumas.

  But this was a threat to her future in a way she’d never imagined. Even in the darkest days of her sexual assault recovery, she’d known she was alive. Known tomorrow—however painful—would come.

  She’d understood her personal safety wasn’t guaranteed. But she’d never actually looked death straight in the face before.

  Today, she was seeing it in technicolor.

  She advanced on her attacker. She could do this, take this risk. After all, she’d already risked her heart by giving it to Jonah, and there were no guarantees he wouldn’t hurt her.

  Although the fingers on her left hand still felt numb, she was able to fumble with the clasp on her right gauntlet and let it drop to the ground. Then she unfastened the other and allowed it to do the same.

  She shifted her weight onto her back foot, but held her arms away from her sides in surrender.

  C’mon, Keith. Get close enough so I can take you down for real.

  He didn’t seem to have his real gun, so the worst he could do to her now was some kind of fake kill. She, however, would inflict some very real damage.

  He raised that wicked sword again, exposing his torso and giving Tessa an opportunity. Putting everything she had into it, she chopped him in the throat with her forearm. That opened him up for an elbow to the solar plexus.

  Oomph.

  Score one for Tessa. The contact jarred her, sending waves of pain up her arm. She ignored it and was going in for a knee to the nuts when he gathered himself and brought his sword around. Time seemed to slip into another dimension as it arced through the air a centimeter at a time.

  But she clearly heard Jonah say, “Game over, Benery” just before the sword sliced her head from her neck.

  The pained cry that came from Benery as he crumpled to the ground was high-pitched. Too high-pitched. Jonah reached up to remove his goggles but was interrupted by the feel of a gun barrel against his temple.

  “No, Steele, the game isn’t over. In fact, I’m just starting. By the end, I’ll have you begging me to kill you.”

  Jonah turned his head toward the voice, which positioned the gun against his goggles. Benery, who appeared to be a light-haired zombie with part of his scalp torn from his head, was upright and apparently unharmed. Jonah glanced down at the person sprawled on a mattress of dead leaves and pine straw. “Then who…”

  Matter of factly, Benery said, “I don’t think she’s dead yet, but her sensors are set on the highest level. You may not have actually taken off her head, but the electrical impulses will eventual
ly fry her heart. How does it feel to kill someone you love?”

  As much as he wanted to yank off his goggles to discover if he’d just hacked through his mom or Tessa, he knew Benery would put a bullet through his eyeball if he did. He wasn’t scared to die, but he’d be damned if he would leave Benery standing. “You said yourself that she’s not dead.”

  He reached to remove his gauntlets, and Benery shifted the trajectory of the gun to aim it at the woman. Jonah froze.

  Benery squatted down and punched the prone figure in the kidney. “You’re not done playing.”

  She groaned and rolled onto her back, but in Jonah’s virtual world, her head remained unattached. Fear that what he was seeing was somehow real rose up his throat.

  Benery looked up at him with a smile. “Or maybe she’ll get lucky and stop your heart.”

  Did the sensors really have enough juice to do that? He’d easily endured the blisters on his skin, but if the power were cranked up…

  “Why don’t you put on the gear?” he taunted, so he wouldn’t give away how fucking scared he was right now. “Hell, I’ll even trade you my pansy-ass gear for that set.” He gestured carelessly toward the ground. Anything to remove one of the loves of his life from this sick game.

  “Nah. Because I want you to live the rest of your life knowing you were the one who killed her, just like I killed my brother.” Benery’s head was tilted at an angle as he shook it in a mocking motion. “And to think you invested so much time and money into her. But she didn’t know about all that, did she?”

  “Jonah?”

  His name was a hoarse whisper, but that single word confirmed which woman Benery wanted him to kill.

  Tessa.

  Somehow Benery knew about Jonah’s machinations. All his internal organs felt as if they were making a break for the exits. She would never forgive him for what he’d done. That was if he could get them out of this game alive.

  “Let’s see,” Benery said. “There were five of them, right? Shaw, Johnson, Bledsoe, Levine, and Cartwright.”