by Winter James
Jake
I’m not afraid of the dark.
Being afraid of the dark is a luxury for soft people—people who know what it means to live in the light. There was no such thing in prison. There was light, sure. A tiny slash of weak sunlight coming in through a six-inch window near the ceiling of my cell stood in for the sun itself. And then there were the fluorescents. Those damn things were on all the time. Afraid of the dark? Fuck no. I craved the dark.
It feels natural to be in the dark now that I’ve decided to do something truly insane.
Noah and me stand in the woods outside the House of Rapture compound, breathing slow and trying to look like trees. My utility knife is a lightweight prescience in my pocket, and also serves as a reminder of just how intense this could get. I’ve brought weapons. If a cop shows up here, I’m double-screwed.
I catch Noah staring at me in the moonlight.
“You are a crazy motherfucker, you know that? This place gives me the creeps.”
“It’s the woods, Noah. Would you rather be in a cage?”
He scoffs. “You never know what people like this are up to. Probably some fucked-up shit. Orgies and praying and who knows what else.”
When I got back to the halfway house after work, Noah was back from his own road gig down in Indiana. I’ve known him since we were both on the same prison block. We stuck together out of proximity at first, because in prison you need somebody to watch your back if you don’t want to get taken out by somebody else holding a grudge. Now I guess I’d call us friends.
“I didn’t ask you to come here, you know.”
“I know it.” He shakes out his arms. “But what the hell kind of person would I be if I let you prance your way into a fucking cult compound without backup?”
“I’m not prancing, asshole. I’m going to walk. And I have to get her back.”
“Right, right.” He took one look at my face when I came in from my shift and cornered me in the foyer to ask me what was up. I didn’t want to tell him. There’s no use in getting us both sent back to prison on my account. But Noah’s persistent. I insisted it was time to go break Dove out of the House of Rapture. He insisted he was coming with me.
I believe his exact words were “if you’re going to get your ass thrown in death row, the least you could do is take me with you.” And that’s how we both ended up here, thirty feet inside the gate, listening for signs one of the cult members is about to find us out. “You’re sure you can’t just call the cops?”
There’s a moment of silence, and then both of us guffaw. It releases some of the twisting, winding tension in the pit of my gut. We don’t trust cops as far as we can throw them.
“Fuck you,” I tell him when I can finally uncover my mouth. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s funny as hell.”
“Yeah. But what’s not funny is that she’s in there, getting who knows what done to her.” And it’s my fault. My fault for touching her, kissing her. Worst part is I’d do it again. Only this time I woundn’t let her walk away from me. “You hear anything?”
We both fall silent for a stretch of time. Night noises rise up around us. An owl hoots in a nearby tree, then takes off in a flutter of wings. The breeze plays in the leaves. It reminds me of rain in the birch trees outside the house I lived in when I was a kid. Far off in the distance, something skitters through the underbrush. There’s nothing human for miles except us and the people at the House of Rapture. And I’m not sure I’d call them human. Anyone who scares my little girl like that is a fucking monster, and that’s saying something coming from me.
“Okay.” Noah shifts in place and runs a hand over his dark hair. “We need to make a move.”
“On it.” I stay to the edge of the dirt path and approach the compound. Little by little it reveals itself in the crisp light of the moon. My heart beats faster. This place looks fucking innocent, like Dove. It looks like it could be a summer camp, if that summer camp had a big farmhouse at its center instead of a big log-style dining hall.
The innocence dies a little more with every step we take.
Something’s off about this place.
I thought it would be from the way Dove’s face changed when that Robin showed up, but the more I look, the more I’m convinced. The cabins all face the house like even the buildings are worshipping the whitewashed building with the wraparound porch. The whole setup looks like it was dropped into the middle of a woodland clearing by an outside force, like aliens or twisted angels. Off to one side they’ve got a garden hemmed in by flexible fencing—a long-ass garden. Corn stalks wave in the night wind. A couple of big tanks and a generator sit in a neat row beyond the garden.
And behind that—
I nudge Noah with an elbow. “You see that?”
“What?” HIs eyes trace over the farmhouse. “You said she’s in here, right?”
“She said she lived in the big house. I’m talking about that.” I stab a finger in the direction of what looks a hell of a lot like a wall.
The section I can see is six concrete blocks high and long enough that the line of it stretches behind all the other visible elements of the compound. My blood runs cold. These fuckers are making themselves their own little prison, and they intend to keep Dove inside. Dove and everybody else.
“Shit.” Noah squints toward the wall, then strolls over like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I walk side by side with him, hands in my pockets. I don’t know how the guys in the cult walk around, but I bet they don’t duck and run in their own compound. My pulse has become a low, urgent drumbeat. We come level with the back corner of the farmhouse and Noah lets out a barely audible whistle. “They’re building themselves a damn fortress.”
“Don’t think that’s all they’re doing, either.” Any group of people intent on closing themselves in with a concrete wall doesn’t just want to shut the world out. They’re waiting on an attack. And if I learned anything in prison, it’s that most people are only waiting to be attacked so they can fight back. I don’t even want to think about what might happen to my girl if that went down.
Noah turns toward the farmhouse, shaking his head. “All right. Do we think she’s on the second floor?”
Or the fucking basement. I really hope it’s not the basement. The house looks well-maintained but old, which means it’s more likely to have a root cellar than a finished basement. Once upon a time this probably was farmland. Now the trees have taken it back again, as surely as the cult took over this clearing.
“Yeah. I think so.” I rub my hands together and crack my knuckles, trying to rid myself of this weird mix of anticipation and dread. It’s still breaking and entering, even if it’s for a good cause. And the House of Rapture could definitely call it kidnapping.
Noah considers the house like it’s one of the Sudoku puzzles he likes. He’s a stocky guy, covered from the neck down in prison tattoos, but right now he looks like he could be a nerdy professor with the right clothes. After a minute he points. “Drainpipe.”
“You think it’ll hold us?”
He shrugs. “We’ll keep ourselves light.”
That’s fucking impossible, but I don’t see any other way up to the roof. The farmhouse is a classic design with a wraparound porch. The porch itself goes to the second window of three. If she’s in the third window, we’re fucked.
First things first. The drainpipe snakes up the side of the house a foot or so away from the edge of the porch roof. Now that Noah’s made up his mind, he doesn’t hesitate. He strides up to the pipe, wraps his hands around, and swings himself up. It’s fucking astonishing. A guy with that much muscle shouldn’t be that flexible, or move that easy, but he’s up on the roof in seconds. He tests his weight and gives me a nod.
My turn.
I’m not as graceful as Noah on the climb. The drainpipe bows out with my weight and I have to kick my foot against the support pole for the porch to stay on. I spend all day driving a backhoe and throwing around chunks of concr
ete, which is probably why my muscles are on fire right away. I don’t recommend climbing a fucking drainpipe after a long day of manual labor, that’s for sure.
But I don’t have much time.
I scramble up the pipe and get a hand onto the edge of the roof. There’s one thing I need to know now—whether she’s in that third room or not. By some miracle I get my feet onto the roof and lean out, one hand on the drainpipe for balance.
The flimsy curtain is open, so I can see inside the room. A narrow bed. A small side table. A cross on the wall. A figure, sleeping in the bed. A fall of red hair over the pillow.
The breath I’ve been holding goes out of my lungs with a whoosh. It’s not her. She’s got to be in one of the other two rooms, unless they’ve got her locked somewhere. Fuck. If they do—
No point in getting carried away ahead of time. I stand up on the roof next to Noah. It creaks under my feet.
“Better hurry,” he says.
Time to take a chance on the second window. I put my palms flat against the wood rail at the bottom and hope against hope that these things don’t lock from the inside...and that the curtain isn’t hiding that dark-haired devil from before.
The window comes open with a barely audible squeak and I hold my breath. A rustle from inside sends my pulse thundering through my brain. If it’s that Robin girl, I am fucked. I’m headed back to prison and I’ll never see Dove.
Well, if that’s what’s going to happen, there’s nothing to be done about it now. I bat the gauzy curtain aside and stick my head through the window.
At first I can’t tell what the hell I’m seeing. A white dress on white sheets, only the angles are all wrong. But—blonde hair. And big blue eyes, made colorless in the moonlight.
Fuck, thank god it’s her. It’s her.
She’s got her arms over her head.
Because someone has tied her wrists to the post of her headboard.
Wild anger surges through my chest. I’ve never been this filled with rage before. It’s an atomic bomb, sitting right at the bottom of my rib cage. I try to breathe some of it out. Tearing this house apart with my bare hands will get us caught. That’s the only thing that keeps me from doing it.
I signal to Noah to wait on the roof and pull myself in through the window. It’s a tight fit, and when my feet hit the floor the old wood boards creak. Dove bites her lip, eyes glued to the door. But there’s no alarm, no rush of footsteps. The crickets sing outside like this is any other night, anywhere else on the planet.
I take out the utility knife and motion to Dove, trying to explain without words that I’m not going to cut her. Getting her free is my only priority. She presses her lips together and gives me a little nod, but she flinches when I flip it open. She’s right to be afraid of me. Even getting her out of here is no guarantee she’ll be safe, since I’m a ticking time bomb.
I’ll take my chances if it means she never has to come back here again.
I approach her as slowly as I can stand. Every second passing is a palpable tick inside my brain. We have to get out. We have to get out. I have to release the rage reaching a fever pitch inside me. The utility knife shreds the linen binding her wrists like it’s a birthday streamer.
Dove reaches for me, and I gather her up in my arms. A bright wash of terror tinged with satisfaction spills over me. I expected to get caught.
“Hey,” Noah hisses into the window. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
So we do.
Chapter Nine
Dove
For a horrible moment when I first wake up, I think I’m still at the House of Rapture. I can still feel the linen around my wrists and the numb prickles in my fingertips. Leader Michael, it turned out, wasn’t done with me when I’d paid my penance. He wanted me to feel more pain, to teach me another lesson, and that meant getting tied to the bed in the worst possible position for my fresh bruises.
Now, I can wiggle my fingers. I give my wrists a tentative turn. No bindings. I’m free.
And I’m in...a room I’ve never been to before.
I sit up in bed too fast for my injured body, letting out a hiss at the deep ache throughout most of my bottom and thighs. Leader Michael wanted to make sure I repented—more than he ever has before. I can’t repress the shudder at what that means. What would have happened if I woke up in my room at the House of Rapture? A hasty wedding ceremony? Another punishment?
This narrow room is slightly longer than my room in Leader Michael’s house, but it has a rundown look about it. The mattress is more comfortable than mine was, and the blanket has been worn to a familiar softness. There’s practically nothing in here, other than a low dresser and a slim closet in one of the walls. A pair of athletic shoes lines at the closet door.
The only way I know it’s Jake’s room is because everything smells like him—the blankets and the sheets and the two thin pillows.
I bury my face in the pillow and breathe him in. This isn’t Jake sweaty from a long day at work and aching to go home. This is Jake fresh and clean after the shower. It makes my face heat. He smells so good. Better than I ever could have imagined, and I liked the rough smell of him at the rest area, too.
Lying here in his bed, in this strange room, seems almost like a dream. And the way he came to find me? The way he and his friend carried me out the window like I weighed nothing? Something out of a storybook. I lift my head from the pillow to confirm, one more time, that it all was real. All of it, even the way they carried me through the woods and across the street to the rest area, where Jake’s car was waiting.
Nobody came after me.
Does that mean I’m safe? No, it doesn’t. But I’m with Jake. An ex-convict. A construction worker. A feral animal in a man’s clothing.
At least I should be with him.
I lie still and listen. This room is obviously part of a house, though I don’t remember much about it from last night. The moment I got into his car my body shut down from the exhaustion of penance and being tied to my headboard, wondering what the morning would bring.
Soft footsteps move underneath me. Maybe there’s a living room down there. There’s definitely a kitchen, because the familiar clinks and thuds of dishes in the sink is the heartbeat beneath all the other sounds. Something else—ah. A TV. There are no televisions at the House of Rapture. It makes a strange buzzing sound, and every so often there’s a burst of noise.
Where is he?
The footsteps cross the house again, and then they come up the stairs. It sounds like Jake. I hope it’s him, because if I’m wrong, then...
Then I’ll go back to sleep. Problem solved.
The door to this little room opens, and there he is. All at once I feel small under the tangle of blankets. His body fills the whole doorway. His green eyes meet mine, two jewels in this gray space, and the whole world seems to light up under his gaze.
“You’re awake.”
“You have a comfortable bed.” Heat strikes my cheeks, a lightning bolt just for me. “I—I slept really well.”
The corner of his mouth rises in a smile that tugs at my heart. Then Jake angles his body so he can fit through the door. “I did, too.”
I felt him there, in the night. The bed wasn’t big enough for both of us, but somehow both of us fit. I tucked myself next to the wall, hemmed in by the warmth of him.
Another dream, only this one’s reality.
He crosses the room, and with every step he takes I become more aware of my own body. My linen dress is gone, replaced with a man’s huge t-shirt. And I’m not wearing anything underneath. He must see the recognition in my face, because he stops at the edge of the bed.
“You seemed hurt last night,” Jake explains. “Had to make sure you were okay. And I didn’t want you to wake up in that dress and think you were...back there.”
“Thank you.”
He puts his hands in the air, palms up, then reaches for me with deliberate movements. The slide of his rough palms over my shirt makes my k
nees weak. Thank the Lord I’m lying down. I wanted him to touch me so much that it takes my breath away. What he’s doing doesn’t register until I’m already turning. A gentle hand on my hip guides me to my stomach. Jake lifts my shirt away from my skin and hisses his disapproval.
“That fucker,” he says under his breath, and then his fingers are on my skin, a featherlight touch. I’m still bruised. I can tell. And when I look up into Jake’s eyes, the anger flashing there stops my heart. He looks like a violent animal. A predator.
Except I don’t feel like prey. That’s Leader Michael he wants to hurt. Not me.
I reach for Jake on instinct. I want him close to me—closer than he is right now. I get a fistful of his shirt and pull him down to brush my lips against the stubble on his face. It’s a good burn, and the heat between my legs overtakes the deep ache from where Leader Michael strapped me.
Jake’s lips are an inch from mine, his hand still on my hips, and this time we’re not pushed up on an oak tree next to a rest stop. We’re in a room with a door. We’re far from the House of Rapture. And that’s what gives me the courage to kiss him.
I climb over him, yanking his shirt down. He resists. He’s so much bigger and stronger that it breaks my grip on the shirt. His hands, which had been holding me still, push me a few inches away.
“I can’t. We can’t. You’re too injured. I’d hurt you.” His words escape on ragged breaths, eyes searching mine. I can see into his broken soul. It shatters me, too.
“I need it.” Slowly, with intention, I put my hands back on his chest. I dig my fists into his shirt again and pull with all my strength. Jake gives in a little and braces his first on the bed. He clenches his fingers tight. “I need you.”
“No,” he groans, his desire thick in his voice. “I’m too big, too rough. The last thing you need is me rutting between your legs, pressing on your bruises.”
The words excite me, despite the pain. Maybe because of it.
And then I do something I never thought I’d do, not ever in my life.
I put my mouth over his and bite him.
It’s a pretty tentative bite, as far as bites go, because even though my veins are flooded with a druglike confidence there’s still a tiny part of me that thinks maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe I should hold back. Maybe I should be a good girl.