Chapter Seven #2
I breathe through my nose, fill my lungs and my body with air and determination.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Look, this is insane, okay? This is absolutely fucking insane. This is… You can’t keep me here.
You can’t… You can’t kidnap people. This is not normal.
None of this is normal. This is…” I open my eyes and let him see my frustration.
“I don’t know why you want revenge. I don’t know what they did but they did something, didn’t they?
This isn’t just some family feud. This isn’t about Grayson-Turner rivalry.
I know it. I knew it back then when we were…
” I take a deep breath because my belly is clenching in pain.
“When we were writing to each other. You never… said anything but I knew. And I’m sorry, okay?
I’m sorry. I’m sorry that bad things happened to you.
I’m sorry they did what they did. But it has nothing to do with me.
Nothing. So please let me go. This is… This is not fair.
I don’t deserve this. And”—I shake my head—“whatever it is you’re planning, it’s not going to bring you peace.
I know you think it’s all bullshit, that I read it in books or whatever, but it’s the truth.
Revenge is not the way. Revenge is not the answer. It’s not—”
“You done?”
My breaths are choppy and so fast, it feels like I will pass out. “Just please, okay? Don’t do this. Don’t—”
“Eat your breakfast or don’t. You got thirty minutes,” he says, unfolding his arms and pushing away from the door, once again ready to put this behind him.
And I just…
Lose it.
I completely lose it, but this time as I scream, I go for the plate.
I pick up the breakfast he left for me and throw it at him.
I don’t even know where it lands, but the sound tells me that the plate also shatters like the glass.
I’m busy picking up the fork that’s lying on the nightstand and clutching it in my hand like the knife.
And I launch myself at him, fork poised to stab, but before I can take even two steps toward my target, he gets to me himself.
He grabs me around the waist, picks me off the ground, spins me around, and plasters my back to his chest. All in one fluid, scary move.
And now I’m standing here, trapped in his grip, his muscular arm like a steel band around my belly.
Very easily, like child’s play, he divests me of the fork and throws it aside. Even through my heavy breathing, I hear it clatter to the floor pathetically. And then, oh God, then, he wraps his fingers around my neck and squeezes.
Not hard, not soft, just firm, and all my noisy breaths stop.
I go still. I’m not even shaking. I’m petrified, turned into stone.
Even so, I can feel him behind me.
Like a dark predator, his chest moving, breathing, sliding across my spine; his heat—God, he’s so hot, almost burning up—making me sweat; his scent making me dizzy.
And his hands on me, large and rough, threatening.
This is what I imagine being in the clutches of a wolf or a panther would feel like.
Helpless and afraid.
So, so afraid.
But I don’t think my skin is supposed to break out in goose bumps or that my nerves should feel electric like they do now. I don’t think I should be opening my mouth to breathe him in more or feel a quickening in my belly when I do.
I’m sick, aren’t I? So twisted for feeling this way.
He lowers his face, his stubble, sharp and razor-like, sliding along my cheek as he says, “You done throwin’ tantrums?”
I swallow.
He flexes his grip around my throat, making me squeak. “You done or not? Say yes or no.”
I clench my eyes shut. “Y-yes.”
“Good,” he says, flexing his fingers around my throat again. “Now, I want you to listen to me, okay? You listenin’?”
“Yes.”
His chest moves with another breath. “First, there’s glass everywhere, yeah? Your fuckin’ temper tantrum made a mess. So after this, when I tell you to stay put on the bed until I clean it up, you’re going to.”
My eyes pop open. “What?”
“Is that clear?”
“Y-you…” I lick my dry lips. “You want me to stay put on the bed because there’s g-glass everywhere?”
“Yeah,” he rasps, nodding, causing his stubble to sting my skin and making me bite my lip. “You gonna do that for me?”
“Why?”
“Because you could hurt yourself.”
“Like in the… in the trunk? Before.”
“Yes,” he says, and that quickening in my belly increases.
Why would he care? What does it matter to him if I get hurt?
God, this is crazy.
I somehow manage to jerk out a nod. “Yes. I-I’ll stay p-put.”
“Good,” he praises again, and something about that makes me feel all strange in my body again.
But I can’t focus on it, because he continues.
“Now, I’ve got very little patience left,” he says, and I swallow again.
He grazes his thumb over my pulse as he continues, “But I’m gonna tell you a story, okay, and I want you to listen carefully. Gonna do that for me too?”
My fingers dig into my bare thighs, but I nod again. “Yes.”
“Good, very good,” he murmurs, and I drag my nails across my thighs. “There’s a man in Black Rock. We call him the Quiet Mustang. Because he’s got trouble talking. When he was young, he was in a car accident. We’ve got no proof but Turners were behind it.”
My eyes are wide. “T-Turners?”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice low. “They rigged the truck and caused the crash, killed everyone inside. Except the boy. He went through the window and hit his head against a tree. He lay there, bleeding for hours, before someone found him. The doctors said he hit his head so hard that all the words got knocked out and he’ll probably never speak again. ”
I keep dragging my nails on my thighs. “Is that… Is that why you’re d-doing this?”
His chest shudders with something very similar to a chuckle. “No. We took care of it a long time ago. Set fire to their timber and blew up their equipment.”
“You…” I swallow again and his thumb strums my vein. “That’s a-arson.”
“Yeah,” he says, shifting his jaw and grazing his sharp stubble along my skin. “And in this case, you guys started it first.”
I shake my head. “But I don’t—”
“But that’s not the point,” he goes on, his warm breath wafting over my skin.
“The point of the story is that what they say is true. When one of your senses is gone, the others work overtime. He doesn’t talk much but he can see fine.
They say he can see in the dark. He can shoot in the dark too and he never misses. ”
Another chill racks my body and his grip on me tightens. It feels both suffocating and like the only thing keeping me from falling apart right now.
“The point is,” he says, his voice even lower and his heat almost making me melt, “that right now, your brother’s at a livestock auction with my brother.
Probably bidding for the same shit my brother’s bidding on.
Because you Turners aren’t all that smart when it comes to actual cattle ranching.
But when he leaves to go back to your ranch, that man, who’s already got an axe to grind with your family, is gonna be waitin’ for him a mile up the road.
With a sniper rifle. And the only thing that’ll stop him from pullin’ that trigger and exacting his own revenge is you doin’ exactly what I tell you to do. ”
My breaths are so fast and loud that it’s a surprise I can hear him.
But I do.
I hear him clearly.
“Do you understand what I’m sayin’ to you?
” He squeezes my neck once again, making me flinch.
“If you aren’t in my car in the next thirty minutes, all quiet and cooperative and ready to go where I’m takin’ you, your brother’s gonna die.
You already know I’m not gonna kill you, don’t you, but I never said anything about not killin’ other people when it comes to you. ”
“Get out,” he commands.
We’re in his car—the one he put me in the trunk of—and after driving for about forty-five minutes, we’re in a town called Broken Ridge.
I’ve heard of it. It’s midway between Bozeman and Black Rock.
I’ve never been here before, but it looks like any other town.
A wide, busy street with pedestrians and parked cars and trucks.
A feed store, a general store, a pharmacy.
I also see a couple of coffee shops, a bank, an ATM.
There is nothing here to give me a clue as to why he brought me here.
Or what he’s going to do with me.
I want to ask him, but I know he won’t tell me. I also know there’s every chance that if I do ask him, he may get angry and really do what he said he would. He may kill my best friend’s brother. I know Peyton hates her family, but I’m sure she doesn’t want them to be killed.
And isn’t this my fault?
This whole situation.
I’m the one who acted stupid, who was fooled. He may be looking for payback, but I’m the one who made it easy for him, who kept writing him letters, who went looking for him. So it’s my fault. I can’t let anyone be killed over it. So I have to do what he says.
But I turn to him and ask, “What did you do?”
Even though we’re only a few feet apart, I can’t really see his eyes.
They’re covered by the low brim of the trucker’s cap he had on the first time I saw him.
I study the intricate R on it. I think about the R branded on his shoulder blade.
About how he doesn’t even know that the letter he has on his body is the first letter of my name.
I wonder if there’s some cruel poetry in that, some cosmic sign that this was going to happen. That we were going to meet this way.
Waving silly thoughts away, I prod: “To get put away. What was your crime?”
I know Bo was caught in a drug bust, but he’s not Bo, is he? So what did he do, then?
His jaw moves back and forth, and even though it’s light out, the car seems to grow dark inside as I watch his soft mouth move and say the most heinous things: “Aggravated assault and attempted murder in the first degree.”
“You t-tried,” I say, stuttering over my words, “to kill someone?”
He dips his chin, but I still can’t see his eyes. “That’s what they charged me with. But that wasn’t my real crime.”
“What… what was your real crime?”
I see his jaw pulse once again. “I failed to finish what they started.”
“What?”
“But I’m gonna fix it now.”
Before I can ask what he means by that, he reaches his arm back and grabs something from the back seat. It’s the same paper bag he was staring at this morning. He sets it between us and, finally, tips his hat up enough so I can see his eyes.
They’re dark as always. But now they have a stillness to them that I haven’t seen from him before. Like his eyes aren’t simply dark; they hold a darkness that goes beyond just the color.
Then, “I’m gonna take their daughter to the courthouse in a white dress I bought her and make her mine. Because death alone isn’t enough for the family who took everything from me. I’m gonna take everything from them and it starts with you.”