Chapter 39
Clara
The cabin is deep in the woods off a narrow, unplowed gravel path, the kind of place nobody would notice. The SUV inches through the snow, bouncing when it hits unseen obstacles beneath the blanket of white.
We visited the cabin this weekend, but that trip didn’t go as expected.
It turns out the man currently trussed up in this torture cabin was the guy who introduced Bryce to online pedo video sharing.
If I didn’t know this family better by now, I’d have thought they were giving me this man as a fucked-up peace offering.
Instead, he’s here because he leaked information about Trevor, and as Trevor’s too important to the plans their father has, this man has to disappear. Only the prisoner’s reaction to seeing me was creepy enough that everyone agreed we should regroup—delaying my descent into torturer, I suppose.
This is all so fucked up.
The message Walker passed to me via Jonah sits heavy in my mind, the same heaviness that presses me down the farther from the main road we get.
Where’s the line between evil and keeping my people safe?
The porch creaks as Trips and I step onto it, Falk our ever-present shadow. Trevor’s pet guard joins us, and it’s all I can do to keep my persona in place. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to torture and murder a man, no matter how vile.
I was supposed to be putting men like him in jail, not meting out punishment in a dingy, bloodstained cabin deep enough into the woods that nobody would think to look for it.
I can see the series of choices that brought me here, and while I wouldn’t have done anything differently, I don’t like where I’ve ended up.
Trips opens the front door for me, perhaps to look like a gentleman, or perhaps because he trained to be one.
Or maybe he sees I need a minute to gather myself.
Either way, I take that moment, my fingers tapping against my thigh like they could bring me peace through movement, even when I know the rest of the night will be well beyond the capacity of a simple fidget to manage.
The stench hits me first—copper and sour sweat, piss and shit, and I can’t help but gag.
Falk hands me a handkerchief, like a little old man, but when he presses another to his face, I figure this must be something he plans for.
I tie it around my face, while Trips pulls the neck of his t-shirt over his nose, both of us dressed in casual clothes that they’ll burn once we’re done.
After we kill a man.
A small, sagging lump strapped to a chair waits for us, whatever vitriol he had last visit long gone from a combination of hunger, dehydration, and lost hope. He’s not getting out of here. He knows it. And rage needs fuel. He’s all out of that.
Instead, he stares at me with glassy eyes in the single overhead light, his skin slack against his frame. “I liked you better when you were weeping pretty tears,” he states, his voice hoarse and broken.
“And I hate you saw that, but here we are,” I reply, wishing I were better at snappy comebacks.
“Your man should have kept you on a shorter leash. Bryce was always a soft hand,” he says.
“Coming from the man who organizes pedo video exchanges from the comfort of his mom’s basement,” Trips replies, and I’m glad at least one of us can bring the snark to this miserable meeting.
I’m hardly holding the contents of my stomach back, so I’m not really up to it.
“You’re here to kill me?” he asks.
This is where I’ve got to play my part, Trevor’s pet guard having followed us in and shut the door behind him, his face pressed into the fabric of his jacket.
“Eventually,” I say, taking a few steps forward and tilting my head, like I’m inspecting a bug. I have no idea how to be a torturer. But I’ve watched more than enough movies to make it look like I do. Hopefully.
He coughs out a laugh, so dry it cracks in the chilled cabin air. “Taking your pound of flesh first? I’d hate to have you dirty those clothes you’ve got on. Feel free to take them all off. No need to stay modest on my behalf.”
I don’t have time to respond before Trips snatches the man’s hair in one hand while his fist digs into his stomach with the other. “You will keep a civil tongue in your head,” he warns.
The man laughs. “I’m dying either way. It can’t hurt to ask. Let a man go out with a good view at least. A little long in the tooth now, but better than nothing.”
Three more swift punches land on the man’s guts before he dry heaves, his stomach too empty to even spit bile onto the floor. But he’s quiet, so Trips steps back, his eyes dark in the dim light of the cabin as he glances at me.
“Do I get tools?” I ask Falk, hoping I don’t have to beat this man to death.
I might have some training now, but I can’t imagine it would be a quick way to go with the limited muscle behind my hits.
Let alone what it would do to my humanity to feel someone die under my fingers.
I already want to vomit, cry, and run away, and I can’t see that getting any better with what I have in front of me.
Falk hands me a thick length of rope, and I’m both grateful and annoyed.
It’s not like I know what I’m doing here, and I couldn’t even get a tool I know how to use?
But I take it, Trips catching my eye as I slide the coarse fibers through my fingers, planning.
He tugs me close, his breath washing over my ear, goosebumps pebbling my skin through the combination of the marginally heated cabin and the sensation.
“You need to find that fury, Crash. Can I help you?”
“I don’t think your dad would let you do this for me without consequences.”
“No, let me help you find your fury.”
I force out a breath, trying to keep my fear from my brow for the sake of the guard by the door. “Please.” I tug Trips closer, like this situation is making me horny instead of terrified.
He gets the memo, wrapping his arms around me, sharing his heat with me, his voice harder than the chest I’m pressed against. “This man isn’t a man.
He’s a disgusting worm. Not only has he watched videos of you, got off on your worst moments, he’s traded and bartered for other videos, for girls younger than you, girls who are still caught up in this mess.
He admitted he organized meets, Clara. Led girls farther into this net.
And he’s okay with that. Happy for it. He’s not human; he’s not even a worm.
He’s something lower, something that you’d squish with nothing but a wave of your hand, unbothered.
Squish him, Crash. It’s what he deserves.
And if you can’t make the last move, I can. ”
I squeeze my eyes shut, just for a moment, letting his words cover me. This man isn’t a good one. I know that. But the rage is buried deep, flickering, but muted by my terror. I realize I’m going to have to do this my way.
Control. It’s the only thing keeping me upright. So I make a list, wishing, as always, that I could write it down.
1 - Tell Trips the signal
2 - Bundle up the soft parts of me and bury them deep where they can’t be touched by what I’m going to do
3 - Hurt this man
4 - Hurt him badly enough that I look as psycho as I’m pretending I am
5 - If I can’t finish this off, give Trips the signal and let him take over.
Part of me wishes I were the kind of person who could do this alone, could protect him from another death on his hands. But for once, I understand my limits. This might be one of them.
“If I tap my leg—”
“I’ll jump in.”
I flatten my palms against his chest, the lump of the rope pinned between us a reminder of what’s next, as I bask in one last moment of comfort. Then I pull on my persona, popping onto my toes, dragging down the handkerchief, and pressing my lips to Trips’.
He plays along, even though this isn’t the kiss we want, letting me tug his lip between my teeth, the hint of a laugh in his eyes as I let my grip show to our audience, like if this were a less dire situation, he’d find my antics hilarious.
Then I let go, my heart racing with fear, a grin plastered across my face.
“It’s not your blood I want right now,” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear.
He chuckles, but I can tell it’s fake, the same as I know his eyes are locked on me, not because he wants to jump me, but because he’s watching for the moment I fall apart, knowing I’m so damn close to the edge.
Leaving the handkerchief around my neck, needing my face on display to keep up my persona, I stretch the rope in front of me.
I focus on it instead of the man I’m going to torture, trying to imagine it’s nothing but a jump rope, nothing but a toy I’m offering a spoiled kid on a long, humid summer afternoon.
“So, you want to play?” I ask, my chipper nanny-voice tight in my throat.
The man I’m not looking at huffs out an almost laugh, too worried to make the noise properly. “I mean, I was enjoying you with your boy there. Not my thing, not really, but beggars can’t be choosers, as my mom is always telling me.”
“You’re right. Beggars can’t be choosers,” I reply.
Then, remembering my first lessons with Trips in the middle of the night, teaching me what parts are most vulnerable in his bedroom back home, I pick a spot.
I whip the rope at his knee, like it’s a game of jump the snake instead of an instrument of torture.
He snickers, letting me know I didn’t get him cleanly, and I go for a different tack. I knot the end of the rope, over and over again until it’s the size of my fist.
“I wasn’t much for baseball, but I almost killed a man with what amounts to a bat, so this should work better,” I explain, just like I would to a kid I was watching, if I were teaching them about the fine art of damaging human flesh.
That weird thought tells me exactly how close to the edge I am, so I stand, swinging my ball on a string a few times, getting a feel for it, before looking at his knee and whipping it at him again.
This time, he grunts when it hits. So, something.
I grin, like I’ve won a prize, but quickly let it disappear, keeping my lips locked as I try not to vomit.
But I know I can’t put this off any longer, so I whip the ball at him, up and down his front, picking tiny points of him to focus on, pieces, targets, not a person at all.
I hum to myself, trying to block out the sound of his grunts and whimpers, the tuneless pitch of it the least of my worries.
After a while, I can’t look at him anymore, so instead, I spin with my makeshift weapon, pretending that I’m dancing with ribbons or some other foolish thing, like I did when I was a kid.
Sweat drips down my face, my eyes stinging, my arms shaking from exhaustion. I stop, panting, the ball still swinging at the end of my rope. “I’m tired,” I state, half-truth, half act, half-crazy from whatever this division of self is doing to me.
With careful steps, Trips inches to me, slipping the rope from my grip, kissing my sweaty forehead. “I’ll do the rest,” he whispers, tilting my face so I can see his eyes, see the fierce need he has to protect me. I nod into his hands, forcing another fake smile to my face.
Without the rope, I have nothing but the sting across my palms to focus on.
It’s clear I’ve hurt more than just the thing I’m carefully not looking at, but also myself.
I can’t think about any of it right now, though.
Instead, I point my fake smile at the guard, staring at him until he looks away, humming more of my tuneless song as I try not to hear what Trips is doing.
He slips his hand into mine a few minutes later.
I let him pull me from the room, out into the bitter cold.
The air tastes sweet after the stench of the cabin, the cold welcome after the effort I put in.
He leads me down the stairs, tramping through the snow to a faucet on the side of the building, the snow melted there from some unknown heat source.
I blink, trying to get back to myself, realizing that for once, we’re alone. “Trips?” I whisper.
He turns me face to face, resting his forehead against mine. “You’re okay, Crash. You’re okay.”
“I’m really not.”
He huffs out a pained sound between a laugh and a cry. “Neither of us is. But we will be.”
“How many days?” I ask, just wishing I had something concrete to hold on to.
“Twenty, and we’ve done what we set out to do,” he answers.
A startled thing, almost like a chuckle, comes from me. “So, you don’t just count minutes?”
“This one seemed important enough to keep track of.” He pulls back, his thumbs brushing my cheeks. “We’ve got to get clean before we get back in the car.”
“Out here?”
He nods. “Falk will bring us a change of clothes in a minute.”
He doesn’t want to let go of me, and I don’t want him to either, but I force myself to step back, out of his reach, stripping off my long sleeve shirt, then my sweats, leaving me shivering in the snow.
Trips swallows, then mirrors me, both of us in our underwear as the winter wind licks at our sweat-stained skin.
His breath makes clouds in the air between us, mine joining his, before he bends down, turning on the winterized outdoor spigot.
The garden attachment at the end makes for a weak shower as he runs it over his body.
Once his skin glistens in the dim light, his hair plastered to his forehead, darker than I’ve ever seen it, he hands me the hose. “Careful. It’s cold.”
I nod, but I’m still surprised when I skate the water over my overheated skin, my body temperature dropping quickly the longer we stand in the snow, wet and mostly naked.
Luckily, Falk shows up as I finish rinsing whatever is stuck to me off, Trips passing him our dirty clothes for some clean ones.
But even after I’m clothed, bundled into the SUV beside Trips, his arm heavy around my shoulders, his scent under my nose as I burrow against him, I stay cold. Inside and out.