Chapter 3 Kaia
KAIA
Everything hurts.
A deep, dull throb in my skull draws me out of a sleep so deep that as sense trickles back into my mind, the rest of my body remains weighed down with sleep.
There’s a single moment, a blissful moment between sleep and wakefulness, where I don’t remember a thing.
The pillow is soft against my cheek, soft blankets weigh my body down, the scent of oak and pine tickles my nose and soft, trickling water tinkles just under the soft, sweet music of birdsong.
Did I leave my window open?
I don’t remember closing it before I went to bed. Then again, I don’t remember going to bed. I was playing card with Anya then—
“Anya!” Her name rips from me as the sight of her impaled, dead body bursts to the front of my mind and erases any and all peace that came from sleep.
I jolt upward in bed and tears immediately flood my eyes while the horrors of before come flooding back to me.
Anya dead.
My brother shot.
The lounge ablaze and crumbling.
Fire spreading everywhere as smoke chokes me and my home crumbles.
My brother’s last kiss to my forehead before he sprinted away and I ran for help only to run into some kind of giant who knocked me out with one punch.
Pain grips my chest and I fight to ease it by rubbing circles over my breastbone and staring around my room.
For a moment, the peace of the room tricks me into thinking the entire thing was one long, horrific nightmare.
But this isn’t my bedroom.
We don’t have any rooms that look like this.
I’m lying in the middle of a four-posted oak bed with sheet white fabric draping down in waves from the upper frame.
Peach linens cover my body and light pink pillows rest at my back. Beyond the bed, an oak door sits ajar leaving the edge of a white bathtub just visible.
The egg-white walls pale further against the warm oak furniture lining the room, with a chest of drawers in front of me, an ornate dressing table to the right of me, and in between them, bay doors lie open, leading to a small oval balcony backed by a warm, sunny day and a deep blue sky.
Where the hell am I?
As I gaze around the room, tears cling to my lower lashes, but they refuse to fall as grief clashes with shock in my mind.
The white wooden railing of the balcony suddenly becomes home to a small brown bird that lands on the edge with a flutter of wings and a shake of its head.
My home is in the city. Deep in the city.
Not only is this not my home but I don’t think I’m even in the same place anymore.
“Oh god,” I whisper, wincing as I blink. Each time I close my eyes I get flashes of fire. Smoke, Blood-stained clothes and Anya’s painfully peaceful blank expression.
She’s dead.
She’s dead, and I’m here, wherever here is.
I raise my arm to throw the blankets away from my body, but as I do the state of my arm stops me.
Every single tiny cut and laceration on my arm has been neatly cleaned and stitched up.
One injury near my elbow is hidden underneath a thin, white bandage, and several cuts along my fingers and wrapped up with tape.
Given the pink, healing nature of some of the wounds, I’ve been out for more than a day.
Two or three is my best guess.
Moving more slowly, the blankets slide from my legs, and they’re in a similar state to my arm.
My bare feet are wrapped in bandages covering the worst of my injuries, while my calves and thighs have been treated and, if needed, stitched up.
Half of these wounds I don’t even remember getting, but given the explosion and how I was crawling around over shards and splinters, I can guess.
“What the fuck,” I whisper softly, wrestling with the overwhelming urge to give in to the weight in my chest and cry.
Touching each bandage in turn, my trembling fingers skim over cuts that look like they should hurt but they’re more numb than anything else.
From there, I trace up to the clean pair of black shorts and tank top I’m wearing and my heart suddenly jolts in my chest.
Someone dressed me.
They took me out of my old, dirty clothes and put me in fresh new ones.
Embarrassment immediately warms my cheeks, and I leap from the bed as if the culprit is about to appear from underneath, stumbling on unsteady legs until I hit the dresser.
Several small bottles of perfume and lotion clatter together then fall over, and I’m barely able to save them with my trembling hands.
Did that man bring me here? The one who punched me in the face?
The memory of that leads me to stumble toward the dressing table and I slam both hands down on the smooth wood and gaze at myself in the mirror.
A dark shadow of a bruise stretches from the bridge of my nose to my cheekbone, and there’s an almost healed split on my lower lip that I quickly investigate by running my tongue over it.
The small laceration on my forehead is also neatly stitched, leaving the only reminder of the fire being the weighty stink of smoke clinging to my curls.
What the fuck is going on?
Straightening up, I glance toward the door.
Someone brought me here, stitched me up, and then left me here.
Do they think I’m not dangerous?
Maybe they don’t know who I am and think I’m nothing more than a servant or someone caught up in the disaster last night.
I could easily play into that role until I find out more about what’s going on here, but the thought of staying here a second longer brings an uncomfortable itch to my spine.
No, I can’t stay. Vic taught me better than that. My mom taught me better.
Survive.
That was his last word to me before he vanished into the smoke.
If the man I ran into has anything to do with the Gallaghers, then I need to escape before I become the next in a long line of Gallagher victims.
I have to get out of here.
The bedroom is locked with no visible keyhole on this side for me to play with, assuming I can even find something small enough to pick the lock with.
That leaves the balcony.
Warm sun bakes down from above as I hurry outside.
The bird resting on the railing immediately takes off, leaving me alone with a rattan chair and table covered in a white cloth.
Before me, a gigantic sparkling blue lake stretches out as far as I can see and it’s dotted with several boats drifting between the treetops lining the embankment.
Boats mean docks.
And if there’s a dock, then I’m already out of here.
Unwilling to risk spending longer in that room, I grab the nearest wooden support and clamber up onto the railing, praying it’s sturdy enough to hold my weight.
As the wood creaks slightly, my aunt’s scolding about my weight bursts into my mind despite how I try to shake it away.
Below me rests a large open umbrella below, with several more rattan chairs peeking out, on a larger balcony than this one.
That balcony has spiral stairs leading down to the next floor and from there…I’ll work it out as I go.
Despite the urgency ringing in my mind and fueling the pounding of my heart, I hesitate.
One wrong step and I’ll fall and break my neck. Is it really worth the risk?
The Gallaghers are the devil wrapped up in a charming smile, my brother told me once.
Anyone who’s anyone knows how they like to shoot first and ask questions later, and Vic never shied away from telling me how they toyed with their captives, particularly women, until they went mad and begged for death.
If that’s my future, a broken neck is a small price to pay.
Sucking in a deep breath, I lower myself to sit on the railing, then turn and slide my feet in between the slats and crouch down.
My grip moves from the top of the rail to each of the slats, and for the first time distant pain ignites in my injured arm as I lean back and place all my weight on my grip.
One leg slips free and dangles down as far as I can reach and I extend my toes, desperately seeking out the top of the umbrella below.
Just as the tip of my toe brushes the soft fabric, the placement of my weight and the bandages around my other foot lose all friction and my grounding foot suddenly slips out from the rail.
A noiseless scream rushes past my lips as my lower body falls.
Despite tightening my hands on the slats, the sudden jolt of my added body weight drags my fingers away from the railing and I’m falling.
“Shit!”
My body hits the umbrella, and it immediately dips with my weight, crumpling down until I crash onto the rattan table hidden underneath.
The metal umbrella support bends to the side and several spokes snap loudly as I land in a heap and roll repeatedly to the side until I come to a stop next to glass bay doors, panting heavily.
All limbs attached, check.
Head still on, check.
Neck not broken, check.
Above me, two birds collide in the air and dance together for a few seconds while I lie there panting heavily.
A dog barks in the distance, and there’s an ever-so-slight hum of laughter and cheers rising from the lake.
People. There are people there who can help me.
Get up, Kaia.
Scrambling to my feet, I ignore the bay doors and take the metal spiral stairs down to the next floor as fast as I can.
The metal, cold against my bandaged feet, makes an alarming contrast to the sun-warmed wood of the next balcony that leads to a final spiral staircase of the same cold metal.
My heart pounds in my chest as I take each step at a time, slipping only once and catching myself on the handrail.
The stairs lead to a stone path set in green grass lined by a small black wooden fence, beyond which are trees between me and the lake.
After hopping the fence, there’s nothing standing between me and freedom.
I glance down at the sleepwear they dressed me in, contemplating just how secure my girls are going to be in fabric that’s lighter than a feather.
I’ll have to risk it.
Between dignity and my life, I choose my life.
So I run.
Hair flying, heart racing, and feet pounding, I run faster than I’ve ever run before over a mat of fallen leaves and pine needles, racing between the trees until I find the dirt path that leads all the way down to the dock.
The ground is soft beneath my feet, a far cry from the gravel at my own estate, but I don’t have time to soak up how nice the sensation is.
I just run.
Unfortunately, while the warm dirt path does lead to a wooden dock covered in coils of rope and a few loose buckets, there isn’t a single boat floating nearby.
I still sprint down onto the dock that creaks faintly under my movements, running all the way to the edge that stretches out into the lake like a long, desperate finger, praying someone is close enough to help me.
In the distance, several small boats and yachts drift on the waves while water laps up the dock supports and birdsong rings in my ear.
There’s no one.
No boat is close enough for me to call to and certainly no one would hear me if I screamed.
I could swim but from the pain growing inside my chest and the fuzzy burning on the back of my tongue from my panting, I won’t make it far.
Certainly not to any of the boats and definitely not to the other side of the lake.
Do I go back?
Wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, I drag one hand through my dark curls and double over, fighting to catch my breath while my mind races with plan after plan.
I escaped. There’s no way I’m going back.
Not once have I seen a single guard so maybe, if I’m lucky, I can make it to a neighbor or another house and call the police. My uncle has connections; that has to be enough, right?
It’s the only choice I have.
Despite the exhaustion clinging to my limbs, I run back down the dock, back up the dirt path and back toward the brown-walled estate.
The path leads me to a long set of wooden stairs leading back up to the building and with a prickly embankment on either side, it’s my only choice.
Racing up them, I sprint through a gate and past a large green, fluffy fir tree to a smooth, cement driveway.
No cars.
Nothing stops me from flying down the long driveway and right out the open metal gates onto a warm road that seemingly stretches infinitely in either direction.
Either of these could lead to danger and I freeze momentarily, unsure which direction to take.
As my teeth sink hard into my lower lip, I flip it in my head and sprint up the road away from the lake and toward what looks like another building distantly nestled into the trees.
Faster and faster my feet pound until my racing heart is a blur of sensation in my chest and I can’t even tell if I’m breathing anymore.
The road curves to the left, so I leap through the trees and sprint over a pine-needle-covered ground toward the next house.
I have no time to think, no time to process, no time to do anything but run and act.
A spiny hedge rises up between me and the house, but a small wooden gate grants me access to the property.
As luck would have it, the small gravel path leading to an open side door gives me entry right into the cool, quiet house.
I can’t breathe.
Running so far for so long has taken everything out of me so I slam, exhausted, into the kitchen counter as sweat pours from my body.
Pain is beginning to cut through the numbness, radiating from my feet and my arm, and a tremble begins to take hold of my legs while I stumble past the counter and toward the phone hanging on the wall.
Thank god.
Thank fucking god.
No sooner have I dialed the first number of 911 than my entire world screeches to a chilling, terrifying stop.
Something cold and hard parts my curls from behind and presses right up against the base of my skull.
Something achingly familiar.
I’d know the barrel of a gun anywhere.
“Please,” I gasp between ragged pants. “I know I’ve broken in and I-I’m so sorry but I’m just here to use the phone. In-In fact, you can call the cops on me if you want to just please, I need help! I need—.”
Cold, quiet laughter rises up from behind me and my blood runs cold.
“Calling the cops?” comes a deep, velvety voice laced with the warm twang of an Irish accent. “Why not your uncle?”
The phone slips from my trembling fingers and an overwhelming chill envelopes my body.
As goosebumps race up and down my limbs, I turn slowly until the gun is beneath my chin and I’m face to face with a pair of chilling grey eyes.
I know him.
The last time I saw him, he punched me right in the face.
“Well?” the man drawls. “Cat got your tongue?”