Chapter Eleven
I stand there, hand on the door handle trying to talk myself into opening it.
Like a bomb hasn’t dropped on my life, turning it into something I don’t recognize.
I’m trying to put the pieces of what just happened together, while also fearing that a crowd of party-goers is right outside the bathroom door.
Ready to question why I was locked inside with who they all look at as my fucking brother.
It proves to be yet another irrational fear when I finally throw the door open and nobody's there, so I slide into the hallway with my heart jack-hammering in my tight green dress. I’m losing my shit.
Peeking around, I see May’s telltale white blonde hair in the far room, and make a beeline for her.
The second she spots me she shoves the guy chatting her up to the side and I slide right into his place.
May is my safe space and I am in desperate need of that comfort right now.
“Where the fuck did you go? I’ve been looking everywhere,” she hisses. “Isaac got punched in the head and someone said it was Chase! Did you see?”
I nod, eyes wide, and she studies my weird expression before realizing something's off. “What’s going on?”
I hold my phone up, checking the screen for new messages, but there’s nothing.
It’s a trick, I can feel it. Just another way to humiliate me. He says one sweet thing to me and I immediately forget how conniving Chase can be. I’m just a fucking idiot in heat.
“May, he said he would message me. He found the stories I wrote. And now he says he wants to make his own.” I croak. “With me.”
Her eyes damn near pop out of her head. “This all happened in the last ten minutes?”
“Yes, after Isaac touched me and Chase punched him.”
Her hands fly to her mouth, and I just nod because what else is there to say?
But then she squeals loudly, making me jump. “He’s down bad, Leigh, that's what that means! I knew it! Oh my god, so you’re just supposed to what…wait for him to message you?”
“I guess,” I say, shrugging, checking my phone for the tenth time. My blood sings. The thought of what he might want to do is like a heady drug pumping through me. All I can think about is his mouth.
“Are you good with this?” she asks, catching me off guard.
“Yeah, I think. I shouldn't trust him, I know, but for some reason I do.”
She nods, and a moment later my phone vibrates and we both look down.
With shaking hands I unlock the screen and open the message.
Inside is a picture of two figures framed by a dark, almost pitch-black background.
Two masked faces are illuminated by the flash, one that’s blacked out with neon-teal colored X’s for eyes and stitches for the mouth.
The other is exactly the same but in yellow.
Below the picture are the only directions I get.
We’re in the woods. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
My pulse skyrockets, mouth drying immediately. “Oh, fuck, May. They’re both out there.”
“Do not think about that right now. Go. Before you can reconsider.”
“I don't know.” I shake my head.
“Leigh, shut up,” she says, looking at me like I’ve gone insane. “It’s Chase and Danny, they aren’t going to skin you. Go ask them for an Eiffel Tower and use them to get off.”
I’m so wound up I just nod like we’ve agreed on a good plan, and my eyes drift to the back of the house, where the dark windows face the woods.
The door to the back patio is around the corner and I decisively head in that direction.
Feeling all the while like a lamb led to slaughter in this ridiculous fairy costume.
Outside a bonfire roars a few yards away. People stand around the patio with drinks in hand, while a lively debate about the local college football team goes on in a circle of chairs to the side. Someone in a skeleton costume has passed out on the stairs leading from the patio to the yard.
My eyes are drawn only to the wood line. It looks…terrifying. It’s coming up on eleven o’clock, and it’s scary dark. I can barely make out the separate trees, like there’s a black mass up ahead that I’m offering myself up to.
I wonder how I would have written the end of this book if I’d had time to keep working on it? It won’t matter anymore. As soon as I open my laptop to finish writing, I’ll be thinking about whatever is about to happen.
My steps are short and anxious, my body warring with the desire to sprint into the woods and to turn and haul ass back to my bedroom where I can lock myself in forever. He’d said all I needed to do was turn off my phone if I wasn’t sure. I hold it up, a new message coming through.
It’s another picture, but this time of me, taken from the woods. It shows me standing here with the same nervous expression I’m wearing right now. There’s no text sent with the picture, but they must be right there. Watching me. Waiting for me.
It could be a trick, I still don’t know.
But something makes me want to find out for sure.
I take a step forward, the sounds of crickets faint in my ears as I try to look brave, like this isn’t taking all of the courage I have.
I want Chase to think I’m able to handle whatever he can dish out. I’m not weak, or scared. I am not.
The shadows stretching out from the trees reach me, and I peer into blackness, watching for broken branches.
I’ve read a million primal play scenes, with a masked man in half of them.
Every single one had been a treat, something that scratched an itch inside me I’d been far too shy to tell Isaac about.
But in reality? In real life I’m out here, with a scene of my own?
And there’s two of them. I can barely think about the fact that Danny’s out here too, because I’m still pissed about the information Chase just spilled about him facilitating my bullying in high school. Oh, he’s such an infuriating jackass.
But maybe in a way that was his stupid way of caring. For me or Chase, I’m not sure. But ruining my life for years to keep me from finding a relationship is toxic, red flag material and he’s never hidden that part of himself, so…here we are. In the woods.
“Chase,” I call, trying to force the tremor from my voice. The ground is soft with fallen pine needles and the rich smell of the leaves is almost a high of its own. I search around for the telltale glow of their masks. “Where are you? I can’t see anything.”
A small light flicks on to my right, about twenty feet away. It looks like a flashlight beam and my heart leaps into my throat.
“Hello?” I squeak out, suddenly wondering if there’s anybody else out here. Nobody says a word.
Surely Chase wouldn’t let me get abducted, he has to be watching. I step toward the flashlight beam, focusing on the giant tree trunk it’s illuminating. Fuck me, it’s actually happening. They’re right there.
The spot where the light is coming from suddenly clicks off and once again we are plunged into darkness.
A gasp is all I can utter before what feels like a silk scarf is thrown over my head and pulled tight over my mouth.
Strong hands knock mine to the side and knot the scarf behind my head, before wrapping one arm around my middle to lock both of mine to my side.
The man’s other hand shoots up to my neck, gripping right under my jaw.
“Quiet, Leigh. You don’t want anyone to hear us and try playing the hero, do you?”
My words are garbled from the fabric. Danny. I know it’s him but my body seems determined to panic as if a serial killer is at my back.
“Shhh, I know,” he says, his hand squeezes for a moment around my throat before falling to my flailing hands and yanking them behind me with another silk rope, knotting them together.
“But it’s Halloween night, so your freaky step-brother thought it would be fun to do a little trick-or-treat with you. ”
The words make me falter. Trick or treat? Is that a fucking hint? Are they setting me up?
Goddamn it, Leigh, you fucking horny idiot.
I’m shoved to the ground and my ankles gripped together.
When the zip ties come into view, I kick viciously and manage to land one to his jaw.
If anything, it just seems to excite him.
A giant smile splits his shadowed face, blood now visible on his teeth as he loops the zip tie around my ankles and yanks it tight.
“I always fucking knew you’d be a fighter, Leigh. It’s not as obvious in you, but deep down I had a feeling.”
He lifts me, one arm under my knees and the other curled behind my back so that I’m forced to stare up at him. Those strong corded arms of his hold me effortlessly.
Where’s Chase?
But then I spot the red taillights of an SUV through a break in the trees, backed up against the woods with the back hatch already lifted high. Is that for me?
I garble another protest as Chase climbs out of the driver's seat, a dark, menacing presence as he takes in the sight of Danny carrying my bound body toward him. I feel like an offering, like I’ll be left at the feet of this beautiful man as a sacrifice or some other crazy shit.
“She get you?” Chase asks, reaching out to brush his thumb along Danny’s mouth.
“Yeah, but it made me hard, so I’ll let her take care of that for me,” he says and my stomach drops away for the millionth time. They’re talking about using me like I’m not even here.
Why is that hot? I make another mental note for my future therapist.
But then the butterflies explode when Chase leans forward, lifting his mask and wrapping one large hand around Danny’s throat, pulling him closer until his mouth is on Danny’s.
I see his tongue flick out to gather the slight trail of blood before sucking his bottom lip into his mouth and biting down.
Danny’s muscles clench beneath me as Chase’s teeth nip the soft flesh, and I feel the low growl in his chest at the pain.
“There,” Chase says. “Now you’ve bled for both of us.”
Danny groans, his eyes heavy on Chase’s face when he releases him. Are they together? What the fuck is happening? But clear as day, they at least have some physical relationship and I have never seen something so hot in my life.
Chase looks down at me, eyes lingering for a moment on the scarf in my mouth. “Let me guess. After being captured in the woods, the step-brother catches the girl? What next, Leigh? Fucks her in the dirt, roughs her up a bit?”
My chest is heaving and that makes him laugh, but instead of feeling the sting of ridicule, I’m just tense with excitement. Fuck it. I nod slowly.
He’s doing that hypnotizing thing again, sucking me into his dark vortex where reason disappears.
He runs a hand down the side of my face, then grips my mouth tightly over the scarf.
“It must be so comforting being the writer. You know exactly what’s gonna happen.
” That hand slides gently into my hair and grips, making me whimper in Danny’s arms. “It’s kind of addicting, that control.
Me, getting to finish your fantasy exactly how I want. ”
He kisses me over the scarf, a deep, guttural moan leaving his mouth through the fabric and my stomach swoops at the proximity.
At the feeling of his hair brushing against my face.
I want the scarf gone, I need that direct contact like I need air.
I try to ask him to remove it but he ignores me, instead dragging his mouth up to my temple and kissing me there.
Softly. Not with the aggression he just showed Danny, who I can basically hear panting above me.
“Throw her in the back.” Chase turns and walks back toward the driver’s seat. Danny and I both watch him walk away, and it occurs to me we might have the same fixation.
“Sorry, doll. Orders are orders.” He stalks toward the SUV and sets me inside, ignoring my pleas.
He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out what looks like a sack, made of some kind of lightweight fabric, and tugs it down over my head.
I panic for a moment until I realize it’s extremely breathable, and I take short, panting breaths through my nose to try and calm my racing heart.
“Chase,” I try to yell, but my voice is drowned out by the roar of the tires whirling as we take off into the night.