Chapter 14
Caleb
The sun is just beginning to rise above the tree line outside my log mansion. Backlit mountains capped by the perfect spread of roiling cloud cover turns the entire landscape into a surreal mixture of colors.
Green grass and trees, peppered by the darker browns of wood.
Pink, orange, coral, purple sky.
And a feeling in the air that today is important.
If I were the kind of man who brags about his highlights on 'hashtag mountain life' like an entitled asshole, this golden-hour photo op would get attention.
Spoiler alert: I'm not.
So I'm the only one who will ever know this moment existed.
The story of my life, perhaps.
I'm thinking about Ryan Adamson's security setup. A completely unnecessary kind of overkill that shouldn't be in a small-town gym unless you're hiding something… interesting.
Encrypted camera feeds that didn't just resist my initial probes—they actively told me to fuck off.
Physical access controls better than some banks I've robbed.
Network architecture that screams "I paid a professional who knows what actual threats look like."
Your average gym bro doesn't know the difference between WPA2 and WPA3, let alone implement air-gapped systems.
But Ryan built a fortress around Iron River Fitness. The kind of fortress that makes a man wonder what exactly requires that level of protection.
Trade secrets for revolutionary TRX modifications?
Client privacy for Idaho Falls' moderately affluent fitness enthusiasts?
No. That's not what our boy Ryan here needs the security for.
I take a sip of the lukewarm coffee, then set the mug down and touch my sternum where Scarletta's face is inked on the skin—the throat-fucking scene Posie inked, years before I ever met her.
Stella Six Feather's recollection of 'the psychopath with the bird tattoos' was all I had.
Turns out, it was all I needed.
Stella came right out and said that Ryan killed Posie. No hesitation at all.
It's a ridiculous claim. Not to be trusted. I like Stella. That final, fourth CNC she did for the auction house was chef's fucking kiss. She agreed to everything—for bonuses, obviously. A literal gang rape courtesy of European princes and dukes. Earls and barons. Marquess and viscounts.
But that's still the number one film requested by members when they come to stay at the Cheyenne Club. It's been number one for years.
Stella has no idea how famous she is.
No idea that celebrities worldwide come to her little Jackson Hole tattoo parlor because of it.
Not that she wouldn't be successful without that fame, she would.
She's good. But it never hurts to have the global rich and powerful dying to book an appointment in your shop so they can see you in person after watching you take a royal cock in the pussy, in the ass, and down the throat at the same time.
The point is, to Stella, Ryan had a vibe.
Which made me wonder, what was the vibe she got off of me?
I didn't ask, she had no trouble recalling the work Posie did for me. When I walk into a tattoo shop and take off my shirt, everyone notices. That's why I don't let any artist do more than one.
Our boy, Ryan, though? He either didn't think that one through—unlikely. Or he enjoys the attention. Ding, ding, ding.
Birds, though. I can see why he took the risk. It feels safe.
But there are two kinds of people who cover their body in skin art.
The randos and the collectors.
Randos are just that. I think I'll get a tattoo today. Maybe a Tasmanian Devil?
But collectors have a theme. I'm inking up my body with symbols that represent ME.
So by default, Ryan was a collector.
Which means the artist takes note.
What do the birds mean to Ryan?
Perhaps I'll ask before I kill him.
Because I am going to kill him.
But it wasn't the tattoos, or Stella's claim that made me come to this conclusion. It was Scarletta.
Of course, it was Scarletta. I can't be certain that what she told me last night was the truth.
He pushed his finger into my mouth. Just shoved it in like I was a whore.
And I came. Right there. Fully clothed. Just from his finger.
He spread me wide open. Bound. Helpless.
Exactly the way I like it. And then he fucked me so hard I felt it for hours afterward.
He came all over me. Marked me. Told me to come back tomorrow morning at five AM for round two.
My cock is throbbing. This is what she does to me. The absolute way Scarletta Mae Desmond hijacks my attention should be infuriating.
But it's not.
It just makes me want her more.
Makes me want to possess her.
Makes me want to lock her in a room where only I exist. Where my voice is the only sound. My hands the only touch. My approval the only currency that matters.
I want to crawl inside her skull and live there. Set up permanent residence in the space between her thoughts and her shame. I want to know every fantasy before she finishes thinking it. Every fear before it fully forms.
I want her so completely that the concept of "Scarletta without Caleb" becomes linguistically impossible. A grammatical error. A failure of basic logic.
This is what normal men don't understand.
They think possession means ownership. Legal titles. Marriage certificates. Joint bank accounts.
Idiots.
Possession means she can't come without thinking of me. Can't write a sentence without wondering if I'll read it. Can't look at herself in the mirror without seeing what I see.
It means her body responds to my voice before her brain catches up.
It means when she touches herself at four in the morning, it's my face she's imagining.
My cock.
My control.
Not Ryan fucking Adamson's.
He's not her Helix.
I'm her Helix. I'm the monster in the maze with the dark she hungers for.
I'm the creature that haunts her wettest dreams.
I'm all her shameful sexual fantasies come true.
Me.
Not him.
We are not the same.
And now… I will prove it.
The late morning August heat swarms around me.
A living, oppressive cloak. The insects in the Tetons this time of year are absolutely insane—mosquitoes the size of quarters, biting flies that draw blood, gnats that swarm in clouds so dense they fill your mouth if you're stupid enough to breathe through it.
It's enough to make a person swear off nature forever, pack up their Gore-Tex and their romanticized notions of wilderness solitude, and retreat to climate-controlled civilization where the only bugs are the occasional cockroach you can crush with your shoe.
But to those of us who actually belong here—who understand that nature isn't a postcard or a wellness retreat, but something ancient and indifferent—it's a minor inconvenience.
An annoyance to be endured with the same patience you'd give to traffic or a tedious board meeting.
You learn to adapt and prepare. Long sleeves even in eighty-degree heat, long pants tucked into your boots like you're dressing for a tick-borne plague.
You keep leather work gloves and a wide-brimmed hat with mosquito netting in the back of your Jeep, along with the industrial-strength DEET that probably causes cancer, but definitely prevents you from being eaten alive.
It's the price of admission to this particular cathedral, and you pay it without hesitation because the alternative—soft skin exposed to the wilderness—marks you as prey rather than predator.
You accept that the mountains take their pound of flesh in sweat and blood and itching welts, and you pay it without complaint.
For young men tied to posts and left overnight, however—naked and immobilized, unable to swat, or scratch, or shield themselves from the relentless assault of a thousand tiny mandibles—it's considerably more than inconvenient.
It's torture.
Well. Mild torture. Torture-adjacent, let's call it.
The path from the house to the clearing is about a quarter of a mile of dense forest. It's mostly a deer trail. Some places, it disappears all together. Becoming something to be felt, rather than followed.
Ryan Adamson is right where I left him yesterday afternoon. Sitting down against a tree trunk shoulders cranked behind his back, wrists held together with nylon rope.
Even if I left him clothed, he would still look like this.
Covered in spots of blood, welts, and looking like he lost his mind about ten hours ago.
He should consider himself lucky. Last spring there was a wolf pack up here. A pack that became accustomed to being fed human flesh from this very post. But territory boundaries have changed over the summer, so I guess our boy Ryan here got a pass on being eaten alive.
At least, in that sense.
When I approach, he looks up at me with that dazed, confused stare one only finds on statues of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Eyes rolled back, vacant mind, suffering evident.
He doesn't beg. Or even try to talk when I bend down and untie him. And once he's unsecured, he falls over sideways.
I pull the sawed-off shotgun from my hip and point it at him. "If you think I'm going to carry you, you're mistaken. Would you like a chance to save your life? Or should I blow your head off right here?"
It's a true Helix moment for me. Because it's a lie.
Ryan's head wobbles as he tries to find my face. His eyes squint, trying to see me properly through the backlighting. But he doesn't answer.
"Do you have any idea how quickly ants would consume your body out here? How quickly they could strip the flesh from your bones?"
Still, he says nothing. Just continues giving me the old Jesus-Christ-Superstar look.
"Ask me how I know this, Ryan."
"Who…" his throat is so dry, he can barely speak. "Who the fuck sent you? Huh? What do you want? Money? Is it money? Did Larson send you? Was it Larson? I told that fucker, I've got his girl. She's lined up for next month. These things take planning. You understand, right?"
I nod. Solemn. Because I actually do.