36. Montana
36
Montana
I can barely breathe as my chest hits his back again with a hard thud. I swear he’s doing this on purpose, forcing me to hold him tighter. Every time I loosen my grip on his waist, he finds a way to skid to a stop, forcing my body to seal against him from the back of his bike.
My phone keeps vibrating between the wire of my bra. Wesley is searching for me, calling me every few minutes since Shane left with me on his shoulder like a caveman, then set the place on fire. I can't even begin to imagine what Wes will do next.
My nerves are set high at the idea of retaliation, but Shane doesn’t seem bothered by Wes and his crew at all. The fear he should harbor is lost on him due to a life spent wishing for death. A life I tainted with lies and deceptions.
I should’ve fought him more. I shouldn’t have willingly left with him, especially after burning my cello or even after this little spectacle at the party tonight. I definitely shouldn’t have left with him after finding out what I did today about my mother. I didn’t want to admit to myself that he made some valid points. I’d been aware of the fact that my mother used me to survive, but after seeing her today, how brittle and broken down she looked, I couldn’t imagine she’d survive another overdose. But did Shane really need to set her up to get arrested? Only a true psychopath would go to those lengths. Like taunting a musician to nearly break her hand using his face as a punching bag. My words had stuck with him. See if you can break me. And all he’s been doing is working toward just that.
Luckily, I can still move my fingers after socking him with all my strength. Fuck, it felt good to deck him. Felt even better slapping him and getting slapped in return on that freezer. I wasn’t expecting him to actually do it, but what I’ve learned about Shane is to expect the unexpected.
A bolt of pleasure had buzzed from my cheek down to the pit of my stomach at his forceful strike, tightening my nipples and making my core throb. I wanted to be at the mercy of his hands alone, given that I trusted he’d never truly hurt me. He got me ice after allowing me to hit him, for Christ’s sake. There’s nothing broken, but the swelling and pain that ensues will be nearly as unbearable as wracking my mind for a way to replace my cello by Monday.
A meeting with Conductor Hopkins will definitely need to take place. Shane has no idea, but his little stunt might have been the best possible scenario for what I need to do next.
We finally come to a stop after driving up to what looks like a deserted mansion. Shane helps me off the bike, and I hand him his helmet back.
“What is this place?” I ask, looking around at the overgrown brush now encapsulating what once looked like a beautiful home. There's torn tape hanging from an old oak that says condemned, and an old sign in the front that says Keep Out.
“The infamous Macrae Mansion,” he comments, his boots crunching over the crumbling concrete driveway as he nears the home. “You heard about this one?”
I shake my head, studying the home that's warped with overgrown vines and dark mildew coating what I’m assuming was once beautiful stone siding.
I follow him, step for step in the darkness, weaving through hanging limbs of overgrown trees. We step through some discarded brush that’s still piled up from last winter, my heels making it difficult to tip-toe over the uneven brick near the front porch. My ankle rolls, and Shane grabs my upper arm, stabilizing me. My heart races at his hold on me. We share a glance before he pulls his hand back, the simple touch appearing to jolt us both. The tension between us is always so profound and encapsulating.
He leads me through the colossal wooden doors, ornately carved to resemble a weeping willow tree. My fingers graze the nubs of the carving, touching the earthly moss filling it, and I shudder. Why did he bring me here?
Something about this home hits me in my gut as I follow him inside the foyer. The air changes, and while the place is an absolute mess of broken bottles, spray paint, dirt, and grime, there’s something sinister within these walls. Secrets and undisclosed lies paint the interior of a building meant for demolition.
I peer around as we walk through the entryway to where the living area opens up. There’s a soul to it—a hollowed scream that plunges itself beneath your flesh, eating into your bones and becoming part of you. There’s a thickness in the energy that appears to hold your senses hostage. This is the place. It has to be.
Shane turns on an old camping lantern that he or someone else must’ve brought here a time before, and the light shines on the rest of the visible room. Old torn-up couches, broken end tables, and dust lie over every available surface. The walls have empty, broken frames barely hanging from their hooks, while spray-painted expletives coat the peeling wallpaper. The place may once have been a beautiful home of wealth and propriety, but its condition now feels obsolete and utterly without.
“I’m sure you’ve heard this one,” Shane says, grabbing the neck of an old baseball bat leaning against the wall. He circles around a ripped-up couch, plopping down on it with his back to me. He rests the bat beneath the back of his neck, his arms hooked under each end and his hands hanging over the edges. “You’ve been living here long enough. I’m sure you know the history.”
I walk past him, circling the couch as I continue to take in the mess. My pulse spikes, and I let out a tiny shriek as a mouse scurries out from a pile of leaves in the corner, running down along the edge of the wall until disappearing into a tiny crack near the hall.
Shane laughs devilishly behind me. “You scared, rat?”
I swallow and turn to glare at him. “Hardly.”
As if sensing my weakness, he pulls on that tiny shred of fear, seeking it, requiring it for his own survival.
“You should be terrified.” He stands from his seat on the couch, stalking toward me, the bat now dragging along the decrepit wood floors.
My chest tightens as he slowly approaches me.
“What happened here could happen to any girl with a promising future ahead of her. Beautiful, young, insanely talented in all the wrong ways.”
He stops directly before me, his gaze coasting over my nose, cheeks, and mouth until finally landing on my eyes. His hand trails up the side of my arm, fingertips slowly tracing over my shoulder to my collarbone. My breasts rise and fall beneath this tight black dress, not leaving much to the imagination. It appears Shane’s imagination is running feral as he licks his lips, and his eyes fall to my neck, then breasts.
“Why did you bring me here?” I question, fear dancing through my veins.
“Pretty girls like you are the best victims.” His hand grazes my breast, thumb dusting over my erect nipple before trailing back up the middle of my chest. “Beautiful when you scream, gorgeous with the fear of death in your eyes.” My throat rolls, and his thumb traces it, studying the quick pace of my pulse in my neck.
“It happened right here, you know.”
He steps toward me, and I take a step back, stumbling into something. I topple onto a wooden chair, the roughness of the old oak scratching the skin of my bottom. My breaths are coming out all short and clipped, my palms clammy and warm as I gaze at the base of it. Long rusted nails, pinning it to the floor.
“Right here in this chair,” he continues, studying my face for terror. Feeding off it.
“Tell me,” I say breathlessly, my voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper and my body alive with an electric hum. “Describe to me what happened.”
I seek the truth, the gruesome facts that only those who breathe life into the disturbing stories can obtain. I want it all; rumors and hearsay, too.
Shane circles around, leaning down until the warmth of his breath tickles my neck. His lips brush against my flesh, and I shiver.
“They say he sat her right here. Tied her hands to the chair.” He takes the tip of the baseball bat, gently tapping both of my wrists where I would imagine the ropes would be. He drops the bat, and the sudden thud makes me jump. “Took his belt”—he strips the belt from his jeans in a quick motion—“and he wrapped it tightly around her neck. Enough for her to breathe, yet still feel the restriction of air. He wanted her present—needed her aware.”
He wraps his belt around my neck, feeding it through the loop and moving my ponytail to tighten it just enough to bring me there. My nipples press firmly against the thin fabric of my dress, my bottom squirming in the seat.
“You want to know more?” he asks, his mouth near my temple.
I nod, swallowing with constriction.
“He spread her legs with rope,” he says, circling around to step before me again. His knuckles graze the inside of my thighs, and I snap them shut on instinct. His fingers slowly slide up my knees, pushing gently until I spread my thighs wide with his help. I feel myself flood with heat at the exposure of my center, seeking a caress despite the details of the horrific tale. “Tied her ankles to the outside of the chair, holding her captive to his torment.”
Pulling a few zip ties from his pocket, he laces one around each of my ankles, tightening them around the base of the chair. Fear has my mouth dry, my shoulders shuddering in anticipation.
I want to be in her head, imagining it as he describes.
He straddles my lap, standing over me now. His gaze is unhinged, as if he is now in the mind of the killer, completely seduced by the fever that is madness itself. The rumors of Shane being linked to the crime have never felt more real until now.
“He cut off her luscious locks,” he continues, wrapping a fist around my ponytail. He pulls tight, and a pained moan rumbles up my throat as he angles my face to his. “Removed her defining beauty before ripping out the rest.” He tugs roughly on my hair and I gasp, my throat tight from the constriction of his belt.
Reaching into his jacket pocket with one hand, he pulls out a pair of white satin panties.
My satin panties.
The ones I wore when he recorded us fucking for the first time.
I never did leave with those. Far too disoriented and lust-ridden to even think straight after that erotic encounter.
He rubs them affectionately with his thumb, cocking a brow at me as if testing my memory, before continuing, “Her screams became so loud after he pulled several of her teeth with pliers that he gagged her with her own panties. Shoved them deep into her mouth, then taped it shut.”
Jerking my head back once with my hair, he waits until my bottom lip quivers before finally dropping open. I offer him my tongue, opening wide for him to emulate. He rubs the material over his neck fondly, studying me. His eyes stay trained on mine as he then pushes the material into my mouth, wrapping a palm over my lips as I moan around them.
“It was said that he sodomized her with a broom.” He reaches behind with his other hand, his fingers dipping between my thighs. The soft sweep of his middle finger against my clit entirely contradicts the vile story he tells. “Fucking her ruthlessly with the wooden handle, he made sure of her pain.”
His fingers press firmly along my slit, working their way beneath the edge of my underwear. I moan around my panties into his palm, squirming beneath his touch as the warmed digits glide through my wet center. His gaze turns demonic as his palm leaves my mouth, his hand coasting down my jaw and neck before finding the center of my dress over my chest. Hooking the fabric, he pulls it down, releasing my heaving breasts.
“But her cries weren’t enough for him. He was bored. He wanted more from her. More pain. More suffering.” Shane’s palm cups my breast, his thumb tweaking my nipple until it hardens. "With an old handsaw, he proceeded to slice off each one of her tits, tearing them from her body.” He pinches down, nail piercing into my nipple as I scream around my panties.
I thrash my body, attempting to back away from his torment, when his fingers push inside of me.
“Bloodied and used, he continued sodomizing her until she lost consciousness.”
My eyes begin to water as he pulls on the end of the belt looped around my neck, the tight leather pressing against my throat, semi-restricting my air. The fear, the pain, the terror she was subjected to…
Shane’s fingers retreat, slipping up to apply pressure on my piercing, before he forcefully shoves them inside me again. I spasm around him, moaning out expletives he’ll never hear as saliva pools in my mouth and the panties become wet mush on my tongue. I feel the tightness in my lower abdomen, my body needing more, requiring that long-built release that’s been edged time and time again. My body aches for his. I crave his toxicities inside of me like a primordial need I can no longer live without.
“They say he fucked her corpse.” He pumps his fingers inside me, curling them and applying the pressure only a skilled lover could know how. I drop my head back, my eyes rolling closed, but he pulls me upright with the belt, ensuring my gaze stays on him, my attention on his words. “He laid with her deceased body for hours, making love to a helpless shell, before supposedly discarding her like trash in an unknown location.” Slowly stroking those fingers in and out of my wet core, he continues, “They found him here, curled up in a corner surrounded by the bloodied tools of his torture, murmuring the words, the disillusion of a pretty face, the disillusion of a pretty face. ”
He removes his fingers, and my body clenches, my hips tilting, seeking him. He rubs them over his bottom lip while studying me intently; something entirely sinful in the way he does it.
“What drives a man to do this?” he questions, raising his hand to my mouth, his fingers now skirting across my lips. I smell my arousal coating them. “What could possibly have made this man murder and mutilate this beautiful young girl, stripping her of her beauty and life?”
He drops the belt, his fingers falling from my mouth as he takes a step back, nearing the couch again. He runs his hands over his shaved head, his pants shrugging down his thin waist without a belt, where an obvious strain tents near his groin. Slumping back into the couch, he relaxes, letting out a deep sigh. His legs spread wide as he stares at me, my body shaking and rattling with the fear and endless lust only he provides.
“What terrifies me most about that story is the sickness in me understands it,” he admits, chewing on the tip of his thumb. “I've been driven to the point of absolute madness. The jealousy, the rage, the resentment…it formulates a storm within your soul, a dark hunger for torture that demands violence. When the black void drowns you, you can only find breath in brutality…” he trails, staring off into nothing. “I’ve imagined it. Ending you so beautifully.”
He tips his head, eyeing me from the top of my slicked-back hair to the tips of my manicured toes.
“But killing is a copout, and raw torture is an art form that brings consistent peace to a chaotic soul.”
Restlessness resides within his shaking hand. The fist he holds so tight. He hates himself for what I created within him. A monster. Awakening him to a realization of madness. He's accepted his role, as well as the part I played in his demise. He’s leveled himself to the worth of depravity, akin to the man who raised him.
I spit out my panties, gasping for air.
“You really loved me,” I say breathlessly, unable to hold it in any longer.
Peering at me, his eyes harden before his face changes. The resentment he harbors eases, a softness taking over, and for the first time, I feel like he’s really looking at me. All this time, he’s seen my face, but only ever really connected to the being within. The soul of an internet entity. In reality, I’m a stranger to him. Even now. The one who loved him back so fiercely.
“I did,” he says softly.
So many unspoken words lie in the past tense of our conversation.
But does he still? Could he ever again? Or is fate a cruel devil, stripping future possibilities due to horrific pasts? There is such a thing as trauma bonds, but there are also trauma breaks.
He gets up again, finally cuts me free from the zip ties, and makes his way back to the couch. I stand from the chair, dropping the belt from my neck on the floor, feeling the shift in energy. The erotic tension between us is choked out by the reality of our tangled history.
Needing a moment to breathe, I walk past him, fingers trailing along the edge of the peeling wallpaper. It’s all so overwhelming now, my fears, my feelings, my needs. Coming here, I had no intention of hurting him all over again, but it appears he struggles with his emotions in regards to our past endlessly. A true hate/love affair with me and with himself.
He lights up a cigarette as I walk around the room, searching for truths. I can feel his gaze on me, all hot and direct, as I move around the broken glass and discarded beer cans.
He hates that he wants me and resents himself more than anything for feeling the way he does in my presence. I can sense that. I know that feeling because I feel it, too.
So much history between us. So many secrets we hold…
I make my way to the wall behind the wooden chair, walking over to a busted painting barely clinging to the wall. A large rip tears through the old canvas, disrupting the image.
My stomach churns as I grab the edge of the torn canvas and lift it. The image before me causes the blood to drain from my face, and an intense feeling of unease spills over me. My gut remains a cluster of twisted thorns as the picture becomes complete. The deep blues of the surrounding mountains, the cold grays of the surrounding stone, the dark black of the shadowed Cyprus trees depicting the mourning, and the lone rowing boat with the sole coffin arriving at shore.
The Isle of the Dead.
My breath hitches, the edge of the canvas slipping from my hand and falling, disrupting the picture. I close my eyes tightly and work to calm the voices in my head. It’s everywhere. Practically slapping me in the face with its frequency.
“You knew her,” I say, turning to face him. “The girl from your story. You knew her well.”
He flexes his jaw, peering at the floor before his eyes find mine. He nods once.
My heart feels like it's in my throat.
“And how much of what you just told me is actually true?”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, almost needing a moment before uttering the words he says next.
“Every story told has the potential to withhold truth, and yet, every conspiracy has the capability to hold weight. It's up to the minds of the mad to imagine the unimaginable in order to save the naivety of the sane.”