Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
SERENITY
Icame to with a headache so bad it felt like a train was barreling through my skull. I cracked my eyes open, my vision blurry, and blinked against the harsh light shining in my eyes, making the pain even worse.
“What—what happened?” I moaned, my head feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds as I tried to lift it.
“About time you woke up,” a voice that turned my blood to ice said. “Was afraid there for a while that I killed you before I got to have any fun.”
Fear like I’d never experienced in my life crashed through me like a tsunami, and I tried to jerk away from the horrible stench of Cyrus Whitlock’s rancid breath, only to find I was tied to a chair.
“Help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Somebody, help me!”
The evil bastard laughed as he moved across the room, taking the light with him. “Yell and scream all you want. There’s no one around to hear you for miles.”
That only made me scream louder, over and over again until my throat felt like I’d swallowed jagged shards of glass.
“More you fight and scream, more fun I’m gonna have breakin’ you before I finally end you.”
I pulled in a breath on a broken sob as I scanned my surroundings.
From what I could see, it looked like we were in a barn, one that had seen better days by the looks and smell of it, and looked like it hadn’t been used in quite some time.
The chair I was tied to was in the very center of the dusty, straw-covered ground while my captor sat on a stool a few feet in front of me.
An old-school fuel lantern, the only means of light in the place, sat on an old, moldy bale of hay beside him.
I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but the sun coming through the wooden boards was dim and low, like it was making its decent for the evening, leading me to believe that he’d had me for a few hours already.
“Why are you doing this?” I answered, tears clogging my throat.
“Why?” Cyrus asked incredulously before letting out a bark of laughter. “Why?” I reared back when he lunged off the stool and got in my face. “Because whores like you need to learn your place!” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on my cheek.
“Women were created for breeding and to take care of their menfolk. When you disrespected me, it became clear I needed to show you the way the world is supposed to work. You’ve been corrupted. You’re a sinner and a whore, and you must be punished.”
This guy was officially off his rocker. He had no grasp on reality, and I knew right then and there if I was going to make it out of this alive, I needed to get my shit together and come up with a plan.
I couldn’t afford to wait around for someone else to save me. I was going to have to do it myself.
Hunter
Knowing that Serenity had been taken was a pain more excruciating than anything I’d ever felt. It was worse than every loss I’d endured. It was like a piece of my very soul was missing, and in the hands of that fucking madman.
When Rory called three hours ago and told me Cyrus Whitlock had kidnapped Serenity, my world stopped spinning, and it hadn’t yet started back up.
We’d searched everywhere we could think of. I’d gone back to his trailer, but it was obvious he hadn’t returned since I kicked the goddamn door in.
We beat down the door of every known associate he had, to see if someone from that twisted world of his was hiding him.
The police had roadblocks up all around town with a description of the truck he was driving, but so far it had turned up nothing.
And with each passing second, I unraveled more and more. I had only just gotten her. After wasting so much time playing stupid fucking games, I finally got my head out of my ass and told her what she really meant to me.
And now she was gone.
This couldn’t be how our story ended. I had already lost too much in my life, I wasn’t going to lose her too.
Moving to where Fletcher sat, curled into himself on one of the barstools in the middle of the Tap Room, I braced my hands on his shoulders until he lifted his head and met my gaze.
The place was a swarm of activity. From police to my brothers at Alpha Omega and all their women, the entire town had shown up, wanting to help with the search.
Stella was doing her best to remain calm, but I could see the panic etched into her face in the form of lines that hadn’t been there before.
She was holding on as hard as she could but was losing her grip.
I needed to end this for her and the rest of her family before she lost her battle and caved in on herself.
“I know I asked you this already son, but I need you to think hard. Is there anywhere you can think of that your old man might’ve taken her? Anywhere off the beaten path, some place we haven’t looked.”
The poor kid was white as a sheet and shaking uncontrollably. His lips parted slightly as he started to shake his head only to stop and widen his eyes like something had just dawned on him.
“There’s one place,” he started, trailing off as his eyes grew distant with thought.
I gave him a little shake to bring him back to the present as desperation clawed my insides to shreds. “Where? Fletcher, think hard.”
His gaze cleared and returned to mine. “I heard my dad and one of his friends talk about it a few times, years ago. It’s a bad place.”
My stomach sank. “Tell me where it is.”
Serenity
The longer I spent in that goddamn barn, the clearer it became that something in his brain had snapped, and he was never coming back from it.
He paced the length of the barn. Back and forth, back and forth.
Over and over as he rambled on and on about the scourge of society, and how the world was burning and hellfire.
As he ranted and raged, I worked at the ropes twisted around my wrists, tying my hands behind my back.
I could feel the skin tearing from the abrasive material, and the blood dripping down my fingers onto the filthy ground below, but I didn’t stop.
If I was going to get out of this, I only had one shot. I needed to make it count.
My heart was in my throat, my bottom lip clamped between my teeth to keep from crying out in pain as I fought against the ropes.
But I eventually felt them loosen, and my hands broke free.
I could have cried in relief, but I had to figure out what to do about my feet that were tied to the chair legs.
I shifted my weight from side to side, testing the chair’s durability and discovered it didn’t have much. The best bet I had would be to break it. Odds were, it was going to hurt like hell, but I couldn’t let that stop me.
Any moment now he was going to remember he had me tied up and at his mercy; I needed to act before that happened.
Squeezing my eyes closed and sucking in a fortifying breath, I silently counted down from three in my head. When I reached one, I pushed up with my feet as high as I could and threw myself backward, bending my neck forward to keep from whacking the back of my head on the unforgiving ground.
I crashed down on my back, the impact so jarring it knocked the air from my lungs, but it worked. I heard the cracking and splintering of the wood and immediately began to wriggle and kick my legs free.
I heard Cyrus’s bellow and the thunder of his boots on the packed ground and reached down for one of the broken chair legs. As soon as his form appeared over me, I swung as hard as I could, like my life depended on it.
My aim was off from the rattle my body just took, and I got him in his side, but it was enough to knock him back so I could scurry to my feet.
I had just enough time to raise the chair leg like it was a baseball bat before he righted himself and looked at me with pure, unadulterated evil in his eyes.
With a roar that sent fear spiking through my blood, he lunged at me, but I was ready, and this time, my aim was true.
I got him across the side of his head, the crack of the wood against his skull so loud it made my stomach roil.
His body twisted around at the force of the impact, and he went down like a ton of bricks.
I didn’t know if I’d knocked him unconscious or worse, and I didn’t have time to find out, because when he fell, he knocked into the hay bale sending the lantern flying.
It shattered against the ground in a burst of fire that spread faster than I thought was possible but given that everything in the bar was long dead and dried out, it made the perfect kindling, and in a matter of seconds, the fire spread.
The smoke was thick and black, heavy and acrid, and my eyes immediately began to water as I covered my mouth and coughed.
I started for the door when I heard the sound of pained moans over the crackling of the flames and the screaming of the wood as it burned.
I looked back to see Cyrus trying to rise to his hands and knees, and in that moment, there was a part of me that felt like I needed to go back and help him; I couldn’t leave him in this burning tinder box.
I barely made it a step in his direction when a wall of flame shot up between us.
I had no choice. I couldn’t stay in here a second long. I was on the right side of that fire, the path to freedom clear for me. He was already trapped, so as hard a choice as it was to make, I spun back around and fled.
Hunter
The dark sky danced with orange and yellow as we flew up the road to the barn Fletcher had remembered.
It belonged to one of Cyrus’s old buddies and from what Fletcher said went on in there, I knew it was a place of nightmares, ones that were worse that the dreams I’d been plagued with for so many years.
Sirens screamed all around me as the long line of cars trailing my truck followed my lead and whipped off the road into the overgrown field.
The barn was fully engulfed, flames spitting out everywhere, and the sight of my old enemy made my throat close up. No one could have survived that, and my heart nearly stopped beating at the thought that Serenity could be inside.
My Wildcat.