Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Jez
THE ATTIC DOOR WAS unlocked. I needed to get up. I needed to try and escape. Instead, I was still curled in a ball on the stupid bed with its stupid pillows and blankets, sobbing.
Tony had glanced back and forth between me and the place where Heath had been standing a moment earlier, obviously torn.
“I have to go after him,” he’d said. “I’m not locking you in, but he’s probably still downstairs, okay?”
And then, he’d left—shutting the door softly behind him.
There would be windows in the house. Maybe I could climb out of one, unless they were all barred or nailed shut. There were probably weapons stored somewhere. Real weapons... even if it was just a kitchen knife.
But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything except hug my knees to my chest and cry. Because no matter what the truth was, I’d done something horrible. Something unforgivable. Maybe unsurvivable.
Either Adrian had been lying, and I’d committed attempted murder against an innocent man.
.. or Gage and Heath were lying, and I’d given them Adrian’s name.
Knox still might die. If he did, what would the others do to me?
Whether they took their own revenge or threw me to the wolves in the legal system, I would never be free again.
If Adrian had been telling the truth about them, would they find him and silence him?
But, maybe that part would be okay. It was only a first name.
Like Heath had said, it might not even be a real name.
I hadn’t bothered to check, because I’d been staring at a worn photo of a cherub-cheeked little girl grinning at the camera with one front tooth missing, thinking about all the things that might happen to her at the hands of evil alphas.
What if I’d been wrong?
Cedar and woodsmoke. A crooked grin. If I’m going to be bored out of my mind for three days straight, I might as well do it in nice surroundings, Knox had said, as I poured him a bourbon and slipped horse sedatives into it.
I had no idea how much time had passed, but I was still crying hysterically when Tony came back up and stuck his head in the room, looking deeply uncomfortable.
“Um,” he said. “Look, I’m really sorry, but I need to go to the hospital to stay with Knox.”
It was too much.
“Get out!” I screamed at him, my voice hoarse from sobbing and high-pitched with hysteria. “Get out, get out!”
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I will,” he said, sounding sick at heart. “Heath is still in the house. Gage will be back after I take over at the hospital. I’m... really sorry all of this happened, Jez.”
I clenched my fists tight in the mess of blankets to keep from throwing something at him. The emotions inside me were too big; too out of control with nowhere to go.
Tony retreated, closing the door after himself. There was no telltale click of a lock, but it didn’t matter. Heath was still downstairs. He would never let me escape. I sat rocking back and forth, trying to hold everything in... until finally, I couldn’t any more.
Angry shrieks tore out of my throat as I grabbed the nearest pillow and ripped open the case, one of my fingernails tearing as it snagged—leaving a crimson smear on the cotton.
Incensed, I ripped blankets and shredded cushions, screaming like a banshee as I destroyed every single piece of the nest I hadn’t made.
When that wasn’t enough, I grabbed the bed’s dusty mattress and yanked sideways with my full weight, wrestling with it until it slid off the metal bed frame.
I howled out my rage and fear until I was too hoarse to make noise, the cries becoming nearly silent.
My muscles burned and ached with exertion.
My knees grew wobbly, and I staggered over to a bare corner to collapse on the hard floor.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, I sat crumpled and limp, with several of my torn fingernails bleeding sluggishly. I stared sightlessly at the destruction, my vision blurred and unfocused, and waited for whatever would happen next.
Hours passed. It felt like hours. There was no time up here, though. No clocks. No windows. Maybe it had only been minutes. Maybe it had been days. I told myself I didn’t care. What did it matter? I wasn’t the person I’d always told myself that I was. My life as I’d known it was as good as over.
A knock sounded at the door.
“It’s me,” came Gage’s voice. “I’ve got food. I’m coming in.”
I didn’t move.
My tears had run out at some point, leaving my eyes gritty and dry. My head pounded in sluggish agony, while my stomach flip-flopped between sour nausea and ravenous hunger.
No gun barrel led the way this time. Gage simply opened the door and walked in, a plate balanced in one hand. He stopped abruptly, his free hand still on the doorknob, and took in the carnage of pillow stuffing and shredded cloth.
Then he blinked, crossing carefully through the discarded shopping bags and destroyed soft goods to set the plate on the dresser. I’d thought about tipping that dresser over, too, so I could hear it crash to the ground and splinter... but I’d already been so exhausted I could barely stand up.
“Give me a couple of minutes to get this cleaned up,” he said without any detectable judgment in his tone. “Tony told me about you being afraid we’d drugged the food, so I’ll eat some like he did to prove it’s okay.”
I didn’t move or make a sound, but I couldn’t help the small niggle of guilt that threaded its way through my belly.
Pretending disinterest, I watched from the corner of my eye as the big alpha efficiently piled the contents of the shopping bags onto the other end of the dresser from the food.
When that was done, he pulled out the largest remaining hunk of blanket, piling the other destroyed items onto it and bundling it up so he could carry it.
He shoved the bundle onto the landing outside, effortlessly returned the mattress to the bed, and went to retrieve the plate and bottle of water he’d brought.
After uncapping the water and taking a couple of deep swallows, he recapped it and set it on the floor near me.
Then he retreated and ate a few bites of the food.
It was a huge, double-decker burger and fries—he must have picked it up on his way here from the hospital.
The smell, which had initially made my stomach rebel, abruptly flipped the invisible switch in my gut that returned me to being famished.
When he set the plate down next to the bottle and returned to sit on the bed, giving me space, I cautiously took the food and started wolfing it down.
“I’ll bring you up some more pillows and blankets,” he said, jerking his chin toward the door to indicate the remains of the nest. Then he hesitated before adding, “Do you, um... do you want to talk about it?”
I’ve done something horrible, and I don’t even know what it is yet, I didn’t say.
“No,” I told him between mouthfuls of French fries.
Then it was my turn to hesitate. “Why aren’t you being awful to me?
” It slipped out before I could stop it.
I straightened my shoulders, bluffing my way forward.
“Are you the good cop, and Heath’s the bad cop?
Am I supposed to open up to you because you’re the nice one? ”
He shrugged a shoulder, looking uncomfortable. “Nah. From what I hear, the bad cop did okay without me.”
“Then what’s your angle?” I demanded. “Why be nice?”
He huffed out a sigh. “Well, you’re our scent match. That’s really pretty much it. Do you know how rare that is?”
I kept my lips stubbornly closed and resolutely didn’t breathe in his citrusy Christmas-bread scent.
“Can’t promise things won’t get a lot more complicated if Knox doesn’t make it, though,” he admitted reluctantly.
I steeled myself, knowing I had to ask. “How is he doing?”
“About the same,” he said. “It’s touch and go. They haven’t had to restart his heart again, at least.”
The confession that had tried to escape earlier snuck past my guard.
“If you’re lying about not being traffickers, then I just gave up my client’s name to Heath.” My stomach turned over, rebelling against the food I’d just dumped on it. “And if you’re telling the truth, I may have killed an innocent alpha.”
“We’re telling the truth,” Gage said. “He’s strong, though. He’ll pull through. You’ll see.”
And then what? I wondered.
The silence stretched. Gage rose from his perch on the edge of the bed.
“You want me to leave that for you?” He indicated the half-finished plate.
I shook my head, unable to face eating the rest of it.
He crouched down and picked it up in one big hand, leaving the water bottle. “Okay. Sorry, but I have to lock you in again. I’ll be back with the new blankets and stuff, though.”
I looked away and chewed on my lower lip, my guilt at destroying the room returning even stronger than before.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Gage was good to his word. He dropped off the new pile of nesting materials without a word, and left again, closing and locking the door.
I had no idea if it was day, night, or something in-between.
But I was exhausted from crying and ripping up the room.
There was no real reason to stay awake. Wind rattled the eaves as I reluctantly changed out of my stinking night-club dress, and into a set of silky pajamas from the bags of stuff Tony had brought.
They were nicer than anything I’d slept in since I was a child.
Part of me hated that I was wearing them—it felt like some kind of weird capitulation.
.. although I wasn’t sure to what. To make up for it, I shoved the neatly folded blankets onto the floor and curled up in a tight ball on the bare mattress.
The wind howled louder, and I shivered.
God, I hated storms.
But I was so tired I could barely keep my eyelids open.
I’d been leaving the lights on, because it made me feel less vulnerable to be able to see what was coming.
My head was still pounding like a drum, though.
As I tried to sleep, the light felt like it was stabbing into my brain through my eyelids, so I got up and turned it off.
It didn’t take long for fatigue to drag me under, now that I’d finally given myself permission to sleep in this makeshift prison of a house. The darkness carried me away, exhaustion overcoming the undercurrent of nervousness at the sound of the wind making the roof creak.
Unfortunately, the dreams came soon afterward.
Sometime later, a deafening crack of thunder jolted me out of a nightmare of sweaty, grasping hands. I lurched upright, because someone was screaming—the pain-filled, uncomprehending cries of a child being hurt while the adults around her laughed and jeered.
It was storming—rain and wind rocking the house, just as it had been on that terrible night after my father auctioned off my first heat to a pack of pedophiles.
My skin crawled under the touch of those hot, sticky hands.
I flailed, fists meeting only air as I cried out for help that would never come.
Another reverberating crack of thunder shook the floor, weight pinning me down from behind as my body and mind fought themselves.
No-no-no-no—
Another thump... not loud enough to be thunder. A door? Was someone coming to help me after all?
“P-please!” I begged. “Please don’t let them!”
“Jez?” The deep voice was familiar, but it wasn’t until the lights flicked on and the scent of yeast and orange peel tickled my nose that some fractured part of my mind recognized Gage.
The confining hands melted away, the weight crushing my ribcage dissolving in the glare of the light fixture. I gasped in a wheezing breath.
I was on the floor, clawing at the floorboards with my ragged nails.
“Hey...” Gage said. “Hey, what is it? Are you okay?”
He knelt next me on the floor, one hand hovering over my shoulder like it didn’t know where to land. The scent of my mother’s kitchen during the holidays surrounded me like one of the blankets I’d refused to use, wrapping me in comfort and security among the whirling madness of the flashback.
With a desperate sob, I scrambled onto my knees and flung myself against Gage’s broad chest, burying my face against his shoulder and clutching handfuls of his shirt in a white-knuckled grip.