Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
LYDIA
After all these years, I recognize his voice.
I try to twist my wrists out of his grip but he easily holds both of mine in one hand, keeping the gun down. My finger is on the trigger but he’s forced my head up with his hold on my mouth so I can’t see what I’m aiming at. For all I know, I’d fire a bullet into my own foot.
Using my body weight, I try to leverage my way out of his grip by throwing myself around, making my body hard to control.
But he doesn’t struggle.
At all.
Instead, he casually removes his arm from my mouth and quickly jams his elbow into my back, forcing me against the tree while keeping his hold on my wrist.
My chest crashes against the rough bark and my face follows right after.
He bars his forearm over the back of my neck before I can duck away, and his body is pressed up behind mine. Even without looking at him, I can sense he’s much taller than I am. He was taller then, too, but he seems to have kept growing where I eventually stopped.
I keep twisting and turning my wrists because without at least one free hand, it’s going to be hard to get away.
“Who was in the car?” I ask, my voice a rasp as I try to distract him. But he only laughs, his mouth going to my ear and making me freeze as he tightens his strong fingers around my bones.
“Let go of the gun,” he says calmly while my chest heaves. “Or I’ll break your fucking wrist.”
I take a breath in, the scent of the forest and of him, like leather, filling my nose. The bark on my face is pissing me off, and being completely helpless in the dead of night where no one knows where I am makes me feel queasy.
Lele is on life support.
If I don’t make it back, that puts Lynx in charge because I assumed years ago when I had to make these decisions, since its family, he should be the one deciding in the event something happened to me and Lele couldn’t.
My uncle promised to train me and leave my brother alone.
I believed him when we signed that promise in blood. So different from the one I have with Lele.
No matter where you go.
But with what Eve said about Lynx, I should’ve already met with my lawyers to change that.
It’s too late for regrets now. All I have to do is survive.
I don’t release the gun though. Not yet when I could potentially use it if our positions shift.
But Storm starts to make good on his promise.
His fingers grip my bones so tightly, it nearly takes my breath away.
I’m used to pain; I’ve been put through it.
First with Lynx, then—his idea—when I’ve fought at Dark Chapel myself, against grown men in their prime, just to see what I could take.
Lele has no idea, but Eve does. She helped coach me through every hit, and I am an expert at applying makeup when I need to be.
I taught myself beauty skills in high school because Lynx sure as hell wouldn’t.
But Storm’s hold feels like it’s full of rage. What the fuck do you have to be angry about?
I have to bite down hard on my lower lip to stop from screaming, and he doesn’t let up the pressure.
He tilts his own fingers back to bring my wrists at an upward angle, then he keeps going.
With the gun between my fingers, it’s hard to wiggle them at all and that means I’m unable to fight against the pressure he’s exuding on my bones.
Tears sting my eyes and I’m back in a locked room with my uncle before he drops me off at my private school and sweat drips down my spine and blood is on the corner of my mouth but he looks at me with so much pride and I think I could kill someone with all the rage in my teenage body.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” Storm whispers in my ear, dragging me back to this moment. “So long as you drop the gun when I do.”
Being stubborn is a fault of mine, but I won’t be able to fight him if I have broken bones.
I know what those feel like. In my wrist, it would make getting away nearly impossible.
“All you have to do is say stop.” His cold words are like a caress. But I’ve been caressed this way. I know how men taunt.
He won’t stop until I humiliate myself. And we both know I have to if I want to survive this night.
“Stop.” I clip the word out. I don’t dare let him know how much pain I’m actually in.
He loosens his hold on my wrists but doesn’t let go completely.
Without waiting for him to tell me to do so because I don’t want another fucking command, I drop the gun.
It thuds in the grass and doesn’t discharge, and I’m grateful.
But when he releases my hands and eases up on the pressure of his forearm against the back of my neck, I don’t wait around to see what happens next.
I’m not a victim in the woods.
I’m Lydia Flynn, and I’ve survived worse monsters than him.
I duck down low so it’s harder for him to grab me again, then I dart away, and by the time he scrambles for my arms, I’m already running.
I dive through the dark woods. If I go down the path toward my car, the person who is driving his will be there waiting for us and even if they’re not, I’m exposed from the path, and with the light of the warehouse.
The air seems colder as I run deeper into the forest, crisper as my lungs gasp for air.
I try to think through everything as I duck under branches and keep my eyes scanning every square inch I can see in front of me.
How did he know I was following him? Did he lead me here intentionally?
And who is driving his car? Fox told me his housemates are together, and they have a baby.
I guess either the mom or dad could’ve left in the night to help him out here, but that seems unlikely if they thought someone was following them.
Wouldn’t both parents want to protect the child?
But maybe he didn’t know until I turned right after him and he took off. That’s highly possible. Which means it could be one of the people he lives with driving the car.
Why did they come here in the first place?
I followed the Subaru from his street because I’d been watching for movement, although I didn’t see two people get into the car.
It was an advantage for me; I was more than careful, hidden far enough away they couldn’t see me even if I couldn’t exactly see them either.
But they wouldn’t lead me right to a warehouse that’s in use.
Maybe it’s not though. My bet is they didn’t know, and it is in use, and it’s got product in it.
That means they aren’t prepared to kill anyone tonight. They’re just dealing.
But I shake out my wrists and I have to admit he would’ve broken them if I didn’t give in. So he’s dangerous, and not just for the shitty drugs he has his chemist make.
And if he’s working with a chemist, he’s not a low level dealer, is he? It costs money to make product, and it’s a risk to do something new. But he could have family money, from his mercenary parents.
If Lynx had told me all of this shit before, I wouldn’t have so many fucking questions.
But I remember how he made me pay after he saw us walk out of a private room at the funeral home, my hair a mess, a bruise forming on my throat, Storm’s veins stark against his skin.
I wonder if Storm even got a warning afterward about me. Does he know about the truce? Does he know more than I do?
I glance over my shoulder once I’m sure I won’t hit a tree.
I don’t see him, and over the sounds of my own sharp breathing, I don’t hear him.
I keep going just to be sure, because now he might have a gun—my gun—if he didn’t already.
The treeline seems to break up ahead and I see the stars over the canopies above me.
Rushing water sounds from somewhere, but behind me, there’s the distinct pattern of sprinting footsteps, and I pick up speed, ducking my head and running faster.
I need to turn, throw him off my trail, but it looks like the impenetrable dark on either side of me and that knowing apprehension balls up inside of my gut.
This place is dangerous.
Lele says I’m paranoid, but I don’t think I would’ve survived Lynx if I didn’t listen to my instincts. Knowing when to give in, knowing when to push harder.
The footsteps get closer.
I don’t dare look.
I dip my chin and pump my legs faster, and faster, grateful my Oxfords are tailored for my feet. It doesn’t mean I won’t have a blister tomorrow but I’ll take that over tripping and dying.
The footfalls are too close now.
I want to look but I won’t.
I refuse.
The treeline is empty ahead and once I get to the clearing, I can duck back in again and—
“You idiot.” I hear his voice seconds before his body lands on top of me, knocking me straight to the ground, right outside of the thick and wild forest.
The sound of rushing water grows louder.
The air drops a few degrees.
My fingernails flex in the dirt. I notice it’s damp. And as I pick my head up a little, my body aching and weighed down with him, I see it.
The mountain range on the other side of the dropoff.
If I would have kept running seconds more, I would have flown over the side of it, and I would have died. I can’t see the water from here, but it sounds like it’s far below. I can feel it roaring beneath my body.
He shoves my head back down with the palm of his hand and presses my face to the dirt. He’s so heavy it’s hard to breathe, and anger and sick gratitude blend beneath my skin.
“Why are you following me?” He speaks against my ear.
“Who said I was?” I’m grateful my voice doesn’t shake despite the fact it’s muffled.
“Don’t,” he warns.
Silence between both of us. Then I decide to make a play.
“We both know I can’t run from you. So get off me, let me face you, and we’ll talk.”
He laughs and I feel it in my bones. “Talk.” He scoffs, enunciating the word like it disgusts him. “Like we did before?”
My blood grows warm.
He remembers. It would be insane if he didn’t, but somehow, the confirmation makes me feel better, not worse.
I don’t push on the memory. “What am I going to do?” I counter instead. “Jump over the cliff?”
“I might push you,” he warns, and it doesn’t sound like an idle threat.
“Then let me take the chance.”
“Do you think I trust a fucking Flynn?” He snarls the word against my ear.
My mouth goes dry. So his parents did speak to him. I wasn’t even sure they knew. My uncle dragged me out the moment he saw me. It was the funeral of a mutual acquaintance, he told me, between the Flynns and the Learys, and that was why Storm was there at all.
“You are never to see him again, Lydia.” Lynx spoke from the other side of the closet. I didn’t leave it for three days.
“You just saved me from jumping off this cliff. Either you want to reenact what we did in the dark, or you want to interrogate me, but either way, you don’t want to kill me.” I pinch my eyes shut tight. “So let me fucking go.”
He is still.
The river thrashes somewhere far below my body.
I wonder if he knew I’d moved close. I wonder if we’re both one another’s surprise.
After a moment, without a word, he releases my head, then, too slowly, his weight comes off me.
I don’t make any sudden movements.
Not until I count to three in my head.
Then I do what I should have done in the first fucking place.
I slowly sit up, facing away from him, and unsheathe the hunting knife at my thigh.
In the dark, I doubt he can see what I’m doing with my black hair hanging around my face and covering most of my lap.
That’s the beauty of long hair. Not what it looks like, but how it can be used as a literal shield.
Then I strike.
I twist quick like Eve taught me, and I spring up on my knees so I can plunge the knife into his fucking side.
It doesn’t sink into his flesh like I want, the way he moves just as I attack him, but I know he’s bleeding from the hiss that escapes his teeth.
I hurry behind him, forcing him to turn to face me, so his back is to the cliff’s edge.
I grip the knife tight in my hand and see the gun in his. I wonder if it’s mine or if he had another tucked in his waistband beneath his black sweater that shows all the bulges of his muscles. He’s tall, lean, with black hair, light eyes, white skin.
Everything I remember, but more.
Fox couldn’t find a recent photograph of him because his parents seemed to have scrubbed any trace of him from anywhere.
His eyes pierce me the same.
The first time ours locked across the room in the parlor.
Then, there was something familiar about them. I’ve never been able to figure out why.
Now…he’s a man. Not a boy. And when he was a boy, he touched me like he owned me and all the world, too.
It makes ice run up my spine. What could he do to me now?
But I can’t drown in memories, so I do what I’ve been trained to do.
Compartmentalize.
And focus.
His tattooed hand is pressed to the wound on his side. It tore through his shirt.
I glance at the blade I hold up between us and see red.
A smile curves my lips as his eyes meet mine, his palm still covering where I stabbed him.
He tilts his head, then gestures toward me with the gun. “It’ll scar,” he admits, and I know he’s speaking about where I cut him. “But this will kill.”
“You don’t have the guts to shoot me, Storm Leary.”
If he’s surprised I know his name, he doesn’t show it. Back then, we never said. What did his parents tell him about me? Why is Lynx so afraid of them, and why does Fox believe he has a “peace” with Storm?
“I don’t need them,” he says with a soft smile. He staggers back a step, letting the gun hang loose in his fingers at his side. Another step back. Another, until his black and white sneakers are an inch from the cliff's edge.
My stomach falls.
I try not to let surprise show.
I have too many reasons to live.
Doesn’t he have even one?
He takes one more step back, and if he thinks I’m going to stop him, if he thinks he can manipulate me with empathy, he doesn’t know me.
“I’ll check the news in the morning,” I tell him softly, then I turn, and I run.