Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Cairstina
When I left home tonight, I had no idea I wouldn’t have to go back. At least for now.
The men I’m with are brutal and savage. I mean, I actually saw the man sitting next to me snap the neck of another man. But he did it because that other man was going to kill me.
That’s something, right?
No one’s ever killed someone who was trying to kill me. I mean, I suppose most people can say that. It’s like something straight out of fiction, but if you watch the news you’ll know it actually does happen.
Too bad it wasn’t my brother.
The moment the thought comes to me, I hang my head in shame. My brother might be an abusive arsehole, but he doesn’t deserve to be killed. My father, on the other hand…
I don’t know how Bailey got out tonight, but my heart soars with hope when the man sitting next to me —Leith, did they call him?— said they needed a guard dog. My hands are bound in front of me, so fortunately I can stroke Bailey’s silky ears and kiss his nose.
Good boy, I think, praising him silently. But dogs are unlike people. Bailey licks my hand in appreciation for the praise. He understands me even though I don’t speak. He understands me even sometimes before I understand myself, that gift of intuition or something.
I should be afraid. I don’t know who the men in this car are or where we’re going. I have no idea what they’ll do to me when we get there. If they were going to rape me, wouldn’t they have done it already? Why take me to a remote location? Are they going to dispose of me because I’m a witness?
You are so na?ve, Cairstina, I berate myself. Very few people talk to me, so I sort of make up for it by talking a lot to myself.
Of course I’m being far too na?ve. They very well could be planning to take me somewhere to rape me, or kill me, or both, couldn’t they?
They’re talking amongst themselves, and at first it seems like they’re arguing, but clearly the man who bound me and took me is the leader.
When he raps out sharp commands, the others fall into line.
I’ve even heard a yes, sir, and right away, sir.
Who is he that he commands these big, strong men so?
Who are they that they defer to his authority?
They don’t want to take Bailey. “Good fucking guard dog,” the man one of them called Mac says. I don’t like him.
God, I shouldn’t like any of them. What is wrong with me? Am I so starved for protection that I’ve deluded myself into thinking that I’m safe with these men?
But Leith saved my life.
I blink when I realize Leith is talking to me.
“What are you called, lass?”
I shake my head. I would actually tell him my name if I could speak.
A part of me would like to hear him say Cairstina in that rich, velvety voice of his.
The accent’s a little thicker than you typically hear in town.
So I’ve deduced at least one thing about them: these men are from the north.
Highlanders, even, like the men of old. Rumor has it around here that no one lives there anymore, that the highlands are uninhabited, but that’s exactly where we’re pointed.
For some reason, that makes a little thrill of excitement shiver straight down my spine.
I realize suddenly that everyone in the car’s silent, and all eyes are on me. Even the driver’s eyes are on mine in the rearview mirror.
“Name,” Leith snaps, and this time he rests his hand on my knee and gives me a none-too-gentle squeeze.
The man to my left stares down as well, both of us looking at the large, strong hand resting on my faded trousers.
I haven’t gotten new clothes in ages, and for some reason, the realization I’m wearing clothes best suited for rags makes me intensely self-conscious.
These men might be my enemies, but they’re good-looking enemies, goddammit.
I shake my head and don’t respond.
I blink in sudden surprise when the grip on my knee becomes painful, his voice no longer just stern but angry. “You’re coming with us as our prisoner. You’ve seen things you shouldn’t, and we’ll make certain you don’t tattle.”
“Should fucking do away with her,” the man in the front passenger seat mutters. Does he mean kill me?
The driver rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “That’s not our way, Mac, for the love of Jesus, you think we’re the bloody Aitkens or Wrights?” He shakes his head.
I tally my mental notes. Surly man in the front, Mac. And they’re not the Aitkens, but whoever the Aitkens are, they’re not someone these blokes here respect. Maybe they even hate them. The Aitkens are the Inverness mob, the bad guys. And these men deny they’ve anything to do with them.
The large man to my left is squashed up against the door, I realize, as if he doesn’t want to taint himself by touching me.
He’s staring out the window, but when he speaks, I realize he’s speaking to me.
“You know we could hurt you, lass?” His voice is almost a whisper. “In fact, there’s no way we won’t.”
A spike of fear knifes through me, but I don’t respond, and quickly contain my anxiety. I’m used to being threatened. Hell, I’m used to being beaten. There comes a point where you can detach mentally from brutality when you’re face to face with it on the regular.
I grip Bailey more tightly in my lap and bury my nose in his fur, as my belly dips and my heart falters.
I’ve known from the very beginning these men were not good men, but a sick part of me, the part that hopes for a scrap from a table like a beggar, was momentarily relieved I wouldn’t have to go home to my brother’s fury and fists tonight, even if these men are no better.
But I watched them in the graveyard. I heard the few words they spoke, and knew they were here as retribution for the wrongs done against Father MacGowen. And if they’re here to defend him, they can’t be all bad.
Can they?
It isn’t the realization that I’m in danger that deflates me, though, but something altogether different.
I’m familiar with how this always goes.
“What are you called?”
Could be someone at the shops, a friendly child, a new librarian at the library who hasn’t yet heard my story. The most common form of greeting, and I can’t help but fuck it up. It’s the first sign that I’m abnormal to others.
You can see someone in a wheelchair. You can even tell when someone’s blind. But the terrible irony of being mute is how it makes you not only silent but invisible.
Sometimes, people look away when they realize that I won’t reply.
Some get embarrassed, as if it’s their own fault for not knowing I won’t answer, or they regret the show of friendliness.
Still others respond in anger, muttering to themselves about rudeness and courtesy and the like. And some just walk away.
They all walk away in time. Everyone but Father MacGowen and Bailey. One because he’s tender and kind, the other out of loyalty and understanding. It’s sad that my only allies in the entire world are a celibate man of God and a mutt.
“If she won’t bloody tell you her name, you’ve got a more stubborn bitch on your hands than you thought,” says the man sitting in the passenger seat, the one they call Mac.
The driver, whose name I haven’t yet heard, nods. “I’d tend to agree, there, Leith.” He opens his mouth as if to speak again, but closes it abruptly, as if thinking better of it.
They all start talking at once, but all I get from the conversation is their names. The large man driving the car is Clyde, and the man to my left who won’t touch me’s named Tate.
I’m piecing bits of what I’ve observed together.
Leith is the clear leader of them all. They obey his commands and defer to his authority, at least here.
Mac is surly but still obeys, and both Tate and the driver defer, but they catch themselves.
They’re not used to blindly obeying him.
Is he new to this position of leadership, then?
What highlanders would have a hierarchy of power? I wish I’d read more history books and fewer novels. I wonder if that’d even help me now.
Leith puts a sudden halt to the conversation with a stern, sharp, “Enough.”
He reaches for me and I flinch. He blinks in surprise.
“Skittish, there,” he mutters. He’s got something soft in his hands, but I can’t quite see what it is. A second later, I’m plunged into darkness with whatever it is tied around my eyes.
They don’t want me to see where we’re going, then.
But it’s too late. I already know by the way they speak and the way the car inclines that we’re heading to the highlands.
Other people underestimate how the handicapped rely heavily on their other senses.
They can blindfold me and deprive me of all my senses and I already know we’re going to the mountains of the north.
It’s likely foolish of me not to be more afraid, but my response to fear’s been muted over the years, I believe. It used to be that I’d cower from my brother’s fists or flinch at my father’s biting strop, but I’ve hardened myself.
I’ve never been this far out of Inverness, and if I’m honest, a part of me hopes I get to see the mountains. They can’t keep me blindfolded forever, can they?
For now, they’ve dropped the topic of my name. Logic tells me that their means of coercion are limited in the car like this, and I’m more likely to have consequences when I arrive wherever we’re going.
Fair enough. A delayed reaction is better than now. They speak to one another as we keep driving upward, and my ears pop. I have a vague memory that’s what happens when you increase elevation. I swallow hard and it doesn’t hurt anymore.