Chapter Thirty Six
I don’t know what came over me. I saw the glint in Arthur’s usually cold eyes, watched him step down from the platform with that same unhurried confidence, and my feet simply moved without waiting for my brain to catch up.
After everything we’ve been through and discovered, after Rhys being lied to, manipulated and beaten, I couldn’t let Arthur just walk away.
He couldn’t slip back into the shadows with his secrets intact.
My pulse roared in my ears as I pushed through the thinning crowd, my dress snagging briefly on someone’s heel.
Despite Rhys’ voice bellowing in my head and my breath coming out too fast, I was being driven by something hotter than fear.
Anger, maybe, or foolish desperation. For some reason, I thought that if I just confronted Arthur, if I exposed the act he’s putting on for the world, he’d finally be forced to answer for it all.
“Arthur!” My voice cuts through the night air. The man in question turns slowly and deliberately, as if he were hoping to be followed. Although, given the slight hitch of his brow, I don’t think he was expecting it to be me.
Even so, I open my mouth to demand answers.
To get him to admit to hurting Rhys for no reason other than to be cruel.
Except as I near, the party inside, which is still very much present in my skull, erupts in an onslaught of hollering.
Being streamed in through the mic clips, the volume of it throws me off balance.
I can’t focus on Arthur’s face, the screaming of questions making me wince.
Before I know it, Arthur’s hand is clamping down on my arm before I can even think to pull away. Panic slams into my chest like a freight train, my heart stuttering as I twist and struggle, heels skidding uselessly on the pavement.
“Let go of me!” I gasp, my spine jolting painfully as I’m shoved into the sleek black car sitting idle at the curb.
Arthur’s body forces me aside, his hands harsh as he pushes me into the passenger seat.
The door slams closed, the engine revving, and a harsh panting fills my head.
Not my own, as I’ve thrown myself into a situation where what I’m hearing is a few yards back in the form of the man shrinking in the wing mirror.
That’s when the sudden crash of realization hits. What have I done?
I was supposed to be Rhys’ moral support this evening, letting him take the lead. His chance to confront his fake father and put an end to his suffering. But now, with his voice seeping into my head, it sounds like he’s suffering more than ever.
“I won’t let you leave me again. Come back to Clayton and me.
” A sob drags itself into the back of my throat, the gravity of my decision weighing down on my chest. “Please come back and let us love you.” And then silence.
The mic is too far out of range, and the cocoon of silence I’ve spent my life hiding in suddenly becomes a steel trap.
Bolstered by the dread rushing like icy splinters, I start to scream and yell, tugging on the door handle and smashing my fist against the window.
Nothing works, and even if it did, I spare no thought about flying out of this car at the increasing speed Arthur is picking up.
He races past seventy, taking corners sharp enough to send me crashing into the door.
Following a sharp glare, Arthur barks something in the silhouette of passing streetlamps.
“I can’t hear you,” I hiss, more pissed at myself for my complete lack of survival skills.
Rule one should be don’t confront a madman without a backup plan.
Waversea’s neighboring town sleeps as I’m propelled through it, a destination set in Arthur’s mind.
This is bad. So, so bad. My breaths turn ragged, my thoughts splintering into sharp, useless fragments as Arthur speeds us forward, his mere presence sucking the oxygen from the car.
He smells of cologne, arrogance, and the frustration that’s rolling off him in waves.
My eyes dart around the cab, hunting for something I can use.
My phone is nestled deep in my bra. I need to distract Arthur long enough to be able to pull it out and connect to my implants, giving me back the ability to communicate.
To bargain, threaten, whatever it takes to get me out of this car and his proximity.
Dragging my gaze towards the steering wheel gripped by his hands, I exhale harshly.
Well, it’s not like I’ve thought about anything else this evening.
Reaching out, I grab the wheel and jerk hard.
The car skids, jerking violently to the side.
Using the force of that momentum, Arthur elbows me aside, recovering far too quickly.
I yell something akin to a banshee’s scream, tugging on his solid arm.
In a flash, his hand comes up, fingers threading into my hair with brutal precision and yanking my head back far enough that spots dance in my vision.
I barely have time to gasp before he slams my head sideways into the car door.
Pain explodes behind my eyes, white-hot and blinding, my skull ringing as the world tilts violently off its axis.
My body turns limp, nausea surging forward as my thoughts dissolve into a dizzy haze of fear and disorientation. Somewhere far away, I feel myself whimper, the sound a small and broken vibration in my throat, as the night swallows me whole.
Darkness presses in at the edges of my vision, but not all at once.
It pulses in and out like a bad signal, my consciousness stuttering as the car surges forward.
Slowly coming back to myself, the first thing I register is motion.
We’re going far too fast, my body slipping against leather from the vibrations.
I feel the growl of the engine and the wheels screaming as Arthur takes corners like he’s trying to shake something loose.
My mouth tastes like copper and panic, my tongue thick and jaw aching from where it slammed into metal. I try to swallow and nearly choke, a weak sound escaping me as I curl inward instinctively, bracing against the door while the world keeps lurching.
Blinking hard, I try to fight through the dizziness, although my skull throbs in time with the pounding of my heart.
Streetlights smear into glowing lines through the windshield, each one flashing past too quickly.
Arthur is rigid in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel, the other resting casually near the gearstick as if he didn’t just crack my head against the door hard enough to make my thoughts scatter.
Rage simmers beneath the fear now, hot and useless, because even half-conscious, I know better than to provoke him again. My body remembers the violence even if my head still swims. My scalp throbs where he fisted my hair. My neck screams every time the car swerves.
I force myself to breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Slow it down. Don’t pass out. Don’t give him that. Yet when I rouse again, the town is gone.
Streetlamps have given way to long, dark stretches of road where trees lean inward.
I suck in a breath, pushing myself upright.
The darkness presses in from both sides, branches arching overhead like ribs, the headlights carving a narrow tunnel through the night.
Isolation hits me harder than anything else.
There are no pedestrians, no buildings, no help.
Just the road, the forest and the man beside me who has undoubtedly decided I’ve outlived my usefulness.
Suddenly, the car jerks to the side, so violently that my shoulder slams into the door again.
I hiss, clutching at myself as Arthur pulls off the road entirely, wheels crunching over gravel and dirt.
He drives blind for a few seconds, the headlights bouncing wildly as we snake down what feels like a hidden track.
Finally, he brakes hard, and the car lurches to a stop.
As the engine idles, as my breath locks in my chest, he kills the lights.
For a split second, there’s nothing but the all-encompassing darkness. Just the sound of my own pulse in my ears, each beat sending another wave of pain through my skull. Arthur doesn’t move, his attention trained through the windscreen, his body coiled with anticipation. Then I see it.
Headlights. White and blinding, cresting the road we just left.
An unmarked van speeds past the mouth of the track, disappearing as fast as it materialized.
In those few foggy seconds, something in my brain clicks into place.
Something about the shape, the size and the antenna barely visible on the roof.
A memory calls of an undercover van housing four bulky police officers in tactical gear.
The hope that flares and then dies is akin to being stabbed, a gutting agony I can’t help but react to.
They were so close. Now the track has disappeared into the night once again, and I’m left stranded.
My chest caves in as the truth settles, heavy and suffocating.
I don’t know what I could have done, but whatever chance I had has gone now, swallowed up by trees and dirt and Arthur’s careful planning.
To my surprise, Arthur doesn’t restart the car. He moves.
Opening his door, he slides out with the finesse of a large cat and slams it closed. Running with the theme of the evening, I don’t think as I instinctively reach for the only lifeline I have left, and stuff my hand down my cleavage.