Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Zarah
M y boots slide in the snow as I run, my jacket slapping at my legs. If Gage and his father get hurt because of me, I’ll never forgive myself. I need to let them know I messed up. I need to let them know Jerricka and Dr. Pederson are framing Stephen Mallory for Ingrid’s death.
Running down the long driveway, I pant, my breath coming out in white puffs. I’m only a quarter of a mile down the drive and sweat starts trickling down my back. I’m not in the best physical shape, and once this is all over, I’ll ask Gage to train me, run with me. I want to learn how to defend myself, so women like Jerricka can’t kick my ass. I’m weak, in every way, and if I’m going to survive, I need to be better.
I finally reach the end of the driveway and skid to a stop at the highway. Left or right? At this point I don’t know which way is north or south, east or west. I was never a Girl Scout, and I can’t tell by the position of the sun. I’ve never been in this part of the state before, and I have no idea where in the hell I am.
I’m four hours away from King’s Crossing, and I’m lost.
No normal person can say that about the city they grew up in.
I take a chance and go left. There are woods on one side—the side where Jerricka’s house sits near the lake—and across the highway, fields covered in snow as far as my eyes can see. Not a cabin, not a house, not anything but blue sky and white horizon.
Jerricka didn’t lie to scare me. She told me the absolute truth. We are alone out here, and I have no idea how long I’ll have to walk to find someone. If I last that long. If Jerricka and Dr. Pederson made it to bed, maybe I have an hour or so, but on foot, that won’t be enough time.
I should have been smarter, waited until they started screwing and looked for a cell phone or a laptop. A tablet. Her house doesn’t have a landline—there are no telephone poles out here. Even setting her house on fire would have been better than this.
But still, it’s freedom, and the cool wind kisses my face and the sun shines in my eyes. It’s a small thing. Something I haven’t been able to enjoy in many years. I’ll never take it for granted again.
I lose track of how much time goes by. My fingertips tingle and I button my jacket and push my hands into my pockets. This is as warm as I’m going to get. I wonder if Dr. Pederson and Jerricka are playing with me, letting me think I’ve gotten away. There’s no way they don’t know I’m gone by now. They’ll let me run until I’m tired and hungry, then they’ll drag me back warning me that the next time I try to escape they’ll let me die of hypothermia.
The road is empty and the only sounds out here are the birds singing and branches rustling together in the wind. If I concentrate, I can almost imagine Gage and I are in the woods by the house where we would sit on that log and make out while the dogs played. His warm lips on mine, his hands tangled in my hair. The scratch of his beard under my fingers, the low timbre of his voice when he told me he loves me.
All the times he said it, and I never believed it. Not deep down, not at the bottom of my heart where fear and doubt lived.
I miss him, and his face wavers, his features smearing like a melting clay sculpture. The medication is starting to work, and suddenly Gage feels like a person I met years ago. A glimmer of a memory. A touch, a smile.
I’m losing him.
Maybe he was never mine.
An engine’s low growl rumbles across the field, and a vehicle approaches me, a black SUV, its tires crunching over the snow.
The truck is too shiny, too clean, for it to belong to a farmer heading home or a fisherman looking for a spot at the lake to ice-fish. The glass is tinted and I can’t see the passengers in the vehicle, but my heart speeds up as it slows down.
The back window slides open, and I say the first thing that pops into my head as his eyes meet mine. “Max.”
“Almost, but not quite, my dear. Zarah Maddox, heiress to the Maddox fortune, King’s Crossing’s princess reduced to faded memories and not one person who cares whether she lives or dies. How the mighty have fallen.”
I stare at him and claw through the fear. “Senator Cook.”
He opens the door and climbs out, his face twisting in anger. “Get into the truck, Miss Maddox. I’ll bring you back where you belong.”
He doesn’t mean to the city. “You’re working with Jerricka and Dr. Pederson.”
“I am, yes. I have a vested interest in the drug they’re perfecting. Of course, they need you to finish the trials, but Dr. Solis assures me things are going quite well on that front. Another day and we’ll have the results we need. Now get into the truck.”
“No.” I back away, my boots slipping in the snow. I don’t wait another second, and I take off down the road. If he’s going to haul me back to hell, he’s going to have to work for it.
“Fuck.”
Quickly, he gains on me.
I look over my shoulder to see how close he is, and that was a mistake. My foot snags in a pothole and I trip, landing on my hands and knees, allowing him to catch me that much easier.
He yanks the collar of my jacket and jerks me to my feet. “A valiant attempt, but too little too late. You know,” he says, leaning over and whispering into my ear, “a little birdie told me someone set your lover’s apartment on fire. Such a shame he and that fucking mutt were trapped inside. I’m sorry he didn’t make it out alive. His mother will be heartbroken she’s lost another son. Her only remaining son.”
“No.” The word is a hopeless breath coming from the empty depths of my soul.
“Oh, yes. Thank you for the tip about Mallory’s watch. I was able to make the arrangements en route. Now, come. You have nothing left to live for. Donate your body to science and contribute to an important cause.”
I go because I’m hollow. These people took away the ones I love most in this life. Zane will never be the same. Lucille and Douglas will mourn Stella like they would their own daughter. Gage is dead, and Linc will hate me and blame me forever.
Rourke tenses, prepared for me to resist, but I fall in step, unable to fight. What do I have to live for? I was too late. I couldn’t save Gage and I don’t deserve salvation.
“Good.”
He pushes me into the SUV and slams the door shut.
I cower into the cushion, and he crowds me, pressing his body against mine. I whimper in fear. Disgust. Shame.
It’s all I’m good for.
Rourke sniffs my hair, the tip of his nose brushing the curve of my ear. “You make me fucking hard when you sound like that.”
His hand skims over my knee to the inside of my thigh, and I swallow back a cry.
Like jagged pieces of glass, the flashbacks tear into my memories. A dark hotel room, a hand between my legs, opening me, a cock pushing inside me and it hurts. God, it hurts. He’s big, and I’m not aroused. A hand pressing my head into a pillow. He orgasms, pumping cum into me.
He pulls out, and he’s ashamed.
Punishes me.
Hits me until I’m lying on the floor, and he finishes it, kicking my stomach.
He throws me onto the bed and uses me again.
The pain mixes together. I blank out until he’s done, and suddenly Ash is there, brushing the hair away from my tear-soaked face. “You’re a good girl,” he whispers.
And then he says to this man, “Senator Cook. I hope you’re a satisfied customer.”
“I am, and will be again. The night of Zane Maddox’s party. I want to fuck her while her brother thinks he’s going to rule the world. I want him to pay for every fucking thing his father ever did to me.”
“Consider it done.”
The memory dims, but the dregs linger, and I gag until I can’t breathe. “It was you.”
“Ah, you remember. I’ve been waiting, planning for the day I would have to claim you’re too crazy to be believed. And no one would have taken your side. Imagine, the word of a whore over the word of a United States senator. The entire ordeal would have been unpleasant, especially since you managed to convince the district attorney’s office of your credibility. Just more proof money can buy anything.”
“Everything I told them was true. I was honest about the things I couldn’t remember.”
“The men you put away were wanted for other things. Your allegations were only another strike against them. I, too, have done things I’m not proud of, but I would never let you destroy a reputation I have worked so hard to build.” Grabbing a fistful of my hair, he turns my head, forcing me to meet his eyes, and when I do, he grips my chin. “Did you fuck Max?”
I blink. I didn’t expect the change of subject. “What? I don’t understand.”
“The question isn’t difficult, Miss Maddox. Did you fuck my son while you were hiding at the Crowne Royale? Did he lie in bed next to you and spread your legs? Did he push his cock inside you? I want to know if my son fucked the whore I paid to use.”
I shake my head, and my teeth start to chatter. “N-no. I couldn’t—”
“You couldn’t because in the dark, he reminded you of me. He reminded you of violence and pain. His voice brought back memories of blood, and you couldn’t let him touch you but you didn’t understand why. Now you do. Jerricka Solis isn’t the only one who can pick brains apart.”
“Max loved me.” I want to defend him. I want to defend what we had, even if that was a fragile friendship, a simple love that for me, wouldn’t have turned into anything more.
“My son would have thrown you into the trash where you belong if he’d known I had you first. I taught him to never, ever, be second best, second place. Every man in King’s Crossing can do better than you, but that won’t deter me. I will have you again. And again, and again, and after I’m finished, you’ll wish you were dead.”
We haven’t moved, and I didn’t notice, not until Rourke yells, “Drive!” at the chauffeur who’d been watching our exchange in the rearview mirror.
His eyes meet mine, cold and hard, and I turn away, pressing my face into the back of the seat.
Rourke doesn’t touch me again.
I walked for hours, trudging along the shoulder of the desolate highway, but the truck needs mere minutes to undo my progress. We park in front of the house and Jerricka and Dr. Pederson are waiting.
He pushes me up the porch steps.
“How is she?” Jerricka asks, opening the front door.
“She remembers too much. Isn’t the drug working? You said it was working.”
“I’ve only had her since yesterday. She’s taken four doses since then. Her body hasn’t had time to absorb them yet,” Jerricka explains patiently. Tenderly, she pulls my coat off my shoulders and slides my arms out of the sleeves. The rage she had at breakfast is gone, and she acts maternal again, smoothing her hand down the back of my head.
“Then pump her full,” Rourke snaps. “I want to know the drug is effective. We’ve had to sit on this for too long and it’s time to act.”
“I’ll lock her up downstairs in the lab.”
“It’s what you should have done in the first place.”
“Senator Cook, perhaps you’d like to make yourself comfortable and have a drink? It’s a long drive,” Dr. Pederson says, closing and locking the door.
“Yes. I would appreciate that. My nerves are a bit frayed. My wife is grieving, and she’s demanding I return home.”
He looks pointedly at me, and sorrow threatens to shatter my heart into millions of pieces.
Without Gage, I have nothing.
I look at Jerricka, and she wraps an arm around me. Her sympathy is a trick. She’s manipulative, and she’s always known how to talk me into doing what she wants—breaking up with Gage, taking medication that I know now Zane and Dr. Reagan never approved. I’ve always been her puppet, trusting her to help me recover from the horrors Ash put me through. All she did was add to them.
She leads me downstairs and nudges me onto the hospital bed. “I’m going to cuff you to the rail and lock the door. There will be no more escaping, Zarah. Senator Cook was kind because we need you alive. He wants to hurt you. Don’t give me a reason to let him.” She fills a small paper cup with water and places two pills in my palm. “Swallow these. The pain will go away. I promise.”
The tablets slide easily down my throat, the drug that’s supposed to erase my memories and induce symptoms that mimic a person who has Alzheimer’s. I need the emptiness. I lie down and roll onto my side, and she snaps the cuff around my wrist. Her lips brush my temple. “I do care about you. You’ll be the catalyst to my greatest achievement. Get some rest, and when you wake, we’ll run you through some tests. You’ll have enough in your system we should start seeing results this evening.”
Tears seep into my pillow.
The wood creaks as Jerricka walks up the staircase, and it’s quiet enough I hear the lock snick into place.
I’m left in the dark.
My body, anyway.
I pray my mind catches up.