Chapter 2
ALEX
We slept the day away, Zach’s naked body trapping my own. Several times, I tried to extricate myself from his grasp, but his arms always tightened in warning. At some point, I’d fallen into a restless sleep where images of Rafe and the island tormented me.
Still haunted by the echoes of convoluted dreams, I hugged my knees from my spot on the four poster bed as Zach raided the closet.
“Who’s cabin is this?” I asked, glancing at the window, where bright light had filtered through the curtains before we fell asleep.
Now a strip of black peeked through where the material hung open, indicating the sun had set long ago.
“A friend’s. He comes up here in the fall to hunt.” As Zach sifted through flannel shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets, I wondered if the owner stored his rifles somewhere in the house. My gaze zoomed in on the closet, hoping to catch a glimpse of a gun.
“You’re so transparent,” Zach said. “You won’t find a gun in this place.
He doesn’t keep them here.” He removed a black wife-beater from the dresser and pulled it over his defined pecs and abs.
The sweats he wore swam on his toned frame, drawstring cinched tight.
My brother was all hard muscle, and obviously, the owner of this place wasn’t.
He grabbed a white tee and tossed it at me.
“All you need to know is we won’t be interrupted for a few weeks.
” Pointing a finger in my direction, he told me to get dressed.
I tugged the soft cotton over my head and eyed the door. The dresser and the closet were on either side, and Zach stood smack in the middle of the doorway, effectively blocking the exit. Watching me with the air of a predator, he rubbed the stubble on his chin.
I avoided the intensity in his probing stare and instead took in the room, the unfamiliar cabin walls, the smooth oak furniture.
That damn window that taunted me, whispering to my desperation to slide it open and crawl through, except I knew he’d stop me before I could.
The adjacent bathroom was a dead end for escape as well, with only a small vent-type window to allow air in.
“A few weeks, Zach?” Maybe logic would penetrate his thick skull. “What about your career? Won’t interrupting your training like this set you back?”
“My career is gone. It went down the drain the minute I thought I’d lost you.”
“Dad won’t be happy about that.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Dad’s happy about. I don’t care about any of it, Lex. I’m done with MMA. You’re all that matters to me.”
I shook my head, feeling completely cornered. “I can’t live like this. Don’t make me.” Clenching my hands to keep from gouging flesh, I gnawed on my lip instead. “C’mon, Zach. If you don’t let me go, you’ll be on the run for the rest of your life. That isn’t a life.”
“As far as the world knows, you’re dead.” He shifted his feet and poked a finger at his chest. “I don’t have to run at all—I just have to make sure no one finds out you’re still alive. We’ll lay low here for a couple of weeks and go from there.”
His twitchy gestures made me nervous, and I wondered if alcohol was the only substance he was withdrawing from.
“How’d you do it?” he asked, his sudden question derailing my train of thought.
“Do what?”
“Fake your death.” He leaned against the doorjamb, folded his arms, tapped his foot.
A dragon breathed fire down his right bicep.
Unlike Rafe’s tattoos, which were beautiful, symmetrical, and understated in their simplicity, Zach’s begged for attention with detail and flaming color.
“Better yet, how’d you get past your fear to do it?
” He clenched his jaw. “You must have been desperate to get to him, for you to go anywhere near the river, let alone crash your car into it.” He tilted his head.
“Must have been desperate to get away from me to fake your own death.”
I averted my gaze. Zach read me too easily.
What would he do if he found out Rafe had kidnapped me?
He might read something into it that wasn’t true.
Just because Rafe had taken me, that didn’t mean I hadn’t been where I’d wanted to be in the end.
But even worse he might get the same idea as Rafe and use the phobia against me. If he hadn’t thought of that already.
“Answer me,” he said, bringing me back to the moment with his biting tone.
“It wasn’t easy.” I stood, straightened my shoulders, and the muscles in my thighs tightened, readying to fight, to flee.
I quelled the urge, as he had me trapped and there was no way I’d get past him and out that door.
My stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours, and it gave me the perfect excuse to try and get out of the room.
“Is there anything to eat in this place?”
He signaled for me to go to him, and I couldn’t help but notice the tremors in his fingers.
I tried to pinpoint when he’d started drinking, but the onset of his alcoholism had been gradual, like a bad cold that begins with a sneeze and a vague ache in your glands until the next thing you know, you’re laid up in bed feeling like death incarnate.
His drunken fits had been sporadic at first, beginning somewhere around the time I’d graduated college and escalating after I’d started dating Lucas.
“I’m sure there’s gotta be some soup or something.
” He clamped his hand around my upper arm and ushered me from the bedroom.
On the way to the kitchen, I eyed the front door, just a few feet away, yet it seemed like yards.
The promise of escape disappeared from view too soon, leaving behind the fleeting idea of freedom.
He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, wooden legs scraping across the floor unnervingly, and shot me a pointed look, but he didn’t push me into the seat.
Rafe would’ve shoved my ass into it.
I gave myself a sound mental slap. I had to stop torturing myself with thoughts of him. It fucking maimed too much, but unbidden, his voice haunted my mind, his words gruff with sexual need.
Howl for me. Come undone. I’ll put you back together.
My knees buckled, and I choked back a sob as I slid into the chair. I hadn’t accepted the idea that he was gone. I didn’t feel it in my heart, and like a dope addict clamoring for another fix, I clung to the frayed thread of hope that he was alive and looking for me.
Zach either didn’t care about my rocky emotional state, or he didn’t notice.
He turned his attention to the cupboards and chose two cans of soup.
As he prepared our food, he never quite turned his back on me.
This was my brother, a guy I’d shared a house with for twelve years, which meant he knew me too well, knew what buttons to push, what words to use as weapons.
He’d be stupid to let his guard down for a second.
I might have a sick attachment to him, but I despised him too. And I’d never felt so torn. Love for a brother, and hate for a twisted, obsessive…I didn’t even know what to call him. The term lover came to mind, but that wasn’t right either. He’d fucked me. A lot. And I’d let him.
Maybe if I’d fought harder, Rafe would still be alive.
My stomach roiled with renewed self-loathing, and when he carried two bowls of steaming soup to the table, I couldn’t fathom forcing the liquid down my throat.
His gaze lifted and clashed with mine. I looked away, fearful my thoughts were plastered all over my face.
He rounded the table, and his fingers brushed my cheek, making me flinch.
“I’m sorry I hit you.”
He was always sorry, yet it never stopped him from doing it again. I edged away from his touch. Even the feather-like caress of his fingers against my cheekbone hurt.
“Don’t pull away from me.” He grabbed a fist full of hair and jerked my head forward. “I’m trying to apologize, Lex, but fuck, you sure know how to piss me off.”
“It’s not hard.” I yanked violently from his grasp. The cost of freeing myself remained in his fist—several clumps of my hair. “You go off on the smallest things. Ever hear of anger management?” Or a cell for the criminally insane.
“Ever hear of the words shut up?” He stomped across the room and began rifling through drawers. As he busied himself with his frantic search for whatever he was looking for, my attention veered to the living room where the front door beckoned just beyond.
He took out a roll of duct tape, and I flew from my seat, my feet carrying me into the next room before I’d given thought to the consequences.
The exit pulled at me like a net, as if dragging me from the depths of terrifying deep sea.
My momentum slammed me into the door, shaking the coat rack in the corner by the closet.
I hoisted it, launched it behind me, and prayed the obstacle slowed his thundering footfalls.
That’s when I spotted the keys hanging on the wall. I grasped at them with one trembling hand while the other fought with the knob, panic taking root in my fingertips. Finally, I flung the door open, catapulted off the porch, and ran toward his BMW.
“I disconnected the battery, Lex.”
His words halted me, and I whirled, expecting to find him on my heels, but he hadn’t ventured further than a foot from the porch.
“There’s nowhere to run!” he yelled, throwing his hands in the air and turning in a slow circle.
I followed with my gaze, taking in the nothingness surrounding us.
The black nothingness that came with nightfall.
Above, a vast canvas of stars lit the sky, but without the moon to light the way, getting lost wasn’t just a possibility, it was an inevitability.
Maybe he’s lying…
I could try the car, but if he was telling the truth, I’d be trapped for sure. Tightening my grip on the keys, I pushed one out to use as a weapon and took a step away from him, toward the edge of the trees.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, baby! Where’re you gonna go? You wouldn’t last the night in this forest.”
He underestimated what I was capable of surviving, but he had a point. The nights were notoriously chilly, even during the summer months, and I didn’t know where I was. I also didn’t have any shoes—another nail in the coffin of things that would slow me down.
I could make a run for it, hope to find help. Hope he didn’t have a spare set of keys in his possession. Eventually, the gravel road had to lead to civilization. But knowing Zach, he did have a spare set, and he’d pick up my sorry ass in no time.
As if my desperate thoughts blinked on my forehead in neon glory, the curve of his mouth turned cruel. “You know I’ll find you.” A threat dangled in that statement. A promise. I could run, but if he caught me, I’d find out what he was truly capable of.
I took another step anyway, despite the unmistakable lump of fear clogging my throat.
Despite the rocks digging into my bare feet.
My gaze zigzagged in every direction, searching, hoping.
So many trees, and I had no idea what waited beyond them.
Hopelessness crawled down my spine, an inescapable chill that threatened to ice my blood.
He had nothing holding him back now. The facade our father created, society’s watchful eye—none of it mattered out here, in this desolate place no one would think to look for me, because according to the world, I was dead.
In the twitch of an eye, I turned and fled.