Chapter 26
KIT
Ican’t tear my eyes away from that drawer. I know I need to pull it open, just give it one sharp little tug to slide it out. It sounds so simple, but every time I go to move my fingers, I’m rendered useless by an onslaught of tears so crippling that it’s all I can do to stay standing.
Every time I think about what awaits me in that drawer, what I’m meant to do, my stomach revolts, and I end up spitting bile onto the floor. I can feel my body slowly giving up on me, my hands shaking and my legs numb as I plan the course of least resistance to violate myself.
I know I’ve got to move. Too much depends on this, and my time is running out. Damian’s time is running out. I’ve got no choice. I have to do this because I refuse to imagine a world without Damian in it.
“You sick fucking bastards,” I hiss venomously at one of the many cameras before hocking another mouthful of spittle at the floor in front of me.
But it’s a useless act of defiance. I can’t put this off any longer.
So, with a frustrated sob, I plead with my legs to work and take a tentative step towards the bedside cabinet.
It looks so innocuous, so ordinary, it’s hard to believe it holds the very objects that will destroy my soul and break my heart.
I reach for the handle, and wood groans against wood as I slowly inch the damning compartment open. The abrasive glide echoes around the room long after the drawer hits its limits, the friction deafening in the confined space.
Wait. That’s not right.
I strain my ears until I hear it again. A low rumbling that builds in the distance.
My stomach drops.
Car number three.
Panic burns in my chest, it’s electric currents zapping through me until my head spins and my mouth runs dry.
“No!” I cry. Lucien said I had time. He said that if I did what he wanted, he wouldn’t bring anyone else here.
“You asshole,” I yell, my voice like sandpaper in my throat. “You fucking asshole!”
In pure desperation, I turn out more of the contents of the drawer, searching for anything, anything at all that I could use to my advantage against whoever is waiting on the other side of that door.
Think, Kit. Think!
The air is punctuated by the dull thud of silicon and the tinkling chime of metal as the sex toys rain down on the wooden floor. I rummage hopelessly through the artefacts, grabbing onto whatever I can in despair and discarding it just as quickly.
I can still hear the car gaining on us, the threatening engine growing louder with every second. I’ve probably got a minute at most.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Bang!
I scream, dropping an anal plug on my foot as my stepfather bursts through the door.
Lucien looks like a man possessed, his eyes wild and his jaw clenched in unbridled fury.
He spares me no taunting remark now. There’s no scathing measure of hatred thrown my way.
Instead, Lucien closes the gap between us, grabs my arm and drags me from the room.
His fingers dig into my bicep painfully, and the sting brings tears to my eyes.
“Move,” he yells as I trip over the doorframe of my prison.
He pulls me through a tiny lounge room, around a faded, threadbare sofa and into a dated galley kitchen. “Where are we going?”
“Shut up. Don’t make a sound or I’ll knock you out,” he spits, yanking open what must be the back door since I’m immediately hit by the frigid night air. It bites at my exposed skin, my thin pyjamas offering no protection from the bitter winter’s night, nor the attentions of my abductor.
Lucien pulls me out of the cottage, the frozen ground unrelenting beneath my bare feet as leaves, twigs, and stones cut at my flesh.
I’m wrenched so forcefully towards the dense treeline that my shoulder screams in its socket.
It’s painful enough that I have to bite my lip to stop myself from calling out.
Behind us, I hear the slow crunch of tyres over rocks, until finally the engine shuts off and the air falls silent again.
“That meddling idiot,” Lucien seethes.
I’ve never known darkness like this. It looms over me, swirling around my exposed calves and twisting across my frozen body to climb me like smoke. It’s oppressive, almost a thick, physical presence that squeezes my chest tight enough to steal the air from my lungs.
“Hurry up,” Lucien mutters, hauling us into the trees and the mercy of the towering forest.
We weave through the thick, grand oaks, clambering over jagged rocks and tangled gorse.
My feet burn beneath me, and I curse waking up in that fucking room without my trainers.
I can’t see through the thick blackness, but I know my soles are shredded, bruised and bleeding.
Lucien doesn’t move in one direction for more than a minute, zigging and zagging through the undergrowth until we’re wrapped so tightly inside the maze, I don’t think we’ll ever escape.
“How did he find you?” Lucien growls, his fingers slicing through the flesh on my arm. “How?”
Who—oooo, an owl cries from above.
Who indeed. Someone has found Lucien’s depraved hideaway, and it clearly wasn’t part of his plan. And from what I can tell, that’s a shortlist of one.
Hope flickers to life in my chest. Could it be Damian? Has he found me?
At that moment, Lucien darts to the left and changes our course once again. I stumble, barely missing a gnarled tree trunk as I twist on the balls of my feet. I find my footing, but don’t notice the tangled vines that have wrapped around my ankles until it’s too late.
I hit the frozen ground hard, my knees smashing against knotted roots and my hands scraping along the rough forest floor.
“Get up, you stupid boy,” Lucien snarls, his spit raining across my face. He grabs hold of my arm, and I cry out as he drags me back to my abused feet.
“Run faster, Kit. Do you really want to see what will happen if he finds you? Damian might be my son, but I won’t hesitate to end him if he tries to take what’s mine.”
My faint spark of hope dies, extinguished by this black night where nothing but evil can survive.
Run, Damian, run, my heart cries. Leave me behind, just don’t let him catch you.
Lucien steers us deeper into the forest, the mossy floor and ivy-laden trees dampening every sound but our harsh, panted breaths until we eventually tumble into a small clearing. Bushes rustle, and trees flinch as small, woodland animals flee from Lucien.
My trembling legs finally give way beneath me, and I fall from Lucien’s lethal hold and collapse on the ground.
Though, unlike the last time I slowed us down, my captor fails to notice.
He stands in the middle of the forest’s hidden chamber, turning himself around and around as his eyes dart desperately between the circling trees.
“Fuck,” he huffs, running his hands frantically through his hair. “Fuck!”
All I can do is cough and splutter as I try in vain to catch my breath. My whole body is shaking uncontrollably, so completely numb that even the sting of winter’s touch is barely a whisper against my burning skin.
Lucien dashes to the left, desperately searching through the trees even though we both know it’s pointless.
Then, he darts right and then left again, until no possible path from the clearing goes unnoticed.
When he finally accepts what I’ve known all along, that we’ve lost ourselves in this impossible maze, he vents his frustration against the nearest towering tree.
His labour-shy fists hammer down on the bark, but he’s no match for the unyielding opponent.
Then, with bloodied knuckles, he turns on me, storming to my prone body and yanking me to my feet.
In just two more steps, he slams me against a rough trunk and pins me so tight that the husk gouges sharp welts into my back.
He wraps his hand around my neck, and my vision spots as he presses harder and harder while his other hand fumbles in his trouser pocket. He easily finds what he’s looking for.
Cable ties.
“Now, play nice, or I’ll break your legs,” he threatens, releasing my throat and gripping my right wrist. I don’t dare move, my limbs weak and my chest flaming as the bite of thin plastic cuts into my forearm.
Lucien moves behind the tree, grabbing my other hand and repeating the process until I’m secured tight, wrapped around the trunk.
“There, that’s better,” he mutters. “There’s always a plan B.”
“Let me go,” I plead.
“Let you go? I’m not that cruel, Kit. What would happen to you if I cut those ties and watched you run? You’d never find your way out of here, and in those skimpy clothes you’d freeze to death by morning.”
“Please,” I whisper. “Please, please, please.”
Lucien tucks his fingers under my chin. “Quiet, Kit. We wouldn’t want your stepbrother to find you, would we?”
Sorrow streaks down my cheeks, dripping from my chin and falling onto the undergrowth.
“You know, it’s a shame I don’t have my phone with me,” Lucien says, tilting my face from side to side.
He narrows his eyes, as if cataloguing every trace of my terror.
“You look so good like this, dirty, weak, and desperate. Your followers would have paid good money to watch your downfall. A spoilt prince, they call you. For every sick fuck who wants to send you gold, there’s another who begs me to ruin you, to tear you down until you’re nothing more than a fuck toy yourself. ”
I slump against my binds as my choked, broken cry pierces the night. The chilling howl of a prowling predator answers me, sending a hoard of cawing crows flocking into the sky.
“I told you to shut your mouth.” The next thing I know is Lucien’s brutal, bruising backhand thrown across my cheek.
My head snaps to the side, and my teeth bite down on my tongue.
My mouth fills with copper, and I spit it onto the floor, even when my last shred of strength demands I aim it at the awful man before me.
“Listen up, you little cunt.” A flash of something catches a moonbeam, but it moves so fast I don’t register the threat until the sharp blade of a knife digs into the skin beneath my chin.
“You’re becoming more trouble than you’re worth.
Don’t give me a reason to end this right now. Do you understand?”
I clamp my mouth shut, stretching as far away as I can from the weapon at my throat. Carefully, trying to avoid the downward motion as much as possible, I nod my head.
“Good boy,” Lucien croons, twisting the blade against me. He must have pierced my skin, because I feel a warm trickle of liquid inching down my neck.
We stand like that for what must be hours, with the forest creaking and chirping around us.
When I was locked in that room, I thought this place was silent.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The trees are loud, whispering into the night as woodland creatures scurry around them.
I can’t hear anything over the chaos, but I strain my ears anyway, praying for any sign of human life.
Will anyone find my trail, find the only clues I could leave?
With every never-ending minute, the last of my hope dies.
And my heart follows it.