15. Colton
FIFTEEN
COLTON
Kinleigh hasn’t been down in… I don’t know how long. It’s been days. Three days, maybe more. I thought it’d be easy to keep track of time without a watch or calendar, but between Forrest beating me senseless on a daily basis each time I reject his pitch for freedom and the drug he’s begun blatantly injecting me with, my mind has been hazy at best.
I don’t smell her anymore, either. Her scent, oranges and cream, usually lingers for hours and hours. When I can’t smell her anymore, that’s when I know it’s been a while. Again, my hazy mind prevents me from knowing anything with absolution. My brain doesn’t want to work.
Which brings me to the starvation and dehydration. I haven’t had any nourishment since her last visit, and the burning in my gut and weak tenderness in my joints reminds me of that fact each time I shift or attempt to move.
My eyes fall shut as a feeble, exhausted breath huffs out of me, my body sweating from merely moving down on the bed, to lie on my back. When the stabbing pains in my stomach become too much, I focus on her.
She was burned when she came down here before. Her chest and neck were bubbled, her skin mauve and tender-looking. In all the years and all the positions I’ve taken on ranches, I’ve never seen marks like that. I don’t know where they came from or how she got them, but they’ve been playing on loop in my memory.
I need water. I want food. No one has been around. I haven’t so much as heard a damn peep upstairs.
Every once in a while, my mind wanders to the bad place . The place that says Forrest has packed up Kinleigh and left. And I’ll die down here, like a stowaway in the hold of a ship. Because no one is around, and no one will find me.
Carsyn and Nash know I’m here.
They’ll come.
And yet… they haven’t. Where the fuck are they? I’ve tried not to focus on it, knowing that the entire town could very well be in Forrest’s pocket. I know whatever they’re doing, they’re trying. But now… desperation is eating my logic. Where are the Buffalo Trails sheriffs at? Surely, they’re looking. And I don’t believe for one second that Carsyn and Nash haven’t told them a hundred times where I went.
They’ve got to be fucking looking, goddamn it. I can’t just fucking die down here.
But I’m here, and no one else is, and that fact tells me what I need to know: no one’s coming.
My mind races a million miles a minute, memories of my childhood colliding with arbitrary facts from fifth-grade math and moments with Kinleigh, smells from Christmas morning and stadiums of people cheering.
I’m fucking spinning out.
With the thick metal still shackled to my wrists, I lift my hands to my head and knead my temples. I need to get out of here. I need out of here, goddamn it.
“HEY!” I shout, my voice rattling from lack of use. Without Kinleigh coming down, I haven’t spoken. “HEY!” I try again, this time mustering more strength in my tone.
Stacking my wrists, I grab the chain from each cuff to protect myself from the rustle as much as possible, then, using all my might, flail my arms up and down. The chains rise and crash, hitting the concrete cellar floor over and over. The motion burns up my bones, making my arms sore with an unrelenting rattle. But I do it again and again, all the while screaming, “SOMEONE FUCKING HELP ME!”
It’s a foolish thing to scream. I know this land. And I know that no one is near for a few miles minimum, and that a man’s voice won’t carry that far.
My heart beats faster. It beats so fast that I drop to my knees to avoid blacking out.
“HEY!” I shout again, despite the fact I don’t have the breath or energy for it.
I can’t stop. I’m completely out of control, and as much as I know rationally that I’m depleting myself needlessly, I can’t stop myself.
“HEY! HEY! HEY! I’M FUCKING DOWN HERE! HEY!!!”
Words fall from my mouth, volume dropping off as the floorboards above me shift. Someone is home. I didn’t think anyone was. It was so quiet for so long. With a touch of hope comes adrenaline, and I’m on my feet, using the length of my chains to wait at the bottom of the stairs.
Even if it’s fucking Forrest, I’ll spit in his goddamn face.
But still, I need to see someone. I need to see someone . I need to know they’re not going to let me die down here.
The door opens and Kinleigh rushes down, stopping a foot before me, the inches between us now more excruciating than the past ten years. Her eyes are wide, but her body is now hidden behind a hoodie and well-worn denim, her long hair pulled into a ponytail that trails over her shoulder.
Seeing her eases the mortal panic, but in its place, a new kind of chaos blooms.
I lift my filthy, bleeding hands to her face, gently bringing her to me. I drop my forehead against hers. “What happened to you?”
My breath hitches when her lips part. I take a step back, releasing her, eager to show her respect. But words never come, and she surveys the space I put between us cautiously, her gaze finally lifting to mine.
Tears slide down her cheeks as if those two feet were a knife in her side. Hurting her destroys me, but I want to know what the fuck is going on, because I can’t help her if I don’t know. It’s almost funny that I’m thinking about how to help Kinleigh as I’m currently shackled to a wall, but goddamn it, call it delirium or call it love, but I’ll help her survive and escape whatever this is, if it’s the last thing I do.
“I need out of here,” I tell her, lowering my voice, reaching for her now with just one hand as I step back toward her, trying desperately to get through.
I just, I don’t know.
But the Kinleigh I love is in there, I know she is. Because when I look at her, I feel that love I felt all those years ago. Renewed, shining bright like a star, flooding my entirety with a lightness that only comes when you’re with your soulmate.
“Why don’t you talk?” I ask, realizing that I’m asking questions to someone who is incapable of answering.
I coil my pinkie around hers as the gentle scrape of metal chain against concrete fills the cellar, composing the symphony of our second chance. I have to believe that—as fucked up as it is—it means we’re alive. And together.
“Kinleigh, what is going on here? What happened to you?” I whisper, my jaw sawing through the words as quietly as possible.
I step closer but am yanked back by my chains.
She looks up, lids red, lashes wet, cheeks streaked. A shadow falls across her face as I wait for her to speak, and because I’ve been in this hellhole for fuck knows how long, I know the only shadow that comes in here is from the doorway at the top of the stairs.
I lift my gaze to the doorframe where Forrest stands. Fuck. My eye throbs where he last hit me days ago.
Our normal sequence is that he’ll ask me to join his efforts, threaten my sister’s life if I don’t, then he drugs me and beats me. He knows Kinleigh showed me the injection that day, whether he knows if she didn’t give it to me or not, I’m not sure. But I get the feeling he doesn’t leave as much now that he knows she’s trying to help me.
His boots are loud coming down the stairs, and I squeeze her hand one more time, my eyes holding hers in a silent panic.
“Kinleigh,” I whisper, out of time, unsure of what I can say that will matter.
Forrest’s loud chuckle grates my senses as he takes the bottom step, coming to stand between me and Kinleigh. His eyes survey me and my disheveled, discombobulated state.
“Well, aren’t you two just too goddamn cute,” he breathes, his malice-laden smirk making bumps rise up along my spine. “See, I thought I’d come down here and knock some sense into you,” he says, bending at the waist to gather one of my chains in his hand.
He shakes the chain, and my entire body wobbles in response.
I need water.
“Why don’t you just kill me?” I ground out, collapsing onto the edge of the bed as my eyes stay on Kinleigh.
Her head droops, her eyes on her toes as her father looks between us, making me suddenly incredibly nervous. I don’t want him looking at her at all, if even for a second.
“Hey, asshole,” I manage, my heartbeat flimsy and frantic. “Why don’t you just kill me? Huh?”
He wastes no time in answering. “I don’t need any heat on me,” Forrest says, drawing the words out for effect, but because my brain is so foggy, it gives me time to process. “There’s a kink in the line,” he says, slowly taking a spot behind Kinleigh, who keeps her eyes on her feet almost impishly.
I know right then that Forrest is hurting her. That it’s beyond what I’d hoped was only a hostage situation. She’s being abused, and he’ll pay with his life for hurting her.
“I know you’re well versed with my business by now, and as soon as things die down, well, I’ll kill you.” He smiles, fishing his hand up the back of Kinleigh’s hair, yanking her back.
Her arms flail, hands coming to her head, holding his as her face scrunches with pain.
“But until the system is back to flowing nicely, you stay here.”
“Let her go,” I growl, finding strength to lift myself off the bed, unsteady on my feet, angry, unhinged strength coursing through me. “Let her fucking go.”
Forrest smiles, releasing his grip on her head, causing her to collapse on the concrete, head in hands, rocking. Still, she doesn’t cry out or make a noise. She just silently rocks, holding herself in what must be incredible pain.
“You’re too weak to take it, so she’ll take it for you. That’s love, isn’t it?”
Before I know what he’s saying, he rears one leg back, kicking across her belly and torso, the metal tip of his boot driving directly into her stomach. She coughs and sputters, but does her best to get to her hands and feet, gagging and choking on the air he tried to knock out of her.
I’ve never understood the expression “seeing red” until now.
I lurch against the chains, using a store of energy I didn’t know I had, and reach out for her as he grabs her by her hair and yanks her to her feet.
“Kinleigh, are you okay? Kinleigh, fucking please, Kin,” I beg and plead, using every last burning ember of life inside my chest to make sure she’s okay.
I need to know she’s at least conscious.
“She hasn’t talked in years,” Forrest says, forcing her onto her feet, fist still full of her hair. “So quit wasting your breath.”
“I’ll fucking kill you!” I shout, my voice weak and thin. “You hear me, Forrest? When I’m out of here, you’re a fucking dead man.” I take a breath.
Her eyes are closed as he drags her up the stairs.
From the top, he stops, bending to catch my eyes one last time. “We’ll see about that.”
I fall onto the bed, adrenaline dwindling, leaving my weak and frail body without a lick of energy. I blink up at the cellar ceiling. She hasn’t spoken in years . I have to roll to my side and dry heave a few times when I think of her being trapped here with him for who knows how long. And what must’ve happened to make her stop talking? I gag again, acid burning the back of my nose.
I fall onto my back and close my eyes.
I need out of here.