Chapter 10
Ten
Piper
I needed a distraction. I’d gone temporarily mad last night. Which was fine. One was allowed to go a little bit mad in situations like that.
Yes, I showed off my pussy to a monster, but it’s okay. Act like it never happened.
Act like you didn’t see that raw, almost ugly yet picturesque hunger on his face .
I could do it. I could eat and sleep in the same space as him for an indefinite amount of time until I was delivered to Stone.
Yeah, I could totally do that.
That’s what I’d convinced myself during the long hours it took me to find sleep. Knox wasn’t in the room. He’d gone outside after doing the dinner dishes, with me sitting at the table, watching him with a muffled ringing in my ears.
I didn’t know what he was doing out there. It was long dark, and the air had a nip to it. He hadn’t put on a jacket when he left, I’d noted that. He’d be cold.
Why I was worrying about him being cold was beyond me. He deserved it. He deserved to get his fingers fall off from frostbite and worse.
Yet I’d tossed and turned after stoking the fire and almost got up to find him, to hand him his coat. The caretaker in me could not be killed by threats. Not yet at least.
Eventually, I’d fallen into a fitful sleep, restless and dreaming of Knox. Of him hurting me. Of him being in bed with me. Of the world burning.
Cheerful things.
The next morning, I’d jumped out of bed with the intention of ignoring him and going for a run. But as I’d left the bathroom, fully dressed this time, he was up.
“You’re eating before you’re running,” he said, back to me at the stove.
I stopped in my tracks at his voice. As though last night had never happened.
That was his goal then too.
Fine, I could do that.
It was for the best.
I considered ignoring him completely and just running out the door, grasping on to whatever tenuous free will I had remaining.
But my body was still weak. There was a heaviness to my limbs, and there was still a cavernous emptiness in my stomach, growling at me to replace calories, to store as many as I could.
Gritting my teeth, I sat down at the table, hating that I was relying on Knox to feed me. Sure, I could’ve shouldered my way into the kitchen, insisted on cooking my own food. But that would’ve meant having to get close to him.
No, sitting at the table glowering in denial served me much better.
It wasn’t long before another steaming plate was put in front of me, beside it a mug of tea.
“More beans, great,” I said sarcastically, even though it went against the manners instilled in me by my grandmother to be so ungrateful.
Not that I needed to be grateful to Knox for anything.
“I’m going on a supply run today.” I hadn’t expected him to speak to me, his voice sending shivers up my spine. “I’ll get more food.”
“No meat,” I said once I’d swallowed my first mouthful. Again, flavorful, delicious. Different from last night. Cinnamon and cumin married perfectly in a balance of sweet and savory.
I didn’t look up at him, but there was a loaded pause. “No meat,” he conceded, a defeat of his own.
My mouth turned up at the corners as I ate. Victory. It was sweet.
“If there is anything else you require …” He put something on the table beside me.
A notepad and pen.
I stared at the innocuous items and what they represented. Autonomy. A little bit of it anyway. Was it an olive branch? Was it a shard of his shield that I’d managed to chip away at?
I mulled this over while I chewed, Knox walking away from me.
What would the power move be here? Write a long and complicated and obscure list?
No, that wouldn’t work. I didn’t think this new dynamic stretched so far as him going beyond the small store at the base of the mountain.
Would writing nothing at all be the bigger power move? Communicating I needed nothing from him. But that was a lie.
I chewed and swallowed the food, no longer tasting it.
This constant thinking about each decision, mannerism, how it might alter the situation was exhausting.
As if my decisions and mannerisms could alter Knox. That was like expecting water to alter stone.
Which it did.
Eventually.
After years.
Hundreds of them.
I didn’t have years with him. Maybe weeks. If I was lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you viewed the situation.
Whatever time I had left, despite the company, it was likely the last of the tenuous freedom I’d ever enjoy in my life.
I had to make lemonade, I guessed.
So I wrote a list.
Knox
She was driving me insane.
I thought I’d done it. Scared her enough that she wouldn’t approach me. That she’d avoid me like her life depended on it.
Which it did.
Her life as she knew it depended on her staying as far away from me as possible.
But then again, her life as she knew it was over whether she stayed away from me or not.
Stone had made up his mind about her. He didn’t just want her. He already considered her his. And Stone didn’t give up what was his. Not until he’d squeezed every ounce of life, goodness and will from it. Until it was dead.
I cracked my knuckles, sitting at the rickety outdoor table, chain-smoking.
I’d given up the habit years ago because I’d been determined not to have any vices, any weaknesses. Yet inexplicably, on the last supply trip before the mountain, I’d bought a carton of them.
I couldn’t even explain to myself why I did it then. I’d ordered her to stay in the car, as a test. I left the keys in it. I’d expected her to drive off. It was the stupid option but one most empty-headed mouth breathers would’ve made, desperate for escape. It was the beginning of my mind games. Breaking her, showing her how truly helpless she was.
There was a tracker in the car, obviously. And I’d parked an extra vehicle less than a mile away from the store, paid some local to keep it in his garage.
The car wasn’t only there for that purpose. It was a backup. In case something happened on the mountain. I couldn’t say what, but I’d learned in this life that you needed backup plans, multiple escape routes and secrets.
Secrets were what kept you alive.
Though Piper had been smart up until that point—not flagging down strangers for help at multiple gas station bathroom stops—I’d reasoned the reality of her situation was setting in. She’d be getting desperate, with civilization getting more and more sparse, making way for the wilds of Appalachia.
Part of me was looking forward to it. Craving the chase. The defeat in her eyes when I caught her, proving to her that she’d never escape me. Part of me was half-hard just thinking of that.
Which was likely why I bought the fucking cigarettes.
When I came out of the store, the car was still there. As was Piper. Nothing outwardly changed about me, it never did. But inside, I was surprised.
On the surface, people might’ve thought her stupid to waste such a golden escape attempt.
I saw past the surface.
Piper was smart. She understood the gravity of her situation completely.
And she loved her sister.
Enough to die for her.
Because that’s what going into the Appalachian Mountains with me was.
Death.
“Those will kill you.”
I will not look at her.
My head craned upward to look upon her body, illuminated by the sunshine behind her. She was wearing cutoff shorts, cowboy boots stained with mud and a white tank with dirt smeared on it. Her legs were long, tanned, defined and went on for fucking ever. Her small tits were perky, aching to be shown attention. Her neck was slim, delicate, fragile. I unclenched my left hand, taking a long pull of the cigarette with the right as I imagined circling that neck with my palm, squeezing, cutting off air, bruising it as I came.
A glimpse in her hazel eyes was a bucket of ice water on my previously dead, rotted and fucked-up libido.
She was looking at the cigarette in my hand, her hands on her hips. Whether she’d noted my gaze on her body was unapparent.
“I’ll be long dead before I can see the results of this.” I took another drag before throwing it onto the muddy ground.
Piper blew out an exasperated sigh, leaning down to snatch the still burning butt and putting it out against the wall before holding it in her palm.
She kept it there, her palm outstretched like she was holding some kind of bug.
“Littering,” she scoffed. “We don’t do that. Not here.” She waved her hand at the woods and mountains in wonder.
With reverence.
“We shouldn’t do it anywhere,” she continued. “But we do. We. Us humans. Pillaging. Destroying. Creating endlessly. Consuming endlessly. Discarding things when we’re done with them as if they no longer exist.” She squeezed her palm shut, looking at me. “I do that. I’m guilty of it all. It’s easy to forget in the city. But here…” She gazed upward, drawing in a long breath.
I watched her chest move as she did so, my eyes traveling over the soft mounds of her breasts.
“Here,” she repeated, moving her gaze back to me, but not before I returned what I hoped was a dismissive stare. “Here I cannot see you sully it. Not even with something tiny. So…”
I found her words to be captivating. Her obvious love for those woods, those mountains. It denoted a history. One that I had not discovered. Once again, I kicked myself for my lack of meticulous research, thinking this job was going to be easy. Lapsing into a false sense of security was deadly in my world.
But we weren’t in my world. The painful realization was inescapable now.
We were in hers.
And I was beginning to understand that that was deadly too.
I itched for a way to find out about her past. But I didn’t have one. We were out of range for cell service—purposefully. And though I doubted anyone on Stone’s team was talented enough to track me, I’d kept all my tech at my apartment. I had no need for it. Needing to call for help meant I was morally injured, and I deserved to die anyway. And I had no one to call.
Not a single way for me to dig for skeletons. Except to ask her. Talk to her. No way in fuck would I be doing that.
Silence descended between us, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. Piper did not do well in silence. I’d observed that since I met her, during the drive here. She’d writhed with discomfort, unable to resist making conversation with a man she thought might possibly rape and murder her.
A ridiculous personality trait, yet one I found immensely charming.
“Here is my list,” she said, handing me a piece of paper.
I took it on instinct. Her handwriting was messy, barely legible. But I could see she put little fucking hearts over the “I”s.
Tampons, food requests—gummy bears and pop rocks. What was she, seven?
“Seeds, dirt, planters?” I questioned, once I moved past the candy.
She nodded. “I’m going to start a garden.”
“A garden,” I repeated before I could stop myself.
“Yes, well, I can only hope I won’t be here to see the fruits of my labor, no pun intended since I do in fact plan on planting strawberries.” She winked. My cock twitched. “But there are only so many weeds I can wrestle with and books I can pretend to read, and it’s good for the soul to get hands in the dirt. Grow things. And then maybe your next captive can bake you a strawberry pie or throw together a tomato salad.”
Though I had discovered that Piper liked to joke, she was serious about this. About planting a garden.
“What?” she asked, tilting her head as if to regard the surprise I knew was painted nowhere on my expression. “You think I should rot away inside, trying to carve knives into shanks and plot my escape?”
My lips thinned in an effort not to smile. “You don’t need to carve knives into anything, they’re already a weapon.”
Her face went blank then she nodded quickly. “Thanks for the pointer—pun intended. I’ll stow that away for when I do intend to stab you. For now, it’ll just be that.” She gestured to the list. “And don’t worry, I won’t try to run while you’re gone. I’m not that stupid.”
Again, she was being serious. Though it was human nature to try to break out when you were in captivity, she had seemed to accept her cage without question. Because she was smart enough to understand just how imprisoned she really was.
Though it was rough terrain and a long way to any civilization, I didn’t doubt Piper had the capability to escape if she really set her mind to it. She could get away from me, for a time anyway. And she likely wasn’t stupid enough to alert authorities, knowing Stone had connections to everything. Which meant she’d try to run. With no funds, and no ID. Maybe she had contacts I didn’t know about who could procure her fake identification, money, but I doubted it.
Even if she did have those connections, she was aware of the noose we’d placed figuratively around her sister’s head.
I’d be expected to kill her sister if she did run.
The thought made my throat constrict.
Piper’s sister was all she had. Everything to her. That was plain. And killing her would be inflicting a mortal wound upon Piper.
The thought of causing any harm to Piper’s sister made my insides clench. A foreign reaction for me. I battled against it, denied the power she was quickly wielding over me.
She wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t run. Wouldn’t force my hand like that. She was going to plant a garden.
It was her way of keeping herself alive, intact. And the quickest way to nip that in the bud was to refuse her. The entire goal of this assignment was to pull her apart, not to give her ways to bring things to life.
Yet I took the list.
Piper
After leaving Knox sitting outside with my list, I stomped inside, first removing my muddy boots then going to the bathroom. I was in dire need of a shower. The thin layer of dirt and grime covering my body felt good, though. Reminded me of the long, sticky summer days with my grandmother. Our hands in the soil, her raspy, patient voice telling me which plants were weeds and which weren’t.
Leaning against the door to the bathroom, I squeezed my eyes shut at the onslaught of the memory, once so sweet, warm and pure, now painful and bitter upon reflection.
I missed her terribly. Like a dull ache. Aside from Daisy, she was the only true kind of unconditional love I’d experienced. Her love was not dependent on outward factors: access to mood-altering substances, how I’d acted that day, whether or not a sports team had won or lost. No, it was as constant as the sun, the moon, the stars. A guiding light.
Without it, parts of me felt cold, dead.
I unfurled my fists, opening my palm to contemplate the crushed-up butt I was still holding.
I lifted it closer to my face, inhaling the acrid smell of chemicals and tobacco. My nose should’ve turned up at the scent. It reminded me of dive bars and rock bottoms.
But it didn’t.
That scent was mixed with the dirt on my hands, the fragrance of wildflowers and sunshine and … Knox.
I must’ve been imagining that last part. The sheer force of the scent from the cigarette would drown out any other fragrance.
Yet I smelled him. Earthy. Salty. Wrong.
My feet directed me to the toilet. Flushing it down was my original plan. But as I hovered over the bowl, butt in hand, I hesitated.
This thing was nothing but trash.
But it was an indicator of Knox having a flaw. Being human.
Instead of flushing it, my hand clasped around it, keeping it for reasons unknown.