Captive Souls

Chapter 11

Eleven

Piper

H e got me everything on the list.

Not much of it was obscure, but I figured he’d simply refuse to get the candy. There was no way I could see a man like him touching bags of candy. In fact, I couldn’t see a man like him being a child eating candy.

I’d put an obscene amount of thought into Knox—what his life looked like as a child, what his life looked like before all of this.

About whether he had someone who loved him, cared about him, someone he softened for.

Before the list, I didn’t think he was capable of softening. That whatever happened to him had calcified any neurons capable of producing feelings. Empathy. Kindness.

Except…

The flowers.

The flowers that weren’t on the list. Irises. The space needed something to brighten it up, life, but I’d decided against putting any kind of flowers on the list, thinking Knox would refuse to get them.

Which was actually the saner of the two options.

What was I thinking, decorating my cage?

Trying to turn it into something lovely?

And irises. I doubted he learned deeper meanings behind flowers and their roots in Greek mythology, but the iris denoted hope. And new beginnings.

I fought against my body’s desperation to find meaning where maybe there wasn’t any.

“They’re perfect,” I told him, holding the flowers, my soft voice conveying how taken aback I was.

He ignored me, his gestures stiff and expression cold. Why buy the flowers, then, if he was going to act as if he hated me? Maybe it was because he wasn’t capable of using any other mode of communication?

Maybe the flowers were a sign of something.

Maybe they were a sign of nothing.

Maybe they were just merely a tool to have me twisting myself up inside, trying to figure him out, another tactic used to unnerve me.

I pondered over this as I worked the soil, planted those flowers.

And I watched him. Whenever I could. Whenever his intense gaze wasn’t zeroed in on me, which wasn’t often.

He’d watched me closely since the beginning. But something in the energy of his gaze had changed. It wasn’t as absent or cold like it had been before. And I felt him, cataloguing how many bites of food I ate, assessing my gait when I returned from my run. He was ensuring my health only so that he could deliver me in good condition—is what I told myself.

Nothing more than that.

Yet I watched him back. In the small snatches of time when he wasn’t looking. Watched him inhale those poisonous cigarettes. I’d long since thought they’d lost their allure and coolness, since it had been established that they caused a cancerous, undignified death.

Death. That’s what I was watching Knox doing as he sucked them down, one after the other. He was courting his death, sitting there pulling it into his lungs.

And yet he looked majestic doing it.

The king of death.

His.

Mine.

The garden was a good distraction. The only distraction, really. The books I’d brought could not hold my interest. It didn’t help that every one of them were peppered with excellently written sex scenes that only served to further rile my unpredictable and inappropriate urges toward Knox.

He sat and chain-smoked while watching me garden for days. He didn’t offer to help, not once. Didn’t utter a word. Just watched me.

I did my best to pretend he wasn’t there. Mostly I did my best to pretend I was able to pretend he wasn’t there. In truth, there wasn’t a moment when I wasn’t conscious of his eyes on me. And it wasn’t like it was particularly glamorous work. The warming of the days sent sweat spreading across my brow, dirt caking my hands, seeping under my fingernails. Not that I should’ve cared how glamorous or dirty I did or didn’t look in front of Knox.

Every day when the sun set, Knox would stub out his hundredth cigarette of the day into a makeshift ashtray that had just appeared since I’d commented on the littering the first time we spoke about butts.

I’d started up a small collection of them.

His cigarette butts.

I hid them, and then I’d just hold them in the bathroom, looking at them.

Why, I didn’t know.

Because I was slowly unraveling into a strange version of myself that scared me a lot but also felt more real than anything or anyone I’ve ever been.

Although we didn’t speak much, this transformation was because of Knox. Because of the way he was terrifying me. The way he’d torn me from everything familiar and safe and put me back here, in the mountains, the only place I’d ever felt happy and at home.

When he looked at me, he wasn’t just looking. It was as if he was cataloging every square inch of my skin so he could recreate me from scratch in his memory. All of my imperfections, blemishes, every inch of me was becoming his.

This was without him touching me, with us barely speaking.

It was a slow descent into madness that I could feel but couldn’t stop. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

The reality of the situation rocked through me during every shower I took, washing off the dirt and grime from the wild area beside the cabin I’d somehow tamed into a garden.

The ground was freshly turned over, seeds planted. Weeds were cut back, tamed from taking over completely but not pulled at the root. They had just as much right to be there as anything else.

I felt a grief that I couldn’t explain, looking at the muddy water going down the drain of the shower.

Another day ended.

Another day closer to the end of … whatever this was.

And I wasn’t looking forward to it. Not just because the end of this was likely the beginning of a long and very unhappy marriage—I was yet to find a solution to that particular scenario.

There was only so long, though, that this could last. That Stone would accept that I was still here, being broken.

And I wasn’t.

Being broken.

Knox trying to chip away at me was a palpable, unescapable thing, something impossible not to feel in the beginning.

Which was why I felt the absence of it. He was no longer trying to break me. At least not in the way he was supposed to. Nonetheless, I felt pieces of myself falling away into the dirt as I worked in a garden in Appalachia with Knox chain-smoking a few feet away.

I dried my hair and dressed as I did every afternoon. I heard Knox in the kitchen, making dinner as he always did. No meat. Various types of dishes, flavor profiles. Granted, he was working on somewhat of a limited palate, but everything he served me was delicious. Mushroom risotto, chickpea stew, rich bean salads. Frittatas. He was making an effort not to just feed me but to … nourish me too.

The weight I had rapidly lost was coming back on, my skin was tanning quickly in the sun.

My hair was somehow shinier than it had ever been with all sorts of expensive products, yet all I was using was some off-brand shampoo.

In short, I felt like I was almost … glowing?

In the shadow of the darkest person I’d ever been in the presence of.

How did that make sense?

Knox

She was blooming. There was no other word for it.

When I’d first laid eyes on her, there was no denying she was gorgeous. But I hadn’t noticed the shroud around her. The shadow. She coated herself in color and prints to hide it. She was still the most beautiful person I’d ever met, yet she was waning away.

Under the oppressive fear of Stone’s attention.

I’d kill him for that.

For making her wane.

But doing that gave me the opportunity to watch her bloom. And I didn’t deserve it. In my presence, she should’ve been further withering away. I didn’t foster life.

Yet I couldn’t deny it was happening. I couldn’t take my fucking eyes off her as she worked in her garden, creating life. Her limbs were strong, all of her movements sure. Even with dirt caking her forehead from where she’d rubbed sweat, I had visions of stripping her down right in that garden, in the soil, exploring every inch of her, tasting her perspiration.

It was creepy, watching her the way I was. I knew that. She went to great pains to avoid my eyes. I made her uneasy, but I didn’t unnerve her in the way I should’ve. I knew that because I saw how she eyed me when she thought I wasn’t looking.

With hunger.

At first, I thought it must’ve been some kind of mountain mirage. That I was finally losing touch with reality, going insane.

It was only a matter of time. For decades, I had ripped apart people, ended lives on a daily basis. That had to rot the mind in some way.

But it wasn’t in my head.

Not after the second glance. Or the third.

She wanted me. Unthinkable.

She must’ve lost her mind. I tried to convince myself of that, yet I knew she hadn’t either.

Something about me was alluring to her.

And that somehow felt like one of the most pivotal accomplishments of my life. That I somehow wasn’t so inhuman that someone like her could see me.

Thought I was worthy.

I’d carry that around with me, the one last shred of proof that I was human. That’s all I’d take from her. I’d save the memories of her in the garden. With the dirt on her face. Her holding her hair off the nape of her neck, tilting her head upward to the sky, eyes closed, reveling in the sunlight.

Her lips would be stretched out into a lazy smile of contentment. How she could bask in the sunlight in her situation confounded me. She still found simple joys in life even as the walls of it closed in around her.

I knew she was intelligent enough to understand the severity of her situation. Fuck, she’d already almost half-starved herself to death and collapsed in the woods. She’d already seen the deviant she was sharing a space with, yet she somehow held on.

I knew that time was ticking on Stone’s patience. On my restraint. That one way or another, I’d have to place her in the jaws of a shark.

Piper

Something felt different today.

The air was colder, and the sun somehow hotter. Or maybe that was Knox’s gaze, that somehow was no longer icy cold. No longer detached. There was a depth to it, a wildness to it that was tangible.

My instincts were itching, warning me that something was going to happen this evening. What, I couldn’t be sure. And maybe it wasn’t my instincts. More than likely it was my overactive imagination that tended to create completely unrealistic, romantic scenarios that couldn’t possibly come to life.

I kept drawing cards from my deck when Knox wasn’t around, and The Devil returned again and again. Same with The Lovers. It was laughable now, the way the universe was shoving this in my face. Or maybe it was my unconscious wants, my shadow showing me that it would not be ignored.

I couldn’t trust my own mind, that was becoming more and more apparent. Knox made it crystal clear that I couldn’t trust him. The only person I trusted completely was also being held hostage, her under the threat of death.

The bottom was falling out of my life, yet there I was, taking extra time to style my hair and dab on some makeup after showering. As if I were going to have a date with my captor.

My wardrobe did not offer much variety, and I didn’t pack to look sexy. But I’d put on my most favorite pair of jeans, worn and faded, clinging to every inch of me like a glove no matter how many times I washed them.

I put on a simple white tank and a cardigan stitched with tiny wildflowers. With my hair piled at the top of my head, I fiddled with pulling a few strands out here and there, trying to make it look effortless when really I spent five minutes making it seem that way.

I put on a thin amount of concealer, marveling at the freckles across my nose that hadn’t been there before. They made me look younger. My eyes were brighter than they’d ever been as I brushed mascara on my lashes. As I dabbed blush on my cheekbones, I contemplated the woman who looked like a child who had run through the mountains, picking wildflowers with an unscathed heart, a full belly, ignorant to the horrors that awaited her.

Somehow, during my captivity, I’d found that child. And I was welcoming her back.

Was my kidnapping … healing my inner child?

Ridiculous.

But true, nonetheless. And yes, it might’ve been the magic of the mountains, the way the air smelled cleaner here, the sun shone brighter, and the trees stood taller.

But mostly it was the man who was cut out of the environment like an intruder and a native all at once.

It took effort to act normal while walking out of the bathroom. Then again, I never acted ‘normal’ while anywhere in Knox’s line of sight. Every inch of me was coiled, tense, hyperaware in his presence. That was likely why I crashed so hard every night, my body was working overtime in a constant state of survival mode.

I needed to get used to that, I supposed, since it was looking more and more likely that the rest of my life—however long that was going to be—was going to be lived like that.

Knox was leaning against the countertop beside the stove where dinner was simmering.

He wasn’t doing anything, just leaning, one ankle over the over, arms crossed, eyes focused on the doorway I was emerging from. As if he’d been staring at it the entire time I’d been in the bathroom.

I didn’t do what I normally did, which was refuse to look in his direction and pretend to busy myself with sorting dirty clothes, taking them to be washed or hiding behind the cover of a paperback I wasn’t reading.

Instead of doing that, I met his stare. I didn’t know what my expression said. I wasn’t trying to challenge him like I had in the past, wasn’t trying to convey some semblance of strength nor determination. Not even hatred.

Because I didn’t hate him. Not anymore. My feelings for him were like a rose, full of thorns sharp enough to draw blood combined with lovely soft edges.

Maybe that’s what I wore on my expression, all of my discomfort and longing for him. Whatever it was, he picked up on it. I knew that because when he stared at me, he did it like he was trying to study me, learn me so well that he could write a book on how to break me.

He didn’t look away. He didn’t even swallow.

We stayed like that, staring through the air that had become charged at some point.

I spoke first. He certainly wouldn’t have. He seemed as if he would be content to stand there and stare at me for hours.

Which he was.

He did it all day every day.

And it was only then when I truly realized that he wasn’t staring at me like a captor watching a captive. He was watching me like a man living in eternal darkness gazing at his first glimpse of sunshine, unwilling to blink lest it leave.

“What is going to happen to me?” I asked him, my voice so low I wondered if it would even carry across the distance between us.

At first, I didn’t think it did. Knox didn’t move a muscle, nothing to betray he’d heard me.

Clenching my jaw, I waited, even though my first instinct was to fill the silence. Knox had taught me about that, the power in the chasm between conversation, what it meant if you were willing to weather it and wait for someone to tell you what they truly thought after having time to consider.

Knox had taught me a lot of things.

That the world was dangerous, dark and full of miscreants.

That my life was as fragile as that of a butterfly’s wings.

That I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was.

But I wasn’t weak either.

And most importantly, I was infatuated with wicked things. Wicked men.

One in particular.

“You are going to be destroyed,” he answered finally, his voice rough, not calm and controlled like it had been.

I flinched at the animality in his tone. The life in it. The pure heat.

He pushed off the counter, reaching me in a handful of strides. His hand went to the back of my neck, holding me in place.

My breath caught in my throat, my heart in my toes.

I peered up at him, unable to look anywhere but into the inky abyss of his eyes. The famous quote about staring into the abyss said it stared back at you. But this one swallowed me whole.

“You will be destroyed.” It came out softer this time, his thumb stroking my jaw in a gesture so impossibly tender, I hadn’t thought he was capable of it.

He was holding me like I was delicate, precious, like he was scared that one wrong move would shatter me—in direct odds with what he was saying.

“Your fate was sealed the second Stone laid eyes on you,” he continued. “The second he tasked me with breaking you.” I stifled a gasp when he leaned closer. “But you have broken something instead…” He trailed off, swallowing words I was desperate to hear.

Him. That’s what he left unsaid. What my wretched, hopeful, fucked-up heart was hoping he’d say. That I’d broken him .

I ached for him to give me that, to say it out loud.

But he didn’t. Didn’t say anything to further explain just how and when and by whom I was going to be destroyed. He just stood there, holding on to me.

Our lips were inches apart, my heart beating so fast it was about to explode. My skin felt like it was made of wasps, and my thighs were clenched together so hard that there was barely space for the wetness seeping from my pussy to escape.

I was sure that the loud bang I heard was coming from inside my head. But it wasn’t. In the next breath, Knox’s hands were no longer at my neck. Before I could unravel what was happening, I was shoved roughly behind him.

Then there was a loud crack—not as loud as I expected a gunshot to be. Not that I knew it was a gunshot right off the bat. Knox let out a grunt but didn’t move.

My legs turned to cooked noodles as I stood behind his large form.

“Move or I’ll shoot again!” a voice shrieked.

My ears were ringing from my heart pounding, the bang and the gunshot, but that didn’t mean I didn’t recognize the voice.

“ Daisy ?” I choked out.

Blinking rapidly, I tried to peer around Knox, but he wouldn’t move.

“Piper, are you hurt? Maimed? Essentially changed or injured in a way that can never be repaired?” Daisy’s voice was shrill and dramatic, but that wasn’t outside of the ordinary. She had the same tone when she found a spider in the tub.

Though in that scenario, she was too afraid to even smoosh said spider, yet there she was, somehow holding a gun, waving it around and pointing it at Knox.

And she had fired that gun.

Knox was still shielding my body with his. I stared at his back. He was wearing black, as per usual, but I noticed a wetness spreading over his shoulder. My finger tentatively touched it, then I stared at my red finger pad.

“You’re bleeding,” I told Knox. I stared at my sister, standing in this cabin, wearing a light-pink, wraparound cashmere sweater over a unitard and leggings. She looked as if she’d just come from practice. Which would make sense if we were in Manhattan, not hundreds of miles away.

“You shot him,” I informed my sister.

“I’ll shoot that motherfucker again, right in the head if I need to!” she shouted.

I was trying to compute her words, her presence in this facet of my life that had previously been untouched by any markers of true reality. Her being here, whether armed or not, fractured it all, sent my past and present lives hurtling together in a crash that made my brain hurt.

Knox, having been still and silent during our exchange, proved he wasn’t near death as I feared. He proved that by surging forward. Toward my sister. Who was still holding a gun in his direction, who had proven she was far too trigger happy for my liking.

It was by the grace of God—or his rebellious son, was more likely when Knox was involved—that she didn’t fire again. Likely shocked by the rapid advance of the man she’d just shot.

He ripped the gun from her hand, discharging the clip so bullets clattered noisily onto the floor. He flung the empty gun across the room then grabbed my sister by the throat with a casual violence that socked me in the gut. The same hand that had been tenderly caressing me was now assaulting my sister.

“You fired a gun, without any knowledge of how to do it, and it could’ve gone through me and hit your fucking sister ,” he snarled.

I’d never heard such rage leech from every fiber of a being before. Dangerous, murderous rage. Directed at my sister. The control he’d possessed during our time here was now absent, gone, permitting his true, violent nature to show.

I was across the room in seconds.

“Let her go, Knox.” My voice shook as I stared at my sister, her hands clawing at her neck, helpless and dwarfed by the large man holding her.

Knox didn’t comply. “She could’ve shot you.”

“She didn’t shoot me,” I replied, forcing my voice to be softer now that I understood I wasn’t dealing with the calm, calculated killer without a heart. I was dealing with someone else entirely. Someone who seemed to have been triggered into a blind rage at the prospect of me getting shot.

My mind didn’t have any kind of reaction to that because my sister being in danger trumped everything.

Knox, for whatever reason, didn’t hurt me, but clearly, that didn’t mean he’d do the same for the person I cared most about in this world.

“Let my sister go, Knox,” I ordered, my voice shaking.

For a horrible second, as she began to truly gasp for air, her eyes bulging, I thought he wasn’t going to let her go. That he was going to snap her neck in front of me.

Thankfully, he stepped back, and I rushed to catch my sister as she collapsed in my arms, coughing violently.

My eyes found Knox, wishing I could shoot tiny knives into every inch of his skin.

He had been shot, so that was a start.

He didn’t say anything, no apology in his face, no signs of guilt.

This is who he is , I reminded myself. A man who lives with violence every day. Breathes death without coincidence.

And I was about to kiss him?

The universe wasn’t subtle, Daisy bursting in serving as a reminder of just how far gone I was. But not too far gone to come back.

I stroked Daisy’s head until her breathing evened out, and she lifted her gaze to scowl at Knox.

“Are you okay?” she asked after looking at me. There was a slight scratch to her delicate tone that made me want to claw Knox’s face off.

“I’m fine,” I reassured her, still reeling over the fact that she was here. That she had shot Knox, and Knox had, in turn, almost strangled her. This was all after we almost kissed. Yeah, more than a lot to process.

“You’re not fine,” she scoffed, standing on her own feet but not letting go of me. “You’ve been in the presence of this maniac for weeks! He strangles me the second he sees me, so I hate to think what he’s done to you.” Her voice had a hysterical edge with a healthy dose of anger mixed in and directed at Knox.

I was relieved to hear that anger. It meant she was okay.

“You shot me before you even considered your sister being caught in the crossfire,” he said evenly. “Be thankful you’re still breathing.”

My own breath caught at his words.

I pushed them out of my mind. I had to. What good was it to have a maniac care for you if he was willing to injure the one you loved most in some sort of fucked-up vengeful or protective mode?

“You hurt my sister again and I’ll rip you to pieces,” I vowed to Knox, unable to discern the specifics of how I’d carry out such a thing but knowing I’d find a way if I needed to.

Cold and calculating once more, his eyes traveled slowly over my face, presumably measuring me and my words. Then something twitched in his cheek, as if he found me almost … amusing.

Amusing. When I’d just witnessed his brutal violence against Daisy and had very sincerely threatened his life. That made me all the more furious.

“Whatever you say, Petal.”

Petal ? Where the heck did that pet name come from? Completely inappropriate, and it did not make me feel any type of way. It was insane to feel any type of way about a term of endearment muttered by a man who had been strangling my sister less than a minute ago.

Ignore him. That was the most sensible thing to do right then.

“Let’s get you some water,” I told Daisy in a calm voice. Instantly, I transitioned into the caretaker role that had fit me like a glove my entire life when it came to my sister. Though in that moment, it felt uncomfortable, stifling.

“And you sit your ass in that chair.” Addressing Knox, I pointed to the dining room chair. “You were just shot, so I’m going to have to do something about that.” What, I had no idea.

“It’s a flesh wound,” Knox grunted.

“Yes, a bullet. Through your flesh,” I widened my eyes at him. “And it didn’t go through said flesh and hit me, as you so daintily pointed out. Therefore, it is still in there.”

He was watching me intently, no pain seeming to tighten his face. “Then I need a lighter and a knife.”

This was the most Knox had spoken in a single exchange since we got here. And those words included describing my destruction, alluding to his own, threatening my sister, and then declaring he was going to fish a bullet out of his own skin.

“You need to sit your ass in the chair,” I huffed, grabbing a glass for my sister after turning off the bubbling pot of food that smelled amazing. Moroccan stew of some sort, I guessed based on the scent of cloves and curry.

I handed Daisy the water which she seemed to take reflexively, observing me with wide eyes. She was likely just processing. She had probably mentally prepared herself to come in here and find me half-tortured. Which wasn’t untrue, I just wasn’t tortured in the way she expected. I looked exactly the same on the outside, but my insides were all gnarled and confused.

I reached into a cupboard I knew held an extensive first aid kit I’d been surprised to find. It made sense, due to the remoteness of the cabin and the fact that if either one of us got injured, it wasn’t like the proper authorities could be called.

Daisy sipped her water and gazed around the cabin while I took stock of the supplies.

The kit had a scalpel that seemed sharp and hopefully what was needed to fish the bullet out of Knox’s skin. Though I had no idea what one needed to fish out a bullet, and I didn’t have a phone to google such information.

The premise seemed to be to find something sharp then … dig.

My squeamish stomach turned at the thought of it.

“This is … cozy,” Daisy remarked, having looked around. I caught her eye right after she stared at the single bed in the room.

I had no idea which conclusions she was coming to, and I didn’t care. Knox was sitting quietly in the chair, which was an amazing feat in itself. That he obeyed my order and wasn’t speaking, merely watching my sister and I like a predatory cat, could’ve just been typical Knox behavior. Or it could’ve been indicative of blood loss.

Horrified, I looked to see a not small puddle of blood accumulating on the floor underneath the chair, dripping from his wound.

That was when I decided I’d address Daisy and the entire situation after I attempted to save Knox’s life.

The thought struck me like a knife to the heart. Knox. Dying.

Absolutely not.

Had I imagined it in the early days? Maybe.

But logically, that wouldn’t work for us. He might be our only way out of this scenario, if my thoughts about his feelings for me were correct. But then again, if they weren’t, he could be our damnation.

Maybe letting him die was the smarter gamble.

I shook myself out of my trance—fixated on the puddle of blood—to find Knox staring squarely at me, watching, as if knowing I was deciding whether I was going to try to save him or not. Arrogant of me to think I was the one who could control whether he lived or died.

Knox was in charge of that. Beyond even what higher powers might or might not have existed—I wasn’t sold on that, given the direction of my life and general childhood trauma.

I snatched up the supplies, laying them on the table before dousing the scalpel with alcohol and getting some gauze ready.

“Take off your shirt,” I ordered Knox.

His demeanor changed. He stiffened. Clammed up. Not that you could’ve described him as relaxed in any sense of the word, but he was surprisingly calm after being shot. Yet after making my simple request, the tension in the air was thick and stifling.

“No.”

I tilted my head to regard him. “I didn’t take you for someone who worried about modesty.”

My tone was dry, but I was teasing. How quickly my disdain for his violence to my sister waned. It didn’t completely disappear, just bubbled lower, waiting, merging with all of my other complicated feelings about him.

He didn’t respond, not even a lip twitch. He stared at me for two seconds then leaned forward to grab large scissors out of the pack, grunting as he awkwardly maneuvered his body to cut his shirt to expose his skin. Well, his skin was somewhere underneath the blood. And the bullet wound.

“You bleed red,” I observed. “Who would’ve thought? I was sure it would be black and inky like tar.”

I wasn’t joking then, not entirely. But I could’ve sworn the edge of Knox’s lip moved, just a fraction.

Ignoring the small gesture and the fiery response in the cauldron of my resentment, anger and desire toward him, I unpacked a disinfecting wipe from a package, wiping the blood away. Unsurprisingly, it only elicited a barely perceptible wince from Knox as the chemicals ate at his wound.

A dark part of me felt satisfied by the pain I was responsible for, revenge for the anguish he inflicted upon my sister.

I hadn’t previously been one to preach the whole ‘eye for an eye’ thing, but I couldn’t deny it felt a little good.

Pushing past that, I looked at the wound I’d revealed.

I’d assumed it was large, gory, gaping. But it was smaller than I expected. Neater. Leaking quite a bit of blood, though.

I rushed to press the gauze against the wound, forcing my breathing to steady.

“You’re really going to try to treat him?” Daisy scoffed from behind me. She’d been silent longer than I’d expected. If I was honest, I’d almost forgotten she was there, which was unthinkable yet true.

Guilt coated me like oil as I struggled to get myself out of the tangle I’d found myself in with Knox.

“We should leave. Now,” she urged.

I sighed, still pressing the gauze against the wound.

“We’re not leaving,” I told my sister, not looking at her. I wasn’t brave enough.

I could practically feel the pouty look she was directing in my vicinity as well as her desperation to argue. Which was logical. At first glance, the most sensible thing to do was leave the bleeding psychopath alone in a cabin while we made our escape.

Though I’d thought through escape continuously, understanding that it wasn’t that simple and it would likely mean both of our death warrants or a lifetime of looking over our shoulders.

I didn’t have the time or energy to explain the complexities of our situation to her right then.

I expected Daisy to force me to, so she surprised me by sighing before snapping, “Fine.” I heard her stomping around. “I’m going to eat, though. I’m starving.”

This time I did turn to look at her, finding her standing at the stove. I raised my brow at her as she heaped food onto a plate. “You’re going to eat across from the bleeding man you just shot while I try to extract the bullet from his flesh?” I clarified.

She shrugged. “I eat my dinner watching The Walking Dead .”

“That is not the same,” I muttered, but it was not the time to argue that.

My attention returned to Knox. He was lucidly watching me, eyes pinned to my body. I swallowed heavily at his gaze, realizing how close I was to him. The last time we were this close was minutes ago, when we were about to kiss. When he looked as if he was going to devour me whole. He still looked like that.

I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. Not to stare deeply into his eyes, not to examine complicated and thorny feelings, and definitely not to think about what might’ve happened had my sister not burst in and shot him.

“I’m going to dig the bullet out of your shoulder now,” I told him, forcing confidence into my tone.

“This your first time?” he asked, and I swore it sounded like he was teasing. He couldn’t possibly be. The range of emotions he’d displayed in such a short period of time was dizzying.

“This is a regular Saturday night for me,” I quipped. I had no idea if it was a Saturday night. I hadn’t been keeping track of the days, just the phases of the moon. “Your first time?”

He waited a long handful of seconds before replying. “In this particular scenario, yes.”

I pursed my lips at the admission. “Don’t worry, I’ll go slow.”

Silence passed between us. Somehow impossibly erotic to the point of making heat creep up my neck. In the presence of my sister . And with Knox bleeding to death.

What was happening to me?

Yet I couldn’t let go of Knox’s stare, couldn’t deny that the moment was electrified by something I couldn’t put my finger on. Once again, the foundation of what our dynamic was shifted underneath me, becoming more and more unstable. One wrong step and I could go tumbling into the darkness, never to be seen again.

I took a shaky breath, grasped the scalpel then readied myself to dig into Knox’s skin. As if he wasn’t living underneath mine already.