31. Chapter 31
I can’t just stand here and stare at him after that. So I settle on telling him that I need to walk. I don’t bother asking, because asking would give him something to deny.
He doesn’t break eye contact with the pages in his hand and nods me off. “Don’t go far.”
As if I could.
The moment I’m outside and off the porch, the forest air hits me clean and sharp. The trees swallowing me whole as I navigate deeper, ground crunching beneath the boots I had hastily yanked on, on my way out the door.
The sound is too loud in the quiet, and my thoughts sprint ahead of my body like they’re trying to outrun something feral snapping at my heels.
My face is on the news, Imogen’s crying on TV, and meanwhile I’m getting freaky with my kidnapper in the woods. I’ve officially become a basket-case.
I groan into the silence around me, ignoring the branches as they scrape at my arms or the cold air that bites at my lungs. The silver of my bracelet flashes at my wrist, a reminder of the night that has become the axis for everything else.
So, instead of letting my mind wonder back to Imogen and the news again, I do something far more self-deprecating. I turn my thoughts inward to myself.
I shouldn’t want Alexander.
I should be planning my escape right now. Screaming and plotting while his guard is down and he doesn’t expect me to do something. Instead, my mind keeps circling back to the same sick truth…
I don’t want him to be done with me.
The realization disgusts me.
Cursing, I kick a rock near my foot hard enough pain blooms up my shin, grounding me to the reality I’ve found myself in. Even if it doesn’t feel real.
“Get it together,” I mutter to myself and really no one at all. Unless the trees start to talk back, and that’s a whole other problem.
I’m still mentally hyping myself up about an escape plan I may or may not ever enact when I find something particularly interesting.
Half-buried near the edge of the path, rusted but solid, rests a crowbar.
I stop, pursing my lips as I stare at it like it might just sprout a mouth and tell me what’s spiraling through my mind next is a bad idea. A horrible idea, but an idea none-the-less.
Bending low, I yank away the vines trying to lay claim to it and take custody of it myself. It’s heavier than I expect, but solid and well balanced. Familiar in the way tools are when you’ve had to learn how to defend yourself young. My grip adjusts automatically, muscle memory kicking in.
And I think of Imogen.
Of her face on the news segment and how she might be pacing her apartment or shop right now worried sick. No doubt asking herself if I’m alive or already buried somewhere cold and anonymous. I also think of how Alexander just manipulated me to get away from me pushing him on our new favorite topic.
My jaw locks and I turn right back around, following the way I came.
The cabin comes into view through the trees, the supposedly warm structure dark against the gray sky. Smoke curls from the chimney, like nothing in the world has gone wrong. As if it’s not hosting a psychopath and his kidnapped—I don’t even know what to call myself.
My pulse finds its rhythm in my chest and ears, but I don’t slow down or allow myself time to hesitate on my approach. The door creaks when I shove it open, and he’s there, but not exactly where I left him.
Now he stands near the table, his sleeves rolled up, and watching me like he felt the shift before I ever crossed the threshold.
His eyes drop to the crowbar before slowly crawling back up. Never leaving me as I carefully cross the space between us. Something sharpens in his expression. It’s not fear, but interest.
I swing.
Not wild or even sloppy, but clean and controlled. The crowbar whistles through the air with every inch of strength that I can muster. He moves at the last possible second and the metal slams into the wall where his head had been with a crack that rattles my teeth.
“Sadie,” he breathes carefully.
“Shut up,” I snarl and swing again.
He blocks it with his forearm and I wince at the impact.
Even if I hear nothing break, I know it will leave one hell of a bruise.
His eyes darken, but I pull back and head for another round.
It’s clear only one of us may leave this cabin, and I’m going to be the one who does.
Even if it breaks me a little bit to be.
He grabs the crowbar mid-swing this time and wrenches it sideways, momentum dragging me forward and into him. I don’t let go, but dig my heels into the floor and yank back. Teeth bared like some kind of rabid animal.
“I should cripple you,” I spit.
He smirks, “you won’t.”
Oh?
I surge forward, closing the distance and smashing the end of the crowbar into his ribs. He grunts this time—a real sound—and that satisfaction hits me far hotter than his fingers had just earlier.
“Don’t tell me what I won’t do.”
He catches the bar again, closer this time, hands overlapping mine. His grip is iron and familiar in the worst way as he yanks me into him. Our faces inches apart, breaths colliding.
“You’re not aiming to kill.” He annoyingly points out.
“And?” I challenge.
“And that tells me exactly where you are.”
He twists the crowbar out of my hands in one smooth motion and tosses it aside. I flinch as it clatters uselessly to the floor and decide to go at him bare-handed.
He catches my wrist mid-lunge and slams me back against the wall, body pinning mine with terrifying ease. The impact knocks the air from my lungs and simultaneously lights me up everywhere he touches.
Fuck.
My knee drives up between us on instinct, but he blocks it with his thigh and the contact sends a sharp pulse straight through my core. A hard reminder of what he had done before I decided to go crowbar-killer on him.
“I should have hit you harder.”
“You hit exactly as hard as you needed to,” He muses.
I switch tactics and try shoving at his chest, weaker now and a whole lot of breathless. “I don’t want this.”
“You do,” he murmurs in amusement, and it’s worse because he isn’t wrong. “You’re shaking because you do.”
I swallow and his thumb brushes over my wrist, right over the bracelet that bares his charm. It clicks faintly against the chain and his mouth curls.
“Let’s both agree that you came inside not to escape, but to confront. Very different things.”
“To hurt you,” I clarify.
“Same thing, but it wasn’t to end this.” He grins.
My head tips back against the wall, needing just a few inches to breathe. A few inches to get my head back on straight because now all I have is this gaping play by play of earlier.
“Move,” I whisper, barely audible.
He doesn’t, of course. Instead, he leans in just enough that his breath ghosts my cheek, his voice low.
“Why don’t we pick up where we left off against this exact wall just a little while ago?” He murmurs.
“Fuck you,” I snarl.
“Gladly.”
He slams into me.