Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Unfortunately for my future bloodline, I don’t have much common sense.
The little I do have lasts maybe twenty minutes, right up until I hear Fox’s truck start, and then fade away down what I assume is a very long driveway.
No matter how I try to look out the window, I haven’t seen a road from where I am.
Just fields, barns, pastures, and maybe a house in the distance if I squint.
I stay standing near the window, bare feet soaking up the warmth of the wood as I look as hard as I can to see if there’s anything that might help me. The window’s not locked, even after my prior escape attempt, and something about that feels insulting. Taunting, even.
Do they expect me to just stay like a well-trained dog?
Or, worse, are they expecting me to try to escape again?
I can’t help wondering if this is a trap or a test. Are there hidden tripwires outside the window and in the hallway, just waiting to cut me in half or set off literal alarm bells to ring through the house and alert everyone inside?
The thought has my chest constricting and my heart racing, but I force myself to take a breath and hold it long enough for my lungs to ache in protest.
Worrying will not save me. In fact, getting the fuck out of here is quite literally the only thing that might keep me alive.
But even then I’ll have to traverse the rural Texas countryside until I can find help.
With no idea how far we are from town, or in what direction, I could end up wandering for a while.
The thought doesn’t exactly make me want to skip out the door and down the hallway, but it doesn’t make me shrink and cower under the bed, either. Whatever I need to do, I’ll do. Even if I have to find a new emotional support chainsaw to make sure I can go get out alive.
RIP Sally. I sigh again internally, mentally burying my favorite inanimate object to ever exist. But there’s no use crying over a trashed chainsaw, I guess, so I walk to the door with a stride that feels purposeful, even though it’s a lie, and open the door without too much hesitation.
Nothing happens when I step out into the hallway.
No one screams and jumps out at me. No attack dogs sound the alarm.
There’s no tripwire or bear trap ready to cut off my head or my foot, though when I pad down the hallway and back to the bathroom where I showered, my heart sinks when I’m met with the glaring absence of my shoes.
Fantastic.
But not much of an inconvenience. Having been a child who preferred to be barefoot and feral over shod and polite, I’m no stranger to rough floors and untamed landscaping.
Whenever I could get away with it as a child, I either left my shoes beside the door or ‘lost’ them in a nearby creek, much to my parents’ chagrin.
At one point, my mother threatened to duct tape them on, telling me I’d never get to wiggle my toes in freedom again if I kept losing my new shoes on purpose.
Back then, the threat made me cry and promise never to do it again, even though I had my fingers crossed behind my back and my mom never made good on the threat.
Now, it’s a small comfort to my nervous brain, and it brings a thin smile to my lips as I carefully and quietly tiptoe down the staircase.
For the first time, I have an uninhibited view of the house, and time to soak it all in, given I’m moving slowly hoping not to alert anyone or run into either of the men if they’re still here.
Most of the walls on the first floor are painted a cheerful blue, with a wallpaper border across the top displaying faded farmhouses of different colors.
It’s not something my parents would’ve ever picked out, but there’s nothing wrong with it.
Unfortunately for me, the big front door at the bottom of the stairs is locked from the inside.
A line of four different locks and latches marches down the doorframe, staring at me like cold, unfeeling soldiers keeping me from my freedom.
This is the way I need to go, but it’s clearly not going to happen for me.
Still, I think to myself as I turn and head into the next closest room, first I need to get out.
I can find the road second once I’m free.
The dining room, with its huge bay window and large wooden table, looks like it was meant for big family dinners. Now there are only four chairs, two on either side of the rectangular surface, but there must have been more at some point.
It’s almost sad, I think to myself as I run my hand over the lace table runner. It’s like there was once a large family here, and now it’s dwindled to almost nothing.
My brother Jed left a few years ago—he was her favorite.
Fox’s words echo in my head, and I wonder how long ago he left, and how long after that his mother died. I won’t let myself feel sorry for them, though knowing those things brings up quite a few questions I’ll probably never have answered.
From the cheery, breezy dining room, I find my way to the kitchen.
The white and black tile looks like something from the sixties, and the linoleum has definitely seen better days.
Still, the room is clean. Surprisingly tidy.
With a butcher block style island in the middle holding a cutting board, oven mitts, and little else.
My stomach twists, reminding me it’s been at least a day and a half since I’ve eaten, and I’m so tempted to go to the fridge and raid it, I’m embarrassed of myself.
Somehow I even ignore the bowl of apples on the counter, though it’s a close call as my mouth waters and I dream of what they’d taste like.
“They’re probably poisoned,” I whisper to myself as I walk by them, my eyes on the door beside the fridge.
Carefully and quietly, I push it open; the wood is heavy and the brass knob is cold in my hand.
It rattles a little, like it needs to be tightened, but I’m able to push it open enough to slip out onto the same back porch where I was before.
Well, it’s not exactly what I wanted. If I had my way, I’d be out front, running down the driveway and heading for the road. Instead, I close the door carefully behind me and edge out onto the back porch again with the yard lit up by the dying sun still peeking over the trees.
Murmuring meets my ears before I see anything, but only a second later I stop as movement draws my attention from the side of the house I avoided earlier. Quickly I duck behind a pillar, keeping myself completely still on the back porch and in the shadows so I won’t be seen.
Deacon’s voice is soft and patient, and definitely not the one I’ve heard used toward me. Finally getting the nerve to move, I bend just enough to see him from my hiding spot, and for a few seconds, all I can do is stare and try to figure out why he’s on the ground.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothes, his voice as kind as if he’s talking to a lost child. “You’re okay, I promise—”
A yelp cuts him off, and my stomach twists when I see Pearl in front of him jerking back, though she can’t go far since he has a hold of her tether.
Then she lunges in to bite him, but the setting sun’s light bounces off the shiny leather of the basket muzzle she’s wearing.
My mouth opens to yell, and I look around me for a weapon, for anything to help me save my dog, only to hear another sound, a whine, that makes me look at them again.
She isn’t trying to end his life, though the Rottweiler mix certainly doesn’t seem thrilled about the situation. Her ears are low, her docked tail not wagging, and she crowds in to make herself smaller with little, jerky movements that make my heart hurt.
“I know you’re hurting,” Deacon tells her.
“I know that asshole kicked you. But you have to let me bandage this up, girl.” There’s genuine kindness in his voice, the type that makes me want to let my guard down and creep out to cry on his shoulder after everything I’ve been dealing with.
But this is Deacon Shaw, who taunted me over my friend’s corpse and carried me to a fucking dog kennel.
I doubt there’s any kindness and understanding there to find.
Still, he’s between me and my dog, and I don’t have a weapon. If I’m going to get her untied and muzzle-free, then I need—
“Instead of standing there like a fucking weirdo, why don’t you come hold your dog, Sadie-Rae.
” His dry voice carries across the side yard, causing me to flinch in fear and surprise.
There’s no way he should know I’m here. I’ve been quiet, barely breathing, and I haven’t really moved in minutes.
Not since I came outside and heard his voice.
But Deacon sighs loudly and lifts a hand, though he doesn’t look at me. “You said she meant a lot to you,” he says impatiently. “And last I heard, she basically saved your life in that auto shop. Did you even stop to check if she was okay? Did you even really look at her?”
It’s the pang of guilt in my chest that has me pushing off the porch pillar and treading down the stairs to the soft, springy grass of the yard. I barely notice any of the rocks I step on, though one makes me jerk sideways with a small hiss before I get within reach of Deacon and Pearl.
My dog looks up at me and her stub of a tail wags, her eyes brightening as she pants in the muzzle, seemingly no longer worried about whatever Deacon’s been trying to do.
“I thought Fox said she was okay. That’s why you moved her out here,” I say quietly, unsure and wondering if I should try to knock him out and run.
But when I look at Pearl, I see bandages half-wrapped around her front right leg, stretching from her shoulder to her elbow.
They look chewed on and wet, and underneath I can just see the edges of a wound I didn’t know existed.
Guilt stabs into me again, and I find myself kneeling in the grass near Deacon, my arms out for Pearl as she turns to crash into me happily.