Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The first thing I do when he’s gone is feed Pearl two strips of bacon off the plate still on the table. Part of me, the part raised by a mother with severe household guest etiquette, wants to pick up the plates and do the dishes, since I got fed and didn’t have to do any of the work.
If my mother were here, it’s definitely what she’d be doing; I have no doubt about that. My fingers itch to do the polite thing until I tear myself away from the table and the offending dishes left there by both Fox and me.
“It’s not your job, Sadie,” I whisper to myself. “Not your fucking job. Don’t be stupid.”
Briefly, I consider doing another tour of the house, as if anything has changed and there’s suddenly a portal to my escape leading somewhere other than the backyard.
But a quick look at the front door reminds me that isn’t the case, never will be the case, and that Fox is way too meticulous to just forget leaving something unlocked, a car running, and directions to town.
“Fuck,” I groan at last, heading through the kitchen. My movements are a little absent as I wander, and even though I feel like there has to be a knife somewhere after breakfast, there are none. Just the spoons and forks on the table and a basket of bread on the counter.
Did Fox or Deacon make these?
I swear there’s still steam rising from the rolls, and I eye them as if they might contain arsenic. With bread being my weakness, it does sort of feel like a very targeted trap.
One that could absolutely work on me, if I’m being quite honest.
A door opening outside makes me jump, and I jerk back from the counter like a kid about to steal from the cookie jar. Pearl doesn’t react, except to head to the back hallway once again. Her whining doesn’t move me from the spot, but when she starts scratching at the door, I wince.
“Don’t do that,” I hiss, immediately making my way over to her. “We’re going to get murdered if you fuck up the door, Pearl.” Well, she might not get murdered. The two men seem to have a soft spot for her, so maybe they’ll keep her around and feed her at the very least.
When she paws at the door again, I physically drag her away from it, wishing she had some kind of collar.
The thought doesn’t hit me until afterward that it might be a bad idea to just grab a man-killing dog like this, but if it is, she doesn’t punish me for it.
In fact, Pearl turns to lick my face, reassuring me that everything is fine.
I’m sure if she could talk, I’d be hearing all about how I’m the unreasonable one.
Movement outside makes me freeze, and I inch to the side of the door when I see Deacon striding across the yard, a black, shiny garbage bag over one shoulder. In the heat of the Texas sun, Deacon is shirtless, wearing only a pair of jeans slung low on his hips.
Fuck. I really need to do better about not staring at my kidnapper’s body. Especially when it brings back memories of last night that make my face burn with embarrassment. There’s no excuse in the world for why the hell I stood there watching them. None at fucking all.
As I watch, Deacon keeps walking, finally getting to the back gate of the multiple-acre yard.
Like everything else on this goddamn property, there’s a big lock on it, and he has to fish around in his pocket to grab a key for the padlock.
While he does, I study the gate, and the fence, wondering how hard it would be to find something to help me clamber over before toppling to the other side.
A broken ankle might not be so bad if I could just get out of here.
There are a lot of cameras on our property, Sadie-Rae.
Fox’s words ring in my head, making me shudder against the door. “Maybe he’s bluffing,” I whisper to Pearl, even though I don’t believe that whatsoever.
The gate rattles shut behind Deacon and I take that moment to open the door, though I’m unsure what I’m doing or where I’m going.
“Pearl, wait—” The dog absolutely does not wait.
She shoulders past me, not minding the inconvenience of me just standing in her way, before putting her nose to the ground outside to sniff around the overgrown garden close to the house.
But I don’t move. Not at first. I hold my breath with my eyes on the back gate, horrified that it’ll pop back open and Deacon will see me here. Not that it had been against Fox’s rules, I remind myself. I’m just not supposed to go into the workshop, or try to escape, or break anything.
The backyard doesn’t count for any of that.
“I would really like my shoes back one day,” I murmur to Pearl, walking up to the garden and kneeling down beside her. I try to stay focused on whatever she’s hunting for, but it only lasts for a few minutes.
One minute, if I’m being honest with myself. Maybe more like thirty seconds. But I can’t help it. I’m too fidgety, too itchy, too goddamn restless with my desire to escape to sit here and watch my dog dig in the garden. I want to get out. Or to find something to help me, at the very least.
Don’t go into the workshop, he said.
But if I can get in and get out of there, then surely no one will know. All I need is a weapon. Just one weapon that’s better than a fork and maybe a touch more subtle than Sally had been. A really large machete would be great, actually.
Carefully, and so fucking quietly, I make my way across the backyard.
While I want to creep slowly to listen after every step, I know my time is limited with Deacon being outside.
A big part of me hopes Pearl will let me know when he’s coming back, but I can’t rely on her now that she’s decided he’s worth not ripping to shreds and eating.
“You are an awful judge of character,” I whisper to her when she comes trotting away from the garden, with muddy paws and nose.
She doesn’t really care about my feelings, though, since she just finds a new place to sniff.
This time, it’s close enough to the workshop that I can at least pretend she’s my guard dog, though I stop at the closed wooden door hanging a bit unsteadily on its hinges, my palms pressed against it.
Last time I was in here, I’d been faced with Ariana’s corpse. That was only two days ago, but I mollify my fears knowing that she can’t still be there. That’s impossible, for one. And more importantly, unsanitary.
“Just a look,” I whisper to myself, my face pressed to the warped, rough wood. Out of all the buildings out here, it’s somehow foreboding and the one in need of the most repair. Everything else is clean and fixed up, even if it isn’t new. It all seems well taken care of. But this workshop?
Just like the bedroom upstairs, it’s like a shrine to a forgotten god who hasn’t visited in a while. At least on the outside.
“Fuck it.” I don’t have time to keep waiting around. Wherever Deacon has gone, there’s a good chance he’ll be back sooner rather than later.
Once again, the smell hits me the moment I push open the door, and I briefly wonder how the hell I hadn’t noticed it outside. It’s like a physical blow to my nose, and far worse than anything I smelled in here last time.
“Oh, fuck,” I gasp, my hands leaving the door to clap against my face, covering both my mouth and nose.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck—” Bile tries to climb up my throat like ivy, and saliva floods my mouth with the urge to vomit.
The odor of rust, or iron, or something else metallic overwhelms me, though when I gasp in air through my mouth, it turns chemical and sharp, like bleach.
Below that, there’s a sickeningly sweet note, one that has my stomach roiling and the hairs on my arms standing up.
The table that held Ariana’s body isn’t empty, though at first my brain tries to tell me that everything is okay when I don’t see her face in the mess of…of meat on the table, half of it butchered into smaller, manageable pieces.
It’s just a cow, my mind promises me, begging me to look away. This is a farm. They butcher their own meat.
But it isn’t a cow. I know it isn’t a cow, and my legs take me unwillingly across the concrete floor that feels grimy underneath my bare feet.
There’s a drain in the middle of the space I nearly trip over, and when I stumble up to the table, I can no longer let myself believe that the table is holding a cow or pig or hell, even chickens.
Not when a pudgy, thick-fingered hand lies severed, its fingers facing upwards toward the roof.
I don’t throw up, though it’s a very close call. My entire body seems to go hot, then cold, and the world swims around me. All I can do is stare at it, with my hands over my face, as my brain unhelpfully catalogues the rest of the recognizable pieces on the table.
A leg.
A ribcage.
An arm.
Organs.
Organs lay in a pile on one side, dripping blood onto the concrete floor.
The smell seems to emanate from them, somehow worsening as I just look at the pile.
While I took anatomy classes in college, none of that seems to matter right now.
My mind can’t see the pieces as anything other than meat, no matter how I unconsciously try to catalogue the bits of the pile.
Something in me says they must’ve come from more than one person, and I shudder at the thought.
“And here we are again.” Deacon’s voice drawls through the room, echoing off the walls.
When I look over at him, he’s pulling an apron off a hook on the wall and tying it around himself with the air of someone who does this a lot.
His blue eyes find mine, casual and calculating, though he quirks a brow when I gaze at him in horror.
“I know Fox told you to stay out of here. But here you are. You really just can’t help yourself, can you, little—”
“Why?” I gasp, my hands only slightly coming away from my face. It horrifies me that he can stand here without looking bothered or putting a hand over his face to mask the smell. “Why did you do this?”