Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The night is sticky, and my sweat seems to sit on my skin instead of evaporating as I stare at the old, dilapidated sawmill that looks like something out of a horror movie. My hands flex at my sides, and my hair, finally up in a ponytail, feels heavy with gathered sweat as well.
I tell myself it’s from the heat, not fear.
Hell, I almost believe it, too. Maybe I would, except for the feeling of stones sitting heavy in my stomach, and the whispers in my ears of all the things that could go very, very wrong here.
I could die well before Deacon and Fox show up. I know they’re around, somewhere, though their part of the plan doesn’t really start until the Hills’ attention is on me instead of looking for them.
The gravel crunches under my feet, and so many voices are screaming inside my head that this is one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made in my life. I’ve escaped these men multiple times now. I’ve escaped death more times than I have any right to.
But here I am, waltzing in like I want to get chopped up into mincemeat and sold to the highest bidder. Somehow, my resolve wins out over my fear, though it’s a very close thing. So much of me wants to bolt, and I know that Fox and Deacon wouldn’t hold it against me.
Selfishly, though?
I need answers to the questions that have been itching inside my skull like buzzing flies for the last week. I need to ask them so many things before they’re dead, and I know this is my only opportunity to do so.
“Please be careful, Pearl,” I whisper to my dog, reaching out to touch her head. I’m terrified they’ll kill her, but then again, I’m also terrified they’ll kill me. So really, neither of us is particularly safe tonight.
The song of frogs and crickets fills my ears like an orchestra, and I get closer to the old, dilapidated sawmill building before switching on my phone light to give myself some kind of visibility here.
My steps sound too loud on the gravel, but I remind myself that I’m trying to get noticed, even though I’m not trying to act like it.
The wooden building has definitely seen better days, and none of the rusted, broken-down machinery littering the property around the wooden structure looks like it’s worked in decades.
A few large, discarded logs lay scattered around the useless hunks of metal and bolts, along with one large pyramid of logs, stacked on their sides and at least ten feet tall.
I look at all of it, taking my time to study the machinery that I could never have a use for. I would run my hand over some of the more interesting-looking parts, but tetanus seems like a real concern here and I can’t remember when my last booster was.
If I’m going to die, it’s going to be to something more impressive than lockjaw.
Pearl pauses and looks up at me, then away, as a low growl builds in her throat, though it’s one of confusion rather than outright aggression. The hair on my arms stands up, and I clutch my phone more tightly in my hand while convincing myself yet again not to run away.
It’s sort of too late anyway, I think ruefully. Especially when I can hear footsteps approaching on the gravel, no matter how quiet they’re trying to be.
I volunteered for this, I remind myself.
Fox talked me through everything. He said both of them would be here; the guys just needed the distraction so the Hills’ attention would be pulled so they could get close.
He said he knew the Hills well enough to know that they wouldn’t just walk up and shoot me.
Especially after all this, he said, they’d want to take their time.
That sends a shudder through me, and as subtly as I can, I send a quick emoji to Fox, the screen barely lit and the phone itself on silent.
I prepared it before this, so all I needed to do in this moment was hit the send button, and both Shaw brothers would know that at least one person had shown up, their attention on me.
What if it doesn’t go through?
What if they get caught?
What if something happens?
What if they leave instead?
That last thought hurts, and I recoil from it. I tell myself that there’s no reason for me to think that. I remind myself of the look in their eyes when they talked about me staying, when they told me they’d protect me, was fucking real.
I tell myself that even if it isn’t, I don’t have anyone else.
“Hello?” I ask finally, feigning surprise as I turn around with my phone light arcing through the machinery. “I-is someone here?” Barely having to fake the fear. I’m terrified enough of this situation already.
A man ambles out from behind one of the larger pieces of machinery, and in the dark I can see his beady, watery eyes fixed on me. I don’t recognize his face, though I barely got a look at them that night. He licks his lips, and it sends a shudder down my spine that I barely conceal.
“Whatcha doin’ here, little meat?” he drawls, his words and his voice making me want to vomit or bash him over the face with something.
“I thought you were tucked up safe in the Shaws’ house.
” He speaks unhurriedly. Unbothered, as if he has all the time in the world for this conversation.
Hell, he even leans against a log, his arms folded over his chest.
A flicking noise from behind me makes me jump, and I whirl around just as Pearl growls in warning to see another man, this one with grease stains all over his pants, lighting a cigarette. He’s watching me as well, his eyes never leaving me, even with Pearl acting as a significant threat at my side.
“I escaped,” I whisper. “Please, I-I’m just trying to get home. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with them.” Spitting the word like I’m actually afraid of them, instead of the two men in front of me. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
God, I hope I’m not laying it on too thick. Though with how terrified I am, none of this is really an act. My fingers ache, knuckles tight around my phone, and I move to adjust my grip, to give myself some relief before I break a bone.
“Don’t matter what you done,” the brother behind me remarks. “Just matters what ya are. You done a nasty thing to our brothers, ya know?”
“Brothers?” I repeat, like I have no idea that they’re family.
“I don’t…Do you mean the man in the basement?
And the one who attacked me in the theater?
I didn’t have a choice! Really, I didn’t know—” The man in front of me suddenly walks forward, and I push Pearl back before she can attack him.
I need this time, though I’m sure Deacon would be pulling his hair out to know that I intend to let this man grab me.
Which he does, his fingers clenched around my upper arm, grimy and clammy against my skin. I gasp, jerking back from him, but he doesn’t let me go. Instead, his smile becomes cruel, and he sneers at my discomfort.
“Stupid little bitch,” he remarks. “Coming here like this? You were safer with those fucked-up brothers.”
“You killed my friends,” I breathe, impatient and wanting to jump to the heart of the matter before I die or Deacon and Fox show up. “Y-you killed them. We didn’t do anything to you, and you killed them.”
The man behind me snorts and takes a long inhale of his cigarette. At my side, Pearl is snarling, clearly displeased with me being grabbed. But I keep a hold of her collar, needing this to happen in a way that lets me get answers, instead of the way we talked about it going.
By now, I’m supposed to be running. And preferably, one of them should be dead and half-eaten by my dog. It was never part of the plan to let this man get close enough for me to smell the stink of his breath when he wheezes a chuckle.
“Didn’t need to do nothin’ to us, stupid bitch,” he insults, yanking me forward and off balance.
He turns and shoves me against the logs, and I can tell that he enjoys my gasp of pained surprise.
Thankfully, Pearl still doesn’t attack, and I wonder if they know just what she did for me before.
That all it’ll take is her deciding she’s had enough before she tears their throats out.
“You’re all just meat. Just product to be sold.
Your little friend was gonna get us a nice price,” he goes on.
“God, Harrison is one fucked-up bastard, but he pays well. You know what you cost me? I already put in all the work on her. I had Jim here video it. She screamed and cried and begged. Not that you knew,” he adds cruelly.
“You were still takin’ your little nap. But oh, your friend cried.
She told me she’d do anything. Promised she’d be good, that she wouldn’t tell anyone.
I thought that was real funny.” His smile grows, making my stomach churn.
“Gave me the idea to cut out her tongue. I don’t get to do that much. God, she screamed and screamed. Thought she’d choke on her own blood, but—”
“Stop.” I can’t listen to this. With my back pressed to the logs, my entire world has narrowed down to the pinprick of him standing in front of me. “Stop it. Don’t talk about her like that. She didn’t do anything to you, she didn’t deserve—”
Without warning, he hits me. His slap is hard enough that I taste blood, and it takes everything in me to lunge for Pearl so she doesn’t rip him apart right there. My fingers curl in the collar Deacon found for her, but I can practically feel her anger in the way her muscles are tight and ready.
“You ain’t listenin’,” he says. “Don’t those ears work?” he spits on the ground between us. “Stupid bitch. That’s all you’re good for, you know? A bit of entertainment before we get our money from you. All of y’all are the same.”
His words make my lip curl in disgust, and my nose scrunches at his clear disdain for women, or just people not related to him, maybe.
“You’re monsters,” I can’t help murmuring, and I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything in my life. “You’re awful, terrible people. Who does this to other people and thinks it’s okay?”
The man suddenly barks out a laugh, and his brother, who’s on his second cigarette now as he eagerly watches his brother like he’s getting off on it, snickers.
“You think we’re bad? Your sheriff and his bastard brother are almost worse.
At least we don’t pretend we’re something we ain’t.
At least we don’t pretend to be good.” The way he sneers the word shows me his disdain for them, and I shake my head slowly.
“They’re not like you,” I murmur. “They may be monsters, but they aren’t like you.”
A sound in the woods makes them look up, and a scream echoes through the surrounding forest, followed by another. It isn’t Fox, and it isn’t Deacon.
But if I’m going to guess, I’d say it’s their other brother.
“Then again…” my words draw the man’s attention back to me, his eyes narrowing. “I suppose there’s a pretty obvious difference, huh?”
“Difference?” he asks, not quite following. “Between us and them?” He gestures at his brother, nodding his head toward the woods, and the smaller, slighter man slinks away after grinding his cigarette out under his boot.
“They may be monsters too, but their family tree has branches. Though judging by your face?” My smile turns sweet, and I know I’m going to regret these words if I’m not fast enough.
“No one ever told your parents they shouldn’t fuck their cousins just because no one else wanted them.”
His face contorts, first with shock, then with rage, but I’m ready for it when he lunges. I turn and take off, my strides long, arms pumping, as I run for the building that’s shrouded in darkness and half fallen down.