CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AS SOON AS they throw me into a room and close the door, I spin around and start to bang on it viciously. I’m about to start screaming too. Though I don’t know what that would accomplish, I’d like to create as much ruckus as possible. But then a timid voice stops me.
“Wh-who’s there?”
My eyes go wide and I spin around. There’s a girl sitting in a corner, on one of the couches of this surprisingly comfortable-looking room, maybe a suite from the size of it.
Several years older than me, she has dark hair, long and up in a ponytail, and she’s wearing simple yoga pants.
She’s hugging her knees tightly as a thick frown furrows her brow.
She’s so beautiful, with her fair skin and plush lips, she makes my heart clench.
Her most striking feature is her green eyes, though, that she’s got aimed at the door, seeing but not.
She looks exactly like her brother. Lakelyn.
“Who’s… who’s there?” she repeats when all I can do is stare at her dumbfounded.
“Hi,” I say stupidly, and she jumps. I thrust my hands out as if she can see me and say, “You’re… you’re Lakelyn, right?”
She grows even more alarmed.
But I keep going, walking farther into the unfamiliar room. “Lynnie? That’s what you’re called?”
“How do you…”
If anything, I’m scaring her even more so I change tactics. “I’m… I’m Radisson’s friend.”
Her eyes go big. “Rad?”
My heart sings at the familiar nickname, but I tamp it down. “Yes. Yes, I’m… his friend. He told me about you, okay? I’m just… I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m so glad you’re—”
My words are cut off by a wheezing sound, and I clench my eyes shut in distress.
My unease is mirrored in Lynnie’s voice, her eyes skittering around. “What… what was that?”
Damn it. Damn it.
“Is there s-someone else here?” she continues, her voice panicky.
And I open my eyes because it’s time to take back control.
Inhaling sharply, I begin, “Listen, I have to tell you something, okay?” I ignore Lynnie’s frightened eyes as she tries to push herself back into the couch and keep going.
“You’re safe with me. You’re completely and absolutely safe with me.
I know you don’t know me, and I know after everything that’s happened to you these past few weeks it may be hard for you to trust me, but I’m telling the truth.
You’re absolutely safe, okay? Please believe me.
That’s the first thing. And the second thing is”—another breath—“I love him. I love your brother. I’m in love with him, and…
and I came here because he’s looking for you.
Out there. He’s so worried about you. Everyone is, your entire family. And I wanted to… to help him.”
She’s breathing hard, her beautiful eyes bouncing back and forth between me, or rather in the general direction of me, and where that wheezing sound came from. Then, “I don’t… understand. How would you…”
This is the hard part, but I say it anyway. “You were taken because of me. They took you because they wanted me. They wanted your brother”—I take in a shaky breath—“to bring me to them.”
My words are met with silence for a long moment before she asks, her breaths easing slightly, “Why do they want you?”
“For the land,” I say, my voice resigned.
She licks her lips and keeps going, “But… I still don’t understand. Who are you? What land? Why involve my brother in this? It doesn’t… it doesn’t make sense. He’s not… He’s a good person. He’s…”
I clench my eyes shut again. I can’t tell if it’s from anger at what I finally know or devastation.
That these people used my Radisson’s pain to get what they wanted.
They used his grief to play a game for their own gain.
They used him. My father wasn’t happy just killing his family and destroying every chance of happiness; he also wanted to milk it to get the land of his dreams.
Opening my eyes, I wipe the tears that have fallen down my cheeks and say the hardest part of all of this: “Because my name is Peyton Turner. And I’m Hank Turner’s daughter.
” Before Lynnie can say anything else, I at last give her the whole picture.
“And he’s here, my father. In the room. With us.
” Lynnie’s eyes pop wider than before and her breathing goes back to being choppy, but I continue, “You have to know he can’t do anything to you. I won’t let him, and he’s in a—”
“He killed my parents,” she practically screams. “He—”
“I know, but—”
“And he said he was going to kill my brother.”
That gives me pause. “What?”
Instead of answering me, though, she closes her eyes, her chest going up and down violently.
My father is looking at her with so much hatred, his own breathing rapid. But there’s a familiarity to it, to his hatred and anger. As in, he knows her somehow and not just because he killed her entire family as collateral damage in his never-ending war for the Grayson land.
My heart in my throat, I direct my next question to him: “What the fuck is she talking about? Why would you say that to her? When did you say that to her?” His eyes come back to me, hateful and hard, and somehow, the words slip out before I can think them through.
“Figure out a way to answer me, you fucking piece of shit, or I’ll step on that breathing tube of yours and finish what your BFF out there started. Do you understand me?”
For a few seconds after I finish, I’m terrified.
I’ve never spoken to him in this way. I’ve never, not once, confronted my father about anything.
Not after that one time back when I was ten and I caught him in the most despicable act toward a woman that a man can commit.
I’m afraid he’ll do something in retaliation; do every bad thing he’s promised to do if I ever put a toe out of line.
Hurt everyone I love, my mom, Reverie, even Radisson.
But look at him. Look at him, trapped in here with me.
Look at him, being a fucking prisoner, bested at his own game by someone more evil than him.
And God, it feels good. It feels good that he’s getting what he deserves.
It may not last long. He may go back to being all powerful tomorrow, trying to control the lives of everyone around him.
But he’s done controlling mine. He’s done intimidating me.
He’s done fucking with me.
Looking him in his monstrous eyes, I continue, “I’ll kill you, you understand that? I’ll fucking end you. For saying that about my Radisson and doing every evil thing you’ve ever done to him and his family. I’ll kill you like I should’ve killed you when I was ten.”
“I saw him.”
Lakelyn’s words break our stare-down, and I turn to look at her. “What?”
Her cheeks are streaked with tears, but for the first time since I entered the room, she looks calm.
Less afraid. And I realize that before this moment, she looked like a little girl, hunched over, hugging her knees, scared of her own shadow.
But something changed in her and now she looks older.
Like her own age, more like herself. Despite everything that’s happening right now, something about seeing her get back to herself warms my heart.
“At my school,” she continues, and I know she’s talking about my father.
“It was after hours. I was studying at the library and I saw him. With one of the students. I was still in junior high and we were in a different wing than high school. But some of our classes were in the same building so I knew most of the students. She was a senior I think and he was…” She swallows thickly, and the way she does it makes my heart pound in my chest. “I thought he was a teacher at first. Thought he was meeting with a student after hours but then he… fell on her. He started going at her clothes and when she started screaming, he put his hand on her mouth, and… I must’ve made a sound, I’m sure of it.
I’d never seen anything like that before and…
he turned around and saw me, and as soon as I realized who it was, I ran.
I turned around and I started running. I ran and ran to the bus stop.
And just went home. Without saying anything to anyone.
Without calling for help. Without… And then, four days later, it all happened. The car crash. My parents and Rad…”
She trails off and stays quiet for a few moments. And it’s a good thing because there’s a roar in my ears. A loud rush, so even if she did talk, I wouldn’t be able to hear her. I wouldn’t be able to hear anything over the ruckus in my brain. The mayhem, the chaos.
Because I think I’ve realized something awful. Awful, awful, awful.
And as if Lakelyn can not only read my mind but also see me, she turns her stunning green eyes to me and confesses, “I lost my eyes in that accident. But I wasn’t supposed to do that.
I was supposed to die, too, because that car crash was for me.
It was so I didn’t say anything to anyone.
So I didn’t tell anyone what I saw. But I survived, and so he came for me.
He found me at the hospital one day and told me he’d kill my brother if I ever opened my mouth.
He told me it was best if I went away and never came back. ”
The noise in my head and the pain in my chest are so intense, it’s a wonder I’m able to form words, let alone say them. But I do. “And you did go away.”
Swallowing, she nods, tears streaming down her cheeks.
I open and close my mouth several times before I add, “And it was because of my father. Not because of your brother, because you drifted a-apart and…”
She wipes her tears. “No. Rad’s my brother. I love him. I know he thinks that. I know… But I left because I didn’t… I didn’t see any other way. Rad was the only family I had left; I had to protect him.”