Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KAGE
We spend the entirety of the day and evening quickly preparing, all of the curtains and shades drawn, should Carter already be lurking in the trees surrounding my property.
She’s still jumpy around me at times, a defensive, tense look to her gaze that softens when she remembers it’s me.
I hate, with a burning in my heart, that I’ve been the one to make her afraid of things that move in the darkness, but I have some small bit of hope that one day it will dissipate.
I know I deserve every punishment she flings my way after we survive this, and I’ll happily accept each and every one while on my knees worshipping her.
We just have to make it through tonight.
“Do you have a torch blower?” she asks, stomping around the corner as her voice grows louder, finishing her sentence as she comes into view.
Hand on her hip, she stares down at me with a fire in her gaze that is a little too unhinged for my liking, and with a snort and shake of my head, I release the trip wire I’d been trying to set and stand.
“Also, what the hell are these?” she spits with disgust potent on her tongue, producing my unopened box of cigarettes from the gas station months ago.
This time, I roll my eyes and saunter toward her, plucking the rectangle from her fingers and tossing it over my shoulder before grasping her cold hands in mine.
She’s wearing one of my hoodies, the dense fabric brushing against her upper thighs.
She’ll need pants. A few layers of them. Anything to hinder Carter should he—
I bite my tongue so hard blood spurts into my mouth as I drive away those heinous thoughts. No one will hurt my Summer. No one will take what is forever mine. Even if she wants to run away after all of this, I’ll find a way to hunt her down and chain her back up.
She seems to sort of like it, and that thought gets me hard.
Her glare deepens, and her fingers dig into the backs of my hands.
“Smoking is disgusting. I can’t believe I kissed you.”
Grinning, I grip her cheeks and pull her face to mine, allowing my lips to brush over hers.
The sparks that ignite between us at the simplest touch should be a warning sign to her; there is no stopping my obsession for her now, but the way she leans in just a hairsbreadth closer tells me she’s finally fallen for my charm and is reluctantly happy to be here.
Before we can get too carried away, my phone pings. Once. Twice. Then message after message streams in, igniting the night in a symphony of horror.
Our eyes catch, Summer’s glassed with a type of terror that guts me. Gritting my teeth, I hold her face between my palms and rest my forehead against hers. Clearing my throat, I focus on the word I want to say and force the air from my lungs to pass over my frayed and severed vocal cords.
“Mi…ine.”
Her face crumples, and she nods, clinging to me with a type of trust I know I don’t deserve.
“Yours,” she breathes.
And no matter the cost of my freedom from my family, at least I finally have something worth fighting for.
We wait in our designated areas; me, on the couch in the living room, a wooden baseball bat resting across my thighs, Poppy in my truck, hidden on my property, and Summer, in my room under the bed, knives strapped to every limb on her body.
I doubt she could ever stab someone—and I’m praying she doesn’t have to—but if Carter gets to her, my hope is her instincts will kick in, and she’ll be able to fight.
I won’t let the fucker get that far, though, and with how booby-trapped my house has become, there’s a chance this ancient beast will go up in flames before we finish each other off.
Keeping my breaths calm, my eyes pinned to my front door, the entire world stills when a loud, mocking string of knocks sounds on the thick slab of wood separating myself from my tormentor. My fingers tighten on the handle of the bat, the glossed surface squeaking as my knuckles crack.
A sick cackle permeates the night as the knob rattles and twists, his familiar laugh sending my heart racing.
My throat constricts in raw fear and pain at the hellish memories of what my brother used to do to me.
Anything and everything from locking me in closets for days on end until a maid found me, to attempting to poison my food, killing animals in front of me, humiliating me, and torturing me.
When he couldn’t lure a woman home, he’d turn his fixation on the next living, breathing thing he could find, which was usually me.
There is nothing in this world I fear anymore, not after being raised in the same household as a psychopath. Pain is temporary. I could care less about my life and what it means in the drop of this vast universe. The only thing that matters to me now is Summer and getting her out alive.
Even if I have to die to make that happen.
The door swings open, and a tall figure donned in black stands backlit in the entranceway. No visible weapons disrupt the otherwise serene silhouette.
Ice encases my thudding heart and slows its beats to stillness. Carter takes a measured step forward on heavy boots, the dim light from my kitchen igniting his familiar features for half a second before he jumps back—a hatchet whistling through the air where his face was a moment ago.
He chuckles darkly, and the sound has my lips tilting up; he expected a trap or two.
I don’t think he expects the magnitude that Summer laid, however, nor how creative and masterful each one is.
“Cute. Guess some things never change, little Kage-y; you’re still dumb as fuck.”
He takes a step around the hatchet that swings like a pendulum on a rope through the open door and steps on another trip wire.
This time, a bucket of paint thinner I had lying around in the basement tips from its perch above, splattering across his head and dousing his clothes in the pungent, goopy liquid.
His infuriated eyes land on mine, the freak that lurks at his core blazing through his facade.
One thing I learned about my brother is that he positively cannot stand being embarrassed.
It was one of the reasons he and my father permanently shut me up; I’d discovered he used some type of pills to get his dick hard, and the morning I found my dead mother, I flung every insult I could at the pair of them.
Including the fact that he couldn’t get a boner to save his pathetic life. It’s why, when women would giggle at his little problem, he’d end up killing them.
I thank whatever gods remain in this desolate void that I’m nothing like the pair of them.
He swipes the thick liquid from his brow and shakes his hand at the ground, the goop slapping against the floors.
Slowly, I stand, letting the bat slip through my fingers but catching the knob at the end of the handle.
His irate eyes simmer, the shade cut from my father’s, their eyes nearly black while I took some hazel from my mother.
Even my genetic make up seemed to have wanted to stray as far as possible from these two fucks, and now I stand at the edge of the cliff where—if I am brave enough to jump—I can end them both, for once Carter is gone, my father’s empire will start to crumble from within.
“You know,” he says, stepping around the mess, “father isn’t unreasonable. He wants you home. Said you could even keep your pretty toy.”
Body tensing as he prowls around to my flank, I force out a snort and keep my eye on his every move.
I shake my head. It’s not an offer he’s extending; it’s a prolonged death sentence. I want that cult to burn to the fucking ground. And it will, by the time I’m through with it.
He throws his hands wide, showcasing he has no visible weapons, but also using that nonchalant motion to draw closer. I know the fucker is armed to the teeth, and not with guns. His preferred form of killing is up close and personal and as sadistic as he can make it.
“What more could you want? You can have your cake and eat it too with us. Keep that curly haired cunt on a leash, and have your pick of any other offerings.”
Offerings.
Women plucked from the streets, from corners of the world where no one would miss them.
Usually virgins, so the members could literally and figuratively sacrifice them.
Initiation rites involve something my father called the ‘feast of flesh,’ where the men would dine on a freshly butchered woman before a new member would choose his offering and fuck her on the altar.
If she bled, he would keep her as his pet. If she didn’t…
Her flesh would be dined upon next.
I ran the night I was supposed to be initiated. The look of the dead woman’s eyes as she laid trussed up like a roast pig haunts my worst nightmares. Evil abounds in that cult, and my father and brother are at the heart of it.
Again, I shake my head, and Carter’s smirk this time is far more sinister.
“What? Cat got your tongue?”
Rage fills me to the brim, but I keep my cool; Summer is more important than my fury toward my family. Keeping her safe will always matter far more than anything else.
He continues to slowly circle me, our eyes locked, the tension between us a thick wall of hatred.
The chemical scent of the paint thinner grows stronger the closer I allow him, making my head woozy.
Although I hope it has the same effect on him, he’s a freak of nature, and nothing but the stopping of his heart will ever deter him.
“You’d give up a life where you could have her and any other woman you want, for this?
” he spits, motioning to the house I was proud to buy.
I used to sleep in a tent on the property where I work, but I knew I’d need something nicer for Summer.
I spent months fixing this place up and finding furniture so that when she was ready to leave the confines of the basement, she’d at least have something homey surrounding her.
That feels foolish now, though; home is wherever Summer is, because she is the heart and soul of me and every good thing in this world.
And I will protect her.
No matter the cost.