Chapter Four
“... nothing will stop me...”
Low, persistent rumbling filled my ear, tap-tap-tapping on my consciousness. All I wanted to do was sleep. I earned sleep after what I’ve been through. Gran, Ivy, Andrew. I was thrown in hell and hit every flaming spire on the way down. Just let me sleep.
“Nothing will stop me. Except you.”
A thump rattled my bones, jarring me awake.
Peeling my eyes open, I met with a cascade of stars. A shining, scattering nebula so beautiful, I was ten years old again, lying out on a blanket with Gran and Ivy as we made up stories for the constellations.
The happy memory faded as quickly as it came. The earth wasn’t as hard on those late-night picnics. I didn’t have something digging into my cheek, or a prickly numb feeling that said my arm fell asleep. On those nights, the earth didn’t move.
Twisting my neck, I took stock of my surroundings.
I was in the back of a moving truck. The Bedlam Boys’ truck.
Yeah, it was starting to come back to me. They found me with Cavendish. Chased me, caught me at the fence, and—
A spike of pain went through my forehead, forcefully claiming my attention.
They caught and tossed me in the back like a sack of manure. Actually, like a sack of sand.
I blinked at the sandbags lining the back of the bed, and tucked in the corner, a container of gasoline. It sat next to an overturned toolbox, likely upended when they hit a bump. Explained why I was lying on a wrench.
I reached to push it away and my hand didn’t move. Straining, I yanked on my binds, crying out as the ropes bit tighter. Caught, tossed, and tied in the back of their truck.
“Shit-brained assholes!” I shrieked. “Let me out of here!”
“Quiet down, darling,” an unfamiliar voice called back. “We’ll get to you soon enough.”
“You can’t do this to me. I have to go. I have to—”
Music blasted out of the speakers, drowning out my shouts.
Calm down, Rainey. Think. Think!
Taking a deep breath, I held it till my pulse slowed. My mind cleared. There are tools rolling all over the place. Use them to get free.
Shifting, I twisted to put my bound hands within reach, and our eyes locked. My scream made him grimace.
“Goodness, I have to agree with your friends up there,” said Cavendish. “Quiet down.”
“No.” I flung myself away from him. “No, no, no.”
“Relax. I can hardly hurt you tied up like this.”
It was true. I assumed Cavendish put up a much bigger fight because they hogtied his ass. The ropes looped around his wrists and bound his ankles. He lay on his side, bent like my bow, ready to fire.
Dirt covered his face and clothes—streaks of black to mingle with the red. Some of the blood on him was from my shoe to the head. The rest courtesy of the Bedlam Boys.
“I don’t know what you did to end up on their sacrifice list, but now you can’t hurt me, Jennifer, or anyone else tonight.” I spit in his face. “At the end of the night, I’ll drag Sheriff Sharpe out of his office and watch him put the cuffs on you. It’s over.”
Cavendish barely blinked at the glob running down his face. “I admit, these guys showing up were a surprise, but this is far from over. I thought I made that clear.” He observed me. “No? Then, let me spell it out for you. Jennifer Wilson left campus this morning but never made it home. She’s currently staying in a place she doesn’t like very much, screaming and crying for help—using up the precious little oxygen she has left.”
My mouth went dry. Lips parting, I tried to speak and nothing came out.
“Kill me and you’ll get her location.” He tsked. “You’ve wasted so much time. Time poor Jennifer doesn’t have. How much more will you waste playing the scared little innocent? You’re not for this world, Rainey. It’s time to live where the wild things are.”
“You c-can’t do this.” Dampness soaked my cheeks, stinging in the cool night air. “You won’t make me do this.”
“I already did.”
The car began to slow. Miles and miles of secluded forest road and our trip was so painfully short. Why couldn’t Westchester Drumlins be on the fucking moon?
“But you’re lying,” I whispered. “If you die, there’s no one to tell me where she is. I won’t be able to save her, and that’s what you want. For me to be a killer and a failure.”
“No, baby.” His voice was almost soft. “I may not have the right to say these words, but you have to trust me. I haven’t lied to you since we started this together. I won’t lie to you now.”
The truck pulled off the road, engine dying along with the music.
“Do what you were meant to do,” he said as the Bedlam Boys piled out of the car. “And you’ll be free.”
“No— Wait!”
Cairo dropped the tailgate, hopping in to shove Cavendish out into Roan’s and Legend’s waiting arms. The man didn’t have a strong relationship with shirts. He was bare-chested again—back rippling in the moonlight as he lifted the grown man with ease. They were all bare-chested, and I wasn’t better for it. They looked like the warriors they emulated. Strong, powerful, free of society’s morals.
Sometime during my concussed stupor, they lost Jacques and Arsenio. Maybe they’d gone ahead to prep the old run-down property for the hundreds of townspeople preparing to descend.
Cavendish didn’t make a sound as they carted him off. The same couldn’t be said for me.
“Cairo, you don’t know what you’re doing.” I scrambled to get my feet under me, desperate to chase down the one man who knew where Jennifer Wilson was. “He’s a dangerous man!”
“I’m a dangerous man.” Cairo crouched beside me. His fingers trailed the edge of my jaw, enticing a rippling shiver down my body. “He’s puffed-up trash who fooled himself into thinking the rules don’t apply to him. He should’ve known better, and you’re about to learn. I saw that video you and Jacques made. On top of defying me and refusing to share your little secrets, you’ve racked up quite a list of offenses.”
“None of that matters now,” I snapped.
“Doesn’t it? Mattered enough to get you here.”
I shook him off. “This isn’t about me and you. Please, Cairo, listen. There’s a girl named Jennifer Wilson. Maybe you know her. Cavendish kid—”
“Shh.” Cairo stuffed an oily cloth in my mouth. “Time for the king to take his throne. I’ll play court to your pleas for mercy after.”
“Hmpf!”
Hopping out of the truck bed, he closed the gate and disappeared.
Tears soaked my face. Screaming, I thrashed on the unforgiving surface, picturing with crushing clarity Jennifer trapped. Feeling the ropes cutting off circulation to her fingers. Forcing her screams through a sandpaper throat, and hearing as if she yelled in my ear, “why didn’t you save me? I died cold, alone, and afraid. Because of you.”
“You came from the strongest of people. The fiercest. People who would give up their lives before surrendering their freedom.”
I blinked, spreading tears like raindrops.
“That’s the blood that runs through your veins, Rain.”
“Fight.”
My heaving, choking sobs slowed.
I lay there in silence, finally understanding what I had to do next.
CAIRO
“What the fuck’s wrong with him?”
Roan stopped lugging sandbags. “What?”
“Him,” I said, jerking my chin. “What’s he smiling about?”
He followed my gaze to Scott Cavendish. Except for tripping us up to let Rain get away, he’d been a model captive all night. He didn’t fight back when Jacques buried a fist in his gut—payback for getting in our way. He didn’t say a word while we hogtied and threw him in the truck. And the final indignity, prepping him for a Royale sacrifice, and all he did was what he was doing then, smirking like this was all a fun game.
Scott Cavendish noticed my attention and flicked down to me. Looking me straight in the eyes, he winked.
“He’s refused to pay since he took over,” Roan said. “Guy thinks he doesn’t have to be afraid of us. He’s still thinking it. No one gets hurt on Ruckus night. It’s all fun and games.”
I narrowed on that smile.
“He’s a dangerous man.”
What were Cavendish and my new pet talking about when we rolled up? Why was she so upset?
Why was she scared?
“All fun and games,” I repeated. “Some traditions are meant to be broken.”
“I’m all for making an example out of him.” Roan cocked his head. “It’s so much sweeter making the cute ones beg.”
“Did you get everything out of the truck?”
“A couple sandbags left.”
“I’ve got it.” I marched off, finding Rain right where I left her.
I hung off the tailgate, studying her as she studied me. Her soaked face and rag said she’d been crying, though she was done with that now. Those abnormally large fawn eyes blinked at me—light and clear. I wondered what shown in mine.
Too much if our phone conversation was anything to go by. This woman thought she knew something about me. I couldn’t say the same about her.
Spent her entire life in my town, and I never met or heard of her before that party. Shapely legs I haven’t disappeared between. Plump lips that have yet to swallow my cock. All that long, wavy hair begging to fist in my grip as I half tore it from the roots, bending her head back to take what I’d give her.
Just when I was getting bored and thinking of some fucked-up methods to handle that problem, Bedlam surprised me with a new treat.
Dropping the gate, I climbed up and tugged the gag from her mouth. I expected her to beg or plead. I’d have even taken a glare.
Rain did neither. She eyed me warily, waiting to see what I’d do.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, sweetheart,” I whispered. “I don’t know either.”
She didn’t ask me what I meant. “You need to untie these ropes, Cairo. Now.”
“What do you have to do with Scott Cavendish? Why were you with him?”
“What do you have to do with him?” she shot back.
I closed the distance, my nose tracing circles on her cheek. I inhaled her perfect mix of sweat and rose soap. “I asked you first.”
“We were discussing poetry.”
“Lying,” I said without a hitch. “Why? What’s that smug bastard smiling about? Why did he throw himself in front of us to help you get away?” A nasty thought occurred to me. “Are you fucking him?”
“Let me get a question in.” She raised her head, swallowing me in those fawn eyes. “Why does the thought of that make you angry?”
Good question.My hands traveled down her hips, along her legs, to the tip of the red boots Roan put back on. The only farm-girl thing about her. I tore them off and flung them in the trees.
“Another question: why did those boots make me angry? The answer is I hate any and everything that kept me from finding you until now.” I nipped her nose. “That answers both your questions, doesn’t it?”
Her throat bobbed visibly. “Why do you care about me?”
“I answered one of yours. You answer mine.” I continued my exploration, moving up her thighs. “What makes him so dangerous?”
She held my gaze—not moving, not breathing as I slipped under her shirt. Rain was impossibly soft and warm beneath my fingers.
Delicate.
It turned on something feral within me. Something she gave me the night of the party, then ripped away by pretending to be like the rest of them.
Had it really been an entire week since I touched her? A crime fit to piss me off all over again. In that time, I’ve threatened and teased her alike. Sometimes I got nothing in response, but every other time she gave me as good as she got.
“The same thing that makes me dangerous,” she whispered. “He’s not afraid of you.”
My cock twitched. If that wasn’t a demand to fuck her right there and then, I didn’t know what was.
“We’ll see.”
I found the edge of her lacy bra and drew it to me, sliding it off the reasonably sized mounds. Her shirt went the other way.
Rainey’s lips parted, pants picking up speed as I unveiled her inch by inch.
“Let me go.”
I blew hot breath on her nipples. They hardened to rock-hard pebbles, eager to roll around in my mouth. Normally, eager bitches put me off my lunch. I was so very obviously not a good guy. Have some respect for yourself. But this little lovely—both helpless with want and shaking with anger for it. She made me want to see what’s coming for the second date.
“Stop,” she said, halting my mouth a millimeter from her. “I don’t want you to.”
I clicked my tongue. “Another lie.” With that, I swallowed her, sucking hard on her nipple and earning the most satisfying hiss.
“Fucking twisted piece of shit,” she cried. “Get o-off me.”
I bit down hard.
Gasping, Rain arched her back, pressing against my lips.
I felt it the first time in my room. A flash that went away quickly enough I could almost ignore it. This time, I couldn’t. Pulse racing. Brow sweating. Breaths coming faster. I wasn’t sure what everyone else called this, but I knew one thing, I wasn’t bored.
I scraped my teeth down her stomach, catching on her jeans.
“I fucking swear, Cairo!”
The jeans were ripped down her thighs in an instant. I stuck my head between her legs, losing myself in the heady scent of her arousal. I barely did anything and she was wet to drown me. The thought of that made my arm buckle, dropping me on top of her.
Rain was beautiful like this. Hands trapped beneath us, her chest rolled and heaved—topped with mounds shining with my spit and already beginning to redden. Like a helpless chick resting on my palm, all I had to do was close my fist.
“Tell me something true,” I said.
“I... don’t know what you mean.”
I swiped a tongue past her folds, groaning at the taste of her on my tongue. She quivered beneath my lips.
“Tell me something true, Rain.”
“If you let me go,” she said softly. “I’ll come back to you.”
I didn’t speak. Slipping out from between her, I drew her up and untied her wrists.
Rain caught me as I pulled away. She pressed her fingers to my temple—rubbing slow circles with her thumbs, she wove her digits in my hair. It was a strange, oddly intimate thing to do. Stranger still, the sensation moving through my veins, spreading its paralytic.
I was stiff as her hands moved down my face, chest, legs, back. Rain tugged me close, covering my mouth with hers.
I didn’t react to the kiss. Didn’t pull away or press.
Soon enough, it was over. I studied her as she sat back, wondering what she got out of that.
“It was either that or beating you with this wrench.” She waved it to prove her point. “I’m not convinced I chose right, so you should probably go.
“I’ll find you,” she promised.
Saying nothing, I grabbed the last two sandbags and loped off into the trees.
RAINEY
I got to my feet and pitched forward, dropping hard on my knees. Hands shaking, I fixed my clothes and tugged my jeans up. I couldn’t think about my brief encounter with Cairo. Couldn’t let my mind grasp the aching pressure between my legs, or the promise I made him. I couldn’t think about the fact that I meant it.
Not now, a voice screamed. Nothing else matters right now.
I’ve wasted so much time. The one thing Jennifer did not have.
I leaped off the truck and my toes sank in the dirt. “Shit!”
Cursing Cairo six ways to Sunday, I didn’t bother looking for my shoes. With nowhere else to go, I disappeared into the trees, following Cairo.
The Westchester Drumlins property was five acres of bush, overgrown trees, and a dilapidated house that looked like a good strong breeze would blow it down. Many strong winds, thunderstorms, and dozens of hurricanes have tried, but the old Westchester home proved as tough as its namesake.
She stood proudly through the break in the brush, still stately though most of her windows were broken, and the back doors welcoming her guests swung on rusted hinges.
I watched the Bedlam Boys tromp inside. Roan, Legend, Jacques, and Arsenio. They arrived at some point and must’ve come in from the front.
Cairo dumped the last of the sand, said something to Cavendish, then gifted him a blindfold. After he went inside with the rest. I waited as long as I dared and stepped out.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Speakers circled the outline of the lawn, ready to pump music at mind-scrambling levels. I’d never been to a Ruckus Royale, but with one look, I knew the Bedlam Boys outdid them all.
Beer cooler fountains scattered all over the place. That was the best phrase to describe their invention—three tubs of ice stacked together like a chocolate fountain. Instead, this fountain was chock-full of bottles and raining ice water.
There were more tubs and buckets. Those were filled with—
I peered inside.
—paint. Glow-in-the-dark paint, and rows of plastic guns lined behind them, leaving no doubt.
I kept going. Passing one of the candy tables, I stopped short. It wasn’t rainbow Skittles in those multicolored bowls. They were pills. Of all shapes, sizes, and potency. Who the hell knew what they were or what would happen if you downed them? The sign by the bowls simply said three words. Get Fucked Responsibly.
All of that was impressive, but it was not the sight to see.
Five posts stretched to the sky. The Bedlam Boys were kind— Was that the word? They were generous to build a platform for the three men and two women to stand on. Hands tied around the post and secured; blindfolds heightened their helplessness. I wasn’t surprised to hear a few of them crying.
I recognized all of them except one. Professor Valdez tied to a post wasn’t the surprise it should have been. If I had to pay for what I did to Jacques that morning, Valdez wasn’t getting off any easier for threatening him.
A vision of the hangman’s noose floated in my mind. Though that wasn’t what they had planned for tonight.
I kneeled before Cavendish, touching the cool sand. The well they dug circling the sacrifices, and the tubs of gasoline beside the pill-popper table, colored the lines in for me. This was a burning.
“Cavendish.”
He turned his head in my direction. “Rainey. Thought that was you. Fear makes you smell like pine needles. And sweat,” he said. “I’m glad it’s the last thing I’ll smell before we end this here and now.”
“It’s not over yet, Cavendish.” I didn’t let my voice carry. “There’s still time for you and Jennifer. Tell me where she is, and no one has to die tonight.”
“I told you, everyone has to die. You give me the death I’ve chosen or Jennifer receives the one you’ve chosen for her.”
“Scott—”
“Here’s another rhyme for you,” he said, turning his face to the moonlight and smiling as though he basked in it. “Tick, ticking, tock. Rainey ran down the clock. Time ran out. No one heard Jen shout. Tick, ticking, tock.”
Rage surged up in me, balling my fists. I raised them, ready to pop his guts up through his throat and see if he found that funny, then my gaze fell on the gas container.
A thought came to me. A terrible, awful idea that unfolded with picture-perfect clarity, and suddenly the way forward was blindingly obvious.
I lowered my fists—sensing the rage leak away to be replaced with a cold, numbing calm. Everywhere but in my head.
Hissing, I pressed my palm against my aching temple. My vision blurred and a shadowed figure rose above the post. A painted, skeletal face exaggerated the shadows below his eyes and cheekbones too sharp to be real.
A blink, and he was gone.
It was just me and Cavendish, and the container.
Fingers closed over the handle. They weren’t mine for all that they were attached to me.
It wasn’t me who approached Cavendish.
It wasn’t me who unscrewed the lid.