10. Sawyer
SAWYER
“Over here!” I yell to the Keepers as if they haven’t already found us. As if their body heat isn’t shifting the temperature.
“Help me, please.” Luna’s lower lip trembles—convincingly. Almost enough to fool me.
Wow.
Standing up tall, I swipe the dirt from my pants, brush the hairs on my arm, anything to keep my hands moving.
If they stop, they’ll shake.
If they shake, I’m scared.
If I’m scared, I’m weak.
If I’m weak, I’m useless.
If I’m useless…
“Get her back to my room,” I sneer, jabbing a finger at Luna.
The first man goes to her, while a woman with two tight Pippi Longstocking braids hanging over her shoulders grabs my wrist. She yanks my arm behind my back, then grabs the other, grunting four octaves lower than her blushed-cheek face would suggest.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I growl as she wraps rope around my wrists. “Hey!” I jerk once, head swiveled to watch her. It’s the tiniest amount of fight. Not desperation. Not panic.
Just enough to appear confused.
Luna screams as a guy with a bowling-ball head hauls her over his shoulder.
“No, no please—please. He’s crazy. He hurt me. Please.”
“Shut up,” I snap at her.
Pippy slaps the back of my head. Her fingers dig into my hair before shoving me forward.
“Walk.”
We start through the forest. The shadows from the trees deepen as the sun begins to set.
Luna never stops crying, yelling out a plea every ten yards while I mumble obscenities at every Keeper within ear shot.
“Aurelius assured me—” Slap from Pippy.
“You’re interfering with—” Slap.
“If you people would just fucking listen—”
“I want to go home,” Luna sobs. Her voice is too raw, cracked, real.
My heart stutters. I angle my ear and tune in to her voice to pick up the emotion I fucking pray is forced. “Please, I want to go home.”
The plea prickles the back of my neck and freezes tiny hairs that Pippy’s breath then thaws.
No.
Fuck, Luna, stay strong.
“Would somebody shut her up?” I spit.
Pippy’s dainty hand shoves between my shoulder blades. “Why don’t you shut up,”
I scoff and rip my shoulder away. But in truth, I’m grateful for the excuse to slip inside my head.
My teeth tap in time with the numbers that flash in my mind: a count of each step through the forest. Useless for my memory bank, but extremely effective for slowing my heart. Steadying my gait. Releasing tension through my fingertips.
By the time we reach the treeline, it’s dusk. Luna’s crying—act or not—no longer matters.
I know what to do.
“Take me to Aurelius.” Rope saws my wrists as I jerk.
No response… But I assume that was the plan anyway.
As the trees thin, a mansion rises from the clearing.
A gothic manor straight from a ghost story, or trying very hard to look like it.
Dark, aged stone catches the last smear of sunlight as it rises three stories to a pointed roof, a black metal cross ornamenting the peak.
Midnight blue shutters seal each window so thoroughly they may as well be boarded shut.
“Move,” Pippy shoves me when I slow to take in the structure. As we start up a long flight of broad steps, my eyes follow a hairline crack running the length of a somber gray column—a flaw so perfectly placed it looks intentional. Curated decay. Haunted on purpose.
Light spills from the heavy-looking front door as it creaks open—light from a bulb, not a candle or lantern. The chill doesn’t follow us inside. It’s toasty, at least fifteen degrees warmer.
Obviously, this is Aurelius’s home, but it’s only half of what I expect. Large, looming, resource heavy… but with more elegance than I pictured. Tasteful furniture, subtle accents of color—a vase of red roses, a maroon rug. Masculine with little hints of femininity.
Luna’s cries have ceased. Still slung over the back of a Keeper, she lifts her head enough to scan the new environment, analyzing as I have.
When her eyes find me, they glint, a subtle confirmation that she’s still with me in this.
That she hasn’t collapsed with despair. I’d know by the lack of swelling in her eyelids alone.
She doesn’t look like she’s shed a tear.
I break from her gaze and try to be relieved. But I’m not.
She is way too good at this.
The music grows louder as we move down the hall and spill into a wide sitting room where Aurelius lounges in a high-backed chair. In the corner, a scary-thin Seraph plucks a harp with slow, delicate strokes, glassy eyes transporting her to another place. Hopefully a better place.
At our arrival, Aurelius lifts a hand to silence the music. When it continues, he clears his throat and pins the Seraph with a glare. The song dies mid-note.
“What the fuck is this?” I push forward to finally free myself of Pippy. “Aurelius, you assured me—”
Again, he holds up a hand.
Just a hand. A simple, silencing gesture that unleashes something raw in my DNA. It overrides my fear until my heart throbs in my fingertips and my muscles seem to swell.
Forcing my lips together, I watch him stand, his face a blank mask. He cups his bracelet while ambling toward me. “If this is things going as well as they can be, I’m afraid you’ve failed your task, Sawyer Hansley.”
“It’s been less than a day. How could you possibly believe I’ve failed?”
Leather shoe catching the rug, he hitches. Tension thins the air between us—two lions circling a carcass. “I was told you were the best.” He nudges the wrinkle from the rug. “So far, I have to say I’m disappointed.”
I open my mouth on reflex but stumble before words can form in my mind. Static sparks behind my eyes, creases forming in my forehead while I try to make a puzzle piece fit into a slot one size too small.
He was told I was the best … by who?
That isn’t the kind of thing you hear on the news.
Blinking away the static, I nod toward Luna. “Get her out of here.”
No one flinches. Aurelius stares me down, the sharp line of his jaw flexing as we crank up the discomfort for everyone in the room.
Finally, he breaks eye contact to nod at Luna’s U-haul.
The Keeper carries her from the room while two others follow behind him.
After a pointed look from Aurelius, the Seraph scurries away.
Aurelius, Raven, and the Keeper at her side remain.
“If you were told I was the best, then you should trust that. Instead, you just showed her I have no real authority. How is she supposed to respect me now?”
Aurelius’s hand lifts, fingers fanning open—his version of who gives a shit. “I suppose it no longer matters.”
“Of course it fucking matters.”
Now, more than ever.
Wilcox’s hollowed scream ripples through my mind so vividly, it’s as if it’s in the room. It’s an impossibility that doesn’t stop my eyes from glancing toward the window. His body has either been burned or buried by now.
“Aurelius, she’s just been kidnapped and forced into what she views is a cult.
Of course she’s going to try to run. She needs to.
That’s the only way for her to see there’s no way out.
” Tugging my wrists against unforgiving rope, I take a step toward him.
“There’re stages to this. She needs to feel anger and fear before she can make it to acceptance…
I can get her there, but I need you to trust me. ”
His chin tips back, a predator displaying his sharpened jaw. I half expect his teeth to bare. “You’re saying you knew this would happen…”
It isn’t a question … but I nod anyway. “Yes. Of course, yes.”
“Then you let her run in front of my people who need to believe she’s happy here.”
“They will.” My voice is so thick with assurance, part of me believes it. “For future women, they will. Luna will be ready in three weeks, and I promise you, they’ll be pleased with the result… Until then, you’ll just have to manage their expectations.”
Air spills from Aurelius’s flared nostrils as if he’s just discovered gum on the bottom of his shoe. Gum that, to his deep dismay, still has flavor.
“What is the next step?” Raven asks, drawing me to the dullest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.
Free of remorse, free of anger, free of everything.
It seemed interesting that they’d put a woman in charge of security, but looking at her now, I understand.
There will always be bulked-up pawns like Thorne, but it takes a frightening level of detachment to order a man’s death without blinking. Even more to make children watch.
Dropping my eyes to her pointed nose, I recalibrate. Think.
The next step…
“Punishment.” I pull my bound wrists to the side and nod toward them. Aurelius and Raven exchange a glance before she gestures for the other Keeper to free me.
“Punishment?” Raven’s dark ponytail sways as she tilts her head. “I thought you said she needed to run.”
The Keeper fits a blade beneath the rope, cold steel skimming the knotted bone of my wrist. It scrapes just enough to make the tendons jolt tight. “She did, but she also needs to know that actions have consequences… Nothing too severe, just enough to deter her from trying to escape again.”
And enough to make you people the obvious villains. Because the gap between us is not yet clear.
The way Luna looked at me in the forest… I don’t know how, but I lost her trust.
As the rope breaks, I bring my hands to my sides. Resist the urge to rub the sting from my raw wrists, even as my hands prickle with returning blood flow.
Loud, heavy stomps enter the room—Thorne covered in blood.
“I’m sure our friend here wouldn’t mind doling it out.” I flick a hand at the giant who walks obediently to Raven’s side, loyal attack dog he is.
“I agree,” Aurelius says. “Actions have consequences.”
Raven gives him a look that makes me think she disagrees. After clearing her throat, she nods curtly. “Very well, then… Elijah!”
I turn to watch the Keeper haul Luna into the room by her arm. His fingertips carve dents so deep they blanch the skin around them. Whiter than she already is.
Luna stares at the floor—uncharacteristically submissive, vulnerability weaponized.
Her chest quakes with breaths so deliberately patterned, I’m taken back thirty years.
Sunken into a cardboard thin mattress, the sour scent of unwashed linen, the scratchy comforter thrown over my head while I practiced manipulating my breaths.
Three sharp bursts in, one shallow exhale.
I’ve met monsters who love to kick the weak, but most angry drunks just don’t like being challenged. He hit less when you cowered.
The memory loosens the muscles coiling my chest more than my hands being freed. It scratches an itch deep in my mind, the kind that comes from unpredictability, the unknown being uneasily read.
That’s how she’s doing it.
As they approach, the Keeper throws Luna toward me. I catch her as she stumbles, only for her to quickly rip away.
“I’m sorry,” I say to her, pinching my eyebrows with mock concern. “It’ll be over soon, I promise.”
Creases jut from her squinted eyes—confused, calibrating. Without another word, I go to stand next to Aurelius.
When he looks at me expectantly, I shake my head. “I’m not a Keeper… Someone else has to do it.”
A second passes. But then he turns to Thorne.
“What?” Thorne asks. Wilcox’s crusted blood fissures along a new furrow in his forehead. Disgusting. Disturbing. But somehow … not terrifying. He could kill me with one hand, but it’s hard to fear those you don’t respect.
Raven raises onto her toes to whisper in his ear. His eyes bulge. He twists to fully face her while shuffling backward. “No. No.” He stabs a finger at me. “He’s the one who let her get away. He’s the one who should be punished.”
“Thorne,” Aurelius warns.
The splotch of his cheek not covered in blood or tribal paint turns deep red as Thorne shakes his head.
He tightly crosses his arms. For a moment, I think he’ll actually refuse, but then his eyes glare at the wall in stewing resignation.
Never mind the fact that he just tortured a man, he can’t bear the idea of hurting a woman.
Seconds pass while he seethes, but then Raven places a hand on his arm. In an instant, his face softens. The bloody furrow smooths. His arms slowly uncross. He’s obviously at the top of the food chain here, but this is why he’ll never be more than a soldier. Moral code … until someone asks nicely.
He rolls his shoulders before stepping toward the girl. “Fine.”
Luna’s eyes burst wide. Her legs draw her back into Elijah who grips her shoulders tight. He forces her to her knees.
“No,” she whines, eyes searching for someone to implore. Landing on me.
I tell myself I won’t look away, but after two agonizing seconds, I crack. My gaze drifts to a painting on the wall—a field of wildflowers cast beneath a muted sky. Thorne’s belt buckle jingles.
“No, please.”
A muscle jumps near the hinge of my jaw. But the plea is nothing compared to her scream when Elijah forces her face to the floor, leaving her backside lifted.
Without a second’s pause, the belt whistles through the air. It lands with a crack, searing flesh mercifully covered by denim and cashmere. I’m surprised no one insists she remove her clothes. I almost insist, even as I squirm.
Submission doesn’t come without pain.
The belt slaps seven times before I realize I’m counting.
Deep breath. Square shoulders. Switch to counting seconds, teeth tapping in rhythm.
At twenty, the whipping stops.
I break from the painting just as Thorne straightens, belt slipping from his hand. The thump it makes punctuates the stillness in the room. The sound mingles with Luna’s whimpering—no doubt real.
Thorne’s murderous eyes find me before he turns and storms from the room. The others follow one-by-one until Luna and I are alone.
Her face remains hidden in her arms as I walk to her. She’s a crumpled mess—leg bloodied from the spring trap, a red welt peeking where her sweater’s ridden up.
She needs a bath. Food. Rest. Maybe even space.
If this were my island, I’d give her all of it. Comfort is what makes the growing pains bearable—for them, and for me.
But three weeks is so little time. And we haven’t even started.
I bend to scoop her rigid body into my arms and carry her from Aurelius’s home, the special room my destination.