Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Tessa
The cabin looked worse up close, like a carcass rotting in the sun, waiting for someone to put it out of its misery.
The weather chewed the boards into a sickly, splintered grey.
The porch sagged in the middle, bowed like a snapped spine.
One shutter hung by a single rusted hinge, clicking softly in the wind—a rhythmic, patient sound that felt less like a breeze and more like a countdown.
Colin waited while I stood there, rooted to the dirt.
He let my eyes rake over the shattered windows and the weeds choking the steps.
He let me look at the horizon, where the land stretched out in every direction with nothing to interrupt the emptiness but scrub brush and the skeletal line of distant poplars.
“Go on,” he said, his voice a silk-wrapped blade. “It’s not going to bite. And if it does, there’s nobody that can hear your screams.” He laughed like he made a joke, before he glared at me again, eyes cold, jaw clenched.
My mouth was so dry I couldn’t swallow. My throat felt scraped raw, the skintight from holding back a scream I refused to give him. Even in the open air, I could smell his cologne—expensive, cloying, and entirely wrong for the wilderness.
“What did you do to her?” I managed. My voice sounded thin, like it belonged to someone else.
He tilted his head, studying me with the clinical interest of a boy watching an insect in a jar. “Who?”
“You know who. Maddy.”
He sighed, the sound heavy with performed boredom. “Nothing. I didn't touch her. I didn't talk to her. I didn't even step on her porch.”
“That’s not the point,” I said, my knees beginning to tremble. “You followed her. You were there.”
“I watched,” he corrected, his eyes bright. “There’s a difference, Tessa. Watching is an appreciation. Following is a chore.” He smiled—a small, private thing, like he caught me saying something he could use against me later.
“It’s fucking creepy.” I whispered. “You kidnapped me.”
“I brought you somewhere quiet, so you’d finally listen. You’ve become so loud lately. So distracted. It’s not like you,” he said as he ran his hand through his hair.
I stared at him, my hands clenching at my sides until my nails bit into my palms. I wanted to lunge and claw the calm right off his face.
“Where are my keys?”
He patted his pocket, a slow, deliberate motion. “Safe.”
“My phone.”
He patted the other pocket. “Also safe. Don't worry, Tessa. I’m looking after everything now.”
My stomach turned. A cold, oily slick of nausea rose in my throat. “Give them back, Colin. Now.”
“No.”
I took a step forward, a surge of desperate adrenaline overriding my brain. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t reach for me. He only lifted his eyebrows, his expression chillingly neutral, like a trainer waiting for a dog to test the limits of its shock collar.
“You’re not going to hit me. Not yet.”
Not yet. The words landed with the weight of a death sentence. My skin prickled with a sudden, frantic heat.
“You’re insane,” I screamed, and my voice echoed off the mountains.
He stepped closer. I had to fight the urge to stumble back. He didn’t crowd me, but he knew how to hold space in a way that felt like a physical weight on my chest. It was a projection of ownership.
“You keep saying that,” he murmured, his breath smelling of mint and something metallic. “But you got in the truck. You drove where I told you. You did exactly what I asked. That doesn't sound like I'm the one who's lost my mind. It sounds like you've finally found yours.”
“I did it because you threatened a child!”
He made a sound that could’ve been a laugh if there had been any warmth in it. “You did it because you’re predictable. You’ve always been so easy to move, Tessa. I just needed the right leverage.”
The wind shifted, dragging dry grass against the cabin's foundation with a sound like a long, low hiss. Somewhere, a bird called once, then went abruptly silent, as if it realized it wasn't alone.
Colin nodded toward the porch. “Inside. The sun is going down, and the wind is picking up.”
My body rebelled. A heavy, sickening resistance settled in my limbs. “No. I’m not going in there.”
His gaze sharpened. The mask of gentleness slipped, just an inch, revealing the jagged edge underneath. “Tessa,” he growled. I hated the way he said my name.
“I’m not going in,” I said, forcing each word into place like a brick. “You want to talk, you can do it out here.”
He looked past me, and my heart stuttered. My brain immediately filled the empty space behind me with Maddy’s face, sunlight on her hair, backpack on as she walked home.
“I can talk anywhere,” he said, his eyes returning to mine. “But I don’t think you can. You’re going to start shaking soon. Then you’ll start begging. Then you’ll embarrass yourself in front of the trees. It’s better if we’re inside.”
I held my breath, trying to force my spine to stay straight, trying to hide the tremor in my hands. He watched the struggle with the patient eyes of a predator watching a deer tire itself out. He knew the exact moment my resolve cracked.
“You don’t want anyone hurt, right?” he added, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “If you think I don’t have eyes on that little girl right now, you don’t know me as well as you thought.”
“You’re bluffing.” The words felt hollow as I forced them out.
“Can you take that chance? Can you live with being wrong?” He gestured to the door again. “Come inside and talk like an adult. Before things get... complicated.”
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. If I ran, he’d hunt me down. If I fought, he’d use it as an excuse to break me. If I screamed, the sound would simply dissolve into the scrub brush.
I went up the steps because my body wanted to live, and because the thought of Maddy paying for my defiance was a terror more potent than the cabin.
The porch boards groaned under my boots like a warning. The door was swollen with age, sticking fast when I tried the handle. Colin reached around me—his chest brushed my shoulder, a brief, horrifying contact—and shoved the door open with a hard shove of his hand.
The smell hit first. It was the scent of a grave.
Old smoke, damp wood, and the sharp, acidic tang of mouse droppings.
Something sour and forgotten rotted in the corners.
Light slanted through the grime-filmed windows, striping the floor in dusty, sickly gold.
A table sat crooked in the center, one leg propped with a flat stone.
Two mismatched chairs. A small iron stove with rust blooming along its seams like dried blood.
It was the kind of place designed for things that weren't meant to be found.
I froze in the doorway, my stomach churning. Colin stepped past me as if he were entering a palace. He surveyed the room, a faint, satisfied tilt to his mouth.
“See,” he said. “It’s fine. Private.”
“Why here?” I whispered, my eyes darting toward the shadows.
He shrugged. “It’s quiet. Out of the way. It’s ours for a while.”
Ours. The word made my skin crawl.
He walked to the table and set two items down with exaggerated care. My keys. My phone. He placed them in the center of the wood like a ritual sacrifice. Then he pulled a chair out and sat, folding his hands on the tabletop.
“You’re going to stand there all day?” he asked.
“I might.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “You’ll faint. You’re already pale. You haven't been eating, have you?”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I snapped.
He laughed softly, and the sound made the hair on my arms stand up.
“I know you better than you know yourself, Tessa. I know the way your pulse jumps in your neck when you’re lying.
I know the way you try to look brave when you’re seconds away from a breakdown.
I know what actually scares you. And it’s not me. It’s that I can see through you.”
He nodded at the other chair. “Sit.”
“No.”
His tone didn't change, but the air in the room suddenly felt ten degrees colder. “Sit. Down. Tessa.”
The room felt smaller with every second. The walls seemed to be leaning inward, pressing the oxygen out of the air. My legs gave a warning tremble. I knew he was right; if I didn't sit, I was going to collapse.
I crossed the room in stiff, robotic steps and sat on the edge of the chair, poised to bolt. The wood was cold and rough against my thighs.
“Thank you. That wasn't so hard, was it?”
“What do you want, Colin?”
He blinked slowly. “I want you back.”
The words were so absurd I almost laughed. “Back? You kidnapped me to ask for a second chance? There’s nothing to go back for, I don’t need you.”
His eyes sharpened. “That’s melodramatic. I gave you everything, I protected you.”
“You caged me! I left because you were the problem. You were the thing I needed protection from.”
His jaw tightened, a muscle leaping in his cheek. “You don’t get to rewrite our history just because you’re embarrassed you left. And now you are wrong about being able to live without me.”
Something hot and feral flared under my ribs. I leaned forward. “I was wrong about you being a man. I thought you were a partner. But you’re just a parasite with a bad haircut.”
The air between us went brittle. Colin’s expression went deathly still.
“You always had a talent for cruelty,” he said quietly. “It’s one of the things I’ll have to fix.”
“Fix? You don't get to fix anything. I left you; I was free of you. There is nothing to fix.”
“You ran back here like a child,” he replied, his voice rising. “Back to this pathetic ranch and your uncle's memory. Don't talk to me about freedom while you're drowning in his debts.”
“Don't you dare talk about Ray.”
He smiled, a jagged, ugly expression. “Why not? He’s gone. He can't help you. Neither can that cowboy you’ve been sniffing around.”
I rose so fast the chair screeched against the floor. “Go to hell.”
Colin didn't move. He stayed seated, relaxed, watching my outburst like a parent watching a toddler's tantrum. “Sit down, Tessa. You can scream, you can throw the chair, you can even try to hit me. But when you’re done, you’re still going to be in this room. And I’m still going to have the keys.”
I stood there breathing hard, my chest heaving. I hated the weakness of my own body. I hated that exhaustion made my thoughts slippery. I hated that he was right; I was trapped in a box of his making.
Colin let the silence stretch until my shoulders started to sag. Then he spoke again, his voice dropping back into that terrifying, honeyed softness.
“I didn't come here to hurt you, Tessa. I'm not a monster.”
“You’re holding me hostage!”
He tilted his head, looking almost sincere. “I'm being desperate. There’s a difference. People do strange things for love.”
“This isn't love,” I whispered.
“You used to think it was.” He stood up, and my entire body went rigid. He didn't lunge. He walked to the little counter by the stove and opened a cupboard with a piercing squeak. Inside were old tins and a kettle with a rim of rust. He took his time, acting as if he were in his own kitchen.
He pulled a lighter from his pocket. The click of the flint was loud in the silence. A flame bloomed, dancing in his eyes.
“You planned this,” I said, the realization sinking into my gut like lead. “The cabin, the stove... you’ve been here before.”
He flicked the lighter shut. “I like to be prepared. I wanted to talk to you somewhere you couldn't run. Somewhere, the world couldn't interfere.”
He crouched, opened the stove door, and lit the tinder he’d clearly placed there earlier. The fire caught, the dry wood popping and hissing. Smoke curled into the room, smelling of ancient dust and burning sap.
He returned to the table and sat, folding his hands. “Now. Tell me the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Tell me you didn't mean it when you left.”
A cold, hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. “I meant every second of it. I’ve never been happier than the day I walked away from you.”
His eyes narrowed. “No. You were overly emotional. Which you know is something I don’t appreciate.”
“Now you’re in over your head here. This ranch is rotting, your uncle is a corpse, but I can help you. I can take the weight. The money, the decisions, you won't have to worry your pretty little head about it anymore.”
“I’d rather lose the ranch than let you help me.”
He sighed, as if I were being a difficult child. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He tapped the screen and turned it toward me.
It was a picture of Maddy. She was further away this time, walking toward the barn on Wyatt’s property. Someone was standing in the shadows of the trees—a blurred figure in a dark jacket.
The timestamp was from twenty minutes ago.
My breath hitched so hard it hurt. The terror, which had been a dull roar, suddenly became a deafening scream in my head.
“I told you,” Colin said, his voice a low hum. “I’m close enough to touch everything you love. So, stop fighting me. Stop pretending you have a choice.”
I stared at the picture until it burned into my retinas. My hands were shaking so violently I had to hide them under the table. He won. He found the one nerve he could pull to make me move, and he was pulling it with everything he had.
“What do you want me to do?” I whispered, the fight finally draining out of me.
Colin’s smile was almost tender. He reached across the table, not for my hand, but for my phone. He turned it off and slipped it into his pocket. Then he took my keys and did the same.
“We’re staying the night,” he said, his voice final. “It’s safer. Nobody is looking for you out here yet.”
The word yet hung in the air like a noose.
He stood and walked to the door. He turned the lock with a heavy, metallic clunk. Then, he pocketed the key and looked back at me, the firelight casting long, distorted shadows behind him.
“You can sleep on the cot,” he said, pointing to a narrow, rusted frame in the corner. “I’ll stay up and keep watch.”
The offer was a threat. He was going to watch me sleep. He was going to own my unconsciousness the same way he owned my day.
I didn't move. I stayed in the chair, my spine rigid, watching him. Outside, the wind moved through the dead grass, whispering a warning I couldn't escape. I was alone in the dark with a man who thought possession was a virtue, and the night was only just beginning.