Hidden River Five: Book 5 in the Hidden River Academy Series

by Strange, KT

  The nurse bandaged my wrist silently as I stared up at the man that was possibly my father. He smiled, indulgent, and almost kind.

  If only I hadn’t known the monster that lurked behind that smile. How was Buck his child and so different from him?

  “You’ll get cleaned and dressed,” he said, his voice soft, but there was a hint of bitter iron in his tone. “And then you’ll come and sit with the rest of the family for the portrait.”

  My lips parted.

  I wanted to ask…

  Portrait?

  But he closed the door behind him, blocking out all sound beyond it’s polished, glossy white surface.

  I turned to the nurse and she patted my hand as she set it down in my lap.

  “It won’t be so bad, being a Barron. So many children would die to be born to such an excellent family. Some even have.” She gave me a weak smile and got to her feet, leaving me to sit on the edge of the bed.

  Some even have.

  What the fuck did that mean?

  Chapter Eleven

  There was a dress laid out on the bed for me after I showered, along with new underwear I’d never seen before, nylons, and a pair of flats. I ran my fingers over the dress, watching them shake as I tried to make sense of how Mr. Barron thought he could kidnap me and why my uncle hadn’t raided the house with the entire Hidden River Police Department yet.

  Some even have.

  Those words echoed in my head, haunting me. What the hell did they mean? It felt more and more ominous since I had been left on my own.

  I dressed, and sat on the bed, waiting in the empty room… for someone to get me. For something to happen.

  The door cracked open and I jerked on the edge of the bed, standing up.

  She fluttered in, like a pastel butterfly, her hair coiffed back into curls that were pinned up, more of a girlish style than that of a woman old enough to have a child.

  Buck’s mother.

  She smiled when she saw me, white teeth like dangling icicles threatening to drop on me from above, and crossed the room to embrace me.

  She kissed each of my cheeks, and I tried not to wince in return. I managed a smile as best as I could.

  Breathe, Mia.

  I had to stay calm. I had to control everything about my reactions as best as I could. More than ever, my run in with my ‘father’ had told me that my life and safety were completely in their hands.

  Her eyes watery, she pulled back to look at me properly, fingering the delicate pink silk chiffon of the dress. It was empire-wasted, with tiny puff sleeves and it fell below my knees.

  It, the slip underneath, along with the bra and panties, were all in my size. Perfectly. Tailored, even.

  I inwardly shuddered to think that they’d measured me in my sleep. That was a horrific thought that needed to stay in the shadows of my brain, but it kept pushing out front and center. They’d kidnapped me and drugged me. I wanted to claw my own face off. But I kept it calm, and smiled.

  “There’s my sweet princess,” she cooed, “it’s so good to have you safe and protected under our roof.”

  Jesus H. Christ, she actually believed her own bullshit. It took me a second, but I managed a weak, returning smile.

  “I-”

  She cut me off before I could continue, tutting me with a shake of her head.

  “Don’t speak, I know that you’ve probably never sat for a portrait before, but it isn’t as easy as it looks and you’ll need to preserve your energy. Come along,” she ended with a weird giggle that probably would have been described as a titter if it’d been a book I was reading.

  Portrait?

  I followed her, out into the hallway, more plush carpeting, but these rugs lay heavy on scraped wood floors, gleaming in the light.

  This is an insane nightmare.

  She floated before me, and started talking, never looking back, assuming I’d just be trailing her like a kite.

  The house was terrifyingly familiar, and I recognized the hallway as a mirror to the one below that Buck’s father, possibly my father, had grabbed me in. The hall opened into a large balcony area that overlooked the first floor, two half-circle staircases descending into the entryway. I kept my eyes on the front door, focused on the hallway below that led to it.

  Escape was so close. I could feel the fresh air on my face if I held my breath.

  “Bernard was positively beside himself with joy when he found out about you,” she said over her shoulder to me as we descended.

  It was right there. I glanced down the long hall to the front door, and it seemed to stretch out in front of me, doubling the distance. Could I run it? Could I make it?

  “Mia,” Mrs. Barron’s voice was sharp and I jerked my head back in her direction. She crooked a finger at me, smirking. “This way.”

  I followed her down another hallway, leaving the temptation of the front door behind.

  “Ah, here she is,” her voice sing-songed as we entered the room, a large living space with floor to ceiling french doors along one wall, cascading light inside from the outside. The gardens were manicured perfectly, calling to me to run. But my focus swung from that to the two men in the room.

  Next to two wingback chairs, stood Buck and his father. Both dressed in suits, Buck looking murderous, his eyes flickering with suppressed rage. His father smiled, smug, as I hesitated in the doorway. Mrs. Barron walked right up to her husband and started dusting at his collar with her fingers, wiping away imaginary specks and smudges. By the windows, a painter stood, his easel already out, and he was drawing with sooty fingers, charcoal in his hand. His arms made quick, darting movements across the paper. Sketching, clearly.

  “Well, come in,” Mr. Barron said, the only thing I could call him in my head just then because I would never in a million years think of him as my father. “Only death and tax men wait in doorways.”

  Buck’s eyes flashed with fury, and he looked at his father, pure rage on his face.

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” he said, low under his breath. God. They were going to fight. I needed to diffuse the situation until I could get Buck alone and fully figure out what was happening. I walked over and Buck greeted me with a pained expression, dropping his head down as I got close so he could murmur,

  “I am so fucking sorry.”

  He sounded resigned, which sent a bolt of terror through me. I looked up at him, feeling nauseous. He couldn’t have just accepted this situation, right?

  “Oh dear,” Mr. Barron said, with fake kindness, “take your seat in the chair by Buck. He knows better than to touch, although he’s allowed to look all he likes.” I swallowed down the creep of fear sneaking up the back of my throat. I looked at Buck, and then the artist, who was ignoring us in favor of focusing on his sketching, and then the Barrons, who were staring at me expectantly.

  “I’m not sitting for a ‘family portrait’, I’m going the fuck home,” I said, reaching out and grabbing Buck’s wrist. “We are both leaving, right now.”

  Buck inhaled, and twisted his arm, almost like he wanted me to let go. I stared up at him in shock.

  Mr. Barron, Bernard, smiled.

  “That would be a poor decision on your part,” he said with an easy shrug. “Either sit in that chair and take your place in our family, or the consequences for your uncle and mother will be so horrendous they’ll make the Passion of the Christ look like a child’s picnic.”

  I hesitated, and Buck let out the breath he’d been holding.

  “Just sit, Mia,” he said quietly, an edge of pleading in his voice.

  “He can’t hold me, or you, here against our will,” I snapped, before looking at the artist. “That guy could tell everyone that I’ve been kidnapped and where I am.”

  The artist made a noise of surprise and his charcoal went rolling along the floor as he dropped it.

  Buck’s eyes were sad, almost desperate. He shook his head slowly.

  “They know where you are,” Bernard said, his smile growing wi
der. “And they aren’t coming for you. If he even makes so much as a move to consult a lawyer, the hard drive full of child pornography I’ll have planted in his home will be a very good incentive for the local police to round him up.”

  Ice started spreading inside my chest.

  Bernard took a step toward me, and then another.

  “I’ve always loved the quiet and peace of Hidden River. I used to think it was because we were so remote and removed from the city. I’ve come to find out that they don’t much care to bother with normal legal proceedings here, my dear.”

  He lifted a hand, and caressed my cheek. Buck tensed and made a noise, like a stifled growl.

  “Why bother with rights readings and long court cases when simple hunting accidents take care of most of the troublemakers,” Mr. Barron said, and I couldn’t breathe. He smiled at me. “Most of the force here are fathers. I can’t imagine what horrible thing might go wrong at your uncle’s little farm when they go to arrest him. He might trip and fall face-first onto a pitchfork for instance. So unfortunate if he doesn’t get his day in court but…”

  I turned my head slowly, to pull away from his touch and look at Buck. His eyes were dark, shadowed, and wet at the edges. I’d never seen him so powerless.

  And that scared me, more than anything else.

  Chapter Twelve

  I don't know how I sat for that portrait when every single part of me felt like it was shaking. The trembling must have not been noticeable, or maybe the artist was just used to his subjects moving slightly. Mr. and Mrs. Barron, Bernard and Sarah as I had finally come to know them, talked about casual things like their travels to Europe, the investments that they'd made in some Kentucky horse farms, acting as if they hadn't just threatened to frame and murder my uncle.

  They looked so casually poised that I wanted to vomit.

  It didn’t help either that the entire time, I sensed Buck’s panic as he stood just to my right while I sat in my wing-back chair. The fear rolled off of him in waves, and it was obvious why he’d lived with my uncle for so long.

  It wasn’t because he hated being in an empty house.

  It was that his parents were monsters. At one point Sarah fussed over my hair, laying it down behind my shoulders and saying that it was too common for such a family portrait, and I thought that Buck was nearly about to punch her out right there.

  Only my hard stare at him, begging him with my eyes to do nothing, stopped him.

  I needed to find a way to talk to him privately after this. But I wasn't sure how that would even be possible. I've known his father was evil — our father — but I didn't truly understand what a complete and absolute demon he was.

  As soon as we were done sitting for our portrait though, Bernard whisked Buck off to his ‘study’ to talk. Sarah took me by the hand and offered to show me a tour of the gardens, nice places that I could sit and study, she said. While we walked, she grilled me about my future plans, and if I thought I was more likely to get a husband at Harvard or at Yale. I wasn't sure how to tell her that I never imagined getting into such a school, or even getting a husband. Women like me didn't get married, I finally said as much, and she laughed. She took me by the shoulders and smoothed my hair behind my ears.

  "You are a part of our family now, and even if you weren't beautiful, men would be lining up. What do you think of Cael Pierce? His father may have been a sacrificial lamb for the family, but they’re stinkingly wealthy."

  I didn't even know what to say to that, so I said nothing. She dropped me at my rooms, and told me to rest. Dinner was brought up on a tray and, for the next four days, I was left alone: door locked from the outside, with only a maid to come in and change the linens on my bed, bring me food, and finally, a delivery of books to read. I felt like I was going to scream at the windows, and instead I somehow stayed pacing the room, calm on the outside while on the inside I felt like I was dying. I was tempted to throw a book at the window to see if shattered.

  On closer inspection though, those suckers looked about four panes thick.

  That didn’t stop me from dreaming, however.

  I was going to get out of there, no matter what it took. And I was going to find some way of saving my uncle from whatever Mr. Barron had planned for him.

  There was no way in hell I would ever let a horrible person like him control our lives. He had to have something over Buck too, because there was no way that Buck would let me linger like this, a prisoner. I had more faith in him than that. We’d been through some shit, but this was next level.

  A full week passed, and I was starting to feel like I was going completely crazy when the door opened and a maid walked in, a giant dry-cleaning bag on a hanger in her hands.

  “Your dress for dinner, Miss," she said, hanging it up on the hook on the back of my closet door, and left without a word, just like that.

  Excitement bubbled up inside me.

  The chance at freedom, to get out of this room and the jail that I was in, was too much to resist. I opened the bag and inside was a light frothy gown of chiffon, gauzy and lilac. It seemed Sarah was the one picking my clothes, since she was some kind of pastel fiend. I got dressed and did the best that I could with my hair; while there was makeup in the bathroom for me, and shampoo and conditioner, there wasn't much in the way of hairspray or even so much as a flat iron to convince my hair to do more than fall to my shoulder blades in an uninspiring sheet.

  When I tried the knob on the door, it miraculously opened, and a thrill of excitement ran through me as I stepped out into the hallway. There was no one there. It was empty.

  A choice presented itself immediately. The sensible option was to go downstairs and have dinner with my captors. The smart one was to try and find my freedom.

  The decision wasn't even a hard one. Instead of turning to the right and walking down the hall towards the grand stairs and the floor below… I turned left.

  Something I had noticed when I’d been laying on the floor of my bedroom, contemplating my future and if I even have one, was that sometimes I could hear a creak behind the wall and, shortly after that, a knock at my door. It sounded like there was a staircase at the end of the hall by my bedroom, and that's where the maid would come up with the tray for my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I’d been tracking it for days, scrambling to my feet as soon as I heard the last creak which told me that someone, a maid, would be at the door in a moment.

  I didn’t want them to know what I knew. The more I kept to myself, the safer I’d be. The more information I collected, the easier it would be to get out of there.

  And all my spying and secrecy had paid off.

  There it was, just as I’d suspected, a shadowed corner at the end of the hallway, and a recession as I approached it. And, just as I thought, a plain paneled swing door with a kick plate at the bottom. A servant's door. Without even questioning it, I pushed through it. I found myself in a sparsely-decorated hall that led to a set of stairs, straight down. I crept down them, my heart in my throat, and hit the bottom floor. The stairs twisted off to the left and continued down again, probably to the basement level. I was sure it was where they kept their storage, and the wine cellar.

  The clang and clatter behind one door at my right made me pause for one panicked second. Voices shouted at each other, orders, cooking sounds. Oh, just a kitchen then. I backed away and kept walking. The walls were stark white, and the carpet commercial grade and low pile under my feet. Perfect for muffling the footsteps of different servants and tradesmen as they worked in the business-end of the house…

  I passed a door with a hairline crack around the edge, like it hadn't quite closed properly… and I heard voices just beyond it.

  "I'm not going to let you keep her here," Buck said, his voice shaking. “I don’t care what you do to me, I’ll burn this fucking house to the ground if I have to. This is your last goddamn chance. Let her go.”

  One-hundred percent without thinking, I shoved the door open, inhaling at the sight.
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  It was his father’s study. Wood paneling in sleek, dark oak, glistened in the low light, and a fire crackled cheerfully in a fireplace, oblivious to the drama of the moment.

  My gaze slid across the room, my heart pounding my chest, getting louder and faster with each breath.

  Bernard sat at the desk, pen in his hand, as if he had been writing and interrupted in the midst of his work.

  And Buck, my Buck- my eyes watered to see him, the fury on his face, the surprise as his eyes swung from his father to me.

  My mouth opened in shock and I exhaled a soft no at the sight of them.

  Buck wasn’t just standing there, demanding his father let me go.

  No.

  Buck was standing in the middle of the room, arm straight out, gun clenched in his hand, pointing it directly at his father’s face.

  Buck stared at me and blinked, then glared at his father.

  “Let her go, now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Oh please, spare me your fucking hysterics," Bernard scowled, turning his head to look at me. "Can you believe this? He honestly thinks he’d shoot me. Sometimes I really wonder if he is my son, he's so stupid…"

  His words fell around me and I ignored him. He didn’t matter. Not right then. I had to diffuse the situation, because there was more than one way this was going to end, and if I had my say it wouldn’t be with Buck in the back of a police cruiser.

  "Buck, don’t,” I pleaded softly. “Put the gun down.”

  I shook my head; it wasn't worth the risk. If his father was willing to kidnap me, blackmail my uncle — blackmail me — he would do anything. Wouldn't he? The overwhelming need to keep Buck safe swelled in my heart.

  Buck’s hand never wavered, although I knew he was scared for me. His eyes flickered between me and his father over and over, like he was trying to make a choice, the right choice. He blinked, once, and shook his head, just slightly. He didn’t want me to stop him. He wanted to do what he thought he had to.