It was completely up to her to make it there every day, to study for her exams, and handle all things related to school without parental involvement whenever possible. That had changed with Clay and Claire, and she’d spent the last two years at high school enjoying the experience and accepting it as a foregone conclusion that not only would she graduate from high school, but she would go on to college as well.
She looked young and optimistic there, with her dark hair flowing over the pale gray graduation robe, the mortarboard still firmly placed on her head, though the tassel was missing. It had been a good day, and she was filled with warmth at the sight of her foster parents’ faces.
Despite Declan’s revelations about his financial assistance, she could see as she looked down at them that they loved her. They genuinely cared about her, and though it still stung to know they had accepted Declan’s help, she was pretty much over the sense of betrayal at that point.
The question was, how did Declan come to have the picture? Presumably, Claire or Clay had given it to him. Did that mean they were offering periodic updates about her life as well? It seemed likely, considering they thought he was a benign benefactor who cared about seeing her succeed, and not realizing he planned to keep her as his own personal sex slave/broodmare.
With a sigh, she put the photo back in the drawer and closed it, reminding herself not to get sidetracked by the revelation of her picture by his gun. If she wasn’t so focused on escaping, perhaps she would spend more time fretting about it. Right now, it seemed unimportant in the scheme of things.
With a regretful sigh when she didn’t turn up the key, she walked to his bedroom door and slipped out quietly, tiptoeing down the hallway until she was near her room, when she burst into a nearly silent jog.
Once in her room, Kat took time to change into a pair of yoga pants, a tank top, and a hoodie. They were her most practical clothes that offered the most coverage. She still had no clue how she was going to get the boat out of the boathouse, but this morning, she was determined to try.
She made her way out of the house, holding her breath the entire time. She expected him to wake at any moment and realize she was gone, instigating him to come after her. Dressed as she was, he might believe she had simply gone for a jog if he found her, but she didn’t know if he was that naïve. If he found her anywhere near the boathouse, he would realize she was still trying to escape. Would he put her on tighter lockdown, or was he so confident of his security that it wouldn’t concern him at all?
She had a feeling it would concern him greatly in one area. He would feel betrayed by her escape attempt. A dart of guilt shot through her, and she ruthlessly squashed it with the reminder that she had nothing for which to feel guilty. She was simply trying to escape this false reality he’d created and return to the real world, a world where she didn’t get wet from being spanked, and she didn’t beg someone to strangle her so she could orgasm.
She paused at the top of the rough-cut stairs and cringed, remembering how she had prostrated herself before him last night, begging him to tighten the strap around her throat. A sickening wave of nausea passed through her, leaving her lightheaded for a moment. Kat took a step back to ensure she didn’t fall down before planting her bottom on the top step and her feet two below it.
Breathing deeply, struggling to center herself and push back the disquieting memories of last night, she tried to focus. At the time, it had cost her a great deal of pride to ask, but now, in the cold light of day, she couldn’t believe she had even needed his hands around her throat, let alone needed to beg for it.
She had begged him to choke her. What the fuck was wrong with her? That wasn’t natural or normal, and she couldn’t blame it on her childhood, as fucked up as that had been. Neglectful, abusive, and absent adults in her life certainly had little to do with her needing pain and asphyxiation to get off sexually. She couldn’t see a connection if there was one anyway. No, for once, she couldn’t blame Joe and Irene Evans for her fuckedupedness.
Her strange need rested solely on her, but she had managed to suppress it for twenty-two years. All she had to do was flee from the dark temptation he offered, and surely she could return to her normal, pre-Declan state.
She just had to have the fortitude to tear herself away from him, as much as she wanted to stay. That part was frightening too, because even as she made her way down the stairs, finally recovered enough to walk without falling, she kept glancing over her shoulder in anticipation. She expected Declan to come running after her at any moment, and it wasn’t fear that greeted the thought of him stopping her. No, it was hopeful expectation.
As she approached the boathouse, the fact that she wanted Declan to stop her was what actually urged her on. She knew there was no entry without the key, at least the conventional way. However, a handy rock from the beach, where tide pools were still visible, and morning tide was just starting to wash in, offered a solution.
She hefted one in her hand and ran back to the boathouse, pulling back her arm and throwing the rock through the glass of the largest window as hard as she could. It shattered, and she took a step back, covering her face in case any of the shards flew her way.
After the last tinkling had ended, she uncovered her face and approached the window. Jagged shards still lodged in the sill, and she stripped off her hoodie to use as a makeshift tool to knock the pieces away from the wooden frame. She was mostly successful, and then laid the fleece jacket over the bottom part of the sill so she could protect her legs as she climbed inside.
She went slowly and carefully, but still managed to gouge her shoulder fairly deeply on a shard sticking out of the top of the sill. She cursed as she rolled into the boathouse, landing painfully on her coccyx.
Kat strained to look at her bleeding shoulder. It was difficult to tell from her vantage point, but it didn’t appear to be a life-threatening injury, and surely the bleeding would slow or stop soon.
She thought about retrieving her hoodie and trying to press it against her shoulder, maybe using the wall for leverage, but decided against it when she saw the glass sparkling in the fabric. It seemed far more likely that she would simply embed additional shards in her skin rather than do something about the bleeding.
Instead, and reluctantly, she stripped off her tank top, leaving her in just a sports bra and yoga pants. It wasn’t the ideal getaway outfit, but allowing herself to keep bleeding wasn’t that great of an option either.
She folded the garment into a square and pressed it awkwardly against the wound before leaning against the wall, allowing the pressure from the wood to hold the makeshift bandage against the gash. It burned, especially when she pressed tightly against the wall, but she gritted her teeth and endured the pain.
After a few moments, she gingerly took a step away and reached for the cloth, wincing when it stuck to the wound for a second before pulling free. All the blood on there made her stomach roll with nausea, but she forced it down and laid the shirt on the floor away from the broken glass in case she needed it again.
Then she made her way to the boat, deciding that she would explore it to see how she might proceed without a key. Could she turn it into a giant rowboat with some kind of makeshift oar? The idea was ludicrous, but she seriously considered it for a moment in her desperation to get off the island.
A thought occurred to her, making her hurry as she approached the boat. There was likely to be a radio on board, and if she was lucky, it ran off a separate power source from the engine or the main battery. It seemed prudent to have it on an independent source, or its own marine battery, but she knew so little about boats that she wasn’t confident that was the case. If it was, she could radio for help and probably be off the island by nightfall.
The idea brought more dread than anticipation, and she forced aside that reaction as she started to step from the platform to the boat, which had drifted to the other side of the U-shaped platform that wrapped around the boat. She should go around, but she was impatient to b
oard and find the radio, so she just stretched farther.
There was enough water underneath the boat to make it shift, and as she stretched, her impractical sandals—the only footwear she’d brought with her—slipped on the edge of the wooden platform, and she went tumbling sideways. Kat cried out and windmilled her arms, trying to regain her balance or grab hold of something as she went plunging headfirst into the space between the platform and the boat. Her head slammed into the fiberglass hull with a sickening thud, and blood poured down her forehead to fill her eyes during the tumble, followed by a wave of blackness she was powerless to resist.
***
A floating sensation woke her, and for a moment she was so disoriented that she had no idea what was happening. Slowly, awareness returned as she realized she was hanging upside down between the boat and the platform, her ankle wedged between the two, which was the only thing keeping her aloft. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but the tide had risen dramatically. The floating sensation had come from the fact that her hair was floating on top of the water, and it was lapping gently against her head.
Fear overwhelmed her, and she began to struggle, doing her best to pull free of the way her ankle was wedged. The boat refused to move, as did the platform. She no longer cared about concealing her whereabouts from Declan or escaping. All she wanted was his help and the comfort of his arms.
Kat opened her mouth and let out a scream, the longest and loudest she could manage. Sharp pain accompanied it, grinding through her head as though someone had driven a thousand stilettos into her temple and was currently twisting the blades. She was forced to fall silent when the pain overwhelmed her, and her throat was too raw and scratchy to continue shouting. She only hoped Declan had heard her. If she had been out as long as she thought, surely he was looking for her by now. If he wasn’t nearby, she was probably going to die.
As she had the thought, water rolled in again, this time with more vigor, and splashed her in the face. The sensation evoked terror, and she struggled mindlessly again, trying to free herself from the way she was trapped, but having no success. When something touched her ankle, the one pinned between the platform and the boat, she was too panicked to recognize it as Declan’s hand for a moment, but his stern voice cut through her anxiety.
“Stop struggling, Kat.”
As frightened as she was, with her heart racing in her ears, and her stomach churning with nausea, she still responded instinctively to his command and stopped moving. Breathless whimpers were escaping her, and she closed her mouth in a futile attempt to fall silent. She couldn’t completely contain her mewls of terror, but she was still as he tried to free her.
“I can’t quite get this,” he called from above her. It sounded like he strained as he said the words.
She could feel the boat move marginally, but not enough to free her. A second later, his hand disappeared, and she was irrationally convinced he had left her. She began to thrash again, not recognizing the sound she heard for a moment. It was a hydraulic lift, similar to the sound of a garage door opening, and she looked up in time to see the front part of the boathouse rising.
With a splash, Declan jumped from the platform and into the rising tide, swimming over to her by going underneath the boat and coming out on the side next to her. She was feeling woozy from having hung upside down so long, and from running on pure adrenaline since waking, and a wave of exhaustion swept through her when he reached her side.
“What the hell are you doing, Kat?”
“I wanted to escape. I can’t stay here anymore.” She shivered as her strength left her, and she hung limply. The water was over her ears now when she laid her head down and didn’t fight to keep it lifted.
His expression betrayed his pain. “You wanted to leave me so badly that it’s worth killing yourself?”
She wanted to explain, but she didn’t have the energy. Instead she just shook her head. “I need to get away from this. I’m not myself here.”
“Well congratulations, because you’re probably going to succeed by fucking drowning. I can’t move the boat, and I don’t have power tools to cut out a section of the deck. I never fucking thought I’d need them, since maintenance is performed by a company on a routine basis.”
His shouting made her flinch, but it also brought a spark of energy and renewed determination. “Why not just start the boat and drive it out?”
His mouth tightened, and he shook his head. “If I do that, the propeller is likely to disembowel you or decapitate you on the way out. You’re right in the path of it, and I can’t move the boat enough to free you without risking killing you.”
Her eyes watered at the news, and she could feel that futile hopelessness settling over her again. “I’m sorry, Declan. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”
“I guess you’re satisfied though, as long as you escape. Doesn’t matter if you’re still alive when it’s over?” He spoke bitterly, but with an underlying note of fear.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave you behind.”
He laughed harshly. “I’d have a lot fucking easier time believing that if you weren’t hanging upside down due to your own stupidity.” When she flinched, his voice softened, and he brushed her cheek. “I’m sorry. I should have realized this would happen.”
“I don’t know what kind of fortuneteller you’ve been seeing, but I doubt anyone could have predicted this outcome,” she said with a hint of dry humor in an attempt to combat the rising panic.
Water splashed in her nose, and she gasped and thrashed, lifting her head above the waterline temporarily. His hand was there to support the back of her head, but she knew it was a temporary solution. Eventually, the water would rise to the point where he couldn’t hold her up. It might eventually get high enough to float her back to the platform, but she probably would have already drowned by then.
She’d wanted to escape her inner darkness, and she might have found a permanent way to do so. In light of the drastic enormity of the solution, she realized it wasn’t so bad to have strange cravings and dark needs—needs that Declan met so well.
“Just hang in there, baby.”
They floated together quietly for a few moments, and still she had no idea what he was thinking. Her thoughts were consumed with what was happening, what she had sacrificed, and with trying to hold the panic at bay. As the water grew higher, she was having less success with doing so. He was still holding her up, but the tide was high enough now to make it difficult for both of them, and her back ached from the angle.
“Just let me go, Declan. You have to get out of here before you’re trapped or something too.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Looking into his eyes, seeing the resignation there, she abruptly intuited that if she drowned, he had every intention of going with her. He wasn’t even going to try to save himself or get out of the water while he still had plenty of time.
The epiphany brought a renewed surge of determination and pushed back the panic. “Dammit, no. Get up there and see if you can wrench my foot loose. I don’t care if you have to break my ankle or fucking cut it off. Get me out, because we are not dying here.”
Declan arched a brow, hesitating for just a second before nodding. Perhaps he’d realized that he could always drown himself to join her later if he failed to free her. It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
She was determined not to die in such a careless and stupid way. There was no way she was going to receive a posthumous Darwin Award. The idea made her want to laugh, but she suspected it was more hysteria than amusement prompting the reaction.
He swam away from her and back out from under the boat. Kat heard his footsteps on the platform above her a moment later. After that, there was incredible pain in her foot as he pushed and shoved and tried to cram it downward. Then she felt the boat start to shift as she heard his grunt and imagined he was using sheer stubborn strength of will and all the power in
his body to shove the heavy vessel.
Apparently, the water was high enough now to make it easier to move the vessel, and her ankle slipped free. A rush of excitement filled her, and she almost cried with joy, but held back at the last moment as her head plunged underwater.
Relief and jubilation fled in the face of panic, as she confronted her phobia head-on and unexpectedly. She thrashed and tried to fight her way to the surface, vaguely aware of being pulled away by the tide. A moment later, it slammed her upward and into the boat, colliding with the other side of her head.
She tried to fight the surge of unconsciousness, but had little success. The edges of her vision blurred and went gray, and she knew if she couldn’t stave off the wave of blackness trying to wash over her, she would probably die before Declan could find her and retrieve her from the ocean.
Out of desperation, Kat grabbed her nipples and pinched as hard as she could, pulling on the sensitive buds until she wanted to scream from the pain. There was no pleasure associated with the action, but it served to help fight the wave of dizziness pressing down over her.
She was still disoriented, and from the downward angle she was traveling, she assumed she had been washed along the slope leading down from the boathouse and out toward the open ocean. She had to fight her way to the surface so Declan could find her. She knew nothing about swimming, except what she had seen on TV, but she tried a crude form of scissoring her legs and arms.
It seemed to make little difference, and she still couldn’t tell whether she should be moving up or down. Obviously, the surface had to be above her, but was she moving upward or swimming deeper into the ocean—if she could call her clumsy motions swimming, which was far too generous a description? Her lungs ached with the need to breathe, and she fought the urge to take a breath, knowing it would be her last.
Sweet: A Dark Love Story Page 11
