by Pam Godwin
My hands clench so hard the joints pop beneath the pressure. “And Raina?”
“She left with Erin.” He paces toward me, his face a sheet of white and his eyes on the camera mounted in the kitchen. “Erin was at the table, monitoring the video feeds on her device. She would’ve seen Conor move out of view. I assume she left to check it out. Raina went with her willingly, but they never showed up at the clinic.”
We stare at each other through a fog of disbelief, denial, and looming dread. The heaviness of the music penetrates our crippling shock, every note resounding like a slow-firing cannon.
“This is Wovenhand.” Jake cuts his eyes to the stereo. “A twisted rendition of John’s favorite song.”
“I fucking know it’s John’s song, but how the fuck is it playing?”
“The cameras and sound system can be accessed by any device that has the password.”
“Like Erin’s.” My pulse beats beneath my skin.
“She’s either involved in this or he confiscated her electronics.”
“Change the password.”
“I already did.”
My muscles tighten as a surge of manic energy quakes through nerves and limbs.
The song is a message from John, his sick way of telling us he infiltrated our security, our guard, and our girls.
We don’t know where he is or how to find him, but we can’t just stand here. We have to go, search, hunt, and get them back.
Jake’s chest heaves as he comes to the same conclusion.
We move simultaneously.
Out the front door and through the lot, I head toward my truck. “I’ll drive.”
We jump in, and I punch the gas, palms slick and throat on fire.
Jake attempts to call Erin and Conor again as I speed toward the vet clinic, spitting gravel. I take the back way through the woods, and that’s when I see her.
Tires screech in my attempt to stop.
“Oh, my God.” Jake opens the door while the truck’s still moving. “Conor!”
She stands in the middle of the path with a hand cupped to her neck. My relief crashes in waves with an undertow of horrifying realization.
Raina isn’t here.
Jake runs out of the truck as Conor raises her arms, reaching for him.
“What happened?” I’m right behind him, scanning the trees and road, my ears straining for sounds of movement. “Where’s Raina?”
Jake lifts Conor into his arms and buries his face in her hair.
“I don’t know. I…” Her breath hitches, and her hand returns to her neck. “I was injected with a tranquilizer. A woman… She brought her Basset Hound in for parasites. I went outside with her and stayed in camera range until she started screaming. She collapsed over the dog, claiming it was having a seizure. I didn’t think. I just reacted and ran to her.” She sucks in a sharp breath, and her gaze flies to me. “Did you just ask where Raina is? Is she missing?”
Jake meets my eyes and carries her to the truck. Setting her on the seat, he paws and probes her body for injuries. “What kind of tranquilizer? Should we go to the hospital?”
“No, I just…” She touches her throat. “My neck’s sore. As fast as it immobilized me, it was probably Etorphine or something similar. The main risk is overdose, which causes instant fatality. I’m still here, so…” She shrugs.
“Goddammit, fuck!” Jake launches at her, kissing her face and tangling a hand in her hair.
“Raina’s missing.” Impatience burns up my spine. “I need to know everything you remember. Every detail about that woman and everything she said.”
“Oh, no. Oh God, Lorne.” Her expression fractures through her shock and terror as she quickly outlines physical descriptions of the woman and the thirty-second conversation they had about parasites. “When I bent down beside her outside the clinic, she must’ve had the syringe ready. I didn’t even see her move. I was focused on the dog, trying to figure out why the woman was screaming. Then I felt a pinch in my neck. I knew what it was, but I had no time to react. It hit like a ton of bricks. Then I woke here. Alone.” She gestures at the road. “Maybe three or four minutes before you showed up.”
Jake glances at his watch.
“How long?” I ask.
“She was comatose for an hour.”
I pace away from the truck, shaking and flexing my hands. “An hour for the bitch to bring Conor here, where there are no cameras, and make the trade.”
“A trade for Raina?” Conor gasps.
I nod stiffly. “It would’ve been easy to watch the estate from the main road and determine our patterns over the past four days. Raina goes to the house to grab lunch, always around the same time, always with Erin, and she’s never left alone. John expected Erin to notice you missing and head this way, and he knew Raina would have to come.”
This was a trap for Raina, using Conor as a hostage. An exchange of one life for another.
John took her.
He has her in his possession, and I can’t begin to imagine the vitriolic state of his mind.
I own the land he wants, run the cattle operation he lost, and claimed the heart of the woman he’s infatuated with.
He’ll punish her for transgressions he believes she and I committed against him.
I stare at the end of the road where it winds out of view. The choices I make and the actions I take from this point forward will determine the rest of my life, as well as Raina’s.
My heart rate thunders, waging a battle inside me.
On one side is an inferno of hailing gunfire, madness, and mindless anger. On the other is a sharp sword of logic, focus, and frigid steel.
A snarling, impulsive, impassioned firestorm versus a methodical, emotionless, unforgiving blade.
The one that wins is the one I feed.
When John attacked Raina at the restaurant, I fed the fire, and he got away.
I need control. Diligence. Calculation. Heartlessness.
Something switches inside me, and in that terrible, defining moment, I lose my humanity.
In its place rises one purpose. One thought. One emotion.
Ice-cold cruelty.
I return to the truck, focused, sharpened, and planning ten steps ahead.
“Where did they get the tranquilizer?” I climb in behind the wheel.
“It would be used for really large animals.” Conor shifts to the center of the seat, allowing room for Jake.
When he slides in, I shove the truck into drive.
“I don’t have anything that potent at the clinic.” She rubs her neck. “But I’ve seen it used to bring down raging bulls that escape in town. The sheriff would have something like that.”
Sheriff Fletcher.
John is penniless and desperate, and he turned to the only friend he has left.
Of course, Fletcher’s involved. I counted it.
He won’t offer up John’s location easily, but I’ll give him no choice.
Ice hardens my muscles. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything but lust.
Lust for blood.
I’m intoxicated by the need to slowly, callously eliminate every person who earned my wrath. The potency of it crystallizes my blood and solidifies my veins.
“We’ll get her back.” Conor touches my thigh and yanks her hand back when she feels the inhuman rigidness in it.
When I reach the ranch, I park, enter the house, and stride to the bedroom. Single-minded and reined in, I don’t slow down or take detours.
“What happened?” Jarret runs toward me.
My jaw is a steel frame of lethal teeth, trapping the gnawing, relentless need to crush bone and sinew.
In the bedroom, I gather guns, ammo, blades, and other gear while mentally mapping how each weapon will be used.
Raina embeds the very air in this space, but I don’t look around. I can’t. It would run a knife through my heart and debilitate me.
When I have everything I need, I take steady, efficient steps to the truck, my mi
nd anchored on the next stop.
The sheriff’s house.
On my way out, I breeze past the conversation in the foyer. Jake must be updating Jarret and Maybe on what happened.
As I tread onto the front porch, Jake shouts, “I’m going with you.”
Good. I need him.
“I’m going, too.” Conor says.
“No, you’re not,” Jake and Jarret growl at the same time.
I’d lock my sister in the tack room before I’d let her come with me. Wouldn’t be the first time.
I leave them to work it out and climb into my truck.
Jake doesn’t make me wait.
“Jarret’s staying with Conor and Maybe.” He slides in beside me and stows his pistol.
As I pull out and drive toward Fletcher’s, I center my mind and prepare to risk everything.
Halfway there, I break the silence.
“I’m going for zero.” I meet Jake’s gaze. “Zero warning. Zero mercy. Zero survivors.”
Except my family. The six of us will survive.
For the rest of the drive, I lay out the plan and what I expect from Jake.
He listens with his eyes closed and pulls in a long, shuddering breath. When I finish, he refocuses on me, resolution forging his jaw.
I enter Fletcher’s neighborhood from the back side and park a few streets away from his house. We walk to his front porch, and his SUV isn’t in the driveway.
As planned, we beat him home from work.
Jake knocks, and I let him navigate the manners and niceties. He tells Fletcher’s wife, Mary, we want to catch up with her husband. They go back and forth. She wants to call Fletcher. Jake says not to rush him.
No calls. No warnings. We need the element of surprise.
When Jake flashes the smile that always works on my sister, that’s all it takes.
Mary invites us in and seals her fate.
We gather around the kitchen table, where she feeds us buttery biscuits and coffee. Jake does most of the talking, keeping the conversation light and nonthreatening. She tells us stories about going to school with our mothers. I maintain a civilized exterior and feel nothing for this woman. I can’t feel. My humanity is dormant. It has to be if I want my family to survive this.
Jake steers the discussion back to topics on weather, vacations, and town gossip.
And we wait.
After an hour of teeth-grinding chitchat, panic creeps in. Plaguing images. Gruesome thoughts. My mind pulls into a vortex of despair for the woman I miss with my entire being.
The things John is doing to her… I don’t have to imagine it. I’ve seen the kind of dark brutality that lurks within a rapist. I was forced to watch it in the ravine.
That experience prepared me for the agony that festers in me now. I freeze out the burning impulses with cold reasoning. Emotions must be kept under strict control. The only way I’m getting Raina back is with icy precision and a clear head.
Eventually, Fletcher’s SUV sounds in the driveway. Jake remains at the table. I stand with Mary as she moves to the counter to pour her husband a cup of coffee.
I hold out my mug for a refill so she’s not suspicious of my hovering.
As she fills it, Fletcher strolls into the kitchen and stops.
His knees lock in the brown uniform pants. Tendons stand out behind the buttoned collar. His lips pale beneath the gray mustache, and his hand hovers over the gun at his hip.
His fear shows itself in that split second and disappears just as quickly.
“Good evening, boys.” He removes the brown triple brim hat, with the obnoxious gold acorn cords and badge, and sets it on the table. His gaze slides to Mary, looking her over for signs of distress, then returns to me. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Where’s John?” I calmly set the coffee aside as bloodlust shivers beneath my skin.
“Mary,” he says without looking at her. “Why don’t you go—?”
“Mary stays.” I grip her frail arm. “Give me John’s location.”
She tugs against me, more in alarm than in an attempt to flee. “Fletcher?”
Fletcher scowls, his hand twitching for his gun. “I don’t know where—”
I yank her arm straight, holding the wrist and elbow, and crack the ulna bone over my knee. I feel the break, hear the screams, and swallow down the regret that inflames in my throat.
The sheriff goes for the gun on his hip, but Jake already drew his own and trains it at Fletcher’s head from a few feet away.
Mary sags to the floor, sobbing and cradling her arm. I grab the gray bun on her nape and drag her to her feet.
“I’ll break every bone, Fletcher.” I swat away her efforts to fight and position her good arm in front of me. “Then I’ll start cutting off pieces.”
“Tell him where John took the Indian!” She trembles and wails. “Tell him, Fletcher!”
Mary knows? She obviously doesn’t know the location. She would’ve leaked it after the first break.
“Hand over your gun.” Jake inches closer, pistol aimed and steady.
He and Jarret murdered a lot of men, and his skill with a firearm is impeccable.
I give Mary a shake, drawing her attention. “Tell me what you know.”
Fletcher’s face reddens. “Mary, don’t—”
“He helped John get the Indian girl today. I don’t know where he took her, but I…” Her voice grinds into sobs. “I just want all this to go away. All this business with your family… It’s an infection. I want it out of our lives.”
Goddammit, I ache to crush her for smiling and serving us coffee and talking about our mothers. She knew the whole time that my girl had been taken from me. Fucking bitch.
She tucks her broken limb against her side and shrieks as I wrench her other arm out and over my knee.
“Stop.” Fletcher holds up his hands, his eyes wild with pain and desperation. “I’ll tell you. Please, just don’t hurt her.”
“The gun,” Jake says. “Slowly.”
He slides it from the hip holster and hands it to Jake. “I have a cabin at Loblolly Lake. On the south side. That’s where he’s holding Raina.”
“Did you provide the tranquilizers?” I tighten my grip on Mary.
“Yes.”
He didn’t just help John capture Raina. He gave John a secure place to rape her.
I know they’re lifelong friends, but I didn’t understand the depth of that relationship until now. John has nothing to offer Fletcher. They’re in this together because that’s what friends do, and they’ve been doing it since my mother died and probably long before that.
They’re a cancerous lesion on the flesh of the soul that can only be removed with gunpowder and sharp steel.
I release Mary and lift my handgun from its wedged position between my belt and tailbone. As she runs into Fletcher’s arms, I toss Jake the keys to my truck.
He waits until my weapon is trained on Fletcher before leaving the house without a word.
He’ll pull the truck around and follow the rest of the plan.
Meanwhile, Mary cries against Fletcher’s chest as he gingerly exams her broken arm.
“I need to take her to the hospital.” He looks up at me, eyes pleading. “I’ll give you directions to the cabin. Anything you need. Just let us go.”
“Don’t need directions. You and Mary are taking me there.”
I wake on my back on a concrete floor, vision blurry, muscles weak, mind groggy. So tired. So many questions. Is Conor okay? Does Lorne know what happened? Where’s John?
Where am I?
I lift my head and stop breathing.
Empty storage room, concrete walls, steel door, duct-taped wrists, scattered clothes—it’s all in my periphery, but my attention is locked on my body.
I’m completely nude, and I don’t have to touch between my legs to know he’s been inside me. I feel the wetness. The abuse. The violation.
My stomach heaves, and I roll to my side, fighting fo
r air and trying not to puke while remaining as quiet as possible.
He raped me while I was catatonic.
He forced me when I couldn’t fight.
Tears smear my eyes, and I drag my bound hands across my cheeks, wiping, whimpering, and trembling all over.
I don’t remember it. I wasn’t forced to feel him, smell him, or hear him. I know it happened, but I’ve been spared the memory.
I won’t be so lucky next time.
My breathing grows faster, louder. Sweat drenches my skin, and fear overwhelms my body as I take an inventory of the cramped room.
The bolt on the door requires a key. There’s nothing in here but the clothes he stripped from my body.
How am I going to escape this?
My shoulders curl in, and I press the duct tape to my forehead, rocking and shaking violently. Coldness seeps into my skin, my blood, my bones. I can’t hear over the thundering drum in my ears.
This is happening.
I’m caught. Caged. Naked. I can’t make this stop. I can’t take it away. The beatings, his temper, the hands on my skin, the sickening sensation of him moving inside me… I can’t face this.
I won’t do this again.
When he raped me before, I was different. I was detached, hardened, jaded, and fighting for Tiana’s life.
But I still have a life to fight for.
My own.
For Lorne.
If I don’t find my way back to him, it’ll destroy him as much as it will me.
I have to fight through this crippling fear. I need to think, prepare, and be strong.
Bringing the duct tape handcuffs to my mouth, I start chewing while focusing all my senses on the silence outside the door. The steel barrier is so thick, would I even hear anyone? There are no gaps around it, nowhere for sound to slip through.
Is this some kind of safe room? It’s the size of a small closet with no windows and cinder block construction.
My teeth snag on the duct tape, stinging an ache through my gums.
Why am I chewing? Lorne showed me how to escape this.
Pulling my feet beneath me, I stagger to stand and catch myself against the wall. The room spins, and my legs tremble to give out.
