by Abbie Roads
The room swung back and forth on a giant pendulum. Rrriigghhtt… Then lleeeffttt… The dizziness made it hard to define his surroundings. Slowly, he was able to make out the room around him. A kitchen area, a dining table, a couch. And a sink, toilet, and shower out in the open for all to see. He blinked. Was he seeing that right? Yep.
His gaze shifted to the man sitting next to him. The black shadow around Malone throbbed, yet the man sat there staring at him with a smile on his face. A child’s terror gripped Thomas—the kind that happens when the monster under the bed turns out to be real.
Adrenaline bucked through him, offering him the gift of clarity.
He gasped and jerked away, but he ran into something solid and unyielding. A wall.
“Shhh… It’s okay,” Malone soothed and reached toward him.
Thomas scrambled away from Malone on all fours, falling off the bed onto his hands and knees. The combined impact resonated through his body, but he forced himself to standing and caught sight of a man across the room. A man he recognized. A man he knew.
His father. His fucking dead father.
There weren’t very many pictures of his father. As a child, Thomas had pilfered one of the few photos and spent hours staring at the man, begging the image to rescue him from Malone. For years, that picture represented hope. Until Thomas grew up enough to realize no one was going to save him.
Thomas recognized the man’s dirty-blond hair, the sharp features, the downward tilt to his eyes. It was almost like staring into a mirror. Only… Fuck. It really was a mirror he was looking into. He could see the scar on his cheek. He was looking at his own damned self.
He raised a hand to his hair. His dirty-blond hair. “What’d you do to my ha—”
A sudden sting in his ass whirled him around. Malone held a syringe. “I didn’t want to do this to you, but if it’s the only way to keep you compliant…”
A heavy black wave poured over Thomas, drowning out the rest of Malone’s words.
* * *
Thomas didn’t wake all at once. Each of his senses yawned and stretched, warming up before finally engaging.
He felt the solid presence of Helen spooning his back. She reached around his waist, pulling him in tighter to her. He nestled into the feeling, but he was so hot. Her hand wandered over his hip, his abdomen, then lower, gripping him through his underwear.
He tried to enjoy the sensation, but her hold on him was too hard, too aggressive, almost painful. And he was so damn hot.
“Hey. Slow down.” He opened his eyes as he rolled over to face her. “We have all the time in—”
Malone lay with him, his shadow rising and roiling, his disgusting hand on Thomas’s dick.
Thomas bucked away from the man’s touch, sat up, and shot a fist at Malone’s nose. Cartilage crunched underneath his knuckles. Malone squeaked, a high-pitched, childish sound. Thomas slammed a fist into the man’s gut, then delivered an uppercut to his jaw, snapping his head back.
Malone collapsed back on the bed, and Thomas scrambled out. He stole a moment to loom over the asshole, willing him to move, to twitch, to even breathe—because if he did, Thomas wasn’t sure he’d stop at just a few blows. He might beat the man until all that remained was a pile of bloody meat. This man had not only stolen his childhood but tried to take his dignity as an adult.
His gaze snagged on the image in the mirror across the room. His fucking blond hair. Didn’t have the time to think about that now. Only one thing was important. Finding Helen. Just thinking her name, he sensed what direction she was in. To his left.
He nabbed a set of keys off the counter, then threw open the only door in the place, and ran out into the snowy night.
His feet were bare, his body clothed only in a pair of tighty-whities. He didn’t even want to think about what had happened to his pants and shirt. Getting out of here and back to Helen mattered above all else.
Snow burned his feet. His muscles locked in a battle to retain their heat, but he forced them to move. Forced himself to run along the shoveled path to a car.
“Evan. Stop. Don’t run.” Malone yelled from behind him. His tone was the same one that used to ram a rod of fear directly up Thomas’s spine. But he’d turned a corner. Gone was that scared little boy. In his place was an enraged man who would’ve enjoyed hurting Malone as much as Malone had hurt him. But getting back to Helen mattered more than revenge. There’d be time for vengeance later.
Something pinched his shoulder. He flinched away from it, but then his body stopped working. He went weightless, snow rushing up to him. He hit hard. Hands. Chest. Knees. Pain rocketed through his body.
He couldn’t move, his body convulsing as if plugged into a lightning bolt. He couldn’t yell. He couldn’t think. All he could do was feel. And it felt as if he were being ripped apart on a cellular level.
The all-consuming pain vanished, but his muscles remained locked into tight spasms that refused to relent.
“I told you not to run. You’re not leaving me this time. We’ll be together until our end.”
Thomas lay facedown in the snow, gulping air, his body twanging. He should’ve turned the guy into hamburger meat before leaving the cabin. Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda.
He turned his head—all the movement he could manage—in time to see Malone’s sock-covered foot rushing toward his face, ending things between them the exact way they’d started.
Before impact, he closed his eyes and somehow, impossibly, he heard Helen’s voice in his head. “I love you. Stay alive. I’ll find you.”
Chapter 18
White everywhere, expanding to infinity.
She was inside another dream, about to fight for someone else’s life when the only life that mattered to her was Thomas’s. Why the hell was she dreaming right now anyway? She needed to wake up. She needed to help Thomas.
“Hurry up. Let’s get this over with.”
She felt the shimmer start low on her abdomen, spreading through her entire body. Her mouth opened, and the same words she’d heard the last two times came out. “You are the warrior. It is your destiny to teach others how to survive.”
The environment morphed and changed. Color emerged. Browns. Dark Blues. Tan. Splashes of cream. Just like a jigsaw puzzle being put together one piece at a time, a room formed around her.
She lay on a cold, hard surface—a table maybe? Her shoulder blades and tailbone points of pressure beneath her. Malone moved into her field of vision. Oh God, was she sharing a dream with Thomas? Teaching him how to survive? This was one fight she was definitely going to win.
She tried to roll away from Malone but couldn’t move. Not even an inch. She lifted her head, looking down the length of her body. Thick black straps covered her hips and chest, locking her naked torso to the table. More of those straps sheathed her ankles and her wrists. Even though she already knew she couldn’t move, she had to test them all. She flexed all her muscles, pulled and pushed with everything inside her, and…nothing.
“This is a fight you cannot win by force. You must give him what he wants.” The words came out of her mouth but weren’t in her voice.
Oh, hell no. Everything inside her rebelled. She was the goddamned warrior and this thing in her dreams was asking her to give in, give up when Thomas’s life was on the line? No. Never.
Malone moved to stand beside her head. Both of his eyes were ringed in purple, and his nose looked swollen and painful.
“Evan…”
Evan? Who the hell is Evan? Where’s Thomas? She opened her mouth to speak the words, but no sound came out.
He reached out and stroked her hair. Such an oddly gentle gesture. And the way he looked at her, or Evan, overflowed with a sad kind of love.
Where is Thomas? she screamed, but her mouth didn’t move, and no sound came out.
“Every time you hurt me, I will hurt you w
orse. This time, I’m not going to martyr myself for you. This time, Evan, you will suffer for me.” Malone’s tone offered no room for question or disagreement. “You broke my nose. And my toe.”
She saw his fist rushing at her face too late. Didn’t have time to turn her head. Force and pressure. Lights and stars. Hot blood gushed over her skin, drained down into her throat. She turned her head, coughing and choking on the goop, but not feeling the pain of the blow.
Tears burned in her sinuses, then filled her eyes and spilled to race to her hairline. These weren’t sad tears. They were angry tears. Tears filled with fight. She wanted to hurt this man who hurt Thomas as a child and was trying to hurt some guy named Evan now.
Where is Thomas? Again, she tried to ask him, but nothing came out. Her only option was to wait until the end of the dream when Evan would finally appear to her. Then she’d ask him if he’d seen Thomas.
“Here now,” Malone’s voice soothed. “None of that.” Tenderly, he wiped at the tears drizzling from her eyes with his fingers. Her body wanted to recoil from him, but something locked her into place, forcing her to endure his touch.
Her mouth opened, and words flowed out of her. Words that didn’t come from her. “I’ve made some terrible mistakes.” Her hand lifted in the restraint as if it were seeking his. He grasped her hand with his, twining their fingers together in a lover’s knot. She squeezed and looked him in the eye. “The past is over and gone. No matter how much I wish I could change it, I can’t. I’m sorry I screwed up, but those are only words. Give me a chance to show you that I won’t leave and won’t hurt you ever again.”
What the hell was coming out of her mouth?
He bent and kissed her knuckles, rubbing his smoothly shaven cheek against her hand. Her insides recoiled at his touch, but her outsides didn’t move.
“God, I’ve missed you. You have no idea what it’s been like all these years without you.”
“I’ve missed you too. I was stupid. I wasted so much time.”
He swept his arm around the space. “I changed nothing. Kept it all the same.” He sounded like an excited little boy showing his momma an A he’d gotten on his report card.
Under the control of something else, her head turned and her eyes roamed the setting, as if taking it all in. Her mouth opened. “I’ve always loved it here. It’s so quiet. So peaceful. So…ours.” Where the hell were these words coming from?
He let go of her hand and stroked her face. “Evan…I love you. And I’m sorry for what I’m about to do. I hadn’t expected you to wake so soon. I had wanted you to remain asleep for this part, but maybe this is as it should be. So you will be aware of the consequences of your behavior.” His tone carried a sadness and regret that scared the shit out of her. He let go of her hand and walked down to the foot of the table. Only then did she see the tools. Pliers. Screwdrivers. A hammer. A saw.
“For both of us, I’m going to make sure you never again run from me.”
“Wake up,” a female voice intruded. “Come on. Time to open your eyes.”
Helena felt a hand on her shoulder, felt her body jostle.
* * *
Her eyes popped open to a hospital room and a perky, petite nurse disappearing behind the curtain partition.
No. She’d been woken up before she finished the dream. Oh God… Evan… Whoever he was, he was going through hell at Malone’s hand, and she hadn’t been able to finish helping him. And didn’t find out one thing about Thomas.
She tried to sit up but couldn’t move. A spurt of panic launched through her system, but she doused it before it latched on too tight. This was just that sleep paralysis thing bleeding over into wake time.
Just give it time, and she’d be able to move again. Then she’d figure out how to find Thomas and how to find Malone so she could save Evan. She closed her eyes and concentrated on trying to move her fingers and toes.
Minutes ticked by as sensation and the ability to move returned at the same time as a pain in the back of her head grew. When full feeling returned, she reached up to touch the spot, but her hand moved only an inch before it caught on something. A shiny, silver handcuff encircled her wrist, latching her to the bed rail.
Her heart caved in on itself. It was futile and stupid, but she couldn’t help herself. She tugged against the cuff, hoping beyond hope that it would magically release and she would be free—not for herself, but free to find Thomas. She would endure a lifetime in Fairson as long as he was alive and well out in the world.
She closed her eyes. Thomas. Thomas. Thomas. She could feel him. She turned her head to the right, seeing through her eyelids, the walls, and the miles that separated them to a ramshackle cabin in the woods. She wanted to see Thomas to confirm for herself that he was all right, but her vision ended at the cabin. “I love you. Stay alive. I’ll find you.” Like a rubber band, her vision snapped back, and everything she’d seen disappeared.
Her eyes popped open.
Using her free hand, she reached up and found a thick gauze bandage wrapped around her head. What had happened to the back of her head? She remembered Malone punching her in the side of her head with his gun, not the back of the head.
She reviewed every moment of interaction out on the road with Malone. He’d seemed polite. Almost as if he was trying to ease Thomas’s mind by leaving her a jacket and a cell phone and keys to the cuffs. But that seemed so at odds with the man who’d hurt Thomas so badly as a child.
Why would he want to take Thomas now? What could he possibly gain from that?
A nurse bustled in, saw she was awake, turned on her heel, and was out the door before Helena could even open her mouth. Great. That was probably the nicest reaction she was going to get. Being Helena Grayse carried no perks. Tenderly, she scooted to a sitting position, her head not happy with the change in equilibrium.
The curtain surrounding her little space was flung back. A man in khaki pants and a black polo shirt stood there. His gray hair was overly thick and rode just above his brow line, making him a dead ringer for a Neanderthal.
He stared at her with one of those hard, assessing looks that only a law-enforcement officer could pull off. As if he had some special power to see all her sins. Ha! Only Thomas could do that.
Behind him, a gaggle of nurses gathered, all of them staring. None of them bothering to hide their curiosity. Obviously, they all knew she was Helena Grayse. Felon. Murderer. None of them would be an ally to her.
“I’m Detective Brody with the Prospectus County Sheri—”
She shifted her attention back to him. “Do you know where Thomas is? Robert Malone took him. Are you looking for him?” Each word she uttered felt as if her brain wanted to blow out the back of her head.
Her words didn’t startle the detective. Instead, he went very still. “You’re telling me that Robert Malone is involved in this?”
“Yes. He took Thomas.” Oh God. Her head was killing her. She reached up and gently settled her hand over the thick gauze on the back of her head—another layer of security to prevent her brains from leaking out. “You have to find him. Malone’s going to hurt him. He—”
The detective held his hand up in stop motion, then slowly, almost as if he was trying to annoy her with his turtle speed, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small notepad, then a nubby stump of a pencil. Casually, he flipped the pad open and one by one leafed through the pages, scanning each before finding the perfect one to use.
She knew the tactic. He sensed she was desperate, and if he could send her over the edge, she might lose control and confess. She wanted to scream. She didn’t scream.
“Let’s start at the beginning. Give me your name and date of birth.”
It took everything inside her, but she calmly played twenty questions with him. Then she told him every single detail from the moment Kent showed up at Thomas’s door to now.
&nbs
p; Detective Brody stared at her as if she’d just read him a boring bedtime story. Not once during the entire time she’d spoken had he bothered to use his paper and pencil.
Rule number one: Nobody believed a felon.
“Then who was the DB out on the road?”
She smothered an eye roll. With the way her head hurt, she wasn’t even certain she could’ve pulled off the maneuver without going cross-eyed. The detective had the ability to hear and comprehend; he was simply trying to trip her up. “I don’t know. Thomas was called in to investigate.”
“So you’re telling me Robert Malone, who everyone suspects left town days ago, has been hanging around waiting for an opportunity to kidnap his stepson who he abused as a child? And when Thomas Brown wouldn’t go with him, he somehow forced him to take some drugs, and that’s why he OD’d and is in the morgue right now.”
For a split second, Detective Brody’s words were worms in her brain. Could Thomas be in the morgue? Could he have died? No. The word echoed through her soul. He was in that cabin in the woods.
The detective was trying to steer the narrative in the direction he wanted it to go because the truth wasn’t easy and sure as hell wasn’t convenient.
“No. I’m saying that the body in the morgue is the one Thomas was called out to investigate. I’m saying that Malone forced Thomas to take drugs to make him compliant by threatening my life. I’m saying that Malone took Thomas.”
“How about you tell me a different story? One that corresponds with the evidence.” The detective crossed his arms. “Because you say you were punched in the side of the head, but you also have a deep wound in the back of your head that you can’t explain. You say you were cuffed, but you weren’t when you were found. You say there was a phone and a coat at the scene, but we didn’t find any. You say to call this mysterious Kent, but you don’t even know his last name, and his number is in the magical disappearing cell phone.” He raised an eyebrow at her—the equivalent of saying liar, liar, pants on fire.
