Mask - A Stepbrother Romance

by Daire, Caitlin

  A shiver ran through me as I finally entered the Miller farm. I couldn’t see either Logan or Robin’s car, and that freaked me out a little. Then I remembered that there was a huge parking area around the other side of the barn, and I assumed that they’d parked there.

  I got out of the car and headed towards the barn. It was a rickety old building, but I was trying not to focus on that. I was more interested on what was on the inside, and on seeing what Logan and Robin had in store for me. The door opened with a squeak as I pushed it, and my heart raced with anticipation as I waited to see what exciting things were behind it.

  I was stunned—and more than a little disappointed—to find it dark, cold, and empty.

  What the hell?

  “Hello?” I called out, feeling dejected. After coming all the way out here, I’d been expecting a little more than this. Had I come to the wrong place? I quickly pulled out my phone to check on the GPS, but the words Miller Dairy Estate were still staring out at me. Could there be another Miller farm near our city that I didn’t know about? No, Robin had mentioned that she was at the place where we’d had picnics before, so I was definitely in the right spot.

  “Logan? Robin?”

  Still no answer. Was this somehow supposed to be a part of the surprise?

  I stepped forward to try and find more in the dim light of the barn, and suddenly I felt someone’s rough hands grabbing me from behind.

  “Hey—” I tried to call out, but my mouth was quickly covered by another hand.

  What the hell was going on? This wasn’t a surprise. This was a horror movie.

  I was spun around by the strong arms gripping me, and I wound up staring at two faces—faces I’d never wanted to see again.

  Travis and Becca.

  “Hi, Sasha.” Becca smiled smugly. “It’s nice to see you on this fine afternoon.”

  “What the hell do you want?” I choked out, finally able to breathe again now that Travis’ hand was gone. “What the hell is all of this?”

  Becca walked around me and grabbed something from one of the dark corners of the barn. When she returned, I saw that she had a length of rope and a roll of grey duct tape in her hands. What the hell was happening? Had I taken a wrong turn and stumbled onto the set of a bad mob movie?

  She smirked at me as she approached. “I told you to watch your back, didn’t I?”

  God, she’d actually been serious when she said that. I’d happily pushed it to one side, just as Robin and Logan had, wanting to believe that she was just angry over being caught out the other night. I hadn’t thought she’d actually do something this stupid.

  “What’s your problem with me?” I asked, panic creeping into my voice as I tried to struggle free from Travis’ grip. “I never did anything to either of you! You’re the ones who screwed me over!”

  “We just want the money you promised us for those photos,” Travis said before sniffing and continuing. “We need it.”

  He sounded crazed, and the sniffing made me wonder if he was on drugs. He had to be. Why else would he be acting so crazily? I already knew that Becca had somewhat of a cocaine problem, and full-on drug addiction would certainly explain their insane behavior.

  It also made them that much more dangerous.

  “You should’ve just gotten it from stepfather dearest and handed it over. But instead you had to get your stupid stepbrother and Robin involved,” Becca cut in. “Why the fuck is that Logan prick so defensive of you, anyway? You’re screwing him, right?”

  My mind was whirring, trying to find a way out of this, but nothing seemed to spring forth. I wasn’t sure that I could outrun them, I had no way of grabbing my phone and calling anyone to save me, and I didn’t think I could fight the pair of them.

  What the hell was I going to do?

  Before I decided on anything, Travis began pushing me towards an old wooden pen on the side of the barn, where cattle would’ve once been kept. This all happened in a split-second, before I could even think about reacting. I thrashed and struggled against him, but it was no good; he was far too strong, and I was like a toddler trying to fight off an adult during a tantrum. He held me still, and I felt Becca wrapping the tape around my arms, holding them in place against the gate of the pen before adding the rope to secure them even more. After she’d finished on my arms, they both got to work on securing my legs as well. I was screaming and yelling throughout this, but it was absolutely pointless. No one lived anywhere near this place, and hardly anyone ever came here.

  Shit. I was completely screwed.

  Once they were satisfied that I wouldn’t be able to escape their clutches, they stepped backwards to examine their work with pride. They celebrated their achievement by wrapping their bodies around each other and kissing like horny teenagers, and when they finally broke apart, Becca arched an eyebrow at me and giggled.

  “Don’t worry, Sasha. We’re not that crazy. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just going to scare your family into thinking you’ve really been kidnapped. Politician’s kids get kidnapped all the time, and we’re getting that money from you one way or another.”

  “You’re bat-shit crazy. They’ll know it was you, and they’ll find me. Do you think they won’t call the police as soon as they realize I’m missing?”

  She ignored me, and I looked at Travis instead. “Travis, can you not see how senseless this plan is? You guys will get caught so fast!” I said. “But if you let me go now, you won’t be in trouble. We can just call it a joke.”

  There was no way this was a joke, but I was trying to be calm in the hope that they’d realize how bad this idea was and let me go.

  “What are you talking about?” Travis said. He lazily pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it up, as if he were bored by the entire situation. “We’re fine. No one will look for you out here.”

  Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the barn, I could see that his pupils were pinpricked, which confirmed that he was high on something.

  “Right. Even if that were true, how exactly are you going to get money from doing all of this?” I asked. I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around how utterly stupid and deluded they were. “What, you’re just gonna call up my stepfather and demand ransom money? I mean…come on. You won’t get away with that. As soon as you let me go, I’ll tell the police it was you guys, and they’ll be after you in no time. Have you even thought about this plan at all?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said, rolling his eyes. “The cops in this city are fucking idiots, anyway. We’ll just tell them you lied about who took you to get back at us for cheating with each other while we were dating.”

  It was almost unfathomable how dumb they were, and I tried a different tactic. If I could get them to turn on each other, then maybe they’d give up and let me go home.

  “Well, speaking of cheating, did you know your girlfriend is cheating on you with one of her professors?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “Nice try, but I already know about that. She told me the other night, and I told her it was a good idea,” he replied. “She always gets what she wants, and so do I. Doesn’t matter how.”

  Crap. Could they honestly not see how fucked up their relationship was?

  Becca moved closer to Travis to kiss him again, and in the process she managed to knock the cigarette out of his hand. I saw it tumble from his hand and land in a pile of hay, and my eyes widened as I saw it catch fire almost instantly. It was only a few orange flames flickering, but it was enough to scare the crap out of me.

  “Oh, fuck!” Travis said, fear spreading across his face as he tried and failed to stamp the fire out. “What the hell did you do?”

  “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident! Shit, come on, we all need to get out of here!”

  “But what about…?” He jerked his thumb towards the rope and tape that was still binding me to the cattle pen gate.

  “Just untie her from it, you moron!” Becca screeched.

  Travis cro
uched down and yanked at the knots on my legs to no avail, and he shouted back at Becca a second later. “Where’s my pocket knife? You did these knots up way too fucking tight.”

  “It’s in the car.”

  “Fuck…”

  The fire was spreading more by the second, and I stared at them with wide eyes, silently praying that this was all a nightmare.

  “This was only supposed to scare her for a couple of hours to get back at her! We can’t just leave her here!” Becca said.

  “There’s no fucking time. The car’s ages away, so by the time we get the knife, this place will be half gone,” Travis replied, his voice panicked as he saw the flames now licking at the side of the barn. “Sorry, Sasha.”

  With that, he turned and ran, and Becca gave me one last lingering look before following him.

  “Are you fucking serious?” I screamed as they dashed out of the barn. “Don’t leave me in here!”

  My voice fell on deaf ears, and I was on my own. I was going to have to help myself. I pulled, I thrashed, and I struggled, but there was just no way that I could get myself free. They had tied me up too tightly. On top of that, smoke was rising in the air, and I could feel myself getting woozy.

  A series of faces flashed through my mind as dizziness overwhelmed me—my friends, my family, even my college professors. I tried to take a breath and choked on acrid smoke, and one face in particular flashed in my mind. Logan.

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter 18

  Logan

  I was trying hard to concentrate on studying for my upcoming exams, but I couldn’t stop myself from repeatedly glancing at the clock. Sasha was usually home on a Thursday well before I got home, because my classes ran slightly later on those days, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, seeing as she hadn’t answered any of my texts or calls, and she wasn’t home yet. I knew she was probably just at the library or out with a friend, but there was a cold sensation sitting in the pit of my stomach, and it was telling me that something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  Deep down in my core, I knew it.

  “Logan?”

  I turned to see Martha standing in my doorway, holding a pink top, and I smiled. “Hey, Martha. Do you know where Sasha is?”

  “I came to ask you the same thing. I saw your car, so I figured you were already back from whatever you two were doing, but I can’t find her. It’s not important; I just wanted to tell her I couldn’t get this sauce stain out of her blouse, so if you see her, let her know.”

  I furrowed my brows. “Sasha and I weren’t doing anything this afternoon. I only just got back from class fifteen minutes ago.”

  A puzzled expression marred her delicate features. “But she told me she was meeting you and her friend Robin somewhere. She came home about half an hour ago to borrow her mother’s car so she could do so.”

  “Martha…Sasha and I didn’t have any plans with Robin today. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She shrugged. “Ah, well, maybe she’s off on a date with some boy, and she didn’t want us to know. Although…I thought…” She gave me a funny look, and I wondered if she knew about me and Sasha. I had no way of knowing, because she regained her composure a second later. “Well, at any rate, I’m sure she’s fine. Perhaps I misheard her.”

  “Maybe.” I doubt it, though. Something was obviously going on.

  I watched Martha walk away, and just as I picked up my phone to try and call Sasha again, it began to vibrate. Oh, thank god, I thought, but it wasn’t her; it was a number that I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?” I said cautiously. I didn’t trust unknown numbers. If I wasn’t concerned about Sasha, I probably would have just ignored it.

  “Logan, it’s Robin. I think something has happened….I’m worried about…I think Bec…”

  She was speaking so fast that I could only pick up a few words.

  “Wait, slow down,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  I heard her take a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Well, you know how I lost my phone the other night?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been trying to find it, but I forgot the password to my ‘Find my Phone’ app thingy, and no one has been answering it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I just remembered the password, and I tracked it to find that it’s at the Miller farm, way out of the city. It’s an old abandoned dairy farm. We all used to have picnics there…including Becca.”

  “Right.”

  “So I called it again, and someone finally answered, but I think it was by mistake, like the phone was just in their pocket or something. I could hear what sounded like Becca and Travis talking, and one of them said something like ‘Sasha fell for the text, she’ll be here soon’. I think they’re using my phone to lure her out there for some reason.”

  I stood up immediately. “Shit. I’m going there now.”

  I hung up and threw my phone down, and then I ran to the car without even thinking. I plugged the name of the farm into my GPS, and I thought I heard someone yelling out to me as I screeched down the driveway, but I didn’t even look to see who it was.

  I sped along the road, my mind racing at a million miles an hour. What the fuck were that pair doing at an old farm with Sasha? And more importantly, why hadn’t I taken Becca’s ‘watch your back’ threat seriously? I should have made absolutely certain that Sasha was never alone, and if anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself.

  I was certain that I was speeding, but I didn’t care. Even if the cops tried to pull me over, I wouldn’t have stopped. They would just have to arrest me at a later date. Sasha needed me, and that was all I cared about.

  When I reached Ashby Road twenty minutes later, I skidded to a stop on the side of the road and leaped out of the car. My heart was practically in my throat, pounding so heavily that I felt sick, but I didn’t let that stop me.

  I spotted two people standing by the entrance to the farm by the main gate, screaming and yelling at each other. It was Becca, along with a guy who I assumed must be Travis. He was a tall, skinny guy with dirty blond hair and brown eyes.

  “…we have to fucking go, right now!” he was shouting. “Come on, Becca! We have to forget about her, it’s too late!”

  I wanted to shout at them and ask where the fuck Sasha was, but I needed to be closer. I needed them to not see me until the very last second, so I waited till I was within a few feet of them, and when they finally stopped yelling for long enough to hear the crunching of leaves under my feet as I approached, they whirled around.

  Becca, quick on her feet—and obviously used to escaping dodgy situations—took one brief look at me and then took off running. I didn’t even bother to watch her race away. I was angry as fuck at her for whatever the hell she was up to, but she was insignificant compared to Travis. He really deserved to have the shit beaten out of him.

  After a beat, he went to move as well, but he was too slow, and I roughly grabbed him by the collar.

  “Where. Is. She?” I asked him.

  “I…we…it was just a joke, man. We were just trying to scare her to get her back for being such a fucking bitch, and then…then…”

  He was sniveling now; cowering under my touch. What a fucking pussy. Clearly he thought he was a big man for threatening girls, but the minute someone bigger than him confronted him, he practically started to shit himself.

  “I asked you a fucking question,” I hissed, putting my face closer to his. He whimpered, and tears started to form in the corner of his eyes.

  “The barn,” he finally choked out. He couldn’t meet my gaze.

  I let him go, and just as he looked up to meet my eyes to confirm that he was free, I swung my fist at his jaw in a bone-crunching punch. The impact hurt my knuckles, but I didn’t give a shit. I heard him cry out in agony and slump to the ground, but I didn’t see it, because I was already on my way to the barn. I was done with him now, and h
e could rot in hell as far as I was concerned.

  As I sprinted over the hill in front of me, an odd warmth began to fill the air. Something felt alien and familiar about it all at once, and my heart began to race again. Fear coursed through my veins, warning me to back off, and it was almost as if my body knew what was happening before my brain did.

  Then I saw it.

  Yellow, red and orange flames lighting up the horizon.

  Fire. My worst enemy and biggest fear.

  Not again…

  An image of my mother filled my mind—one that was much clearer than I’d seen in years. It stopped me dead in my tracks, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if I could ever move again. Then Sasha’s face replaced my mother’s and I felt my legs moving again.

  “Sasha?” I shouted, shoving the barn door down despite the searing heat that stung every inch of my skin. Smoke crept down into my chest and lungs, making it difficult to breathe, but I pushed forward.

  I couldn’t let her die. I couldn’t lose her.

  Luckily the barn wasn’t very big, so I spotted her through the billowing smoke only seconds later. She was standing upright, tied to a gate, but her shoulders and head were slumped down. I gulped down the terrified thought that she might already be dead, because I couldn’t allow weakness to consume me now. I needed to be a superhero for her.

  Several burning wooden beams had fallen down around her, but thankfully nothing had hit her. She’d been lucky so far, and I needed to ensure that luck continued. I raced over towards her and quickly tried to untie her, but the knots made it impossible to tear the rope away. Jesus, what the hell had Travis and Becca been thinking? Was this seriously their idea of a fucking joke? This was fucking insane. If I hadn’t shown up, she would’ve died.

  I couldn’t even think about that right now, though. She was still alive, and she was going to stay that way no matter what it took.

  My throat and chest were already racked with coughing from the smoke inhalation—and I knew where that could lead—so instead of continuing to try and free her from her bonds, I kicked the gate until the wood splintered, and once the structure was weakened, I wrenched it off the pen in several hard movements. I dragged her outside, still attached to the small wooden beams of the broken gate, and I barely even felt the scratches and splinters in my hands and arms—I just wanted to free her from this hell, and nothing else mattered.