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“Whatever it is, Son, spit it out.”
“Won’t do any good.” Kody sneers.
“Try me.”
“You’re a hateful son of a bitch.”
I nod, expecting that. “And?”
“You get off on hurting people.”
“That’s what you think?”
He rolls his shoulders, and his eyes drift shut. I know he’s thinking about the scars on his back, feeling them stretch and pull with his inhales.
“I never enjoyed hurting you.” Turmoil. Darkness. Regret. That’s what swamps my veins when I recall his childhood.
“Doesn’t matter.” His sharp teeth flash in a disarmingly evil grin. “I will enjoy hurting you.”
“Nothing you haven’t said before.” I swipe a hand down my face. “You need to leave soon. Will you be able to hunt?”
“Thanks to you, I can’t go alone. I’ll take Leo and the girl.”
“You’ll take Leo. Frankie stays here.”
“I taught her how to cock the crossbow.” He shrugs as if he doesn’t care either way.
I see straight through him. “You want to put a weapon in her hands right now?”
“She’ll calm down.”
“A scorned woman doesn’t calm down. She gets even. The organ between your legs makes you the enemy. We’re all the enemy until she decides we’re not. And that’s not happening anytime soon.”
His lips form a hard line. He knows I’m right.
“Can you hunt without Leo?” I ask.
“No.” His nostrils pulse. He knows what I’m going to say, and he doesn’t like it.
“The two of you will leave within the next few days.”
33
Frankie
—
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have watched the video as many times as I did.
Wish I never saw it at all.
It tortures me, the images so explicit and unsparing I can’t unsee it.
I can’t unsee him.
His hungry expression. The urgency with which he buries himself inside another woman. Her wetness shining on his latex-wrapped dick. The moment his hands clench on her waist, his head drops back, and his lips part with release.
Every graphic detail torments me to the point where I no longer sleep.
It’s been two days.
And no tears. Not a single sniffle.
Does that make me a tough girl? Or a sociopath?
Inside, I’m barren. Lifeless. Nothing. Whatever this is, whatever I’ve become, I don’t feel human.
I blink against the frigid wind and burrow deeper into my coat. Before me, the desolate tundra stretches to an infinity edge. From my vantage on the slope behind the workshop, I can’t see where the cliff drops off into the river beneath it.
But I hear it.
The roar of violent, rushing water pounds the air. I find solace in the turbulence. Without it, without power from the river, Hoss wouldn’t have heat or lights or electricity for other things.
Like sex tapes.
I can go without seeing any more of those.
This is my first time venturing to this part of the property. Not sure why my sneakers led me here. For two days, I’ve been running aimlessly.
Running from the thing I can’t escape.
Monty’s betrayal weighs a thousand pounds in my throat. Hard and swollen, it grows like a tumor, burning, throbbing, forcing me to swallow around it.
On the outside, however, I wear an armored vest of indifference. It tells everyone I’m not angry. I’m not hurt. No one has that kind of power over me.
I want to believe it.
I’m stubborn enough to be it.
So why can’t I pull my attention away from the cliff’s edge? Why am I picturing myself running to it, running over it, running until there’s nothing but air beneath my feet?
It’s an easy solution. The easiest, surest way to vanish off the face of the earth and escape…this. All of this.
Or maybe, if I stand here long enough, something will eat me. Maybe the wild things that roam this land will finally show themselves and end my wasted life.
That sounds truly dreadful.
Never have I ever entertained such thoughts. Yet here I am, wishing for death for the second time in forty-nine days.
Is that how the others escaped this place? Did Denver show them soul-crushing videos of their loved ones, too? Was suicide their only way out?
I shift my weight from one sneaker to the other. Fill my lungs with bone-chilling oxygen. Rub my itchy eyes. And bring into focus the bouquet of roses in my hands.
Fucking roses.
Why did Denver bring me these? It was a warped gesture, to be certain. Twisted around an attempt to soften my anger. Or an apology for ruining my life.
But did he ruin it? Or did he simply open my eyes to the toxicity I couldn’t see?
Doesn’t matter. He kidnapped me, and a kidnapper doesn’t give flowers to his captive out of the goodness of his heart.
The petals glisten in the morning light, soft and firm, holding their bloom in the icy air. Prettiest shade of pink-purple I’ve ever seen.
I don’t want them. Don’t want to see them brightening the cabin. Don’t want to smell them perfuming my prison. They were given to me as part of some sinister plot I haven’t figured out, and I don’t want anything to do with it.
