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“Gotta check.”
“You don’t know?” Stella’s voice again, a higher pitch than normal.
“Been gone.”
“Gone where?” his brother demanded.
“Up there.”
“Up where?” Trip shouted, his frustration only too clear. Then a long hesitation before his brother exploded with, “Up that mountain? By your fuckin’ self? D’you go up there?”
“Saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“Where they kept her, what they used...”
“Oh my God,” Stella whispered.
“They’re all gonna fuckin’ die.”
“Sig,” Trip said more firmly.
But before his brother could continue, Sig repeated, “Need a key.”
“Why?”
“Just get me a spare.”
“Your hand,” Stella started.
“Fuck my hand!” Sig yelled. “Fuck my fuckin’ hand! Gimme a goddamn spare key.”
“Trip,” Stella whispered.
Trip nodded and headed into the house.
“Let me see your hand. Just to make sure it isn’t broken.”
“You a doctor?”
Her face got hard and her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to stomp on it if you don’t let me see it.”
Cursing under his breath, he lifted it and she carefully took it into her own hands.
“You can’t go to her like that, Sig. It might freak her out. Does she know you went up there?”
“No.”
“Let me at least clean it up and wrap it. It looks like ground meat.” Her voice hitched as if she had swallowed a sob. “God, Sig. Why? Why are the two of you like this?”
“You know why,” he mumbled.
“He ruled our lives then, don’t let him rule our lives now, Sig. Please.”
“Why d’you care?”
“Because you’re family,” she whispered.
He lifted his face and stared at her. Tears ran down her cheeks as she held his bloody hand between hers, the knuckles split open, his fingers swollen.
He hadn’t felt the pain of it.
Not until that moment.
When his pain had become someone else’s.
And if what he did affected Stella like this, it might bother Red worse. She was right. He couldn’t go back to his apartment like that.
“Don’t destroy this family like he did,” she begged, sniffling.
He sucked in a breath and nodded.
She released his hand. “Can you get up on your own or do you need Trip to help?”
“I’m good,” he mumbled, slowly getting to his feet.
Stella got him inside and over to the kitchen sink, holding his hand under the faucet. She gently rinsed away the oozing blood, removed any dirt and pieces of bark, and inspected just how bad it was.
“You’ll live. You’ll just have to use your left hand to jerk off for a little while,” she said with complete seriousness.
His eyes hit hers which were full of sadness and regret, so he turned and stared at the running water instead. He didn’t want to see that.
Trip came into the kitchen and placed a single key on the table. He moved over to them, carrying a bottle of peroxide, some gauze and an Ace bandage.
His brother and his woman patched him up while Sig stood there as helpless as a fucking baby.
And when they were done, Stella quietly disappeared, leaving him and Trip alone.
They sat down at the table together, and he told Trip what he discovered on that mountain. After he was done, when he’d stopped speaking, Sig saw what he’d felt up there reflected on Trip’s face.
“We need a plan,” Trip said, his words strained as if he was struggling to contain his own fury.
“Yeah, brother, we need a plan,” Sig agreed.
“Shouldn’t have went up there on your fuckin’ own.”
“Yeah. Needed to know.”
“She’s still not talkin’?” Trip didn’t sound surprised but more disappointed.
“No. But that ends today.”
Trip tilted his head and considered Sig for a moment. “Might break her to take her back.”
Sig understood what he meant and he agreed it was a risk. But he also needed to know everything. “Yeah, gonna give her that key, then I’ll just start talkin’. Open up to her about some of my own shit. Hopefully that’ll get her talkin’, too. Just need to hear it once. Just once. Then we can plan.” In truth, he was hoping he was wrong about what happened up there. That the shed wasn’t where they kept her and she hadn’t been strapped down to that bench.
He hoped to fuck he was wrong.
He knew he wasn’t.
“You need Stella up there with you?”
“No, brother. Gotta do it on my own. Gonna do this as easy on Red as possible.”
Trip sat at the table, staring at it for the longest time. When he lifted his head, he asked, “Sig... You expectin’ her to stick when this is all done?”
He knew what his brother was asking. “No.” Hell, he wasn’t even planning on sticking afterward but he couldn’t tell Trip that.
“Then why the fuck you goin’ through all this?” He jerked his chin toward Sig’s now wrapped hand.
“Got no choice.”
“Brother, you got a choice.”
“No, Trip, you’re wrong. I fuckin’ don’t.”
Autumn heard the key turn in the lock, but she didn’t bother to move.
He had locked her in when he’d promised not to do that anymore.
He’d done it anyway and disappeared.
