AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Raven!” I bellow. “Raven, please!”
“Enough!” Caleb snarls, reaching down to grab me by the hair. “I’ve waited too long for this.”
Pain shoots through my scalp as he drags me to the back of the van, flinging open one of the doors before he tosses me into the dirt. The breath flees my lungs in a sharp gust from the impact, and gravel bites into my skin.
I’m still wheezing when he climbs on top of me, squeezing my face so forcefully I can feel my bones starting to give.
“You were supposed to be mine!” he thunders. “I could have saved you. I could have redeemed you. But now you’ve been a whore with another man. There’s only one way to absolve you of that sin.”
“Caleb, please,” I beg stupidly, knowing that I can’t appeal to his humanity because it doesn’t exist. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
His eyes flare, and a bead of sweat drips from his brow. When it splashes against me, I have to hide my revulsion.
“We can run away together,” I choke out. “Just the two of us. Leave everyone else behind. We can start over.”
Caleb stares at me blankly, then a caustic laugh bursts from his lips. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? You laid with another man. There’s no coming back from that, Willow.”
“I’m sorry.” I force the words out. “I made a mistake—”
He strikes me across the face without warning, shocking me into silence. “Keep your mouth shut. I don’t want to hear another lying word from your devil-worshipping lips.”
He leans back, searching around the pocket of his strange black robe that looks like a priest’s, before he produces a small vial I recognize all too well. Holy water.
“Unclean whore,” he mutters, twisting the lid off. “Think you can trick me with your poisonous fruit.”
He rolls up his sleeves, and I nearly gag as a sickening stench wafts through the air. It isn’t until he dumps some of the water onto his arm that I realize what it is. He’s injured. The flesh on his arm has been torn, and it’s infected.
As I consider that, I peek up at him again, noting the way he’s sweating. He just killed a man, but it’s obvious the exertion did a number on his already weakened state. It gives me hope, at least for a moment.
That is, until he draws a blade from a sheath beneath his robe.
“You should know you were the inspiration for this.” He splashes some of the holy water onto my forehead. “When you carved me up the way you did, you left a permanent claim on me. And you know what I think?”
I don’t answer him, instead trying to focus on wiggling my wrists free from the frayed rope beneath me while hoping he doesn’t notice.
“I think you wanted me to carry you with me.” He drags the tip of his knife down my cheek, pausing to stroke my lips with the flat edge. “So now, I leave a little piece of me on every woman who reminds me of you.”
I swallow as bile rises up my throat. He’s trying to tell me, in some twisted way, that I’m responsible for the women he’s been murdering.
“No,” I whisper.
“Yes.” He smiles cruelly.
“Fuck you.” I buck against him. “You’re disgusting. I fucking hate you!”
“There’s the girl I remember.” He laughs. “I knew you were still in there somewhere, baby.”
I scream, the sound reverberating off the trees around me, and I hope it carries. I hope it carries all the way back to New Orleans.
Caleb slashes my cheek, quick and sharp, the bite of pain stopping me cold as I suck in a breath. Blood drips from the wound, snaking its way down my throat, the warmth quickly cooling against my skin as if to remind me how fragile I am. How quickly my life can slip away.
I think of Raven and Bec in the van, and I know I have to be smart about this. I have to find a way to play Caleb’s game and survive until they are safe. I’ve escaped him once, and even as I lie helpless beneath him, I want to believe I can do it again.
“Are you ready, little lamb?” He leans down, the rancid stench of his infection burning my nostrils. “I’m going to brand myself on you the way you branded yourself on me.”
A rogue tear slips from my eye as he presses the blade into my forehead and drags it down, fileting my skin apart. Agony twists in my gut as I grit my teeth, trying not to react to the sickening pleasure in his eyes. His hand twitches as he pulls back, only to press it to a different spot, slashing the second line of the cross into my forehead.
Blood runs down my face, burning my eyes and coating my lips. I blink repeatedly, trying to dispel it before I give up and squeeze my eyelids shut.
