“Mi…ine.”
Her face crumples, and she nods, clinging to me with a type of trust I know I don’t deserve.
“Yours,” she breathes.
And no matter the cost of my freedom from my family, at least I finally have something worth fighting for.
We waitin our designated areas; me, on the couch in the living room, a wooden baseball bat resting across my thighs, Poppy in my truck, hidden on my property, and Summer, in my room under the bed, knives strapped to every limb on her body. I doubt she could ever stab someone—and I’m praying she doesn’t have to—but if Carter gets to her, my hope is her instincts will kick in, and she’ll be able to fight.
I won’t let the fucker get that far, though, and with how booby-trapped my house has become, there’s a chance this ancient beast will go up in flames before we finish each other off.
Keeping my breaths calm, my eyes pinned to my front door, the entire world stills when a loud, mocking string of knocks sounds on the thick slab of wood separating myself from my tormentor. My fingers tighten on the handle of the bat, the glossed surface squeaking as my knuckles crack.
A sick cackle permeates the night as the knob rattles and twists, his familiar laugh sending my heart racing. My throat constricts in raw fear and pain at the hellish memories of what my brother used to do to me. Anything and everything from locking me in closets for days on end until a maid found me, to attempting to poison my food, killing animals in front of me, humiliating me, and torturing me.
When he couldn’t lure a woman home, he’d turn his fixation on the next living, breathing thing he could find, which was usually me.
There is nothing in this world I fear anymore, not after being raised in the same household as a psychopath. Pain is temporary. I could care less about my life and what it means in the drop of this vast universe. The only thing that matters to me now is Summer and getting her out alive.
Even if I have to die to make that happen.
The door swings open, and a tall figure donned in black stands backlit in the entranceway. No visible weapons disrupt the otherwise serene silhouette.
Ice encases my thudding heart and slows its beats to stillness. Carter takes a measured step forward on heavy boots, the dim light from my kitchen igniting his familiar features for half a second before he jumps back—a hatchet whistling through the air where his face was a moment ago.
He chuckles darkly, and the sound has my lips tilting up; he expected a trap or two.
I don’t think he expects the magnitude that Summer laid, however, nor how creative and masterful each one is.
“Cute. Guess some things never change, little Kage-y; you’re still dumb as fuck.”
He takes a step around the hatchet that swings like a pendulum on a rope through the open door and steps on another trip wire. This time, a bucket of paint thinner I had lying around in the basement tips from its perch above, splattering across his head and dousing his clothes in the pungent, goopy liquid.
His infuriated eyes land on mine, the freak that lurks at his core blazing through his façade. One thing I learned about my brother is that he positively cannot stand being embarrassed. It was one of the reasons he and my father permanently shut me up; I’d discovered he used some type of pills to get his dick hard, and the morning I found my dead mother, I flung every insult I could at the pair of them.
Including the fact that he couldn’t get a boner to save his pathetic life. It’s why, when women would giggle at his little problem, he’d end up killing them.
I thank whatever gods remain in this desolate void that I’m nothing like the pair of them.
He swipes the thick liquid from his brow and shakes his hand at the ground, the goop slapping against the floors. Slowly, I stand, letting the bat slip through my fingers but catching the knob at the end of the handle. His irate eyes simmer, the shade cut from my father’s, their eyes nearly black while I took some hazel from my mother. Even my genetic make up seemed to have wanted to stray as far as possible from these two fucks, and now I stand at the edge of the cliff where—if I am brave enough to jump—I can end them both, for once Carter is gone, my father’s empire will start to crumble from within.
“You know,” he says, stepping around the mess, “father isn’t unreasonable. He wants you home. Said you could even keep your pretty toy.”
Body tensing as he prowls around to my flank, I force out a snort and keep my eye on his every move.
I shake my head. It’s not an offer he’s extending; it’s a prolonged death sentence. I want that cult to burn to the fucking ground. And it will, by the time I’m through with it.
He throws his hands wide, showcasing he has no visible weapons, but also using that nonchalant motion to draw closer. I know the fucker is armed to the teeth, and not with guns. His preferred form of killing is up close and personal and as sadistic as he can make it.
“What more could you want? You can have your cake and eat it too with us. Keep that curly haired cunt on a leash, and have your pick of any other offerings.”
Offerings.
Women plucked from the streets, from corners of the world where no one would miss them. Usually virgins, so the members could literally and figuratively sacrifice them. Initiation rites involve something my father called the ‘feast of flesh,’ where the men would dine on a freshly butchered woman before a new member would choose his offering and fuck her on the altar. If she bled, he would keep her as his pet. If she didn’t…
Her flesh would be dined upon next.
I ran the night I was supposed to be initiated. The look of the dead woman’s eyes as she laid trussed up like a roast pig haunts my worst nightmares. Evil abounds in that cult, and my father and brother are at the heart of it.
