Page 2 of Descent
It wouldn’t be fun, but as long as he didn’t break past that door, I had everything I needed. The room was cool but not freezing, considering the late summer season, so I wouldn’t freeze to death down here while I waited for help. And I had a place to rest, water to drink, and a toilet. Other than Zach, time was my biggest enemy. Ironically, it was also my biggest weapon.
I returned to my spot on the bed and continued ignoring him. Still, the shakes wouldn’t cease. His dark presence was enough to send my heartbeat into an unnatural rhythm.
“You know,” he said, taking on a conversational tone, “I was going to fuck you brainless in his bed. Before I took you away from here for good, I was going to ruin the memory of this place for him.” He let out a snort. “I never realized he was so fucking deranged. Did you have any idea this prison was down here?”
I bit my lip to keep quiet, because as fucked up as Zach was, I didn’t want Rafe’s tendencies to give him more ideas.
He brushed off the question with a wave of his hand. “Stay silent all you want, Lex. Those bars won’t save you from me.”
“You’re delusional.”
“No, I’m smart enough to beat you at your own goddamn game. You wanna play? Game on, baby.” He stomped up the stairs, and the cellar plunged into oppressive blackness as the door slammed shut. My heart rate took off in a gallop, and I gulped in lungfuls of air as if I were about to suffocate.
Vomit burned my throat, refusing to be pushed down this time. I made my way through the darkness, hands in front of me in search of the toilet. Falling to my knees, I jerked up the lid and dry-heaved.
There was nothing left in my belly to upchuck.
No light to keep me company.
No hope for escape.
As I dragged myself back to the cot, I blinked to stave off the threat of tears, but they slid down my cool cheeks anyway. I would allow myself this moment, because when Zach was around, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of my tears.
Seconds slipped past. Minutes and hours of utter aloneness, clinging to my last fraying thread of hope. Even after all of these years, I still couldn’t wrap my head around what made Zach tick. Evil was a pervasive entity, crawling across the earth in search of a willing host—a susceptible lost soul that not only welcomed such darkness but embraced it.
Zach had been infiltrated, a breeding ground for evil in its purest form. It had been quietly growing inside of him for years.
Maybe he’d been born with it.
I placed a hand over my belly. Would my baby come into the world innocent like most people believed infants were born? Or would it be tainted by an unavoidable defect of humankind? I wanted to protect my child from everything, but at this point, I was struggling just to keep the both of us safe from my brother.
Brother.
Funny, how my mind slipped up sometimes, reverting for a split second to the time when I’d considered Zach family. But family didn’t hurt each other the way Zach had hurt me.
The way he’d hurt me again.
There was no if, only when.
When he busted through that door and bent me to the breaking point. When he got what he wanted from me. The last time I’d been at his mercy, my hopelessness had saved me. Two slits down my forearms to end it all. In a weird twist of fate, trying to take my own life had saved me.
But that wouldn’t be an option this time, no matter how much Zach hurt and degraded me. No matter the level of my desperation.
I had too much to live for, and that was all the leverage he needed.
2. Out For Blood
Rafe
I left her there.
I fucking left her with Zach.
Panic rose, worsened by the stifling hood Shelton’s goons had put over my head after we left the island. Through gritted teeth, I tested the metal cuffs binding my hands to no avail.
It’d been minutes.
It’d been hours.
Fuck, I had no idea how long I’d been in this damn vehicle. I only knew that each mile took me further away from Alex.
“Where the fuck are you taking me?”
More silence.
Shelton’s goons hadn’t acknowledged a single question, let alone offered an answer. And I knew they wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop me from hounding them at every turn.
The vehicle veered left and bounced over rough ground. Wherever they were taking me, it was off the well-beaten path. A couple minutes later, the car hit another pothole, slowed, then came to an abrupt stop. The men on either side of me stirred, doors opened, and then they ordered me out of the vehicle. Blindly, I scooted my ass across the leather seat and stood, bare feet sinking into the cool, damp grass. A breeze blew across my chest, carrying a hint of the ocean to my nostrils.
