He nodded slowly. “Kiss.”
“What?” I demanded on a croaked whisper.
“The phrase is kiss my booboos.”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat and looked away. “I thought you were…”
A slow chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I know that you think a lot of terrible things about me; but know that when I kiss you it will not be because there are handcuffs holding you in place.”
I relaxed a bit until he said in a teasing tone, “The first time.”
I rolled my eyes at his perverted cliché. Under my breath I said, “Haley was right about you.”
He walked over to the tall dresser and started pulling out clean gauze, hydrogen peroxide, some kind of ointment and a bottle of what looked like Tylenol.
I hoped it was Tylenol.
I would not put it past Kane to drug me.
“What was Haley right about?” He sounded lighter when he asked that. Warning bells rang loudly in my head. I hadn’t really planned to tell him what Haley said but now I wanted to get to the bottom of that tone.
He returned to the side of my bed and I tilted my chin defiantly; not in defiance of him, but in defiance of the encroaching anxiety I had started to feel with where this topic would lead us. I would talk about this maturely. I would say this confidently. It wasn’t a big deal.
I was an adult now. Adults could talk about this without getting embarrassed.
“She guessed that you were kinky.”
My straightforward tone and choice of words must have really shocked Kane because he dropped the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and tried to catch it but couldn’t. It bounced next to me on the bed and settled against my thigh.
“What?” he demanded.
I smiled because I couldn’t help it. He looked so completely baffled.
“Wh-why would she think that?”
I shrugged in my bonds.
His expression slowly turned cocky and I realized my small advantage was turning on me. “You and Haley talk about what I’m like in bed?”
“What? No! She just said… We said-” I growled a sound of pure irritation. “That is not what we were talking about.”
He picked up the brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and sat down next to me. He looked over my body, deciding where to start first.
Page and I had been getting ready for bed when we were jumped at the storage facility, so I was in men’s gray sweatpants and a little boy’s Iowa Hawkeyes t-shirt that I’d salvaged from the countless community clothing boxes when we’d first arrived at Gage’s compound. It in no way fit me properly. It was way too tight and about two inches too short, but to be fair, I hadn’t expected to leave my room again that night and Hendrix liked me in this shirt.
Plus, it reminded me of home.
But now, with my hands stretched above my head and the shirt riding above my belly button, I realized how ill-prepared for abduction I’d been.
Damn it, Girl Scouts, there wasn’t a patch for this!
Thank God, I hadn’t taken my bra off yet. The ladies were firmly in place. Whew.
His fingers brushed against the inside of my elbow and I shivered from the tenderness in his touch. He pulled out a cotton swab that had been mixed in with the gauze and started cleaning the various cuts and scrapes on my arms. This position put his body right against my torso and I couldn’t help but inhale him.
I was kind of surprised to smell him actually. We were rarely close enough when we were clean like this- as in not covered in blood. The rich, manly smell reminded me of the first time I met him, the first time I was taken hostage at the Colony.
It was a strangely nostalgic memory and made me realize I truly did not understand Kane.
He took care of his appearance, ate well and clearly maintained all his extensive muscle mass. He was meticulous about things like that. But he would kill in cold blood if given the chance. He cared about frivolous things in this day and age, like smelling good and keeping his hair short- even though it was grown out now. He was gorgeous. And yet, he had to kidnap the one girl he felt interested in. He wore glasses with thick lenses and apparently could not see very well without them. But everything else about him was a fortress of strength and invincibility.
Such solid absolutes on one hand tangled together with all his warring contradictions.
What to make of Kane Allen? What to make of what he wanted with me?
“Do you want to know how I’ve imagined you in bed?” he grinned devilishly.
“No.”
He went back to my wounds but the stupid smile didn’t fade from his face.
After he tended to my arms and hands, he moved to my sweatpants. At my ankles he lifted his eyebrows at me and I realized he was asking for permission.
“I have some, uh, scrapes on my knees,” I admitted.
His hands slowly rolled up my pants and his fingers dragged across my almost-smooth skin. I was disappointed to realize I had shaved two days ago. So while there was a little bit of regrowth along my shinbone, the majority of my calves were still smooth.
I forgot all about that though when the cold, wet cotton swab hit the bloody scabs on my knees. I hissed in a breath and Kane mumbled his apology.
“How did you end up like this?” he asked in a low voice full of concentration for the task at hand.
“How do you think?” I bit out sarcastically. “I seem to always be in some varying state of… this. It’s the nature of the life we live, Kane. These are all minor injuries. It could have been much worse. It could always be much worse.”
“Not if you lived with me.” His gray eyes flickered up to hold my gaze. “You wouldn’t have to fight so hard if you lived with me. I would keep you safe. I would protect you from this.”
“You would shelter me from this.” I tipped my chin up, daring him to argue. “I might get beat up often, but I’m prepared for the world we live in. What about the women in the Colony? What happens when you fail them? What happens when you don’t protect them? Can they keep themselves safe? Alive? Away from Feeders?”
“They won’t need to. We do a pretty damn good job of keeping our home Feeder-free. The women there feel safe because they are safe.”
I snorted in disbelief. “They’ve traded one monster for another.”
“Me?” Kane asked with a stillness to his voice that made my stomach flip with anxiety.
“And your dad,” I finished with whatever courage I could wrestle.
He hesitated to touch my knee again and I realized helplessly that it was because he was grappling the control of his temper. I watched him carefully as he visibly worked to calm down and master his emotions again. I didn’t know if I thought he could hurt me or not.
For a moment, I had almost expected him to slap me or hit me in some way; but he had always liked our verbal sparring. He liked it when I pushed back and argued with him. He liked that I stood up to his crazy convictions and outdated relationship concepts.
“This is why our time together will be good for you. You can see that not every preconceived opinion you have about me is true.”
I laughed bitterly. “I’m sure that will happen.”
He looked up at me from under his black frames. “It might.”
There was this raw intensity in his gaze that made my stomach flip again but not from worry this time, but from a different kind of concern. Vulnerable. He was too damn vulnerable.
And I hated how exposed I felt when he looked at me like that.
I pulled roughly against my handcuffs to remind me of where I was and why I was here.
Screw him.
And screw his brokenness.
“What’s with the hair?” I demanded. And then to get under his skin, “Trying to look a little more like Hendrix? Hate to tell you this, but you have a much harder time pulling off the ruggedly handsome thing than him. It does not work for you.”
He gathered the used cotton balls in one hand and ran his other through his thick, dark locks self-consciously.
Looking back at the dresser, he admitted, “Tyler used to cut my hair. I didn’t know who else to ask now that she’s… gone.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore the warming sympathy I felt for this stupid man. He was not endearing. He was not adorable. And he was not in any way insecure.
He was crazy.
Kane was crazy.
And I was a little bit crazy for thinking all these insane thoughts.
I needed to get the hell out of here ASAP before I developed some post-apocalyptic version of Stockholms. If I needed therapy for anything, it was not going to be for my sick fascination with my kidnapper.
“And the beard?”
“That… I just haven’t had time. I need a cut though. It bothers me this long.” He roughed up his hair with a frantic hand and dropped the used cotton balls on the top of the dresser. He walked back over to me and pulled the handcuff key from his pocket. “I want to untie you so that I can look at your head. And then I want to keep you un-cuffed so that you are free to move about the house.”
That same sick, sinking feeling pulled at me again. “Where are we, Kane?”
He met my glare with a steely one of his own. “Not anywhere near the Colony.”
Despair like I had never felt before punched at my gut. Oh, god. Oh, god, oh, god. We could be anywhere.
And I had fainted. I hadn’t even stayed away to find out where Kane took us!
I knew that this was bad for Page and me, but I had always held onto the desperate hope that Hendrix and Vaughan would come storming through the front door at any second to rescue us. But how could they?
How could they rescue us if they had no idea where to find us?
“The Parkers are going to burn the Colony to the ground.”
“What would be the point?” Kane scoffed. “Two people in that entire town know where we are. If they hurt that town, they will never find you.”
He unlocked the handcuffs and they clattered through the metal bars of the bed frame before landing on the floor behind the bed. He helped me into sitting and I went willingly, too numb to fight him. I rubbed at my wrists to get the feeling back. When the blood finally started flowing again, it stabbed at my skin and bones with a burning sharpness. I ignored it, though; it was a small pain compared to the rest of my life right now. Kane unlocked both of my feet and helped me sit at the edge of the bed. He crawled behind me and pressed his thighs into my back as he gently combed through my hair with careful fingers.
As he set to work on my various head wounds, I zoned out. My mind didn’t go completely blank, more like it just left Kane. I had to think. I had to figure a way out of this. I couldn’t count on the Parkers finding me. I couldn’t count on Gage negotiating us out of this. We were gone.
Kane had grabbed Page and me and left.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
His hand rubbed down my arm, pulling me back to the ugly reality of my situation. “All done.”
I stood up quickly and turned around to face him. He stayed kneeling on the bed, watching me carefully. My eyes darted around the room in an attempt to find some kind of weapon I could use to get me out of this. I glanced at the lamp twice. Could I knock him unconscious? Was I strong enough? Fast enough?
“Don’t, Reagan,” he warned slowly. “We are way out in the middle of nowhere. I had help getting here. They left with the only vehicle. This forest has not been cleared. You will not make it far before you run into trouble. And you have no weapons. How will you keep Page safe?”
And those were the magic words.
How would I keep Page safe?
Did I even trust all of his threats? No vehicle? That seemed stupid.
But would I put it past Kane?
No.
“I don’t want to handcuff you again,” he spoke slowly as if helping me understand his warning. “But I will. If you push me, I will put them back on.”
I rubbed at my tender wrists and shook my head.
He won.
This round, he won. But I would never stop fighting. I would never stop trying to escape.
Besides, we both knew that eventually he would have to go back to the Colony. I would have to bide my time until then. I would have to keep Page and myself safe until then…
“Can I see Page now?” I asked in a voice that shook and trembled with fear. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t a person that succumbed to fear. But honestly, I needed a minute to adjust to this. I needed several minutes to figure out what the hell I was going to do.
He reached out for me and I didn’t fight him. He took my loose fingers in his and tugged me so that my chest pressed up against. He was an inch or so taller than me while he kneeled on the bed; his weight sunk into the overly soft mattress.
His expression warmed and his eyes softened. “I wouldn’t be kinky with you, Reagan,” he promised in a rumbly voice that hit me directly in the heart. My fear intensified a hundredfold. My stomach muscles tightened and my heart started beating triple time. “I would be gentle. I will always be gentle with you.”
He leaned forward and laid his forehead against my collarbone. I felt his warm breath fan out over my breast. Both of his hands held mine at the tips of my fingers. His chest pushed against mine with each of his steady breaths.
“Please take me to Page,” I pleaded.
He stayed like that for a full minute before lifting his head so he could meet my eyes again and said, “Okay.”
Chapter Two
He walked me through the bedroom and into a spacious living that branched out into more rooms and a kitchen with a long counter separating the two spaces. Every wall was covered in tacky, dark-wood paneling and the furniture clearly dated the space. Windows lined the outside walls and let afternoon sunlight stream into the cabin, illuminating the dust as it floated through the air and tiger striping the worn furniture.
Several deer heads, stuffed and mounted, decorated the walls and a giant bear head hung over a brick fireplace. By the door, an empty gun rack proved my suspicion that Kane had brought me to someone’s hunting cabin.
I glanced around frantically for Page, noting the front door was locked but didn’t have any other kind of barricade in front of it. Peeking through the windows though, Kane’s warning hit me in the face all over again.
From my limited view, all I could see were trees. They stood thick and clustered together. Their heavy branches kept the minimal front yard shaded in cool darkness and twisted together like every scene out of every past-life horror movie. Well, maybe not every horror movie… but that was what it felt like in this moment.
I glanced over at Kane and his eyebrows were raised and a smirk tilted his full lips. He gave me a cocky shrug and I rolled my eyes, proving how disgruntled I was.
“Congratulations on being such a great psychopath,” I smiled at him. “I’ll be sure to nominate you for the next Serial Killer Awards.”
“So she hasn’t lost her sense of humor,” he returned quickly with his southern accent thick and patronizing. “And here I thought Hendrix had sucked every bit of fun right out of you.”
His comment caught me off guard. “Hendrix? What? Why would you think that?”
He shook his head and walked over to one of the doors that I assumed led to another bedroom. He inclined his head and I followed him over.
“You’re not going to answer my question? It’s the least you could do after you kidnapped me!”
“You’re pretty demanding for a prisoner.”
God, he was so aggravating! “Forget it, I don’t actually care what you think about Hendrix. And also, you’re wrong.”
Kane knocked on the door twice before he turned the handle and popped it open. Page looked up from the middle of the twin bed she was sitting on, playing with Barbie’s spread out in front of her. A woman sat in the corner by the window, reading a book. It was Linley, Kane’s mother.
I did not expect to see her here.
Page’s entire body lit up when she saw me. He
r face broke out into a huge smile that revealed her grownup teeth she hadn’t quite grown into yet; her blue eyes sparkled at me.
“Reagan!” She squealed. She scrambled off the bed and threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my waist with relieved delight.
I returned the gesture immediately. I pulled her back for a moment so I could squat down at her level and wrap my arms around her, too. Her arms went around my neck and we stayed like that for a very long time, just holding each other and letting ourselves believe the other was all right.
“Are you okay, Pagey?” I whispered into her hair.
She shivered against me but nodded her head. I felt her hiccup a little sob and I squeezed her tightly, determined to make her feel safe.
“Did they hurt you?” I continued to whisper. She shook her head negatively. “Did they yell at you?” She shook her head no again. “I’m here now, alright? I’ve got you. I’m not going to leave you again, yeah?”
She didn’t nod this time. She didn’t reply. My heart cracked down the center at her lack of response. I didn’t know if she didn’t believe me because I had passed out and left her to travel this entire way by herself or if it was because she didn’t trust Kane enough to believe that we could possibly stay together.
Maybe she expected him to do the worst to me.
Which scared me more than anything else. If Page couldn’t even believe we would get out of this alive… then maybe all hope was lost.
Kane reached down and tapped me on the shoulder. Reluctantly, I looked up at him and a pang of hatred so strong and tangible I could actually taste it in my mouth hit me. It tasted like rusted metal and blood. I glared at him in an attempt to murder him with my thoughts.
It didn’t work.
“You can have a few moments alone while we make dinner,” he said.
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll call you out here and we’ll eat together. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“And after that? When is this over? When do we get to go home?”
His sigh was exasperated and impatient. “We can talk about that later.”
“Now,” I spat at him. “I want to talk about it now.”