After our run, we go to the range, where I practice shooting until my hands hurt from reloading and I’m shivering from the cold. Fallon tells me I handle the gun well, and I’m fast at reloading. He seems to like that I’m decent with the little Sig and his gentle praise feels genuine.
After practice, I’m allowed to bathe, then I’m taken to a small room in the basement with plain gray walls and only a table and two chairs, reminding me of interrogation rooms in movies. Reaper stands like a quiet, menacing guardian at the door after he closes it, and from the way he keeps his eyes on his father, hand casually on the knife at his hip, I can tell he doesn’t enjoy being in this small room with Fallon any more than I do.
We go over a list of things I’m to say upon my return. I don’t do well, according to Fallon, and his smile disappears, his features turning sharp and mean. He questions me over and over, making sure I have all the details correct, his hand smacking the table when I say something wrong. By the time he’s finished, I’m close to tears from the intensity of his line of questioning, and it’s a relief when I’m led back to my room, so no one sees me cry.
I can tell most of the soldiers apart by day four. Creep 57 is shorter than the men, and nowhere near as muscular, with light brows that make me think he’s a blonde. These soldiers have no accent, and it’s impossible to distinguish what part of the world they are from. Like our men, I can only guess at their heritage based on what little of them I can see.
Days five and six involve shooting practice and reviewing the lodge blueprints. In the dining room, the men spread maps out on the table and test my ability to read the aerial maps, instructing me to name each building and its contents. I learn that the kitchen is located within the main lodge, along with the dining room and large lounge area. The few staff who join the hunts stay in rooms on the ground floor at the back of the lodge. A large building connected by a covered pathway is Rune’s rooms and the weapons storage—my primary destination—and the surrounding buildings are separate quarters for the guests.
Fallon has me study the maps, informing Reaper I need a quick instruction in the woods, “just in case”. Whatever that means.
After that, I learn a few new defensive fighting techniques from Striker, and we practice them until sundown. Like how to break free of a hold and how to take down an enemy quickly. I can’t do either by the time we have to head to the shooting range on day seven, but it’s obvious I’m improving. Not just with my aim, but with my defensive and attack maneuvers. I stabbed Striker in his groin with my training knife, and he cursed and fell to his knees. Fallon liked that and made it quite clear by the way he smiled at me and petted my head.
Some days, most days, I blank out enough so that I don’t think about what I’m training for. I move on autopilot, doing everything as asked, shoving all emotions and thoughts down so deep that I become numb.
Every second of the day is consumed with their revenge, but it’s the nights that wreak havoc on my mind. Doubt creeps in after sunset. When I’m lying in my bed, my thoughts turn just as dark as the room, and loneliness takes hold. Late at night, after hours of lying awake and alone, I find myself curled into a ball on the bathroom floor so no one can see me on the camera as terror floods my bloodstream.
I’m an accountant. Because of my father, brutality and greed shadowed every moment of my life, but they’re not a part of me. I rarely saw it, never inflicted it. The only true violence I witnessed was my mother’s death and the times Clyde was sent to remind me, and anyone else who dared, I was not to be touched.
Most of me wants Rune dead.
All of me wants revenge, vengeance for Cora, but I never once thought I’d be the one to pull the trigger.
There is a tiny fragment that remains embedded in my heart that wishes he was the man I thought he was. Images of my life flash through my mind as a cruel reminder he’s still my father. Graduation and my first day at work. My mother’s funeral and his muffled screams from behind his office door, where he hid for days. The day he left for his lodge after he finally resurfaced and stayed for weeks to grieve.
And they don’t stop. They swirl through my head, terrorizing me at night.
I remind myself he’s hurt Cora. That he raped my best friend. The pain of that knowledge scalds each memory as harsh and as lasting as a brand, and I’m left wishing, wishing,wishingI could go back to before I knew so much.
It’s on those nights, when anger doesn’t fire hot enough to burn away the pain, I ache for Striker to return, silently begging him to somehow know that I need to be held. For Reaper toappear at the end of my bed, all arrogance and sensual need. But of course they don’t come.
They can’t.
The ever-watchful eye of their father keeps them away. So I scrounge up memories of them, whispering their promises to myself, speak the words that Cora breathed in my ear at night—you’re so beautiful, I love you—knowing deep down I’m losing my mind.
I’ve been taken away from everything I’ve known. Held captive for just over a month by the men that I wish would comfort me. Reassure me and keep me away from the nightmare they have created.
I’ve seen and experienced pain, pleasure, and absolute insanity during the weeks here. I was handed proof that the world I lived in was so much darker than I could ever have guessed. A person doesn’t come out of something like this unscathed.
Part of me knows I’m not coming out of this without scars.
If I come out at all.
Fallon’s constant presence is wearing on me. He’s made it a point to sit in on every training session, studying our interactions as if assessing how they speak to me. How they touch me, which is rare, and how I respond to them. How they respond to him near me or when he touches me. Which is constantly.
Fallon never touches me in a way that feels perverse. It’s always gentle, fatherly even. A pat on my shoulder, petting my head, or squeezing my hand in encouragement. It creates an odd feeling that lingers in my bones. I’ll never forget the sting of the belt on my back. His threat to Striker. His brutal determination to regain power over his sons. But whenever he smiles, or gives me gentle praise, the words settle strangely in my belly. Almost warmly.
Almost.
I know Fallon is anything but. He’s a chameleon, changing colors to suit his needs. This is a man as ruthless as Rune, and every move he makes is calculated.
Including right now.
His cold eyes bore into my back. I roll my shoulders and adjust my stance. My muscles ache and my joints are stiff. Even my fingers hurt. I’ve been training hard every day this past week, harder than before Fallon came, and my body feels battered and bruised all the way to my bones. I’m slowly adjusting and getting stronger, but I’m drained, physically and mentally.
Training knife up and ready, I circle Reaper in the training room, feeling Fallon’s gaze on my back. It’s empty except for us, Fallon, and 57 stationed by the door.
I can’t stand that man. Every time he comes into my view, he winks, leaving an oily sensation in my gut. Reaper definitely notices 57’s blatant and gross flirting, and as each minute ticks by, he’s becoming more and more agitated.
