Solitude, speed, nothing between me and myself and the madness that reigned.
I’d memorized the ins and outs of the property not long after we’d arrived. I could’ve gotten lost on the hillsides, in the thickets of trees, behind the old church that rested on the property where no one went, vines crawling on it like veins attempting to reach the inside of a heart.
Could’ve. But didn’t.
The bike seemed to lead me in the same direction each time, as though it had magic in its tank instead of gas. My ending destination was the same each trip. The enclosure that sat empty.
Oba had been set free.
Leaning the dirt bike against a tree, its bare limbs in dense contrast to the dimming sky, I dismounted, hanging my helmet on the handlebars. A constant humming buzzed in my ears, either from the residual rumble of the bike or the insanity inside of my head.
It was a lonesome place to be.
The grass was long gone with the savages of winter. The massive chains creating the borders were subdued by the clouds hovering in the sky, ready to drop rain. A cold wind continued to whistle, rustling nothing but the boughs of the nearly dead trees and a few dry leaves skittering along the ground, an epitaph to fall.
The sound of my boots crunching against the earth seemed to echo, and I ran a hand through my hair to keep the wilder pieces from my face. I closed the gate behind myself, heading toward a wooden perch that had been erected for Oba.
This had been his personal space when he wasn’t in the “arena” section of the property—where he would face challengers in a way that seemed reminiscent of the gladiator days. Except the men who went into his coliseum to face him had nothing but bare hands as weapons.
I could still smell him in the air, the tang of a wild animal, and even the metallic scent of the carnage he’d left behind.
Taking a seat on the wooden planks used to build his “big-cat scratch pad,” I used the spare key in my pocket to open the box attached to the siding. I wasn’t sure what had been held in there, but a few pieces of Oba’s golden mane lingered at the bottom of it.
Coming here as often as I had been, I’d stashed a bottle of whiskey for convenience’s sake. Apart from my father, the only other men who had access to the box were my brothers.
Pulling my cache out, I took a seat on the edge, my legs dangling, bottle set between. The amber liquid was closer to brown in this light.
I both craved and loathed the solitude.
I craved it because I was precariously close to madness when other men were around. Another man would touch her, and a feral instinct made me want to rip his throat out. I held the instinct back, restraining its powerful will, the sane part of my brain reminding me that no one meant her harm.
Maybe it was Scarlett who reminded me.
I craved this because I couldn’t stop seeing.
I’d watch her, on the constant hunt for other people’s wrongful intentions, or her fear and sorrow, ready to react to either one.
I’d watch her through the mirror as she gazed at her purple, blue, and green-mottled reflection. The bruises had started to turn, making the marks on her seem even more violent.
He had meant to make her suffer before he ended her life. He had wanted to break her before stuffing her into the black box that would bury her six feet under; the underworld I would have traveled through to have her next to me again.
I’d turn from her, the anger inside of me, which seemed lame in comparison to what it truly was, craving something worse than death for him.
He would never hurt her again, or anyone else, but the memory of all he’d done was like blood to a starving carnivore. It made me hunger to kill him over and over, each time more unpleasant than the last.
Her honor demanded it.
I couldn’t do anything, though, but walk through life as a man does through a nightmare he has no control over—all of the reminders of that time were there, in vivid color.
The black coffin out in the snow, white drifts falling in constant benediction over crimson roses.
Watching her bathe as the blood ran from the cut he’d made on her chest.
The dress he’d forced her to wear before he planned on stealing her heart.
The jewelry he’d set around her neck and on her ears—a dead woman’s jewelry that she’d worn in her coffin.
Taking her by the hair and dragging her through that fucking cabin like she was nothing more than a mere smudge on his boot he had to dislodge.
