Trees created a tunnel along a pathway to the estate. It took about an hour, with my cloak pulled over my head and the December morning biting and flaying my skin the entire way.
It had been years since I’d visited this side of town and even longer since I’d stepped on to the Goody property.
As a little girl, I adored sunrises. So much that Ivy, Fable, and I had snuck through the woods behind Town Square to get to Goody Estate. We’d watched the sun wake over a sea of golden fields crowning the acreage and not my usual beloved black ocean because it was something different. When you stare out at the same view day after day, you forget to treasure it, and I also believed the same to be true in love as well. Whether it be for a boy or a home, it was true.
But as the trees opened up, snow draped over wilting stalks and weighed them down like dead carcasses. The once reflecting gold specks were no more. Life had gone. Broken, dried out, and deserted.
When I reached the barn, I crept along the back wall, crouched so no one could see me, and peered through a crack in the wooden planks.
The Heathens weren’t inside.
But there was a body. Head down, and arms stretched like a crucifix.
My hand flew to my mouth to suffocate my cry, trapping it inside my chest.
I didn’t know if it was Stone or someone else.
I didn’t know if this person was dead or alive.
Legs shaking, I peered across the grounds as I made my way around the barn. No one was coming, so I slipped inside, careful not to make a sound.
The moment I closed the barn door and faced what was inside, I burst into tears.
I believed there were two ways a person could go weak in the knees, all strength gone with the threat of collapsing to the floor. One way was from being swept by love ... because we entrusted the other person with catching us. The other was from being ripped apart by heartbreak ... because they were gone, and we no longer cared what we’d hit on the way down. We were already broken.
And it was Stone, and I couldn’t fucking breathe.
His wrists were shackled and chained to the ceiling. The toes of his boots were scraping the ground. Though his head hung, I could see bruises and blood covering his busted and swollen face. His hair was no longer brilliant white but matted and clumped together by dried blood. His shirt had been ripped from his body. It hung around his shoulders in tattered pieces, exposing his wounded chest to winter.
“Stone,” I whispered in a croak, stumbling to him with tears burning in my throat.Please be alive, I begged to whatever gods would listen, not stopping until I was cupping his face, lifting his head, and looking into his eyes. Stone could barely open them, but when he did,“Circe,”he whispered, and the name broke me.
“I’m so sorry, this is all my fault.” I ran the pad of my thumb across his teardrop scar. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
In the palms of my hands, Stone shook his head.
It was subtle, barely there.
“You have to stop coming to my rescue,” he struggled to say, the words broken. “You make me feel incompetent.”
I groaned. “Why did they do this to you? What did they want?”
A shallow breath broke apart when it left his lips. “My name.”
“Your name? Why didn’t you tell them anything?”
His gaze dragged across my face. “I promised you that I wouldn’t.”
I was taken back to five weeks ago on the day we’d left for Bone Island. We were standing on the dock about to step onto the boat. I’d made him promise never to answer questions from people in town if he were ever found.
Even after the way I had used him, he still kept his stupid promise to me.
I grabbed the chain, trying to figure out how to undo it. “They’re monsters. I’m so sorry. I’m going to get you out of here,” I insisted, my hands flying from one lock to the next, trying to see if it was a key I needed or a code or—
“Stop.” Stone shook his head. “Don’t. They’ll know.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to leave you here!”
“Shhh,”Stone quieted me, calm, looking down at me with blood sticking to all his features. Some dried, some still weeping. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, though his lips were trembling. “I’ve been through much worse, and I’ll survive this too—” Something painful cut him short, and he sucked in a breath. “It would be a shame to end the story here, isn’t that what you said?”
