“LET GO OF ME!” I screamed.
He didn’t. He shoved me back, knocking the wrench from my hand. It clattered across the ground, echoing through the barn.
Then he reached for me again, and I?—
I screamed, loud, raw, full-body terror ripping through my throat.
It wasn’t a ‘help me’ scream. It was a ‘fight to survive’ scream. A ‘Ben will hear me’ scream. An ‘I’m not getting raped and dying in this goddamn barn’ scream.
Both men lunged for me at once, and all I could think was:Ben, please hear me.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
BEN
December 16, 5:10 AM
A scream shatteredthe stillness in the lodge. It cut clean through stone, storm, and distance, hit the center of my chest, and detonated.
Chrissy.
I didn’t think. I didn’t move through steps, logic, or training. My body just reacted.
One second I was in bed in my room in the west wing, and the next second I was sprinting down the hall, barefoot, in nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants. I thundered down the hallway to the landing.
Her voice rose again, the scream thinner this time, strung tight with terror.
Every instinct I’d spent years burying roared to life.
Mine.
I tore down the staircase, shoulder slamming into the banister hard enough to make it crack. I didn’t feel it, and didn’t feel the cold marble under my bare feet, either, or the way the storm rattled the old lodge around us like it was trying to shake the roof off.
Another scream tore through the air, this one closer to a sob. It was coming from outside… from the barn.
My hand hit the front door and I didn’t bother with the handle. I just threw my weight into it. Wood banged against stone. Wind punched into me, icy needles shredding my skin. The storm had only gotten worse; the yard was a nightmare of slick ice, swirling crystals still falling, and barely visible shapes.
I didn’t grab a coat, didn’t grab shoes, and didn’t grab a weapon.
All I saw was that barn, standing out through the white blur like the only thing left in the world.
I ran, ignoring the way the ice bit at my bare feet. It tried to take my feet out from under me. I almost went down twice, one knee hitting hard enough to send a shock of pain up my thigh, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
My lungs screamed, my ribs ached, the frozen ground was cutting into the soles of my feet, but none of it mattered.
My angel was out here, she was screaming, and this was all my fault.
I’d put her here, in this game, in the storm, in that goddamn barn.
I’d treated her like a puppet, like I could test her and twist her up and shape her. I treated her like a fucking puzzle piece I could maneuver until she fit the shape I wanted.
Another sound cut through the wind, and this one wasn’t hers. It was a man’s harsh laugh.
Number Two. Hayden, I think his name was.
Everything went hot and white in my head.
