A little drop of heaven in the pit of Hell.
CHAPTER 9
ELODIE
At midday, a grumpy old man with thinning hair and age spots all over him hooks me up to an IV without so much as two words to me, unless it’s asking medical questions. He tells me I’ve got to stay hooked to it for the next couple days.
Fantastic. So, I’ll be wheeling this thing around with me. Not that I’m going to go to many places.
An hour passes after I’m left alone again, and I’m bored to death. I’ve put the tracksuit back on that Alfie came in and laid out for me at some point yesterday. I wonder if he asked Caden to get me some of my own clothes. Grabbing the pole of my IV, I wander out of Caden’s room to search for Alfie.
I lose track of the number of times I get lost and retrace my steps, but I don’t find anyone other than Maggie on my travels.
“Have you seen Alfie?” I ask her as she attempts to walk straight past me like I don’t exist.
“Check the work garage,” she throws over her shoulder, not slowing her hobbling gait.
“But Caden’s in there.”
She pauses down the hall. I see her shoulders slump as she sighs. She turns back to me. “So?”
“He told me not to disturb him.”
Maggie harrumphs. “If you’re that scared of him, why are you even here?” With that, she spins back around and continues down the hall.
Maybe because I’m his prisoner and those damn dogs will chew on what little meat I have in my body should I attempt to escape?
Sighing, I walk towards the west end of the house. I shouldn’t be scared of him. I don’t think I am, anyway. I’d just like not to endure another encounter where he inserts his body parts into my body parts.
But since I can’t find him anywhere else, if Alfie’s in there, maybe he’ll act as a buffer.
Steeling myself and getting lost several more times, I finally find the garage. I hesitate just outside the door, fist raised in midair ready to knock. Do I knock? Do I just walk in? Caden did say this wasourhome now, but then he also said not to disturb him.
Silently cursing myself, I lower my hand to the handle and push the door open, gripping my IV tightly with the other hand.
It’s a regular man’s garage. Tools and gadgets line the shelves along the walls, a worktop spanning the opposite wall and the back wall. I hear noises but can’t see the cause of them.
Stepping into the garage, I look to the right and see Caden scrubbing a black motorbike with a rag just outside the main garage door, which faces the front of the house. I can faintly see the silhouettes of Bruiser and Sarge running around the field in the distance. It’s the first proper look I’ve had of the front of the house. At the open world. The air is quite muggy from the humid summer afternoon, and smells of soap, but it’s still outside. The world still exists outside of steel walls and cages.
If everyone’s out here, Fiz and Bob are at some aforementioned club, Maggie’s upstairs somewhere, I couldtechnically make an escape at the back of the house. But I haven’t moved the money to an accessible bank account yet. Haven’t got a means of transport. God knows how many miles of woods surround this house.
I shake the temptation off. I will not act erratically. I will stick to the plan.
Alfie’s perched on a chair just outside the garage, a few feet away from his cousin, flipping through some magazine. Neither of them notice my entrance, the rock music playing from somewhere must have drowned out my footsteps. Gosh, music. Another thing I didn’t realise I missed so much.
Caden has his shirt off, displaying a body full of sharply cut, lean muscles. He’s lanky, but he looks strong. His torso is covered in tattoos as well. I can see a crow on his right pectoral, a pair of scales in the middle of his chest, a dream catcher floating across his abs from his left side on the ribs. A grim reaper holding a scythe along his right lower side. The reaper has a skull poking out from beneath his black hood. All of those, along with the tarot cards – the man is death incarnate.
The squares of his inked abs ripple as he washes the bike, the long cords of muscle and the ominous tarot cards on his arm shifting as he moves the rag.
“What about a Zen garden?” Alfie says, flipping a page over.
“A who garden?” Cade says, scrubbing over the seat of the bike.
“Zengarden. You know, to be all zen.”
Caden looks up from the bike to answer Alfie but catches sight of me. He straightens up, his brows immediately flattening into that unimpressed line. Alfie spots me a moment later and smiles. I take a steadying breath and step forward.
“Hey, princess, what’s up?” Alfie says.
