I sucked in a breath at his words.
“We can’t go in there, but that doesn’t mean a concerned citizen can’t take matters into his own hands and deal with the situation. In fact, way out here, who would even know?”
My eyes met his, and then I followed his gaze to just over the ridge, through the trees. At first, I didn’t see a thing, but then, as if he was signaling me, something metal glinted in the sun.
“Fucking wait until we’re gone or we can’t claim ignorance.”
I followed Mav and Michael down the hill, stopping short of getting in their car. Michael turned back to me and handed me a hunting knife.
“Don’t get yourself killed.”
Nodding, I took it from him.
His eyes scanned me before he shot me a pained look. “A suit isn’t exactly the right gear for this situation.”
I never went home to change. I’d been wearing the same clothes for days. But even as he walked away, I found myself smiling just slightly at his words. As they drove away, I made my way across the forest, keeping out of sight of the house. I didn’t know much about killing, but I was raised to hunt. Moving through the trees was one of the first lessons my old man taught me.
JR glanced at me over his shoulder as he leaned against a tree. Archer stood ten feet away, braced against a tree with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
“You ready for this?” JR asked.
“Let’s get her.”
“Whoa,” JR chuckled. “You’re not going anywhere. Not unless you want to get yourself killed. You stay here.”
“Ellie’s in there?—”
“And she has a better chance of staying alive if you don’t go in there and fuck it up.” He pulled a handgun from a holster at his back, then shoved it in my hands. “I assume you know how to use that.”
“I usually use a rifle, but I can manage.”
“Good. Don’t get yourself killed. The last thing I want to tell Josie is that I got her best friend’s boyfriend killed.”
Gritting my teeth, I nodded, staying where I was as Archer signaled for JR to go around the back of the house.
47
ELLIE
Numbness setin as a single tear slipped from my eye and fell to the concrete beneath my cheek. With the knife still clutched in my hand, I tried to hold on, to remember that I had a means to escape now.
But with my attacker still in the basement, shoving his cock in his pants as if everything was completely normal, it was hard to imagine anything but drifting off into some corner of my mind and pretending none of that had happened.
Bending over, the man pressed a kiss to my cheek. I squeezed my eyes closed, desperate for him to leave so I could break in peace.
“Stay there, sweetheart. I’ll be back for more later.”
Nostrils flaring, the tears spilled unchecked down my cheeks as his boots clomped up the stairs. As soon as the door closed, I curled in on myself and tried to push the memories from my mind.
Nothing would ever be the same. My life would never go back to the carefree existence I had once known, nor would I ever be able to look at myself in the mirror without feeling absolute disgust.
I sniffled back the tears, curling my fist tighter around the knife, thinking about how easy it would be to just flick the blade open and slide it over my skin. When the man came back, I would already be dead on the ground, and he wouldn’t get another piece of me.
He would probably dump my body somewhere, burying it deep in the ground beneath leaves and rot. My parents would never know what happened to me. Ryder?—
I buried my face in my arms as I thought about what Ryder was going through right now. He was probably worried sick about me, and if I took my own life, if I ended this right now, he would always wonder what happened to me.
He would never know that it was his face I imagined as that man violated me, that he got me through the worst experience of my life. He didn’t deserve to spend years wondering what happened, or to search for me, never to find my body.
