Kaden swayed on his knees, half-hoping that if he passed out Doug would stop and go away, the fun gone, but he didn’t put it past the guy to kill him in cold blood. He swallowed down any pride he had left, hoping to survive the night. “I’m s-s-sorry, Doug. Please, just stop. I’ll leave her alone. I’ll do whatever you want. Just. Stop.”
Doug grinned and his teeth seemed to glow and sharpen in the dark. “Is that right? You’ll do whatever I want.”
Kaden’s vision blurred, two versions of Doug dancing before him. He closed his eyes, pleading. “Yes. Please. Stop.”
But Doug wasn’t going to be appeased that easily. The humiliation wasn’t complete. The sound of a zipper brought Kaden back from the edge of consciousness. His eyelids snapped open, though one was already starting to swell, and he watched in abject horror as Doug pulled his dick out of his pants.
Pure panic seized Kaden, and he tried to scramble to his feet, the pain in his ribs like daggers slicing through his organs. But
Doug just shoved him back down and laughed. “Where you going, asshole? I’m not done with you. Ready to show me what a pussy you are? Or maybe I should say cocksucker. I know that’s why you stutter. All that dick you suck.”
Kaden gagged both on blood and fear, choking out his words. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“A valid option,” Doug said with a sneer. “But you’re not worth jail time.”
Kaden spit blood at him again, using the last shred of energy he had and Doug hit him in the side of the head, knocking him to the ground. He couldn’t move. He’d been beaten until his ribs had cracked and he could barely breathe. He wasn’t going to make it out of these woods. And that end would’ve been welcome because the next thing that happened was worse than death. Doug grabbed Kaden by the hair, took his dick in his hand, and forced it down Kaden’s throat. It was sweaty and hard and disgusting. Doug laughed at him, calling him a bitch, and telling him to act like a good one. Kaden tried to bite down but Doug yanked on his hair and told him if he used teeth, he’d put him in the dirt and fuck him with one of the fallen tree branches. Kaden gagged and choked, fighting for breath and the urge to upchuck, but Doug was enjoying it all, getting off on Kaden’s ultimate humiliation. When Doug came, Kaden did vomit, then he blacked out.
When he woke up, he was naked, tied up, and bleeding under the bleachers of the school’s football field. And he’d had no idea how he’d gotten there, where his clothes had gone, or what Doug had done after he’d passed out. He refused to talk to the groundskeeper who’d found him. Everyone would already know who’d beaten him. Nobody would tell. Including him. There were some things you never wanted to relive, things you never wanted anyone to know, things you didn’t even want to acknowledge in your own mind had happened. And that morning as they patched him up in the hospital and asked him a hundred questions, he’d slammed the vault shut on that night. His secret would stay in those woods. Buried. Along with that boy who was bullied. He would never let anyone have that kind of control over him again. He would never be weak or vulnerable. He would become someone else.
Kaden Fowler died that day.
Doug Barrett had killed him.
THIRTY-ONE
Tessa lay in the bed in the guest room of her former house, trying not to make a sound so that she could hear any little noise in the place. She hadn’t heard anything in a solid hour. Her heartbeat had finally slowed when she realized that if Doug planned to make some sort of move on her, it wouldn’t be tonight. Not that she would’ve let him. She loosened her grip on the chef’s knife she’d tucked under the pillow. Kade had informed her that first night that an expensive one was sharp enough to cut off fingers. And God knows she’d never used this one when she lived here, so it was as sharp as the day it was honed. But thankfully, it didn’t look like she was going to need it to protect herself.
The chilling text message Kade had sent her earlier was still burning in her mind. I’m coming to get you. Don’t stay in the house with him. He’s a sociopath and a rapist.
Rapist. The word made what little she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours want to come up. At first the accusation hadn’t made sense. Kade hadn’t seen Doug since high school. How would he know that? But then the answer had come crashing down on her. Because Doug had done something more than beat up Kade that awful night. The thought had almost been too much to take in.
No one had seen Kaden afterward. Rumors had spread that he’d been beaten badly, but she hadn’t known what to believe. She’d tried to go to his house, but his stepdad had told her he wasn’t there, that he was moving in with his real dad. She’d wanted to tell Kaden she was sorry and make sure he was okay. She’d wanted to tell him she’d go with him to Dallas. But he’d left town before she’d gotten a chance.
Then over time, Doug had convinced her that nothing bad had really happened that night. That it was all just rumors. He’d said that he’d told Kaden not to come back to school or he would beat him down. That’s all. He said he didn’t want Kaden around her and did it to keep her safe. And she’d wanted to believe him because she didn’t feel like she had any other options. Her eggs were in Doug’s basket, and she’d wanted to believe the good parts about him. He’d lavished her with attention and made her feel like he was being overprotective because he loved her. She’d been stupid to let herself believe it. Stupid and too scared to do anything on her own.
Doug had been across the room when she’d received the message from Kade, and she’d had the instant urge to take the very knife under her pillow and damage him, make him pay for every sick and cruel thing he’d ever done to anyone. But she’d held back, bided her time. She needed a plan. She needed him to think she was cooperating.
And now she was lying here, counting on three things she knew about Doug for sure.
One: He always took a sleeping pill before bed.
Two: He obsessively documented everything down to how many minutes he ran on the treadmill.
Three: He always underestimated her.
He would regret all three of those things tonight. Once she was sure he was asleep, she slipped out of bed and put her tennis shoes on. She quietly made her way downstairs and put in the code to turn off the alarm. She held her breath at the beep signaling the disarmed state, but the walls were heavily insulated and she knew it was hard to hear what was going on downstairs when you were upstairs. After waiting a few minutes to make sure Doug didn’t come down the stairs, she went to the sliding glass door at the back and opened it.
The crickets and other night bugs greeted her, but she knew they weren’t the only ones out there. She gave a little all-clear signal, and Kade melted out of the darkness at the side of the yard. Stress had morphed his features into a hard mask, but the instant his arms were around her, she saw the relief there. “You’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He kissed the top of her head, whispering thanks to God. “You should’ve never left with him. You had me out of my mind with worry. Why would you do that?”
“I was trying to protect you. He had charges against you and a witness, he has pictures of us from the other night—ones that would ruin things for your case. I needed to do what he wanted and come with him. But I have a plan. You didn’t need to come here and be around him again.” She shook her head, tears gathering in her throat. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to be anywhere near him.”
“Hey,” he said, cupping her face and forcing her gaze to his. “Don’t do that. Don’t pity me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”