“I’m going to help you escape,” I say, pulling off my shirt. I quickly wrap it around his waist and tie it securely. “This isn’t much, but at least you won’t leave as degraded as he’s made you. Follow me.”
He nods as we walk back toward the line that divides Pater’s property from the woods and I glance at the door.
Empty.
Good.
“When I get to the door, I want you to run as fast as you can. Do you understand? Run away from this terrible fucking place. I’ll cover for you. I’ll tell him that you were far beyond reproach and I killed you as a mercy. I’ll tell him I buried your body under Laura’s. He’ll believe me. He has to believe me.”
With as much as I hate to admit it to myself, killing Eloy would actually be the kinder mercy than letting him run away. He has no chance of a normal life outside of Pater’s rule and he won’t know where to go, but I have to try.
“Come on, this is our only shot at this. Don’t worry about any of us, just fucking run as soon as I get to the door, okay?”
He nods and slowly begins to follow me toward the back of the house. As soon as I reach the door, I turn slightly and nod, but just as Eloy begins to run, an upstairs window opens.
“That’s a bad fucking idea, kid.”
Nausea quickly overcomes me as I glance up and see Pater at the upstairs window. What makes my blood turn cold, what makes Eloy stop running, is when we see he has Vaughn in the window with him.
“Come on up. It looks like we need to have a family meeting. And you should probably get a move on. I’m getting hard just thinking of all the possibilities,” he says, giving me a menacing smile.
“No!”
I push the back door almost off its hinges and begin to run back up to Pater’s room. Eloy is behind me. I can hear his feet slapping the floor as he desperately tries to keep up with my frantic pace.
And just as I make it to the top landing, I can hear Vaughn let out a pained scream.
I’m too late.
Chapter Seven
I damn near end up barreling through the door, and I would have been successful had Pater not left it open. Instead of entering heroically, I end up stumbling over the surprise of a door slightly ajar and almost fall on my face.
“Are you okay?” I ask Vaughn once I regain my balance.
He glances quickly at Pater and nods. Eloy enters the room behind me and walks toward his brother. They embrace each other as he begins to quietly weep into his arms.
“You’re a man now, kid. Finally got some hair on your balls! How does it feel?” Pater asks him with a wide, shit-eating grin on his face.
I shoot him a dirty look which he chooses to ignore as he sits down on the window ledge. It wouldn’t take much to rid us of this plague. I could run at him and shove him out the window and he would break his neck when he hit the pavement below, but would he die? Would it be enough to kill him?
“Oh, you’ve got that look on your face again, Joce. Thinking of a way to kill me, huh?” he asks with a chuckle as his grin widens, and he crosses his arms over his chest.
Pater has always said that he can read our minds, that he knows what’s in our deepest thoughts, and that there are no secrets we can keep from him. Every time I’ve thought of ending this so far, he’s proven his word on that.
“No,” I reply, letting out a long suffering sigh.
“No...” his voice trails off and he raises an eyebrow. I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes so that he doesn’t end up smacking them out of my head.
“No Pater,” I amend through gritted teeth.
“You’re so pretty when you’re behaving,” he remarks in a much softer tone. The way the words slide from his tongue, knowing the venom that he usually spews, doesn’t move a goddamn thing inside of me. To be honest, I think it’s meant to be a compliment, but coming from him it has about the same effect as salt in an open wound.
“Come here, baby girl,” he says, holding a hand out toward me.
I don’t move right away. In fact, I’m hesitant because I don’t know if he plans on throwing me out of the window, like I did him.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, Jocelyn. Come here,” he says again, his tone hardening slightly. I shoot a quick glance at Vaughn and Eloy before I make my way toward him.