Richard’s voice grew closer, and my head flew up, my body locking down all emotion I allowed myself to feel. “Yes, I assume you think I called you here to discuss our business arrangement, but that’s not exactly the case. We share a mutual problem, Carlisle.”
Richard’s voice faded, as if he were walking past my room, and I jumped when Bain quickly spun around. He was over to me in seconds, and I pressed my tender back up against the wall when he dipped down in front of me.
“We don't have much time.”
“What?” I asked, frustrated that I hardly had a voice. “What are you doing?”
My wrists were jerked, and I let out a whimper. Oh my God. They had to have been torn to shreds. The rope felt worse than the chains.
Bain’s steely gaze collided with mine, and I hated to admit it, but his voice was soothing. I had no idea why, but he felt safer to me than anyone else so far in this place. “You’ve always been good at games, Gemma. Play along so we both make it out of here alive. Keep your arms behind your back so he doesn’t know I loosened them, and don’t run until—”
I squinted with confusion, but Bain quickly stood up when the door swung open. He turned around, and I bit my lip to keep myself from looking startled. My body trembled from the shock and skepticism, but as soon as I saw Richard, I straightened my shoulders and played along like Bain had said.
“What are you doing?” Richard asked as he made his way over to us.
Bain stepped aside. “She was about to scream because she heard people walk past the door. I was telling her to be quiet.”
Richard eyed him curiously. He glanced at me, and I glared back when I felt the contact from his hand on my arm. “Well, it’s show time. There’s movement outside, and I have a good feeling that it’s your little boyfriend.” He directed the last part of his sentence to me, and not only did dread hit me, but so did hope.
“Where are you taking her?” Bain asked, stepping beside Richard. “Things might get hairy. Isaiah will not come unprepared now that he knows she is here.”
Richard threw his head back and laughed. “I’m going to have her watch as I kill him. The ultimate punishment. Maybe now she’ll learn that she is mine, and no one else is allowed to touch her.” His eyes were like black holes on his face, and I pulled back in horror.
“You want to kill The Huntsman before or after?” he asked Bain, bypassing my horrific expression. It was now or never.
I didn’t wait for Bain’s answer. I saw the open door and the opportunity that I would never be given again. I easily ripped free from Richard’s hold because he wasn’t expecting it. I fought through the throbs and aches in my body and took off through the opening, dragging my heavy feet with me. Isaiah. I had to warn him. I wasn’t sure what Bain was up to, but I knew, without a doubt, that Isaiah was about to die by the hands of Richard because of me, and I would fight with everything I had to change his fate.
The hallway was long and bare of anything. The memories of when I was younger tried to break through my resolve, but I was good at throwing walls up, and that was exactly what I did. Each time my hand hit the hard surface as I half-ran/half-stumbled down the hall, another wall would build in my head. I took a left when I got to the end and didn’t look back to see if Richard was coming after me, because I knew he would be. In the deepest pits of my brain, I knew my way around this hall, and just as I tried to put walls up to block out the past, there was an instinctual part of me that was trying to tear them down, too.
I’d drawn this before. My memories had been a map of this building—it was the last place that I’d seen my mother—and I was finally going to use it.
“Where is it?” I whispered, heart racing and mind spinning. “Where is the fucking door?”
“Gemma! You cannot escape. You might as well stop running.” Richard’s voice was distant, and it gave me the motivation to keep going farther. If he thought I would stop running just by his command, he was even more dense than I thought.
There were loud sounds coming from somewhere close by, grunting and yelling, but it was too muffled to hear with the pounding in my ears. I spun around in a circle, coming to a standstill as Richard popped up at the end of the hall. It was like something out of a horror film. The hallway was bright, and he crept down the length of it like the Grim Reaper. There was an obvious glint in his eye, showing that he enjoyed the chase. Shit!
Loud bangs echoed, and I covered my ears to drown out the sound. My back hit the far wall, and there was nowhere to go. I was cornered. Where was the fucking door? The door was supposed to be here! In fact, there weren’t any doors at all. None. Just one long, skinny hallway with stark-white walls that seemed to go on forever. Did I remember it wrong? Did my five-year-old memory make up a map inside my head to allow me to think there was ever a way out? Did I create some alternate version of this place to drown out the real one? Was I truly trapped? And where was Bain?
“Did you hear that?” Richard shouted as he continued to walk toward me. I almost fell to my knees. “Three gunshots means three men are currently dead. Your boyfriend’s father just met his maker.” Richard laughed, and it was like being back in his house, sitting across from him at the dinner table as his mother would place hot food in front of us before rushing back to the group home. He was easygoing, like he had the world in his hands. And to him, he probably did. He’d corrupted so many people and had been changing fates by slamming his gavel on the judge’s bench for as long as I’d known him. He thought he was the almighty. Untouchable.
“Go to hell!” I roared, which came out like a screeching whisper. I tasted the salt on my lips from my tears, and I quickly pushed them away, pausing at the sight of my wrists. Oh my God. They were torn, and I couldn’t tell which was fresh blood and which was dried.
“You think I’m destined for hell? After all that I’ve given you over the years? Stability, love, steady direction, protection. I’ve nurtured you, Gemma.” My body flattened against the wall as he grew closer, and I didn’t know what to do. Fear was wracking my insides, and I knew that if I tried to run around him, he’d catch me. I was looking death right in the eye.
I would die by his hands one day. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, I would be dead.
“Gemma!” My chest rocked as I stifled a sob. That sounded like Isaiah’s voice inside my head, urging me to fight a little longer. But this was it. There was no other choice now. The hope I’d felt a little while ago was diminished as I stood alone in the hallway, staring at Richard with a clearer head than before.
“Don’t kill him,” I whispered, breaking down and meeting my resolve. “I’ll do what you want, if you spare him.” I swallowed roughly, wincing at the pain it caused. “If you let Isaiah live, I’ll do everything you ask. But if you don’t, I will scream every second of every day. I’ll fight you every step of the way. I will never ever be your wife and play family with you, if you kill him.” The thought made me want to vomit. In fact, I felt the burn against my raw throat, but I still kept my chin up and my gaze level.
I knew I was trying to leverage and that it likely wouldn’t work.
Richard’s hand came up around my throat, and I gasped, beginning to claw at his hands. “You think you can bargain with me? For him?”
I saw the blow before I felt it. My head cocked back and hit the hard wall behind me, my vision completely vanishing. My legs didn’t work, and I couldn’t feel the floor beneath me. “You think you have any control here, Emily?”
Emily. He called me Emily. My fingers scratched at his skin, and I felt his flesh beneath my nails. My breath was seizing, and my head was a bomb, exploding with pain. My vision came back in quick jabs, like flashes from a lightning storm. His grip on my neck lessened for a quick second before he squeezed again and shoved me back farther. “Open your fucking eyes when I talk to you. You will watch me kill your little crush, and you’ll be sorry you ever let him touch you. I told you the rules, and you broke them. What did I always tell you, Gemma? Good girls don’t break rules, and you are my good girl.”
He shoved me back once more, and I swore every one of my organs jostled on the inside. I wanted to fight back and cry and scream, but my body wasn’t acting the way that I needed it to. I could feel the blood dripping over my face and the oxygen leaving my body. He’s going to kill me.