“What are you doing?” he growled, and glared at Logan. Logan shrugged and threw up his hands, flashing Jackson his lazy smile.
“I’m just making sure Millie here is settling in alright,” he said.
Jackson looked as though he was about to explode.
“You know what’s at stake here. You know how important this is!” he said, and promptly grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me back to my room. I slapped his arm, but it was as tough as coiled metal. He was far stronger than I had imagined as well, and as much as I tried I couldn’t wrestle my wrist free from him. When he threw me into the room I fell on the bed and he slammed the door before I could plea with him again.
I rubbed my wrist and looked at the deep red marks he had given me, rubbing it so that my skin would return to its normal color. I had no idea why I had been brought here, but clearly it was for something mysterious. I wanted to know why this was so important, but no matter how hard I thought I couldn’t understand. I needed more information, but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be forthcoming.
I crawled onto the bed and pulled the cover over me, intending to get some rest as I knew I had to keep up my strength, even though now I didn’t have anybody else to worry about. I wondered if Mel would tell anyone, but from the way she looked I doubted it. Even if she trusted the police anymore than I she would have been deterred from taking any action by Jackson’s warning. But, I supposed, there was at least small mercy in the fact that they wouldn’t have to bring anyone else here now that they had me. Amy wouldn’t have to worry anymore…but I realized that if Mel kept to the promise she had made nobody would come and find me, not even Harper.
My slumber was restless and I twisted and turned all through the night. The room was warm. I usually liked sleeping with a window open to feel the coolness of the fresh air, but even that had been denied me.
I awoke in the morning to the sound of a soft knock. I wasn’t expecting politeness from my kidnappers, so I wasn’t surprised when the door opened and Jamie was standing there. He seemed the least extreme of the three brothers. He was holding a tray of food again and brought it inside.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling sweetly at him. His eyes darted away, as though he wasn’t sure how to handle attention from women. I wondered if he was a virgin, and I thought it terrible that his older brothers had inducted him into this life when he was so clearly not suited to it. There was no doubt in my mind that he had been instructed not to talk to me, so he immediately went to leave. “Jamie, wait, please!” I said. He paused. “Can’t you tell me anything about why I’m here? I don’t understand what makes me so special? Why did you bring Mel here if you only wanted me? Is this all some sort of sick game?”
The questions were coming thick and fast in my mind, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to answer them all and I didn’t want to overwhelm him. Sometimes silence was more powerful than speech.
“It’s not a game,” Jamie said, his voice had a terse edge to it.
“Then what is it? Why am I here?”
There was a pause. Jamie seemed to be in conflict with himself.
“You’re here to save us,” he said, and then he left, perhaps feeling as though he had told me too much. I watched the door close behind him and was left with much on my mind. The mystery was piling up and I seemed to have been thrust into a cryptic situation. There was something more going on here, something deep, something that I couldn’t quite get a grasp on.
9
For the most part I was left with my own thoughts, sitting sullenly in the small room. The sun rose and fell, food was brought to me, and I wondered why the three brothers had bothered bringing me here at all if they weren’t even going to interact with me. They probably didn’t know it, but leaving me by myself was the worst thing they could have done. My mind spiraled and ran through the past and replayed all my mistakes and the things I regretted. I thought about all the different paths I could have taken and I made myself miserable, because surely this was the worst possible outcome? Out of all the potential directions my life could have taken this was the one that had happened, and I couldn’t think of how it could be any worse. The only thing yet to happen was for me to be dead, and I still wasn’t sure that was beyond the realms of possibility. I kept telling myself that if they wanted me dead I would be by now, but then why hadn’t they done anything with me yet?
The waiting was the most tortuous part. By a certain point I wanted them to do anything to me just to get it over with.
Just when I thought I was going stir crazy the door opened. I expected it to be food, but instead Jackson stood there, looking imperious in his white vest. His muscles were lined with thick veins and a bed of hair sprouted from his chest. He wore a scowl, and I was surprised to see him. Although I was desperate to get out of the room I wasn’t going to make things easy for him. I turned my head away and sighed.
“Only if you tell me why I’m here,” I said.
“I don’t have time for this,” Jackson growled, and stomped into the room. He grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me off the bed with such force that I had no chance to resist. I had never met anyone who could manhandle me so easily. I yelped and tried to wriggle free, but it was no use at all. The bed sheets were dragged with me and fell to the floor.
“You have to tell me!” I pleaded, trying to hide the pain from my voice, trying and failing.
“I don’t have to do anything. Don’t you get this yet? Nobody is coming to look for you, nobody cares. You’re all alone here and you don’t get a say in what happens next.”
My eyes widened with fright. This was a man who had been through a lot. His eyes were bloodshot and hazy, he had a weary look on his face and his voice was terse. Whatever he had been through had affected him and he was tired of whatever shit it was. I clamped my mouth shut and let myself be dragged.
At least I was out of the room.
Instead of taking me to the lounge, as I expected, we walked further into the cabin. He took me down a flight of stairs. I twisted my neck around, but Logan and Jamie were nowhere to be seen. I wondered if they had any part in this, or if they were just there to indulge Jackson in whatever twisted thing this was.
A scream was edging up through my throat, wanting to fly out of my mouth into the world, but I knew it was hopeless. We were in the middle of nowhere and I wasn’t going to be able to attract anyone’s attention. It would only make Jackson madder, and I didn’t want to push him over the edge. The sad truth was that he was right; nobody cared about me and nobody was coming to save me. The decisions I’d made in my life had led me here, but really it was the only thing I had ever known. Nobody had ever really loved me, at least not in the way that people were supposed to be loved.
My parents had treated me like a burden, a mistake, and I knew that if they had had their way they would have gone back in time and had an abortion before I developed fully. I sensed their resentment every day, and I carried this with me through the rest of my life. I never allowed myself to get close to anyone. I only showed them what they wanted to see. Intimacy was something foreign to me, something alien, something I didn’t quite understand. I had burrowed myself into a place where I was the only person who cared about me, and while that gave me strength and solitude, it also meant that I had nobody to call on for help.
Every step took me into a darker place and I wondered what sordid fate Jackson had in store for me. My heart beat faster and my breath grew quicker as he led me down into a basement. The wooden steps creaked, and my eyes had to adjust to the dim light. There was a faint orange glow from candles and the air was warm. I was surprised to see that the basement wasn’t your usual extra room underneath the home filled with tools and toys and dryers, but rather an ancient site where the wood of the cabin morphed into old, weathered stone. The ground was soft and an earthy smell reached my nose, mingling with the scent of burning wax and warm fire. I furrowed my brow in confusion, wondering what kind of place this was.
When I lifted my head up I saw that there were two cloaked figures in the room, which I assumed where Logan and Jamie. They were standing around a stone altar that had strange carvings all around the side, but these carvings were lost in shadow for the moment. Jamie and Logan turned to face us and stepped aside. Jackson dragged me to the altar and thrust me onto the hard stone. I looked at each of them with panic in my eyes, only Jamie turned away.
“Please, no, whatever you’re doing, you don’t have to do this. Please, I just want to know what’s going on. Why won’t you tell me? I don’t…I don’t want this…I’ll do anything if you just tell me. We can talk about this and figure out a way to do whatever it i