SLOANE
Water pelts my throbbing face. Nausea swirls in my stomach. Blood coats my tongue. The world spins around me. Rolling. I’m rolling down a steep hill. Rolling and falling.
I land with a shattering crunch on my left shoulder, the wind vacating my lungs through a silent scream. I gasp for air that won’t come. My chest seizes. Rain and flashes of light blind me as I blink at the sky, the first winded breaths finally drawing into my panicked lungs.
A set of boots land nearby with a heavy thump, approaching to stop next to my head. Rain washes congealed blood from the black leather. I open my mouth to groan Rowan’s name when a hand twists into my hair and tugs me from the comforting scent of earth and wet grass.
I come face-to-face with Harvey Mead.
Rivulets of water cascade from his bald head to drip from his brow and fall across his expressionless face. He stares right into me. I glare back into the abyss of his dark eyes.
And then I spit in his fuck-ugly face.
Harvey doesn’t wipe my saliva away. He holds me steady, letting the rain carry the bloodied streaks down his pockmarked skin. A slow grin pulls his lips back to reveal decaying teeth in a smile that’s unnervingly disconnected from the rest of his apathetic mask.
He drops me but keeps his hold of my hair as he drags my weakened body around the side of the house. My head throbs. My face pulses. Tears sting my eyes with every tug on my hair, the pain in my shoulder radiating up my neck and into my limp arm. My feet scrabble on the grass and mud and debris, but I can’t get any footing with the way he keeps my head down low. I scratch at him and hit his leg with my good hand but he’s far too large to feel any impact from my futile fight.
We stop at a set of cellar doors. Harvey unlocks a rusted padlock and pulls the chain through the handles before opening one door and tossing me inside.
I hit the dirt with a grunt, my first breath filled with the scent of shit and piss and fear.
The contents of my stomach spill across the floor.
It isn’t until I’ve stopped retching that it registers that I’m not alone. Someone is sobbing in the dark.
“Adam,” a woman says through desolate cries. “He killed Adam. I h-heard it. He k-killed him.”
She keeps her distance, repeating her words in a desperate chant that seeps into every crack and crevice of my chest. Brother or lover or friend, whoever this Adam was, she loved him. And I know what it’s like to bear witness to the suffering of someone you love. I understand her grief and powerlessness better than most.
“Yes. He killed Adam,” I reply through strained, panting breaths as I pull my phone from my back pocket. It buzzes in my hand with a message, but I turn on the flashlight first, aiming it toward the floor between me and the naked woman crouched against the wall as she recoils from the light. “And I promise you, Adam will be the last person Harvey Mead ever kills.”
I’m not sure if that gives her any reassurance or closure. Maybe one day it will, but right now her loss is too fresh and the wound too deep. Her quiet sobs continue as I turn my attention to the screen when a text message comes in.
Sloane
SLOANE
ANSWER ME
WHERE ARE YOU?!
The dots of another incoming message start flashing as I type out a reply.
I’m okay. Locked in cellar. Right side of house.
Rowan’s reply is immediate.
Hold tight, love. I’m coming.
I read his message twice before I lock the screen and bite down on my lip. My nose stings. An ache burns in my chest. Maybe it’s just an Irish expression, but I still hear it over and over in Rowan’s voice, as though he’s right here in my head.
Hold tight, love.
“What’s your name?” I rasp out as I turn my attention to the crying woman who huddles against the brick wall. She’s about my age, slim, covered in streaks of dirt across her naked frame.
“I-I’m Autumn.”
“Okay, Autumn.” I set the phone down so the flashlight shines toward the ceiling and start unbuttoning my shirt. “I’m going to give this to you but I need your help to get it off.”
Autumn hesitates for a moment before approaching with tentative steps. We don’t talk as she helps guide the fabric over my dislocated shoulder, and though she backs away momentarily when I let out a cry of pain, she perseveres to free the shirt from my body. The fabric is soaked and muddy, and it might not keep her warm in the cool cellar, but at least she’ll be covered.
She’s just doing up the last button when an ax splits through the cellar doors.
“Sloane,” Rowan’s desperate voice yells, carrying above Autumn’s terrified scream and the wind and the driving rain. “Sloane!”
A raw ache grips my throat. My eyes fill with tears as I grab my phone and scramble closer to the doors. “I’m here, Rowan—”
“Stand back.” With a few more hits, the doors splinter and fall into the dark with the lock and chain. Rowan’s hand appears in the dim light.
“Take my hand, love.”
There must have been stairs in here once, but they’ve been removed, and I have to jump to grab Rowan’s palm, slipping on the first attempt with the rain and sweat on our skin. He repositions himself to lay on his belly, leaning further into the darkness.
“Both hands,” he demands, offering his palms to me.
“I can’t.”
A flash of lightning illuminates Rowan’s face, searing it into my memory forever. His lips are parted and I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath as his gaze snares on my misshapen shoulder and missing shirt. His features are anguish and fury painted in light and rain. Beautiful and haunting and terrifying.
Rowan doesn’t say anything as he reaches for me. When I jump, he catches my hand and grips it tight, hauling me up enough to grasp my elbow and pull me from the cellar.
As soon as I’m on the ground, I’m crushed in his embrace, trembling in his arms. I fist his soaked shirt. His scent envelops me and I want to hold on in this moment of comfort, but he forces us apart to look into my eyes.
“Can you run?” he asks, surveying my face. His eyes never settle as I nod, roaming my expression as though hunting for the truth. “You trust me?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice breathy but sure.
“I’m going to keep you safe. Understand?”
“Yes, Rowan.”
We look at one another for a final moment before he picks up the ax and grasps my hand. He looks back down into the cellar and it seems that he only realizes now that anyone else was down there with me, despite Autumn’s continuous cries and pleas to be pulled free.
“Stay here,” he says down into the pit, brooking no argument despite her elevated appeals. “If you keep quiet and hidden, he’ll think you’ve already run and he’ll leave the cellar alone. We’ll come back for you as soon as it’s done.”
“Please, please don’t leave me—”
“Stay the fuck here and be quiet,” Rowan barks, and he drags me away without another glance into the cellar, ignoring the despairing cries that follow as we run toward the back of the house.
We stop at the corner and pause as Rowan leans forward to scout the path to the barn. When he seems satisfied, he squeezes my hand, turning enough to look at me over his shoulder. He nods once and I’ve barely returned the gesture before he’s leading us across the debris-riddled backyard to the decaying barn. He enters the empty structure first through the open door, his ax raised, but the building is empty aside from tools and pigeons and an ancient John Deere tractor. Only once he’s satisfied that it’s safe does Rowan pull me deeper inside to stop against a wall at a point equidistant between the front and rear exits.
Thunder rattles the windows and the tools that hang from the planked walls. Rowan drops his ax to the dust with a dull thud. There’s a breath of time between us when we just look at one another, both dripping wet and covered in mud and grass.
And then his hands are on my cheeks to hold me steady, his breath hot on my skin as his eyes travel across the details of my face.
A thumb passes over my forehead and I wince. A finger follows the slope of my nose. He traces my upper lip and I sniffle, the taste of blood lingering at the back of my throat.
“Sloane,” he whispers. It’s not for me to acknowledge. It’s confirmation that I’m here, and real, but broken. Rowan keeps me close to the wall, shadowing me with his body, his hands drifting down my neck, lifting my chin to check every inch of my throat for injuries as I tremble in the dark.
“Your shirt—”
“I gave it to the girl. He didn’t touch me that way.”
Rowan’s eyes flash when they meet mine. He says nothing in reply, just drops his attention to my injured shoulder where an angry bruise already colors the joint in the first streaks of purple. With a warm palm on my good shoulder, he turns me so I’m facing the wall. He assesses the injury with a careful touch. Though I try to stay silent, a tight cry still escapes when he moves my arm from where it’s tucked against my side.
“Can you put it back in place?” I whisper when he turns me to face him once more.
“It might be broken, love. You need a doctor.”
I blink away the sudden tears that fill my eyes as Rowan drops to a knee, inspecting my ribs, tracing each one. They’re sore from the fall, but not broken. Rowan just ignores me when I try to tell him that, as though he won’t be satisfied until each one is checked with a pass of fingertips over bone. When he’s done, his hands lay on my hips, a long, tense breath covering my belly with heat that I feel down to my very core.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He presses his forehead to my stomach, his arms wrapping around my legs to hold me close.
For a moment, I don’t know what to do. I’m immobilized by the sudden current that fires through my trembling flesh. Every exhalation against my skin makes my heart beat faster until it’s a hammer against my bones. And then my hand lifts, my body taking control without my mind, knowing something I don’t—that it’s the most natural thing in the world for my fingers to glide into his hair. My nails trace over Rowan’s scalp and he sighs, pressing his forehead harder against my stomach as I do it again and lose myself to the cadence of a simple touch repeated.
The heat of his breath climbs from my navel, between my breasts, over my heart, following my surging pulse as Rowan slowly rises from his bent knee. I can’t bring myself to take my touch away. My fingers slide from his damp hair until my palm rests on his cheek and the stubble that rasps against my skin. Rowan leans into my touch. He brings his hand to rest over mine as though I might fade away if he lets go.
“Sloane,” he says, his eyes soldered to my lips. My name is a whisper of salvation and suffering as he says it again. A thick swallow shifts in the column of Rowan’s throat. “I can’t lose you.”
“Then you’d better kiss me,” I whisper back.
Rowan meets my eyes. His hands warm my cheeks. We’re just a breath of space away from one another, and I know everything will change once his lips touch mine.
And it’s true.
Everything transforms with a kiss.
Rowan’s lips are soft but the kiss is firm, as though there’s no room in his mind for doubt or uncertainty. He knows what he wants. Maybe he’s wanted it all along. Maybe I’m the only one who needed the time to come around.
The heat between us builds in every sweeping touch. I open my mouth when his tongue traces the seam of my lips, and with the first caress of Rowan’s tongue over mine, every thread of restraint between us unravels.
I lose myself in desire. It crashes into me, as though it was always hiding behind a crumbling wall.
And once it’s unleashed, it consumes me.
Urgency takes over. Rowan’s hand threads into my hair and he crushes me to him. I moan when he sucks my bottom lip into his mouth. My hand grips the back of his neck and I dig my nails in until he growls and drives his tongue deep into my mouth, demanding more from a kiss that’s already sparked an inferno of longing in my veins.
I forget all about who we are. Where we are.
Why we’re here.
A sudden scream has us instantly parting to stare at one another with wide eyes and ragged breaths. The terrified pleas for help are drowned by the sound of a chainsaw sputtering to life.
We lean out of the shadows enough to see Autumn run full speed around the side of the house, coming straight for the barn. A second later, Harvey appears, chasing her down with the chainsaw gripped in both hands. Despite his heavy, blocky frame, he’s gaining on her as she stumbles through debris with her bare feet and naked legs.
We slip back out of view and Rowan flashes me a devastating, feral grin.
“Be right back, Blackbird.”
He folds a hand around my nape and presses his lips to mine in a final, quick kiss, and then he lets go to retrieve his ax from the floor.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
Rowan rests the handle of the ax against his shoulder and huffs before giving me a wink. “Getting revenge for hurting my girl, of course.”
The hard edges of my heart melt a little with those words, and Rowan grins as though he can see it. Without another word, he turns away, stalking closer to the door to crouch behind a set of metal toolboxes as I back up until I’m sheltered by the engine of the tractor.
A second later, Autumn comes tearing into the barn, heading for the back door, every step punctuated by a panicked wail.
Harvey Mead rushes into the room after her. And everything that happens next is in slow motion, a beautiful choreography of revenge.
Rowan surges forward. He swings the ax upward in an arc that sweeps so low to the ground that it stirs the dust. The blade connects with the chainsaw in a brutal strike. The chain breaks from the guide bar. It whips into Harvey’s face and he lets out a furious roar. The machine sputters as he drops it and stumbles to a disoriented halt. He raises a hand to his bloody face in reflex, not yet aware that Rowan is already rounding on him for another strike.
The ax splits his kneecap with a wet crack. Harvey cries out in pain and falls to his other knee as Rowan tugs the blade from the bone.
“Let’s see how much you enjoy this when you’re on the receiving end,” Rowan grits out, and before Harvey can fall to his side, Rowan kicks him in the face, his heel a loud thud when it connects just between Harvey’s thick brows.
Harvey falls to his back, stunned and groaning, barely conscious. His blood-streaked head wobbles from one side to the next in a cloud of dust. Rowan stands over him and tightens his grip on the handle of the ax. Rage and focus sharpen the features of his beautiful face. Malice flashes in his eyes as he glares down at his enemy. “This is going to be so fucking satisfying,” he says, looming over Harvey with a lethal smile. He raises the ax.
“Wait—” I say as I step away from the safety of the tractor. Rowan stops instantly, though it looks like it takes everything in him to do so. “Don’t kill him yet. You promised me a turn.”
A dark grin sneaks across my face as I approach. Rowan surveys my expression with a flicker between his brows, an unvoiced question passing between us that I answer with a wider smile.
“But feel free to keep him occupied,” I say, and then I head toward the house.
Autumn’s screams have gone blessedly silent in the torrent of the storm that still rains down on us. It will be slow going for her on foot with no shoes, but she’ll find help eventually if she follows the creek or double-backs to the front of the house to take the path that leads to the gravel road. It’s a fair distance to the nearest neighbors and the road doesn’t see much traffic, but we can’t bank on the remoteness working in our favor. I know we can’t stay too long.
Just long enough to have a little fun.
I don’t linger in the house, working quickly to collect what I need before heading back to the barn.
A string of expletives greets me as I near the old building. Rowan appears amused by the colorful vitriol as he hammers a metal spike through Harvey’s hand to keep him trapped against the ground, a similar implement already impaling his other palm. Rowan is so consumed by his work that he doesn’t notice me until I’m standing at the door.
It takes him a second to process what he’s seeing before he barks an incredulous laugh.
I drop what I’m carrying with my good arm and raise a finger to my lips around a fit of giggles. Tears cling to my lashes as hysterics threaten to consume me. I’m quite pleased with myself, I have to admit. This might just be one of the best ideas I’ve had in a long time. And I want to make the most of the impact, so with a few choppy hand motions, I manage to communicate that I want Rowan to block me from Harvey’s view. He nods and stands between us as I maneuver through the shadows, creeping closer with my coveted prize.
When I get to Harvey’s feet, I lay my little gift on his ankles and start sliding it up his legs.
Harvey groans when I graze his injured knee. He looks down the length of his body and meets the vacant eyes of his mother.
Harvey Mead lets out a blood-blistering scream.
“You’ve been a terribly bad boy, Harvey,” I say in my best imitation of an old woman’s voice as I continue sliding the corpse toward Harvey’s face. He struggles, trying to kick it off, but Rowan intervenes and holds his good leg down.
“Good boys don’t chop people up with chainsaws.”
Another desperate scream. He’s absolutely losing his shit and can’t do anything about it.
I take my sweet, sweet time. I enjoy every second of Harvey’s torture, slowly dragging Mama Mead up his torso as strained breaths saw from his chest. His pulse pounds in his thick neck. Sweat beads across his creased forehead, dripping down his temples as he shakes his head.
Mama Mead and Harvey finally come face to face.
“I think you deserve to be punished.”
“This is very dark,” Rowan says behind me, though he doesn’t sound like he’s complaining.
“Shush, you. Mama Mead’s got some things to say.” I jostle the corpse’s head around as Harvey screams and squirms. The dentures fall out of her mouth to land on his face and he enters another dimension of fear. “Oops, my bad.”
I set Mama Mead down on his chest so I can grab her brittle wrist, keeping my injured arm out of the way as Harvey tries to thrash her off. Her curved fingers stroke his face before I hook them into the corner of his mouth. “Hold on, son. I just want to crawl inside and have a look around.”
Harvey lets out a keening wail.
And then he gasps for air, gulps for it as though it won’t go in, his face a contorted grimace.
“Uhh…”
The veins in Harvey’s temples protrude. His flesh turns red and then rapidly drains of color. His lips turn blue.
“What the…”
A rattling breath leaves his chest. His eyes go dim. His pupils fix to the ceiling and dilate.
“Did he just have a heart attack?” Rowan asks. He stops by Harvey’s unmoving head to stare down at his bloodied face.
My shoulders fall with disappointment. “This is so uncool, Harvey.”
“You literally scared him to death. You should be proud.”
“I had so much more in me.” I give Mama Mead a petulant shove and she rolls off Harvey’s unmoving chest. “Do you think we should give him CPR?”
“If you want to, but I call dibs on not doing mouth-to-mouth.”
“…Dammit.”
Rowan grins when I look up. He walks around Harvey’s head, stopping beside me with his hand outstretched. “Come on, Blackbird. The adrenaline’s going to wear off soon and that shoulder will really start aching then. We’d better burn the place down and get going before that bird finds her way to help. Then I’ll get our things sorted at the motel and we’ll be on the road.”
I place my hand in Rowan’s and he pulls me to my feet. The scar through his lip lightens a shade as he smiles down at me. My gaze travels over his face, and I want to remember every detail, from his dark brows to his navy eyes and the faint lines at their edges, to the tiny mole on his cheekbone and the shine on his wet hair. Most of all, I want to remember the warmth in his kiss when he presses his lips to mine.
All too soon, he’s pulling away, but not without taking my hand as he leads us toward the house.
“On the road,” I say, his words finally surfacing from the haze of adrenaline. “On the road to where?”
“Nebraska. To see Dr. Fionn Kane,” he says. “My brother.
