Becca

 

Kane cradled my face gently in his hands, feathering my skin with kisses. Tender and soft, his touch made my skin crawl.

“Kane.” I tried again to appeal to his rational side, the part of him that had pulled me under his spell all those months ago.

“Just let me love you,” he whispered. His voice changed as if more than one person was inside him. Gentle Kane. Mean Kane. Vulnerable Kane. Angry Kane. It was unnerving. His hands moved down, taking in the curves of my body and skating over my shoulders and along my waist to come to rest on my thighs. “God, you feel so good.”

“No, no,” I whimpered. “Please, don’t do this.” Memories of that night rushed to the surface, and I clamped my eyes tight.

Kane ripped himself away from me, his face contorting with anguish. “You don’t want this? You don’t want me to make you feel good?”

“Stop, please.” I didn’t want to anger him further, but I couldn’t just sit here and let him do this to me. I wouldn’t. “People will be looking for me. My dad, he’ll—”

A loud crack sounded as my head snapped back and pain exploded across my cheekbone. “Don’t fucking talk to me about him. Never talk to me about him. He took you from me. They’re always taking. Always stealing things that don’t belong to them.”

When I’d first met Kane, he seemed like a well-put-together guy. He worked hard and enjoyed partying. Sure, he was older, but he blended with our crowd with ease. The Rosens often invited him to join their parties as a guest because he fit in so well. But as time went on, I realized it was all a show. Because underneath the devastatingly handsome bad boy exterior was a very troubled young man.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he soothed. “I just get so fucking mad thinking about it. Come here.” Kane wrapped me into his arms, stroking my damp hair as I sobbed into his hoodie.

“You have to let me go, Kane. Please, just let me go.”

His grip tightened, long fingers digging into my scalp. “Never,” he growled. “You’re mine, Becca. I’m not losing you again.”

We sat there on the dank floor for what felt like forever. Kane relaxed, shifting against the wall and pulling me into his lap. He held me like a mother might cradle her child while a million thoughts raced through my head. Where were we? Was anyone looking for me? How long had I been gone? My face burned where his hand had connected with my cheekbone, and I knew if I caught my reflection in a mirror, a bruise would be forming.

I didn’t fight his touch. I didn’t move, too scared of the repercussions. At least like this, he wasn’t hurting me or trying to take things from me that I didn’t want to surrender. At some point, his breathing leveled out, growing shallow. Kane had fallen asleep. My eyes searched frantically for anything that might help me escape this nightmare, but it was futile.

The silence stretched out before us. Only Kane’s steady breath and the drip, drip, drip of water penetrated the quiet. Located on the edge of town was an old water plant. Dad had pointed it out when we first arrived. Maybe we were there under the derelict facility in one of the sewer tunnels. But it didn’t feel airy. It felt small. Like a holding cell, and since I couldn’t see farther than the shadows cast by the small lamp on the floor, it was impossible to tell.

Kane mumbled something, his fingers biting into my skin. My body tensed, prepared for him to wake. I didn’t want to think about him, about the things he might be dreaming, but I couldn’t help it. In a strange way, we were bound. He’d tried to hurt me, and I had hurt him.

I’d almost killed him.

I’d never given much thought to how different things might have been if Dad had called it in. It was self-defense; Kane had attacked me, and I’d defended myself. No judge could dispute that. I was also a minor at the time, which meant if the truth came out about our relationship, Kane could be charged with statutory rape. But we didn’t know if Kane would survive. Until Dad arrived and said he was breathing, I thought I’d killed him. He knew that in a place like Montecito, the gossip mongers would latch onto the first sniff of a scandal and burn it into the town’s history. It wouldn’t just blow over. It would stay with me. Follow me around like a bad smell, and people would forever remember me as that girl. That would be my legacy. Dad might have been the law, but he knew the law couldn’t protect me from the claws of the gossip-hungry socialites of Montecito. And, in the end, he made a choice.

To protect me.

To erase any connection between me and Kane. But something plagued my thoughts. Kane had said, “Your daddy brought you right home for me.” If my suspicions were right, Kane meant he was from Credence. But it didn’t make sense—how did he end up in Montecito, and me here? And why was I kept out of the loop again? Dad had kept Kane’s recovery a secret from me … What else had he hidden in hopes of protecting me?

My cold body ached, heavy with the weight of Kane’s arms wrapped around me, holding me captive. I shuffled, trying to put some feeling back into my legs. He roused, grumbling something, his hot breath hitting my shoulder.

“So many nights I’ve dreamed of waking up like this with your body next to mine.” His lips pressed to my skin, and a full body shiver zipped through me. But it wasn’t the good kind, the kind I felt when Evan touched me. It was the kind that made you feel like a thousand tiny ants were crawling underneath your skin.

“Kane, we need to get out of here. I’m cold and tired, and my head hurts.” The pain had numbed into a dull throb, making it difficult to focus.

“Shh, everything’s going to be fine. We’re together now.”

“Where will we go? My family will be worried.” Evan will be worried. “How long have we been out here? Where are we, Kane?” The questions wouldn’t stop. They poured out of me like a desperate jumble of words.

Kane lifted me as if I weighed nothing more than a feather and dropped me back onto the cold floor while he stood, stretching his arms above his head and stretching his neck from side to side. “Stop talking. I need to think … I need to figure this out.”

It hit me. He didn’t have a plan or an end game. His mind didn’t work like that. He was impulsive, driven by need, and what I only assumed were deep rooted mental issues. High one minute, low the next, Kane wasn’t in control of the situation—his unhinged thoughts were.

I scrambled up, but my sore body protested, and my legs gave out underneath me. How long had I been out? Had he done something to me? Drugged me to keep me compliant? Something felt wrong. Why wouldn’t my goddamn legs work? “Kane, what did you do?”

He stopped pacing and crouched down, his eyes cutting to mine. His fingers reached out, grazing my jaw and sliding up my tender cheek. “I hurt you.”

“Please, just let me go.”

“Never. You’re mine, Becca. Let me make it better.” Kane inched his face closer, his hungry gaze on my mouth.

No.

I pressed back against the wall, turning my head away from him. A feral growl filled the room, and I waited for it.

One.

Two.

Three…

“Shit,” he roared. It was so guttural, so pained that my body went rigid. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to … You just looked so beautiful, like an angel, and I wanted to have a chance to talk. To make you see that we belong together.”

Slowly, I turned and met his eyes, my face damp with tears. “This is wrong, and you know it is.” He felt remorse; I could see it. “Kane, please.”

He didn’t move. No words passed between us. He just watched, moving his eyes over my face like he was searching for something. Something I could never give him. Kane was sick—he needed help. My fingers reached for him, dancing across his face until my palm lay flat against the stubble on his jaw. It was hard to believe he was twenty-five. He looked so vulnerable, so unsure, barely resembling the self-assured guy I met all those months ago in Montecito.

Kane’s eyes shuttered as he leaned into my touch, a serene expression washing over his hardened features. “Becca.”

“You have to let me go. If you love me, Kane, you have to let me go.”

Kane didn’t love me, but he felt something. Lust. Need. Obsession. Whatever it was, it was destructive and violent, but at this moment, he needed this. He needed to know he wasn’t alone.

“Kane.”

When his eyes opened, I didn’t know what I hoped to see, but it wasn’t two obsidian pools staring back at me. His whole face morphed into something sharper, determined.

Terrifying.

Oh god. What had I done? Had I pushed him too far? “K-Kane?” My voice cracked as my hand slipped away.

“AGH!” He lurched away from me with a roar, and I pressed back against the wall, trying to shield myself from the fury radiating deep from within him.

“It’s all their fault. I hate them. I HATE THEM.” He clawed at his face, his hair, pacing in front of me, lost to his demons.

“Kane, you’re scaring me,” I whispered, holding myself together with my arms.

Then he stilled, his eyes snapping to mine. “I have to go now,” he said so calmly it made my blood turn cold.

“Go? Go where?”

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my head, no sign of the maniacal guy from only seconds earlier. “I’ll remember you, always.”

And then he was gone.

~

“Shit.” The word echoed around the room as I tried to reach the lamp. It was one of those old-fashioned oil lamps that threw out as much heat as it did light. My legs tingled as I willed them into action.

I’d managed to roll and push myself onto all fours and drag myself farther into the room. The shadows moved with me, illuminating new sections of the area, the closer I got to the lamp. It was definitely a room. I could make out three walls from my new position, but I still couldn’t see a door, just a vast darkness. Kane had disappeared into the shadows only minutes earlier, so I knew the way in and out must be in that direction. Now, if only I could make my body do as it was told.

Kane was gone, and from the way he looked at me before leaving, he didn’t plan to come back. For all I knew, no one knew where to find me. I could be anywhere, and with no way of knowing the time or what day it was, I had to assume the worst.

No one was coming for me.

“Get up,” I commanded my body. Saying it aloud seemed more powerful than thinking it. I pressed down against the floor and lifted one knee, moving my foot underneath me. Rocking forward, I did the same with the other leg until I was in a crouched position. It was now or never. I pushed up, slowly stretching my arms out to steady me. When I was standing upright, I gave myself a couple of seconds. My muscles screamed in protest. Heavy and sore, I wasn’t sure how far I’d get before I collapsed again, but I had to try.

I had to get the hell out of here.

“On three.”

One.

Two.

Three…