Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lorn

It’s astounding how much gasoline a generator needs. I can tell that my caretaker has worked on it a little since the last time, but that only serves to complicate what I need to do to get it up and working again.

I rub my hands together. I should be in bed, cuddled up with Rayne. When I heard the power go out again, I couldn’t bear to wake her up and drag her back out here for this. Her face was so perfectly restful and content. She looked like a freaking angel.

She might be mine, if I’m being honest.

“Ack!”

My body tenses at that scream. I glance up and see nothing around me, but the voice was distinctly feminine.

Distinctly familiar.

“Rayne,” I breathe. My breath puffs ahead of me and dissolves as I rush out from behind the cabin and stare around me. It’s still early in the morning, and a light fog covers the land above me, shielding anything up there from my view.

“Shit,” I grumble. I pick up my pace and hike up the hill until I reach the trail back to my cabin. Hopefully, if that was Rayne, she had the good sense to run back there. It might be the only place she knows how to get to.

I set my sights ahead and practically jog back to my cabin. When I enter the clearing, the chimney is going as it should be, and everything appears normal, apart from the mingled tracks in the snow. Christ, where is she? I have to check the cabin. Don’t fucking panic, asshole. Everything’s fine.

Why am I sick to my stomach?

I run up the porch steps and don’t bother stomping the snow from my boots as I pull open the door and step inside.

“Rayne?” I call out.

I’m met with stark, terrible silence. I walk to the kitchen, where I find her coffee untouched. When I reach the bedroom, my heart sinks—she isn’t there.

“Rayne!” I shout. I stand stock still and listen, but there’s nothing except the slight crackling of the flames in my fire.

“Fuck,” I breathe. I head right back out the door, and my eyes shoot down to the ground. My own set of tracks trails out to the main cabin, and Rayne’s are on top, mingling with them. She must have tried to follow me out there.

Why did I leave her alone? Why?

I follow her footprints back to the clearing at the main cabin, and then my stomach sours. Her tracks dart off to the side, and, right beside them, the familiar tracks of the mysterious boot print we’d found before.

Larry. He’s after her. She may already be dead.

My heart goes cold at the thought. I bolt in the direction of their footprints as my mind races. How long has he been after her? Why didn’t I look for the prints sooner, instead of bolting back to my cabin, like some fucking idiot? I should have been smarter. I should have known better.

There’s nothing for it now. I reach the clearing for her cabin. The door is still busted in, but it’s not all the way on the ground anymore, like someone propped it up. I don’t have time to care about what that reason is. I sprint through the snow until I reach the porch, and then my mind starts to work again.

I’m not much good to her if I barge in. The element of surprise could save Rayne’s life. I soften my footsteps and slide along the side of the doorway. My breath is hard and fast, and my lungs burn as I do my best to keep from making a sound as I peek inside.

Rayne is backed against the wall near the wood stove. She’s managed to arm herself with a fire poker, which is a good weapon of choice. Facing her, with his profile to me, is what I assume must be Larry Corker. He holds a long, sharp knife as he takes one slow step after another toward her.

“I thought your weapon of choice was a gun,” Rayne says.

She sounds so brave, but her voice trembles. She’s terrified, but she’s not going without a fight. My admiration for her knows no bounds. I’ll tell her all about it once she’s not facing an armed murderer.

Larry shrugs. “You’d be surprised how tough it was for me to acquire one, given my crime. I worked the streets a little bit, but before I had time to get one you decided to saunter off and disappear. I had to find out where you went and then get on your trail before I lost you.”

“So sorry for the inconvenience,” Rayne hisses. Larry takes another step forward, and she raises her poker a little higher.

“You should be. You’ve been more of an inconvenience to me than you’ll ever know, girl. I kind of like this better, though. They say that stabbing someone to death is much more intimate, more satisfying. The guys in prison highly recommended it over a gun, though I admit that a gun takes far less effort.”

Rayne blanches at that statement. The moment’s coming. I only hope that I can get to him in time, before he can land that blade on her.

“You always were a lazy coward. I heard you had no value even before you became a murderer,” Rayne taunts.

What is she doing? Trying to distract him? I don’t think mocking him is the way to go, but it’s not like I can share that opinion at the moment. She hasn’t noticed me yet, and neither has he. I have the advantage here, and I’m not going to relinquish it. Let’s hope her little game buys us the time I need to calculate my position.

“You bitch,” Larry hisses. Spittle flies from his mouth as he takes another step closer. “You think you’re so high and mighty because you came from money. You think anyone will miss you when you’re dead? Of course they won’t. They’ll be bartering for the money that you couldn’t take with you.”

“At least I had a father who loved me. When you die, and you will, likely soon after this, no one will ever mourn you. No one ever cared you existed.”

“Liar! My brother was everything to me! Our parents treated us like shit, and he took care of me. He taught me everything I know. And your father killed him!”

“He killed himself! My father did nothing but bring him to justice. You two are the bad guys here, not us.”

Larry chuckles, but there is no humor in the sound. Only menace and rage. “My brother saved himself from a fate worse than death. He was a hero. Your father deserved to die, and so do you!”

Rayne releases a shriek as she winds the fire poker up and swings it right at Larry’s head. Taken aback, he steps aside and dodges the blow, giving me the opening I need.

I storm into the room and throw the weight of my body onto Larry as he dodges. Together we collapse onto the floor, and I grip the hand holding the knife with my fist.

“Nice try, Larry. Did you think we wouldn’t best you?” I snarl into his ear.

Larry jerks against me and bites out a growl. “Get the fuck off of me! This has nothing to do with you. This is between me and the girl.”

He jerks his body and nearly slips from my grasp. I tighten my grip on his wrist. The flesh there turns pale white as his face clenches with the effort to maintain hold of his weapon. I glare down at him and squeeze tighter. He screeches up at me, but his fingers go slack and the knife drops from his hand to the ground.

“There’s a good boy. See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Fuck you!” he hisses.

I keep my eyes on him as I direct my attention to Rayne. “Rayne. You all right?”

“Yeah. Good timing, though.”

“I try. I need you to go down the hall and look in the closet there. Each cabin is equipped with a nice long rope. I think it will come in handy in this case.”

“Yep. On it.”

I can still hear the shake in her voice, but I don’t imagine Larry can. She’s hiding her fear quite well, in fact.

“You people think you’re so much better. You deserve to suffer. Everyone deserves to know the pain that I have felt.”

“Oh? And what pain is that?”

I don’t know why I ask this. Maybe I want to keep him distracted, keep him focused on me. Rayne has already seen enough of this asshole to last a lifetime. I’m happy to take his attention, his ire away from her if it means it will keep her safe.

Bring it on.

“None of your fucking business, that’s what. You’ve never lost anything that matters. Maybe once I take care of Rayne, you’ll know what this feels like.”

“Hmm, that does sound tempting, but I think I’m going to have to pass. Thank you so much for the offer though.”

He thrashes against me again, enraged by my sarcastic tone. I’m torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to beat this asshole to a fucking pulp for what he did to Rayne, what he did to me. It’s a little satisfying to know that we were right about his presence here.

Now I have to make sure he gets taken care of.

Rayne appears from the hallway with the length of rope draped over her shoulder.

“Got it,” she says. Her eyes are wide as I look up at her. I’ll help her out with the shock of this in a moment, but I need to make sure that Larry gets secured.

“See that? She’s bested you again! I bet that stings a little, huh, Larry?”

“I’ll kill you both. I’ll make it long and painful, too. You’ll wish I’d gotten you this time. You’ll beg for mercy in death.”

“OK, someone’s taken one too many grumpy pills. Let’s get you all settled in, shall we?”

I hold out my hand for the rope, and Rayne hands it to me with cold, trembling fingers. Her fear reignites the anger in me, and I turn Larry around and thrust his face into the floor. I don’t bother being gentle about it.

“Thank you, Rayne. Can you prop up that chair, please?”

She does as I ask, and I heft Larry, who is a bit muscular, I must say, onto the chair. He struggles, but I hold him firmly in place. This asshole isn’t going anywhere. I tie the rope as tight as I can around him, making sure the rope digs into him.

“What is this, a train robbery? You think tying me to a chair is going to solve your problem? You have no idea who you’re dealing with. You—”

I can’t listen to this asshole anymore. I tear a piece of curtain down and shove it into his mouth then tie another piece around it, effectively gagging him. His eyes are filled with rage as he tries to no avail to threaten us through the fabric.

I take a step back and brush my hands off on my pants, the better to get his stink off me. We’re done with Larry Corker, and when I glance up at Rayne, I smile.

The nightmare is about to end.