he expertly navigated the SUV, eventually reaching a highway that led out into the desert.
“What do you know about the pit?”
I glanced at him after the unexpected question.
“That it’s even more disturbing than the dungeon.”
Silence for a beat, his thumb tapping once on the steering wheel as the city disappeared behind us and the world opened at our sides with sandy flatland speckled with patches of brown grass and scattered rocks.
“Who told you that?”
“Nobody,” I answered, not willing to admit Holly had risked her job to give me the warning.
Another tap, his eyes cutting to me for one second before returning to the road ahead of us.
My nerves were live wires, the frayed ends dancing and arcing on the ground, a constant snap of electric fear bolting through me the farther into the desert we drove.
I wasn’t sure why I’d expected an explanation from him regarding the mysterious pit, but when one didn’t come, when he continued driving in utter silence without bothering to glance my way again, disappointment flooded me. It only made the fear and apprehension worse, my stomach rolling in my gut while my heart beat a painful staccato.
Every so often, we’d pass a small patch of rural ranches and tiny strips of stores. I’d never felt more alone than in that moment, my future hidden behind opaque black curtains as dark as the ones found in Callan’s bedroom. He held all the power in his grip, and I could only go along with whatever he demanded.
So tense that any sudden movement might snap me in half, I flinched when his deep voice rolled through the quiet car, his question asked with only mild curiosity, but I knew it ran deeper than his tone.
“How much do you know of your family’s money? Where it came from? What your father did to give you such a pampered life?”
Fidgeting in my seat, I folded my hands in my lap, stared at them as if the answers might be written over my skin.
“He was an entrepreneur and owned several businesses. Ones I’m sure you took over when Franklin made you the figurehead of the Roses.”
Except where the Roses had once been a bouquet of blood red strength, the beauty of the blossoms disguising the danger of their thorns, another flower stood in the center now, the petals velvet black, a shade of death so deep that the eye would get lost in it without comprehending it was trapped.
Even in the shade that whispered of dangerous shadows and an endless abyss, Callan was as vain as the rest of us, although his reasons weren’t as easily understood.
You could see it in the knife blades of his cheekbones, in the strength of his square jaw and the curve of his full lips. The way he held his body and in those eyes - a color that appeared in both breathtaking fantasies and soul crushing nightmares - that were a window inside a tortured soul with hatred framing the glass.
From the corner of my eye, I watched his mouth curl at the corner.
“What kind of businesses?”
Unsure where he was going with these questions, I shrugged a shoulder.
“I never asked.”
To our left, a large building stood against the distant horizon, a warehouse of sorts, only the top floor and roof visible above the solid wall that surrounded it. Callan turned to follow the road that led to the building, his fingers tapping the steering wheel, a steady drumbeat that marched us toward the unknown.
“You never cared, you mean. Well, you’re about to learn.”
Willing my voice not to shake, I asked, “Learn what?”
He pulled up to a gate, seconds passing before it slid open to let us pass. A few cars speckled the parking area, and I glanced up at the sheer size of the warehouse, not understanding what it was or why I’d been brought here.
The car stopped, and Callan turned to me, an odd expression on his face.
“You’ll learn that every dollar bill spent to give you the life you had was stained with another person’s blood. The food you ate were their lives. The clothes you wore were their skin. And every time you laid your head on silk sheets and fluffy pillows, it was their bodies that supported your bed.”
The wires inside me jolted again in warning, the buzz of electricity rolling and snapping.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered, every bit of strength I’d managed to hold onto bleeding out of me.