he’d kill him with his bare hands. I saw the way Dad pummeled a guy once. He’d gotten several licks in on him before the cops showed up. Some guy rear-ended us and my father exploded in fury. “You could have killed my wife!” She was already dying though. My mother and I screeched and cried while my dad punched that poor man relentlessly.
He defended us—defended her—with such a furious passion that the world trembled beneath his feet. My dad wasn’t someone people messed with. At six foot five, he towered over most men, including Gabe. It wasn’t the height that frightened people though. Something in my dad’s eyes flickered with a barely contained rage. Even as a child, I sensed that he was brooding about something. That anger ebbed and flowed beneath the surface. Not at me or my mom. Not at Gabe. At the world. The world was always trying to cheat him and take from him. Life was unfair…and Dad hated that fact.
If he knew Gabe had taken me, he’d kill him. No doubt in my mind. Even though Dad loved Gabe like a brother, he didn’t look at him like he looked at me.
I’m his only daughter.
His whole world.
The girl who looks like his wife but has his height, although not quite as tall, and his tenacity.
He would rip out Gabe’s heart and serve it to me and Mom for supper.
A crazed giggle escapes me and Gabe freezes. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” I say and then cackle. “I hope I come back and haunt you until Dad kills you.”
His annoyed grunt satisfies me until he speaks. “You passed your first test. You’re not going to die now. The worst part is over. It’s time to train.”
Train?
My mind fades to grey as I ponder what he means. In school, I train for track. I run miles and miles without getting winded. The high jump is my thing. Effortlessly, I flop over that bar as if it’s the easiest thing to do in the world. I lift weights and eat right so Coach doesn’t give me crap.
That’s what training means to me.
But something tells me that Gabe isn’t training me to run a marathon. Something tells me he’s training me for something dark and sinister.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I barely register being carried into a bedroom. The walls are made of wood and I realize we’re in a log cabin. The floors, the ceiling, the walls, and even the bed are made of the wood that is now permeating my senses.
We’re probably deep in the woods.
Nobody will ever hear me scream.
It’s me against him.
“Are you sleepy, little one?”
For a moment his voice bears concern, and is familiar. Like the Gabe from before. The man I’d depended on to help me push my car when I’d run out of gas on the way to the mall when Dad was still caught up at work. The man who had playfully threatened my boyfriend not to harm a hair on my head or there’d be hell to pay. The man who had hugged me tight when my dog Molly got run over by a car and passed away.
Exhaustion overwhelms me and I sag in his arms. I’m so tired. So very, very tired.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” he whispers, almost sweetly, into my ear as he guides me over to the bed. “Over breakfast.”
I burst into tears and he calms me with strokes on my grimy skin that should repulse me. But they don’t. I want to close my eyes and pretend this didn’t happen. I want to pretend he’s here to save me.
“I’m scared,” I choke out.
He yanks the covers back on the bed in the room and climbs in with me. It’s only now that I realize he’s wearing jeans but no shirt. My skin reacts and a cold sweat breaks out over me. I’m terrified, and yet, I want him to comfort me. I want him to promise me that this is all a bad dream and I’ll wake in the morning in my own bed.
He drags the covers up over us and for the first time in days, I’m warm. Gabe is a monster and yet I’m twisting in his arms to get closer—to get warmer. My arm wraps around his middle and I bury my face into his bare chest.
“Shhh,” he murmurs against my hair and then kisses me. “I have you now. You’re mine, Baylee. All mine. Rest now and let me watch