If I remembered correctly, whoever owned them just sort of rented out the fields to out-of-town farmers. That way, the farmers got a crop and the money from that, and the landowner got a tax break for using the land.
Did Patrick just know that the place was empty? That he could take me here and no one would ever think to look for me?
He seemed really familiar with the farmhouse, though, as he led me into the inky blackness within.
It smelled like it had been closed up for a long time. Dust and must and a hint of mold met my nose as I was pulled blindly through the top floor.
“Come on, don’t make me get angry with you again,” Patrick warned when I resisted going down a flight of stairs.
Of course it was a basement.
It was always a basement.
“I’m trying to be nice, Dell,” he said, fingers digging into my arm hard enough to make me wince. “Do you want me to get mad at you again?” he asked, giving me a shove that had my stomach dropping, sure I was about to fall down the stairs before he yanked me back.
“That’a girl,” he said as I did what I had to do. Go down the stairs.
They were narrow and creaky and slick with dust as I made my way blindly down.
“Okay. Come on. Over here,” he said, tone coaxing like I was a defiant puppy, not a human being scared for her freaking life.
“I know. Your shoulder,” he said, and I felt a surge of hope as my bad arm was released from the handcuff.
Before I could get too excited, though, my other arm was yanked up, and the spare cuff was clipped to something.
My immediate instinct was to yank against it, and I heard the clink of metal.
“Better?” he asked, giving my bad arm a stroke.
Borderline gentle.
Gentle was better.
I made noises against my gag, expecting him to pull it off so he could talk to me.
But instead, he just turned and walked away.
A couple seconds later, I heard his feet on the stairs.
I managed to wait until the door at the top of the stairs closed to start frantically yanking at the beam or whatever it was that I was attached to.
It felt too thin to be load-bearing. If I tried hard enough, could I maybe yank it loose? It was an old house.
I mean it was so old that the floor beneath my feet wasn’t a floor at all. It was dirt.
No one had earth floor basements anymore.
That was a thing of days gone by.
If that hadn’t been updated, then I very much doubted anyone reinforced whatever thin beam I was attached to. It was probably rusty and fragile.
I heard footsteps above, then a slam, and a series of savage curses.
For one pathetically hopeful moment, I thought maybe one of my brothers or Jass had found us, that Patrick was getting what he had coming to him.
But a minute or so later, the door was opening, and Patrick was coming back down, this time with a small camping lantern.
And when he got close to me, I could see what the noise and cursing had been about.
His nose looked broken. Blood had dripped down his chin and onto his shirt.
And his hands looked rough too. The knuckles were broken open.
What the hell was going on?
“Have to make it look good,” he said, answering the question in my eyes. “Can’t have anyone realizing I had to take you to teach you who really loves you. Not that filthy fucking biker. Me. I’ve loved you since you were sixteen.”
Ew.
When I was sixteen, he had been in his early twenties.
“Every time I used to come over, you’d be bouncing around the house in those little cut-off shorts and low-cut tops. You wanted me to look, didn’t you?”
Ugh.
My stomach sloshed around, but I nodded, needing him to think I wanted him, knowing it would at least save me from another brutal beating.
It would buy me some time.
To think.
Maybe to get my bearings and try to find a way out.
“I knew it. You always wanted me. But your brothers wouldn’t have let me touch you back then. Too young. Too innocent. I watched you, though,” he went on, and I could feel myself tensing for more awfulness a part of me knew I would prefer not knowing. “Though your window,” he added, eyes bright. “Taking off all your clothes, putting on a show for me, knowing I was there in the backyard for you.”
Oh, God.
“I’ve always been there for you. And now I have you. All to myself,” he said, giving me a smile that made me feel queasy. “But I have to go deal with your brothers first.”
He was gone then.
And I was left to ponder what he meant by “deal with” my brothers.