Chapter Fifteen: Laina

I stood beside Kieran’s hospital bed, staring at the man, willing him to wake up. The whole day had been a blur; I didn’t even remember how we got here. My dad had been talking to the crowd, and then a shot rang out. Just one. Mike had sprung into action, but it was too late. The bullet had already left the chamber and was heading right to me.

Except Kieran had stepped in the way while he was trying to take me down. The bullet had hit him instead, and now I was the one on my own two feet while he was lying in a white hospital bed, IVs hooked up to his arm and a clamp hooked on his finger to keep track of his heart rate.

Kieran’s eyes were closed. He wouldn’t open them, but he was still alive.

If he never opened his eyes again, did that even count? Was it a life? Was it anything if he was just here, a vegetable? It didn’t even make sense to me, why he wasn’t waking up. It was just one bullet. Just one. How could it cause this much damage?

My dad and Tessa were talking to the doctor in the hall. The door was open, though, so I could hear everything that was said. “I’m fairly confident he’ll wake up in time. Sometimes, with traumatic wounds like this, the body just shuts itself down. Beyond the damage from the bullet, which we’re getting everything prepped to remove it, his body’s fine. His brain is fine. Just give him some time.”

That was the thing, though. I didn’t want to give him time. I wanted Kieran to wake up and tell me he was all right. I wanted to listen to whatever stupid jokes he had, wanted to bury my face against him, and breathe him in. God, I wanted to feel those lips on mine again.

The sound of someone moving behind me made me realize I wasn’t in the room alone. Mike was near, though I was pretty sure he was watching me and not Kieran. I felt a warm hand on my back, and he whispered, “You should clean yourself off.”

Though it was hard, I managed to pull myself away from Kieran, turning to face Mike. I angled my head back to meet his stare, asking, “What?”

“You still have his blood on you,” he replied, lightly touching my right arm, just above the elbow. A soft, tender touch that almost brought tears to my eyes—though I did my best to push them back.

“Oh” was all I could say as I lifted my right arm and stared at my hand, at the bright red blood on it. It had dried, staining my hand and my lower arm, a reminder of the day’s events.

“Come on,” Mike said, corralling me away from the hospital bed and moving me toward the adjoined restroom. Since Kieran was the mayor’s brother-in-law, the doctors and nurses had worked fast. He’d been moved out of the ER lickety-split and been given his own room, even though they hadn’t operated on him yet.

The bathroom lights were motion-sensitive, so they flickered to life when we walked inside. Mike stopped me right before the sink, and he reached around me to turn the water on. I stood there, staring at nothing in particular, as he grabbed a whole bunch of paper towels. He said not another word as he wet them.

I hardly felt it when he ran those wet paper towels against my skin. Since the blood had dried, he had to scrub every inch of my hand and lower arm over and over, and even then, some of my skin was still pink with the faint hint of old blood.

My thoughts were on Kieran, mostly, but they were also on me. What if Kieran hadn’t seen it in time? Would I be the one in the hospital bed… or would I be in the morgue, dead? And then I wondered something I should’ve wondered from the beginning.

Was it my Devil? Was this punishment for me getting close to Kieran? Would he try to hurt me, or was this about hurting Kieran?

“The man,” I spoke, breaking my silence. Mike was still working on cleaning me up. He had to grab more paper towels. “Who was he?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said, frowning slightly. “Just a man with a gun from what I saw. There are a lot of those in this city.”

A man with a gun. That didn’t sound like my Devil. There was no way my Devil was just a man with a damned gun. And, besides, after keeping me for two years, would he really put me in danger like that? The gunman had been pretty damn far from the stage; unless you were a perfect shot, there was always the possibility that you’d hit me instead of Kieran, if he was the real target.

No. It couldn’t have been my Devil. He wouldn’t keep me safe for two years just to do this. It didn’t make sense.

“The police have him in custody. I’m sure they’re asking him questions. Your father will find out who he is, if he works for anyone…” Mike paused. “If he’s the man who took you.” His wiping of my hand slowed, his hazel stare moving to study my face.

“No,” I whispered. “It wasn’t him.”

Mike watched me, and then grabbed another paper towel, letting the water run on it for a moment before bringing it to my face, where Kieran had touched me before he’d fallen unconscious. He wiped along my jaw, not saying a word for the longest time. The way he gazed at me so intently made me want to squirm, almost like he could see through me.

The wet paper towel moved down along my jaw, near the corner of my mouth. Mike’s voice came out quiet, but firm at the same time: “Why do I have the feeling there’s more you’re not telling anybody?”

I wanted him to drop it, but I also… I also wanted to come clean.

Mike must’ve sensed the inner turmoil within me, because he tossed the paper towels into the small trash can near the sink and went to shut the door to the bathroom. It was a small space; not really big enough for someone of Mike’s stature and another person. Suddenly it felt so stifling, almost claustrophobic.

He hit the other switch, turning the fan on. With the water running and the fan going, it would be a lot harder for someone out there to overhear what was said in here.

Mike stood a foot in front of me, his thick chest at eye-level. “Why are you so sure it’s not him?” He spoke the question so calmly, and if you added the calmness of his demeanor to the equation, you’d think he was asking about the weather.

I found myself telling Mike what I’d never told anyone else: “He’d never hurt me.”

He gently grabbed my left arm, holding me at the wrist. “What about this?”

Yanking myself away from him, I glared up at him. “That’s not—it’s not what you think.” My Devil would never hurt me. He wouldn’t. He opened my eyes to the truth about my dad, made me see that my dad didn’t really give a shit about me, that all this time, he’d been using me to further himself along.

“Really?” Mike’s voice was low. “So you’re not making excuses for the man who kidnapped and kept you for two years? Because that’s what it sounds like to me.”

I shut my eyes. “It’s not like that.”

“You’re so sure he’d never hurt you, so sure that man who tried to shoot you isn’t him…” Mike paused, breathing in deeply before saying something that nearly knocked me off my feet, “It sounds like you’re in love with him.”

My eyes opened. All I could do was blink at him and mutter, “No. That’s not it.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “You wouldn’t be the first to fall for their captor. Get close to the person who’s holding you, and maybe he’ll let you go. It doesn’t look like he wanted to let you go, though.”

Of course Mike had to choose now to be so damned talkative. It was kind of aggravating, honestly. I took a step toward him, lifting up my left hand as I whispered angrily, “He didn’t do this.” My voice cracked, “I did.”

That was clearly not what Mike was expecting, because his eyebrows came together. All he said to that was, “Explain.”

“He never touched me. He never hurt me, never tried to… you know. One day I managed to get out of the shackle, and I ran up the steps. I was in a house. A regular-looking house. He’d kept me in a basement that whole time. The front door was right there. It was right there, I could see it, but I didn’t go for it. How would it look if I suddenly come back after two years with not a single scratch on me?”

It wasn’t the full truth. I was lying, but Mike didn’t need to know. No, he didn’t need to know my Devil had let me out.

I woke up from a dreamless sleep, and I yawned and stretched. Eventually I sat up and swung my legs off the bed, the chain tying me to the bed clanging with the movement. I shuffled my feet toward the toilet and sat down to pee. Peeing first thing was always a priority, then brushing my teeth and washing up—as good as I could wash up given the chain.

It’d become my routine. After so long, it came natural to me.

I opened my eyes when I got up to flush the toilet. I went to the small sink and grabbed my toothbrush and the toothpaste, but before I could start brushing, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.

Eyebrows coming together, I turned to stare at the small card table that was near my bed, where I could sit and eat if I wanted, a change of pace from being trapped on the bed most hours of the day.

A key sat on the table, old-looking, all metal. It was a key I’d never seen before in my life, and yet… deep down, I knew exactly what it was for.

I dropped the toothbrush and toothpaste, lunging for the table and snatching the key up in my hand. The metal was cold on my fingers, and as I held it up to the dim light, my mouth fell open in disbelief.

This didn’t make any sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.

Turning my head, I thought maybe my Devil would be in here, watching me. Maybe this was some kind of weird test.

Or maybe he was letting me go.

Either way, my Devil was nowhere to be seen. I was alone in the room and, I immediately noticed, the door to the room sat wide open, beckoning me forth. Clutching the key like it was a lifeline, I turned back to the table, spotting a small piece of paper I’d neglected to see before. On it, two words had been scrawled in tiny letters.

Be free.

I swallowed, reading the words over and over, trying to find some hidden meaning. But there couldn’t be. The words were as simple as words could be; he was letting me go. After all this time, after all he’d done… why let me go now?

It was wrong, but I stood there for a long time, debating with myself. What kind of world would I go back to? What would my life be like? I didn’t want it to be like it’d been before, where I was just a pawn my dad could use however he wanted. I’d smiled and accepted too much back then.

No more.

That’s what I decided when I brought the key to the bed and sat down, that’s what ran through my head while I lifted my ankle to my other knee and worked on undoing the lock. If I was going out there, if my Devil was really letting me go, I wanted to be whoever the hell I wanted to be, my dad be damned. This was my life, and for fuck’s sake, I was going to take it by the balls. No more backseat for me. I wanted the driver’s seat.

The shackle unlocked, and it immediately fell off my angle, clanging once it hit the concrete floor, the key falling with it. I rubbed my ankle, where the shackle had been, for the first time in what felt like forever. The skin underneath the shackle had grown rougher than the surrounding flesh, due to constantly having the metal rubbing against it.

I stood, wobbling on my feet only because of the uncertainty, and then I headed for the door. It was a strange thing, walking to the door, stepping foot farther away from the bed than I ever had. This room had become my life, and yet… here I was, about to leave it all behind.

This would be a new chapter in my life, and I had my Devil to thank.

I made it to the door, and I stopped once I stood in the doorway. With one look over my shoulder, I took in the room one final time. The bed, the TV that sat before it, the small table. I’d been so scared of this room in the beginning, of what I’d experience within it, but the last two years had consistently proved me wrong.

Turning away from the room, I walked away. The hall immediately turned into stairs, and I headed up, taking one step at a time. My legs felt weak, so I had to grip the handrail as I walked. One at a time, I didn’t stop until I reached the door at its height. It sat open as well, and I pushed out into what looked like a kitchen.

A slightly run-down kitchen, but a kitchen all the same.

“Hello?” I asked, not knowing if this was my Devil’s house or if this was just where he kept me, where he cooked me food and visited me twice a day. I received no answer. The house gave me nothing except a tiny echo of my voice.

I walked through the kitchen, half-expecting my Devil to be waiting for me somewhere, but I never saw him. The living room was empty of all furniture, which I took to mean he didn’t live here. Everything was covered in dust; the only place that wasn’t had been the kitchen.

“Hello?” I said again, turning out of the living room and stopping in the short main hall of the house. Based on the sizes of the rooms, on how narrow the hall was, I’d say it was a small house. “Are you there?” I sought so desperately to get an answer, but again, nothing but silence filled my ears.

My eyes moved to the front door. No extra locks sat on it, no chains to stop anyone from the outside world from coming in. Just a normal front door, and an old one at that. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

I couldn’t say how long I stood there, five feet away from the door, wondering what the hell I was going to do. I was free, but I didn’t want to be.

But I had to go. There was no telling that my Devil would ever return, and after all, what abducted person wanted to stay in the house where they’d been kept for two years? No, I had to muster up my courage and leave.

Something stopped me from going for the door, though. A nagging feeling inside that told me I couldn’t leave like this. What would the world think of me if I emerged after two years without a scratch on me, perhaps even saner than I’d been before? They’d call me names, try to say I’d fallen for my captor, that maybe I knew who he was and where he was, that I was trying to help him cover up his crimes.

I had to make it look like a fight, like I’d miraculously gotten free and fought my way out. That I’d been so focused on getting out of this house that I didn’t stop to make sure my kidnapper was dead.

There was no other choice, really.

Turning away from the door, I walked back into the kitchen. The only problem was… how? How to make it look like a fight? How to beat myself up and make it look believable?

I lurched toward the drawers, pulling them all out. I stopped only when I found a drawer full of mismatched knives. My hand gripped the handle of the least-rusted one, pulling it out. Holding it up, I was able to see my face’s reflection in its steel.

My blond hair was a mess, the blueness of my eyes tired and weary. It wouldn’t take much to make it look like I’d been beat up, but I had to make it count. I wanted there to be no doubt at all that I’d fought my kidnapper tooth and nail to get out.

I didn’t think about it. I took the knife to my face, cutting a small line down my cheek. Not too deep, but deep enough that pain blossomed on my skin as it puckered and spread. A thin trail of blood oozed down my face, gathering on my chin until there was enough of it to drip.

I let out a breath that was perhaps a bit too calm as I set my left hand on the counter. The sharp edge of the knife hovered over my left pinky. No one would question a girl who’d lost a piece of her, would they? Something inside me told me to move the knife just a bit, so it would get both my pinky and the finger next to it.

The hand holding onto the knife moved it up, away from the knuckles, stopping at the first joint. Had to hold it diagonally, so it’d sever just above both joints on each finger.

Fuck. Was I really going to do this? Was chopping off the majority of two fingers going to get me in the clear and hide the fact that I hadn’t minded my captivity one bit? My heart sped up, the blood pumping faster in my veins as the answer came to me.

This was the start of my new life. Let’s make it count.

I lifted the knife, not hesitating, not lingering. In a split second I’d brought it down to my hand, cleaving through the two fingers easily due to the force of the knife and its sharp edge.

I couldn’t hide the pain that time. I cried out, the sound that left me more of a whimpering grimace than anything else. Pulling my left hand away from the knife lodge into the cheap countertop, I held it in front of my face, watching the blood fall and coat my hand. The pain took a few moments to arrive, and when it did, it hit me hard.

“Fuck,” I whispered, grinding my teeth together as I went to hold what was left of my two fingers, to staunch the blood flow as much as I could. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” My severed fingers sat on the counter, on the other side of the knife.

Holy shit. I can’t believe I just did that.

Holding onto my hand, I stumbled out of the kitchen, toward the front door. The doubt in me still wondered, though, if this wasn’t enough, so just for good measure, before I went for the handle to get out of this house, I slammed my right shoulder against the wall in the entryway over and over until the drywall cracked and splintered and I felt something in my shoulder blade jar out of alignment.

Not everyone could hurt themselves like this. I didn’t know what that said about me, if it was a good thing or not. I supposed it didn’t matter. The pain would eventually subside, and I’d return to the world outside.

I could do this.

I had to do this.

Mike’s hazel eyes bore into me, somewhat narrowed. “What are you saying?” The question was whispered, but it sounded like he’d shouted it, the fury laced with those words making me wince.

“I’m saying,” I whispered back, the memory alive and well in my head, “he didn’t do this to me. I did.”

He looked as though he wanted to yell at me, to demand to know what I’d been thinking, why I’d go so far as to hurt myself, to mutilate myself, when I could’ve gotten out without a scratch. His jaw clenched, his nostrils flared. A vein popped out in his forehead while he struggled to remain calm.

“You can’t tell anyone,” I added. “If you do, I’ll deny it, and I’m sure I can think of a few things I could tell my dad to discredit anything you say.” A threat, just like I’d threatened Kieran to try to get him to play nice with Mike. I was so out of it that I didn’t even realize how cruel it was, and if I did know, I didn’t care.

All Mike did was shake his head at me, as if he was disappointed in me or something. He said not a single word, turning away from me and grabbing the door handle, practically tearing the entire door off its hinges as he threw it open and stormed out.

I watched him go, my heart racing.

What had I just done?