Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Glory

THE WOODEN CHAIR screeches across the hardwood floor as Ambrose drags it into our room. His presence is particularly dark at this moment. His presence is always dark, but before I could see a pinprick of light behind his eyes when he’d come close, when he’d touch me. I don’t see any hint that the light is still there now, and it washes me in anxiety, rippling in waves beneath my skin.

He grips an axe in one hand, the handle seeming to pull him down as if a great weight were attached to the end of it. He stops and places the chair a couple of feet in front of the bars. He lifts a hand to rake through his wavy locks before lowering gently into the seat, his legs spread wide.

My throat feels dry, yet an odd sweat breaks out on my palms as I watch something I can only describe as despair push his shoulders down. He bends forward, resting his elbows on his knees and places both hands on the end of the axe handle, the heavy blade seated on the floor between his black boots.

There’s a vague, twisted urge inside me that makes me wish I was sitting at his feet, close enough to touch the black leather of his boots, close enough to wrap my arms around his leg and rest my cheek against his thigh.

I suck in a shuddering breath at the thought of it, at the wicked vision of granting submission to my captor.

From the floor, I rise to my knees and grip the bars in front of me as Huxley shoves to his feet and stands wide, his feet planted shoulder-width apart and his fists clenched at his sides.

Ambrose takes in a deep breath and blows it out slowly. I’m rapt with attention, my ears straining to hear whatever he’s about to say.

“When you showed up,” he begins, “I had no idea who you were. I should’ve known. I should’ve recognized your face.” He looks at me from beneath his eyelashes. “I didn’t recognize it until Maura Tolliver called me into her office and asked me to do her a favor.”

A strong breeze could blow me over.

He knows my stepmother?

He lifts his head and looks at Huxley, whose knuckles have gone white from the tension in his fists. “I deliver chopped wood once a week to the Tolliver’s Treats’ factory. It used to be my father’s job, but I took over after I killed him to keep away any suspicion from his sudden disappearance. I’ve known Maura since I started making deliveries and sometimes, she asks me to do some…unsavory tasks for her. I’m not exactly proud of it.” He pauses, looking down at his hands gripping the axe handle, but my gaze rises and fixates on Huxley at my side. “I’ve hurt people for your mother, Huxley. I’ve killed for her. The first time I did it, it was stupid. I was stupid. I was barely an adult when I let her hook me with the promise of sex in exchange for ending her stalker’s life. I killed him for her because she had me convinced that she needed me to do it to keep her safe. I didn’t know then what I know now. Your mother is a wonderful actress.”

“What do you mean?” Huxley asks through gritted teeth.

“Your mother is soulless, heartless. That stalker she had me kill…He wasn’t stalking her. He was an ex-lover who cheated once, and she simply wanted revenge. And because I was too dumb to see it, killing him cost me my life, my freedom. Because she knows what I did, and she holds me hostage for keeping that secret, for keeping all the other secrets that followed. But I’ve been given an opportunity. She’s offered me my freedom in exchange for something…particularly gruesome.”

A sick feeling of fear washes over me and goosebumps break out across my forearms when I look at Ambrose.

Ambrose meets my eyes. “Maura’s not particularly fond of you. Or your father, as it turns out.”

“Is she the reason why you wanted to know what happened to my father?” I ask. “Did she ask you to find out? Does…does she know what I did to him?”

“Nobody knows what you did to him except for the people in this room. Nobody knows what he did to you, either.”

I turn my head, unable to look at him with the mention of what my father did to me.

“What’s your point, then?” Huxley’s agitation scrapes his voice with a harsh tone.

Ambrose chuckles darkly, tilting his head toward the floor before lifting it again, looking at Huxley through the wavy pieces of dark hair that fall in front of his dark eyes. “Your mom is a cunt. She’s the reason we all need to have a very serious discussion right now.”

“Right,” Huxley scoffs, “as if a discussion during our captivity could be anything but serious.”

“You two and Beau Tolliver were reported missing the day after you stumbled upon my home. Evidence at the scene pointed to foul play, and they found both of your vehicles at his house. When I made my delivery, Maura called me into her office to share her tragic news, though if you expect she was upset about it, then you’re fucking wrong, because what she asked me to do next—”

“What? What the fuck did she ask you to do?” Huxley jerks forward, his palms opening, then quickly closing around the metal bars.

Ambrose pushes to his feet and the axe handle falls, crashing to the floor with a clatter. He paces away, shoving his hands inside the pockets of his black hoodie. He halts, turns to face us, and with a narrowing of his eyes that somehow looks remorseful, he lets his words tumble out. “She told me to make sure that the three of you were never found again.”

“What?” I gasp at the same time that Huxley says, “You’re a fucking liar.”

“I’m not lying, Huxley.”

Ambrose pulls a cell phone from his back pocket, the first time I’ve seen him with a phone since we stumbled onto his property. He taps the screen a few times and soon we hear recorded voices, and they belong to Ambrose and Maura.

She’s talking about wanting our skulls.

Our skulls?

She wants me dead.

She wanted my father dead, too.

And she wants our skulls as a trophy.

But when she mentions Huxley, the ashes of my heart scatter, fluttering nausea through my stomach. My hands cover my mouth in disbelief at the realization that she wants Huxley dead, too.

She wants her own son dead.

The recording ends and silence surrounds us, wrapping around the room and closing us inside this shitstorm of a situation.

Then, moments later, Huxley breaks the silence, his voice venomous with contempt. “What’s the axe for?”

My head snaps to look up at him and I stare, blinking.

It’s only when Huxley asks the question that I know…I know what the axe is for. Ambrose is going to kill us. He’s going to kill us because Maura demanded that he do it.

But why did she demand it?

Of course, I know the answer, and the realization of it strikes me hard in the gut. It’s about the Tolliver fortune. It was always about the money for her; it was why she married my father to begin with. The fact that we went missing was simply a convenient opportunity to put out a hit on us.

Did she know we’d gotten lost in the forest?

She couldn’t have known where we were or why we were there. And we’d only happened to stumble upon Ambrose’s home seeking a way out of Sugar Wood. It was a coincidence that we’d found him, that he’d found us.

A coincidence brought us together.

Or was it fated?

Huxley’s voice is softer when he repeats the question again, “What’s the fucking axe for?”

Ambrose tilts his head to either side, stretching his neck. He pulls a key from his pocket and bends to pick up the axe with his other hand, moving toward the cage door.

He turns the key in the lock. “I’ll make it quick, painless.”

As it clicks, so does my understanding.

The axe is to carry out the deed…to kill us both.

“No. No,” I mutter, backing away and pressing my back to the far corner as Ambrose pulls the cage door open.

“No fucking way. I won’t fucking let you touch her!” Huxley shouts and lunges for him.

Ambrose tosses the axe from his right hand to his left, then reaches out to snatch Huxley by the throat. It takes him off-guard as Huxley collides with Ambrose, who roughly tosses him away, causing him to slam shoulder-first against one of the metal cage bars, letting out a pained grunt as he hits.

Ambrose snatches me by the wrist and tugs me toward him, spinning us both and shoving me outside the cage before Huxley can reach for me. I stumble over my toe as it catches on a dent in the hardwood floor, but then Ambrose is ripped away from my back.

I right myself and whirl around to see Huxley attack him, landing a heavy punch to the side of his stomach, forcing him to double over with a groan. Ambrose brings his elbow back, hitting Huxley in the sternum and knocking the wind out of him.

As Huxley stumbles back, Ambrose rushes forward, fleeing from the cage.

I step backward.

I should turn.

I should run.

I should…but I don’t.

I feel rooted to the spot—the same twisted energy that makes me want him keeps me tethered to him. He’s going to kill me, then he’s going to kill Huxley, and somehow, I can’t run.

What is wrongwith me?

Ambrose slams the cage door shut and twists the key in the lock before Huxley can recover and escape. Then Ambrose turns, shifting as if he’s ready to take off after me, but he freezes when he finds that I’m still standing there in the doorway, unmoving.

I stare ahead blankly, not even looking at Ambrose, just rooted inexplicably to the spot. I hear myself say, “No more,” though my voice feels disconnected from my body. I can feel the dissociation happen. I try to fight it, but my mind is trying to protect itself from whatever Ambrose is about to do to me. “No more.”

“Glory, run!” Huxley shouts.

“Please, no more of this.” The words slip from my lips, but I feel like I’m saying it to no one.

My eyes are losing focus, though I fight. I fight losing myself in a moment where I need to be present, aware, fighting for my life.

I hear Ambrose drop the axe as it clatters against the hard floor. I sense him moving toward me, and I feel his callused palms against my cheeks. I don’t flinch at his touch; I don’t react to the energy he brings into my space—energy that’s filled with pain and passion.

But as moments pass, I feel that energy pulse, seeping through my core, sparking like an electric current that shocks me back to life. My focus shifts from a distant point in space, gradually turning to meet Ambrose’s dark eyes. My lips part to take in a gasping breath as our eyes connect.

I blink and my brow wrinkles in confusion. I gaze at him in awe because he brought me back. I came back to awareness for him…because of him.

“Ambrose,” I whisper, my voice weak. “Don’t do this to us.”

“I have to. Maura has power, she’ll—”

“Take me!” Huxley shouts, which startles us both.

Ambrose whips his head around to look at Huxley in the cage, gripping the bars with white knuckles, fierce determination on his face.

“Take me,” he says again. “Take my fucking skull and let Glory go. Let her run or…or take her with you when you leave with your money. Maura will never know. Glory can show you where Beau is buried, and you can dig him up, take his skull. Give her mine and his, and let Glory go free. I swear to you, she won’t fucking tell anyone. Glory kept the secret about her father for years. She can keep this secret, too. Can’t you, Glory?”

I feel a single tear slip down my cheek. “Huxley—”

“Can’t you, Glory?” Huxley repeats, his voice pleading, trembling.

No, I can’t. I can’t live without Huxley.

Beats pass in stagnant silence.

Ambrose lifts his hand and drags it down the side of my head, petting me, stroking me as if he’s telling me everything will be okay. But nothing will be okay if Huxley dies, and I have to continue living without him.

I’d rather die than live without him.

“Please,” Huxley begs. “She’ll never know. You have to save Glory, Ambrose, you have to.”

Ambrose’s hand slips down my arm and latches around my wrist. He tugs me beside him as he pulls the key from his pocket, standing in front of the cage door.

“No,” I protest, too stunned to fight.

“I’ll do it. I’ll take her with me,” Ambrose says. “I’ll take care of her.”

“No!” I pull back on my arm, trying to wrench it from his grip, but he holds steady as he turns the lock and opens the cage door.

Huxley reaches for me as Ambrose drags me in front of him. I grab hold of a bar on my left, twisting my body, trying to grip it with both hands to avoid being put back in this cage. If I go back in this cage, Huxley will die.

“Stop!” I manage to hold the bar in my hands.

Huxley’s arms wrap around my waist and pull me back. “Let go. Glory, stop.”

Huxley pulls as Ambrose wraps his palms over my hands and pries my fingers free. I try to latch on again, but he works quickly, and when my hands fall away from the bars, Huxley drags me backward. He turns me and shoves me toward the back of the cage, causing me to stumble. I tilt forward but catch myself with my palms against the back wall. But as I spin to run after him, the cage door slams in my face.

The lock clicks.

I look at Huxley and Ambrose standing side-by-side, huffing as they watch me through the barrier.

Huxley should fight him. He should try to run, but he doesn’t. He only looks at me with that expression of fierce determination.

My great savior coming to my rescue one last time.

And this time will be the last time because it’s going to cost him his life.