23. FREE

BUNNY

Together, we dart down a single hallway, sprinting until our lungs threaten to bust and our legs quiver like jelly. We run, and we run, ready to collapse, until we're forced to skid to a sudden stop. It's our only choice. That, or fall face-first into a blank wall.

For far too long, Cade and I stare at the blankness, trapped unless we race back and find ourselves back inside the box. Stuck in the hall, we might as well be enclosed on all four sides. I've never been afraid of tight spaces, but as oxygen begins to fade, I feel panic bubbling within my chest. Bleeding and scared, my legs wobble. I don't reach out to Cade for support, knowing he's barely standing on his own feet as well, but I don't think I can remain upright, with the walls closing in, for much longer.

"There has to be something. There has to be something." I launch myself into the walls, hoping that my will is enough to break one of them down. In the dark, I can see my blood splattering against the concrete. Cade's too, when he decides to join me. When the two beside us don't budge, we attack the one in front, colliding into it with uncontrolled force until it crashes into the ground.

It is an old bookshelf that falls, and when it does, it leads us into an empty kitchen. Yellow wallpaper, wooden table, and countertops. "What the fuck?" We huff. It's straight out of Country Kitchen's magazine. Way too beautiful, homey, and comforting to be the entrance to such vile wickedness.

We rock on our heels for a moment, catching our breaths, taking in our surroundings before the urgency of our position kicks back into gear.

Feet slapping on ceramic tiles, we dart out of a screen back door, appalled that something so flimsy is entrusted to keep this dirty secret.

"Help! Help!" I screech the second we bust through the frame, running barefoot on spindly weeds with Cade's hand squeezing mine. He's silent throughout the sprint, only speaking when we come to a stop about a dozen yards away.

"What the fuck?" I don't know what I expected when I got out. Maybe, deep down, I never thought I'd get to this point at all, but now that we have, I didn't anticipate running out into the barren nothingness. I expected people. I hoped for people, anyone that I could scream and shout and expose what was done to me straight down the tunnel I had just escaped from. But there was nothing. There is no one.

We stand there for a moment, hunched over in pain beneath a busy overpass, waiting for anything—anyone—to spring out and get us.

In the freezing night, our breath comes out in puffs, clouding the emptiness before us. Rocking on my heels, I tug at Cade's arm. "We have to go." We can't just stand out in the open. There's no doubt that there are people out searching for us now, and they'll find us quickly if we stay put.

My feet ache as I lift them off the frozen grass, sticking inside me like knives. I would crawl if I didn't think it was slower, though, in my state, this can't be much faster.

"Wait." Taking us out from underneath the streetlamp, Cade presses me against the wall, running his hands down the length of my body.

I blame it on adrenalin.

I blame it on the fear of being free and being found.

The wetness collecting at the opening of my center can't be from desire, because then what would that say about me? I just fought for my life. I just lost what could have been a friend. Cade's touch shouldn't spark want. I should be running. I should never want the touch of another man again, not after all the men I was forced to take. But then, Cade drops to his knees at my feet and my hands naturally find the top of his head. I hold him there as he holds me against the wall, his lips so close to that dripping part of me…

"I found it," he breathes against my exposed skin, grazing my ankle with the rough pad of his thumb.

Hardly able to get the words out, I gasp, "Found what?"

"Your tracker," he states tonelessly, swishing out his blade with a flick of his wrist. Before I can protest, he spits on the blood-coated edge, polishing it off on his filthy, torn shirt before holding it to my skin.

I've been beaten.

Lashed.

Choked.

Raped…

But I've never been sliced. "Wait!"

"Shh…" he coos, eyes meeting mine. "It's okay. I'll be gentle." His tenderness starts by lifting my leg over his shoulder, hand tight on my skin. The wind blows then, ice against my heated core. I don't even think he notices the trembles and quaking pants rippling through me. Small blessings, I guess.

The throbbing travels down to where he holds me, intensifying when his grip begins to cut off my circulation. Fear returns, effectively killing off any arousal when the tip of his blade presses against my flesh.

"Relax," he says before cutting into me, breath even—eyes unwavering. It's his strength that keeps me standing and the fulfillment of his promise.

He didn't hurt me.

He was, in fact, nothing but gentle.

Knife dropping into the grass, he pulls something small and slender out of my skin. He chucks it somewhere over his shoulder, letting it vanish into the shadows. The hold he has on me doesn't lessen until he bites off a strip of his shirt and ties it around the open wound. In the dark, I can see it instantly saturate with blood as soon as the circulation returns, but it doesn't drip.

Yet.

I slowly drop my foot to the ground, checking my balance while he does the same pat-down search on his body. By the time I feel steady, he's already cut the little device out of the side of his neck, aggressively throwing this one in a different direction than mine. "We gotta go," he grumbles, ripping off another segment of his shirt to hold it against his gash.

We're both limping now. I'm sort of grateful there's no one around to see us. We're bleeding, bruised, black and blue. I've already tried to tell one cop what happened to me. It resulted in torture. I couldn't go through that again so soon. I couldn't allow Cade to go through it.

The wind hurts. The noises quickly becoming louder hurt. We stumble, and we fall in the dark, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it exposes us to the orange glow of a streetlamp beside a roaring freeway.

We stick to the shadows, constantly looking over our shoulders. About an hour into hobbling, the rain comes down, and it fucking pours. Any trace of us we could have possibly left behind is washed away with the storm. Again, I'm grateful, but I can't see, and I'm fucking cold.

"We have to stop!" I didn't want to shout, but the first two times I said it, he didn't hear me. He shoots me a sharp glance, but I ignore it. It's not like anyone can hear me anyway.

"We can't stop now."

"Cade—"

"Bunny—"

"Cade." There's no room for argument in my tone. "It's raining. We're bleeding. We're hurting. We're fucking tired. We need to stop!"

I can see the fight ready on his face, the words already set on his tongue, but then the rain falls harder, and the sky erupts with booming thunder and bolts of rippling light. He relents. "Fine. But there's no way we can explain how we look if we run into anybody."

"A car accident. That's all we say until we know who we can trust." He agrees and promises that the first place we see, we'll hole up. We both expect an abandoned, rundown building.

Not a motel.

"Well, fuck," he growls, pissed, glaring into the neon-lit window. The Honeymoon Inn definitely isn't the deserted hole we were hoping for. It's not packed, but any one of those six cars could house an enemy of ours.

"What now?" I ask, hunching forward, protecting myself from the assault of nature. He does the same as he rests his head against mine, shielding me.

"I don't know."

That's how she finds us, the woman with blue hair and cautious eyes, holding on to each other—needing one another.

"You two alright? You need help?" The wind lashes our bodies, blowing the ruined fabric away from us to expose all our cuts and the history of our pain. Cade steps in front of me, completely obscuring my trauma. "We need a room. Just for tonight."

She's not going to help us, I think, when I don't hear a response. Of course, she's not going to fucking help. I start to pull Cade back, feeling his aggravation rise.

"It's fine. We can find something else," I whisper into his ear, nervously glancing around in the dark.

They're going to find us. We've been out in the open too long.

They're going to find us.

"Cade."

"Come in. I'll see what I have for you." She leads us back toward the entrance, looking back with concern and trepidation, worried about who she's letting into her establishment. There's a brief pause at the opening, and some muted words are exchanged with a younger girl sitting at the desk before we're allowed in. She ushers us inside once the space is cleared. "Come in, you're letting the warm out."

Cade and I huddle together while she runs around the desk. We can feel her eyes on us above the monitor. We're used to that, though, someone there… Someone always watching.

"We don't have any money."

"We can worry about that later," the blue-haired woman is kind enough to say before dropping her curious stare.

"So," she starts, eyeing us again, "were you guys in an accident or something? Need me to call someone for you?"

"No," I bark a little too loud, a little too quickly, earning myself a sharp, concerned glare. "No. Umm, just a room, please. We'll be out of your hair by tomorrow."

"Was it a car accident? Or?—"

"A room," Cade snaps, barely checking himself. "I'm sorry. We're so tired, and all we need right now is to sleep."

She seems to understand that, but still, she asks, "And you're sure you don't want me to call the police? You two look pretty banged up. They might be able to help you."

"No," I answer. "Thank you, though."

Her alright is quiet and unconfident, but she doesn't push a third time. Grabbing a set of keys from the square rack behind her, she rounds the desk. "This way."

She walks us through a yellow-lit hallway, taking us down the left instead of the right. "Now, you don't have any money, so you're not getting one of my nicer rooms, but this should do."

We're escorted into a tightly packed room, stunned into silence. The first thing I notice is the bright, moss-colored walls, but Cade seems more startled by the soft, yellow shag carpeting caressing between our toes.

"Everything you need is under the sink in the bathroom," our host says, ready to walk out. "If there's anything else, let me know."

"Your name," I add before she can walk away. "What's your name."

"Susie."

"Thank you, Susie." I'm grateful all she does is smile before closing the door—no more questions, not even our names, just peace.

Finally, peace.

"You should clean that blood off you. I'll make sure no one comes inside."

"Yeah," I drone. I think falling into shock. "Thanks." I swivel on my heel to walk right into the bathroom when his next words bring warmth into my chest.

"I got out because of you, Bun," he mutters, just before I close the door, holding me hostage in his throaty sorrows. I turn, but only slightly, enough to gaze at his rigid, weighed-down posture. His blazing blue eyes find me watching, and he traps me in those, too.

"I didn't—" I begin to say, instantly silenced when he storms to me.

"You lit a fire under my ass." He smirks, a low husk in his tone. "I got out because of you, and I'm going to make sure I thank you for that every day I'm free." That warmth in my chest morphs into a raging fire, burning throughout my entire body when he takes hold of my chin, dropping his lips onto mine.

I broke my ankle once, falling down the stairs at Denise's. I was in shock then, too, my bone sticking out of my skin. She slapped me clean across the face, hoping it would have snapped me out of it. It didn't.

But this kiss… Cade's touch running down the slight curve of my hip, the way my fingers find the curls at the end of his hair, damp and tangled, and reeking of blood—everything is clear.

He releases me with a slow-falling hand, gently nudging me toward the bathroom. I spin on my heel, ready to wash the filth from my flesh, but a tightening at the base of my spine pulls my focus.

I spent months under Marone's captivity. Months when I didn't have the comfort of warmth, a window, a bed. Months, but I remember them. Cade, though…I don't think he does.

I watch him, somewhat hidden behind the doorway. His head is tilted down toward the quilted-covered mattress, shoulders tense against his ears. His hands, shaking, flex open and closed at his sides. With some strain, I listen to his breathing become labored, wheezy. So, I decide to close the door then, giving him his space for the rage he feels.

For the fear overtaking him.

It consumes me as well. Being outside my cell for this long, no comfort of the cries from my fellow girls or whispers of sniffles, has an invisible noose around my neck. I find myself looking over my shoulder throughout my shower, just waiting for him to be there. Marone, with his perfectly styled hair, always-fitting suits, spit-shined shoes, and that smile… That cold, blood-hungry smile I was transfixed with when I first saw him.

Gentleman was the first thought that came to mind. Classy, next.

Powerful was my final thought.

I was wrong about the first two, but I got the last one right. Thank fucking God, I haven't lost all my smarts. Guts and bravery… perished along the way, and as the water pours over my crown, I can't help but hate myself for it.

I was taken strong, and I escaped watching over my shoulders, cowering underwater, holding my breath as I wait for him to get me again.

"NO!" I shout, hands over my ears, falling to my knees. I stay that way, screaming away the voice in my head, his voice telling me he's coming. He's coming. He's coming.

No.

No.

No.

No.

"NO!" I'm sure he's got me when hands land on my bare shoulders, roughly yanking me out of my curled position. Hands, familiar hands, grasp my clenched jaw, forcing my face toward the pouring spray. My fists fly on instinct, connecting with hard bones. Still, I don't get released until I calm down, until my strength has died—until my screams fall silent to tears.

I can't see through my swollen lids, but I don't need my sight to know it's Cade who lifts me from the tub, his body getting soaked in the process. He's soundless as he carries my naked body to bed. I'm not even sure he looks at me as the blankets fold over my shivering frame. His touch doesn't stay as it did before. Cade leaves me tucked inside warmth and safety before he disappears into the bathroom himself and releases a few screams of his own.

That's how I fall asleep…to the roaring of screams that have started to sound like home.