14. Thirteen

Forty minutes later, we pulled up in front of an unfamiliar trailer in the middle of nowhere. It was down a gravel road, tucked in a small clearing surrounded by trees on all sides. The skirting was rusty and there was trash in the yard. A chain and a padlock were over the front door. It looked like some hoarder’s storage house and not anywhere a person might actually live.

A sense of foreboding settled over me, like I was about to walk into the last place I’d ever see.

I frowned and thumbed the collar, which I’d tucked back into my hoodie pocket. “What is this place?”

Boone put the Jeep in park. “It’s a safehouse. Don’t worry. The inside is cleaner than it looks out here. This is all just a fa?ade to keep people from breaking in and using the place.”

I looked over at Boone. “Why are we at a safehouse, Boone?”

Boone got out of the Jeep and came around to open my door. Once I got out, he reached into the back seat, bringing out a small wooden box.

“What’s in there?” My voice was so small, barely a whisper.

He took a deep breath. “I know you said you wanted his dick on a silver platter, but I’m not a silver platter kinda guy. I also wanted you to have the chance to do the honors, so I brought you this instead.” Boone shoved the box into my hands.

I stood beside the Jeep, staring at the tiny wooden box, my heart pounding.

“Open it,” Boone urged.

I swallowed and flipped open the lid. At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It looked more like a shriveled-up piece of meat than anything. I suppose that’s what it was, even if it wasn’t the sort of meat one would find at a grocery store. Tipping the box, the pale hunk of meat and bone shifted, and I spied a bloody fingernail on one end.

“It’s a finger.” I looked up at him and found him staring back at me nervously, like he wasn’t sure whether to expect me to be upset or disgusted. I wasn’t. It’s probably weird to be so turned on by a severed finger, I thought, but pushed it away. I could deal with my fucked-up sexual awakening later.

“It’s Harold’s finger,” Boone said puffing out his chest proudly. “The rest of him is inside, waiting for you to carve out your pound of flesh.”

“Fuck, Boone. Is this what you’ve been doing when you disappear all day?”

He nodded once.

Holy shit. He’d gone after him. Even though I thought he hadn’t, he had. For me.

“I told you I’d protect you,” Boone said. “That I was going to keep you safe. You’re mine. I meant it. I’ll bring you as many severed body parts as I have to until you believe me.”

I put the closed box carefully on the front seat behind me and took his face in my hands. “I believe you,” I said, and for the first time, I meant it.

There was still some trepidation. Part of me was screaming in alarm not to give in, to keep fighting. But I was so tired of being alone, and he was right there. He’d promised to give me as much time and space as I wanted. Well, what if I didn’t want that? What if I needed to treat this like ripping off a band-aid? Just do it and get it over with? Maybe Boone was right, and it would hurt, but it was better to hurt all at once than all this long, drawn-out suffering, wasn’t it?

And he deserved more than a few scattered, clumsy kisses from me.

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, lightly at first, and then with more insistence. Boone clasped my arm, but he didn’t push me away or pull me in. He kept me there, answering my kisses with his own until it was impossible to tell where I ended and he took over. We found a rhythm that felt natural and the whole world faded away.

Until my cock swelled and started to press uncomfortably against the seam of my jeans. My body was begging for more, but my head was still jumbled and unsure. I knew Boone wasn’t going to hurt me, not like those other men. Yet the fear was still there. Not that he’d hurt me, but that it would hurt, that I wouldn’t like it, or that he wouldn’t like it. Maybe all those other men had done something to me, ruined my body so that Boone wouldn’t even be able to enjoy being inside me.

Did I want that? He said I never had to, but…

Fuck, why was this all so confusing? I didn’t even know what I wanted, except I knew I wanted that collar around my neck, and I knew I wanted to thank Boone for what he’d done for me. Maybe I couldn’t handle sex yet, but I could offer a handjob? A blowjob? Should I? Did he even want that from me?

He pulled back from the kiss before I could even try.

“Shit,” he panted. “I should bring you more severed fingers.”

I nuzzled against his beard and muttered with a hoarse voice, “I don’t know if it’ll work a second time. You might have to up your game.”

“A whole arm next time then,” he said and got out of the Jeep.

I moved to get out, but paused when I realized he was coming around to open the door for me. The severed fingers of my enemies and he opened doors for me? I really didn’t deserve this man.

Once I got out, I looked at the trailer, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, my stomach suddenly uneasy. Harold was in there. I was minutes from being face to face with the man who’d orchestrated years of my abuse. Fuck, was this really happening? “Is he…”

“He was alive this morning when I left him.” Boone replied with a shrug. “I thought it would be better if you decided what to do with him, Pup. He’s your monster, not mine.”

My jaw trembled. I had dreamed about this day, fantasized about it, but I’d never thought it’d actually happen. “What do you want me to do with him?”

“Whatever you want, Pup. But if you let him go…”

“You want me to kill him.” My heart raced. I didn’t know if I could. Why did he think I’d asked him to do it in the first place? Boone was the killer, not me.

Boone cupped my cheek, the cool callouses of his palms more grounding than they had any right to be. “I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”

I swallowed the bile creeping up my throat and looked at the darkened trailer. What if this was a test? Maybe Harold wasn’t really in there and Boone just wanted to see what I’d do? But then how did that explain the finger? I supposed it could be anybody’s finger. It didn’t have to be Harold’s.

No. Boone wouldn’t throw away that much money to lie to me.

I gathered all my wild emotion into a ball at the center of my chest and bound it there with invisible bands. “I want to see him.”

My legs weighed a ton each as I made my way up the wooden stairs to the trailer door behind Boone. Keys jingled. When I nodded, he pushed open the door and held it. I steeled myself, trying to prepare for anything, and stepped through.

Boone was right. The inside was much cleaner than I expected. In fact, it was pristine. The living room had a brown suede sofa that looked a little worn but nice. A gray throw blanket had been tossed over the back like someone had just gotten up to answer the door. The TV remote sat on a scuffed-up coffee table between the sofa and a TV on the opposite wall. There were even pictures on the wall, cheap reproductions of autumn landscapes and mills, mostly. The fridge had an unfinished shopping list, and there was a glass sitting on the counter.

It was like walking into a life where someone had hit the pause button, except that wasn’t true at all. A closer look revealed that the glass was still clean, the blanket had a thin layer of dust, and the TV wasn’t even plugged in. It was a stage, a movie set, a cleverly crafted lie.

A muffled grunt came from somewhere in the back of the trailer. I turned around and looked at Boone as he shut the front door.

“He’s in the back bedroom,” Boone said and pointed down the hall.

I didn’t remember choosing to go down the hall, but my feet were on automatic. With every step, my heart was pounding louder and louder in my ears, my head floating just a little further from the rest of my body. I was shrinking and growing at the same time, my limbs and torso all out of proportion.

Walking down that hallway, I was a twenty-year-old man full of rage. When I closed my eyes, there was nothing but nightmares and shadows. I was dead. I’d died the first time Harold had drugged me and strapped me to that bed for someone else to rape, and a little more every time after. I was so alive, every throbbing beat of my heart left my chest aching. The Xion I should have been didn’t exist, couldn’t exist, because the man behind that door had killed him. All that was left was the shell.

My hand fell on the door. It creaked open, and there was Harold.

When I was in the hospital, he’d seemed like a giant, but he wasn’t so tall, especially not naked and bound to that rickety twin bed with plastic zip ties. He was small and soft. Without his drugs, he was nothing.

He blinked up at me with surprise.

There was a strip of silver duct tape over his mouth. I ripped it off.

“You,” he sneered. “I should’ve fucking known you’d be behind this, you fucking psycho.”

Harold cried out as I punched him in the face.

Pain shot through my hand, and I winced, flexing my knuckles. “Fuck, that hurts!”

“Save your hands,” Boone said, striding in with a socket wrench in hand. “You want to hit him? We’ve got tools for that. You want to cut him?” He walked over to a table I hadn’t noticed and yanked a black tablecloth from it, revealing a wide array of knives. “We’ve got that, too.”

Harold’s eyes widened when he saw Boone and he started struggling, pulling at the restraints so hard I worried he might break free.

I took a step back, but Boone caught me by the arm.

“He’s not going anywhere, Pup. Let me see your hand.” He gently took my hand and started pressing on the knuckles.

I hissed and pulled away. “That hurts.”

“But it’s not broken. This time.” Boone curled a hand around the back of my head. The touch felt somehow both possessive and protective. It sent a shiver through me. “I know you don’t like rules, but there have to be a few. Otherwise, you could get hurt. I don’t like you getting hurt, so you’re going to follow my rules, or I’m going to step in. Understand?”

I licked my lips and nodded slowly.

“I have money,” Harold shouted, continuing to pull wildly at his restraints. “I know people! I can get you things. Anything you want. You want a new identity? I know judges, prosecutors, fucking senators! Just let me go and whatever you want, it’s yours!”

I ignored him and left Boone’s side, walking over to the table. There were knives, hammers, pliers… Even a car battery and some jumper cables. But Boone had only uncovered one table. I rolled the tablecloth back on the second to reveal a collection of glass and metal dildoes.

“It’d be justice to shove two, three, four of these so far up his ass they’d still be pulling them out during the autopsy,” I said looking back at Boone. “Wouldn’t it?”

Boone shrugged. “Seems like a good punishment for a child rapist.”

“Now wait a minute,” Harold said, sweating, breathing fast. “I never fucking raped anybody!”

“You’re right,” I said calmly, walking to stand in front of him. I pointed the dildo at his face. My chest was full of ice, but my veins were on fire with the need to take my hurt and give it to someone else. “You drugged me, made me helpless, and then stood by and did nothing while taking money from my rapists. That makes you worse.”

“I didn’t do shit!” he screamed and thrashed. “Help! Somebody help me!”

I slapped Harold to sober him up. “Listen up, asshole. We’re going to play a game. The rules are simple. You’re going to start giving me the names. I want the names of all the men your grubby little hands charged to rape me and any other children you gave them access to. Then I want the names of your accomplices. I want to know everything you know about this whole fucking operation you had going. If you’re a good boy, and you tell me everything I want to know, you get to die quickly. Hold back, even a little…” I held up the ridiculously sized dildo I’d selected. “…And we’re going to find out how many of these it takes to rupture your bowel. Oh, and I’m afraid we’re fresh out of lube, so it’ll be very, very painful.”

Sweat beaded on his forehead and the idiot looked at Boone like Boone might rescue him. “Please! For God’s sake! Help me!”

Boone crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Afraid God ain’t got nothing to do with what we’re doing here.” He nodded to me. “Give him hell, Pup.”