Page 46 of Hero: Claimed

It’s a dark night with rarely a star in the sky. The moon’s been smudged out by cloud cover. It’s actually so dark, the headlights seem to be swallowed up by the blackness, as if being sucked into a black hole. But from the little Icansee, and can definitely feel, judging by the jostling in the seat, we’re traveling down a dirt road. Well, it might be a road, might be a really long drive. It’s hard to know in these parts. Since in the time I’ve been in Kentucky, I’ve seen plenty of both.

When a red brick farmhouse, complete with a decrepit front porch, comes into view—chipped paint on the white railing, slats completely missing in several spots and boards missing from the steps--I know it’s a long drive rather than a road. The house looks as if it’s been abandoned for years. It’s too dark to see the roof, but considering the state of the rest of the home, I’ll bet part of it has collapsed in on itself.

The glowing eyes of animals peer out at us from under the porch. Could be cats. Could be possums. Hell, it could be a skunk. What I know it is it’s wild. They withdraw into hiding from the rumble of the Blazer’s engine.

“Out,” Blaze orders, gun raised and pointed at me.

If I run, which way would I go? I can’t see two feet in front of my face. Is there a drop-off? What about a river or lake? Despite having a gun pointed at me, it’s too dangerous to run. Not to mention the cold and here I am in a robe and slippers.

How could one girl be so damn unlucky? I’m a cautionary tale and not necessarily of my own making. Brinley Brown: The girl who finds herself in yet another unfortunate situation. Maybe after I’m gone, they’ll make T-shirts:Don’t Be a Brinley Brown. And just like that, those stupid tears show up again, pricking at my eyes. I hate tears. Other than flushing out your eyes when dust flies in them, they’re useless.

“Move,” he says again, his voice louder and this time, I pull on the handle to push open the door, sliding out. My feet squish into the muddy, damp dirt.

We walk up the path to the house. Blaze uses the flashlight on his phone to light our way as I maneuver around missing steps and plank boards on the porch. The screen door hangs off the hinges, but the heavy wooden front door with two of the four panel windows missing doesn’t want to budge. Dried leaves have collected along the threshold baseboard and in the corners of the door.

Blaze shoves me out of his way to shoulder the door open. It creaks and groans, but after two powerful shoves, the door reluctantly gives in, allowing us entry. He forcefully grabs my upper arm, digging his fingers in as we walk, preventing me from attempting an escape.

It’s not much warmer inside the space than outside. Blaze sweeps the room with his flashlight. It’s empty save for a broken rocking chair, missing one of the rockers, and a couple of mice scurry across the floor, heading toward a hole where the runners come together.

“Sit,” he says, pointing to the broken rocker. I walk over and use my hand to wipe off a thick layer of dust, so thick, it moves in a sheet like lint, causing me to cough and sneeze. I turn then to sit and the rocker wiggles off balance and I almost fall backward. Thankfully, it stabilizes before I crash to the dirty floor.

The room grows colder by the minute. I wrap my arms around my middle to conserve my body heat, though I know it won’t work if the puffs of white breath coming from my mouth and nose mean anything.

Headlights light up the room and for the briefest moment, I get excited imagining Levi coming to my rescue, but who am I kidding? Not because I believe he was in an accident. I have enough brains to know that was a ruse by Blaze to get me into his truck. No, I know he won’t come looking for me because he never came home last night and I told him not to come home tonight.

When the lights extinguish, I hear a door clap shut and boots clomping up the broken steps. There’s a “Fuck” shouted and a loud bang, like whomever is coming in fell through one of the holes. After a final “Goddammit” a large form fills the doorway. Blaze turns his flashlight on the stranger and the breath steals from my lungs. My stomach plummets to depths unknown and I honestly feel like I’m about to vomit. Because the trog is the figure in the doorway.

Crush, battered from his fall, stomps over to where I’m sitting. Fear ripples through me, the visible trembling gives evidence to that. “Fuckin’ cunt,” he growls. “Make me chase you halfway across the fuckin’ country.” He fits his hand around my throat and lifts me from the chair. It hurts. He’s crushing my windpipe. The man kicks the chair out of his way and just lets me touch my tiptoes to the floor, taking some of the pressure from my neck while he shoves me backward until I hit the wall. He begins unbuckling his belt. “Gonna fuckin’ take what’s owed, then I’m gonna end you, cunt. Your last breath’ll be taken full of my cum.”

Silent tears streak down over my cheeks. But he can’t concentrate on unbuckling his belt and keeping a death grip on my throat at the same time, which means he loosens his hold on my throat enough for me to take in a breath.

My words sound croaky and shaky when I speak, trying to get through to him, trying to buy myself time. “If I’d known we were coming to meet with you, I’d have brought your money. It’s still at the compound. All there. If we go back to Thornbriar, you can get it all back.”

“Bitch, you think I’m stupid?”

“N-No. But I have it. Only I know where I hid it…please. I can get it.” My shaky voice cracks on theplease. It makes me sound weak and I cry even harder for that, too. Crush apparently changes his mind about taking what’s owed him. His belt’s undone, but he doesn’t go after his fly, dropping me to the floor. There’s a feral anger in his eyes. Wild and crazed. And he punches me in the stomach hard enough, I double over, falling to my knees. It hurts bad enough that it feels like he hit me in slow motion in order to prolong the unbelievable, excruciatingly unbearable agony.

If that was only the end of it.

Crush lifts his meaty leg, catching me upside the head with his boot. Searing heat explodes behind my left eye and I scream. I can take a punch—you don’t grow up in my life without learning early how to take a punch—but the punishment he doles out is nothing like I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Another punch to the gut lifts me up off the floor from the momentum and finally his backhand sends me flying across the room until I hit the corner and slide down, covering the hole where the mice retreated. I’m dizzy and the coughing jag sounds liquid-y. I cough up blood. I’m shaking uncontrollably. Shock. I think my body is going into shock.

As my consciousness swims in and out like a ripple in the water, he must lose interest. Maybe I’m not enough of a challenge any longer. I fall forward, faceplanting, and watch his boots stomp away from me through one eye. He turns his ire on a stumbling-backward Blaze.

“Fucker forgot my money?” And I think I hear a fist hit flesh, but I can’t see above their feet. “Contact me to make a deal and you can’t get somethin’ that simple right?”

More sounds of fists hitting flesh, slushy wheezing, grunts, groans, and all the other sounds that come from a man getting the crap kicked out of him. I think Blaze gets some strikes in of his own, judging from the way Crush stumbles a few times. Maybe the sounds of a man getting the crap kicked out of him don’t solely belong to Blaze.

Blaze gets a good hit on Crush, sending him teetering on his heels until he tips backward and crashes to the floor. Then I see Blaze’s feet stumble toward the exit, only to stop abruptly.

“The fuckdid you do, man?”

I might have sucked in a breath if I could actually do it because that voice belongs to Levi. My Hero.

“Can’t believe you.” That has to be Blue.

“Blue, brother… It’s not… You can’t take his side. She’s brainwashed him,” Blaze says. “She used that pussy of hers to convince him he loves her. Disgusting, right? He thinks he actually loves her.”

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