Page 25 of Blood Ties
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough that tears spring to my eyes.
“I’m going to keep you safe while I figure something out,” Kai says. I glance up at him, my gaze watery and soft, and there’s a stricken look on his face.
“Do you promise?” I ask.
“I promise.”
I don’t believe for a second that he’d do anything if his brother or the rest of his fucked-up family threatened me, but I nod and offer him a tiny, teary smile. “Thank you, Kai.”
He looks away. “Sure.” He hesitates for a moment, and then stands. I watch him from beneath tear-stained eyelashes. There’s an awkwardness about him, a discomfort with this situation. I assumed he meant to keep me as some kind of sex slave, but maybe that’s not quite the truth.
“...Kai?” I ask, as he turns to leave. He pauses, looks back without saying anything. “Do you think, um... if it’s not too much trouble... could you get me some clothes? And a toothbrush?” I bite my lip. “I had them in my backpack, if that’s still here somewhere...” More importantly, that backpack also held my birth control.
He glances around the dim, horrible little basement as if realizing the conditions I’m in for the first time. Then he nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The moment he’s gone, I wipe the tears from my eyes and sigh.
He doesn’t just want to fuck me, and that makes my job harder. He wants to think of himself as some kind of hero — except that he’s too much of a coward to stand up to his horrible family.
There might be a way to push him into it. To force his hand with a gentle touch. But I’ll have to be very careful, and very smart.
If I want to survive, lust won’t be enough. I’ll have to make him fall in love with me.
?Chapter Twelve
Kai
Throwing Riley in thebasement was an act of desperation. The only way to keep her alive. But I’m ashamed to realize I didn’t think about what to do with her afterward. I can’t expect her to keep sleeping on that bare mattress in clothes stained by her friends’ blood.
I should’ve brought her backpack right away. But... where is it? I think back to the stuff I burned or crushed in the scrapyard. There was a giant suitcase in the car, which I got rid of, but I don’t remember a backpack. Who would’ve taken it? Knox? Doesn’t seem like his style.
Which means... fuck. Time to pay a visit to my uncle.
*
UNCLE FRANK’S SHACKis out on the edge of our property, closer to the chicken coop and the pigsty than it is to the main house. I trudge along the dirt road with some freshly cooked bacon and a couple of leftover beers as a peace offering. My shirt is sticky with sweat by the time I reach his door, and my stomach roils with anxiety.
