Page 67 of Blood Ties
I’m not guilty about trying to save those strangers. But I am afraid. Afraid that Knox will find a way to make me pay for it, or that Kai’s given up on me.
I’m weak with hunger and half-asleep the next time the basement door opens. Still, I jolt upright, straining to listen in the darkness. Some of the tension melts from my body as I register the familiar steps.Kai.
But when he steps into the dim light, he looks... different. There are new shadows under his eyes. When he looks at me, he seems to stare right through me.
Is this what Kai’s anger looks like? Not the hot burn of Knox’s rage or the icy chill of his father’s cruelty, but this flat nothingness?
“Kai?” I whisper.
He blinks, and his eyes find mine. But his expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t smile like he’s started to recently, nor glare like he’s angry with me. He looks like he feels nothing at all.
“I brought you food,” he says. Even his voice is flat. He crouches down, and I hold out my hand to him, but he sets the ham sandwich on the mattress at my side without touching me.
“Kai,” I try again. “What happened to those girls?”
Something dark slides over his face. It was the wrong question to ask. But he stares at me instead of turning away.
“What do you think, Riley?” he asks. “What do you think happened when they heard someone screaming in the basement?”
I flinch at the blame in his words, the unfamiliar coldness in his tone.
“They panicked,” he continues when I stay silent. “They tried to run. We had to kill them.”
My breath hitches. He didn’t sayKnox had to kill them. He saidwe.
Something in his expression shifts, like he’s realizing what he just said at the same time as I do. “I had to,” he says. There’s a hint of the old Kai in his voice now, a little bit of a tremble, but I recoil from him. I don’t know what to say, how to act in front of him. He suddenly seems taller, stronger, the tendons in his forearms standing out as he clenches his fists. For the first time since early into our relationship, I’m afraid as I look up at him.
He tangles his fingers in his own hair. “Why did you have to do that?” he asks, a wild look in his eyes. “Why did you scream? You promised. Youpromisedme, and you lied.” He shakes his head. “Knox warned me that you’d lie.”
“You’re blaming this on me?” My throat is tight, my voice high and strained. “What did you expect, Kai? That I’d sit here and be quiet like a good little prisoner?”
He flinches. As though he’s forgotten. But of course he has — I’ve let him forget. I’ve built up this fantasy that I’m his dream girl, here just for him, but it’s always been a lie. I think I let myself forget, too. I started to believe that Kai was different, that he wasgood. But at he end of the day, I’m still chained up in his family’s basement, and he’s a killer just like the rest of them.
“Have you fucking forgotten that I amtrappedhere?” I lift my shackled wrist, pulling it tight so the chain clinks. “Of course I screamed. Am I supposed to sit here and wait for you to get tired of me? To listen as you and your brother kill innocent girls like you killed my friends?”
Kai lets out a shaky breath. “I didn’t do anything to your friends.”
“Liar!” I spit, tears gathering in my eyes. “Knox told me what you did.” I tried so hard to forget, but it’s all bubbling back up now. “He showed me where you chopped them up and fed them to the pigs. Like they were nothing more than—” I stop, suddenly, as his words sink in.I didn’t do anything to your friends. But he didn’t deny hurting those girls yesterday. Just like he didn’t sayKnoxkilled them before.
I stare up at him, lower lip trembling. “What did you do to those girls, Kai?”
“I did what I had to,” he shouts.
I flinch, lifting a hand in front of my face and cowering against the wall
Silence thickens the air. I slowly lower my hand, breathing hard, to find Kai staring at me in shock. His face cracks, and for a moment he looks utterly broken. Then his expression smoothes over and goes blank again. I’m lost for words, frozen as I stare up at him, trying to see some hint of the man I thought I knew.
“I did what I had to,” he says, more firmly. Then he turns and walks up the stairs, leaving me behind in the darkness.
*
IWAKE TO THE SOUNDof footsteps and my heart pounding in my ears. Even in my sleep, I recognized those heavy boot treads, and I know who’s here before I turn to face him.
Knox grins at me. “Hi, darlin’. Been a while.”
I stare silently. His face is bruised, one of his eyes nearly swollen shut. I hope those girls got a few hits in, but I suspect it was his father. Still, I’m glad someone put him in his place. I hope it fucking hurt.
I hate him more than ever — for bringing those poor girls here, for pushing Kai into doing what he did, for undoubtedly manipulating his brother over the whole thing — but I’m too scared to throw any sharp words at him today.
