Page 14 of Twisted Lies
The charred remains of my car leave no doubt to this.
And the person I have to thank for that not being the case is the man I’m accusing as being my captor.
God, I’ve never felt more stupid.
“Thank you,” I praise when the stranger peels me off his back like a father would a child riding on their shoulders. My voice is more sincere than the one I’ve utilized on him the past thirty-plus hours.
After removing the deer skin he once again used as a cloak, he fans it over an exposed stump, then plants my backside on top of the snow-dampened fur. I peer up at him when he snorts out two short, breathy grunts.
When our eyes lock, he grunts again, announcing that he wants me to stay put. He has no reason to believe me, but the sincerity in my eyes must get me over the line because when I jerk up my chin, he pushes back the bangs I’m endeavoring to grow out, then stalks to my car.
I almost tell him to be careful—just because a flame has been extinguished doesn’t mean it can’t be relit—but it dawns on me that my worry is pointless when he lifts the back quarter panel of my car as if it’s a toy.
I watch him in utter silence, stunned when the same beast-like strength sees him pulling at a length of steel trapped beneath the charred wreckage. His seemingly inhumane strength already has me mesmerized, but the quickest glimpse of a patch of mottled skin on his nape is far more distracting.
From a distance, it appears to be a birthmark, but the gurgling of my stomach when he angles his head to ensure his hair hides it has me worried it is something far more sinister. Birthmarks are rarely textured like the skin on his nape. It has multiple grooves and lesions associated with it, oddly similar to skin burned by an intense flame.
I know the markings of a burn better than anyone, and I didn’t specialize in dermatology during my studies. My findings didn’t come until after my internship.
When the stranger strongarms a strip of steel out from beneath the back tires of my ruined vehicle, I wretch my eyes away from him like I wasn’t ogling him with a pair not belonging to a medical professional.
“What is that?” My interrogation is more out of curiosity than evidentiary purposes. I recognize the straight line of steel Xs with nails poking out the top. I’m just lost as to why a set of road spikes would be lodged under my car. “I veered to miss a deer and her fawn.”
There’s no confidence in my declaration whatsoever. The particulars of my accident are described as hazy at best, but even someone with a Grade 3 concussion couldn’t deny this evidence.
Needing answers, I hiss through the pain of placing weight onto my bung foot before attempting to hobble toward the wreckage. I don’t even get two steps away from the stump when the stranger grunts, lifts me from the ground by my underarms, then plants my backside back onto the deer hide.
After glaring at me long enough I can’t misunderstand his desire for me to remain seated, he dumps the homemade spikes onto the sloshy ground next to us, then digs the folded-up news article out of the pocket of his winter jacket.
The white clouds of his breaths in the frigid air float between us when he stabs his thumb at the image of Rosie’s burned car.
Although the similarities of our accidents are even more compelling now, I still don’t comprehend what he’s trying to show me.
When I say that to him, air rattles in his lungs when he thrusts his calloused hand to the wreckage almost hidden by the unrelenting snow before he thrusts the newspaper article in my face.
“I’m sure accidents occur like this all the time. Especially out this way…” My last sentence is nowhere near as convincing as I’m hoping. If my crash was an accident, how did spikes get under the chassis of my car? They’re clearly homemade, and the only people who travel this road are Cedric and his family. They own the entire estate.
Let me stop you before you get too far ahead of yourself. The Lancasters areextremelyfamily-oriented. They’dneverplot to take out one of their own.
My inner monologue trails off when a disturbing fact pops into my head. The morning of my accident, I rang Cedric’s father to get the physical address of his cabin. I knew of its location, but I didn’t have an actual address I could punch into the GPS, so he knew I was planning to surprise Cedric. He knew I’d be traveling that road at some stage the night of my accident.
The stranger’s eyes drop to my lips when I mumble, “But why would he want me dead? I don’t have anything he wants. I’m a surgeon. That’s all I am. A professional. A medic. A big brain on two skinny legs, as he’s quoted many times the past year. His family has never once treated me like a person. To them, I’m… I’m… I’m…” my voice croaks when I choke out, “… nothing.”
With my heart a twisted mess, and the snow coming down so fast I can’t see six feet in front of me, the stranger plucks me from the stump, then hooks me onto his back without a single protest seeping from my lips.
I must be in shock. Not just from realizing how close to death I came, but also from learning it may not have been an accident.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow, and I’ll need more than thirty seconds to process it.
Fortunately for me, neither the blizzard nor the stranger’s once unwanted protectiveness will give me much choice but to sit back and evaluate things.
ChapterTen
With snow creeping up all sides of the cabin, my panic should be just as elevated, but for some strange reason, I’m more worried about Rosha than myself.
Does she know she’s bunkering down with a man whose family is as shady as the eerie shadows dancing in the woods?
I bet she wouldn’t be so eager to suck Cedric’s micro-dick then.
