Page 94 of Catch My Fall
Everywhere hurts. Every joint. Every muscle and every single bone aches and I’m almost certain at least one of them is broken—at best.
I crack my eyes open a fraction and the light blinds me, but as I adjust to its harshness, Alec is the first thing that comes into focus.
He’s tied to a chair to my left with less than a metre separating us, his hands secured behind him. Streaks of dried blood track down the side of his face from his hairline all the way to his chin. His shirt is torn and covered in blood, his arms cut and bruised.
If he looks like this, I hate to think how I look.
I go to move, that’s when I feel the roughness rubbing at my wrists, bound together so tight my hands are beginning to go numb, rope biting into my skin.
Oh my god.
We’ve been kidnapped.
My mind nosedives into a tailspin, imagining the worst possible ways this could end, the things they’ll do to us.
A shiver wracks through my body as tears begin to burn in the backs of my eyes, the memories from the last time I was in a situation not far from this one threatening to break down the wall I created around them. Memories that threaten to unravel all of the progress I’ve made these past few months.
I thought I was past all of that, but now I find myself right back in the middle of it, with the man I love at my side in just as much danger as I am.
“Sierra, look at me,” Alec says, stealing my attention. “I’m right here, princess. Are you alright?”
I nod weakly, pain shooting down the back of my neck as my head throbs. I swallow thickly, my throat tight and dry. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, baby. I’ll be fine.” The smile he gives me doesn’t fill me with confidence.
“Where are we?” I ask.
A cold draft sweeps through the broken windows across the wide, empty space we’re in. It must be at least one-hundred foot in length and width, if not more, the off-white walls covered in mould and graffiti.
Three men pace around the edge of the room, clutching the guns strapped to their hips while two others stand closer to us, two men I’ve already had the displeasure of meeting before, the first time Austin captured me; Wayne and Peter. Wayne’s eyes track me head to toe, his gaze making me nauseous.
“A warehouse. The one Bryce Tanner brought Della last year when he kidnapped her. The place where…”
“Where your brothers killed mine, I think is where that sentence was heading.” That voice alone sends a tremor up my spine.
Austin.
“Hello again, Sierra.” My blood runs ice cold as he takes a step closer, seeming to appear out of nowhere. “How wonderful it is to see you again.”
I don’t dare look up. I can’t bear to see his face, the same face that haunted my dreams for weeks after he and his sick friends raped me. I’ve fought so hard to move on, to leave it in the past and for a while, it was working, but as he stands only metres from where I’m tied up, defenceless, I can feel myself unravelling.
I keep my eyes fixed to the floor, forcing back a torrent of tears threatening to spill over, but I refuse to let him to see how he affects me.
Men like him feed off of fear, and I won’t allow him think he holds any power over me.
“Can’t look at me, sweetness? I’m a little hurt.” He moves to stand over me, the fabric of his trousers brushing my knees. He reaches out to tip my chin up, forcing me to look at him.
“Don’t touch her you fucking bastard!” Alec seethes.
His eyes snap to Alec. “You should watch your tone with me, McKenna. Need I remind you who controls who here? I don’t need you alive to get what I want, you’re alive simply because I’m allowing you to live.”
He returns his gaze to me. “It’s not often someone escapes me, Sierra. Did you really believe I’d just let you go? No… No, that’s not my style, sweetness. I was always going to come back for you.”
He caresses my face, but all his touch does is make my skin crawl beneath his fingers. It’s like a million tiny critters scuttling across my face.
“You’re probably wondering why you’re here. I thought it only fitting I bring you to the place your brothers killed mine. Poetic justice don’t you think?”
“The bastard deserved it,” Alec spits, and it earns him a hard blow to the face and I flinch.