Page 113 of Speechless
Themotherfucking shed Jenna had spent two years of hell.
Connor moved before he knew what he was doing, running through the trees with Luna silently on his heels. His backpack banged against his spine, the gun a dead weight in his hands. His breath churned out in streams as he sprinted toward the ramshackle building without thought for his own safety.
Twenty feet away from the hellhole, he slowed, stopped. Took a second to catch his breath and take cover behind a tree, peering around the trunk to check the coast was clear.
So close. He was so close.
He shrugged off the pack, ordered Luna to stay. He debated over the gun and decided he might need both hands to deal with Jenna. He left it leant against the tree as he crossed the distance between the tree line and the shed.
Fear and anticipation warred inside him as he pressed his back to the rotten wood and just listened. Silence spread around him, an unsettled feeling building at the base of his spine.
He slipped his fingers down the door for the locks, found it open. Heart, stomach and hope plummeted into the pits of hell. He wrenched open the door and almost gagged at the stench that emanated from the dark, stagnant shithole.
This was a place of suffering; he could feel it in his bones. Blood, terror, rot, urine. A collective odor that screamed of unmentionable atrocities. Against his will, already sensing the emptiness telling him Jenna wasn’t in here, Connor stepped inside and searched for a light.
Nothing.
What kind of creature kept women locked away in the dark? No wonder Jenna was so scared of it. He flicked his flashlight on, using his free hand to block most of the beam, and took in everything about the shitty abode she’d been forced to survive in.
Holes in the roof, some as big as his fist. More than enough to let in all manner of insects, and useless against any form of Montana weather. The sides were disintegrating but what soured his gut were the shackles chained to reinforced wooden beams. Some of the rotten planks had been fixed recently, the workmanship poor.
He used the torch to hook a cuff, and the garrote wires behind it dangled loosely behind. His rage ignited at the sight of fresh blood coating the smooth wire. Still fucking wet.
He looked down, saw the drops and small pools of blood on the warped floorboards. Still red, still fresh. The whip discarded on the floor disgusted him, the single-tail tossed aside with evidence of Jenna’s pain still on the lash.
Fury blinded him to the rest of the shed and he stormed out of Sire’s torture hut, barely remembering to catch the door in time before it banged shut. His back rapped against the wall and he braced his hands on his knees, breathing deep of cold, cleansing fresh air.
Sire had to die.
Gathering his thoughts, Connor straightened and corralled his destructive emotions into something more manageable. There would be a time when he let them loose and they would tear the world around him asunder, but it wouldn’t be now.
Not yet.
He dashed back to Luna, shrugging into his pack. The dog greeted him with unabashed joy, her butt wiggling in place. One stroke to the head, and his attention returned to the cabin.
Two options, he determined. Monitor Sire, take him out as soon as he came out of the house. If the motherfucker ever left the safety of his palace. Or storm the place and take him down unawares. But—and it was the biggest ofbuts—there was a high chance Jenna would be caught in the fallout.
Sire knew the layout of the cabin, maybe even had weapons stashed inside in case of an outside breach. He had all the advantages except the element of surprise.
“We have to wait,” he murmured to Luna, scratching her behind the ears even though his hands yearned to rend the whole place to the ground. “When we find her, you need to protect her, okay? Keep her safe while I deal with the bastard who stole her from us.”
Though his mind roiled with seething animosity, he found the strength to fade back into the trees, merge into the shadows created by rising daylight.
Turned out he didn’t have long to wait.
The ground glittered beneath the first pure rays of sunlight when the cabin door opened, and Connor caught his enemy in his sights. He snarled, and Luna reacted with a low growl of her own. He shushed her, gave her the order to be quiet, and she settled uneasily by his feet.
Sire stepped onto the small porch with a mug of coffee steaming in his hand. Tall, undoubtedly handsome, and radiating evil Connor sensed all the way from where he stood. Hair artfully tousled in a classy bedhead—for fuck’s sake, who did that? Tacky, just tacky—the monster welcomed in the new morning as though there was nothing wrong with the world.
Connor reached for his rifle, snicked off the safety and raised it to his shoulder. It was a clean shot for a novice shooter, let alone a hunter, and as he lined up the crosshairs with that perfect face, he was more than prepared to pull the trigger.
The man stepped forward, tossed the dregs of his coffee into the yard, then turned and walked back into the house.
Connor cursed and slammed his hand into the tree in frustration. Ten more seconds, five even, and he’d have nailed the fucker clean between the eyes. For the next ten minutes, he kept the rifle trained on the door, ready to pop Sire’s head like a watermelon as soon as he stepped out.
The sun grew stronger, bouncing off the snow and blinding his view. Cursing again, he lowered the gun and bared his teeth. His patience ran low, ramping up his temper until he was surprised Sire couldn’t feel it shake the walls of his house.
When the door opened again, Connor dropped the gun.