Page 63 of Keep Me

One by one, the women are pushed into the center as another hunter is called from the stands to enjoy the spoils of his hunt. There’s a time in the beginning when I’m able to numb my emotions, detach my thoughts, and keep what I witness out of arm’s reach of my soul.

I watch women brutalized in every imaginable way. For sport. For the sick pleasure of men. Unable to do anything but stand strung up on chains and watch. There comes a point when my defenses crack as the shield I’d built around myself splinters, and every horrid deed comes rushing in, strangling my heart and tearing at my humanity.

Every time I find myself wanting to close my eyes, to block it out for just a second, I can’t seem to do it. A woman’s scream is earsplitting as a hunter lowers a red-hot brand onto her skin. I want to look away. I don’t want the imagery to go along so vividly with the smell of burning flesh. But I can’t.

Not watching, not bearing witness to their torment when I’m so helpless to offer them reprieve, feels like a betrayal. They are suffering the physical pain. I should at the very least be there to share the mental pain.

A guard comes running over and says something to Daniel. His eyes, dark and cruel behind the mask, turn on me, and my stomach sinks. He walks over to me with confident strides, and my skin bristles the closer he gets.

I can hear the smirk in his voice as he tilts my head up. “You’re going to want to pay extra attention to this. Just got word that Reggie is coming.” I wrench my head from his grasp and growl. “You’ll want to save that fight for when she gets here.” He laughs, a chilling and heartless sound.

“Bring her closer,” he commands the hunter, who drags the woman by the hair to a few feet away from me. Daniel grabs my head again like a vice between his hands and forces my gaze to lock with hers. “Look in her eyes, Fox. Look her in the eyes knowing you can’t do anything to save her, and you won’t be able to save Reggie either.”

The woman’s eyes are the same deep brown as Reggie’s, and I feel my chest compressing as the hunter holds a blade to her throat. Her eyes swim with tears and resolution. She is ready to die. She doesn’t beg for mercy or scream for help. She simply stares into my bleeding soul and sees nothing that can save her.

I’ll never be able to forget how her eyes spring wide open in pain as the knife first breaks her skin. I’ll never be able to forgive myself for standing by, unable to help, as a wicked path is carved across her throat. There’s a split second where I blink as the woman falls over, and she transforms into Reggie—golden skin, raven hair, beautiful fucking heart. And I finally break.

I collapse onto my knees with an agonizing howl, my shoulders pulling in pain as the chains barely allow enough slack. My ribs scream, and my chest shatters.

I’ve been broken ever since I opened that door twenty-three years ago. Reggie, though, showed me that healing was possible. Now, I’ve broken beyond repair. Whatever remains of my heart is fractured into too many pieces to ever be whole again.

1. Human—Rag’n’Bone Man until end of chapter

Chapter 29

Into the Deep

Reggie

The dingy I stole from the harbor bounces over each wave as I push it as fast as it will go, praying there’s enough gas to get me to the island. 1 The waves are choppier out here, closer to the mouth of the bay and the open ocean. The sun setting over the horizon with pastels is a contrasting beauty to the dark reality of the situation.

I don’t have much of a plan, but I wasn’t waiting around for Cash’s idea. Objectively, his plan to gather reconnaissance and devise a methodical attack is much smarter and more likely to succeed than stealing a dingy and satellite GPS, then boating to an unknown island with nothing but a handgun.

But I couldn’t wait. I’ve been breathing with one lung and living with half a heart since learning Roan had been taken. It has to be the Warden. A remote island would be the perfect place for his sick games. I’ve seen firsthand what happens on that island, and there’s no way I was letting Roan spend a night there alone.

An outcrop of trees comes into sight, and, going by the coordinates I memorized from Cash’s phone, they’re on the island Roan is on. June Harbor Bay has several small, rocky islands that are barely more than seabird nesting grounds. The one I am now approaching with my heart in my throat is the furthest, most isolated of them all.

The sun is quickly disappearing the closer I get, and I make out flickering lights dotting one edge of the island. I slow the engine to cut some of the noise and creep along the water. I’m considering my next moves while slowly puttering closer to the lights when a loud noise comes ripping around the island behind me.

Blinding spotlights shine on me, and I realize they’re mounted on two jet skis that begin to circle me. I hold my gun tight in my hand, but they’re moving too fast and the lights are too bright for me to lock on a target.

The rapid pops of a semiautomatic fill the air, and bullet-sized holes are ripped through my metal boat. My adrenaline spikes as water quickly begins to fill the hull. It will take a while to sink with such small holes though. Even so, I bale as much as I can with my hands while trying to track my circling attackers.

“Toss the gun!” a voice orders through what sounds like a megaphone. I only grip it tighter and cock the hammer. “Toss the gun, and we will take you to him.”

Him. I don’t need specifics to know it’s Roan. I’d sacrifice my life for him, and, as I throw my gun into the bay, I realize that I may be doing just that.

And there’s not a single part of me that regrets it.

The men dim their lights, and I can now see they’re wearing creepy black masks as one pulls up on either side of my slowly-sinking boat. “Put these on.” I’m handed zip-tie handcuffs and slide them over my wrists. The man that handed them to me reaches over to tighten them until they bite into my skin, then he orders me to lay over the back of his jet ski.

I hold Roan in my mind’s eye as I do as he says, pulling up every detail of his smile this morning when he watched me eat the breakfast he made for me. I think about the slight slant of his lips with pride. His auburn stubble meeting the tattoos on his jaw. The way he pointed his fork at me and told me not to jump out of any planes with life and light in his eyes.

The ride on the back of the jet ski is short. With my head dangling over the side of the seat, I see the reflection of flames on the inky water. My pulse races. I twist my head as much as I can, but I can only see the legs and planks of a dock, not what’s on it.

Something clamps around my ankles, and then I’m hoisted off the jet ski and dropped on my hands and knees on the dock. There is a row of bare feet with shackled ankles next to my head, and I swallow. These are the women. The women they hunt. 2

I’m pulled to my feet, and my heart beats like thunder as I take in the scene before me. Rows of people in black masks face me. Torches light up the platform, and there is a man in front of the people who wears a silver mask. It’s something straight out of a horror movie, and my stomach roils.

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