Page 69 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

“Bren, please!”

She has never begged you like this for anything. Besides, she even smiled for the first time in weeks. Don’t be a monster…not again, not this time!

I sigh deeply and look from the little one to Lou and back again. I should have drowned him in the lake and not even told Lou about it. “Okay,” I finally give in. “We’ll try it for a day. But if he’s not doing any better after that, I’m going to put him out of his misery.”

“Three days,” Lou protests. “One isn’t enough.” She reaches for the pup and I hand him to her as gently as I can.

After that, I go to the sink, turn on the water, and rinse the vomited milk off my hands. “Two,” I decide finally. “And you give him a name.”

“Grey,” she replies like a shot from a pistol.

I turn to her in surprise. “Grey? Why Grey?” Okay, he has gray fur with a shot of cognac in between…

As she leans forward and snuggles her face into the pup fur, I smile again. I’m smiling a hell of a lot today.

“It’s the name of a story my brother wrote for me,” she finally says, her voice slurred by the fur on her lips.

A strange feeling of loneliness spreads through me. It’s odd that she would confide in me when she fundamentally hates me. No one has ever written a story for me, and I never had siblings. For a while, Ramon was like my brother. No, he considered me a brother, but I did not allow for a friendship. I was grateful to him. That was my connection to him. I was grateful for all the things he did, but I didn’t trust him. I just couldn’t. There’s something in me that can’t break free from all my past experiences. To hurt people. That’s the only lesson I learned.

I surreptitiously eye Lou, who is still snuggling her nose in the pup’s fur. I, of all people, am asking her to trust me even though I am unable to do so.

This is paradoxical. And now she even shows me a bit of trust by opening up and making herself vulnerable.

An amazing girl. A peculiar girl.

At least she stopped crying.

All of a sudden, she raises her head as if she’s been following my every thought and I feel caught. I should say something nice, something to let her know that I don’t want to shut her brothers out of her mind.

“Jayden?” I ask because he’s the only one of the Scriver brothers who writes stories.

She nods and looks at me, but it is through me as if she is seeing something from another time. I can’t read the expression in her eyes, but it seems to me there is pain and happiness in a single memory. Crazy.

“Okay,” I shake off the odd sensation and point to the pup. “Grey it is.”

I explain to her how to prepare the milk and that she must under no circumstances use the chlorine-laced water from the taps. “I’ll start keeping the propane on all the time. I’ve been turning it off whenever I leave you here by yourself,” I state, ending my lecture.

“Why?” Lou asks, stroking Grey’s head with her hand.

“In case there was a gas leak or the stove malfunctions,” I tell her. “If the gas escapes, it would get dangerous in here. And around the RV, of course. I didn’t want to risk you getting hurt.”

“So what are you going to do now?” She looks at me carefully.

I look at Grey. He stopped whining and fell asleep. I pray Blacky, in all his agony, just fell asleep at some point and was no longer scared. “If you want to feed him every hour, you’ll have to use the stove. Which means I can’t turn off the gas.” I point to a small white box on the base of a kitchen cabinet. “That’s a propane gas detector. Gas is heavier than air, which is why it’s not on the ceiling like a smoke detector. If there’s a gas leak, it’ll go off. And then you have to evacuate the RV immediately.”

Lou puts her hand in the air like a schoolgirl and the chain rattles. “I won’t get too far.”

Of course, the chains pose a problem now. I don’t want to do without them, but if a fire does break out, Lou would be trapped.

“I suppose I can stop putting out traps for two days, right?” I muse aloud. “If we save a little water, I won’t have to fetch it as often.”

“Or you could leave the chains off for two days, right?” Lou smiles at me, and even though it looks strained, I’m pleased.

Nevertheless, it is out of the question. “So you can run away again the first chance you get and put yourself in danger?” I shake my head vehemently. “No, thanks.”

“You’ll have to trust me. The way I trust you to not hurt me.”

Ha! Like she could wrap me around her finger that easily.

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