Page 104 of Captive Souls

And he kissed me back. Gently.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill them with my bare hands.”

Although I thought such a gesture was impossible minutes ago, I smiled against his lips. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

It was somewhat of a dilemma as to what to do with me once Joey left. Knox didn’t want me anywhere near what he was about to do. But he also didn’t want to let me go.

His hands were on me every moment, moments we knew were scant. I wasn’t sure how long ago my captors had left for dinner, but they were likely due back any moment. We had rented the room next door, situated in there waiting. Knox’s eyesremained firmly on the window that opened to the parking lot, watching for headlights to illuminate the dark room.

He was coiled, tense, had retreated back behind the façade of the killer he wore so well. But he hadn’t retreated completely. He cast concerned glances my way every few seconds.

“Where did you go?” I asked, a question that had been bubbling around in my mind for a while now.

He didn’t look at me, clutching the ragged curtain. “I went to Maine.”

I frowned, thinking about the distance he covered and how it explained why he was gone for so long.

“My brother lives there,” he continued.

His brother. The one other person he said he cared about.

“I went to him for … help.”

His voice was strained, fractured. Mingled with coldness and vulnerability

“Help?” I repeated. I couldn’t fathom Knox asking for help. What a huge battle that must’ve been for him. He would’ve had to abandon all of his pride, the story he told of himself being unbreakable, in order to ask for help.

“I don’t know how to walk this path, Piper,” he said looking back to the window. “I don’t have the parts for it. I—”

He was cut off by the lights that passed then pulled into the parking lot.

My body strained with tension, both of us silent as doors closed. Muffled male voices and laughter sounded as the door next to us locked, opened and closed.

“Stay here,” he demanded, not waiting for me to speak, not looking at me. He just left.

It was quiet. However, he did it. I barely heard anything beyond a small muffling of a shout and a thump.

That was it.

I was wringing my hands, sitting statue-straight on the bed, unable to move, though I longed for a shower to wash off the filth and blood. I used the restroom because the cramp against my stomach felt more to do with nature than man at that point. And on top of the shit sandwich of a situation, I’d gotten my period. Another fun little tidbit about being barren… You got to keep all the horrible things that show you’re fertile except you’re actually not.

I’d gotten a tampon from the bag on the bed, a bag of clothes and toiletries Knox had had the presence of mind to grab from the cabin. He’d not only understood that we wouldn’t be going back there but he’d had hope that he’d find me, and I’d be alive to use the contents of the bag.

I wasn’t sure how long it was supposed to take. Knox had wanted to punish—read, torture—those men for hurting me. How long did that take? Probably longer than an hour.

It had only been a handful of minutes.

That felt like eons.

I worried for Knox, though I didn’t doubt his ability to go up against two men in the state he was in, fuming with a kind of rage that I hadn’t known existed outside the animal kingdom. But I was still aching from thinking he was dead. I didn’t love the idea of him risking his life so readily after so recently coming back to me.

Then again, I reasoned this was only the beginning of Knox risking his life for me. Two men were the appetizer when you considered the behemoth we had in front of us.

I jumped at the sound of a door opening and closing, scuttling back on the bed, ready to fight my way out of this as the predator in black prowled toward me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize it was Knox, not one of Stone’s henchmen.

My eyes cast over him, looking for any injuries, any obvious harm. There was none. His hands were white, pristine, not even a spec of blood that I could see.

“It’s done?” I asked, surprised.

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