Page 10 of Darkness Falls

"I’ll go get Dr. X to have him check you out, but you're not helping with this, Ky. I will not put you at risk. You just had surgery. If I have to lock you in the pool house until you heal, I will. Don't tempt me."

"You have no right to bench me and don't threaten me. I'm not a child."

“Exactly what do you think you can do right now? Your body needs time to heal. You need to focus on getting your strength back. You trying to find her is more of a liability than anything else."

He grits his teeth. I know the idea of not being her knight in shining armor is destroying him on the inside, but he will have to get the fuck over it. It will take weeks, at least, of rehabilitation to make sure he can get back to his full strength. I wasn't kidding. I'll lock his ass up if necessary.

"I mean it, Ky. If you can't agree to take a step back and let us handle it, I will make sure you don't have an option."

His eyes narrow, and he glares at me. "I'll let you assholes handle it, but I swear you better have something in place to get her back soon. I don't give a fuck about their little society. I'll do whatever it takes to get to her."

"We'll do what we can. I'm going to call Barrettand check in with him."

Ky nods, so I make my way out of the room and directly out of the house. I take a deep breath, air filling my lungs before I let it out and look up to the sky. Slowly, my eyes close, and I give myself a moment. Ky is awake. He didn't die. I pull out my phone and call Barrett.

"Hey Seb, is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Ky's awake."

I hear a sharp intake of breath. "It's about time. I'm on my way."

"No, I need you to focus on Callie."

"You're out of your mind. He just woke up. I'm coming to see him," he states with annoyance.

"He was angry when he woke up. He wanted to know why we didn’t have her back. I don't have an excuse. Neither of us do."

"Yeah, well, we're working on it."

"Can you reach out to the hacker again and see what you can do?"

"No, it doesn't work that way. I need to wait for him to get back in touch with me. I'm on my way."

"Whatever, when you get here, I'm leaving. You can deal with his ass."

He hangs up, and I walk over to the front steps to sit down. This is when everything is going to get real. Kyler won't stop until we get her back, and now that he is awake, Barrett will have the same determination. Looks like I need to jump on team Callie.

Chapter 5

Callie - Two months later

Drip. Drip. Drip. The sink in my bathroom has been dripping at a steady pace for almost an hour now, and I can't bring myself to get up to shut it off. Drip. Drip. My fingers are pruned and shriveled, but this is the only place I have peace. I bring my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them.

It's almost time for my father to take me back to give me another one of his lessons again. Until then, I'll sit in the bathtub, holding onto every possible tranquil moment I can get. Every day, I sit in the warm water for as long as I can, plotting my way out of this mess, whether I’m here, at the cabin, or at the other house. Drip.

My days are starting to feel more bleak. My father is growing increasingly annoyed. He hasn't been able to break me yet. He wants compliance, and I'm too stubborn to give it to him, even if it's under false pretenses. As the days go on and the wedding looms closer, I find my strength and drive starting to wane.

Drip.

Sebastian, Kyler, and Barrett are all I can think about. It's been two months since I was ripped out of their house in the middle of the night. Sixty days since I watched Kyler bleed out on his bedroom floor. I still don't know what happened to them or ifKyler is alive. With every passing day, I lose a little more hope of them saving me. I thought I was part of their family. I thought they would do whatever they could to get me out of this hellhole, but every day I'm left disappointed, and every night I'm chained to a fucking bed.

I've been without them for so long that I've started to doubt our time together. What if they were just playing with me? What if they're happy they don't have to deal with me anymore? Tears well up in my eyes and threaten to fall down my cheeks. What if they're dead, and I'm holding onto hope for no reason? Drip. Drip.

I shake the thoughts from my head. No, that can't be true. They're alive, and they love me. Barrett told me he loves me. I felt Kyler's love. There's no way it was all a lie.

I've tried a few times over the last two months to run away like I did all those years ago, but someone always catches me. My father's gotten smarter and isn't giving me any opportunities to get out of his grasp. Having Damien on his side has made it twice as hard.

When I first got back to Rogue, they moved me around a lot. I never stayed on the compound for more than two nights in a row. Sometimes, I was in some sort of cabin; other times, I was in a strange house I had never seen before. There was never a schedule or a reason why we ended up at any of the places. No matter where I ended up, I was always locked in a room bymyself and chained to whatever bed I was sleeping in for the night.

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