Page 50 of Drowning Her

Forrest stopped, holding his hand against the sliding door.

“You must understand, son. This is part of our family’s lineage. It’s how the Feldmans dominate all others. You have to prove that you’ll do what’s best for our family.”

He was stuck on repeat, saying these same lines until they blurred together in my mind. But this time, my chest tightened. He was preparing me for what was inside.

“For the farm,” I said.

He slid open the door. One of the pens was gated off. A familiar scent wafted through the air. Sawyer stood by the pen, his gun in his holster, his eyes glued to the prisoner inside. A small woman crouched on the ground, her hands and ankles bound in rope, a canvas hood covering her head, her moans stifled underneath by a gag. My heart rate spiked. I balled my fists.

Sawyer pulled off the hood. Maisie blinked her bloodshot eyes. She glared up at my father, mascara dried in streaks on her cheeks. Full of pure anger and adrenaline.

What had they done?

“You two haven’t been fucking, have you?” Forrest asked.

Why did he care? Maisie looked small on the ground like that, tied up and bound. My fingers itched for my gun. I glanced at Sawyer; his hand was already wrapped around his holster, waiting for my movement.

“Last night,” I answered.

“Only last night?” Forrest rubbed his brow. “Lying to your father-in-law so soon?” he asked Maisie. She tossed her head to the side, grunting in response. I reached for my knife—she needed to get out of those ropes—but my father held up his gun. “She doesn’t go free yet.”

Free.

Maisie had received chances to go free. She could have left before the wedding. When I told her to run away. When we were in the train tunnel together. She had the chance to kill me, back then. She could have killed me when I was cuffed. But she had stayed. Every damn time.

Had Forrest taken her from Bambi’s motel, or had Maisie come back to the farm, returning to me?

Sawyer aimed his gun at my forehead.

Kill her. Or die myself.

Forrest handed me his gun, the same blue swirled engravings as the gun I had used for my first kill.

“You know what must be done,” Forrest said.

I took the gun, holding it in my grip. This time, the weight didn’t surprise me. I pulled back the hammer and kept my lips shut. Raising the gun, I aimed the barrel between Maisie’s eyes. Her eyelids twitched, but her gaze was focused, unmoving.

She wasn’t afraid.

She knew to trust me.

Why did she trust me?

“Don’t be a pussy,” Forrest said in a guttural voice.

I lowered the barrel, then faced my father, my gun aimed at the ground. “In my own time,” I said.

“There won’t be another time,” Forrest laughed. “Trust me. It only gets harder the longer you wait. I had ten years.Ten yearsbefore I finally gave in.” He scratched his jaw. “I expected this from Sawyer, but not you.”

Sawyer had fought my father on the Feldman Offering for a long time. But he brought his lover’s charred corpse back to the farm as proof of his loyalty. But rage had simmered inside of him at what he was forced to do. He hadn’t been the same after that.

I wasn’t going to burn, shoot, or stab Maisie.

Not unless I went down with her.

Adrenaline buzzed through me. Death with Maisie was a veryrealpossibility. And for once, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to be with her.

“This is taking too long,” Sawyer said under his breath. He aimed his gun at Maisie. “I’ll do it.”

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