Page 76 of Turn That River Red

“You shouldn’t have come out here barefoot.”

“You won’t let me have shoes!” I try to pull myself out of his grip, but it’s no use. He’s too strong. “That’s how you’re keeping me here.Thisis how you’re keeping me here—” I gesture down to my foot, blood already puddling on the ground.

“I can’t have you going to the police,” he says stiffly.

“You have Raul!” I scream, my tears veiling the world with salt. “You have Raul, you monster!”

His grip tightens around my ankle.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I do.”

“You’re the devil!” I scream. “I hate you! Ihate you!”

I try to jerk myself away from him, but Ambrose reacts too quickly, dropping my leg and grabbing me by the waist and then throwing me over his shoulder like I’m not even a person. My anger is swallowed up by terror.

He’s going to cut me into pieces like he did Raul.

“No!” I shriek, fighting against him, trying to kick through the pain in my foot. “No! You promised you wouldn’t kill me!”

“And you think I’d break that promise?” He stalks toward the barn’s entrance, leaving behind the worktable and the weapons and the freezer. It’s all I can see, though, as he carries me away. The white glare of the freezer that hides the horror inside it.

I sob and hiccup and try to fight against Ambrose, but it’s no use. His arm is wrapped tight around my waist and I’m bleeding from a wound in my foot and I’m trapped here, in hell, with Satan himself.

Ambrose drags the barn door open and carries me outside. “Sit,” he barks, and I think he’s talking to me until Max runs up behind him, tail wagging, his muzzle covered in blood.

I scream again, panic surging through me like nausea.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Ambrose says, stepping onto the porch. Max follows behind him, wagging his tail. “I was training him.”

“Did you kill someone?” I gasp out.

“Not today, no.” Ambrose flings the back door open and carries me inside and then lowers me, with more care than I’d expect, onto the couch.

It’s still covered in his blood. It’s still marked by his depravity.

The depravity that you enjoyed.

I take deep, ragged breaths. Ambrose runs his rough hands over my bare leg, his touch gentle as he lifts my foot. I try to squirm away from him, but he glares at me and I go limp, afraid of what he’ll do. “Hold still,” he orders.

“Why did you keep Raul?” I choke out.

He looks away as he slowly lowers my leg to the ground. “Stay here,” he says. “I’ve got some bandages and antiseptic.”

“Why did you keep Raul?!”I scream at him, my face hot with rage and fear.

Ambrose fixes me with a look so unfathomably dark that it steals my breath. And I know, in this moment, that he isn’t human. What we did yesterday on this couch was supposed to be the proof. But his expression right now, his black and glittering eyes—this is when Iknow.

“I was going to eat him,” he says flatly.

And then he walks out of the living room.

I’m too frozen with shock to do anything but stare at the place where he was standing. My foot throbs. Blood drips onto the floor. And I think back to the two meals I’ve eaten in this house.

No meat.

Neither of them had meat.

I scramble off the couch, knowing I have to get away. I have to get out of here. But I’m not thinking clearly, and I step down on my injured foot and the pain explodes again because the nail is still implanted into my sole.

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