Page 29 of Recurve Ridge

And I tried—in my dreams every night.

Phantoms of invisible hands traced over my body beneath my borrowed clothes. I jerked, resisting the urge to rake my nails over my skin and peel the sensation free. Unable to bring out my crazy when my mind sent out a warning signal that this was not the sort of conversation I wanted to vague out on, I settled for wrapping my arms tight around my body.

“I don’t know what you mean.” I twisted away as if he stung me, but the veiled accusation ripped at the safety net of my new future.

An unknown future, which left me in a forbidden space. Tears prickled my eyes. I inhaled too fast and swallowed a mouthful of mountain man. Any other day, that would have been hilarious.

I’d spent hours talking myself into being able to trust Robe while I lay in his bed or stared at myself in the mirror in his bathroom before I emerged. My body still bore the marks of my abuse, though the bruises had yellowed and faded from their original dark splotches. Inside? That looked… different. Worse. Invisible parts of me I hadn’t known I cherished were tainted with dark desires that weren’t mine but had left their stain all the same.

Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that Robe and his men needed reassurance that they could trust me too.

We all had demons that followed us, though theirs were much older than mine.

I wanted to scream at the injustice of it, that I had been the one betrayed and abused. Hunted until nothing more remained of the prior girl who’d borne my face than a pathetic animal craving absolution for a crime it didn’t know it had committed.

But as I stared around at the small circle of men, that same sense of pain flitted through every pair of eyes, their demons not so different to my own.

“I had to drop off things at my b—at a place down the mountain,” I started, cautious of releasing any details.

I had no idea why I kept trying to protect a life no longer mine to claim or refused to give more information. I needed to keep some trump card for a dire moment that might sink or save me. For all I knew, they were friends with Gideon, and I’d be tossed back into his home. Numbness started at my toes and worked upward at that thought. But another part of me told me I could trust Robe… and I was back where I started, ready to tear my hair out and face the cabin en masse as a bald woman.

What the hell. I can’t be more broken than I already am.

No, just dead.

A heavy silence blanketed the cabin, blocking off the rest of the world from me, or maybe me from it. Which shook me deeper, until I struggled to continue.

“You know, the expensive-looking house that has the luxury European cars parked around it, the sort that never gets dirty on an unpaved road. I made my delivery. My b—Gi—he asked me to stay to help with some entertainment.” I hiccupped a laugh. “I didn’t know that meant me.”

“Oh, sweetcheeks.” Alan reached across the counter to clasp my hand. Understanding gleamed dully in place of the sparkle that I wanted,neededto fill his eyes, and already I missed its comforting presence.

I took the offering, squeezing his cold fingers. Alan’s perception grounded me, gave me the clarity to plow on. “The man I trusted led me into a room full of people. Men. A table stood in the middle. Ropes and leather straps hung loose from it, and there was a dark stain in the center, though the thing looked like it had been scrubbed clean. Maybe. He’d created a… a torture room, with tools and other implements on the walls. Not some play dungeon with canes and whips you might expect in an online show. All razor edges, spears and needle-sharp knives. We never got to those.” I choked up, shudders returning to shake me head to toe.

I drew in a deep breath, aiming for something fortifying, and managed a pathetic death rattle as Robe gripped my other hand.

“Why did they stop?” he asked.

Robe kept his voice soft, but it failed to disguise the undercurrent of violence he promised for reasons of his own, a history that predated my tumble into his life. The air stilled, but whatever he felt wasn’t aimed at me.

“I don’t know. Everyone left in a hurry. They bundled me into a ball of cloth and dumped me in the trunk of a car. New car smell will make me sick forever. Then they lifted me out. Two men carried me. More, maybe? Too many hands.” I tried to look up at him but instead squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the sensations that assailed my body as if I still lay tethered to the table.

Conversations erupted above and around me as though I were no more than an object to be discarded. A nuisance. A puzzle to be solved.

Robe stroked along my spine, removed the phantom hands touching me, but I couldn’t quite quash the feelings, too high on the adrenaline that had flushed my system anew. His breath against my neck warmed me. I sent him a grateful glance, though my words stalled. I tried to make them come out but gagged instead.

“Think, Mari. What happened? Where did they take you?” Robe murmured.

My heart pounded, sweat breaking out on my arms, leaving me flushed and chilled at once. “Someone tossed me into the air, and I landed on the ground. I didn’t look around. Then all my wrappings were pulled away. I lay there, bare… naked. They stripped me of everything. Then they moved away, and I ran. I didn’t look back. I ran,” I repeated, desperate, for some ridiculous reason, for the men surrounding me to believe my story.

Desperate for acceptance.

Alan squeezed my other hand to the point of numbness, but I didn’t care. The tears that streamed down his face matched the ones that glazed my cheeks.

“You know him? The man who did this to you?” Robe extracted my hand from Alan, taking both of mine in his larger, work-roughened paws. He rubbed gentle circles over my skin, his fingers moving in a slow rhythm that matched my short breaths until they lengthened.

“Yes,” I croaked, jerking my head in a half nod, unable to say more.

“Good girl,” he murmured, drawing me closer. “Does he know where you work?”

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