Page 17 of Blood Ties
“You two dumb motherfuckers,” Dad seethes, turning toward me. “Hand her over.”
I swallow hard. Giving her to Dad is worse than giving her to Knox. When he’s done with people in the barn, they don’t even look like people anymore. “We can put her in the basement,” I say.
“Did I ask for your goddamn opinion?”
He presses the barrel into my face, just below my right eye. I stay statue-still, my gaze locked on his.
“Useless boy,” he says. “Stupid. Pathetic. At least your brother helps clean up his messes.” His eyes narrow. “I shoulda killed you the first time I realized what a sniveling little pissbaby you are.”
I stare him down, pressing my cheek into the gun without flinching. I’ve been afraid of him as long as I can remember, but nothing he’ll do to me will be worse than him taking Riley to that barn. “Do it, then.”
When I see the fury in his stare, I think he really might. I think he’ll finally do it, after all of these years of threats and beatings that left me halfway to dead.
Then his gaze slides from me to Knox. I didn’t see my brother get up, but he’s crouched in the dirt now, his knife held in a white-knuckled grip as he watches us. He doesn’t say a word, but something I don’t understand passes between him and Dad as their eyes meet.
Dad barks a laugh, steps back, and lowers the gun. He casts an appraising look at the girl in my arms.
“Well,” he says. “You’re still a pussy, but at least this proves you ain’t a faggot.”
He turns and walks back toward the house, shotgun over his shoulder.
My breath whooshes out of me, and I sag, releasing all the tension that fills me whenever my dad is around. Knox rises fully to his feet.
“Nice going,” he says, grinning with a mouthful of bloody teeth. I feel sick, especially when Riley starts struggling against me again.
“Please,” she says, barely more than a breath. Her face is streaked with dirt and tears, her bare feet bloodied, but still, she’s trying to fight. “Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I swear, j-just...”
Knox doesn’t even look at her. He just grins at me. “Let’s get her down to the basement,” he says.
I swallow the urge to apologize as I haul Riley up over my shoulder and carry her toward the house. After all, I have no right to be sorry. This — and everything that’s about to happen to her — is all my fault.
*
RILEY IS LIMP AND SILENTas I carry her up the porch steps. I’m grateful that shock is taking hold of her. She hangs like a corpse over my shoulder, and I hope it means she isn’t seeing the actual corpses of her friends as we pass by.
Felix lies in the dirt in the front yard, coated in blood. May’s broken body is in the living room, Frank standing over her possessively. Through the open kitchen door, I catch a glimpse of Caleb, his face a mess of blood.
Riley doesn’t make a sound as we walk by her dead friends. She doesn’t so much as twitch.
Dad is talking quietly to Frank in the living room, both of them blood-spattered. Frank has his usual dumb grin, while Dad is narrow-eyed and calculating.
“Hurry up, you’ve got a mess to clean,” he barks at me.
I nod and walk past them to unlock the basement door. Knox follows me, his boots thudding down each step into the darkness. I want to tell him I don’t need any help, but I know it’s not true; I’m going to need him on my side to keep Riley alive. Otherwise, I’ll come down these stairs one day and find her with a slit throat.
The basement is a square concrete room, windowless and musty. A single dirty lightbulb hangs from the ceiling. On the far wall, there’s a sink, a toilet, and a mattress on the floor. A set of rusty chains attaches a handcuff to a pipe running along the wall.
I set Riley down on the mattress. She’s still unmoving, just staring ahead with a blank expression.
Knox crouches beside me as I work the metal handcuff around one of her wrists. I have to pull it tight to fit her. It probably hurts, but she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink.
Knox snaps his fingers in front of her face, to no reaction. “Hope she ain’t gonna get stuck like this,” he says. “Some of them do. They just break.”
“She won’t,” I say, though I really have no idea. It’s not like I have much experience with this sort of thing.
“Hey, even if she does, we can still have some fun with her,” Knox says. My stomach roils as he punches me in the shoulder. “Look at you, bringing a girl home for the first time. I’m proud of you.”
I hate him as he grins at me. But more than that, I hate that a part of me still relishes his approval.
