Chained (Caged Book 2) (17 page)

I
T HAD BEEN A HARD
night. I ached everywhere and a couple of my broken ribs were giving me jip as I slowly walked home. I was tired, exhausted, and it reflected in the drag of my feet on the pavement.

It was a cool night and I welcomed the chill on my skin.

“Evening, Anderson.” Mohammed, the proprietor of my local shop smiled at me. “You look sore tonight.”

I smiled, my cheek aching with the action. “Tough one.”

He nodded in understanding and passed me my usual packet of cigarettes. Totalling them up with the bottle of whisky I had snatched off the shelf, he took my money and entered it into the till.

“Word on the street, Anderson.”

My eyes snapped up to his and I narrowed my eyes but gave him a nod to go on.

“Someone’s been asking questions.”

“Who?”

He shrugged as he handed me back my change. “No name yet, but tall guy, red hair and eyes like a viper, I’ve been told. I’ve got my ear to the ground. As soon as I have it then it’s yours.”

“Thank you.”

I slipped him a couple of twenties and bid him goodnight, lighting a cigarette as soon as I stepped foot outside the shop. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled when I inhaled a crucial dose of nicotine, and my fists clenched with irritation. I needed to find this fucker before the fight with Ivan. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, leave Kloe exposed and under such a threat.

Robbie shook himself off, blinking up at me when I kicked his ankles and woke him. “Lazy fucker.” I grinned as I dropped onto the sofa beside him.

“What time is it?”

“Just gone midnight.”

“Shit.” He stretched, yawning, and rolling his head around his neck. “Didn’t mean to sleep that long.”

I chuckled, understanding how tired we both were lately. Robbie had been having trouble sleeping, I knew why, but neither of us wanted to talk about it. Instead we bottled it up inside like we always did and let it ride.

“Kloe in bed?” he asked.

“I would imagine so; I’ve only just got in. You want a drink?”

He nodded, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. He looked worse for the nap, the greyness to his skin making his usual rough features appear even more menacing.

Gritting my teeth at the pain that shot through me, I pushed myself up and went to put the kettle on.

Red whimpered as soon as I opened the kitchen door, and scampered to my side, her cold nose burying into my hand. “What’s up, girl?”

She seemed on edge, her ears pricked high and the fur on the back of her neck stood rigid with alarm.

“Red?”

Every bone in my body cracked under the pressure of dread when she scratched at the basement door. She whined, scratching harder as she turned her head to look at me and then nudged at the door.

The handle felt hot under my touch, my imagination going wild, and as soon as I pulled the door open, Red scurried down ahead of me, her urgency making my heart race.

My feet dragged down each step, fear pulling at each muscle and making movement slow and awkward.

Nothing but silence greeted me. The dark depths of my own basement became terrifying and foreign, the undiscovered playing tricks on my mind and building the tension in my body.

And finally I took the last step.

The very pits of hell couldn’t ever exhibit the horror that greeted me. Rivers of blood couldn’t ever replicate such a gory scene. And never in my own nightmares could I imagine something so sinister.

Kloe was on her knees, her small frame lost in the reservoir of blood that washed around her. Her face was down, her focus on her knees as she remained still and silent.

My butterfly knife sat by her hand, her fingers uncurled as though she had only just that second dropped the offending object.

My gaze lifted to the swinging chain. My stomach lurched and I blew out the rancid air that had curdled in my lungs. Terry’s head was all that remained, the terror portrayed in his eyes, the last thing he’d ever witnessed displayed in his petrified gaze. The rest of him was scattered in piles around the floor.

Red whimpered again, knocking Kloe and gaining my attention.

“Holy -fu…” The expletive evaporated from Robbie’s tongue when his foot landed on the step behind me.

My body was frozen in shock, the numb parts of me refusing me any movement.

“Kloe?”

I didn’t think she’d heard me, her name coming from me in a horrified whisper.

She turned slowly, her head spinning on her shoulders like some fucking horror movie. Her vacant eyes found me. “I made him tell me, Anderson.” The chilling tone of her voice made my throat constrict.

My heart vaulted and air left my lungs in a rush. “Tell you what?”

Her eyes dropped for a second before they once again found mine. “Who.” She shivered and licked her lips, the blood that coated them smearing with the wetness. “Who,” she repeated.

I grimaced as I stepped towards her, my feet slipping in the guts that made a pathway to her.

She looked up at me, her beautiful eyes blinking as I lifted her into my arms. “I didn’t believe him.”

I nodded.

“So I made him pay for lying to me.”

Vomit was hurrying up my throat with the sweet but bitter smell of all the blood. I carried her through the house, and quickly switching on the shower, I stepped inside the cubicle, both of us fully clothed and her covered in more than fabric.

The hot water washed over us, pummelling us with torrents of blistering heat and driving the clog that clung to her towards the drain.

I moved my gaze away from all the shit piling up against the plughole and started to strip Kloe out of the soaked clothing, throwing each item onto the bathroom floor.

She let me take the lead, her calm despair frightening me. Her eyes were wide but unseeing, her heartbeat steady against my hand when I washed away what was left of my father, and the rhythmic way her chest heaved had me shivering with shock.

“What did he tell you, Kloe?” I was almost too afraid to ask but I needed to know.

Her eyes narrowed. “Lots of things.”

“Okay. Are you going to share?” I tried to keep my voice calm, my mind focussed on her bathing as I directed the jet of water over her head and started to wash away the fragments of bone and intestines that clung to her curls.

She stared at the wall and sighed. Her gulp was loud as she tried to swallow her own vomit. The foam from the shampoo ran down her face and she closed her eyes. At least she was lucid enough to understand what was happening. I was scared she’d fractured the last remaining sane part of her mind and become so lost inside herself that she’d forever see the hideousness of whatever had just happened.

“I’m so sorry, Anderson.” Robbie spoke quietly from the bathroom door, watching us warily.

I shook my head. “This isn’t your fault.”

Turning my attention back to Kloe, I gently wiped at her, the stain of blood proving difficult to wash away.

“I thought he was dead. He’d always been dead,” Kloe said. “I always thought he was dead.”

I frowned, but stayed silent, willing her to go on.

“And all this time, all that time, so long ago, they were already planning how fate would ruin us.” She twisted her head and stared at me. “Did you know that, Anderson? That they knew each other. That’s how my mother met him, why they fucked me and you.”

I froze, goose bumps burrowing under my skin and making my whole body feel oversensitive. “What?”

She chuckled and the sound was somewhat eerie, the misery reflected in the usual happy sound making my gut twist. “We were neighbours. For so long.”

I couldn’t form words to question her. I wanted her to speak quicker, to fill in the blank parts for me, yet shock rendered me stupid.

“We used to play together. We were best friends.”

“I don’t understand,” I finally managed, falling back against the tiled wall to support myself.

“It was my own mother that introduced Terry to the Dawson’s.”

My head shook. My heart was beating so rapidly that I felt dizzy and high. Snapping myself out of the revulsion that was overwhelming me, I grabbed Kloe’s shoulders and shook her. “Who is he, Kloe? Tell me!”

She blinked slowly and smiled. “He’s my father, Anderson. My dad has come back for me.”

H
ER SILENCE TOLD ME SO
much more than she had.

She was keeping something from me but I let it ride for now.

“He said my parents and yours were best friends way before we were born.” She shivered even though I covered her with my arms and pulled her back against me. The bedroom was dark and we huddled under the quilt together, the cocoon of my embrace and the duvet providing her with the safety net she needed. “I think they were kind of connected to a cult,” she mumbled, her brow creasing. “But I’m not sure. I couldn’t make out some of the things he’d said.”

I grimaced, the picture of Terry’s mutilated body in my head explaining why he probably hadn’t managed to say much, but I didn’t share that thought with Kloe.

“Janice, your mother, owed a lot in drug debts, Terry said. They’d tried to pimp you out, Anderson, but Terry said no one in their circle much cared for little boys.”

Kloe gagged as blood heated the fury bubbling in the pit of my soul. The dirty bastard. The sick, twisted fucks!

“And my wonderful mother heard on the grapevine of an odd couple that lived in a farmhouse in Deenslow.”

The rest of my story was history, as they say. “So I was sold for one thousand pounds so my mother could pay her drug debt?”

Kloe nodded and twisted in my arms. Sadness overwhelmed her and she reached up to cup my cheek. I could barely see her in the darkness but her love and her sorrow were so passionate they were practically visible. “I’m so sorry, Anderson.”

“Don’t be. At least now I have an explanation, as shit as it is.” I shook my head, placing my hand over hers. “So what happened to your father?”

“I don’t know. Terry just said he went away. He wasn’t much up for talking by that point.”

Once again I winced and nodded in understanding.

Kloe became lost in thought and I pinched her chin. “What else did he say?”

She tensed but shook her head. “That was it. He spat a lot of hatred and bullshit.”

“Bullshit?”

“Just… stuff.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what happened in there, Anderson. I… Something took over and I don’t…”

“It’s okay. I know.” And I did. Rage, necessity, determination, corruption, and the deep sense of survival that lived in all of us did a job sometimes we didn’t want to do.

“He screamed so loud,” she divulged with a slight shudder. “And his blood, it was so pretty. So riveting to watch it leak from him so effortlessly. I felt a strength I never had before. It grew in my belly until it completely took over.”

I tightened my arms around her when the repulsion in her eyes made her wince. “We do what we have to, Kloe.” I didn’t tell her that most people didn’t actually go as far as she had. Yet Kloe had been through so much that no one could quite understand where her state of mind was now. What should disgust so many of us was becoming the normal for Kloe. And although what I had witnessed had sickened even me, I was so proud of her. She proved to me that she was ready for me to leave her. She would survive this after all, and she would protect our baby with her life.

She blinked up at me. “I found it,” she whispered.

I frowned. “You found what?”

“Whatever I’d been looking for. The crack of thunder in the middle of the storm. The hottest fire in hell. The epitome of sin. I’d been looking for light, Anderson, for hope in the middle of hopelessness. For an escape from the middle of escapism. All along I’d been looking for the opposite of what I needed.

“Something clicked when I watched the blood drain from Terry, from the cut that I’d inflicted. The loss of his life gave me mine. His last breath was my first in a long while. Does that make sense?”

I nodded, pressing my lips to her forehead. “It makes perfect sense. We all tend to look for the things we think we need, when all along, if we’d just closed our eyes and really looked, we’d have found what lies within us is the very thing we’ve been looking for.”

“But it was you who opened my eyes, Anderson. It was you who found my heart.”

She pushed at me, rolling me over, and came over me, straddling my chest as she bent and pressed her mouth to mine. Her little tongue slipped between my lips and she adored me in that single kiss.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I know you can’t say it back, and that’s okay. But you need to learn to trust me, Anderson. I’m stronger than you think. I’d protect you with my life.”

Her words tapped at my conscience, telling me I should have questioned her statement more. But when her mouth slid down my body and her lips and tongue teased the head of my cock, all thoughts left me.

It wasn’t until the following week, the night before my fight with Ivan, that her words made perfect sense to me – and I discovered just how much Kloe Grant did love me.