Chained (Caged Book 2) (3 page)

Seven months earlier

I
T WAS DARK WHEN
I woke. My body lay heavy against the softness of the mattress, the silky feel of the sheets cocooning me in their heavenly embrace.

Sighing, I languidly stretched my arms above my head.

My brain kicked into gear and yesterday came filtering back in.

“I don’t have any choice, Kloe. I need to end this. To watch the horror roll over his face when I snub out your life before him. To take from him what he always wanted.”

Fear clogged my throat and I shot upright, pressing my hand to my chest in an attempt to settle the vacuum taking my breath.

“It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Anderson’s voice broke through the blackness around me and I turned to him. “Safe? You’re joking, right?”

He chuckled, enraging me further. “Well, yes. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words.”

Ignoring him, I fell out of the bed and stormed across the room. The door refused to budge when I tugged on the handle.

“Let me go, Anderson.”

“You know I can’t do that, Kloe. Especially now you know why you’re here.”

A feral growl tore out of my mouth as I tugged at the door, my futile attempt at freedom angering me further.

“Did you just growl?” Anderson laughed. “Sweet little Kloe is a wolf underneath all that…”

His hand shot out and he grabbed my wrist when I flung my hand towards him. Nothing but darkness cloaked the room but my anger aided me in seeking out shadows.

“That’s not a good idea, little wolf.”

“Fuck you!” I hissed, yanking my arm away from him.

Another chuckle in the dark, but I refused to rise to it.

“So, what?” I seethed. “You’re just going to hold me here again? Repeat history.” I laughed with as much bitterness as I could muster. “That’s a little boring for you, isn’t it? Even if it does tend to run in your family!”

I blinked when a soft light filtered into the room from the overhead light, the dark shade overshadowing the brightness of the bulb. Anderson grinned at me from where he stood beside the light switch. “On the contrary, Kloe. Nothing with you is ever boring. And as far as family tradition goes, I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“Understand?” I scoffed, exhaustion riding my anger and seeing me drop to the bed. “I’ll never understand you, Anderson. You wanted me to, for so long. I yield, okay? I give in. I failed you. I don’t understand. Any of it.”

He stared at me, the fierceness of his eyes penetrating their way through my tired gaze.

When I thought he was just going to stand and stare at me all night, he sighed. Slipping a key from his trouser pocket, he turned and unlocked the door. “Come.”

My eyes widened at his blunt order. However, before I could retort, he had disappeared through the previously locked door, and the sound of his soft footfalls on the stairs faded the more he descended.

The quiet left behind brought reality to my mind and the sting of pity burned the back of my eyes. Staring at the carpet, silent tears fell down my face, and my heart, hidden under the skin and bone of my broken body, splintered into tiny, unforgiving pieces. Pain ruptured every part of me, the invisible agony devastating my soul into surrender.

He wouldn’t ever leave me in peace. To him, I was his enemy. The one who had taken from him. I had taken his trust, I had taken his hope, and I had taken the love of his father. He was wrong, of course. But I knew he wouldn’t ever see it any other way. His own father had thrown him away like rotting garbage, but had held onto me like a prized possession. Anderson wouldn’t ever see the sin and sickness that bound me to his father. He would only ever hear a story that was narrated with lies and false words, the revolting truths never murmured in his ear, or his heart.

“Come on, little wolf!”

His stupid pet name had me clenching my teeth, another growl vibrating in my chest.

Giving in, I slowly made my way down to him. He was in the lounge and he turned to me when I entered. “Sit.”

“You’re not my master, Anderson. Stop ordering me around.”

Rolling his eyes, he huffed. “Please take a seat, Kloe.”

Waiting a moment just to make my point, I finally lowered into the chair opposite him. A coffee table sat between us and I glanced down. Fire caught my breath and singed my lungs.

“It’s time for you to understand.”

Photos and documents littered the black glass table, papers and different objects scattered in any order across the four-foot expanse. A box sat tossed aside, the lid thrown on the floor. A bottle of whisky, half empty, and two crystal glasses finished the ensemble.

“Understand?” I whispered, unable to raise my voice any higher.

His eyes blazed with green fire as he captured my stare. “Understand why. Understand who I really am. Understand who you are. And understand why I have to do this.”

“What… what is this?” I asked, dropping my eyes to the table.

Anderson leaned forward and poured a measure of whisky into each glass. “This…” Emotion flowed through his voice and his words came out raspy and full of defeat. “…This is my story. My life.” Once again his eyes lifted to mine, and he passed me a glass. “And the sanction for your death.”

I
PLACED THE FIRST PAPER
down in the top left corner of the table. “My birth certificate. The only thing I have of Judd Asher.”

“Where did you get it?”

She stared at the certificate, avoiding my eyes, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Her beautiful face captured me, the softness of her serene blue eyes held me hostage, and the way her bottom lip disappeared behind her top teeth when she sucked on it ruthlessly made my cock hard.

Throughout my life I had fought for everything. To breathe, to stop the pain, to have hope. But this,
Kloe
, was my biggest fight yet. She ruled the battle I had with myself daily. She stabbed my heart over and over with her compassion and her gentleness. But I had only one choice. I had to ruin her. It was the only way for me to finally move forward.

“Oh, it’s not the original, unfortunately. It’s a copy.”

Then placing the next paper down next to the certificate, I watched the sadness seep into her pretty eyes. “A newspaper clipping about my disappearance.”

She swallowed but nodded slowly, still her gaze anywhere but on me.

And then I placed another clipping down at the very right-hand edge of the table, leaving a long gap between both articles. “And a random newspaper piece when I was found in Hank and Mary’s basement.”

Kloe took a breath and then a large mouthful of the whisky, her gulp loud in the quiet room. Slowly she nodded again. “And the in-between?”

Rolling my eyes dramatically, I tutted. “You of all people should know there is no evidence of an in-between. I have nothing, only memories. Horrific and bloody memories to fill that gap, Kloe.”

Her eyes finally snapped to mine. “Anderson…”

“But,” I held a finger up to shush her, “I needed to fill that gap with something other than random and broken memories, Kloe. That
nothing
would forever haunt me, choke me, chew up my mind with all the lies and cruel thoughts that never leave.”

She lifted her hand, leaving it stuttering in the air between us before she sighed and lowered it back to her lap. I had to gulp back the need to take her offered hand. But her touch wouldn’t make this any easier. Far from it.

“So,” I continued as I poured us more alcohol, “I started to dig into my past to find anything, any hope that I had once been a normal little boy. With a family who loved me. Maybe a big hairy dog that would have been my best friend. Hell, even maybe a sister who I could hunt out. Anything. Any tiny - little - thing.” Taking another gulp of whisky, I tipped my head and watched her. “Do you know what I found?”

Eagerness took root in her expression. Her lips parted to accommodate a small suck of air, her excitement to hear my discovery bright in her eyes. “What did you find?”

I scoffed, tipping back more alcohol. “Nothing.”

The excitement in her gaze vanished, and in its place a shimmer of water blurred her eyes. “I…”

“Nothing. I was wiped from the earth so easily, Kloe. No one cared that Judd Asher had just vanished. He died that day. My life just… suddenly hadn’t been. No one mourned me. No one bothered to look too hard. Judd Asher melted into the background, and the
nothing
took him.”

She downed her drink and picked up the bottle that sat on the table, filling her glass to the top.

“So, I needed something, anything, to fill that gap.” Her eyes snapped back to mine again. “And that’s where you came in.”

“Me?”

“Mmm. If I couldn’t fill it with my life, then maybe I could fill it with yours. I needed to fill that gaping chasm with anything, just to make my existence real. To know that life still went on while mine stopped.”

“I don’t understand.” Her voice was quiet, her confusion evident in her narrow eyes.

“The world could have blown up. Aliens could have taken every living person on this cruel fucking planet, and I wouldn’t have had a clue while I rotted away in there. Twenty years is a long time, Kloe. So long that you begin to think that maybe the
nothing
took over everything else.” Another drink. “And maybe if I filled that
nothing
with
your
life, then maybe mine wasn’t as unimportant to the world. That my existence had a meaning after all.”

I could see she still didn’t comprehend what I was saying. Maybe it didn’t make sense for me to fill the gap in my life with someone else’s, but to me it made perfect sense. A story to scribe on the blank pages of twenty-one years. Lyrics to accompany the piece of music that didn’t otherwise flow fluidly from the orchestra. A life to fill a life.

Pushing my birth certificate slightly to the right, I placed hers down before mine.

“Is that my birth certificate?”

“It is,” I answered without glancing at her. “You were born two years before me so, of course, you go first.”

She sat, stunned into silence, as she watched me place the next paper down at the side of Judd’s disappearance article.

“You were seven when your mother, Josie Rowan, married Brian Smith.”

Pain flickered over her face when she looked at the marriage certificate. I hated it, the sorrow that seeped from her, so quickly lowering my eyes again, I placed the next item down.

“Where did you get that?” Her voice was choked, horror cloaking her soft voice as she started to shake beside me.

“It’s best not to ask that,” I answered, giving her a quick grin.

The medical record of Samantha Rowan mocked us both. Mocked her lies and her childhood.

“You were such a sweet little thing,” I murmured as I flipped open the file. “I couldn’t quite push myself to read it. Although I admit I’ve had it a while. But when you told me what my…
father
,” I spat out the word, making her flinch, “had done to you, I made myself look.”

My eyes slid to hers when I placed the police report down next, and I had to clench my fists together. “Care to tell me which is lying. You, or the report?”

She stiffened, her back slamming ramrod straight as she turned her face away from mine.