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Ethan gripped my jaw in one hand, and his face came within inches of mine. “I don’t want to hurt you,” despair flowed through each word, his eyes heavy with regret, “Please, don’t make me hurt you. If anyone could understand, it would be you. You just need to understand.”
Ethan pi
For a fraction of a second, I thought he was going to let me go. But then something dawned on him, and his gaze went from apologetic to angry like a snap of the fingers. “And where will you go? Back to Masters? Do you honestly believe Masters or Lynch is going to forget your disappearance and not ask questions? I’m not a bloody idiot, Jett. I can’t risk it … and I’m not finished yet.”
“Finished with what? Haven’t you done enough?” Four guys died of suicide in the last seven months. I’d only walked in on Lionel, but it didn’t take a genius to put all the pieces together. Ethan had murdered all four of them. If he had been capable of that, what else was Ethan Scott capable of?
“Not yet,” Ethan whispered. “I have to finish what I’ve started.”
“You’re a sick son-of-a-bitch,” I screamed, then spit in his face.
Ethan slammed his eyes shut and wiped my spit from his face with the back of his hand. When his eyes opened again, a disturbing calmness swept through his black pupils. He launched forward and slapped the tape over my mouth again. “You just have to understand. I don’t want to hurt you.” Ethan’s forehead dropped to my thumping one. “Please don’t make me hurt you,” he gravely whispered. I closed my eyes, refusing to look into his blue ones. “Behave, Jett,” Ethan said to me in a soft tone. “Behave, and when the time comes, I’ll let you go. But right now, you need to cool off.”
He kissed my throbbing head and pushed himself off me, leaving me alone in the room.
Time elapsed. The sun died, and the moon moved passed the window out of sight. Heavy boots clipped the wooden planks above as Ethan continually paced the small cabin for hours. With every step, the floorboards creaked beneath, sending dust to fall from the ceiling and into the moon’s light. He had to come down sooner or later, and I preferred sooner. My bladder burned, reminding me I was human.
I pushed myself against the back wall and forced my eyes to stay open. My eyelids felt as if they were being pushed down against my will, and each time I drifted, I shook my head to keep myself alert. Outside the window, the haunting trees swayed against the harsh wind. My own words taunted me, “We’ll never be out of the woods,” and the irony made me chuckle.
But, I had been wrong before—a glass-half-empty pessimistic coward.
And there was no room left for pessimism in this world.
I was getting out of these damn woods, even if I had to cut down every tree.
Ethan’s boots bounced off the stairs, and my head snapped forward. A mixture of anger and adrenaline washed over me and woke me up entirely at once. The door opened, and he appeared, still wearing a black shirt with black jeans. His red hair looked almost black in the dark as well, and his blue eyes glistened like the moon against the ocean. Each step closer made me want to become one with the wall, but I held my ground, lifted my chin, and looked him in the eyes, giving him no escape from my silent promise to kill him as soon as I’d get the chance.
Exhausted, Ethan stood over me and dipped his fingers into his pocket and flicked open a knife. I held back from flinching, but shook my head and mumbled against the tape.
“Relax,” he muttered, placing one hand over both of my ankles before cutting them free from the bind. “You can use the loo, and I’ll feed you.”
Leaving my wrists still bound and the tape over my lips, Ethan led me up the stairs. The smell of sweet tomatoes wafted down the compressed stairway, and my feet moved slowly up each step, still heavy and numb from the lack of blood flow.
I thought about ru
The main floor was how I’d remembered. In the kitchen, a small pot set over a gas stove. I looked around and noticed there was no other bedroom, no other hallway, or upstairs. This was it. The only bedroom in this cabin was the one I’d been trapped in.
“Need to go?” Ethan asked as he pushed the door above the staircase open. My eyes flitted from his to the tiny bathroom. There was no cabinet, only a standing sink, a tub, and a toilet. You could tell there had been a mirror above the sink by the nail holes in the drywall, but it had been taken down. Ethan must’ve removed it. Smart.
I had to pee but didn’t want to. However, I didn’t know how long until I had my next chance. I dropped my chin, and Ethan laid his hand on my shoulder to guide me in. “I want to trust you, I do,” Ethan explained as he lifted my black POETIC hoodie and fumbled with the button on my jeans, “but I just can’t take the risk.” My eyes found the ceiling as he slid my bottoms down and sat me over the toilet.
After Ethan left the room and closed the door, tears slipped from my eye and soaked the tape stuck to my mouth, and the tape fell off halfway. I sat on the cold seat, sucking in enough air to fill my lungs while relieving myself in record time. The oxygen I desperately craved only made my dry throat worse.
There was a tiny circular window above the shower stall with no way to open, only to bust through. This gave me more than two ways to get out of here, but my best chance was out one of the doors.
Ethan appeared less than a minute later. “All done?” he asked as if he was having a conversation with a three-year-old. He grabbed a roll of toilet paper from behind me, crouched down, and wrapped his hand a few times with the paper. “I’m going to take care of you, Jett.”
“I hate you.” My voice was low, almost a whisper, and I slammed my eyes closed as his covered hand swiped between my legs. They didn’t open again until the toilet flushed. “Why are you doing this?”
Ethan stayed silent and pulled me up into a standing position between his crouched knees. One after the other, he slid up my panties, then jeans. He couldn’t look at me in the eyes any longer. Instead, his hypnotized gaze was focused on the way his fingers dragged up my legs.
Separating the living area and the kitchen was a small wooden table with two chairs. Ethan pulled out a chair and sat me down, putting me back into the restraints. He turned to face the stove and switched off the burner. “What are your plans, Officer Scott?” I attempted again, distancing myself from our prior relationship. “You plan on keeping me as a pet for the rest of your life? What was it you used to call me?” I leaned over the table, yanking my arms against the chair to get his attention. “Oh, that’s right,” I laughed, “I’m a storm. And you should know by now you can’t tame a storm.”