Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)(46)

Harvey doesn’t wipe my saliva away. He holds me steady, letting the rain carry the bloodied streaks down his pockmarked skin. A slow grin pulls his lips back to reveal decaying teeth in a smile that’s unnervingly disconnected from the rest of his apathetic mask.

He drops me but keeps his hold of my hair as he drags my weakened body around the side of the house. My head throbs. My face pulses. Tears sting my eyes with every tug on my hair, the pain in my shoulder radiating up my neck and into my limp arm. My feet scrabble on the grass and mud and debris, but I can’t get any footing with the way he keeps my head down low. I scratch at him and hit his leg with my good hand but he’s far too large to feel any impact from my futile fight.

We stop at a set of cellar doors. Harvey unlocks a rusted padlock and pulls the chain through the handles before opening one door and tossing me inside.

I hit the dirt with a grunt, my first breath filled with the scent of shit and piss and fear.

The contents of my stomach spill across the floor.

It isn’t until I’ve stopped retching that it registers that I’m not alone. Someone is sobbing in the dark.

“Adam,” a woman says through desolate cries. “He killed Adam. I h-heard it. He k-killed him.”

She keeps her distance, repeating her words in a desperate chant that seeps into every crack and crevice of my chest. Brother or lover or friend, whoever this Adam was, she loved him. And I know what it’s like to bear witness to the suffering of someone you love. I understand her grief and powerlessness better than most.

“Yes. He killed Adam,” I reply through strained, panting breaths as I pull my phone from my back pocket. It buzzes in my hand with a message, but I turn on the flashlight first, aiming it toward the floor between me and the naked woman crouched against the wall as she recoils from the light. “And I promise you, Adam will be the last person Harvey Mead ever kills.”

I’m not sure if that gives her any reassurance or closure. Maybe one day it will, but right now her loss is too fresh and the wound too deep. Her quiet sobs continue as I turn my attention to the screen when a text message comes in.

Sloane



SLOANE



ANSWER ME



WHERE ARE YOU?!



The dots of another incoming message start flashing as I type out a reply.

I’m okay. Locked in cellar. Right side of house.





Rowan’s reply is immediate.

Hold tight, love. I’m coming.



I read his message twice before I lock the screen and bite down on my lip. My nose stings. An ache burns in my chest. Maybe it’s just an Irish expression, but I still hear it over and over in Rowan’s voice, as though he’s right here in my head.

Hold tight, love.

“What’s your name?” I rasp out as I turn my attention to the crying woman who huddles against the brick wall. She’s about my age, slim, covered in streaks of dirt across her naked frame.

“I-I’m Autumn.”

“Okay, Autumn.” I set the phone down so the flashlight shines toward the ceiling and start unbuttoning my shirt. “I’m going to give this to you but I need your help to get it off.”

Autumn hesitates for a moment before approaching with tentative steps. We don’t talk as she helps guide the fabric over my dislocated shoulder, and though she backs away momentarily when I let out a cry of pain, she perseveres to free the shirt from my body. The fabric is soaked and muddy, and it might not keep her warm in the cool cellar, but at least she’ll be covered.

She’s just doing up the last button when an ax splits through the cellar doors.

“Sloane,” Rowan’s desperate voice yells, carrying above Autumn’s terrified scream and the wind and the driving rain. “Sloane!”

A raw ache grips my throat. My eyes fill with tears as I grab my phone and scramble closer to the doors. “I’m here, Rowan—”

“Stand back.” With a few more hits, the doors splinter and fall into the dark with the lock and chain. Rowan’s hand appears in the dim light.

“Take my hand, love.”

There must have been stairs in here once, but they’ve been removed, and I have to jump to grab Rowan’s palm, slipping on the first attempt with the rain and sweat on our skin. He repositions himself to lay on his belly, leaning further into the darkness.

“Both hands,” he demands, offering his palms to me.

“I can’t.”

A flash of lightning illuminates Rowan’s face, searing it into my memory forever. His lips are parted and I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath as his gaze snares on my misshapen shoulder and missing shirt. His features are anguish and fury painted in light and rain. Beautiful and haunting and terrifying.

Rowan doesn’t say anything as he reaches for me. When I jump, he catches my hand and grips it tight, hauling me up enough to grasp my elbow and pull me from the cellar.

As soon as I’m on the ground, I’m crushed in his embrace, trembling in his arms. I fist his soaked shirt. His scent envelops me and I want to hold on in this moment of comfort, but he forces us apart to look into my eyes.

“Can you run?” he asks, surveying my face. His eyes never settle as I nod, roaming my expression as though hunting for the truth. “You trust me?”

“Yes,” I say, my voice breathy but sure.