Chapter 15 Kristen
I collapsed onto the couch and let my body melt into it in a way that felt like the only thing I could afford right then. My arms were crossed tight in front of my chest, shoulders curled inward like I was trying to protect something fragile that had been beaten up all day. The fabric of my shirt felt scratchy against my skin, gritty from the ride back and whatever humiliation the first day had left behind. I didn’t have tears left. I had resentment instead. I had rising anger that throbbed like the dull ache at the back of my skull.
Patricia sat across from me on the loveseat, one leg tucked under the other, silent for longer than I expected. She watched me with patient eyes, but there was a distance in her expression, like she was managing every emotion at a careful remove. Sympathy, yes. But also resignation. Acceptance of the grind that was Phoenix and the people it chewed up.
“It’s always like that in the beginning,” she finally said, folding her hands in her lap. Her voice sounded threadbare, like she’d said these words too many times before. “First week. First month. Hell, sometimes the first year.”
I heard the words, felt them enter the air, but my reaction didn’t match. I muttered, “I don’t have a year.”
The room went quiet again, thick with the unspoken weight of what that meant, what it already felt like to be worn down by this place. Patricia’s lips pressed together, and she reached out to smooth a lock of hair from my forehead, her touch gentle but not intrusive.
“Just hang on,” she said. “Let things settle. People will start to show themselves for what they are.”
I nodded, partly because that was the polite thing, partly because I wasn’t sure what else to do in that moment. But as soon as she stood and walked toward the kitchen to make tea, I exhaled sharply, a long breath that felt like it carried every ounce of frustration I had in my chest.
I sat there for another ten seconds after her gone, just staring at the patterned fabric of the couch beneath my fingers, my pulse heavy in my ears. Everything about Phoenix had felt like a constant reminder that I didn’t belong, that I was nothing in a sea of everything, and that sense of emptiness had started to seep into my bones. I didn’t want to settle. I wanted answers. I wanted direction. I wanted something I could grab onto that wasn’t going to swallow me whole.
So I stood up and found my car keys on the coffee table, their metal cold against my palm, the weight of them strangely comforting. I didn’t consult Patricia. I didn’t wait for her offer to drive me. I didn’t want her input, her tips, her warnings. I needed to feel in control of something. Even if that meant driving out to the safe house alone and confronting my own discomfort.
The driver waiting at the curb opened the car door for me like it was automatic, like he’d been instructed, trained, or programmed to just do that without thinking. His eyes didn’t register mine. I waved him off quickly, more forcefully than I intended, and said, “I’ll take it from here.”
He didn’t argue. He just stepped back and closed the door with a precise click that sounded louder than it should. I slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirror without looking at my reflection. I didn’t want to see the exhaustion in my eyes, the way my jaw stayed tight even when I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular.
I turned the key. The engine caught. My hands gripped the wheel. The route back to the safe house was a blur in memory, like something I’d driven a thousand times even though I knew I hadn’t. My fingers found the turns instinctively, steering through winding roads as the trees thinned and the pavement turned pitted and uneven beneath me. My breath steadied with every curve. My pulse settled into a rhythm that felt familiar and grounding. Control. I still had some measure of it. At least here.
The house appeared at the edge of the clearing like a memory I wasn’t sure was real. Empty. Silent. No lights. No sign of life. The air felt charged in an odd way, like the world outside had thickened slightly once I crossed the threshold of those trees. I parked in front and turned off the engine, and for a long moment the only thing I heard was my breath and the faint scrape of leaves brushing the siding in the wind.
I approached the front door. It was locked, the old wood dusty, as though it hadn’t been opened except by me in days. I tried the knob gently. Nothing. I tugged at it harder. Still nothing. I leaned my forehead against the cool surface and exhaled, frustrated, ready to turn back to the car and leave this place behind until it faded out of my mind.
Then I saw it.
The outdoor shower stood beyond the house, like it had been waiting for me to remember. The metal gleamed faintly in the dying light, the pipes rising out of the earth like a crooked spine. My stomach twisted, and heat rose to my cheeks, unbidden and unplanned. The memory of him there surged up in an instant, as clear as if the water were still running down his body. Naked. Hard. His hand stroking his cock with slow, measured movements. The way the water had carved lines over his abs and thighs. That moment when he’d looked up and caught me watching, his face frozen between something like curiosity and the shadow of shame.
I turned my head away, jaw tight, palms clenching by my sides. Stop thinking about that. I tried to ground myself, breath shallow, heartbeat sharp. This was no place for fantasies or shame or any lingering threads of sexual humiliation. This was a safe house. A place I was supposed to feel secure. Not flustered and angry and alive in the wrong ways.
My eyes drifted past the shower.
There was another shape tucked just behind the house, a low mound of earth partially hidden by brush and shadows. At first I thought it was just another bush. Then I saw the outline of a hatch, the rough edges of its frame peeking out from under leaves. A storm cellar.
My curiosity, that dull burn in my chest, rattled forward. I should have stayed away from this place. I should have told myself a thousand reasons not to follow the instinct. But something tugged at the edge of me, a voice in the back of my head whispering that I needed to know what was down there. Whether it was danger or answers or memories better left buried, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was I wasn’t going back to Phoenix feeling like a nothing. Not anymore.
I reached for the rusted handle and pulled. The hatch creaked open, and a spiral of cool, dry air rose up as I stepped inside. The narrow stairs were uneven, gapped with old wood and dust, and I hesitated at the top, catching my breath as the silence settled thick around me. It was colder down here. Dry. The walls were lined with old wood shelves that sagged under the weight of things that looked like preparation rather than abandonment.
The yellow hum of a bare bulb flicked on when I flicked the switch, giving the room an eerie gleam. I blinked up at the shelves stacked with weapons in orderly rows. Guns of every size. Machetes. Baseball bats with nails hammered through the barrels. Hammers bigger than my forearm. Some were stained with something dark and crusted, others looked unused, like they’d been bought for intentions later forgotten.
My pulse thumped in my ears as I moved deeper into the room, eyes scanning every surface. Then I saw the wall that didn’t hold killing tools. It held tools meant to inflict pain with precision. Hooks. Restraints. A wire garrote that glinted cruelly under the yellow light like a smile with no warmth.
I swallowed hard, uneasy but drawn deeper still. This wasn’t just a weapons cache. This was a personal arsenal built for brutality and control in a way that went beyond defense.
At the far end of the cellar stood a tall cabinet, slightly ajar, its door creaking like a whisper as I approached. The air was cooler by it, heavier. My fingertips brushed the edge, and I hesitated only a heartbeat before pulling it fully open.
What I saw inside made my breath catch.
Sealed vibrators in plastic. Bottles of lube lined up in neat rows. Leather cuffs in various sizes. Some locked. Some open. There were straps and paddles, ropes, blindfolds. Everything had a label. Everything looked personal. Intimate. Not discarded or forgotten. Set aside and ready.
My eyes drifted upward to a rail above the cabinet. There, hanging, were cuffs, unlocked and silent. One pair glinted in the bulb’s light. Curiosity sparked, stupid and irresistible, and I reached up just to touch them, to feel the cold metal against my skin, to know what it was like to hold something so clearly not meant for casual handling.
Then came the sharp click.
The metal snapped closed around one wrist.
I gasped and jerked, pulling, the cold steel biting into my skin as fear kicked in. Before I could even process the sound, another click echoed in the quiet and the second cuff snapped closed around my other wrist.
My arms were stretched above my head, locked in place. The cabinet doors were inches behind me, the room suddenly too small, too loud in my ears. I pulled at the cuffs again, heart pounding, breath speeding up in a way that felt primal and terrible, panic blooming in my chest.
“Shit. Shit—”
My voice broke off as the first note of a motorcycle engine reached my ears, low and rumbling, waking every nerve in my body. Gravel cracked beneath tires. The hum grew louder, closer. He was back. My stomach dropped. My mind raced. My wrists ached in the cuffs.
And the last thought I had before I trembled into full alertness was one word.
Fuck.