Chapter Text
She breathed out, lungs stinging in the hot Louisiana air. The sky was singin’ a low ballad for the coming storm, crooning out a low hum of clouds and humidity. Her bruises didn’t look so bad in the purple light of the darkening evening, melting softly into faint patches of violets and yellows. She’d see them stronger in the morning; see the full damage of the past two days.
They’d been driving nonstop since the bloodbath. Her coat was soaked red; her dress splattered and crusted over with rusty life. It wasn’t hers—very little of the blood on the floors had been hers—but it served as a deadly reminder all the same. She refused to take her hair out of a bun, knowing she’d pull away with matted clumps of blood under her fingernails.
She hadn’t spoken more than necessary, and he hadn’t prodded her for a word. Sometimes there was an inquiry to the next exit, sometimes a simple are you cold or hot. She said as few words as possible, and she never met his eyes. She didn’t want to see now, didn’t want to see the devil behind his wine-red gaze. He hid so much behind the wall of himself, and she never wanted that dam to break.
It had, on the judgment night.
“Be blind,” he’d said, the smallest plead in his voice. “Be blind and turn around. Run, Alana, and don’t look back.”
She had blinked back the threatening tears, paralyzed, unable to break from her bluff. He moved towards her and still she stood. She had been so frightened. So frightened as he’d put down his knives and cradled her head. Then she was out.
Out, out, out.
Compared to now, she’d have rather died. Rather be silent and blue in the ground than silent and red in the wild. With the devil, with Lucifer, with—
With this man she once loved.
“I’m dizzy.”
He stopped breaking his way through the woods. “Are you dehydrated?”
She shook her head.
He was analyzing her in the gathering darkness; she could see his eyes flutter, could see a thousand soundless words fall off his tongue. “We’re almost there. Hold on for another quarter hour.”
She trudged after him through the maze of grass and trees and mud. She had no idea where in the state they were aside from middle. Middle of something. The ocean and high tides were replaced by a syrupy river and her surrounding deltas. She was uneasy clumping through the area, thick earth sinking around her boots. Maybe there were alligators hiding in the swamps. Maybe there were huge turtles and massive carp. Maybe he’d feed her to a bear.
Were there even bears in the south?
She let out a nervous breath upon catching sight of the roof—reddish, tiled, and not full of holes. There was a high porch and a wooden deck somehow not rotting in this heat. Not as large or as grand as his house, but it still spoke of his tastes. Especially did the willows, crying long strands of green from their tall branches.
The rain started not long after they entered the house.
It was small, but not cramped by any stretch. The floor was completely bare of carpets and a small table stood in the central room. One chair sat beside it, the other was pushed into a corner. The walls were decorated with bones—bones and skulls and feathers and brass candleholders spotted with age.
Alana stood by a window, arms close to her body, eyes never moving from his figure as he crept through the dim space. He lit only candles—were there electric lines out here in the still woods?—and said only nothing, navigating like an owl in the blackness of the rooms. He said only nothing until his ritual was complete, the weakest lights trying their hardest to bathe the walls in calm orangey-gold flickers.
“Are you still dizzy?” His voice was stiff from disuse, but his eyes held the same ember.
“Yes.”
“Sit, I’ll bring you water.”
“No, I’ll fetch it myself.”
She walked carefully through the space, trying not to get within an arm’s length of him. She didn’t want him to touch her, and she certainly didn’t want him to drug her—or give him the chance. She’d be fixing all her own food for as long as he planned to keep her alive—if he planned to keep her alive.
His eyes narrowed. He was too smart for her small games. “There’s a bed down the hall.”
“I’m not sleeping while you’re awake.”
“You cannot go weeks without sleep. It’s already been over forty-eight hours.”
She folded her arms across her chest, well out of his reach. She wouldn’t lie while the devil watched.
He didn’t lock her inside. She was free to escape this house full of skulls and elk antlers. Free to leave the smoke of the whispering candles and heavy scents of earth and flowers. The storm trapped her, splitting the sky with her crackling electric call, shaking the ground with her ferocious cry of war. Rain fell hard and fast upon the roof, drowning out her mind, her thoughts, pounding hard even when the thunder rolled over and vanished down the river.
She sat in the far chair by the back wall, her knees curled up to her chest, her head below a great mounted bear skull. She was truly dizzy, the flames flickering and swaying into shapes and words. He’ll kill you when he’s finished, the candles murmured. He kills them all when they’ve run their usefulness.
Or he left them to die, like Jack. Like Will. And, from what she caught under his breath, like Abigail.
She found the sun staring at her in the morning and she cursed herself for falling asleep. He was nowhere to be seen and she could properly look at her environment now. The walls had been white once, but were spotted with water stains and large jagged patches of the wood underneath. Her bones ached in the swampy heat, skin hot and irritated under her layers of clothes. The rains had brought nothing but humidity, crackling and smoky. She felt as though she were trapped in a damp woolen sweater, unable to slither out.
The umber smell of coffee drifted to her nose and she snapped her attention from the misty outside world. He stood over her with a mug outstretched. She refused it.
“You’ll starve if you decline all the food I offer.”
She’d rather starve—brought her closer to death. The less time she had to suffer with him, the better.
“I’m not going to poison you, Alana.”
Her name on his tongue made her cringe. “Why did you bring me along?”
“Company. Hostage. Rash thinking. Accomplice.”
“I won’t aid you.”
“I know that.” He sunk into the chair at the table, placing both cups on the old wooden surface. “Rash thinking.”
She watched him from her perch, body still coiled in tight fear and anticipation. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept—or slept poorly, like she. There was some glow about him in the bleak sunlight, something unseen until now. It made her sick with anxiety and stress.
“You can leave, if you wish. I won’t stop you from running off into the night.” He ran a finger over the lip of his mug. “You aren’t a captive animal.”
She felt like one.
He left midmorning, wandering out into the rain-soaked world dressed in clothes that made him a different man. She watched him go from the wide window of the master bedroom—which was nothing more than an empty room on the second floor. The floral wallpaper was long-faded and torn, pulling away from a cream wash that spoke of better days. The curtains were dirty white things, covered in dust and faded yellow streaks. There was no mold, surprisingly, and though the entire house felt abandoned, it kept the air of a warm, better-times nostalgia.
The first thing she did was shower.
Dim and small, the master bathroom was the one space she found to be littered with living. Jars of dusty creams and dried-up liquids were gloomily arrayed in a medicine cabinet, looking sadly out from the open door. There was evidence of him in the shape of a toothbrush and an old-fashioned shaving kit lain out on the counter. The sink’s faucet was caked with mold and tarnish, the bowl cracked and stained. The shower was newer than the rest of the bathroom, but it was dilapidated.
Alana disposed of her clothes on the grimy floor. He’d left a clean towel for her on the toilet seat, knowing she’d come to this room. He was so prepared for this that it disturbed her. He knew she’d come along, either by choice or by force. He’d prepped minimally, though, with only a bar of soap and a small bottle of liquid—shampoo, she wagered—for washing.
The water was hot, at least, she thanked a god she hadn’t prayed to in years. She watched calmly as rufous water cascaded down her pale skin and onto the dirty gray tiles under her feet, shutting down any rumination. They were watercolors, she reminded herself. She’d been painting. She’d been painting a huge field of tulips red as ladybugs. Nothing had happened, this was her shower at home. The dried blood and scabs were pigments and thick acrylics. She was home, everyone was safe, and she was still—he—he wasn’t what he is. She’d rinse the day from her body and curl up next to—
No.
No.
There was no crawling home. There was no hiding, or denying, or ignoring. There was no avoidance. There was no cowering.
She didn’t have time for this weakness. She didn’t have time to die.
Soap still clinging to hair, she slammed off the water. The towel barely graced her skin before she was out of the bathroom door, racing downstairs with her stained clothes. As she expected, there was a clean dress in the room he gave her. It fit her well enough and it was short, for which she was grateful. Tall boots on her calves, she pushed open the screen door to the back porch, gazing out into the thick woods. She could hide in there, she could escape and her trail would be lost forever.
The outer world was sticky, and she could feel on her scalp that her hair wouldn’t dry, not fully. The slight heels on these boots would sink into the wet dirt and sloppy mud, slowing her down. But she had to take this chance, she had to try to find a road, another cabin, a campsite—anything indicating human activity. She didn’t even need to alert the FBI where he was; she just needed to live, to run. She could disappear down here in the thick air and boggy swamps, never heard from again. She’d discard her name, discard her identity, discard her degrees. She’d take whatever work came her way as long as she was miles away from the devil’s home.
Time left. The sun moved, but the lighting never changed. The shadows swayed and called, but time didn’t pass. She had no idea how long she’d been out in the woods. It felt like an eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour, not with high noon in the sky. She started marking trees with the knife she’d taken from the kitchen, hoping never to run into the sliced bark again.
Alana hadn’t thought this through. Here she was, in this vast unknown southern jungle, armed with a paring knife, a flashlight, and an unknown length of rope. She had panicked. She hadn’t done this well. What if she were stuck out here for hours, days? What if she never found a way out? What if she starved to death, or got injured, or became sick?
What if those shapes on the corners of her vision were more than shapes?
They were black, dark, and never present when she turned frantically. They swam with the breeze, but they didn’t follow its speed. As she crept on, they grew in number. The birds were absent. There were no sounds in this forest aside from her footsteps and the sigh of branches. Small growls and snarls echoed when she went north, growing until she changed directions. Her heart was beating frantically in her chest, but she couldn’t go back—she didn’t know where back was.
Why had she decided to be brave?
She made a turn at a crooked tree with lanterns hanging from its twisted, bent-over trunk. There was the possibility someone lived in the area—
The world went dark.
It was night, the moon high over her position. Just a dimming twilight, but it was still dark where it had been midday moments ago. Candles were crackling in the lanterns, blazing tiny flames against the hum of Louisiana heat. She sprinted back, back away from this bizarre fixture—
And it was day again.
But it was night passed the tree.
What time was it really?
Night, day, night, day, night, day—
Alana panicked.
Alana panicked and she took off away from the tree, stumbling over roots and mud and uneven ground. She ran for as long as she could, the sun finally making progress in the sky. The charcoal blots in her peripherals took bigger shapes—long and limber with long snouts and tails. They started inching closer until a roof broke through the trees.
Alana came to a jarring halt, nearly toppling over. He stood on the deck, hands on the railing, lips quirked into an unreadable expression.
“I’ve forgotten, but there’s one rule. You may leave the property, you may go wherever you like and never return, but you cannot go through the back woods.”
She wiped a hand across her mouth to discover blood on the back of her palm. She’d split her lip. “Or what?”
“Or next time I’ll leave you out there to rot.”
He turned quietly and returned inside with less than a sound. Alana frowned, remaining outside in the looming dusk. She stood in it until it lapped at her ankles and soaked into the sky. She stood until the breeze became her blood and the hum of cicadas was her heartbeat. She stood outside until the stars were her eyes and she exhaled the moon on her breath. Next time, she'd be stronger. Next time, she wouldn't let him herd her to his will. Next time, she wasn't going to listen.
Next time, she’d be prepared.