Taken by the Beast (The Conduit Series Book 1) (12 page)

I stood, brushing leaves and twigs from my dress, cursed my current trend of ruining all my designer things, and took a long look around. Where the hell was this guy? I had never seen him run and, given the sexual encounter I had with him earlier, he didn’t seem like the type to do anything in a rush.

I clutched my purse and thought about turning around. But I knew that was no good. If I didn’t get to the bottom of this, I would never have a clear head around Abram again. I would ruin this relationship before it even started.

Well, Char, there’s only one thing to do
.

I didn’t know everything that was going on—in fact, the only pieces I 
did 
have about what was happening didn’t make sense when I tried to put them together—but I did know it had something to do with that old house, and I was pretty sure I could find my way back to it.

So long as Abram wasn’t there, I could make peace with the idea he didn’t have anything to do with this—that whatever he was doing in these woods was as innocent as I hoped it was. And peace, it seemed, was in short supply these days.

***

The mile up the road out of New Haven seemed shorter when full of anxiety instead of fear, but the trek through the woods was as unenjoyable as ever. Considering I had never been a nature lover—heels and hills don’t mix—I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the trip, regardless how much shorter it was this time. But something about that house seemed to draw me to it, as if a piece of myself was waking up and guiding through this place where all the trees and paths looked the same.

I barely had to think as I moved toward my destination, which was good considering my mind had basically melted into paste by this point.

The house came into view. First that awful peak, jutting out from the tree line. Next, I saw the top floor, with the beckoning light still burning in the window.

It had taken me nearly an hour the other night to get away from this place, and I was a bit stunned to realize how close to the road it actually was. Maybe being disoriented from the attack had slowed my escape.

As I drew nearer, the chipped paint and quaint structure exposed beneath the waning sunlight made the old house look less monstrous and more lonely. Or, as lonely as a house could look anyway.

Here was this house, sitting untouched and outpaced by the rest of the world. It was sort of sad. But, more than that, it was almost beautiful. Or at least it would have been if this hadn’t been the location where I’d nearly been eaten alive by a pair of quarreling monsters.

I stepped closer to the house, pursing my lips at the already repaired window. For a house that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in fifty years, it sure had an efficient handyman.

I pushed all of that out of my mind. At this point, I didn’t care about solving this mystery. The only thing that mattered was ruling out Abram as a participant in it.

Inching forward, I bit my lip as the door revealed itself to me. He wasn’t going to be here. He was a good man—a bit of a dick, sure, but not the sort to lie, not about something like this. He was old fashioned in a way I couldn’t really describe. He was untouched by time, sort of like this house. Sort of like—

Sort of like the kind of man I would find standing in the threshold of the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. Apparently.

My heart sank at the sight of him.
No, Abram. Please, no
. However small it was, this man who I had just slept with had a part in all of this.

His dark eyes scanned the periphery of the woods and, for an instant, I thought he was looking for me. Maybe he
had
heard my ringer go off. Maybe he had sprinted away from me quickly enough for me to lose sight of him.

He turned and walked into the house. The door slammed shut behind him, and I was alone, gasping in shock and slumping against a nearby tree.

Shock soured in my stomach, turning to hurt and finally to anger. He had lied to me. It must have been Abram himself who found me in the house that night. Of course, that would have also meant he’d fought back those monsters and saved me. But if that was the case, why didn’t he just tell me? Why did he let me limp back to town with cuts, bruises, and a mind so rocked with questions that it barely functioned?

I wanted answers. Abram
owed
me those answers. And, by God, I was going to get them. But I couldn’t just barge in there. He had lied to me at least once. I would have to be sneaky about this and gather some clues, or else he might hide more from me before I ever had the chance to find out. But I also couldn’t wait for him to leave. It was getting late and, if I didn’t show up soon, Lulu would worry.

Going missing twice inside of a week was the last thing my extremely pregnant and hyper-worrisome best friend needed.

I was going to have to go inside now. I would have to sneak around without Abram knowing I was in there. It was a terrible plan, and yet, it was all I had without the risk of losing this opportunity forever.

Ducking low, I scampered across the field toward the front door. My feet fell lightly onto the porch and, quietly as possible, I turned the knob.

I had no idea what I was going to do if Abram had locked it behind him. Or if he was standing right on the other side of the door. I had never been the sort who thought things through. But the house was in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn’t likely he was expecting company, or that he had come all the way out here to sit the living room.

Luckily for me, the door sprang open. After slipping inside, I crouched down and looked around cautiously, praying Abram wasn’t standing there watching me. But the living room was as empty today as it had been the other night, though the quickly setting sun tinted the entire room orange and red.

I listened for sounds, trying to gauge where Abram might be. Suddenly, heavy footsteps stomped from a back room. Crap. They were headed this way. I sprang to my feet, bolted toward the steps, and pushed up them, hoping to get out of sight before he found me.

I shuddered as my feet fell across the staircase. The last time I had been on them, I had been tumbling down like a discarded sequin on a McCartney original. Shaking my head, I moved into the upstairs hallway just before Abram crossed into the living room.

Pressed against the wall, I found myself guarded in shadow. The sun would be down soon, and getting home from here would prove troublesome. But I needed answers. And right now was the only time I could get them.

Sorry, Lulu
.

Abram stopped in the living room, and I shivered, thinking he would move up the stairs. I darted farther into the hallway. Remembering the layout from the last time I was here, I knew there were only two rooms at the end of the hall. One of them was the room I had almost died in and the other had been locked the last time I was here.

Now, with little bit of daylight remaining, I could actually
see
the door. And when I did, I nearly choked on air. The door was stamped with a similar crescent moon symbol to the mysterious room inside The Castle.

Realization slammed into me with a sickening thud. How could I have forgotten the way the doorknob had burned me that night?
Of course
Abram had something to do with all this. I was just the idiot girl who needed a damn symbol to spell it out for me. But that still didn’t explain what was going on. I needed to hide before Abram came upstairs. I needed to find answers before he found me.

I moved toward the marked door, knowing it would probably be locked but also knowing I would regret it forever if I didn’t at least check. Suddenly, a strange noise poured from the other side. It was a song; someone was singing one word.

My name.

A repressed memory from earlier in the night tried to push its way through. The room in the hall at The Castle … I couldn’t quite grasp the picture, though. It was like a lost dream. I tried to retrieve more from my mind, but footsteps bounding up the stairs interrupted my efforts.

Abram would be here in mere seconds, and unless I found someplace to hide, he would know I had followed him.

The crescent moon symbol began to glow, and I jerked back just in time for the previously locked door to fly open. A whoosh of cinnamon-scented air burst from the open space, almost knocking me down.

I slid into the room quickly and, without touching it, the door closed behind me.

Okay, so, that’s not a good sign.

A loud crashing and then a sound like glass shattering stole my attention before I was able to take the room in. A picture had fallen off a nearby counter. When I looked down at it, my heart skidded to a stop.

The old photograph lay face up under shards of broken frame. Two men stood by a lake, smiling for the camera and showing off their latest catch: a huge catfish.

I recognized both of the men instantly. I had seen one of them in my dreams almost every night since I was a child. When I was little, it seemed I would never stop seeing his face, watching him walk away from me night after night. It was my father and, beside him, untouched by time or trend, stood Abram.

“He looks exactly the same,” I muttered, mouth agape. “How is that … that’s not possible.”

“Miss,” a tired voice croaked, breaking me from my concentration and startling the hell out of me. “Are you here to help me?”

I spun around, the picture and frame slipping from my hand to crash to floor once again. A woman sat on the floor in the fetal position. She was pale and disheveled. Her face was gaunt, and she seemed as though she hadn’t slept in weeks. She looked up at me expectantly. When she shuffled, I realized both her hands and feet were fastened with chains connected to the wall.

I recognized her, too. With sickening clarity, I realized where I had seen this face before. It had shone, bright and smiling, from the missing poster I had seen when I first returned to town.

This was the missing girl. She was being kept here, in a house that Abram had something to do with.

This—the missing woman, the mutilated bodies, the strange creatures that chased me to 
this 
house—was all connected.

And Abram was at the center of it.  

“
Are you here to help me
?”

The words couldn’t have been more off the mark. Here I was, staring at this woman, mouth agape and wide eyed. I couldn’t help myself, let alone someone else—not with my mind spinning like a
top.

“H-hurry,” the woman
begged. “He’ll be here soon. He’s never gone for too long.”

There was such hurt in her eyes, such unadulterated broken fear; it sickened me. Could Abram—the Abram that I knew—be the source of that? It didn’t seem possible.

Cuts and bruises spotted her filthy face. Her hands hung limply at her sides, useless appendages bound by chains. As shocked as I was, I managed to shake it off and kneel beside her.

She reeked as though she hadn’t bathed in weeks, which I realized with stomach-churning horror was probably the case.

“Is there a key?” I asked, mouth dry.

“There’s always a key,” she answered, narrowing her eyes. “We just don’t always see it at first glance.”

Her hand jerked toward my own, striking at me with long, unwashed nails. She sliced into my palm, breaking the skin and sending a trail of blood dripping to the floor.

“Ah!” I jerked away.

Her gaze transfixed on my blood, she ran her forefinger across the splatter. Then she looked back up at me, her eyes wide and sparkling.

“Chaarriissseeee,” she said in the sing song voice that had seemed to taunt me from behind closed doors.

I stumbled to my feet, grabbing my palm and glaring at her. There was a hunger in the way she looked at me now, something almost feral in her eyes.

“How do you know my name?”

“Did you know fear has a scent, Charisse?” She tilted her head to one side, her brow furrowing thoughtfully. “It’s sweet, like sugarplum. You stink of it at the moment, but it won’t be enough to make up for the blood. It won’t ever be enough.”

I was too stunned to reply. I stepped back, torn between helping her and being terrified she might hurt me.

“Let me out,” she hissed. She pulled toward me, jerking against her chains.

“I … I don’t
have the key.” I almost tumbled with the next step back I took.

She held her forefinger up; it was coated with my blood. She grinned. “Just say the word.”

“Leave her alone!” Abram growled from behind me.

I spun, shuddering at the sight of him. He was just as big as he had ever been, but suddenly that size seemed more important, more threatening.

“
You
leave her alone!” I yelled, steeling myself. He wasn’t about to get away with this, not if I could help it.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” he said, looking past me. “Wipe it off, or I’ll take the hand. I mean it.”

The woman’s eyes slid from Abram to me. Slowly, she ran her forefinger across the wall, wiping it clean. She sneered. “We’re not done.”

“We never are.” He sighed and turned his attention to me.

As they always had, his dark eyes disarmed me the instant they met my own. But this time, I couldn’t afford to let myself get lost in them, not when it was clear what sort of a person he was.

“Let her go,” I demanded.

Sure, the chick was acting strange—one charm short of a bracelet—but who was to say that being held captive for so long wouldn’t do the same to me? She was probably in shock, starving, dehydrated, and certainly scared to death.

“We need to talk,” he answered flatly.

“You can talk to the police. How about that?” I said, balling my fists.

I had been so blind, so stupid. How could I have let myself be seduced by someone like this, much less fall for him?

“I can’t let you do that,” he said, stepping closer to me.

I flinched, lunging backward and fumbling for my phone.

“It doesn’t work out here. Don’t you remember?” he asked. “Though I hope you know by now that I would never hurt you.”

“Tell that to her.” I motioned back to his prisoner.

“She’s a different story. A
long
story.” His jaw flexed. “I said we needed to talk, and we need to do it alone. Now, you can come with me, or I can throw you over my shoulder and take you.”