Page 163 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

Please, baby.

Just keep it together for a few more minutes.

“Is he in the cabin?”

I only vaguely remember where it is.

Farther up the trail, but deep into the woods, away from where the loggers were working all those years ago.

He so rarely let me outside, save for when he needed help bringing in supplies, hanging the wash to dry, things that couldn’t be done inside. And even then, he kept a close eye on me.

So I couldn’t run.

But those brief moments of freedom where I wasn’t shackled to a bed frame or a radiator or the wood stove with only enough rope or chain to get me around the small cabin or to the bathroom built off the side of it meant everything to me.

They were when I took in everything around us.

Where the sun rose and set. The treelines. How the old trail curved away from the cabin toward something. Every single thing I could see.

I asked innocuous questions to figure out where the gorge was, to know which direction I had to move when my chance to escape presented itself. But I knew I would never outrun him pregnant.

And I couldn’t risk the baby.

I had to wait until he was born, until I was strong enough to run.

Biding my time became a game for me. I spent those months imagining the life we would have with Killian back on the homestead. All the things he would teach Niall. The love he would show him.

That was what kept me going until the opportunity presented itself.

That is what allows me to stare him down now without completely crumbling under the weight of what he did to me.

Earl looks up at me, a mixture of anger and confusion in his green eyes. His reddish hair, graying at the temples, is disheveled, just like the man himself always seemed to be.

“Please tell me where he is, Earl, so I can make sure he’s okay.”

“You think I wouldn’t take care of our son?”

He snaps the words, and Killian tightens his grip on the man’s throat. But I reach out and rest my free hand on the back of Killian’s neck, hoping it will calm him.

Warn him not to press too far.

He seems to relax his hold enough to allow Earl to suck in a ragged breath.

I breathe deeply to steady myself again, so he doesn’t hear the waver in my voice. “What did you do with him, Earl? Let me go make sure he’s all right.”

“He’s with the only person I can trust with him because you’ve proven I can’t trust you.”

Months and months of conversations with him float through my head, ramblings from a man who isn’t all there, and maybe hasn’t been for years, a man lost inside his own head, in memories and fantasies and flat-out hallucinations.

The only person I can trust…

Other things he said to me flicker through my head. My brain pounds against my temples, trying to get my attention, trying to direct me to the right place.

“You don’t trust me because I left with our son.”

He tries to buck free of Killian’s hold, but Killian replaces the axe, ready to push forward with what he has already started and sever Earl’s ear.

“I told you I would make you pay for what you did to him.”