Page 36 of Blood Ties

Riley

K ai doesn’t come back to the basement that night, nor the next one. I finish off my water jug and one of my last remaining protein bars, and then I’m left with nothing but metallic tap water to fill my stomach and my own thoughts to haunt me. Is this my punishment for screaming?

I did what I thought was right. I tried to save those girls... though from what I heard, the screaming and the scuffle and the long silence that followed, I failed horribly.

And those gunshots terrified me. I’ve never seen Knox with a gun, nor Kai. Was it one of those girls? Could Kai be hurt? I feared the worst at first, but I’ve heard him walking overhead since then. He just doesn’t come to the basement.

I’m not guilty about trying to save those strangers. But I am afraid. Afraid that Knox will find a way to make me pay for it, or that Kai’s given up on me.

I’m weak with hunger and half-asleep the next time the basement door opens. Still, I jolt upright, straining to listen in the darkness. Some of the tension melts from my body as I register the familiar steps. Kai .

But when he steps into the dim light, he looks... different. There are new shadows under his eyes. When he looks at me, he seems to stare right through me.

Is this what Kai’s anger looks like? Not the hot burn of Knox’s rage or the icy chill of his father’s cruelty, but this flat nothingness?

“Kai?” I whisper.

He blinks, and his eyes find mine. But his expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t smile like he’s started to recently, nor glare like he’s angry with me. He looks like he feels nothing at all.

“I brought you food,” he says. Even his voice is flat. He crouches down, and I hold out my hand to him, but he sets the ham sandwich on the mattress at my side without touching me.

“Kai,” I try again. “What happened to those girls?”

Something dark slides over his face. It was the wrong question to ask. But he stares at me instead of turning away.

“What do you think, Riley?” he asks. “What do you think happened when they heard someone screaming in the basement?”

I flinch at the blame in his words, the unfamiliar coldness in his tone.

“They panicked,” he continues when I stay silent. “They tried to run. We had to kill them.”

My breath hitches. He didn’t say Knox had to kill them . He said we .

Something in his expression shifts, like he’s realizing what he just said at the same time as I do.

“I had to,” he says. There’s a hint of the old Kai in his voice now, a little bit of a tremble, but I recoil from him.

I don’t know what to say, how to act in front of him.

He suddenly seems taller, stronger, the tendons in his forearms standing out as he clenches his fists.

For the first time since early into our relationship, I’m afraid as I look up at him.

He tangles his fingers in his own hair. “Why did you have to do that?” he asks, a wild look in his eyes. “Why did you scream? You promised. You promised me, and you lied.” He shakes his head. “Knox warned me that you’d lie.”

“You’re blaming this on me?” My throat is tight, my voice high and strained. “What did you expect, Kai? That I’d sit here and be quiet like a good little prisoner?”

He flinches. As though he’s forgotten. But of course he has — I’ve let him forget.

I’ve built up this fantasy that I’m his dream girl, here just for him, but it’s always been a lie.

I think I let myself forget, too. I started to believe that Kai was different, that he was good .

But at he end of the day, I’m still chained up in his family’s basement, and he’s a killer just like the rest of them.

“Have you fucking forgotten that I am trapped here?” I lift my shackled wrist, pulling it tight so the chain clinks. “Of course I screamed. Am I supposed to sit here and wait for you to get tired of me? To listen as you and your brother kill innocent girls like you killed my friends?”

Kai lets out a shaky breath. “I didn’t do anything to your friends.”

“ Liar !” I spit, tears gathering in my eyes.

“Knox told me what you did.” I tried so hard to forget, but it’s all bubbling back up now.

“He showed me where you chopped them up and fed them to the pigs. Like they were nothing more than—” I stop, suddenly, as his words sink in.

I didn’t do anything to your friends . But he didn’t deny hurting those girls yesterday.

Just like he didn’t say Knox killed them before.

I stare up at him, lower lip trembling. “What did you do to those girls, Kai?”

“I did what I had to,” he shouts.

I flinch, lifting a hand in front of my face and cowering against the wall

Silence thickens the air. I slowly lower my hand, breathing hard, to find Kai staring at me in shock.

His face cracks, and for a moment he looks utterly broken.

Then his expression smoothes over and goes blank again.

I’m lost for words, frozen as I stare up at him, trying to see some hint of the man I thought I knew.

“I did what I had to,” he says, more firmly. Then he turns and walks up the stairs, leaving me behind in the darkness.

*

I WAKE TO THE SOUND of footsteps and my heart pounding in my ears. Even in my sleep, I recognized those heavy boot treads, and I know who’s here before I turn to face him.

Knox grins at me. “Hi, darlin’. Been a while.”

I stare silently. His face is bruised, one of his eyes nearly swollen shut. I hope those girls got a few hits in, but I suspect it was his father. Still, I’m glad someone put him in his place. I hope it fucking hurt.

I hate him more than ever — for bringing those poor girls here, for pushing Kai into doing what he did, for undoubtedly manipulating his brother over the whole thing — but I’m too scared to throw any sharp words at him today.

“You thought you won, didn’t you?” he asks as he approaches the mattress. “Bet you thought you were real fuckin’ clever, turning my brother against me.”

My heart drums in my ears, my breath coming in little gasps. I thought I had grown immune to the horrors Knox can inflict on me, but it’s been weeks since I had to suffer his attention last.

Weeks since I’ve taken my birth control, too.

So even though I know it’s a mistake to show weakness, I sit up and press back against the wall, squeezing my thighs together. “Please don’t.”

He stops short. Lets out a surprised laugh. “Well, look at you. So polite all of a sudden.” He stands beside the mattress and eyes me up and down, leering. “I like hearing you beg.”

I swallow a lump in my throat, along with my pride. Is there anything I can offer him that he’ll like more than hurting me? I don’t know, but I have to try. I shift onto my hands and knees and crawl toward him. A small lift of his eyebrows is the only reaction I get, but he watches me, unmoving.

“I can make it good for you,” I whisper. I crawl closer, kneel in front of him and look up at him through my eyelashes, my stomach a sour pit of self-loathing. “Sir.”

“Yeah?” His smirk mocks me, but there’s a hoarse quality to his voice that lets me know I’m having the effect I was hoping for. “Show me.”

I reach up to undo his button and slide his zipper down. He’s still, hands at his sides, as I pull his cock free of his boxers.

“Is this how you do it for my brother?” he asks. “A good little slut on your knees for him?”

Then he grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back. I cry out, and he grins down at me. “‘Cause I’m not gonna treat you like my brother does,” he says. “I’m gonna treat you like the dirty whore you are.”

“Good,” I whisper. There is a sick part of me that aches for the torment, the punishment, to quash everything else I’m feeling. “Give me what I need, Knox.”

His eyes widen. His length hardens in front of my face. He guides it to my mouth, and I open wide for him, still maintaining eye contact as he slides the head of his cock over my tongue.

“My brother can’t satisfy you, can he?” Knox asks. “He doesn’t know the things you crave.”

I don’t answer him, but I stick my tongue out further, tilting my head back.

“You want me to fuck that pretty little mouth? Is that it?” He slides slowly in and out, just the tip of him. I nod as much as I can manage with his hand still gripping my hair.

When he pushes in again, he shoves all the way into the back of my throat. My eyes water as I gag, but he holds me there, grip on my hair tightening. When he finally pulls out, I’m gasping for air, tears blurring my vision.

“So fuckin’ pretty when you cry.” He grabs my head with both hands as he shoves his hips forward, and he starts to fuck my face in earnest. I gasp for air every time he pulls out, only to choke again.

His cock somehow slams harder, deeper with every thrust. His balls slap against my chin; his cock swells in my mouth.

I try to force my jaw wider, painfully wide, tears streaming down my face.

But I dig my nails into his thighs and force myself to stay in place, to be obedient for him, because this is better than a chance at pregnancy, no matter how dirty and used it makes me feel.

“God, you take me so good,” he grits out, grip on my head tightening.

He’s close, I can tell, his thighs starting to shake under my fingers — but he’s slowing down, instead of speeding up as he always does right before he cums. “But...” I blink away tears, and I find him smirking down at me.

“Did you really think this was gonna work? You know what I want, and I ain’t getting it like this. ”

He pulls out of my mouth with a wet pop. I gasp for air, dread turning my blood to ice as I realize what he’s saying.

No.

I lurch forward on my knees, suctioning my mouth over his cock again. He lets out a surprised sound as I suck him down deep and fast, bobbing up and down on his cock.

“Oh, fuck ,” he says. He yanks at my hair, but I fight against it, strands ripping free as I suck him like my life depends on it. “You little—”

He cuts off in a grunt. He finally manages to yank my head back, forcing me off of him, but it’s too late — he’s already spilling himself.

I grin even as it spurts over my face and chest. I’m a mess of spit and tears and cum, but I laugh at the stunned look on his face, the sound high and a little hysterical.

“Fuck you, Knox,” I say, and spit at his feet.

He stares at me as he zips his pants back up. “Christ,” he says. “Crazy fuckin’ bitch.” Then, impossibly, he laughs, too. “I missed you, Riley.”

He’s still laughing as he walks back up the stairs, and it erases any sense of victory I had.

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