Page 39 of Deacon (The Sovereign Mountain #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

FREYA

I can tell I’m in the back seat of Aiden’s truck by the familiar oil and leather scent.

I was asleep. Then, I was ripped from our bed, my eyes covered with a rag. All I remember clearly was Stu yapping his head off. Hands were on me, gripping hard enough to hurt. I heard my own voice, begging those hands not to hurt me. The only thought in my head was the baby who might be waiting in my belly.

I was dragged across the bed. Then, they slung me over their shoulder, and right away, I knew it was one of two people by the way they walked.

Deacon or Aiden.

And only one of those men wants to hurt me.

My arms prickle with goosebumps. After Deacon left, I changed into my black slip so I could take a nap, and it’s freezing outside. I’m still wearing the chastity harness without that strap underneath. Deacon doesn’t take it off unless I have a reason for it.

My nose drips. I’m cold, exposed, and scared. Every time the truck goes over a bump, I jostle and my stomach flops. My hands are bound behind my back with what feels like cloth. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s jarringly different from when Deacon binds my wrists .

The truck goes until I feel it shift from the road to gravel. I brace my feet on the floor, my body flopping from side to side. My center of gravity stabilizes, and we’re going up a hill. I lean my head against the rest.

“Aiden,” I whisper.

“Shut up.”

His voice is gruff.

“Please don’t do this,” I say, keeping my voice sweet and low.

He doesn’t answer. The truck comes to a halt and the door slams. His hand wraps around my elbow, and he drags me out, slinging me back over his shoulder. All the blood rushes to my head. It’s disorienting to move without knowing where we’re heading.

A door slams. Boots ring out. Another door opens. I’m laid on a bed, and the door shuts again.

I keep perfectly still. The room smells faintly of whiskey and dampness.

My heart beats like it’s trying to jump from my chest. In the darkness, I try to figure out what this horrible feeling is knotted in my belly, creeping through my veins like cold.

I thought it was terror, but it’s something worse—acceptance of my fate.

I always knew this would come.

Aiden taught me that violence is inevitable. The same cycle that forced him into the factory, that forced Bittern down into that mine, has brought me here.

Desperation.

We’re all just clawing over each other, trying to get a leg up, hoping for relief that never comes. The deck was stacked against all of us, some of us more than others. Now, we’re all trying to figure out how to play a game we’re bound to lose.

The door creaks. Boots sound on the floor, and the bed sinks. Unsteady fingers pull the blindfold up, and the light blinds me for a second. Bittern’s haggard face swims into view. He looks so much older than thirty, and the heavy, dull expression in his eyes is worse than usual .

“Hey, Frey,” he says.

“Bittern.” The word bursts out.

He runs a hand over his face, rubbing his temples. “I didn’t want this to happen. I told Aiden to just let you stay put, but he’s angry.”

“I know,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “No, Frey, he’s really fucking angry. I’ve never seen him like this. He doesn’t sleep. It’s not like before.”

My stomach sinks. I’ve seen Aiden so angry, it made me hole up in my room for two days, but I can tell by Bittern’s face that this is different.

I reach out and grip his forearm. Beneath my palm, there’s a scar—white, twisted in a circle, like he got it caught in something and tore it out.

I never asked where he got that. I always assumed it was from the mine.

“Bittern,” I whisper, “I need you to get me out of here.”

His throat bobs. He’s pale, like he’s cold, but sweat drips down his temple. “I don’t know what I can do,” he says. “I’ve never been a match for Aiden.”

“Bittern—”

“Frey, listen, I—”

Desperate, I yank his arm so he has to look me in the eyes.

“Bittern, I think I’m pregnant,” I whisper, fear cracking my voice. “I need to get back to Deacon.”

He goes still, only his eyes darting down to my waistline. Suddenly, we’re not in this tiny room with the world falling apart around us. We’re right back home, tucked in the Appalachian Mountains. The porch steps, worn by generations of Aiden’s family before us, are warm from the sun on our bare feet.

Back then, we were delusional enough to think we had a say over our futures. I was young, but I remember Bittern saying he’d like to meet somebody and have a family one day. This was all before the mines, before his light went out.

He clears his throat.

“You sure? ”

I shrug. “I don’t know. There’s a good chance.”

His brows rise. “And it’s Deacon’s?”

I laugh, although I’m not sure why. “Yeah, of course it is.”

He shrugs, a little smile creeping over his mouth. “Didn’t think it’d be you having babies before me,” he says finally. “I’m happy for you, Frey, but I don’t know what I can do to get you out.”

My mouth is so dry, my lip keeps splitting. I wet it, tasting metal. My fingers trail up and come away bloody. Did I hit my face on the table when Aiden tore me from the bed? Bittern digs in his pocket, brings up a handkerchief, and hands it over.

“Can you get to Deacon?” I whisper. “Maybe tell him where I’m at?”

His jaw works. He wipes his face again.

“I can try,” he says. “Aiden’s watching me. I think he’s been watching me since I hit him the night he smashed your bugs up. But it isn’t about that. There’s other stuff stopping me.”

His voice cracks, as if he might cry. I tighten my grip on his arm, and he looks away.

“Bittern,” I ask. “What’s he doing?”

To my shock, he sniffs. “I’m all fucked up, Frey. I never talked to you about it, but when the collapse happened, it just fucked me up.”

My heart pumps, making my breath come shallow. “I know, I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t just… Look, I was down there for six and a half days. Wayland, he was with me but separated by the rocks. I heard him calling out, heard him dying. I never told Aiden this. He doesn’t need to hear it. But I sat there, in this little area, about five by five, where the rocks missed me. It was hell. We dug down to hell, and it’s not very far, just below the surface.”

My stomach turns, and sickness passes over me in a wave.

“Solitary confinement. That’s torture for a reason,” Bittern says slowly. “I tried killing myself, but I couldn't do it. My ribs were fucked up, but it wasn’t what hurt the most. It was sitting in the dark, listening to Wayland die. It was knowing I was dying, that it wouldn’t be quick. I was gonna have to live every second of my death. ”

Tears slip out, hot trails down my neck.

“Bittern, I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head once. “I close my eyes, and I’m still down there. I can’t get out. I’m still down there in the dark. The pills they gave me for my ribs…they help. They turn my brain off. Make it shut up.”

Something clicks into place. The deadness in Bittern’s eyes didn’t come from the memory of being underground. It came from the monster that always lurks in the shadows of desperation. Offering hope where there is none.

“Oh no,” I whisper.

He drags his tortured gaze up. “Aiden gets me the pills. I can sleep at night. I don’t have to replay my own death in my head every second.”

I crush the handkerchief in my hand.

I’m so tired. Maybe my mother and grandmother were tired of carrying all the darkness and despair too. It’s not Aiden’s fault he had a father with an iron fist and a penchant for violence. It’s not his fault there was nowhere for men to work but the factory and the mines.

But it’s his fault he dragged all that pain in like the cold and let it infect us all.

And now, sweet Bittern can’t sleep because Aiden’s a copy of a copy of a copy of the men who came before him.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but a tear slips out. Bittern takes the handkerchief and uses it to clumsily wipe my face.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Aw, Frey, it’s not your fault,” he says.

I shake my head, opening my eyes. “I’m sorry Aiden was your father. I’m sorry the factory closed, sorry you went to the mines. I’m so sorry all he’s done is give you pills. You deserve to get better.”

His face goes still. “It’s okay,” he says.

I shake my head hard. “No, it’s not okay. It’s awful, and it shouldn’t be this way.”

His gaze flicks up and fixes to mine. There’s a spark of life in it.

“But it is,” he says. “Fair or not, it just is. ”

My throat catches. I reach out and take his hand.

“I want more, Bittern, and I’m getting it,” I whisper. “Aiden won’t change. Neither will Ryland. But you deserve to get better, and I’m in love with Deacon Ryder. I want to be his wife.”

He’s so sad, eyes soft.

“You want to get married?” he asks.

My eyes are streaming. My throat is so tight. “He showed me it’s possible to get out.”

He smiles, and that light flickers, a hint of gold through the woods.

“I like that,” he says, voice like gravel. “I always wanted something like that for you.”

“You come with me,” I whisper. “Deacon can help me help you.”

He laughs, but there’s no humor in it.

“I helped kidnap you,” he says. “I’ve been surveying the land for the easement. Deacon won’t forgive me for that. I’m a fucking coward, Frey.”

My stomach goes cold. I pull my hands free, covering my mouth.

“You have?”

He runs a hand over his face. “I want to choose you, but I don’t see any way out of this.”

“Deacon won’t hurt you if I ask him not to. I get it, I do. I forgive you for anything, everything.”

He shakes his head hard. “Maybe I deserve for Deacon to hurt me. Maybe it’d be better if he just…you know, put a bullet in my head.”

I’m so sick inside, it’s making the room spin. I take his hand and squeeze it.

“Deacon will come for me,” I say. “I’ll make sure you get out of this alive, that you get clean, that you get a chance to be happy. I promise.”

I don’t know how I can promise this much, but I know it’s true. Deacon is a good man. A complicated one who sometimes does the wrong thing, but his heart is good. I trust that he won’t let me down.

He isn’t like Aiden at all.

“I promise,” I repeat .

Bittern stands slowly, like his body hurts. He coughs, a damning rattle in his chest.

“I don’t know, Frey,” he says. “I think all the bravery I had got used up.”

He leaves, just walks out and shuts the door. I sit there, stunned.

Out of everything that’s happened in the last few years, the harsh click of Bittern closing the door on me hurts the most.

I lay back on the bed. Deacon will come for me, I know he will. Through my slip, I dig my fingers into the delicate straps of the chastity harness. The lengths he went to get me were reprehensible, but his hands, once they were on me, were so gentle.

I can never go back. I have something to live for now, and I want to live so badly, to be Deacon’s wife, to have his babies. To let him love me with all his obsession, his dark desire, his steadfast certainty.

I need him the way I need the stars, and I believe with every fiber of my body that, like those stars, at the darkest hour, he’ll appear.