Chained (Caged Book 2)
Chained
Copyright © 2016
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual places, incidents and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 D H Sidebottom. Please do not copy, alter or redistribute this book.
Please secure author’s permission before sharing any extracts of this book.
Formatting: Champagne Formats
Table of Contents
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
—Helen Keller
H
E WALKED IN QUIETLY, SIGHED,
and picked up the mail from my doormat. His feet were loud as they padded across the carpet and I squinted when he pulled open the curtains and light spilled into my lounge. Turning, he jumped and gasped as his eyes widened on me.
“Jesus, Klo!” I hated that he called me Klo. Hated it.
“What the fuck?”
He stood regarding me quietly as if he was frightened to come any closer – that was mainly because I had a gun pointed at his head from where I sat on my sofa.
Point and click, he’d said. Point and click.
“Hello, Richard.”
He paused, his brow pinching as he tried to get a read of me. “What’s going on?”
Clicking my tongue, I smiled, but it wasn’t at all welcoming. “How did you get in?”
His eyes flashed.
How stupid was I?
“You gave me a key, remember?”
Slowly shaking my head at his lie, I chuckled. “That all you got? I gave you a key? Try again, Richard. Or should we even the odds? You call me Samantha and I’ll call you Robert.”
Fear caught his breath and he licked his dry lips.
Point and click. Simple, he’d said. Just point and click.
“Where is he?”
Shaking his head, he frowned, “I don’t know…”
He didn’t say any more. His blood sprayed across my lovely cream curtains when I forced a bullet straight through the middle of his forehead.
Apparently it was as easy as just point and click.
Slowly loading another bullet into the pistol, I smiled, gently stroking across the cold sheath of metal.
And then I sat.
And I waited.
For Anderson.
Day turned to night, and then back to day.
I knew he would come; in my heart, I knew it. I was prey to him, and he would hunt me down for the rest of my life. I was his toy, his plaything to abuse and hurt. To twist within his grip and then toss into the dirt where he believed I belonged. Maybe I did, but fuck, I wouldn’t go without a fight.
So as I sat in the dark for those long hours, staring at the blue, bloating face of Richard as his blood painted my carpet like a modern art canvas. I was calm and so very relaxed. More sure of nothing else in my sorry life.
It was funny, really. I’d fought my past, my childhood, since the care system had transformed Samantha Rowan to Kloe Grant. I’d lied to myself, refused the acceptance that maybe could have fixed something so unfixable. I hadn’t allowed that little girl access to my emotions and my mind, and she’d wanted to retell her story but I’d refused to let her remind me of those dark days. I’d hunted for the stars in the black night. I’d looked for the dimmest light in the black tunnel and prayed for quiet in the midst of the storm in my heart
Yet now I stood in the storm as it saturated me with its carnage and hatred, and I granted Samantha Rowan freedom.
At 10.47pm, two days later, Anderson finally walked through my front door.
He closed the door behind him, turned, and jolted in surprise when he saw the gun in my hand pointed directly at his face. I stood firm but my resolve, for the swiftest moment, slipped. The storm in his vivid green eyes was wild and undiluted, the passion that always structured him intense and open as he looked at me.
He smirked, the cruel sneer making my fingers tighten around the handle of the gun. “Ohh, Kloe.” His eyes dropped to the gun I was so desperately trying to hold steady, and then back up to my eyes. “You do realise that before you can take another breath, I can have that gun out of your hand and so far up your pretty little cunt that you’ll be begging me to fire the fucking thing.”
He took a step towards me and I fired. The bullet embedded into the wall beside his head. Shock covered his face but then he smiled. “I’m not sure whether I’m proud of you, or surprised you’re that fucking stupid.”
“Stupid?” I scoffed as I stepped to the side and farther away from him. My arms were locked in front of me, my knuckles white with the fierce grip around the metal I held. “Oh, I’ve definitely been very stupid.”
As he stepped to the side, Richard’s body came in to sight. He ground his teeth together, his jaw twitching angrily when his furious glare returned to me. “Did he touch you?”
I was confused by his question and for a minute I faltered. “What? Why do you care?”
It was his turn to look confused. “Because if he did then I’d trade my soul in to give him life just so I can kill him all over again. Yet I won’t be so quick about it.”
Shaking my head, refusing to let him manipulate me, I asked. “Why Sarah?”
Taking a deep breath, he blew it out slowly. “Because you needed to see who I am, Kloe. Your love, it’s foolish. Childish. I warned you. I told you to leave. I’m not the gentleman that’s going to make life good for you. I won’t sweep you off your feet, marry you and make babies with you like some damn romance novel.”
Out of all that, it was the baby comment that hurt, and I spat. “Make babies?” A bitter laugh made him blink at me. “Oh, your father made sure I’d never have babies, you fucking bastard.”
He froze. His face paled and the sound of his wheeze in the quiet of the room was nearly deafening. His whole body started to tremble and he clenched his fists. “What did you say?”
I smiled coldly, tilting my head to the side. “Yeah, I know. Didn’t you think I’d find out about Terry, or Brian, or whoever the hell he is?”
He shook his head. “No, not that. About him making sure you can’t have babies.”
Perspiration made the gun slip a little in my grasp and my hands wobbled. “I lied,” I whispered. “When you asked if he’d raped me.”
His chest heaved with the pull of his gulps for air. Rage shimmered around him, the air practically marbling in front of me. I stepped back when the feral growl tore from him. “Why did you lie?” His voice was quiet and restricted by the clench of his teeth.
Wanting him to know the truth, I answered honestly. “Because you told me that when I was honest with you I could leave. I didn’t want to be honest. I didn’t want to leave you.”
Shock rendered him mute and he stared at me.
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Stupid, huh?” Tears blurred my vision and I blinked them back quickly. “He killed my mother, and then he raped me. He paid me in food. I was nine. At nine years old I became a whore. NINE!” I screamed.
His head shook and for a brief moment, the vulnerable and scared Anderson Cain surfaced. “Kloe.” My name was broken, choked out. He stepped towards me and I shook my head.
“Don’t come near me!” He didn’t stop so I fired again. “I said no! You knew, Anderson. You used me.”
He stopped but remained silent, just watching me. I saw the emotion in his eyes, my revelation burning a hole into his mind.
“How long have you known who I am?”
He blinked, swallowing, and shook his head slightly. He appeared to be struggling, his many thoughts governing his expressions. “A while.”
I shouldn’t have been as hurt as I was. I should have known, seen it. A part of me wondered if I was so desperate for acceptance and love that I had unconsciously seen it but chosen to ignore it. Bury the truth just so I could live a lie.
“Why, Anderson? Why? I don’t understand how you can hate me so much.”
His eyes narrowed and pain flashed back at me. “You still don’t get it do you?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand,” I whispered honestly. “You. Me. Or any of this. Fate is a fucker, but surely life isn’t that cruel.”
He laughed loudly, staring at me like I was stupid. But then blinking as though something just occurred to him, he frowned and looked to the floor. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he mumbled quietly. “Why? It doesn’t make sense.”
“What? What doesn’t make sense?”
He became frantic, his fists opening and closing as he tried to deal with whatever emotion was rolling over him. “He chose to keep you. Why? Why would he do that to you?”
Wincing, realising he was talking about Terry, I looked away from him, shame bubbling under my skin and making my whole body prickle with awareness.
It was a stupid thing to do.
Within seconds, he was on me. He grabbed the gun and his large hands seized the tops of my arms. Flinging me like a piece of meat, he came over me as soon as my back thudded on the floor. The back of my head bounced off the carpet and fear snatched my breath when he leered in my face. “Let’s see what you’re made of now. See how fucking tough you are without a bullet to back you up.”
I thrashed beneath him when he tore at my jeans, yanking them down my legs as he used his body to hold me down. I spat at him and snarled like a wild animal, fighting him all the way. Rage made me stronger, gave me the fuel I needed to slam my head forward.