Undone: The Complete Duology, page 11
His wrists were raw, and blood oozed to the surface every time he moved to bring water to his mouth to rinse, or to dry off his hair with the towel that had been hanging on the rack.
I pointed the pistol at him to remind him of his position in the food chain, then ducked back around to the hallway closet and rummaged for the first aid bin.
“Here.” I thrusted the bin at him. “Patch yourself up.”
He set the bin on the counter and cleansed his wounds before using antibiotic cream.
“Wrap them up well with the gauze, help protect them,” I said.
I was going to have to tie his arms in a second spot this time so he couldn’t just slip his hand through with the slack in the rope caused by the thick bandages.
When he finished wrapping his wounds, I nudged him back through the kitchen.
“Wait.” I grabbed a glass out of the cabinet and gestured to the sink.
He filled the glass from the tap and drained it several times. I handed him another donut before we descended the stairs back to his room.
He stopped in front of the chair, last bite of his donut in hand.
“It has to be this way,” I said, surprising myself by the remorse that tried to creep into my words. I hardened my resolve. “I don’t make the fuckin’ rules.”
He dropped the last bite of donut to the floor then took his seat in the chair.
I scowled. “That’s how you get bugs, you know.”
I field kicked the bite of donut into a dark recess of the basement, then fastened him back into place.
As I started back up the stairs, he said, “It doesn’t have to end this way, Gracie.”
I halted, giving him my profile, refusing to meet his gaze. “Yes, it does.”
With that, I left him in the basement.
I savored another donut while I looked over the list the Goddess had given me last night. I didn’t know half the ingredients, so I spent the next hour looking them up online. As it turned out, all of them were plants that grew in the area. I just had to go on a little nature trip to gather them. According to Her directions, I had to grind them together into a paste in a mortar and pestle. This would provide the key ingredient to gather the next element for my spell.
I wasn’t much of a botanist, so I loaded an app on my phone that identified plants and headed out, rubbing the glaze from my fingers onto the thigh of my jeans.
Thick gray clouds blocked most of the sun, and I tugged my jacket closer as I headed towards the tree line.
“Gracie!”
I turned, irritated at the interruption.
Mac trudged up the gentle slope towards my house, lugging a bundle of wood in his arms.
“What are you doing?” I said softly. We were too far apart for him to hear.
He grinned as he closed the distance between us. “It’s cold as balls out here. Everyone is saying a snowstorm is coming. I thought you could use a little wood for your fireplace.”
My heart skipped a beat, and then another. Mac was getting too comfortable around here. Around me. I couldn’t have him thinking he could look out for me. That would lead to all kinds of problems, for both of us.
I’d made a terrible mistake. The little fuck in the woods had left him with the impression he meant something to me.
It didn’t matter that he did.
I eyed the logs, deadening my expression. “I have central heat.”
His grin faded. “But if we lose power…”
“Just drop them over there.” I jerked my head towards my jeep. “I have shit to do.”
He hesitated. “Did I upset you?”
“No, why would you?” I kept my tone neutral, uninterested. Then I forced a laugh, as if just realizing how ridiculous he was. “You know it didn’t mean anything, right?”
“I mean…I guess I had thought it did. Gracie, can we talk?”
I scoffed. “It’s like a tourist destination. What do you want? A souvenir t-shirt?”
Confusion flitted across his face.
“Please,” I said with practiced coldness, “just leave your little gift over there. I have to get going.”
I couldn’t leave until he did. I had to be sure he didn’t get close enough to the house to accidentally hear Bobby. Instead, I remained in my spot a few feet from the door, watching him with judgmental eyes that made it clear he had been found wanting.
He tipped his head at me.
“What?” I snapped. “Do you want me to apolo—”
The word choked in my throat. Clouds, darker than the ones above, moved in over my brain.
Tell them you’re sorry, Gracie.
I didn’t apologize, not to anyone. Not ever again.
He dropped the logs by the jeep then stalked off, equal parts humiliation and ire wafting off him. He wasn’t mad that I didn’t want him around. He was mad because I had led him on.
And I had. I’d let my guard down, let myself get close to him yesterday. I hadn’t meant to, but I wasn’t going to let that mistake get in the way of what needed to happen.
This list in my hand, that was what needed to happen. Everything else were luxuries I didn’t have time for, including him.
As he got back in his car and backed out onto the road, red hot anger rolled through me.
Here was another thing I couldn’t have—because of them. Because of all of them.
But mostly because of him.
Intense pain seized my chest, gripping tighter and tighter. My brain dropped into a pit of voices, all of them chanting what I couldn’t have, what I couldn’t be.
I slammed my hands over my ears, shaking my head, my entire body twitching, like I could block them out, shake them off. But they were there, piling on top of me, consuming me. My throat choked. I wanted release. I wanted out of this. All of this. It had to end.
Red flared in my vision. When I could see again, I was in the basement, slapping the shit out of Bobby as he cowered, tied to the chair.
Every obscenity I’d ever heard and a few I’d made up slurred from my lips. I struck him again and again, the sting traveling all the way up my arm, but I couldn’t stop.
“I hate you! I fuckin’ hate you!” I screamed until my throat burned.
With the last of my effort, I forced myself away. I didn’t look back at him as I headed up the stairs and back into the kitchen. My arms shook as I locked the door.
I stumbled to the cabinet and, with numb fingers, poured myself a shot of vodka. I did not feel it go down. I couldn’t feel anything.
Outside, I found where I had dropped the receipt with the list. It was damp from the grass.
Mac’s vehicle was gone. I refused to feel sad about that.
Wadding the wet receipt in my hand, I headed into the woods to begin my search.
Soon, it would be time to claim the second element of my spell.
14
MAC
I sat at the bar—the only one in Thorn Tree—and stared down at the untouched shot of whiskey in front of me. It seemed contradictory that such a puritanical town served alcohol, had a spot dedicated to it in the back of the barbershop. Strange place for a strange town.
A guy in one of the three chairs behind me was getting a shave. The bartender wiped down and organized the half-dozen bottles on the shelf behind the counter. No one else was in here.
I shot back the whiskey and savored the burn, but it did nothing to smother the emotions roaring in my chest.
I loathed this town. The longer I was here, the more I wished a pit would open under it and it would fall into the earth. It would be the only fate this place deserved.
First, it had taken my brother. Now, it had taken Gracie.
She’d ripped my heart out and stomped all over it. I knew the façade, but I couldn’t do anything about it. That was what hurt the most. We both knew we’d had a connection there on that hike yesterday. We’d taken everything to the next level, and it wasn’t just the sex. That was the least important part.
I understood she had walls. Probably enough of them to stop Genghis Khan. What had hurt was how easily she had slipped back behind them. There had been no remorse on her face. If anything, she seemed to revel in catching me off guard and kicking my knees from under me.
I was willing to go further, to do the work. She didn’t even have to meet me halfway—she just had to meet me somewhere.
The look on her face told me she had no intention of doing so.
I tapped the shot glass on the counter, and the bartender refilled without saying a word. It was for the best. If I opened my mouth right now, I wouldn’t be able to hold back telling anyone—and everyone—how I felt about them, this place, and fuckin’ Gracie Miller.
They’d warned me. That much was fair. They’d tried to make me stay away, but that just irritated me further. I didn’t want to stay away from Gracie. I didn’t even understand why I should.
Because she was hot and cold? There was so much more to her, and I wanted so badly to know her. To see inside that brain, to put together what made her tick. I wanted her to make sense.
I drank the next shot.
I shouldn’t even be thinking about her, not like this. She had distracted me, and I was letting it happen. I should be focused on my brother. I should be trying to put together what the hell was happening here.
How had the Reverend caught himself on actual fire? That was the real question, but instead, I was busy moaning over the love I hadn’t even had in the first place.
Ask Gracie. That was what the Reverend had said to do. I should have. Maybe she would have told me. Sometimes, she was right on the verge of ratting out this entire town. That was why they wanted us to stay apart, like Mrs. Woolworth and her late-night guest had discussed.
I drank another shot.
They didn’t want me to find out the truth, not about Gracie, but about them.
That must be it. Gracie had pushed me away today because they’d made her. Someone had been by before me, maybe threatened her. That was why she acted the way she did.
She wanted to be with me; I could tell. It wasn’t secret code, hidden messages, or even wishful thinking. Her signals had been clear. In that moment, as I had nestled on top of her in the forest, drenched in the rain, I had seen our entire future.
Someone had ripped it away.
Indignation rolled through me. I shoved away from the bar, dropped a handful of bills on the counter without counting them, then stumbled out of the barbershop.
The few people I passed on the street were polite enough to avert their eyes to my open drunkenness as I hauled my tottering, off-balanced self in the direction of Grace’s house.
The truth had to come out. No more games. No more unspoken words.
If I stayed around any longer trying to guess what to do, not only would I not find my brother, I would fall right over the edge into despair.
I’d only known Gracie a few days, but she had, somehow and without meaning to, changed everything.
I wasn’t just going to sit around in a bar and punish my liver because I couldn’t man up and have difficult conversations with her, too afraid that I would hear something I didn’t want to know.
I was back at her house before I had even finished my mental rant. The world swayed as I lifted my arm with great effort to knock.
I halted. Noises came from inside the house. With what little coordination I had, I pressed my ear against the door and tried to listen over the thudding of my heart in my head.
Humming. She was humming, and something was making a small clanking noise. Maybe she was cooking. That would be a sight to behold: Gracie Miller, the most feared woman of Thorn Tree, baking an apple pie.
I stumbled around the house to find a window. Clips of last night at the church rolled through my head.
I would ask Gracie. As soon as I spoke to her again, I would ask her about the Reverend with the fire in his hand.
The curtain to a small window had fallen ajar. I would never watch someone without their permission if I was sober.
Good thing I wasn’t. It was easier to pretend that what I was doing was okay and not at all creepy just because I was intoxicated.
That probably made it worse.
I pushed away the thought and leaned against a tree trunk to watch as Gracie Miller pottered around her kitchen. Dried herbs and flowers were strewn in bunches along the kitchen countertop. She steeped them in turn in a large pot and then ladled the water with the loose leaves and petals into a mortar and pestle, before grinding them into a paste. Then she added another plant.
Was she making tea?
That didn’t quite mesh in my alcohol-infused brain. Careful to remain in the shadows, I continued to watch.
She brewed and stirred and crushed, and brewed some more. All the while, she hummed a little tune, working under the harsh yellow glow of a single fluorescent tube light in the ceiling.
What on earth could she be making? It seemed vaguely familiar—the process, the ritual—but I couldn’t quite put it together. It was something I’d heard of, but never seen.
I crept closer, wrapped in a bubble of certainty that only alcohol could provide.
Gracie added leaves from the last bunch, then ground her concoction into a nice thick paste.
Then she reached into the drawer to her side and extracted a knife.
That was no kitchen tool. The curved blade attached to a decorative hilt, and I watched, stricken, as she raised her hand and sliced through her palm. Blood welled on her skin, and she squeezed her hand over the bowl, trickling her fresh blood on top of the paste.
She returned the knife to the drawer—didn’t even clean it—and continued stirring and grinding. Blood trailed over her hand on the counter. It wasn’t until she seemed satisfied with her mixture that she bandaged the bleeding cut.
Flowers, herbs, blood.
Was Grace…a witch?
I laughed under my breath. Was that what this entire circus of fuckery was about? The town hated Grace because she practiced witchcraft?
What a crock of shit.
Relief overcame me. I hadn’t realized how stressed I had been over what had set her apart from the town. Why they had made her an outcast among their tight little clan.
Grace was a witch.
Good grief. Likely the more ominous kind than the little coven, but I couldn’t find it in me to be that concerned about either.
Grinning like a moron, I stumbled back to the front door. By the time I reached it, my relief had morphed back into frustration.
Regardless of how the town treated her, I still had to contend with how she was trying to freeze me out. That was the important issue tonight. Everything else could wait for another day, preferably once I was sober and had a little coffee in me.
The door yanked open. Seeing her face to face sent a stab of agony, right through my chest.
“Grace.”
I couldn’t get out anything else.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You smell like a distillery.”
There it was: that bullshit again. Trying to push me away. Why couldn’t she just be honest with me? I needed her to be, so badly.
The idea of walking away without at least trying to get through to her made my stomach churn more than the alcohol did.
“I want to talk to you, Grace.”
She hardened her expression. “I hardly see why that is a problem for me.”
I slammed my hand into the door jamb, but she didn’t even startle. “Stop it! Just stop. I need to know the truth.”
Her eyes flickered, but she submerged whatever feelings had tried to surface. She started to close the door, but I caught it with my hand.
“Don’t turn me away.”
A sour expression settled over her face as she stepped out on the porch. “Just go.”
I stumbled forward, bracing one hand against the wall by her head, leaning forward until our faces were inches apart.
“I can’t.” The words came out simple, but so honest, I laughed. “I love you, Grace.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off.
“I love you. I know it’s ridiculous and no one would believe it if they weren’t here, right now, feeling what I feel. But I do—I love you. And you know it. I can tell, when you dare to let me through for the briefest moments. You know it’s true. Just tell me you don’t love me back. That’s all. Just tell me you don’t, and I’ll leave Thorn Tree for good. I’ll leave behind the chance to find my brother, everything. Just tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll leave you in peace.”
The harsh angles of her face melted, a bit like a candle, slow and only perceptible if I watched, unblinking.
Then, as she stared up in my eyes, her expression, and demeanor, darkened.
I’d been mistaken. She didn’t love me, and if she did, the feeling was so far out of her reach, she would never admit to it.
All I had managed to do was load the gun and hand it to her. She was going to shoot me, right in the heart, and I had asked her to. Demanded her to.
My entire body slacked with resignation, and I started to turn away before she could fire the fatal shot.
“I do.”
Her voice was breathless, almost lost in the night.
I faced her as the reality of her words settled on my sloshed brain.
“I love you, Mac.”
There was nothing else left to say.
We closed the distance, falling into a natural embrace, our mouths locked together. Rain cascaded down over us, and I dug my fingers into the wet shirt at her back. She pulled me in tighter, deepening the kiss, her breasts pressed into my chest. I slid my hand up her back, beginning to peel her out of her shirt. She broke the kiss just enough to make eye contact up at me, deep longing filling her gaze before she tugged me towards the porch. We kissed our way up the steps, stumbling through the front door.
I eased the door shut with my foot as we left a puddle of rainwater on the floor. She didn’t seem to care, but guided us, still locked together, kissing and trailing our fingers over glimpses of skin, down the hallway. Inside her bedroom, she slammed the door shut behind her, unwilling to unhook herself from me. We tumbled onto the bed, the comforter damp under our soaked clothes and hair.
