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With nothing more than my vivid imagination to keep me company. It already spins wildly, full of dozens of things he might be doing and planning to do to me.
Releasing a strangled sob, I press my forehead against the wood as the tears flow freely.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into?
WESTON
Callista Fucking Fox…
“Shit.”
Though, somehow that word seems wholly inadequate for the current situation.
All words do.
I scrub my hand over my beard and stare at the monitor, watching her collapse against the bedroom door, sliding down it as her tiny frame crumbles pathetically. Still wearing her ripped dress, she caves in on herself, making her already petite frame seem even smaller, and it’s as if I can physically see her breaking.
Conceding defeat—as so many others have when facing The Beast.
That hard set of her shoulders she was so intent on displaying during our conversation vanishes. She folds her knees up, wincing when her injured foot hits the hardwood floor, and rests her forearms on them. Burying her face in her hands, she releases a violent, sorrowful sob.
It reaches out to me through the speakers attached to the hidden camera in the corner of the room, like a wounded animal that knows it’s facing death, making one final plea.
A haunting sound.
Full of anguish I more than recognize.
I’ve felt it myself more times than I care to count.
She’s trapped. Lost control over her own life to help another. Floating in a cloud of confusion and distress. Likely unsure of what’s up or down, wrong or right, or what her future holds other than pain.
A foreign pang hits the center of my ribcage, one I haven’t felt in decades and never wanted to again. Rubbing at the spot, I watch the young woman meltdown completely—allowing herself to let go when she thinks I can’t witness it.
And for good reason.
Callista isn’t naïve to her situation. She knows who she’s facing and wants to maintain her false bravado in front of me as much as she can. Coming from that family, she certainly understands what the Barkers are capable of and has undoubtedly heard stories her entire life about me.
Warnings designed to keep her from doing exactly what she did. Yet, she still drove up here, still offered herself on a silver fucking platter—in blood-red fuck-me stilettos—to save her father.
A tiny flutter of something that feels an awful lot like respect grows for the blonde, but I brush it away like I would an annoying fly buzzing around me before it can do any damage to my well-constructed, necessary blockade against anything that might make me think I’m human again.
You can’t feel anything for that girl.
Even respect is a dangerous thing on Barker Mountain—a lesson I learned all too well. It can blind one to the hidden truths behind it. It can twist the way someone sees a situation, open one up to allow in the kind of caring that only ends up causing pain.
I tear my eyes away from Callista and scan the rest of the screens that display the camera feeds covering the entire property.
Mounted at the driveway turn-in. To the trees every few hundred yards, all the way up the mountain. At specific spots deep in the forest that someone might use to gain access to the property, covering hundreds of acres in each direction.
Not to mention every inch of the house—save for the third floor.
My sole retreat, the lone space in this manse where I can almost forget the curse that keeps me here.
The screens ensure no one intrudes on Barker Mountain.
No one else…
Birds chirp and swoop past the cameras. A deer dips its head to drink from the river at the north end of the property. Leaves rustle in the fall breeze.
