Alan is just confessing that he drugged the other guys in the movie when the door to the cabin flies open and Rebel stalks in, larger than life. It’s the last thing I’m expecting, given that I’ve been asking to see him for the past week and a half and he hasn’t graced me with his presence. A part of me got to thinking that maybe he was hurt or something. Injured, to the point where he was laid up and incapable of walking. Standing in the doorway now, I can see that he’s walking just fine. He glances down at his feet and scowls at the debris from my evening meal on the floorboards.
“What the fuck?” He looks at me like I’m a naughty child, caught misbehaving, and I automatically shrink back into the sofa. I catch myself, almost screaming out loud at how ridiculous my reaction is. I shouldn’t be shrinking from him. I’m a fucking prisoner. I’m allowed to revolt if I damn well want to. “Got a problem?” I snap, sitting up straighter.
“Yeah. There’s fucking food all over my damn floor. I hand-sanded these floorboards,” he growls.
“Then you should have thrown me in the basement or something and had done with it, shouldn’t you?”
“Don’t fucking tempt me.” Rebel steps over the mess and slams the door behind him, locking it before he storms into the room. I try not to flinch as he comes to a stop in front of me. “Stand up, Soph.”
I take a deep breath. “No.” My skin feels tingly, the same way it used to when I would defy my father. Not that I’m comparing the man standing in front of me with the mild mannered preacher left worrying about me back in Seattle, but this situation feels…it feels very much like I’m about to get punished.
Tilting his head to one side, Rebel drops into a crouch so that our eyes are at the same level. His are ice-blue, cold. Intense. So fierce I can hardly meet them. I’m proud of the fact that I don’t look away, though. “What seems to be the problem?” He asks this slowly, as though he’s wrestling with his temper.
Had a bad night, buddy? Well guess what? So have I. Leaning forward so my face is closer to his, I breathe deep and even down my nose, trying to tame my own anger. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
He blinks. He’s frozen solid, staring straight at me. He’s holding himself back, but from what I’m not entirely sure. Not for a second do I think he’s going to hurt me, but there’s something about the brooding, stillness of him that’s intimidating. “Have you been bored or something?”
“You could say that.”
“You know what’s not boring?” Calm. He’s too fucking calm. It’s beginning to put me on edge. He continues speaking softly, but there’s a dangerous lilt to his voice. “Being chased down, raped and murdered. That’s not boring, right?”
“This place is a fortress, Jamie. I would have been fine out there with everyone else. How many people do you have living at the compound for crying out loud? There must be twenty motorcycles here at any one time!”
He cocks his head again, frowning. He’s probably wondering how I know that; you can see nothing but trees and then a distant ridgeline from the cabin windows. With so little to do all day, I’ve gotten really good at listening, though. I knew nothing about engines before I came here. I don’t really know anything about them now, either, apart from the fact that each one sounds different. I’ve spent hours laying on Rebel’s bed with my eyes closed, listening hard. Figuring out which motorcycle was which. Who was coming and going. Not knowing who was riding what, of course, but still.
Rebel’s eyes flash, the muscles in his jaw jumping as he grinds his teeth. “Raphael Dela Vega’s here. In town.”
“Wait. What?” My arms and legs suddenly feel very cold, very numb. That…that makes no sense. What would he be doing here? My anger towards Rebel doesn’t matter anymore. Bile rises up in the back of my throat as I try to process this piece of information, but it’s as though it just won’t settle in my mind. New Mexico is so far removed from Seattle, and so very far removed from Los Angeles. My brain tries to scramble, to come up with some logical reason why Raphael would be here, here of all places. Some reason other than the fact that he must have come for me. I draw a blank.
Rebel shifts for the first time, wincing a little, like he’s in pain. “I don’t even want him to see you here, Sophia. If he does, he’ll likely try and find a way into the compound, and then what? Someone’s back’s turned and you’re lying in a pool of your own goddamn blood? No. No way.” He says this so quietly, and yet there’s such determination behind his words.
“You haven’t been by here in ten days,” I growl.
He blinks again, staring straight at me. “Would you have wanted to see me?”
“Yes! I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be kept in the dark over what’s going on in the outside world! You…we slept together! And then you’re just gone. You lock me up and then you just vanish off the face of the earth.”
“So that’s it? You just wanted someone to come fuck you? I’m sure any of the boys would have obliged you if only you’d have told them.”
I react without thinking. I’m lunging at him, my hand flying out to strike him across the face before I can stop myself. My palm makes contact with his cheek, a loud cracking sound filling the room. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I grind out. “Don’t you dare do that. You fucking buy me like I’m nothing but a lump of meat, like I’m goddamn property, and then you make me care about you. You make me think you care about me. You trick me, make me look like an absolute idiot, and then you try and make me out to be some sort of slut, too. Don’t you fucking dare.”
My whole body is vibrating with anger. I’ve heard the saying ‘seeing red’ before and I’ve thought nothing of it, but now I know it’s actually a very literal term—it’s almost as though I’m seeing him through a red haze.
Rebel runs his tongue over his teeth, slowly lifting his hand to touch his fingers to the red welt on his face where I struck him. He speaks carefully, very slowly. “Sophia, please know, you’re just about the only person on the face of the planet who could get away with that right now.”
“Yeah? Well, if you don’t get the hell away from me, I’m gonna do it again, asshole,” I spit.
“I went out with the intention of killing a man tonight. You think I’ll have any moral objection to tying up a misbehaving woman?”
I lean forward even further so that our faces are no less than an inch apart. “Try me.”
Rebel’s calm, overly controlled behavior should have clued me into the fact that he’s been on the verge of snapping this whole time. He rockets forward, hands grabbing me by the tops of my arms, pinning me to the sofa. “You really don’t want to do this with me, Soph,” he breathes.
I do, though. I want to gouge his eyes out. I want to smash my fist into his face so hard that he loses teeth. I want to break his bones and watch him bleed. I think maybe he expected me to back down as soon as he grabbed hold of me, but I don’t. I twist underneath him, slamming my knee into his side. He doubles over, huffing out a deep, pained breath. Wrenching my arms out of his grasp, I slip out from underneath him and drive my clenched fist into his side as hard as I possibly can. Rebel grits his teeth, snarling between them, jumping to his feet.
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“I guess that’s what happens to a person when you lock them away for ten days on their own, and then show up accusing them of being a whore.”
“I didn’t accuse you of being a whore.”
“You may as well have done. You think just because I slept with you, I’d want to sleep with any of your gross, Neanderthal groupies? I’m not some club hooker to be passed around like a damn party favor!”
He comes at me again, reaching for me, and that’s when I notice the blood on his hands. My mind instantly rewinds to what he just said about setting out to kill someone tonight, and I reel back. Oh my god. No, he couldn’t have. Did…did he actually do it? Rebel sees my anger change to horror and swiftly stops in his tracks.