Hate & Chaos : The Complete Duet

13. Scarlet

13

SCARLET

“ T hat’s right. Come back to me. I’ve missed you so much…”

I must be dreaming. That’s Ren’s voice; I’d know it anywhere. His voice is so clear, much more so than when I usually dream about him.

“I’ve been aching for you all this time.”

That’s how I know I’m dreaming. He’s saying all the things I’ve longed to hear. How he yearns for me and all that. I smile a little, squeeze my eyes shut tighter than ever, and intend to fall back into the dream threatening to fade away the closer I venture to consciousness.

If only something wasn’t tapping at the back of my mind…something I need to be careful of…a warning that isn’t clear.

“Scarlet? Are you awake?”

My heart skips a beat once reality comes crashing down.

The storm. The garden. Wrestling in the mud. With Ren.

How could I forget?

The shock of the memory makes me open my eyes, and right away, the strange surroundings add a new layer of surprise and confusion to what I’m already wrestling with.

Gone are the soft colors of my bedroom at home, and along with them, the pile of pillows on my bed. The walls surrounding me are sanded wood, bare of any decoration, and the bed underneath me is little more than a thin mattress. I can feel springs pressing against my back through the rough sheets. Ren’s scent surrounds me, lulling me to calmness.

He didn’t take me into the house. He didn’t even leave me in the garden. He brought me somewhere else.

But he’s here… with me.

Which is what makes me turn my head on the pillow, leaving me looking into a face I’ve prayed for with every breath I’ve drawn in the past two years.

“Ren? Is it really you?”

“Who else, angel?” A shiver of pleasure races through me, waking up parts of me I was sure were dead. Numb, cold, dark. It’s like he flipped a switch, and suddenly, the world is full of light again.

And yet.

It sounds like Ren. It looks like Ren.

But there’s something else. Some other quality I can’t put my finger on. Something’s missing.

Right, and it was missing in the garden, wasn’t it? Why is my head so foggy? I can’t put it together. I only know I was afraid. Willing to hit, kick, and scream if it meant getting away from him.

He’s always been able to see through me.

“I understand your confusion—even fear. I’m not taking it personally. I dropped out of your life for years and suddenly reappeared in front of you. I’m sure you’re feeling a number of emotions, but I meant what I said back there. You never have to be afraid of me.”

Easy for him to say. It’s like an old movie I once watched with Mom and Adela, where the people in a small town were replaced by aliens who looked and sounded just like them. It was human feeling that was missing. There was no warmth behind the familiar words, no compassion or kindness.

I must be going out of my mind. There’s no such thing.

Chuckling, he runs a hand over his stubbled jaw before standing and going to a small window opposite the foot of the bed. I follow his progress, taking in the rest of the bedroom. A small dresser and armoire occupy the wall to my left, the double bed pushed up against the wall to the right, and a basket of dirty laundry in the corner, telling me he didn’t just get here today.

Outside the window, all that can be seen is trees and brief glimpses of blue sky visible between the leaves. He stands with his back to me, hands in his pockets, his broad shoulders almost filling the width of the frame. His too-long dark brown hair brushes the collar of a black T-shirt that’s seen better days. There’s nobody taking care of him, least of all himself, that much is for sure.

An emotion stirs in my chest. I’ve missed him so much, longed for him, and this is how we reunite?

“That was some storm,” he muses. “But it appears everything has cleared out now.”

Nothing is clear. Not a damn thing. Ren would hold me. Ren would kiss me. He would indulge himself in everything we’ve missed out on.

He wouldn’t treat this like a business meeting.

“Where have you been all this time?”

When he neglects to answer me, I press harder, glaring at the back of his head. “And why didn’t you ever contact me? Didn’t you ever consider what that would mean? How scared I’d be for you? I’ve been worried sick, Ren.” I try not to scold him, but we need to get over this before we can move on to anything else.

A second ticks by, then another.

Nothing. No response. I might as well be talking to myself.

Nausea claws up my throat, and an anxious worry settles into my bones.

This is all wrong.

If he would only speak to me, dammit.

I sit up slowly, cautiously, making the springs creak. My body’s stiff, aching, and there’s a funny sort of pain near my left shoulder. I guess I hit it on a stone in the garden. I look down over my chest and legs, surprised to see he changed me into clean but way oversized sweatpants and a thin Henley shirt. His clothes . A ghost of a smile pulls at my lips.

He does care about me, still, or else he would’ve left me in that muddy nightgown. I need to cling to that tiny bit of hope.

“You know,” I murmur, watching him closely for any sign of trouble, “everybody’s said all these things about you. Stuff you supposedly did. Bad things. I know they have it wrong, but how could I defend you if you never reached out to me to tell your side of the story? Do you realize how it looked when you ran away? Like you were guilty.”

I gulp as his shoulders roll back, his chin lifting. “Right?” I whisper. “But I know you aren’t guilty. You could never hurt Aspen or Quinton.”

That’s enough to make him turn his head partway, giving me a look at his sharp profile. Beautiful but forbidding. “Are you sure about that?”

“What?” I breathe, my throat getting tighter, my heart racing.

“I said, are you sure?” He turns toward me, brows drawn together over eyes I used to know so well. Eyes I wanted nothing more than to fall into and never come back.

“Of course,” I insist, even though it’s a lie. Now, it’s a lie. It wasn’t before when I clung to any last fiber of hope available. Relying on my finely honed talent for refusing anything I don’t want to believe.

But I’m not delusional, either. There are limits to hope.

“Or do you think I’m being noble again?” His lips twist in a sarcastic smirk as he throws my words back in my face. Yes, I did accuse him of that years ago. The Ren I knew wouldn’t make a joke of it.

He lets out a sigh before beginning to pace in front of the bed. “I can see why you’d think that,” he murmurs. “I was always there for you when you needed me. I was your hero.”

“You were,” I agree with a lump in my throat, emotion threatening to break through. “Even if you did break your promise.”

“My promise?”

No. Anything but this. He can’t have forgotten. “To always give me a first on my birthday. The night of my seventeenth, I didn’t sleep a wink. I waited past dawn, sitting at the window. You never came, never sent word.”

This time, there’s no hiding the pain so intense it makes my voice crack. I cried for hours, curled in a ball on the bed, once I gave up hope. Cursing myself, my naivete. How easy it was for him to hurt me, to abandon me. “It broke my heart.”

Understanding touches the corners of his eyes, softening them, and when he speaks, it’s with all the gentleness he was missing before. “It was impossible.” Says the man who kidnapped me from my father’s heavily guarded compound.

“Nothing is impossible. All I could think was that you were dead or something bad had happened to you.” Or that he’d changed his mind about me—somehow, the thought is even harder to voice than the fear of him dying.

“You think it wasn’t a struggle for me? That I didn’t curse myself for letting you down?”

“My point is, even that wasn’t enough to make me forget you. It didn’t change my feelings for you, either. I know the real you, Ren.” Who am I trying to convince? Him or myself?

“You’ve never seen my bad side.” He glances my way, meeting my gaze. “You never will, either. But it exists, and it is capable of any number of terrible things.”

The thin blankets aren’t enough to keep me from shivering at the flat certainty in his voice. He can’t mean this. He can’t mean he tried to kill my brother, his best friend.

Something about him is dark and furtive now. I can’t put my finger on it—the way his eyes shift back and forth, never landing on anything for long. The way he fidgets, jamming his hands into his pockets before pulling them out again, sometimes rubbing them on his thighs. He’s jumpy, full of nervous energy, and unable to vent it in any useful way.

He’s a caged lion, pacing back and forth. What happens when the lion gets tired of pacing? Who does it lash out at? The person stupid enough to stick their hand in the cage, obviously.

Ren was never like this before. He always had a self-possessed way about him. More than once, I’ve overheard Dad describing him as almost too laid-back, like nothing affected him very deeply. He knew how to let things roll off his shoulders.

I mean, I know that’s not technically true. Things affected him deeply, the way they would anyone. He just knew how to handle himself, was all.

Unless he was enraged, like the night Enzo Grimaldi cornered me in the library. He was my avenging angel that night, full of murderous darkness that really and truly turned me on for the first time in my life.

This isn’t the same thing at all. Not even close.

Then he was unhinged, but even that had an edge of control to it. He was self-possessed enough not to take things too far.

This version of Ren doesn’t have the same grip on himself.

And I’m alone with him.

“Where are we?” Before he can answer, I insist, “We have to go back. You need to take me home. Otherwise, this will only get worse. You get that, right? Things are bad enough already. We can work everything out.”

I’m babbling, but I can’t stop. “Please,” I whisper, trembling because I know my words are falling on deaf ears. “Please, take me back before they send people to get me. I don’t want anybody hurting you. You know they will if they find me. They might kill you. There’s still time to work this out, Ren.”

A quick look over my left shoulder reveals a door open on the rest of what I now understand is a cabin. My gaze lands on a faded couch, the coffee table in front of it littered with dirty cups and dishes.

And beside it, a door.

I have no idea where we are. All things considered, there’s very little chance of finding help.

But right now, more sickeningly afraid with every breath I take, good sense is in short supply. I have to get out of here. The one person in the world who I was sure I could count on is… all wrong. I can’t even begin to unpack what that means or what to do about it.

I can do that later. When I’m out of here.

Away from him. Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m about to run away from the man I’ve spent all these years loving in spite of everything.

I see him whirl on me out of the corner of my eye once my feet are on the floor. Fear sends adrenaline flooding my system, making me fly across the bedroom and into the living area, the front door in my sights.

“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice is loud, harsh, and much too close to my ear. A cry of pure anguish tears itself from my chest as a steel band encircles my waist, and my feet are left kicking thin air instead of pounding the floor.

“Please!” I don’t know what I’m begging for. For freedom? For answers? For him to love me again? Maybe all of that and more. A million panicked, heartbroken thoughts bounce around in my head, leaving me almost mindless in the face of a flight response run amok.

“Where do you think you’re going to go?” he demands as he carries me back to the bed, his hard body pressed against my back. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. What, you think I can afford to live out in the open? This is a remote cabin. All you will do is put yourself at risk if you go out there alone.”

He’s angry, but I can’t tell if it’s anger because I tried to leave or because of what might happen to me should I get away. If anything, his attitude only leaves me more confused than before. Does he care, or doesn’t he? What am I supposed to believe?

“What are you doing?” I shriek when he removes his belt after dumping me unceremoniously onto the bed.

“This is for your own good. I’m disappointed in you.” It takes no time for him to use the belt to bind my wrists together, then fix them to the rusted metal headboard. All the while, I watch him, searching for any sign of the man I knew and loved.

Did I just use past tense?

“Now. I’m going to fix you something to eat, and when I come back, I expect you to be in a more rational mood.” He even has the nerve to shake his head, clicking his tongue like I’m a naughty child in need of punishment.

It’s beyond surreal now. At the same time, I know I’m not dreaming this. It’s really happening. I’m really trapped here, and I may as well be launched into outer space without a tether. Nothing to hold on to, no sense of where I am in relation to anything else. Floating in place, knowing I’ll die without help. No idea what’s real and what isn’t.

At least when I’m alone, I can catch my breath. Even though it’s no easy task, thanks to the dread that won’t stop building. I force myself to breathe slowly, focusing on nothing more than the air coming in and going out. My panic response begins to calm down, and I’m capable of thinking beyond the immediate need to get away.

Something must have happened to him. That’s the only explanation that comes close to making sense. He got hurt somehow. That would explain so much. His change in attitude, the way he refuses to touch me in any meaningful way. All that weird stuff he was saying about his darker side—what the hell was that supposed to mean? He must be sick.

I want to help him. The pain of being unable to understand him is quickly wiped out by the pain brought about by the idea of him needing help and being alone all this time with no one to care.

Are you crazy? He didn’t deny the accusations.

Right. It’s so easy to forget the things I don’t want to focus on. Too easy. I can’t let myself fall into that trap.

He hurt them. Q and Aspen—his friends, family even. And he doesn’t even seem sorry.

And he swears he would never hurt me—is that supposed to make me feel better? Because I’m sure there was a time he couldn’t have imagined hurting Q, either. Unless he’s the best actor who ever lived. There’s no way he could have faked years of friendship and camaraderie and even devotion to my family. I mean, my dad can sniff out a traitor like a pig sniffing a truffle, and he never so much as caught a whiff. He was just as bowled over by Ren’s treachery as anyone else was.

If I crane my neck, I can see out through the bedroom door again. There’s a lot of clutter out there. He’s been here for a while. I hear him out there, rattling a pan, opening a can. He might be muttering to himself, a habit I guess he would’ve picked up being alone for so long with nobody to talk to.

How did he find this place? Is it his, or is he squatting here? What if he hurt the person who used to live here? No, I can’t even let myself think that. He’s changed, but he can’t have changed that much. Even now, tied to a fucking bed, I still can’t let myself believe the worst.

I would ask myself what it might take to get to that point, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

My chest tightens painfully when I hear him approach, his heavy boots loud against the wood floor. He’s carrying a bowl of steaming soup in one hand, and a couple of slices of buttered bread on a paper towel in the other.

“You must be hungry by now,” he murmurs, taking a seat. “Once you’re fed and thinking clearer, you won’t make any mistakes like trying to run away. That’s not like you. You’re usually a lot smarter than that.”

My heart sinks further than ever when, instead of untying me so I can feed myself, he sets the bowl on the bed and dips the spoon into the fragrant broth. Watching him blow over the surface shouldn’t bring tears to my eyes, yet here they are. A little gesture like that makes me believe he cares. Like this is all a big misunderstanding.

“Where have you been? Were you here all this time?”

“Open up.” He’s either deliberately avoiding my questions, or he simply doesn’t want to hear them, shutting them off. Nothing about his demeanor reveals any anger, exactly. That same blank emptiness is what he’s operating from, and it’s just as unnerving as it was before.

I open my mouth. I have to trust he didn’t do anything to the soup. I have to believe he wouldn’t hurt me, or else I’ll go crazy. Our eyes meet, and they don’t look quite as empty as they did back in the garden, but something in them still makes it difficult to swallow the vegetable soup. Something that makes it tough to breathe.

If he had a head injury or something like that, it would affect him this way, right?

I try to shift my weight a little to make myself more comfortable, and I suck in a pained gasp. “My shoulder hurts,” I grunt, trying hard not to put any pressure on it. “It’s so sore. It stings.”

“That was the tracker.”

He says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like he’s commenting on the weather outside. “The what?”

“The tracking device that was implanted in your shoulder years ago. I took it out.” He raises another spoonful of soup to my lips. “Come on. Open up.”

I open my mouth if only to keep hot soup from spilling across my chest. I don’t even taste it anymore. “There was a tracking device in my shoulder?”

“Close to your shoulder blade, yeah. You were at the dentist, getting worked on, and that’s when your father had it put in.”

“He was tracking me.”

“I’m afraid so.”

While most of me doesn’t want to believe it, a very small but insistent part of me does. If anything, it makes too much sense. The way he always seemed to know where I was. I could never pull anything over on him. This was more than a case of having eyes in the back of his head and bodyguards everywhere.

Righteous indignation bubbles in my chest, forcing its way up my throat. “He didn’t trust me, so he had a tracking device implanted without me knowing it.”

“It’s not about trust. He thought he was protecting you.” If I wasn’t so angry about this, I would probably be more curious about how Ren is standing up for my father. Almost like he would have done the same.

“Protecting me?” I blurt out, almost breathless from the betrayal. “He thought he had to protect me? When Quinton’s the one who went missing twice? I’m the one who gets a tracker implanted in my shoulder? What the hell?”

For the first time since I found him in the garden, he smiles, and it’s almost like looking at the Ren I thought I knew. The Ren I’ve loved for so long.

“And you were in a hurry to get back to them,” he says, instantly killing the moment. It’s the bitterness in his voice, fairly dripping from it. This man has enough resentment to choke a horse. “Don’t worry. I took it out of you. He can’t control you anymore.”

“But why? Why did you do it? What made you hurt my family—your family?” I correct since that’s who they are. We’re family. Or we were.

My questions bring a curtain down between us, and he withdraws again, this time breaking off a piece of bread and putting it in my mouth. No answers. He won’t acknowledge my question.

No, no, I can’t have that. I can’t have him pull away again. There must be a way to get through to him, to get him talking to me. Not only because I’m so hungry for him in my soul, either. He’s damn creepy when he goes silent. Eerie.

“I made a mistake back at MIT.”

His brows lift, but he says nothing, stirring the soup and sending steam into the air to mix with the scent of the wood that surrounds us. It would feel homey and charming under different circumstances.

“I broke my promise,” I continue, forcing the words out even though my heart’s pounding, and I feel like I’m about to be sick. But if anything’s going to get through to him, it’ll be this. Because he still cares about me. He’s proven it. “I let somebody else touch me at a party. A stranger who wore a mask. He fingered me. I don’t know; I guess I tried to believe it was you. I needed to believe it after missing you so much for so long. But it clearly wasn’t, and I’ve regretted it every day since.”

That has to do it, right? It has to stir him out of this near catatonia. He’ll get mad, sure, but he’ll be real.

It’ll be him, finally, fighting with me. For me.

He inhales deeply through his nose, then lets it out slowly while he stares down at the bits of carrots and peas floating in the tomato broth. What’s he thinking? What’s he going to do?

What he does when he finally lifts his gaze is the last thing I expected.

He smiles.

He might as well have hit me. No, a punch in the face would have felt more normal after what I just admitted. That, I could make sense of.

But a smile? One that never reaches those flat eyes of his?

“As if I would ever let someone else touch you,” he whispers, the smile still plastered on his face.

The truth hits me like a ton of bricks.

Oh my god.

It was him.

He was stalking me around campus.

I was right—but it doesn’t make me feel better.

All I can do is ask myself, who am I really locked inside this cabin with?