Twist My Heart by Brooke Taylor (ebook audio reader .txt) 📕

chinking of the aged cabin. The voices he’d heard had come from a television. Over it, he couldn’t hear anything else. No movement at all. No telling how many people might be inside or what they were armed with. After another glance around the compound of cabins, Nik breached the door, easily kicking it open.

The sight punched his gut, worse than any slug to the body armor he could’ve taken. He signaled for Coop as he went inside. They’d been here. The controls for the drone were discarded on the coffee table. Clothing and toiletries were out. But no Clay. No Aimee. And no Thea.

At the sound of Coop wheeling the truck through the gravel, Nik abandoned the cabin. He swung up into the passenger seat. “They’re gone.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Clay laughed maniacally at my disappointment. He’d never intended to take me to my sister. All we’d done was move cabins. It’d all been a joke to him. Another way to mess with me. And yet, I still found myself begging, “Is my sister alive, Clay?”

I pleaded with my eyes for an honest answer, even though I knew better than to expect one. He was loving this. I needed to go back to not caring about what he was saying to me. Not letting him see my emotions.

“She’s dead, Thea,” Aimee scrambled to say. “He told me.”

The soft way she said it made me believe her. Relief and heartbreak warred inside me. The game he was playing with me was over, but so was the hope of finding my sister.

“Aimee, Aimee, Aimee… So jealous. Green is not as good a color on you as it is on Sera. You must get used to sharing me now that you are one of the Six. Thea won’t mind if you go first. She prefers to watch. Besides, she must atone for watching her sister be taken while doing absolutely nothing to save her. Aimee here is going to help. She looks a bit like Mandy in the blonde wig, doesn’t she?”

“I have amnesia.” I grunted. “I don’t remember what Amanda looks like. I’ve only seen a few pictures.”

At my use of the less familiar name, Clay’s sadistic grin faltered. Still, he grabbed Aimee, hauling her body against his. “If it’s true, then watching will help jog your memory. Pay attention, Thea, because, unlike last time, you’ll be next.”

Clay dragged Aimee by the arm as he grabbed up a nightgown. Obediently she changed clothes, her brief nudity revealing a freshly raised, red scar over her heart. The same symbol as in the autopsy photos. Despite the terror crackling in my veins and the overwhelming desire to break free to help Aimee, I forced myself to stay controlled. Clay fed off instability, fear. He wanted me desperate and, oh, I was. But like hell would I let him see it. I kept my tone bored, absently muttering, “I don’t get it.”

“What don’t you understand, Thea?”

“Well, you say in order for me to atone, I must relive the worst thing in my past. Why?”

Clay coiled Aimee’s hair in a harsh grip, the pale wig tangling awkwardly with her flame-red strands. “Explain it to your new sister.”

He spun her to look me in the eye, as she choked out automatically, “To prove you can overcome it.”

At each movement from Clay, Aimee flinched. Her body trembled so hard, I expected every single bone was rattling. But for some reason she continued obeying him, her eyes pleading for me to do the same. As much as I wanted to rip her from his grasp—both physically and mentally—I ignored her, casually shifting as I addressed Clay again.

“But haven’t I survived it already?”

Clay’s eyes fired. He’d wanted screams and begging and pleading, not questioning and mockery. Frustration flitted over his hard face. With a heave, he thrust Aimee onto the bed alongside the one I’d been dumped on. He’d as much as said so, but given the wig and nightgown along with my being on one bed and them on the other, I was realizing he wanted his little show to be as close to the original as possible.

“I don’t need some silly reenactment to prove anything. I’m not ten years old, she’s not my sister, and this isn’t our old room.” I rolled over, staring at the ceiling.

I was quite certain Aimee was questioning my sanity. That made two of us. I’m sure there were smarter strategies than to prod Clay into a rage with the hopes he’d make a mistake. But without any sign of Nik, Coop, or Leo, and doubting they even had a way to find me, I couldn’t count on them rushing in to save the day.

Somehow I had to get Clay’s focus off Aimee. She was simply a means for him to get to me. And getting to me, he was. Every grab and shove he’d given her blazed through my already battered body. But I couldn’t let him see how much he was hurting us both.

“This all seems kind of dumb, don’t you think? How does my watching you and your girlfriend put on a half-ass show— Her wig is barely even on.”

“You think I’m pretending? You think this is fake?” he bellowed, as he pulled out a gruesome pocketknife and ran the tip down Aimee’s arm. Her scream pierced my heart as surely the blade had slit through her skin.

“Don’t worry, my pretty, you’ll bleed out, but you won’t miss a thing.”

Oh God, maybe I was being extremely stupid. The blood dripping down her forearm was incredibly real and entirely my fault. But my inner voice was telling me to stick with it. Keeping the horror from my face and voice took everything I had. “I didn’t say it was fake. I said it was an act. Clearly, she’s working with you and a willing participant. But I didn’t see anything in the reports about Amanda being cut with a knife and bleeding everywhere. I mean, I have amnesia, and even I know you’re