Read Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series for Free Online Page B

there,” she said.
    “This is the last time I’m asking,” he said. “Do you want to go or not?”
    “I’ll go,” she said quickly, not wanting to take a chance on him changing his mind.
    He used his light to get them to the stairs and then turned it off. Boyd went ahead of her, walking with a sure step up the dark stairs. Halfway up, her leash tightened and he yanked. She had no choice but to start feeling her way up the stairs using her hands. On all fours, trying to negotiate the unfamiliar stairs, she indeed felt like a dog on a leash. She resolved that she would make him pay for this if she ever had the opportunity.
    At the top of the steps, Boyd swung open the creaky old door, stepping into the house. When she joined him, she could see nothing. She involuntarily put her hands on Boyd’s arm, using him as a guide through the unfamiliar terrain of the house. In a moment, he pushed against the metal latch of a storm door and they stepped onto a porch.
    “Where?” Alice asked.
    “Not on the damn porch!” Boyd said. “Down the steps. Into the yard.”
    Not wanting to raise further ire, Alice felt around until she found a porch rail, then felt further until she found a rail descending. She followed it to the end of the leash, unbuttoned her pants, and peed in the grass. She felt her neck, noting that Boyd had threaded the zip tie right through a link in the chain, just as he’d said. There was nothing she could feel that would allow her to escape the leash without a knife.
    She must have lingered too long because a sudden yank on the leash nearly pulled her over.
    “I ain’t got all night,” he said.
    When they re-entered the house, Alice’s heart filled with dread at climbing back down into the dark basement. She feared that she’d never make it out of there again.
    “Do you want to talk some more, Boyd?”
    He laughed. “I’m not ready to talk to you now. I will be later.”
    He led her back down the steps, using the light and keeping her on a tight leash.
    “Can you not tie me so tightly this time?” she asked. “Please?”
    In the end, he left the leash on her neck, tying the other end to one of the support posts. He also put a fresh zip tie on her hands, but left her feet free this time.
    “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said.
    “Can I have some water?” she asked. “I’m thirsty. Hungry too.”
    “Maybe I’ll feed you tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe I won’t.”
     

Chapter 3
     
    The Valley
    Russell County, VA
     
    In a valley alongside the Clinch Mountain range there lived a man named Buddy Baisden. Buddy had a larger ranch-style brick house that he’d built in the 1980s. The light in Buddy Baisden’s life went out two days before everyone else in Russell County lost theirs. That was the day his daughter Rachel died of an OxyContin overdose.
    Buddy had already lost his wife three years earlier to some kind of female cancer that he didn’t know much about. All he knew was that it took from him the woman who made his house into a home for him and Rachel. His daughter had been a senior in high school and he began losing her the day his wife died. She spent less and less time at home, giving him vague answers about where she was and what she was doing. He gave her curfews that she ended up breaking. His punishments had a limited effect and only served to push them further apart. He gave up punishing her eventually, hoping he might preserve his relationship with the only other person in this world that he gave two damns about.
    Rachel had still looked healthy, but she came home often without that glow in her eye that he lived to see. She staggered around the house and bumped into things. Several times she had lain in the bed and urinated upon herself, so high on pills that she could not even get up to use the bathroom. He had tried talking to her, which only made her mad. After those talks she would stay away from home for days to punish him, so he quit saying anything.
    She’d been with