Pull My Heartstrings

Chapter 9

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Chapter 9

"Fuck!" Finn raged as he paced in a small, dingy cell. He punched the wall, gritting his teeth, until his knuckles bled. Desperate, he turned to the uneasy guard standing across from him, on the other side of the metal bars that separated Finn from freedom. "Please, just let me out. Do you even know who I am?"

The guard averted his gaze and bowed his head, a sign of submission, but made no move to interact with or release Finn.

"Where the hell am I?" Finn yelled again, banging on the cell bars. Once again, the guard said nothing.

He sat in that stupid dungeon for hours, although it only felt like a few minutes to Rowan. Her concentration was beginning to waver as she waited for some indication of where Finn was. But she had to hold on until she knew, she just had to. Finally, the break she was waiting for occurred. She should've known.

"Uncle!" Finn looked confused as Evans appeared from the right with a few guards. The guard who had been watching over Finn stood and saluted. "What's going on here? This must be a mistake, please let me out of here."

"This is no mistake," Evans smiled sadly. "But this wouldn't have had to happen if you had just stayed away from Rowan."

"I don't understand," he shook his beautiful head, confused. "Are you joking? Because this isn't funny."

"Make no mistake, nephew, this is no joke. I don't think you understand the lengths I'm willing to go to get what I want." That stupid idiot was grinning his head off. "I suppose I did lose a good heir. It's a shame, really, I was about to show you all that I have accomplished but you just had to be Rowan's mate. To think you could've been on this side of the cell, no?"

Evans laughed again as he disappeared from view into the dank hallways where Rowan had once spent countless miserable days and nights. Finn hung his head, dejected, and slumped against a wall.

"Rowan..." Finn murmured. "So many regrets."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowan

"Oh gods," Rowan gasped. "Finn!"

She jumped out of her seat and grabbed her car keys. She had to get Finn back. She wasn't going to let Evans take her mate away from her. She wasn't going to ever let him take anything away from her again. A heavy sense of urgency settled on her chest, a weight that made her frantic and gave her purpose.

With that, she drove to the place that still haunted her nightmares.

The drive took two hours. She didn't stop for anything and she might have broken some traffic laws on the way. It was frankly pure luck that she didn't get pulled over. Cornfields and rows of soybeans flashed by, a repetitive farmland that lasted far too long. The place she was looking for was two hours south of Illinois, isolated amidst the cornfields. If memory served, it was now only a mile away.

Rowan pulled up to a fence lined with barbed wire. A run down prison sprawled before her, grass growing between the asphalt and vines overtaking the walls. It used to be a government run prison, but budget cuts inevitably led to its closure. Evans, being a freeloader, turned the prison into a facility for his own use.

A guard sat in a small pavilion at the entrance. He looked just like a homeless man, for appearance's sake, but he was too sleek and buff to be a squatter at a former prison. She knew better, and hid nothing as she marched up to the guard.

He opened his mouth to warn her off, but Rowan interrupted him. "You know who I am, and you know what I can do. If you try to stop me from getting what I want here, I can and will rip everything you love away from you, and it will be the worst pain you could ever feel in your miserable, measly life. Do you understand me?"