Page 31 of Gabe
Seventeen
TARA
The sound of grunts and sobs of pain pull me from the darkness once again. My muscles freeze for a second before I realize what’s happening in the room isn’t happening to me. I slowly open my eyes and try not to move a single muscle. I don’t want Miles to know that I’m awake. I’m once again laying on my side; luckily, it’s on my right side, but that shoulder is starting to ache even more. My hands are numb from the lack of blood flow, and my shoulders are burning from being in this position for too long.
My eyes collide with Heidi’s dull brown eyes. I watch the tears streaming out of them and the life draining from them all at the same time. I don’t move my gaze from her face. In my peripheral vision, I can see her body moving. Add that to the sounds of skin slapping skin and the grunts, and I know what Miles is doing to her, and if I didn’t already have the urge to kill him, I’m sure it would cover me.
I hate that she is having to go through this again. That something is being taken from her against her will. All I can hope is that now that she isn’t sobbing openly, she has floated off somewhere else in her mind. With a roar, the sound of the rapestops, and I shut my eyes, not wanting to risk Miles looking over and seeing them open.
“Fuck, I’ve taken this ass so many times it’s starting to become too loose for my liking,” Miles says, and the words are nothing but kindling for the fire raging inside me. I allow the fire to rage on. I use it to focus on what I need to do to get us out of this. “I do hate that you have stopped putting up a fight, though. It’s a pity, but hopefully, she has more of a fight inside her. Hands behind your back. You know the drill.”
That gives me a little hope that when he tries to rape me, he will do the stupid thing and take these restraints off me. I’ve come to terms with the fact that he will try to take me against my will, but he won’t be successful. He was only able to kidnap me because I didn’t see him coming. I was too caught up in my thoughts to sense that danger was near, but not now.
He has all my attention and focus, which is nothing but a death sentence for him. Since my eyes are closed, my hearing is amplified, and I feel the change in the air when the sound of his footsteps stops right in front of me. At the last second, I tense the muscles in my stomach and brace for the kick. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, but Vance taught me that it helps protect my organs a little. I try hard to keep the groan in from the pain, but I fail.
“Wake the fuck up.”
I groan again and open my eyes. Gritting my teeth, I fight through all the ache and pain. “Who was Houston to you?” That’s the one thing I can’t understand. I did the work when I looked into him. He was a foster kid who never stayed longer than a couple of months with each foster home. He had no biological siblings, and his parents were nothing more than a couple of junkies. Seeing as how Miles and Houston hav the same last name, there is some relation between them. I just don’t know what.
With his pants still unbuttoned, Miles squats down and grabs a fistful of my hair. The fact that I can see some of his skinny dick makes bile burn the back of my throat. “He was the most important person to me, and you took him from me. Why? Because that bitch lied about him.”
“She didn’t lie.” I know that there are women out there who do lie about things like rape. The percentage is very fucking low at only five percent, but that just means that I always looked into each claim with as much attention as I did the men. Heidi didn’t lie, and I know for certain. Her younger sister is a nurse, and after Heidi was assaulted by Houston, her boyfriend, she went to her sister’s job. She had a rape kit done but declined the hospital’s offer to call the police. It turns out that Houston was a rookie police officer, and Heidi was afraid that no one would believe her, but I did.
Killing an officer made me nervous, but the fact that Houston was already on his way out of the department made it easier. I kept an eye out for any mention of him for a whole month after I left him in the swamps of Louisiana. Everyone believed the letter I forced him to write before I killed him. In the letter, he explained that everything had become too much for him and that he was sorry for what he had done to the women who complained about his abuse of power. When they found his car abandoned close to the swamps, they declared that he must have taken his own life there and left it alone.
“Yes, she did!” Miles screams, pulling his leg back, clearly aiming to kick me again, but before he can follow through, Heidi moves quickly and swings her legs around.
I roll out of the way just in time, so Miles falls hard to the concrete floor. His head bounces off the floor, but he doesn’t get back up. “Is he dead?”
My gaze snaps to Heidi, kneeling on her knees and looking down at Miles. Her whole body is shaking while her eyes arewide and unblinking. “I don’t think so, but we have to move fast,” I say. I scan the room, looking for something we can use to cut us free. My eyes land on a broken brick. “See that brick over in the corner,” I say, leaning my head to the left.
Heidi follows my gaze and nods her head. “Great, think you can pick it up and bring it over here?”
“Yeah,” she says breathlessly. She stands on wobbly legs, I’m afraid she is too weak to do this, but she must pull strength from somewhere because she makes it to the brick. She squats down with her back to the wall. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration. A groan comes from Miles, and my heart rate speeds up.
“Hurry,” I whisper, not wanting to speak too loudly. Now that my vision isn’t blurry, I can see that my legs aren’t zip-tied together, and I could easily kick Miles in the head, but that would be risking him waking up before my hands are freed.
“Got it.” Heidi stands up and runs over to where I’m still sitting. The sound of the brick hitting the floor makes my breathing pause and I look toward Miles. He doesn’t move, but he groans again. We have maybe a second before he wakes up.
“Kick the brick closer to me.” I shift slightly until my back is fully facing Heidi. Once I feel the brick hit my hand, I wrap my fingers around it, feeling for the sharp edge. The bite of pain as it splits my finger open lets me know I’ve found it. It takes a second to get the proper grip on it, but once I have it, I move it up and down against the ties. “You need to instruct me on if I’m doing it.”
“You are. What you’re doing is working. Keep it up.”
As I hear and feel the ties snap, Miles’s eyes open, and he starts to get up. My shoulders are screaming, as are my wrists, now that proper blood flow is pushing blood through my arms, but I don’t focus on the pain. I tighten my grip on the brick, and just as Miles pushes onto his hands, I bring my hand around andsmack him upside the head with the brick. He grunts and falls to the side but doesn’t black out. I pull back and put as much power as possible behind the next swing. When it connects, the skin splits, and blood starts pouring out. Miles’s eyes close again, and I move to stand up.
“Turn around,” I instruct Heidi, who listens to me. Once I free her wrist, I start looking around for things to help me. I see a few ties sticking out of his back pocket. I point to them and tell Heidi, “Take those and restrict his hands.” The light glints off the bracelet that Ava gave me, and the sight of it reminds me of who I am. It reinforces the fact that I can do this.
Heidi doesn’t hesitate when she walks forward and grabs the black plastic strips from his pocket. “He has a bag of stuff just outside the door. I’m unsure what’s in there, but it’s worth looking at.”
I head toward the door and push it open. Just beyond the door is a small hallway that leads forward and stops at the end of stairs leading up. I grab the bag and head back into the room. “Do you know where we are?” I set the bag down and start digging through the contents.
“I don’t know the exact location, but I know it’s an abandoned house. Right now, we are in the basement.”
I place two hunting knives, a small revolver that I check to make sure is loaded, and a small vile of something beside the bag. At the bottom of the bag is a heavy chain and two padlocks. “Perfect. This will work.”
Heidi looks up after she is done with Miles’s hands. “He used that to keep me chained up down here.”
I stand and head over to the pole in the far left corner of the room. I wrap the chain around it multiple times until I have just enough left to wrap around his ankles. “That’s what we are going to use it for now.” After securing one of the locks, I drop theother to the floor and point toward Miles. “You grab one foot. I’ll take the other.”
