THIRTY-TWO
stella
The man’sgrip was a tight, almost painful pressure on my arm as I followed him, the feel of his strong fingers digging in, causing me to wince. The punishing way he held me left no room for interpretation. Move or be moved.
He pushed me through the maze of hallways, leading to an endless void of darkness. I did my best to catalog our movements, but after the fifteenth turn, I’d lost my way and become disoriented.
A child’s soft cry, barely audible, drifted from the end of the hallway, and a sudden chill ran down my spine, catching my breath. I would know that cry anywhere. Charlie was alive. She was upset, but she was very much alive. In a last-ditch attempt, I pulled on my attacker, hoping his heart would soften at the sound of my child’s tiny, trembling sobs. I struggled against his hold, tugging him towards where I’d heard the cries.
“Please, just let me see her.” I cried, unable to mask my fear that this might be the last time I’d be able to lay eyes on my daughter.
“She’s fine.” He groused, pushing me towards the other end of the hallway, away from my daughter, and into a small empty room. The air felt damp, the humidity hanging like a thick curtain of despair. There was nothing in the room except for a chair and some rope.
My heart beat wildly in my chest as I cataloged my surroundings. There were no points of entry in the room, save for the door we had just entered from. There were no windows, no decorations, nothing.
I took several deep breaths to calm my racing heart, reminding myself that panicking wouldn’t help—a clear head was my only chance of survival. A burning desire to save my girl fueled my every step; I had to escape and return to Max with Charlie safely in my arms. I couldn’t let the last words he heard from me be a frantic, scribbled note, as I fled.
My vision blurred with images of Max; his warm eyes, the feel of his hand in mine, bringing tears to my eyes. I wondered what he had felt when he had awoken to the realization that I had left. Had he thought that I didn’t love him? I silently hoped he’d read my note, its ink barely dry, and that someday, the weight of my mistakes wouldn’t hang heavy over us.
The man pushed me roughly towards the ground, dirt and grime scraping my knees. As I folded in on myself, the cool, smooth metal of Max’s gun pressed against my skin, a chilling reminder of its presence tucked into my waistband. I wasn’t going down without a fight, but I had to be smart in how all of this played out.
Knowing that I couldn’t just reach in my pants and pull out a loaded firearm, flip off the safety, and shoot, I did my best to hide the weapon from his sight, taking great care to lean forward so it didn’t dig into my belly. The idiot hadn’tbothered to search me, probably thinking that I wasn’t smart enough to walk in here armed.
His assumptions might have been right for most women, but I wasn’t most women. I was a fighter; I was ruthless. I was determined. And scariest of all, I was a mom whose daughter was crying out in fear in the other room. There is nothing scarier than a mother desperate to keep her child safe.
The man leaned over me menacingly, “Well, well, well, little bitch. I told you I’d catch you,” he spat, his rancid breath hot against my cheek as he yanked my hair, forcing my head back to whisper the threat into my ear.
A chill ran down my spine as I felt the cold, hard metal of a weapon dug into my side, and I choked down a whimper. Would I even have a chance to fight my way out of here, or would Max find my lifeless body amongst the wreckage when this was all over?
I imagined him, stricken with grief, as he crouched over my corpse, wondering how all of this had gone so wrong. We needed our chance; we deserved a happily ever after filled with laughter and love. I clung to my feelings for him; he had accepted me, flaws and all, after everything I’d been through, and the thought of letting go was unbearable.
“Now that I’ve caught you, I get my reward,” the man whispered as he gripped my neck with one hand and coasted the tip of his weapon from the fleshy part of my side and up my front, running it along my breast and settling it to rest on my throat.
I bit my lip, clenching my jaw to stifle the whimper that threatened to escape, desperately trying to project an image of strength to mask my overwhelming terror. I had a gut feeling that fear fueled this man, and any sign of weakness from mewould only embolden him further; his eyes gleamed with anticipation, his pupils pinpoint with drug induced haze.
Pressing his thick and imposing frame flush with my back, I felt the outline of his erection on my ass. I fought the urge to gag and attempted to shuffle forward, putting some space between us.
Grunting in frustration at my obvious effort to get away, he tugged me back into his body, the stench of his body odor oppressive. The repulsive smell of unwashed flesh and something else, something sickly sweet, wafted from him, and I gasped, sucking in air through my mouth to avoid it. His calloused hand reached around and gripped a hold of my neck, replacing the gun and choking off my attempts at breathing.
Just as he had done in the apartment the night Dean died, he sniffed a line from my collarbone to my ear, the scent of my skin filling his nostrils before he proceeded to lick my earlobe, his thick tongue warm and wet against my skin. I tried to shift my head to the side, but his punishing grip on my throat held me firmly in place. I felt his fingers tighten, pressing against my windpipe, slowly cutting off my oxygen.
Darkness encroached, a black circle swallowing my sight, and the world dissolved into a hazy gray. I felt a cold dread, a palpable sense of death’s approach, whispering promises of oblivion from the far distance. I did my best to fight against the inky darkness, knowing that if I allowed this man to kill me, I was leaving behind a family, my daughter, and the man that I loved.
With what little strength I still possessed, I carefully reached into the waistband of my shorts, grasping the butt of the gun. Somehow, by the grace of whatever luck I possessed,I managed to wrap my fingers around the hilt and draw the weapon.
In a desperate heave, I used all my might to push my attacker away, my head slamming back into his face with a sickening thud.
“YOU BITCH.” He screamed, holding his bleeding nose as he attempted to right himself and raise his own weapon in defense. He hadn’t even begun to raise his weapon when I moved, lifting my gun with a practiced motion, the safety clicking off with a decisive snap, and firing wildly into the room, the smell of gunpowder instantly filling the air.
Time slowed to a crawl, each second stretching into an eternity as everything happened. The bullet launched from the gun in my hands, a tiny projectile that seemed to hang in the air before speeding toward the man. With a held breath, my gaze remained steady as the bullet ripped through his leg. The smell of blood filled the air as I watched the muscle and sinew tear apart.
I hadn’t managed a killing blow, but the bullet found its mark, leaving him writhing on the ground, his pained breaths filling the air. I bolted, a desperate need for escape propelling me out the door and toward the room where I’d heard Charlie’s muffled cries, a frantic sound that echoed still in my ears.
Suddenly, a strong arm wrapped tightly around my waist, spinning me around to face a hard, familiar body. My legs and arms flailed, a desperate dance of defiance, as I screamed and fought the secondary attacker with my remaining strength, his words finally piercing the fog of terror.
“Stella, stop!” he commanded.
I immediately stopped fighting, the echo of his words playing on repeat in my fear muddled mind. That voice..Max.
