Find Me Series (Book 3): Finding Hope Page 23

  “Someone help me,” I cried. “Please…”

  One of the walls shook and then opened like an accordion, folding into itself, and I finally realized where I was - in a camper. Someone’s trailer.

  “Please, help me,” I said through a series of uncontrollable sobs to the man that stood five feet away. Light bloomed out from behind him, but his face remained deeply cast in shadows.

  “Hey, Jay. She’s awake again,” he said loudly over his shoulder.

  The music shut off but continued ringing through my ears. “Thank you,” I sobbed.

  Another form took shape beside the first man. I could see longer hair, down to his shoulders, and the light peeked through the stringy strands almost like sunlight did through the trees above a hiking trail. Something about him was familiar, but I didn’t have time to search my memory. He stepped forward and leaned over the edge of the bed between my bruised legs, unbuttoning his jeans.

  “Wait,” a whimper escaped. “Wait…please.” They weren’t my saviors. They were my captors. My abusers.

  He laughed once. It was a brutal bark-like sound that turned my stomach and crawled along my flesh like a hungry spider. Though they were heavy, I lifted my legs and kicked at him, hitting him once in the side with my knee. With his fingertips, he dug into each of my thighs, slamming my legs back down into the mattress. For the first time since waking, I felt the true nature of the pained state my body was in. I’d never felt the way I did then. Like I’d been torn, ripped to pieces. Broken. Destroyed.

  “Now, stop it, or this will hurt. We’ve already played that game, haven’t we…Riley…”

  His voice. I knew it. I saw them in my mind standing next to an old white van, arguing with Drake and Keel. I remembered them from the road. I remembered what they wanted then.

  The man who’d opened the flimsy door stepped back into the light, leaving me alone with dirty-hair guy. There was nowhere to go and no way to fight back. I pulled on the chains until they chinked together into the flesh of my wrists, drawing blood. With him already on top of me, moving aside the blanket for better access, my legs could do little but flail about along the mattress. But I didn’t stop fighting.

  With each grunt of effort on his behalf, sharp pain mixed with an older, duller pain in my groin. A pain that throbbed inside and outside. It circled my gut and bloomed across my chest.

  A blackness washed over me and my cries and tears stopped. I found myself floating upwards and out of my body, into the sky above, into the clouds, up where the stars burned. And there, lost in my subconscious, I let the pain swallow me into the darkness once again.

  * * *

  Jay took turns raping me over the next four days and three nights. Not once did either of the men allow me to leave the cramped camper, but when Jay left, sometimes Lee would release my chains and allow me to clean myself in the bathroom. He never touched me, but I knew he wanted to. For whatever reason, Jay had staked his claim on my body; that much was clear.

  It was during one of my sponge-bathing sessions on the fourth day that Lee’s intentions came to be. He knocked softly on the door, and even though it was pointless, I covered the battered private parts of my body when he opened the door.

  “Better?” he asked, gesturing to the damp washcloth that had left the bowl of water in the sink pink.

  In order to keep Lee as an ally, and not turn him into a threat, I nodded and forced a small smile.

  “That’s good,” he said. His eyes followed the curve of my neck and down my side, settling somewhere along my hip, where his friend’s fingerprints were bruised into my flesh. “Are you hungry?”

  I nodded with enthusiasm. Jay never fed me, but had to know that Lee did when he was out doing runs or whatever the hell he did when he went off on his own. The meals from Lee were simple: canned and packaged foods, scavenged foods, small cups of water. But once Lee gave me a persimmon. It was dented and obviously overripe, but I didn’t complain.

  “Come out to the kitchen when you’re done,” Lee said, handing me a men’s shirt. Once he closed the door, I pulled it on and let the long waist fall to the tops of my thighs and the cuffs dangle at my fingertips.

  Never had I been allowed to wander around the camper, so I did so with trepidation, expecting a trap, or for Jay to stomp his way through the door and loudly announce his return, which often included a newly procured bottle of alcohol. So when Lee guided me to the small dinette, and then set a plate in front of me with warm food, I was wary.

  “Won’t you get in trouble?” I asked him. It wasn’t because I gave a shit what Jay did to the more submissive man, it was because I cared about what Jay would do to me.

  He shrugged. “I can handle Jay.” He set down his own plate and took the seat opposite me, and then pushed a spoon across the chipped table top. “I’d give you a fork, but I’m not yet certain you wouldn’t stab me in the eye with it,” he laughed.

  My thoughts went wild with imagination.

  Oh, yes. Yes, I would. And then I’d use that fork to carve a hole through your chest and leave your still-warm heart sitting right here on this very table for your friend to find. And then I’d stab him with that bread knife you left on the counter when he came in the door, but I wouldn’t kill him. Not right away. I’d make him suffer. I’d chain him to that mattress and strip his clothes and rip the skin off his body in small pieces. And then…

  “Riley?” Lee asked. “You okay?”

  I snapped back to the present with a jerk. “I’m fine…just…confused as to why you’re being so nice to me.” Though I held onto the spoon like onto a life raft, I hadn’t touched my food.

  Lee blushed. Actually blushed, like a teenager. With a shaky hand, he rubbed at the scruff along his jaw and then shook his hand through his dark hair, spiking it up a bit. “Isn’t that obvious?” he said quietly.

  With exaggerated care, I set the spoon down beside my plate, ignoring the rumble in my stomach, and watched Lee look from the table up at me. “What’s stopping you?” I asked him. The blunt end of the spoon was still an excellent weapon, and would sink into his eye socket with exceptional ease, but first, I wanted Lee as relaxed as possible.

  He shrugged and glanced down at my chest. “I don’t want to take it from you. I’m not like that. I’m not like Jay.”

  “Then why not let me go? I could just walk away. Just like this.”

  His eyes widened with amusement. “I don’t think so.”

  “So you do want me?”

  Lee took a deep breath and pushed his back into the bench, staring at me with great interest. He was no longer within striking distance, so I kept my eyes off the spoon. It was hard not to glance down at it every few seconds to make sure it was still there. Just a few inches away from my pale and scratched hand. In the first two days with Jay, I’d torn half my nails off fighting him. My fingertips were raw and bloodied. And sore as hell. But I’d rip the rest of my nails off just to take hold of that spoon.

  “I do want you,” he finally said.

  The room around us was cold. It had rained the day before, and with no heater inside, and no clothes to cover me, I had relied only on the solitary blanket Jay had tossed on the bed. So, as I pulled the shirt up and over my head, exposing what it was he kept looking at when I talked, I didn’t notice much of a difference in temperature.

  And he did as I expected, focused solely on my body, and not on the shirt that I dropped to the table, covering up the spoon, and landing partially on my plate of no longer steaming chili beans. With slow and deliberate movements, I moved off the bench and stood facing him with my hands gripping the sides of the table. I picked up the shirt and turned my exposed back to Lee, and retreated to the bedroom. In a noisy scramble of movements, he began stripping out of his clothes as he followed. He dropped his belt and jeans to the floor after kicking off his loose boots.

  Not once did he notice that the metal spoon left the table with me.

  * * *

  Drake searched for hours, bu
t lost Riley’s trail at the church. After surveying the scene and the blood left behind by the dog, he knew she’d been taken. But he didn’t know why, or by whom. She would never leave Zoey. She would never have left her dying dog behind for anyone. Someone out there had her against her will, Drake was sure of it, which meant they had caged one hell of an angry fighter. On the second day of searching, Drake realized he wouldn’t be able to do it alone - not in time. Which seemed like something running out every mile he drove, and every turn he took. He decided to retreat back to the Ark on the second night and notified only Keel that Riley was missing. He was less than a favorable companion for the job, but the others wouldn’t go quietly. And they weren’t used to getting their hands dirty with blood. Keel was more than capable of that. Plus, the man had better knowledge of their surroundings after months of scavenging. He was the right person to have beside him. Especially after what happened the day Riley was kicked out.

  Every building, every structure was searched from top to bottom. Both men were armed. Both men were angry. Both men were determined. When Drake found her, and he promised the universe that he wouldn’t stop until he did, there would be no force on earth that would stop him from breaking the necks of everyone involved. At night, when he couldn’t sleep, he would do push-ups until his arms shook. Then he would do crunches. And then he’d run in place. While Keel napped fitfully, Drake was preparing his body for whatever might come.

  He was ready to fight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A feeling of warmth spread across my face, dripping down my chest and over the tops of my legs. It came from freshly spilled blood, but it wasn’t mine. With the spoon still clutched in my right hand, I forced my heaving breaths to slow and inhaled sharply through my nose. The familiar scent of iron was everywhere. The taste lingered on the back of my tongue. Sharp. Metallic. Beautiful.

  God, did revenge taste good.

  I sat straddled atop Lee, who had just moments before managed to strip out of his clothes and flop down on the bed, completely unaware of what I’d held in my hand. He was expecting ecstasy, but as I climbed on top of his legs and leaned toward his face, he’d gotten exactly what I’d imagined in my head at the kitchen table. A painful death.

  He lost his left eye first. Then his right. No longer able to fight, his panicked state and wildly flailing arms exposed his most vulnerable of areas. The spoon handle was strong enough to puncture his throat, and though it went through the soft tissue of his chest, it didn’t quite make it past the ribcage. That didn’t stop me from trying. One dozen strikes, two dozen, three? I had no concept of how many times I lifted my right arm and brought the end of that spoon down into the soft parts of his body, but I knew he was dead before I’d finished. And long before the spoon bent in defeat.

  Covered in Lee’s blood, I rolled off the bed and padded along the worn carpeting to the kitchen sink, where the bread knife rested just beside it. Its serrated edge was perfect for what I needed. It would do the job, and then some.

  Aside from the rushed sound of my own breathing, the camper was so quiet. So peaceful. The darkness of it was oddly comforting. And I found solace in the fact that the windows were covered and the space had become solely mine for the first time.

  All that was left was to wait. Not bothering to dress, I sat in the small armchair by the entrance, facing away from the door with my legs crossed, ignoring the blood splatters that were drying on my naked skin. Minutes passed. Hours, even. My limbs were beginning to register the aching cold when the sound of a vehicle pulled up outside at dusk. Without a light on inside the camper, shadows reached out from everywhere, hiding most of the shapes in the room, including me. Slowly, I stood and stepped behind the chair, and pressed my back against the wall. I was still in plain view, but only if Jay happened to look directly to his left upon entering. My entire plan of attack was betting that he wouldn’t. I even crossed the fingers on my free hand, rolling the dice that he would enter and look right. It was a risk. A life or death gamble that the sane Riley I used to be would never have made just a week before.

  The sound of Jay’s low humming pierced through the quiet night and one of my eyes twitched. Jay liked to hum. He did it while raping me. Or after. Like it soothed him. My toes dug into the carpet fibers for balance and I unlocked my knees in preparation. My muscles tightened as he hoisted up one of the two front steps, tilting the camper slightly to the side just as he yanked on the door handle. My knuckles popped as my fingers gripped onto the knife with every ounce of available strength when the inner door flung out into the approaching night, and he finally stepped inside. Hours I had waited for him to return. Hours smelling Lee’s death lingering on my skin. My shoulders hunched forward and my jaw set in place as he immediately looked to his right, away from me. The gamble had paid off.

  He dropped a pack onto the floor and kicked it aside. “Lee, I saw that dick there again today. Was on High Mountain road though, using binoculars. That bastard won’t find his way up here any time soon for the girl, but I still think…” his voice trailed off slowly. “Lee? What the hell is that smell?”

  He stepped up into the common area and glanced at the accordion door that covered up most of the view of the bed. His back was to me, and even if he’d heard me take the two steps toward him, there wasn’t enough room for Jay to react quickly enough. My blade cut through the air and went into his left side, slicing through his jacket and puncturing his skin like warm butter. After a subtle twist, I pulled it out and watched him drop to his knees.

  He’d forgotten how to use his hands, and I stared down at him as he flailed around, unsure of what had just happened. He called out for his friend. Many times. And it made me smile, seeing him beg on the floor for help. When I spoke, his body froze in a hunched-over position.

  “Lee’s dead, Jay. Like you’ll be soon,” I said. “Like I am now.” It was how I felt. Like I’d died in his hands many times over that week.

  “Wait,” he gasped, grabbing at his side. The blood poured out faster than he could plug the hole, but he still tried in vain to stop the bleeding.

  With a yank, I pulled on his coat until his arms slid free, and used my foot to shove him to the floor. His chin struck the carpet with a soft thud and he turned his head to look at me. “Bitch, I’ll kill you,” he hissed.

  His eyes widened with fear when I began to laugh. There was no doubting that mania had taken over. The little moral compass I’d managed to hold onto was lost somewhere between hell and its gate. I was all animal. All bite. Wild from the inside out. And I wanted blood. I wanted Jay’s blood.

  With the serrated blade pressed roughly against his throat, my mouth found its way just an inch from his ear. I spoke soothingly, with purpose, so he would understand every word.

  “Jay…Jay, listen to me now. I’m going to slit you open from hip to hip. Then I’m going to pull out your intestines and strangle you with them. Please, please don’t pass out. I want you to feel everything, Jay,” I whispered. “I want you to know what’s going to happen to you and that you’re helpless to stop it. I’m going to kill you, Jay. I’m going to do it slowly. And yes, it’s going to hurt.”

  The next hour happened in a series of choppy and blurry flashes. I know I took off one of Jay’s ears and a finger, because I found them in a coat pocket later. And I know I ended his misery by driving the blade into one of his temples. I remember it getting lodged there, stuck deep into the bone of his skull. I remember watching him twitch before his eyes lost focus and his brain died. What I didn’t remember, and often times since wished I had, was slicing off his penis, and where that useless body part ended up.

  Perhaps it was better that the memories of that dark and twisted night never completely returned. Because even for the mad, some things are best left in the past.

  * * *

  The frost from before dawn hadn’t yet thawed on the van windshield by the time I pulled away from the camper. Most of my clothes were in the same heap that Jay had left them
in when he first stripped them off me, all except for my winter coat. It was nowhere to be found, no matter how hard I searched. Right beside my discarded boots was my sifted-through back pack. But my shirt was torn in two pieces, so I tugged on the long-sleeved one Lee had given me earlier. I’d pulled on Jay’s coat, with the bloody slash in the side, and apparently that was when I shoved his body parts into the side pocket.

  Dazed and exhausted, I left with only the clothes on my back and my boots on, with my pack clutched in my hand, my flash drive somehow still secure in my jeans pocket. With no concept of where I was, I drove down the first road I came to, remembering that Jay mentioned being on top of a mountain. My intent was only to put as many miles between myself and Arizona as the half-tank of gas would allow. The shakes started two miles in, and not long after that my hands jerked so violently that I swerved off the road and stalled with half the vehicle wedged in a ditch. Something popped with a tremendous hiss and steamy liquid burst from beneath the hood, splattering across the cracked windshield.

  After struggling to open the door, I scrambled from the van, dizzy and disoriented. My legs gave out and dropped me hard to the wet ground. There I stayed, on my side, breathing in the clean after-smell of rain, watching the top of a pine tree sway gently from side to side as the hissing sound from the van slowly died.

  “I’m alive,” I breathed into the early morning. “Alive.”

  A bird flew over the treetops and I rolled onto my back to follow it across the empty and quiet sky until it vanished. It was alone in the sky, just like I was alone on the earth.