Refresh

by Suzanne Steele

  “Oh, in other words, resistance is futile? Isn’t that the old saying?”

  “Clichés only stick around because they’re true, so you tell me.” He clasped her jaw and tilted her head back to look at him. “Do you still love me, Rain?”

  Rain covered his hand with hers and leaned back against the pillows to study her husband. The fierce expression on his face revealed his desperation for this marriage to work. Whether she wanted to or not, she loved this man.

  Her eyes glistened with unshed tears as she nodded. She slid her fingers along his neck and into his hair, then pulled him down to her. “I have one request,” she murmured against his lips.

  “Anything,” he whispered, kissing her softly. He shifted his weight and blanketed her body with his own.

  “Make love to me.”

  His eyes darkened and he slid his hand down her taut abdomen to cradle her bare mound. He touched her softly, rolling the slick nub beneath his finger. She gasped, arching toward his hand. He lowered his head and rolled the tip of his tongue around a nipple, turning his eyes toward her to gauge her response before murmuring against her skin, “That, I can do.”

  In that moment, neither could have known that their union was about to be transformed by forces that defied explanation; that their bond would take on a new dimension that would transcend space and time. Love was one thing, obsession was quite another. Throw in a dash of the supernatural and there would be no separating the two of them–ever.

  Chapter Three

  “What does he want with us? Why does he keep bringing in new women?”

  The woman’s panicked voice sounded tinny and far away as it broke through Electra’s drug-induced fog. She frowned and tried to piece together snippets of memory. Jogging. She had been jogging. She reached up to see if she still had her earbuds. Nope, no earbuds. No phone. And she wasn’t in her own clothes. She was in a flimsy nightgown. No panties. No bra, either. She shook her head in a vain attempt to clear her thoughts, but even that slight movement was difficult, as if her brain was mired in a sort of mental quicksand.

  Jogging. She had been jogging and then a van had pulled up alongside her. A woman asked for directions. She struggled to open her eyes but they wouldn’t budge. She didn’t want to go back to sleep; she’d been having such strange dreams that made no sense. But she was unable to muster the strength to open her eyes more than the barest slit, just enough to make out blurry shapes moving around her. But the dim lighting was more than she could take so she shut her eyes again.

  “Well, he sure as hell got plenty of help from you this time around, didn’t he?! How could you do that? How could you go out with that bastard and help him lure another woman back here?”

  “He had a gun. He said he’d kill me. I don’t wanna die.”

  So he had used one of his victims to get her here. Why? Why? Why? She should have gone running with somebody. It was too late to beat herself up for her mistake of running at night alone. She wanted to hate the woman for her betrayal but on some level, she understood that she hadn’t had a choice. It wasn’t her fault; she was just trying to survive. No, the fault belonged to the evil monster who was holding them all captive.

  Having a gun put to your head and being threatened could make even the most upstanding, moral person act out of character. Why would someone collect women? Maybe it was a human trafficking ring. Maybe he sold women on the dark web. She had seen stories about that in the news. The ‘what ifs’ were overwhelming. Even as she tried to clear her mind, she wished the drugs would turn her brain off so she could have a little peace. How was it possible for her body to be so fatigued even as her mind raced?

  She tried to open her eyes again, with a bit more luck this time. Blinking helped bring the blurry images in the foreground into sharper focus. Four young women, all late teens or early twenties, all strikingly beautiful in their own way, and all in sheer nightgowns similar to the one she was wearing. Electra was struck immediately by how diverse the group was: a young woman with a long, black braid and loose strands of silky hair framing her face, who looked curiously at Electra before quickly turning away; a curvaceous Latino beauty with glasses and a mane of wavy, mahogany hair; a slender redhead with piercing green eyes and skin like porcelain; and a petite African-American woman with closely shorn hair who was curled up in a corner of the cell, staring off at nothing.

  “Look, she’s awake!” the redhead noted excitedly. She crawled over to sit beside Electra. “I’m Jamie. What’s your name, hon?”

  “Electra. Electra Karmin. I go to the University of Louisville.”

  “Really?! Me too!” Jamie’s green eyes lit up at discovering a connection with this stranger. One by one, the women confirmed that they, too, were students at the university.

  “Where am I? How long have you been here?” Electra rasped.

  “It’s cold down here and there are no windows, so I think we’re in some kind of basement,” Jamie suggested.

  “Looks more like a dungeon to me,” Electra said, coughing because her throat was scratchy like sandpaper.

  “Hey, here’s some water.” Jamie opened a bottle and held it to Electra’s lips. “There. All better. A dungeon, huh? I won’t argue with you there. I’m sorry; I don’t really know how long any of us have been here. It’s been a while though. I think we’ve lost all sense of time, or whether it’s day or night.” Jamie shrugged and gestured around her. “You know, no windows.”

  “What’s wrong with her? Is she okay?” Electra pointed to the African-American girl huddled in the corner.

  “Oh, that’s Michelle. She doesn’t talk.”

  “Is she hurt? Or sick?”

  Jamie shrugged again. “Don’t know. You know, she won’t talk? Hasn’t said a word since we got here. We used to try to talk to her, but it seemed to upset her. So we just let her be. She knows we’re here with her and she’s not alone, and that seems to be enough.”

  Electra nodded weakly. “So, um, you said you’re a student?”

  “I’m studying Criminology,” Jamie said. “One of the first things they teach us is to find a common denominator. So this is good; it gives us an idea who we’re dealing with. He’s obviously targeting college students.”

  “How on earth does that help?” the Asian beauty asked softly as she swept her long braid over her shoulder and nervously fidgeted with it.

  “Amy, information like that helps the police develop a profile of possible suspects,” Jamie said with a thoughtful frown. “Now, if I were a detective, I’d start by finding out who has access to the university, starting with school staff like maybe the security guard.”

  “Well, the guard is weird,” Amy scoffed. “But he’d have to be working with someone else though because the guy who brings our food is nobody I’ve ever seen on campus.”

  “What do you mean ‘weird’?” This time it was Electra asking the question, her voice little more than a whisper. She felt like the drugs were finally wearing off and she had to do something. Even if she was merely strategizing with the women, it gave her a sense of power.

  “He’s always lurking around corners like some kind of stalker.” That made all the women laugh. “No, seriously. One time they even caught him in the women’s locker room, like he was trying to catch someone in the shower or something. He’s seriously creepy.”

  “Well, I’d have to agree on that one. What was his excuse when he got caught?”

  “He said he was checking the lockers because there had been a break-in. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one breaking in.”

  “Do any of the professors seem strange or at all suspicious?” Electra asked.

  The women would spend the rest of the night speculating about the identity of their captor. Electra felt a sense of urgency to see the man holding them against their will. She needed to know what she was dealing with.

  Chapter Four

  “I can’t sleep.”

  Blaze stretched lazily and clasped his hands behind his head, th
en looked over at his wife. She was lying on her side next to him, her eyes wide and expectant. He knew what she wanted. “You’re not going to be able to rest until you go back there, are you? You want to get a read on it.”

  If Blaze knew anything, it was his wife. He’d spent years studying her. Whether it be from obsession or love, he couldn’t help but be intrigued with her and her gifted ability to understand what others couldn’t possibly comprehend. He had learned to take her visions seriously. Blaze had sensed something special about Rain from the start, but he’d had no idea how deep her gifts went. Over time he had come to realize that her visions and powers of intuition were part of the total package that made her so perfect for him.

  He pulled Rain close, savoring the feel of her warm, naked curves as she wrapped herself around him. He slid his hand along her lower back and gave her bottom a squeeze. “You know I support you.”

  “I know you do, and I love you for it. I don’t know, baby; I just can’t get her out of my head. That woman needs our help. Maybe this is what we need to bring us back together.”

  “I never left, Rain. I never left.” He swatted her ass, then threw back the covers and got to his feet. Her eyes roamed over his nude body as he sauntered to the closet for jeans and a t-shirt. His sculpted, muscled body, dark hair, and piercing eyes were a sexy combination. He was the epitome of a virile, powerful male in his prime.

  Rain had often seen women shamelessly staring at him like he was a delectable dessert they wanted to devour, but that was okay; Blaze only had eyes for his wife. He never noticed the attention. But he could feel Rain’s eyes on him now.

  “Keep looking at me like that and I’m going to get back in that bed and eat you alive. That’ll put your ass to sleep.”

  “As tempting as that is, I really do want to go and try to get a read on this place. Maybe it will jar something inside me and I’ll have a vision or a dream.”

  He turned to watch her as she zipped up a hoodie over her jeans. Even with no makeup, she was a beautiful woman. He was glad he hadn’t given up and let her go. Sometimes he wondered if her supernatural abilities somehow kept them bound together during difficult times.

  “It’s still drizzling outside,” she observed, grabbing her raincoat from the coatrack by the door.

  “Of course it is, my love,” he teased as he locked the door behind them. “Nothing is ever easy with you. Now, where exactly are we headed, pretty girl?”

  When they were settled in the car, she looked over at his profile. A strong aquiline nose, full lips, and dark eyes that gleamed like they were lit from within. Even those who did business with him were intimidated by the man whose ruthless reputation preceded him. What scared others about him only pulled her inexorably closer to him.

  “Three guesses.”

  “River Road.”

  “You got it. It’s smart that we’re taking the jeep. You know there’s an urban legend about that big curve in the road. They say the dead walk it at night. That’s why there are so many wrecks there.”

  “Or it could just be people driving too damn fast, especially in bad weather like tonight.”

  “I don’t know…” she said with a shrug.

  “What, you think they’re wandering around out there because they can’t pass over?”

  “Maybe. I guess if there’s foul play or something, maybe they want to be avenged. Or if they lose control on the curve and never figure out that they’re really dead. ”

  “Do you believe that sort of thing?”

  “You’re asking a woman who has premonitions and dreams about crimes if she believes in the supernatural?” She gave him the side-eye that said seriously? “I think there are plenty of things in this world beyond our understanding. I don’t worry about the details, though. There are some things we just won’t know until we find them out for ourselves.” She gave him a soft smile. “Hopefully, that won’t be for a long, long time.”

  She looked out the car window at all the night owls standing beneath awnings or in doorways. Louisville’s eclectic foot traffic was interesting to her. One smartly-dressed woman looked like a lawyer who could have walked right out of a courtroom but had probably just been working late. She strode briskly toward her car with a briefcase in her hand and a cell phone at her ear. Her designer trench coat billowed behind her in time with her sharp, determined steps. She passed by another woman who was most definitely not a lawyer: her ample curves were barely covered by a sheer teddy. She was biding her time under an awning, but ventured out onto the sidewalk whenever a car happened by, so her teddy was not so much sheer as see-through. Even as the working girl strutted her stuff in thigh high stockings and six-inch heels, Rain noticed how she watched the other woman enviously. Maybe she wished she could trade lives with the corporate professional, and trade her street corner for a corner office.

  The door to the establishment with ‘Peep Show’ displayed over the awning opened and a man in a suit stepped out onto the sidewalk. His tie was askew and he looked restlessly up and down the walkway, his gaze lingering on the working girl in the see-through teddy. The transaction was negotiated through simple eye contact, then she tilted her chin toward the alley next to the Peep Show. As the two disappeared to find a darkened corner, it looked like the woman’s daydreams of going straight someday would be put on hold, once again, in the name of making money.

  Blaze didn’t notice any of these things because his eyes were on the road before them. With both hands steady on the wheel, he navigated the turn onto River Road. His wife’s voyeurism was over now, with only a long stretch of woods to look at before they reached the infamous bend in the road.

  Some of the stories about that particular area along River Road would make the hair on the back of anyone’s neck stand up. It was a popular recreational area during the day and a place for teens to make out and party at night. It had seen more than its share of underage drinking-and-driving accidents, and more than a few deaths. Factor in occasional illegal street racing and River Road had all the makings of a perfect storm.

  Too many Louisville parents had endured the dreaded late-night knock on the door that heralded yet another death notification by the local police, the horrific aftermath of a misguided night of teenage fun. In a matter of seconds, the car they had spoiled their child with had become a coffin. In one fairly recent wreck, the driver survived with minor injuries but his brother, his best friend, and his girlfriend all died at the scene. One night of fun had resulted in a nightmare that he would never awaken from; a perpetual loop of night terrors he could never escape. Regardless of whether one believed River Road was haunted or not, local residents agreed that the area around the big curve felt ‘off’ somehow, and that it seemed to have a darker, more malevolent energy than anywhere else in town.

  Blaze and Rain were silent as they continued on through the rain, passing parks and boat docks before entering anything that remotely resembled a neighborhood. Many of the houses in this area had been built on stilts to avoid potential flood waters. Sporadic lighting along the side of the road did little to improve visibility in what had abruptly become a torrential downpour. Blaze put the windshield wipers on the fastest setting, to no avail. He white-knuckled the steering wheel as sheets of water on the windshield made it difficult for him to see the road in front of them.

  “Maybe you should pull over, Blaze.” The anxiety in Rain’s voice tugged at his primal instinct to protect the woman he loved.

  “Will do,” he said, making a point of keeping his voice steady and even. “Just looking for somewhere that we can pull over safely. Don’t want us to be rear-ended if someone can’t see us in all this rain.” Blaze frowned and moved his foot to cover the brake, slowing in preparation for a bend in the road. He knew every inch of River Road, having traveled it many times. Nevertheless, he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. The infamous curve had appeared far earlier than usual, or it seemed that way to him. Maybe he had been concentrating so hard on navigating through the
wretched weather that he had lost track of time. He almost felt disoriented, as if they had somehow skipped ahead in their journey, although that wasn’t possible. Suddenly, the car fishtailed and started to slide into the lane of oncoming traffic.

  “Blaze? What’s going on?!”

  “Fuck! We’re hydroplaning. Hold on, baby.” Blaze had felt the instant the tires lost contact with the pavement. His jaw clenched as his survival instincts were fighting against the sense of panic that was tempting him to oversteer and slam on the brakes. He knew better than that; he also knew the seatbelts would do little to protect them in their soft-top, rough country jeep. He immediately regretted his choice of vehicle for the short journey. But there was no time for such regrets; he was going to have to work with what he had.

  When the tires found purchase on the wet pavement, he did all he could to steer away from the shoulder of the road, even as the ground seemed to pull them in like an invisible hand. Rain felt her body being jerked around like she was in a giant washing machine, then…nothing. Stillness.

  She never felt the blood running down her face from the impact with the dash that carved a deep gash into her forehead. The force of the impact tore into her flesh and split the layer of bone that protected her brain. Unconscious now, she didn’t feel the glass that rained down on them as the windshield was splintered by a tree branch, nor the water that poured down on them from the heavens, nor her husband’s anguished cry as he, too, was dealt his own devastating injuries.