On the Way Home

by Skye Warren

  That was the only warning I had before a sting replaced the kiss, the sharp pain of a needle followed by the sting as some kind of drug worked its way into my system. I shuddered, barely able to comprehend what was happening, so fast, not right, alarm bells, before falling out of the sky. I landed in the water with a crash, losing my breath before sinking under, sucking in water, looking up and asking the moon why?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Della

  The thing about drugs was that they weren’t instantaneous. Not like you saw in the movies, where you put a rag over someone’s mouth and their eyes rolled back. It took him a while to pass out. But the sedative I injected into Clint still affected him. The small movements he could make, with his hands curled into fists, and his ass in the air, told me that the drug was slowing him down. His speech was slurred too.

  “What the fuck?” he said. What the fug?

  “Della. Why are you doing this?” Dell… Why’re you doooing this?

  It made me sick to hear him ask me that, to know that he was lucid enough to understand what was happening but too drugged to protect himself. My stomach turned over, and I wanted to back down. Could I untie him and pretend this was all some sort of kinky game that had gone wrong?

  Then I remembered the fingernails in my garage and forced myself to calm the fuck down.

  My sister was sitting in a basement somewhere with her fingernails torn off. She had already been beaten, I knew that, but I’d hoped Dmitri would leave her alone once he’d told me what to do. Apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough for him. Fuck. He was right to doubt me. I had been stalling, but that was over now.

  I’d made my choice. It came down to my sister or Clint. It had always been down to that, but for a little while, for a blissful few days, I’d pretended I could have both.

  The crazy part of all this was that I tried to soothe Clint. I stroked the back of his neck where I’d injected him, trying to ease the pain of entry.

  “It’ll be okay,” I lied. “Just go to sleep. Just rest.”

  He thrashed in his restraints, wrists pulling against the leather, metal links in the spreader bar clinking. There was no way he could get free, though. He had to have known that, even in his spaced-out state, but he kept trying, kept fighting. It broke my heart, so I stayed there, my head bent next to his, whispering words of nonsense.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. I know it doesn’t make it okay, but I’m so sorry.” I rested my forehead against his shoulder. “I think I fell in love with you. I’m a monster. I shouldn’t love you.”

  But I couldn’t let my sister die.

  Finally he slumped against the bed with a defeated sigh. I stared at his still body with a growing sense of horror. I had done this. I was doing this. And I couldn’t even stop yet. I had to deliver his body to Dmitri so I could trade him for Caro.

  Release him. Tuck him into bed. Maybe he won’t even remember.

  I was shaking violently. Even when I clenched my hands, my whole arm shook. It came from inside, a chill so strong and so deep that no warmth would reach me ever again.

  On my first push, rolling him over, I realized I had underestimated this part of the job. Clint was heavy. Seriously heavy, with long limbs and thick muscles. I had to shove him with all my strength just to get him on his back. His cock was soft now—and still wet from his semen.

  Guilt sliced me into a million pieces, not only for doing this, but for doing it during sex. I’d taken something beautiful and made it ugly, but at least I hadn’t come. There was no way I could have climaxed, no matter how beautiful he’d looked bound and trusting.

  Maybe I could have done it while he was sleeping. Or taken him by surprise in the shower. But there was always the chance he’d overpower me first. And besides, I was used to wielding sex like a weapon.

  For a very long time, sex was the only power I had.

  I found a washcloth in the bathroom and dampened it with hot water to clean him off. I didn’t know why it would matter. Dmitri would most likely torture and kill him, so what did it matter if his dick was clean? If he smelled like sex? But it mattered to me, that small bit of dignity, the pathetic consolation prize of being second place to my sister. So I cleaned him off carefully, gently, and undid the cuffs.

  I knew what dignity was worth—worth something, that was for sure. I knew how being naked could strip you of your dignity. I knew how Dmitri could take advantage. Dignity.

  Fifteen minutes passed, and I was panting and sweating, but he was dressed now. He wore the same jeans as before and a gray shirt that said ARMY in bold letters. I wasn’t sure whether that would be a proper fuck you to Dmitri or whether it would feed into his pride. But I figured Clint wouldn’t mind. He was a soldier, through and through. This would be his uniform in the least fair fight of his life.

  I had found a gun too. It must have been on his person when he undressed. I stuffed that into his duffel bag alongside his clothes and toiletries.

  At the last minute, I took the medal out of the bag and hid it in my dresser. If Clint made it through this, I would return it to him—along with the rest of his boxes. If he died, Dmitri didn’t deserve this as a trophy.

  Then I redid the wrists and ankle cuffs, binding him up again in case he woke up. I left the spreader bar off this time, so his ankles were stuck together. His hands were cuffed in front of him this time, to put less stress on his shoulders. I laughed, a little maniacally. What did it matter, stress on his shoulders?

  He would be dead soon.

  For good measure I added a blindfold. It seemed like a standard thing to do when kidnapping someone, but I didn’t fool myself that there was any criminal logic going on. I just didn’t want to see the betrayal in his eyes if he woke up.

  It took another fifteen minutes to get him down the stairs without bruising either of us too badly. I ended up more injured than him, having banged my elbow and gone down hard on my knee trying to maneuver him down without us both falling. Over half an hour had passed since I’d first given him the drug, and it made me nervous how long this was taking. I still had an hour’s drive, and I wanted to make the exchange before he woke up.

  The street was mostly empty. Even the green car I sometimes saw parked a few houses over was missing. I breathed deep in relief and dragged him onto the porch and down the steps that he’d fixed for me. Of course the sturdy new step supported both our weights with ease. Whatever sense of morality I’d had was a fragile thing, made of glass, and now it cut me as it shattered.

  I was drenched in sweat and panting by the time I managed to load him into the bed of my trunk. I found the plastic tarp in the garage and used it to cover his body, wrapping it snug around him as if I were tucking him into bed.

  Then I went upstairs and got his duffel bag and all his stuff from the bathroom. It would be like he’d never been here at all, as long as I ignored the stack of boxes in my garage. But I’d have to figure those out later.

  I tossed it into the back of the truck and pushed the tailgate closed.

  “Della?”

  I whirled to see Katie standing on her lawn, hugging herself. My heart thudded in my chest. How much had she seen? She said there were only shadows from far away.

  “Hi, Katie,” I said, giving away how breathless I was.

  “Is everything okay?” She stepped forward uncertainly. Her eyes were shielded by large brown sunglasses. They were overkill for the waning afternoon light, but I imagined they were more for hiding her disability than blocking the sun. “Do you need some help?”

  My eyes felt wild as I glanced at the huge unmoving lump in my truck bed. Had she seen me load him in there? But no…if a regular person saw their neighbor loading a limp body in their vehicle, they would be way more freaked out. They would probably not even come out and talk to me. They’d call the police, but Katie was just standing there, waiting for me to answer.

  “I’m good.” I struggled to slow my heart rate and catch my breath. “I’m fine. Just have some
errands to run.”

  She smiled a little. “More errands. You need to relax more.”

  I managed to laugh a little. “Tell me about it.”

  “Actually, I was wondering if you could give me a ride.”

  “Uh…what?” She’d never asked me for that before, and while any other day I would have been happy to help, there was no way I could do it now.

  “I need to stop by the pharmacy and pick up these special eye drops.” She made an apologetic face. “They’ve been bothering me all day. I can wait in the car while you do your stuff.”

  Oh, I could just imagine that: Katie sitting peacefully in the car while I traded in human flesh with a monster. Yeah, no problem. “I’m sorry, Katie. Really I am. Any other day I would’ve done it but now… But I’m running late and I have no idea how long it will be. I’ll take you tomorrow. Or as soon as I come back. I’m so sorry.”

  She nodded, as if confirming something. “All right. Well, be careful.”

  And she stood there waiting—and watching?—as I got in my car and drove away. Her words rang in my ears. Be careful, be careful. I might die in that crazy mansion tonight. Dmitri might take it in his head to shoot Clint and me and Caro too, to exterminate us like pests. You couldn’t trust assholes like Dmitri, which was why I’d never planned on dealing with them at all.

  God, Caro. Why? I hated that she’d put me in this position. I hated that she’d put herself in this position. Even though I tried not to blame her, it was hard not to think she deserved some of the blame as I drove me and Clint to our deaths.

  * * *

  The sun had dipped below the trees, casting an eerie yellow glow.

  When I turned onto the dirt road leading to Dmitri’s house, I found the gate open. He was expecting me. He knew I would come. He knew exactly how to manipulate people. Caro was the button he could press and press and press.

  I drove through the gate.

  The ride was exceedingly bumpy, even in my big truck, so I had to go slow. Even so, I covered ground more quickly driving than walking, and before I was ready, the mansion was within sight. I parked the truck and got out. Walked straight up to the door without looking into the bed of my truck at all. I didn’t want to see him looking back at me, if he had woken up early and if the blindfold jostled aside on the ride over. The chances were slim that would have happened, but I couldn’t see the disillusionment in his eyes. By now he knew what I really was.

  The door opened before I pressed the doorbell. Dmitri stood there with his greasy smile, the one he thought was smooth and terrifying.

  “You made it,” he said as if I’d arrived for a party.

  “Where’s Caro?”

  “Watch your tone, darling. And she’s inside.”

  “Well, bring her out. I want to see her. And she better be okay, you dirty fucker.” She better be alive.

  Dmitri smiled pleasantly. “She’s very well, actually. You’d be surprised. But I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands about the order of things. First I’d like to see the package.”

  “We had a deal,” I insisted. I studied the windows all the way to the top, but they were too reflective to see inside and Caro wasn’t anywhere. “Let me see her.”

  “We did have a deal, and I intend to uphold my end of the bargain. You give me what I want, and I won’t stop your sister from leaving if she wants to.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “She’s coming with me.”

  He raised one shoulder in a sort of European shrug. “That won’t be up to me. Assuming you brought me the man.”

  Every cell in my body screamed to get the hell away from there. Just get in the front seat and drive away with Clint. I wouldn’t even take him to my house, where Dmitri would know to look for him now. I wouldn’t take him to the police station, where Dmitri had the police chief on payroll. I’d just keep driving forever, through desert and plains. I wouldn’t even stop when we hit the ocean. I’d drive on water if it meant he stayed alive.

  They say your life flashes before your eyes when you think you’re going to die, but it wasn’t my life I saw. Not the tiny apartment I shared with my sisters or the dingy club I’d stripped at for years. I saw my future instead. The great expanse of possibility, if things had worked out differently. If Clint and I could have been together. If he had been a regular passenger and I had been a regular girl.

  In the end, I didn’t have to walk over and see if Clint had stirred, if his blindfold had slipped. Dmitri made that choice instead, striding over to my truck and pulling the plastic tarp out. He stared inside the bed of the truck for a second, and another, and another, and then finally looked at me.

  “Is this a joke?” he asked.

  “I’m not fucking laughing.”

  “Neither am I, Della. I want the fucking package. I want that army pig and his fucking package. Where is he?”

  I stepped closer to the truck and stared into the empty truck bed. “Oh shit.”

  “Oh shit,” he mimicked. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice, you dumb slut? Did you think I would just give you Caro and the two of you would ride off the sunset?”

  “No, I—” Oh God, where did he go? What am I going to do?

  You’re going to die. And it’s all you deserve.

  Still, I was trying to figure out where the hell Clint could have gone. I had this horrible vision of him somehow falling out of the truck while we were on the highway and getting crushed. God. God. But I would have noticed that, wouldn’t I? It seems like I would have noticed his weight lifting from the truck and bouncing out. I would have noticed cars swerving and crashing behind me, even if I’d been in a haze of guilt and self-hatred since leaving my house.

  But then I remembered the open gate at the edge of the property and the bumpy road on my way in. I might not have noticed if someone had slipped over the side on a big bump.

  No, that’s too much to hope for.

  That would mean Clint actually woke up and managed to get out of the truck while cuffed on his wrists and ankles. It was so freaking unlikely, but my heart already raced with exhilaration. He’d done it. He’d gotten away.

  Even the duffel bag was missing, which told me he must have taken it with him. He had his cell phone, his weapon. He’d escaped.

  Dmitri grabbed my arms and shook me. “Where is he?”

  My eyes scanned the tree line, and without meaning to, I gave it away. Dmitri released me fast enough that I stumbled back. He shielded his eyes from the sunset glare. No movement.

  “He’s gone,” I said, my voice hoarse with relief. “He’s far gone by now.”

  I just prayed that was true.

  Dmitri took a phone from his pocket and made a call, snapping in Russian to the guy on the other end of the line. Then he strode over to me, grabbed my arms, and shook me again. My head wobbled on my spine so hard I was dizzy even when he stopped.

  “You little stupid whore. I give you one thing to do, and you cannot even finish the job.” He ended his little speech by slapping me across the face.

  My jaw felt like it unhinged. I shook my head to clear it, ignoring the ache in my cheek. “So maybe you should do your own work instead of blackmailing women to do it for you.”

  That earned me another brain-jarring slap. This time I lost my balance and fell on the ground. I wanted him to keep going, to keep pummeling me, to give me the pain I deserved for dragging Clint into this mess.

  He gripped my chin hard enough that I whimpered. He turned my face so that I had no choice but to look into his pale, haunting eyes.

  “You understand you’re going to die now,” he said calmly.

  I know. I couldn’t speak, my jaw too sore—was it broken?—and his hand clamped it shut anyway. But I told him with my eyes. He’d been crouching over me, leaving himself vulnerable. He didn’t expect me to fight back, not when it would lead to more pain for me or for Caro. I was beyond that now. We would both die here, but I wouldn’t make it easy for him. I raised my knee and kicked him betwee
n the legs.

  He doubled over and fell on top of me, pressing us both into the ground. I couldn’t breathe. I fought him, struggling to get his weight off me. I never wanted his weight on me again. That would be worse than death at this point. I had already resigned myself to dying, but I wouldn’t let Dmitri touch me again. Wouldn’t let any of those fuckers touch me again. The last man to be inside me was Clint, and I was going to die that way.

  Big ideas. I had big ideas, but then Dmitri slammed my skull into the ground. The ground was hard from a recent drought; it rattled my brain and left me dazed. Dazed enough that he could flip me on the ground and put his knee on my back.

  He laughed at my predicament. “You’ve changed since you left.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I mumbled.

  “You should. I like a little fight. You and your sister. You always thought I wanted a girl who did what I told them to, but that wasn’t it at all. I wanted a girl who fought back. Caro figured that out first.”

  The weight from his knee increased as he levered himself up. He stood, pressing his heel into my spine until I couldn’t hold it in; I sobbed into the dirt, hating that he’d brought me this low again.

  He twisted his foot, pressing the hard edge of the heel farther into my spine. “I’ll have fun with both of you here.”

  A crack rang out in the open space, pinging the granite wall behind us. I froze, and Dmitri did too. I angled my head so I could look at the smoking hole where the bullet had gone. Who the hell had fired that? The only ones who’d be here and armed would be Dmitri’s men, but why were they shooting at him? Did they mean to shoot me and somehow got it horribly wrong?

  I waited for Dmitri to dive for cover. Even he would do so when we were taking fire from an unknown source. He didn’t have a death wish.

  And for a second it seemed like he had gone for cover as his body landed beside mine and dust rose to cover my eyes and ears and nose. Then everything went silent.

  I watched in horror as the dust cleared. Dmitri was lying on his side, his body lax. And his head…God, his head. It had been shot through, that was the only way I could process it. Half of it was missing. I looked at the ground around us and realized it was sprinkled with blood. And hair. And brain matter.