To her horror, he managed to haul himself upright. He lunged again, reaching for the gun. As they struggled, he somehow wrenched it out of her hand. Panicked, she shoved his chest with all her might.
He fell backward, landing hard on his ass, blood spurting from his wound. The gun went skittering across the concrete.
Callie’s mind shut down, her feet taking over. She sprinted toward the stairs and hurtled upward, taking them two at a time. As she ran, she cried—great shuddering, hiccupping sobs.
Somehow, she got to the first floor. Her shoulder and hip were badly bruised from the fall, the skin rubbed raw from the concrete. She could hear Damon dragging himself up the stairs behind her. Fear propelled her forward.
As she sprinted down the hall, she heard commotion from the living room. It took her a moment to process the sound. The doorbell was ringing repeatedly, accompanied by loud banging against the front door.
“Help me!” she croaked, stumbling forward toward the sound. “Oh god, whoever you are. Help me!”
She could still hear Damon clomping up the basement stairs, cursing and whining all the while.
Somehow, she got to the front door. She grabbed the knob with a hand that was slippery with blood. It refused to turn. The door was locked. The doorbell continued to chime, the banging more insistent.
She wiped her hand on the shirt, which was also splattered with blood.
“Just a second,” she screamed, fumbling for the house key in the shirt pocket. Thank goodness it was still there. Teeth chattering, hands shaking, she eventually managed to get it into the lock. As soon as she unlocked the door, it was thrust open, nearly knocking her off her feet.
For a split second, she didn’t recognize the couple standing before her. Then relief poured over and through her, nearly making her collapse to the ground.
“We heard a gunshot!” Wolf exclaimed, staring at her. “Oh, mein Gott im Himmel. You are covered in blood.” He pulled out his cell phone and tapped at the screen. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
“Ich habe es dir gesagt!” Greta cried, skirting past him to Callie. “I knew it was not okay,” she continued in English. “I saw your safe signal but it was so fast. I wasn’t certain. We are so sorry we didn’t act. So very, very sorry.”
“They are on the way,” Wolf said, pocketing his phone. “Are you hurt, Callie? Where is Lord Demon? What is happening now? Surely, this is not consensual.”
“No, no, never consensual,” Callie sobbed, or was she laughing? She had no idea. “I’ve been this man’s prisoner for weeks. He’s a monster. Thank god you’re here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
A wave of dizziness and exhaustion swept over her in the aftermath of the excess adrenaline still in her system. Greta opened her arms and Callie fell gratefully into them.
“It’s okay, Liebchen,” Greta murmured into Callie’s tangled hair as she held her tight. “You are safe now. He will never hurt you again.”
Wolf’s eyes widened, his gaze moving past Callie. They all turned to stare at Damon as he limped into the room, blood still oozing from the bullet wound, the gun dangling from his finger. He took in the tableau of the three of them and paled visibly.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
Then he crumpled to the carpet in a dead faint.
Chapter 22
While waiting for the police, Wolf raced to the kitchen and returned with several kitchen towels. Damon was still passed out on the carpet, his face almost peaceful in repose, his chest slowly rising and falling.
Wolf used one of the towels to create a makeshift tourniquet, which he tied around Damon’s upper thigh. Looking up from his work, he said, “Greta, take Callie into the bathroom and get her cleaned up.” To Callie, he said, “Where do you keep your clothes?”
“I-I have no clothes here that I know of. He mostly kept me naked.” The idea of putting on the waist cincher or frilly apron Damon had forced her wear from time to time made her skin crawl.
“No problem,” Wolf replied. “As soon as I’m done here, I’ll run out to the car and get some of Greta’s spare clothes for you.”
Greta put her arm around Callie and led her into the small bathroom just off the living room. Though Callie understood intellectually that the danger had passed, she couldn’t seem to stop shaking and her heart continued to race. She felt lightheaded and as if she might throw up.
“Shh, take a deep breath,” Greta said soothingly as she unbuttoned the bloodied shirt and gently tugged down the shorts. “We will get you out of these things and washed up.” She spread a towel on the closed toilet seat and eased Callie onto it. Using a warm, wet cloth, she gently daubed away Damon’s blood. “You are not seriously hurt, Gott sei Dank. Your welts and bruises are going to raise some eyebrows with the police. Just be prepared.” Using a fresh cloth, she gently wiped Callie’s face and neck.
Through it all, Callie sat as passive as a small child. Greta’s kind ministrations felt good, her gentle touch such a contrast to the brutal treatment Callie had endured during these past weeks in captivity.
Was it really over? She still couldn’t quite believe it.
The sound of a siren in the distance caught her attention. It was coming closer.
“Ah, good,” Greta said. “They are nearly here.”
Just as Wolf returned with a T-shirt, a pair of sweatpants and some flipflops, the intercom buzzed. “That will be the police,” he said. He hurried away to let them in.
Callie and Greta entered the living room just as two medics rushed past with medical gear bags and a stretcher. There were two police officers there as well, a man and a woman. Fortunately, the female officer spoke excellent English.
Because there had been a shooting, they took each of the three of them, one at a time, into a different room to be questioned. Though they spent quite a while with Callie, she could barely remember what had been said. She did recall, after telling them about the abduction, that they called the Chicago police department, who confirmed Callie was indeed a missing person.
“You have made serious allegations,” the female officer eventually said. “We will need you to come down to the station for a formal statement some time tomorrow. But for now, you will need to go the hospital for a full evaluation. Especially if you plan to press charges against this man.”
“Oh, I plan to press charges, all right,” Callie said, some of her spirit returning at last.
When they allowed her to return to the living room, Damon had already been taken away in the ambulance.
“While at the hospital, he will be kept under guard until arrangements are made to hand him over to the U.S. authorities,” the police explained. “You can come with us, or you can ride with your friends and follow us to the hospital,” she continued.
“Oh, I couldn’t ask that of them,” Callie said. “You’ve both done so much already,” she added, turning to the couple. “You literally saved my life.”
“No,” Wolf said. “You saved your own life. I’m just glad we came along when we did.”
“And don’t be ridiculous,” Greta added. “Of course we are coming with you. We delayed our flight out, and we’re not leaving your side until this is settled. You will ride with us.”
“Thank you,” Callie replied in a small voice, hugely grateful. She had been dreading the thought of having to handle this all on her own.
Once in the car, Callie borrowed Greta’s cell phone to call her parents. It was well past midnight, and Callie expected the call to go to voicemail. But her father picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?” he said in a sleepy voice.
“Dad?” Callie said, her voice quavering with emotion at the welcome, familiar sound of his voice.
“Callie!” he cried, now entirely awake. “Oh my god! You’re alive! I knew you were alive. Oh, thank god. Thank god.” His voice cracked on a sob.
A moment later, her mother was on the line. “Callie. Oh, baby. Where are you? What’s happened to you? Are you hurt? Are you s
afe?”
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Callie replied, crying too now, though they were tears of relief and joy. She gave them a very abbreviated story of the abduction, leaving out most of the gruesome details for now. “We’re on the way to the hospital just so I can be checked out and stuff. I’ll call you in the morning and we can figure things out.”
“We’re coming right now,” her mom said. “Dad’s already packing. Thank goodness we have those passports from the Spain trip. We’ve got your passport here, too. We brought back some of your things from Chicago last week, when we thought… Oh god, Callie. You’re alive. You’re safe.” She snuffled noisily into the phone.
“Call Harry for me, okay? Let him know.”
“The second we hang up,” her mom affirmed through her tears. “Then we’ll head to the airport and catch the first plane we can.”
After the police talked to the nurse behind the counter, Callie was settled on the exam bed in one of the emergency room cubicles, Greta and Wolf waiting just outside. She was examined from head to toe, including a gynecological exam to check for signs of rape. They took blood and hooked her up to an IV, as she was apparently dehydrated and slightly malnourished. If the doctor and nurse tending to her were shocked by the myriad welts and bruises that covered her body, they gave no indication. “You may have some permanent scarring on your buttocks,” the doctor eventually said. “The blood work came back fine. Fortunately, you are young and strong, and should make a full recovery, at least physically. You’ve been through considerable emotional trauma, however. That will take considerably more time.”
In between the seemingly endless poking and prodding, Greta and Wolf were able to join Callie in the small room. They came in armed with cans of soda, candy bars and bags of chips from the hospital’s vending machine. Though Callie had thought she was too on edge to eat, the junk food tasted wonderful, and she ate and drank it all, every last crumb and drop.
“You will come back to the hotel with us. We have plenty of room in our suite. You’ll need a proper meal in the morning,” Greta informed her. Grateful, Callie could only thank them again.
As they waited for Callie to be discharged, she told the couple how she had met Damon, and some of what she’d endured at his cruel hands.
“You do understand,” Wolf eventually said, “that what happened with Damon has nothing—zero—to do with BDSM. As you know, Greta and I are heavily into erotic pain, and we scene regularly with other hardcore players. So we are careful not to judge others who might have a more, uh, intense lifestyle than we do. I think that’s the main reason we didn’t react sooner. We just assumed you two were in a consensual relationship.” He reached for Greta’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “It was thanks to Greta that we returned.”
“Ja,” Greta agreed. “I told Wolfie something was not right. For us, D/s is our lifestyle and it makes us very happy. Consent is at the core of everything we do. I need intense erotic pain, and Wolfie understands this and gives me what I need. But, the true…”—she turned to Wolf—“How do you say, Grundlage?”
“Foundation,” Wolf supplied.
“Ja, foundation,” Greta repeated. “The foundation of our relationship is love. One day you, too, will find that love, Callie. Don’t let this horrible man take that from you. That would be the greatest crime of all.”
When they finally returned to the hotel, it was nearly dawn. “You will sleep in the bed with me,” Greta informed Callie, to her surprise. “Wolfie is happy to sleep on the sofa bed in the other room.” Wolf nodded his agreement
“But,” Callie began, not wanting to put this wonderful couple out any more than she already had.
“No buts,” Greta interrupted. “We have already discussed this. You are clearly a very strong woman, and the nightmare may be over, but recovery will take time. You should not be alone for a while.”
When Callie slid between the soft sheets, she was grateful for Greta’s comforting presence beside her. Surely exhausted herself, Greta was soon snoring softly. Callie lay awake a long while, her mind whirling over the events of the long night.
Damon was in the hospital, and she had been assured there was a policeman stationed outside his door. She had thought she wanted him dead, but in retrospect, she was glad he was still alive.
Once he was handed over to the U.S. authorities, he would be tried for kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault. Callie would be right there to testify, no matter how difficult it might be to relive the harrowing events of the past month. She would make sure he was put away for a long, long time. In prison, he might come to learn firsthand what it felt like to be taken against his will. The thought almost made her smile. As her mom liked to say, “What goes around, comes around.”
Though she doubted she would be able to sleep a wink, Callie finally closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, bright sunshine filled the room.
Though it was after three o’clock when she finally sat down to a meal with Greta and Wolf in the hotel’s restaurant, Callie ordered her favorite meal—blueberry pancakes, eggs over easy and bacon, along with a large mug of coffee with plenty of cream and sugar.
After a while, she realized Wolf and Greta were staring at her, both of them smiling as they watched her shovel the delicious food greedily into her mouth. With an embarrassed laugh, she put down her fork a moment and wiped her mouth with the cloth napkin in her lap. As she did so, she was struck by a fierce appreciation for the basic dignity afforded her by just the act of eating good food at a table with proper utensils, in the company of friends.
While she had been asleep, Greta had picked up a few items of clothing for her. She was now dressed in jeans and a knit top, along with a pair of comfortable sandals, everything exactly her size. Her hair was washed, her body clean, her spirit energized by the good night’s sleep and the knowledge her parents were on a plane, expected to arrive in a few hours.
She had always taken these things—to be clean, to have access to good food and to be treated with dignity and respect by others—completely for granted. But it had all been stolen from her while under Damon’s iron control. She silently promised herself she would never forget how easily these simple nods to humanity could be stripped away.
Wolf and Greta had rebooked a flight for later that evening. They got to the airport early with Callie so they could wait with her until her parents arrived. The police wanted to interview her once more before she would be permitted to leave the country, but at least she’d have her parents by her side.
“I will never forget you,” she told her new friends, giving them each a long, heartfelt hug.
“You have our contact information, and we will meet again,” Wolf told her. “We will come to the trial to testify, if necessary.”
“And maybe one day,” Greta added with a sparkle in her eye, “you can scene properly with us. Your natural curiosity about BDSM is still inside you. Don’t let him steal that from you, Callie. He has taken enough.”
“No,” Callie agreed. “I won’t.”
They stopped to listen as a voice came over the airport’s loudspeaker, announcing the arrival of her parents’ flight. Callie’s heart began to pound as passengers eventually came through the gates to the main lobby where they were waiting.
When she saw her parents—her dear, sweet, familiar parents—she sprinted toward them. They saw her at the same moment and they, too, began to run. Callie hurled into their open arms, relaxing fully for the first time since the ordeal had begun.
After a long, soul-renewing embrace, she pulled gently away from her parents. All three of them had tears streaming down their cheeks, huge smiles on their faces.
“Baby bear,” her father said, using the nickname from her childhood derived from her love of the Goldilocks story. “My sweet, sweet baby bear.”
“Here,” her mom said, holding out the much-loved teddy bear Callie had owned since she was four, and had left behind when she’d gone off to college. “Boo wanted to come,
too.”
Callie took the beloved bear, laughing through her tears. Though it would surely be a long road to full emotional recovery, at that moment, she knew everything was going to be all right.
Epilogue – Six Months Later
“We will begin boarding flight 202 to Chicago in twenty minutes,” a voice announced over the loudspeaker. “Ticketed passengers please proceed to gate 17.”
“That’s my flight,” Callie said, rising from her seat in the airport lobby. Butterflies of anticipation and nervous excitement fluttered inside her. “I need to go through the security line now.”
“You have everything?” her dad asked, getting to his feet. “Your phone? Your bag? Enough money?”
Callie smiled. “I’ve got everything, Dad. Checked it twice.”
“Good girl.” He opened his arms for a hug. Callie nestled her head against his chest as he held her, inhaling one last time his warm, familiar scent. “You got this, baby. You’re gonna be great.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
As he let her go, her mother rose as well, concern etched on her face. “Oh, honey. Are you really sure about this?”
“Mom, it’s okay.” Callie said gently, trying to control her exasperation. They’d been over this a hundred times in the weeks leading up to her return to Chicago. She understood this was scary for her parents, but it was time. She was ready.
“But we worry about you, honey,” her mom continued. “It’s only been six months.”
“Jenny,” Callie’s dad intervened, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. “We can’t keep her home forever. The trial is over. Callie needs to get back out there and begin her life again.”
Callie flashed a grateful smile at her father. To her mother, she said, “The art institute isn’t going to hold the job forever. I’m really lucky this new opportunity came up. And Dr. Fisk agrees I’m ready. She believes it’s important for me to move forward now.”
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