by Mina Thorne
“We have something for you,” Barrett said. “We weren’t sure what to get you for your birthday, so we all went in on something.”
I sat back up and smiled. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll love it. Even if it’s just dick, three dicks to be specific, I mean that wouldn’t be imaginative, but it would be appreciated.”
They laughed at that, but they kneeled around me and looked up expectantly.
“No dick,” Rome said. “I mean, not unless you want to right now. I’m sure we’d all be willing to give you what you want.”
“Especially if it’s that,” Whitt said and grinned. “You know I’m always ready to obey you, babe.”
“I’ll take the gift now and the D later,” I winked.
Barrett handed me a small silver velvet box, and I felt a surge of excitement roll through my body. I wasn’t usually that interested in presents, but something from them was significant.
“What is it?” I asked in a breathy tone and took it from him with shaking hands.
“Open it and find out,” Barrett laughed.
I snapped the lid open and gasped when I found a gorgeous necklace inside. It was platinum with a teardrop pendant made of three large diamonds, like an inverted triangle. In the center of that was a beautiful sapphire that flamed and sparkled like it had a fire inside of it.
“It’s so beautiful,” I said with a quiet voice filled with awe. I’d never owned such a beautiful or expensive piece of jewelry.
Or one that meant so much.
“We’re the diamonds, you’re the red sapphire,” Rome said, leaning forward to take the box from me. He pulled the necklace free and helped me clip it onto my neck.
It hung perfectly between my breasts as if it had been made for me. It felt like a piece of my heart dangling there, reminding me of the love and bond that we all had with each other.
It was perfect, and it turned out I wasn’t so tired after all.
I stood and held my hand out to them. They followed me to the bed, and we made up for some time apart.
* * *
I woke up some time in the middle of the night.
The house was silent, and I was restless. I got up and checked my phone; it was almost four in the morning, so there was no reason for me to be up but there I was. Wide awake.
I padded downstairs and thought about making myself some hot cocoa, but as I passed the back of the house, I noticed the moonlight glinting on the surface of the swimming pool through the patio doors.
I couldn’t resist, it looked so peaceful and pretty out there that I pushed them open and stepped outside.
It was gorgeous, there was a chill in the air that made me draw my robe around me tighter, but steam rose from the surface of the water, and it made the moonlight seem almost otherworldly.
I walked down to check it out closer and cursed myself for not bringing my phone with me. I would have loved to try and capture this on film. It was so beautiful.
It was completely silent too, I could hear a car off in the distance and a dog barking next door, but that was it.
I sighed and shivered again, so I decided to go back inside where I could warm up in a bed filled with hot boys.
I turned to head back when the slightest sound beside me caught my attention. It was the swish of air as something came at me fast.
I felt knocked backward and fell onto my tailbone with an audible thud. I kept falling, and the back of my head hit the pavement.
Pain exploded from the impact site, and it looked like the night sky was filled with stars as flashes of light danced along my vision just before I passed out.
Chapter 84
I woke with my hands tied behind my back tightly, and my mouth gagged with a cloth.
I couldn’t breathe. I was lying on my side on a hard surface. I was inside a dark room, but objects came into view as my eyes adjusted to the light.
I struggled to sit up, I rolled against the concrete wall and wiggled until I had my back to it and could figure out where the hell I was. Anger flared behind my eyes. I was mad as hell that I was in danger again and even madder that my Mom had been right.
I worked the cloth gag around my mouth and was finally able to spit it out. I took a long, deep breath and almost gagged on the smell that lingered in the air.
It smelled like sweat and unwashed human body and waste. It was putrid.
“I see you’re awake,” a voice carried to me in the dark.
I didn’t reply, but I swore I’d heard that voice before.
It was a girl’s voice, but it was broken and dry sounding.
“I don’t blame you for not talking to me. I almost killed you, after all.”
“Becca,” I spat. “Why are you doing this?”
She laughed a single, dark sound filled with scorn.
“It’s not me, stupid. I’ve been here since I lit the locker room on fire.”
“You’ve been where?”
“Here,” she said, and I heard scuffling in the dark, and suddenly she appeared on the edge of the bed. She looked horrible from what I could see. Her once beautiful, shining hair was hanging in dank, greasy strands around her face.
And her face, it was hollowed out and pure white with huge, dark circles around her eyes. She looked haunted.
She looked crazy.
But not like she had that night she lit the room on fire, she looked like she’d been pushed to her limit and had broken somewhere along the way.
“Oh my god,” I exclaimed, unable to keep my disgust to myself.
Her scent wafted over me, and it took everything in my power to not throw up right there.
“I know. I don’t have a mirror, but I’m pretty sure I have an idea of what I look like.”
“Who took us?” I asked in an attempt to keep her distracted from hating me. Becca might look like the Gollum from Lord of the Rings right now, but something told me she’d still be dangerous if I provoked her ire.
“Taylor,” she said with another bitter laugh. “Can you believe it? That piece of shit kidnapped me months ago and has kept me here like a fucking animal. Is anybody still looking for me?”
“Yes, they are,” I replied. “But everybody just kind of assumed your parents had paid for you to escape. I can’t believe you’ve been here the whole time.”
“But my parents know that’s not the case,” Becca said quickly, and desperation flashed across her face. “They’re still looking for me, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are,” I told her, even though I didn’t know.
She relaxed her features and looked relieved. She raised her eyebrows and leaned forward. “My hands are free, want me to help you with that rope?”
My eyes were adjusting more and more now, and I could almost see clearly in the murky light.
“Yeah,” I said and meant it in spite of the smell. “My arms and shoulders are getting cramped.”
“He probably won’t come to check on us for a day or so,” she said. “He left some food this time though, so we won’t go hungry while he’s gone.”
I twisted around, and she began to work the knotted rope around my wrists until it started to loosen. After a few moments, it fell apart, and my hands were free.
I pulled them in front of me and shook the blood back into them. They were icy cold and aching from being bound.
“That’s better,” Becca said. “Are you hungry? Do you need to go to the bathroom? There’s a bucket in the corner.”
“You’ve been here for weeks and weeks,” I said quietly as I contemplated how horrific it had been for her.
“What day is it?” she asked at last, and I didn’t know any other way to tell her.
So I was blunt, I blurted it out. “January twelfth.”
“January?” she gasped. “I missed Christmas?”
I nodded, and she began to cry.
I didn’t know what to do. She’d tried to kill me, and I’d spent so long hating her that it was difficult for me to reconcile that with the pathetic
creature in front of me now.
But I did feel for her, so I rubbed her back as she cried, noting how her spine cut through the flesh there.
Taylor was a monster, and he had to be stopped.
I had to stop him.
Becca finally stopped crying, and I realized how much my fear and anger towards her had dissolved.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Why would you help me after what I did?” she asked, sniffling and wiping her eyes dry.
“We’re kind of stuck in the same boat now, aren’t we?” I said and stood up to stretch. She joined me and looked up.
“I guess. But if I were you, I might be beating my ass right now,” she said with a small smile.
“The thought has crossed my mind,” I laughed. “But I have a feeling I need to conserve my energy. Besides, if anybody deserves an ass beating, it’s Taylor.”
“I haven’t been able to do much when he comes in,” she said.
“We could try together,” I replied.
“What do we need to do?”
And with that, she and I began to plot our first escape attempt.
* * *
You really got to know a lot about a person when you were trapped with them in a kidnapping situation.
Especially when you had to do awful things like pee in a bucket in front of them.
Becca and I dropped all pretenses within the first few hours of captivity, and in a way, it was very freeing. Connecting with the girl who had tried to kill me was strangely uplifting.
She had her own little hard cot on one side of the room; mine was on the other. The food was located near the door, and the toilet bucket was situated at the back against the far wall.
The room was about thirty steps wide and forty steps long, and I heard the sound of air ducts and a furnace kick in every once in a while.
There was one small vent up high near the door, but it was too tiny for us to fit into. The walls and floor were concrete, and the door was metal. It was locked.
After I’d learned everything I could about the room, there wasn’t much left to do beyond plot our attack on Taylor when he showed up and talk to each other. She was resting on her cot, and I was on mine when I decided to open her up.
“So why did you do it?” I asked her, finally addressing the elephant in the room.
She was silent for a moment, and then I heard her draw in a long breath. “Jealousy,” she said. “I’m embarrassed to admit it now, but I was consumed with it.”
“Why, though? You’re still one of the most popular girls in school, and you were the cheerleading captain. You’re beautiful and have money and a nice life. Why were you jealous?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” she asked quietly.
“I have no idea what you mean,” I replied.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that David is so open with you? How many dads would let their teenage daughter have three guys spend the night with them in their room?”
“Um, not many, I guess. I thought maybe he was just trying to be nice.”
“David Montgomery is not a nice man,” she said. “At least not to most people. The Montgomery family has had a stranglehold on business in Harrisburg for generations, and your father is no different than his father and his father’s father before him.”
“What does that have to do with my boyfriends?” I asked.
“He’s keeping you happy and distracted, so you don’t find out who he really is,” she said. “Or maybe he is angling to get something on Rome and Whitt’s parents. Either way, he’s up to something.”
“That doesn’t really make sense though, how does this tie back to you trying to kill me?” I asked, not seeing any connection there.
“David Montgomery is my father too,” she said quietly. “You’re my sister, Stephanie. And because of that, I hated you.”
Chapter 85
Becca’s words hit me with the force of a freight train, forcing all reactions from my body. I sat completely still and in silence as I processed what she’d said.
“Wait. What?” I asked at last.
“My mother had an affair with your father, and she got pregnant with me,” Becca said. “It was one way for your father…I mean our father to dominate and humiliate my mother’s husband. The man I grew up thinking was my father.”
“This is so confusing,” I replied. “We’re sisters?”
“Half sisters,” she said. “I look more like my mother, though, but we have the same eye shape and nose.”
I tried to picture Becca as she had been, and could almost see it.
But not quite.
“I don’t know, have you had a DNA test done?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” Becca replied. “Not that he knew about it, but it was easy enough to get his DNA.”
“How?” I asked.
“My mother. She still sleeps with him from time to time.”
“Oh, gross,” I replied, realizing that Becca might mean something I didn’t want to think about. “So he’s your father, why hate me?”
“Mom was poised to tell him about it. We were going to hook me up with Barrett and claim Montgomery Holdings for ourselves,” she said. “I became obsessed with what I figured was my birthright. And then you showed up, beautiful and with all the boys falling all over you. And with a claim to the company I wanted.”
“You and your mom really planned this out,” I said.
“And Elaine. She was instrumental in getting this all together,” she told me. “I was just so angry when I saw you steal Barrett and the company right out from under my nose. I didn’t know how to handle myself.”
“I hope you know now,” I said with a shake of my head. “You could have killed me. Is that what you wanted? So you could complete your plan and inherit the company?”
“Mom and Elaine were pushing for that, yes,” she said. “But I felt weird about it. I started to like you and didn’t think we needed to bring you down like that just to get our hands on the company.”
“But you still went through with it,” I replied.
“I wish I hadn’t,” she said. “I was pushed into it and then took it too far. I know I’ll be arrested the moment I step foot back in Harrisburg, but I want to go back. I want to own up to what I did.”
“Wow,” I said. “This is a lot to take in.”
“I thought it would be,” she replied. “I’ve had a lot of time in here to think about my actions though, so I want you to know that my apology is sincere. I would like it if we could get to know each other now that we know we’re sisters.”
“I would like that,” I said. “If you get put in jail, I promise to visit you every day.”
“That would be awesome,” she said. “I hope I go to jail, maybe Mom and Elaine won’t be able to get me there.”
“I hope you get probation and can come to see us,” I said. “I would love it if we could get to know each other. Properly this time, okay?”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“Does Dad know you’re his daughter?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. If he does, he’s never acted like it.”
“Maybe he’s not a devious bastard, maybe he just has problems keeping it in his pants,” I said. “Either way, we need to tell him when we make it back.”
“If we make it back,” she replied miserably.
“Hey, I don’t want to hear you talking like that. We are going to escape, I promise.”
She smiled at me in the dim light, and I felt connected to her in ways I never had before. She’d been messed up by the people in her life, and it had come out in horrible ways.
Perhaps my own obsessive need for revenge on her was my way of dealing with emotions brought up by everything that had happened to me. The events that had led to me moving in with Dad in the first place, my feelings of being abandoned by him and being pushed away by my mom.
It seemed as if I had my own problems to
address and fix before I could begin to heal.
But before that, we had to get out of this place.
* * *
We lived on crackers and bottled water for the last day before Taylor came back to the room. We’d eaten the cheese and cookies first and had learned early on to conserve the water.
The dim room never changed, but I did find there was a thin strip of light that burned in a sliver at the bottom of the door. It never changed either though, so I couldn’t figure out how long I’d been there. Had it been one day? Several days? It was impossible to keep track.
Everything seemed to blend together. The time, the place, even Becca and me and our conversations. I sometimes paused in the middle of a discussion where we were planning something after our release, and I had to think for a moment. Had we already talked about this?
Mostly it was about what we’d eat. Even my passion for the boys had waned in there. It was all lust for ice cream and croissants and chocolate and coffee on my mind.
At long last, we got our chance.
I heard the doorknob start to rattle and I sat up on my bed from where I’d been languishing with my eyes closed and my mind on the things I’d eat when I got home.
I rushed across space between the cots and shook Becca awake. “He’s coming,” I whispered. “This is our only chance.”
She moaned, and her eyes fluttered. I shook her again and repeated myself.
She finally sat up and sprang into action next to me. We crouched down so we could attack the moment Taylor opened the door.
It swung open, and I was blinded momentarily as bright light exploded into the room. I just saw a dark figure against the outline of the doorframe, so I leaped up and attacked.
Becca joined me, and we managed to knock them down with a loud exclamation of pain. I kept moving, running out into a long, narrow hallway. I looked back and forth, located a door at the end of the hall and continued to run.
The door opened as I reached it. I came to a stop and found myself face to face with Elaine.
“Going somewhere, were we?” she laughed and reached out to smack me.
I stepped back and held my hand to my face. “What are you doing here?”
