by R A Baker
Chapter Eight
I woke up under the covers with pj’s on. I rolled over, or tried to, at least. Todd and Erick were snuggled up against me and Trace was on Todd’s side of the bed.
I sat up and shimmied out of the covers and climbed over two bodies to get to the bathroom. I turned the shower on and washed quickly.
I finished with the shower, stepped out, and wrapped a towel around my body and head then went into the bedroom. The guys were still asleep.
I grabbed clothes and went back into the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake them. I changed into business clothes and walked out.
Trace was sitting up in bed, the blanket covering his lap and from the waist up he was naked. I stared at his chest for a minute and then slowly looked up at him. He smiled and held out his arms. I gave him a hug and murmured, “I have to go to work.” I kissed his cheek and nudged Todd and Erick. I gave them kisses and left.
I got into my AMG and drove down the driveway, turned onto the roadway. About three hundred feet from the drive an SUV came speeding up behind me. I slowed so it could pass but it didn’t. It hit my backend and thanks to good tires and German engineering I kept the car on the road without fishtailing.
I sped up. My car was quicker on the uptake but they had the power. They caught up to me quicker than I would have liked. I looked at the speedometer and found that we were pushing ninety miles an hour. A turn was coming up in the road; one I knew needed to be taken at around thirty miles an hour.
I took the turn at ninety and thanked God that I didn’t go over the guardrail. I scraped the guardrail but it wasn’t serious, the metal shrieking grated on my nerves, though. The SUV had slowed down to take the turn, which gave me a bit of time in order to get away from it.
Where was a cop when you needed one?
I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the SUV closing. I looked down a second to grab my cell phone and got hit in the back again. The cell phone went flying from my hand. I had slowed down to look for my dumb phone.
Another turn and this time the SUV didn’t slow. It rammed me and I went over the hill. Luckily, it wasn’t a bad hill to go over. My car bottomed out and flew down the hill. I tried to keep the car away from trees and barely succeeded.
I touched the brakes and the car slowed steadily, but not fast enough since the ground was layered with leaves and fungus and other slippery stuff. The car slid as it slowed and started to turn. I tried to correct it but it wasn’t working. The car slid around so I was facing uphill and hit a tree with the backend. The airbags exploded and my face smashed into the pillow.
I hit the airbag to get it out of my way and found the two goons nearly on me. I fell sideways and reached for my concealed Glock on the underside of the passenger seat. I had my hand on it when the door was ripped from its hinges and my legs were pulled out. I tried to keep my body inside but they were too strong. Vampires.
He pulled me out of the car and I flopped onto the ground, the breath knocked out of me. I looked at them and knew I was dead. I didn’t have any other weapons on me. I was so screwed.
The guy who had pulled me from the car hauled me over his shoulder. I kicked and screamed and hit him with my fists but he barely flinched. I kicked my foot out and connected with something. I looked over my shoulder. I could feel the guy carrying me laugh. I had hit the second vampire in the jaw. He was rubbing his jaw and cussing. I started cussing louder and kicked again.
I stopped struggling for a minute and as the guy loosened I slid a little bit but it was enough. I brought my leg down and connected with his balls. He stumbled and cursed the day I was born.
“Let me go, bastard,” I shouted.
“I can’t. You’re our bargaining chip. We need you to get to Todd.” His voice was gruff from the hit to the groin.
“He won’t do it. If you let me go, I’ll talk to him. Maybe I can help you.” I prayed: please let them be this stupid.
“Do you take us for idiots?” Of course they weren’t that stupid.
“No. I’m just trying to negotiate.”
“Well, stop. I’m not letting you go, no matter where you kick me.”
I huffed out a sigh and said, “I will kill you. Make no mistake, vampire. You continue this and you’ll just be dust after.”
The other vampire sucked in a breath and started talking about letting me go. “We can’t, you know that. We have to have her. If we don’t she’ll kill us anyway and so will Todd.”
They stopped talking once we reached the SUV. The guy dropped me to my feet and shoved me face first against the truck, then bound my hands and feet and put a blindfold around my head. Being bound by hand and foot didn’t bother me nearly as much as being blindfolded but there wasn’t much I could do, so I resigned myself to just going with it.
He shoved me into the back seat of the truck, and told the other vamp to drive. He kept his hand on my arm with bruising force. What did they think, I was dangerous or something?
I started counting and noted each time my body swayed one way or the other as we turned. I figured that would at least keep me occupied while they took me to wherever.
>< ><
The car stopped after a long while and I was pulled from the truck. The vampire dragged me when I walked too slowly for him causing me to stumble and trip over things. I tripped over something and realized I was now in a warm building. The vampire yanked me forward and made me kneel.
The vampire removed the blindfold and I blinked into bright lights. Oh, great. I was kneeling in front of a tripod with a video camera on it. “You will read the cards and we will send this message to Todd.” He spat Todd’s name out like a bad word.
“I won’t.” He slapped my face hard. It stung and my eyes watered. “You can hit me all you want but I won’t do it.” He slapped me again and this time he flicked a knife out. It was one of those butterfly knives.
“If you don’t, I’ll start cutting.”
“And then what will you have to bargain with? If I’m injured, you’re dead and you won’t get what you want.” I was a defiant bitch when I wanted to be but that only brought pain when he sliced my arm deeply. I bit my lip to keep from crying out because damn, that had hurt.
“The next one goes on your stomach and then I work higher,” he threatened.
“Do what you want. If I’m hurt I still won’t do it.”
I held back a scream when he sliced my stomach from end to end. It wasn’t deep but it hurt like a sonofabitch. The other vampire came up behind me and sliced my back. I wasn’t expecting that one, damn it. I cried out. He had cut much deeper than the other vampire. The vampire that did most of the torture hit the other vampire and sent him through the wall.
“Why the hell did you do that for?” the vampire asked as he got up from the floor.
“We don’t want to kill her, you idiot.” He turned to me and said, “Say the words and then we’ll let you go.”
“Are you kidding me? You just said I was your bargaining chip,” I screamed and then muttered, “Idiots.” That got me a backhand across the jaw. I went over like a sack of potatoes. I laid there for a minute before the lead vampire hauled me onto my knees again.
“Just say the words, slayer.”
I screamed at him, loud and filled with anger. “I’m not a slayer. I may have killed Antreas but that’s about all I did.” I could see that he knew that I had killed more than just Antreas.
Instead of saying anything, he ripped my shirt off and sliced my collar bone. I hissed as pain went through me. “I will continue cutting. Besides, I suppose this is better since we’re already taping.” Bastard.
“I don’t care. Todd better not come here and try to rescue me. I refuse to say anything more.”
“Then screaming will do.”
I was kneeling with only my bra and slacks on. The sleeves of my blouse were falling down my arms. He sliced my stomach again. I didn’t scream but I wanted to, I really freakin’ wanted to scream.
He continued cutti
ng at me until I was bleeding on my arms, stomach, legs, and back. He left my neck alone, thankfully, but I could see that my blood, filling the air, was causing him some problems considering his eyes were shining with power. I was too hurt to pass out from the sight of my own blood, and I was a bit afraid for my life.
I flinched back when he started for my throat but the other vampire, apparently younger than the torturer, got to me first. He bit into my neck and started sucking. It was vicious and hurt like a bitch. I whimpered and held my tongue. If I was going to die I wasn’t going to scream.
The torturer pulled the other vampire off me and actually apologized for the other’s behavior. Not only was I bleeding everywhere else but now my throat was bleeding. I could feel the blood trickle down my neck and shoulder to my chest, making my skin itch and my stomach give a nasty little roll.
The torturer bent down and sucked on my neck for a second and then licked the wound. I could feel it close up and the blood stopped flowing. I held my head high and tried not to flinch from the pain as my skin pulled and stretched.
The torturer walked over to the camera and said something quietly. I couldn’t hear since my ears were ringing and the edges of my vision were cloudy.
He came back to me, hauled me to my feet, and pulled me forward. I stumbled and almost fell several times but he just kept on walking, pulling me along, and dragging me when necessary, down the long hallway. There were four doors along the way, and I saw an outside door a few feet away from where he stopped. I so wanted to make a break for it but, right now, I was alive. That was what mattered. After, they so weren’t going to be alive.
He tossed me into the room, the one closest to the outside door, and locked me inside, careless of how I tripped and fell to the floor. I gasped as the air in my lungs was knocked out when I crashed onto the floor.
Chapter Nine
I think I passed out for a bit, maybe ten minutes. Once I was mostly conscious, I struggled into a sitting position, and looked around the room. There were no windows and only a nightlight to see by. The room was empty of everything else, which was probably a good thing considering, as danger prone as I was, I’d have hit something and caused insult to injury.
I had to get the heck out of here. I bent my elbows and attempted to get my arms to the front of my body but they had bound the ties so tight that I couldn’t. I sat there and tried not to cry but tears sprang to my eyes anyway. I didn’t know if I’d be able to get out of here alive but I was going to try.
I scooted over to the wall and used it to stand up. I hopped a few feet and then sank to the ground, my feet under me. I bent backward and tried to untie the knots at my feet. I caught the edge of the tie and worked my body lower. I untied the first knot and I could feel my fingers starting to bleed as the hard ropes cut into my skin.
I kept at the knots and finally got my legs free. Damn, that had been horrible. I never wanted to repeat that in my life considering a few times I really just wanted to give up, but knew that I couldn’t, not and live anyway.
I stood up and walked around the room. It wasn’t a big room, maybe ten feet by six feet. My foot hit something and I almost tripped. I knelt down and felt around, backwards. It was a nail. Yay.
The nail was sticking out of the ground about two inches and was sharp, sharp enough that I nicked my fingers. Oh, well, what’s one more bloody wound?
I used the nail to cut through the ties. Even with it being sharp, it still took a long while to finally cut through the dense rope. While I was cutting at the ties I prayed they wouldn’t come in.
They didn’t.
The last of the bindings fell from my wrists. I was free. I almost cried out in happiness but thought better of it. I still had no way to get out.
Damn, now I had to figure a way out of the room and then, hopefully I could sneak past two vampires and outside. Though I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d get home.
One thing at a time, damn it.
I was getting to my feet when the door opened. “Slayer,” the young vamp whispered.
I grabbed the ties and held them between my hands. “I’m over here,” I whispered back. I was behind the door and when he came in I took the opportunity to kill him.
I wrapped the ties around his neck and pulled. He slammed me against the wall but I wouldn’t let go. I held on until I heard a snap and then I kept the ties around his neck.
I dragged the vamp to the nail and pried it loose. It had been coming loose as I had been working on my bindings, so it came out fairly easily. I used it as a makeshift knife and started hacking at his throat. It took forever but his head finally came off.
I carried the head with me as I walked out of the room, just in case. The other vampire wasn’t around or he would have come after me immediately. I hadn’t been quiet when I was cutting the young vamp’s head off.
I walked the area and found an exit. I looked out the window in the door and found no one around.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I turned slowly at the sound of that voice. It was the older vampire. He was staring at me in shock. I smiled a crazy smile and held up the head of his friend. “I told you I’d kill you. He was just the first to die.”
He looked scared all of a sudden. I wondered why. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not? You were the ones who tortured me and left me in a room with no light or windows. How did you think I would respond?”
“Todd has agreed to step down. I just came back to free you.” I was almost relieved. “Since you killed my lover, I guess I’ll have to kill you.”
“You sure you want to tangle with me?”
He laughed, a crazy sound that seemed to pop out of his mouth without his say-so. That sound spooked me a little. “Brave words, slayer. Yeah, I do. I wanted to see what the whole deal was about anyway.”
I stared at him for a long moment and said, “I don’t take prisoners, vampire.”
“The name’s Caplin. It’ll be famous once I kill you.”
He didn’t give me a chance to respond before he flew at me. It took me a second to realize what had happened. He had me pinned to the wall and had his teeth on my neck. “That was too easy, slayer. I heard you had magical abilities and you could see when vampires move quickly.” I didn’t say anything. He threw me to the floor like a ragdoll and I lay on the floor stunned.
I still had the head in my hand. He walked away from me until he was near the end of the hall and then came at me again. I threw his lover’s head at him. He faltered and caught the head. I got off the floor and looked around for a weapon. Of course there wasn’t one.
I turned from him and ran out the door. I didn’t get far before he tackled me and flipped me around to face him. He looked like a feral dog fighting for its food. I cringed from the teeth and spittle that flew from his mouth.
He breathed in my scent. I turned my face away from him. I could see that it wasn’t all about food. There was something sexual going on and I didn’t want any part of it. His hand played along my bra and stomach. He lifted his hand to his mouth and licked the blood off. I knew that the blood wasn’t just mine. He sighed against me and started to unbuckle his belt as he was lying on top of me. I gulped and my heart beat faster. He smiled.
I had about two seconds to think about what to do. I had to get the knife that I knew was in his pocket so I started to help him. I pasted a smile on my face and said, “I like it rough.” He sighed again and I helped him with his belt and my pants. “Leave the jeans on for a minute. I want to tease you.” He seemed to believe me. I was still afraid but I couldn’t let that distract me. I wasn’t going to be a victim. “Roll over, Caplin, I like the top.” He rolled off me and I straddled him. I could feel his happiness through my underwear and his jeans.
I unsnapped his jeans and ran my hand along his groin. I leaned into him and kissed him. I could taste the blood that he had licked off his hand. I kissed him deeply and ran my hand through his hair. I pulled gently as I to
ok my mouth from his. His eyes were glassy. I ran my tongue along his cheek and jaw and flicked his ear. “Bite me,” I whispered. He pulled back and looked at me. I nodded. He didn’t hesitate again. He bit my neck gently and sucked. It actually felt really good, and though I kept my focus for a time. I was starting to lose as his mouth worked on my throat.
I reached down into his jeans, fondling him and then wrapped my hand around the knife. He bit harder and I cried out, not in pain either. I flicked the knife out and stabbed him in the throat. He pulled back, tearing my skin a little in his haste.
“I’m sorry, but I told you that you would die.” I pulled the knife up and through his windpipe, blood splattered all over me. His hands tightened on my body, nearly crushing me. I stabbed him in the heart then hacked at his neck. After long minutes, his head finally fell off and his hands dropped from my waist.
I remembered to grab the SUV keys from his other pocket, lifted off his dead body, went into the house to grab the other head.
I walked out the front door and got into the SUV, putting the heads on the passenger seat, and hoping I wouldn’t get stopped by a cop, not that there were many out on the roads lately.
I drove about three minutes and had to pull over. I started to shake and cry. I was free and I’d had to kill to gain that freedom.
I shoved the tears aside and started driving again. I found a cell phone and called Todd. “You better not have killed her, you bastard!”
“Todd, its Kat.”
“Katja?” He breathed deeply and asked, “Where are you?”
“I’m driving the SUV. I’ll be home in a few minutes. I want you to call a meeting for all those vampires. I have something to show them.”
We spoke a few minutes more and then hung up. I drove at a conservative speed even though I just wanted to get home. To safety.
Chapter Ten
I arrived home and pulled into the driveway. All three men were outside. As soon as I stopped the truck, the door opened and Todd pulled me into his arms. I held him and cried. I had been so scared, for me and for them.
