Always Angel (The List #4)

by N. K. Love

  Shit! I try again, to no avail. By leaning the top half of my body on the side and using my hand to help shuffle my feet forward, I make it as far as the door, remembering to pick up a small knife along the way. Now that I’ve reached the end of the work surface, I have nothing to hold me up.

  Dropping to my knees with a dull thud, I wince at the sound, too frightened to look behind me. I slowly start crawling through the doorway on all fours, with the knife still in my hand. My knees feel spongy and I can hardly feel my feet. It’s like I’m having some sort of out of body experience. It’s like trying to move somebody else’s limbs for them, only they’re too paralytic to comply.

  My pulse is hammering in my ears, knocking me off balance more than once. I make it a few feet down the hallway and I’m breathless. There’s a nasty, metallic taste in my mouth that’s got me feeling nauseous.

  Before letting the feeling of hopelessness overwhelm me, Jax’s face pops into my head. His beautiful, handsome face. ‘He is mine’ I tell myself. He is all I’ve ever wanted and he is mine. I’m not giving up without a fight. My need to keep him safe overcomes my fear and with newfound energy, I push forward, craning my head up to where I’m heading; the front door. It’s not much further now. I can do this.

  With my eardrums being dominated by the whooshing of my heartbeat, my hearing is muffled. I vaguely register something in the background and as my brain catches up to tell me it was the sound of chair legs scraping across the tiled floor, I hear her footsteps.

  I stop still, clutching the handle of the knife tighter in my fist. The footsteps get louder. They’re unhurried. She’s going to be angry. Is she going to shoot me now, from behind?

  “Going somewhere, poppet?”

  The words cut through the atmosphere, but she doesn’t sound upset in the slightest. She knew I’d try to escape and it hasn’t fazed her at all.

  “What… what did you… give me?”

  “Whatever is was, I obviously didn’t give you enough! You must be fatter than I thought.” I knew this didn’t feel right and it’s not because my legs were restrained, neither is it due to alcohol consumption. She’s fucking drugged me. I shake my head and try to steady my erratic breathing. “Don’t worry, it’s mainly muscle relaxants. Quite harmless, really.”

  “You twisted, fucking… bitch.”

  “Hmm, interesting choice of insult considering you’re the one on all fours! Right then, we may as well head out, now that you’ve woken us both up. Under the cover of darkness will be better anyway. The sun will be up soon.” She approaches me from behind. “Let me help you sit up.”

  The second she puts her hands on my elbows, I swing my body around, swiping the knife in her direction. My jelly legs force me to fall flat on my back, but I notice the bloody line across her forearm.

  Lifting my upper body, I launch at her again with the knife, this time towards her face. Ducking her head backwards, she grabs hold of my wrist and we start scuffling around on the floor. I fight against her, punching her in her ribs with my free hand. For the first time, her confident persona is knocked and replaced with panic, which spurs me on.

  With keeping a firm grip around my wrist, ensuring I can’t use the knife, she ends up straddling me. I can’t lift my heavy legs to kick her off. I twist my hips and try to buck her off, but she clamps her thighs, digging her knees sharply into my ribs.

  I’m struggling to pull much needed air into my lungs. My chest feels like it’s caving in. Even so, I don’t relent. I can’t. Scratching and slapping her, I yank at her icy blonde hair and tug her head down to the side. She grits her teeth together and growls in rage. With one hand held down and the other tangled in her disheveled bob, she reaches behind herself and a split second later, I’m right back where I started; staring into the eyes of a deranged lunatic with a gun pressed against my forehead.

  I slowly release her hair until she’s sitting upright, still on top of me. My chest feels lighter, allowing me to breathe better. Her quizzical eyes pierce into mine, as she calculates her next move. Glancing down at the blood seeping from her forearm, she raises it to her mouth and licks it away with one long stroke of her tongue.

  “You cut me. I’m impressed. However, it does now mean that I’ll have to return the gesture. Drop the knife.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Bethany. Drop the bloody knife and take your punishment like a good girl.” She presses the gun harder against my forehead and I reluctantly let go of the knife. Putting the gun in her other hand, she takes the handle and says with a warped smile, “Pull your sleeve up.”

  I do so without hesitation this time, accepting the inevitable. I pull back the sleeve of my left arm, exposing my forearm and quick as a flash, she slices the knife through the skin.

  “Fuuuuck!”

  Clutching my arm to my chest, the pain surprising subsides quickly, leaving in its wake a harsh pulsing sensation. Carmel calmly wipes the blade on my sleeve and slides it into the back pocket of her jeans.

  “See, it’s not that bad is it? Merely a flesh wound. Look…” Tugging my arm away, I look down to see a four-inch slash mark exactly the same as hers. “See, we’re matching.”

  If she was going to kill me here, she would’ve pulled that trigger straight away. I don’t know what her plan is, but as I stare back at her, what I do know is that I fucking hate her. It’s like the way I thought I loved Mike until Jax came into my life. I didn’t recognise fake until the real deal showed up. I thought I knew what it felt like to hate, but I had no idea, until now.

  At some point, Carmel is going to kill me. She will continue to manipulate her way further into Jax’s life and he’ll never know what she’s done. Jax and I will never see each other again and it’s all because this mentally unstable psychopath thinks she’s in love with him.

  Right now, in this position, I’m incapable of running. It’s impossible for me to physically hurt her the way that I’m so desperate too. I smirk and decide to start running my mouth instead. I’m going to step outside of myself and hit her where it hurts—the only weakness she has that I know of.

  “Our arms aren’t quite matching though, are they, Carmel? My arm isn’t covered in line after line of scars is it?”

  Carmel expression falters for a second and she drops her arm to the side so that I can’t see it.

  “Occupational hazard. You can’t fight the bad guys and expect to come away unscathed.”

  “Oh sorry, I thought they were from self-harming—”

  “Me? Self-harm?” She screws her face up and laughs uncomfortably, whilst moving off me at last. “No, sweetie, that’s for wimps. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Anyway, I’m just—”

  “I’m not judging. I mean, it’s understandable. You know, considering everything you went through.” I hoist my upper body up and turn to lean my back against the wall. “What those animals did to you… it was barbaric!”

  “What? What the fuck are you talking about?” Carmel’s sudden agitation is in absolute stark contrast to the ruthlessly calm woman that just had me pinned to the ground with a gun to my head. She puts the gun inside her waistband again and starts backing away from me “You don’t know… How could you know? Just shut up.”

  “Sorry, Carmel. I didn’t mean to rake up the past. You’ve probably buried that shit away, somewhere deep. But those scars, and the emotional ones, they’ll last a lifetime, won’t they?”

  I watch as she starts digging her fingernails into the wound where I cut her. It’s not deep and it’s hardly bleeding, but seeing her bloodied nails scrape through the flesh makes my stomach churn. She has a vacant look in her eyes, having me believe that she’s oblivious to what she’s doing to herself.

  “No they won’t!” She shouts out of the blue. “I’m not w-weak. They didn’t win.”

  I force myself not to take pity on her. I need to push her deranged buttons to see if there’s any room to talk my way out of this.

  “Well, they did kinda win, d
idn’t they? I mean, they murdered your mom in cold blood—in front of you, I believe? Then kidnapped you, molested you, gang-raped you even… I can’t imagine the trauma you suffered. You were their prisoner, their play toy and they assaulted you over and over and over again—for months!”

  Miss Fierce is out of her league with the vile shit pouring out of my mouth. I seem to have somehow tapped into Carmel’s viciousness. When I see the panic and pain in her eyes, the real me naturally wants to apologise and sympathise with her.

  “Stop talking! S-stop talking!”

  I take my foot off the pedal, but continue.

  “They were men and you were only a child. It’s not your fault and you’re certainly not weak because of it, Carmel… Those monsters only win if you let them.” She’s shaking her head, swaying her body from side to side. “You don’t have to live a life filled with hatred, delivering retribution. Is that why you want to keep Jax close? Because you think he is the one that will protect you and stop anything like that from happening again?”

  “Who told you all of this?”

  “Carmel, your father got you professional help, but I believe you’re still in need of intervention—”

  “Who told you?!”

  I want her to realise that their ‘connection’ isn’t as strong as she thought… In answer, I raise my eyebrow and tilt my head to the side. Carmel starts muttering ‘no’ under her breath again and again. “That’s private! It’s our little se…cret. OURS! My Jaxson wouldn’t d-do that to me. He wouldn’t.”

  “He hasn’t done anything to you. He has shared something with the woman he loves. That’s the thing about true love. There’s never any real doubt…” Now she’s pacing the hall. God, I hope she’s listening and absorbing it on some level. In a softer tone, I try to reason with her further. “Carmel, Jax cares about you. But, no matter what happens, whether I die or not, he will never love you. At least, not in the way you want, or need. Jax isn’t your solution. This will have all been for nothing.”

  Stopping in her tracks, she snaps her head back around and stares down at me. Her bulbous eyes and smug smirk confirm that the bitch is back.

  “Even if I’d considered keeping you alive—which I didn’t—I certainly wouldn’t now. You deserve to die as an act of atonement, to punish Jax for betraying my trust. As you have so thoughtfully rehashed my past, you’ll understand why my trust is so precious to me.” Crouching down at my side, she strokes her fingers down my face, leaving the crook of her forefinger hooked under my chin. “And with regards to him never loving me… That may be true. But, I don’t need his love. As long as he is in my life, I’ll be happy. You’ve taken him away from me and I’m taking him back. He is my protector, not yours.”

  Pushing my face away, she stands back up and walks off into the kitchen.

  Feeling dejected, my shoulders sag and I let my head fall back against the wall. It’s no use. Carmel is way beyond the point of rhyme or reason. It’s hopeless. This situation is so much worse than when her hired help were searching for me; Jax is out of the country, I have no way to protect myself and I’m pretty certain I’m up against somebody suffering with some form of serious mental health issues.

  Staying here gave me a glimmer of hope because Jax and Jack know where I am. The moment we leave here, I’m well and truly up shit creek without a paddle, but it’s pointless trying to stall the inevitable any longer. I shut my eyes as well as my stupid mouth, and wait.

  Carmel clatters around the place, going from room to room, occasionally stepping over me like I’m some nuisance cat. She doesn’t say another word to me.

  Eventually, she helped me up onto my feet, encouraged by the gun digging into my ribs, I throw my arm around her neck and she helps me out of the bungalow then into the passenger seat of her car.

  To any passersby or curtain-twitchers, it just looked like Carmel was helping her drunken friend into the car. She’d combed her hair back into its pristine bob and cleaned up her cut lip. She also changed into a long sleeved top to cover the scratches and the knife wound. I, on the other hand, looked a fucking state and I was way beyond caring.

  With her gun still pointed at me, she drove us away from any signs of life and pulled over. Reaching into a large bag on the backseat, she handcuffed me to the car door handle and placed a black hood over my head. On animal rescue programmes, I’ve seen vets place covers over the top of a wild animal’s head, which serves to calm them. However, taking my vision away had the opposite effect on me. I battled with my head for a while, forcing myself not to go into panic mode.

  Eventually, I had no choice but to accept the terrifying feeling of complete disorientation. Using the same thoughts as I had done previously, I recalled calming memories of Jax and I together. I drew strength from our happiness.

  I decided there and then that I wouldn’t let fear decide my fate.

  After what felt like more than an hour, the car drove along rough terrain for a few minutes and finally came to a stop. My legs were back to functioning normally, making it easier to be ushered into a cold building. She marched me down a flight of concrete steps and cuffed one hand to a metal pipe. I could feel the dusty brickwork the handcuffs were attached to.

  Carmel didn’t utter a word the whole time. Then she left.

  I listened to her heels clip clop their way back up the steps and then waited for the creaky door to open and shut. Immediately ripping away my hood, I checked the pipe to see if there was any possibility of me escaping. The cuffs were obviously solid and the pipe, albeit old, was fastened securely to the wall.

  Carmel has brought me to a cold, dark, derelict basement. So, will this become the dismal surroundings that my lifeless body will rot away in? There’s no point screaming. This woman may be crazy, but she wouldn’t have brought me here if there was any chance of me being seen or heard, let alone rescued.

  If I didn’t feel like I was being held captive before, I certainly do now. The only person being rescued from here is Carmel, in the twisted, mock kidnapping she’s told me about.

  My only glimmer of hope is that she wants me to talk to Jax so that he doesn’t have reason to suspect anything’s wrong in the UK. Apparently his flight is booked for tomorrow night and she doesn’t want him here any sooner.

  In the meantime, all I can do is wait and pray hard to a God that I’m increasingly doubting even exists.

  10:05am

  Walking with a rigid stride, Carmel makes her way across the crumbling concrete floor of the basement. Her face still shows no remorse. In fact, it’s devoid of emotion altogether. Perhaps that’s how she manages to behave this way, she switches herself off from the inside out. Or maybe that switch was flicked off by those bastards all those years ago and her scarred heart has thrived in the darkness ever since.

  She’s gotten dressed into a tracksuit and trainers, which look strange on her considering she’s usually branded to the hilt with designer gear. Lifting her tee, she makes sure I see the gun secured at the front of her waistband. Throwing a bag down on the dusty ground beside me, she unlocks my handcuffs. I don’t even think to try to attack her, she’ll be one step ahead of me at every turn.

  Instead, I stand cautiously, raising my palms so she can see I’m not going to try anything stupid. I just want to stand up and stretch my cold, aching limbs. I cautiously start pacing the room, far enough away for her to know that I’m not about to lunge at her. My body starts to feel less tender as blood pumps around my body.

  Carmel’s stone cold expression feels more intense than usual. Something’s changed. I can feel the tension radiating from her, but I can’t put my finger on the reason why.

  “You need to freshen up.” She snaps at me, gesturing to the bag. “There’s some wet wipes in there and a change of clothes. We can’t have you looking too shabby and at the moment…” She looks me up and down with a distasteful look. “You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.”

  “Surely my personal hygiene is irrele
vant at this late stage?” With a shrug of her shoulders, she nudges the bag towards me with her foot. “Carmel, I’m going to be dead in a few hours aren’t I? Don’t you think it’s morbid, asking your soon-to-be corpse to get changed into something more suitable for your sick plans?”

  I bite down on the inside of my lips to calm myself down. The wicked glint in her eyes tells me that she’s more pleased with herself than disgusted. The taste of blood in my mouth reminds me to let go before my teeth sink any deeper.

  “If you think that is morbid, wait until you figure out the reason why there is also some breakfast for you in there—and no, I couldn’t care less about your hunger.”