Hard

by S. R. Jones

  She sniffs and nods yes.

  “Liam, I’ll get his date of birth to you ASAP, but can you call Ethan and Reece and tell them to be on standby? I think he might have Cara.”

  “Fucking hell, mate. I’m sorry. Consider it done. Out.”

  I hang up and grab Mags’ hand briefly, giving it a squeeze. I need her to keep it together, because if she goes to pieces then I’ll have to spend energy I haven’t got to spare comforting her.

  We arrive at Cara’s house and I’m out the car and up the steps without waiting for Mags. Thank God, I’ve still got the spare key. The door is locked, and inside it all looks normal. No signs of a struggle. It tells me that the most likely scenario is that Cara went with Tristan willingly.

  It makes me hope I can find them before he hurts her. If he does it will be all on me. I walked away thinking I’d only fail her, but it was me leaving that put her in danger.

  When I get her back, so long as she wants me, I’m never letting her go again.

  Cara

  Thirteen

  I stare at Tristan, at a total loss as to what to do. He asked me to come with him this morning, after spending the entire day yesterday blabbering on about this big surprise he had for me. As if my heart wasn’t breaking into tiny pieces. He’d disappeared for a few hours to do some work stuff, he said, and I relished the peace and quiet.

  I tried to argue this morning, told him I had work, determined to go in, despite no sleep and feeling sick to my stomach. He said it would only take a short time, and then he’d drop me at work. He seemed so excited, and I was shattered and not thinking straight, so I let him have his way. He told me he’d got a surprise for us. I should have taken heed of the alarm bells that went off at his use of the word us.

  There is no us, but Tristan seems to think there is. He has been almost giddy since we got out of the hospital and Luka left, despite his throat supposedly killing him.

  I shift in my seat and look around as we drive on farther. We’re miles out of town now in the middle of the country, and I’m beginning to get anxious. I’m being stupid, surely? This is Tristan, for God’s sake. But his behavior is off, and now we’re pulling up outside a house, and I am already late for work because I wanted to get stuff done before class. I check my watch and sigh. I’m going to have to call the Governor and ask him to start the class ten minutes late if we don’t leave here in fifteen minutes. And now I’ll need to stay late and do all the admin stuff after class.

  Tristan jumps out of the car and runs around to the passenger side, pulling the door open for me and helping me out. I try to pull my arm away, but he maintains a firm hold on it as he almost drags me towards the door of the house.

  “I know you’re wary of moving as far away as Durham, and I get why. And the beauty of what I do for a living is that I can live anywhere and do my job. I earn stupid money, and can earn more freelancing. I’m going to leave my job, and relocate.”

  My anxiety begins to dim as he lets go of me and unlocks the door. I think he’s going to tell me he’s moving nearer. Which would have overjoyed me at one point, a long time ago in our friendship. Now, with his recent behavior, and my upset over Luka, the idea leaves me cold. I decide to take a quick peek inside and then insist he drive me back.

  Maybe I ought to call the Governor now? I take my phone out and frown at it. Great. No signal.

  Tristan pulls me into a cozy, old-fashioned kitchen and shuts the door behind us. He locks it and pockets the keys, and once more my senses go onto high alert. Why is he behaving this way?

  “I can’t be long,” I say. “I need to get back to work.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t need to worry about that anymore. You need to stay away from the prison.” His voice is almost sing-song. A tone I’ve not heard him use before.

  “I’ve got to go in for my last few lessons and say goodbye to the men.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not a good environment for you. You’ve got yourself into more and more trouble over the years, haven’t you? Your prison work is another example of the bad decisions you keep making. I try to help, and you repeatedly ignore my advice. But now I’ve decided, enough is enough. I’m going to pick up the pieces, whether you like it or not.”

  What the hell?

  “It’s all over now. You don’t have to worry anymore. I’m going to take care of you. No more idiots like Dane, or violent thugs like Luka. No more dead-end jobs that you don’t deserve. I’ve been building up work for quite some time privately, and I’m making a fucking fortune. I can keep us out here, we will never need to leave. We can order our food in. I’ll sort out satellite provision for the internet access and phones. It’s going to be our own little slice of heaven.”

  I stare at him utterly aghast. “I can’t live out here with you! I have a life to get back to.”

  “What fucking life?” Tristan shouts.

  I take a step back, fear slamming into me, making my legs weak.

  “Jesus Christ, Cara. What do I have to do?” He screams at me. “I saved your skanky arse from those men that night. I saved you. I have been there for you through thick and thin. I saw you after your cousin died, and I knew then you needed a guiding hand. You were lost, and I found you. I befriended you, wanted more, but you only saw me as a friend. I decided to wait. To be honest, I quite like the chase. You’re not easy like most other girls. I had plenty of distractions, but it was always you I waited for.”

  He gives a weird little giggle, and my hair stands on end. “You didn’t fall into my lap. Women always do. They’re so easy. But not you. But now, I’m tired of waiting. I’ve had a few nice dalliances over the years while I pursued you, but they all let me down. Too quick to fall into a routine, and then it would start. The moaning and the nagging. Not listening to me. You won’t let me down.”

  “How did they let you down?” I’m confused, because I’m sure he’s been the one to end all his relationships.

  “They bored me. I grew sick of them. Had to get rid of them.”

  My eyes widen. Get rid of them. Did he kill them?

  He watches me and laughs. “I didn’t do away with them. God, I can read you like a book. I didn’t need to. You want rid of a woman, there’s a lot easier ways of getting her gone than killing her and having to deal with the hassle of the law.

  “The only woman I killed was my own mother, and it was a mercy killing. Fucking old witch, pissing her pants and wanting me to care for her. She’s probably looking down on me right now thanking me.”

  “You killed your mum?” I feel sick. He used the death of his mother to bond with me, after I lost my cousin, and now he’s telling me he killed her?

  “You’ve never let me down, Cara. You don’t bore me. You intrigue me. Always have. I want to fuck you until you’re screaming my name.”

  My skin crawls at his words.

  “After what happened with those men a few months back, I thought for sure you’d be mine. See me the way you should see me. As the man who will care for you and look after you. But no. You still made excuses. Your leg. Your job. Reason after reason why you couldn’t come and stay with me. And then! Then I find out you’ve taken up with some fucking thick as pig shit ex-Bootneck.”

  “What? What’s a Bootneck?” God knows why I pick up on that and question it, but maybe it’s easier than facing the fact that my friend has lost his mind and I’m clearly in danger.

  “He’s an ex Royal Marine. They call them Bootnecks. Anyway. We don’t need to talk about him anymore, right? He’s gone.” His voice calms as he says this, and he smiles.

  I nod, because right now I need space and time to think about how to get out of this. Tristan is clearly not well, so maybe if I play along I can buy myself some time.

  “Oh, sweet thing.” He comes close and draws the back of a knuckle down my cheek. “I know what you’re doing. Right now, you’re confused, and you’re telling me what you think I want to hear. You think you can manipulate me, or that I’m sick maybe? Yes?”
>
  I nod despite myself, and my teeth are chattering together.

  “I’m not sick. I’m fine. Perfect clarity here. You’re the one with a problem. You ignored me. Friend-zoned me, and I don’t like being rejected. I don’t like it one bit. When I was young, I used to kill things that rejected me.”

  I gasp and move back until I hit the kitchen cupboards behind me.

  “Then I got help, and got diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder. I played the system. Pretended to be cured with their talking, and their CBT bullshit. Ever since I kept my nose clean. Cleared up after myself a lot better. Thing is, Cara. You interest me. Most people bore me after a while, and I let them go anyway because they make the game uninteresting. But you, you’re a challenge. You’re a mess too, and easily manipulated in some ways, but not in others. A real walking, talking human contradiction. A puzzle I’ve still not figured out. Happily, for me, and for you, I’d like to keep you around for a while. I’ve been getting your room ready.”

  He grabs my hand and I scream. Searing pain hits as he slaps me hard across my face.

  “Don’t fucking scream. I don’t need the hysterics. I won’t hurt you. Have you even heard a word I said? I like you. You interest me. It’s when you bore me you must worry. Even then I’ll probably let you go, because I like this world with you in it. But make no mistake, don’t fuck me about, or treat me like an idiot, because I will discipline you. I enjoy disciplining women very much. You will be perfect too, with your pale soft skin. I bet it marks nicely.”

  I start to cry. No matter how much I try to keep the tears in, they fall down my cheeks.

  “Pretty.”

  Tristan runs his index finger through the wet path on my face and then sucks it into his mouth. I shudder as he laughs. He grabs me by the arm and pulls me with him. Taking me out of the kitchen to a cellar head. There are stone stairs leading down into the dark and I instinctively start to pull away.

  “Oh no you don’t. This is going to be your new home, sweet thing.” He pulls me down the steps with a harsh jerk and I stumble, grabbing at the stone wall to stop myself falling.

  We get into the cellar and there are two rooms branching off from the damp, cobweb riddled passageway.

  “Okay. This is how it is going to work. I hope you like this, because I spent a good few hours sorting this yesterday when I realized you were going to need a bit of time and persuasion to get your head into gear.

  “There is the good room and the bad room. The good room is where you stay when you behave. The bad room is where you will be put if you’re bad. Don’t be bad, Cara. You won’t like me angry. Once you come to your senses and see us as the amazing couple we can be, you can move upstairs and be with me properly, which is what I planned from the start.”

  He smiles as if he’s telling me about my new role at work or something. “Lucky for you, I don’t get off on sexual sadism, or force. It leaves me cold. So, I won’t take you that way until you come to me. And you will.”

  He smirks. “But I do like bog standard sadism. What that means for you is this. I won’t force you sexually. But I will beat you if you misbehave, and I will enjoy it. Who knows, maybe you will, too?”

  I’m biting my cheek so hard I can taste blood, but I daren’t cry, and I will if I don’t keep biting down. Holding the sobs in.

  He flicks a light switch, outside the room to the left. There’s a cage, a fucking dog cage by the looks of it. A dog bowl too, in one corner. A bucket in the other. And there’s some ratty bedding in the dog cage.

  “This is the bad room. Doesn’t need explaining.”

  Then he pulls me to the right and flicks that switch on. “This is the good room.”

  He looks at me, eyes dancing with mirth and I want to punch him. It is clean, and has been whitewashed. The floor has a couple of bright throw rugs on it. There’s a lamp in one corner and the bulb in this room is covered with a shade. A wooden single bed lies against the back wall. There’s a small door into what looks like another room at the back.

  “That’s a shower and toilet I had put in when I was imagining us having kids here. Teenagers want their own space. Thank God I did, because now you have somewhere nice to stay until you see the light. See, you behave and you can live in relative luxury.”

  I turn to him, desperate, and try to reason with him. “Tristan, please. You’re my best friend. I thought we cared for one another. Why would you do this to me? If you let me go, right now, I won’t tell anyone. And we can go back to the way we were.”

  “Really?” He says the word cautiously. Almost hopefully.

  “I promise. Maybe we can even date.”

  “I’d love that. All I’ve wanted is for you to notice me.”

  “I know,” I say, and force myself to put my hand on his arm. “And I’m sorry I didn’t. You’re right, I was behaving stupidly. I haven’t been myself to be honest. The stress of it all has made me make bad decisions.”

  I stop when I realize he’s laughing. “Is that the best you can do? Do you honestly think you can manipulate me? I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve fooled the police, social services, shrinks. The lot of them. Your friend Maggie, she doesn’t like me, but she doesn’t know why. She’s no idea of the predator I truly am. None. And she’s meant to be a great psychologist. Don’t make me laugh. I can play people like the puppets they are. Pull their strings and make them dance for me. Brutal honesty, that’s what I want between us now. You’re going in the bad room for a few hours for that pathetic little display.”

  He pulls me towards the room with the dog cage in it. The one with the spiders and webs and the damp, and I start to pull away and scream. My terror at the thought of being in there overrides my fear of him and I fight back. But for someone who is not particularly built, he’s strong. He’s laughing as he pulls me behind him.

  “That’s what I want to see, my beautiful one, some fight. Let it all out. Come on, in you go.”

  He shoves me so hard I fall to the stone floor and scrape my knees through my cotton skirt.

  “I’ll leave the light on, but you piss me off this bad again and you’ll be in the dark.”

  He pulls the heavy door closed until I hear it lock.

  Terror. Utter mind-numbing terror sweeps through me. I start to scream and hammer at the door. I can’t stop myself. Despite trying to calm down, my body is in fight or flight, and I need to get out of this horrible, windowless room. After about fifteen minutes, the adrenalin begins to wane some, and I stop banging and kicking at the door. I stop shouting and screaming, and instead go and huddle in a corner, crying as I wrap my arms around myself for comfort.

  Dear God, how did I miss seeing Tristan for who and what he was?

  The one person I should have trusted is gone. Ironically, he walked out of my life because he didn’t want to hurt me, and now I’m more in harm’s way than I’ve ever been.

  I loved him. I know as much now. The clarity that comes in this moment is chilling. I loved him, and I’ve lost him and any chance at happiness…because I’m not surviving this. No way is Tristan going to let me live. He’s far too clever for me to fool into thinking I want to be with him. I’ll never choose to. The only way this ends is with me dead.

  I’m so done for I can only hang my head and cry.

  Luka

  Fourteen

  Mags is reading the historic file on Tristan that Ethan and Liam have dug up.

  Reece has hacked his shit, too. We’ve been going through his bank records and emails, etc. The fucker has recently bought a house about ten miles out of the town center. I am hoping and praying he’s taken Cara there, and not back to Durham. I’m convinced he’s got her.

  “Holy fuck,” Maggie swears.

  “What?” I cast a glance her way and hate the paleness of her face. What does it fucking say? I swallow down my nausea and focus on the road ahead.

  “His juvie file is horrifying. Animal cruelty. Starting fires. He regularly physically assaulted his single mothe
r.”

  “Why isn’t he flagged by every authority?” My jaw is locked so tight I worry my teeth are going to shatter.

  “I think he must have fooled people into thinking he was cured. There’s a note by one psychiatrist saying he’s doing well, and a changed man. Thing is, his medical records will still stand, but this stuff is from within the justice system, and it probably got locked when he became an adult.”

  “But he’s an evil shit, you don’t grow out of that.” I want to break something, but I need to stay calm and focused.

  “Well, does evil really exist?” Maggie says.

  I shoot her daggers. She raises her hands in mock surrender. “Hey, never liked him, remember? And he’s clearly seriously messed up.”

  “As in….” I wait for her to spell it out.

  “To put it in layman’s terms, he’s probably what you’d call a psychopath.”

  Fucking marvelous.

  “He’s a predator, reading between the lines of his file, and like the best predators, he doesn’t act or look like one. I bet there’s a string of abused and terrified women he’s left in his wake. I remember Cara telling me on a few occasions how another relationship of his had ended abruptly when he’d broken up with the woman in question. Seems like he got bored and let them go, for which they should thank their lucky stars. He’s been watching Cara for a long time though, if you ask me. Based on other cases like this I’ve worked on in the past, I’d say he’s been stalking her for a long time. Watching all of us around her, too. She’s been his prey, and he’s been slowly chasing her for years.”

  “Fuck me. I didn’t like the cunt on first meeting him, but how did I miss this? I’m supposed to be excellent at reading people.” I shake my head in frustration.

  Mags gives a harsh laugh. “You and me both. This is what I do for a living, and I didn’t see it either. I didn’t like him, but I’d never have thought for a moment he had this past and these diagnoses on his file.”

  She sighs. “That’s the thing about people with these sorts of personalities, they’re master manipulators. But they can also lose control at times. He’s obviously got tired for some reason of playing cat and mouse with Cara. But why? Why now? I wonder if there’s some stressor in his life that’s triggered him.”