by Jenny Penn
“Molly,” Logan prompted his cousin as he pulled the truck to a stop. “Remember, the very pissed-off and totally suspicious woman you left tied up in your bed?”
“She’ll break her bonds eventually.” Bruce shrugged. “I didn’t tighten them all the way down.”
Logan blinked that in, wondering if he were the crazy one as Bruce turned his attention back to his phone. He didn’t think he was but knew his cousin had some kind of logic to his plans. “Then why the hell did you tie her up in the first place?”
“To piss her off,” Bruce muttered as he glared at his phone. “Son of a bitch. Hey!”
Bruce glanced up in outrage as Logan snatched his phone up. Logan didn’t apologize. “Focus here, man. Why did you want to piss Molly off more than she already was?”
“No.” Bruce shook his head, finally giving Logan his full attention. “She wasn’t mad. She was hurt. Hurt means she’d run away. Mad means she’ll sit there stewing until we get home just so she can tell us to go to hell.”
“She already told us that,” Logan reminded him, but he could see some amount of brilliance in Bruce’s plan.
“Yeah? Well, I’m sure she’ll want to tell us again,” Bruce shot back, snatching his phone up. “Now stop worrying. We’ll deal with Molly when we get home. Until then, at least, she’s safe.”
Molly’s safety wasn’t the problem right then as far as Logan was concerned. It was her distrust. That wasn’t going to be easily solved. After all, they hadn’t done anything to earn her distrust, but apparently, that didn’t change the fact that they had to earn her trust. Logan just didn’t think leaving Molly tied up in a bed was the right way to go about it.
“I don’t know, man.” Logan sighed and reached for his door handle. “I’m just not sure that leaving her like that was a good idea.”
Bruce groaned as he shoved his own door open. “She’ll sit for a while, and we’ve got work to do.”
“Sit for a while,” Logan repeated to himself with a little disgust as he followed Bruce into the bar.
* * * *
“Your men have quite a collection.” Guy stepped back to admire the toys he’d pulled out of Bruce’s drawers and lined up on top of the dresser.
These were definitely his kind of men. Then again, he’d figured that out days ago when he’d first spied them casing out the same abandoned house Guy had been considering the merits of. Instinct had warned Guy that they were there for him, which was just why he’d tracked them all the way back to their bonds office and then home to their woman.
It would have been easy to strike then. Easy and stupid. Guy was anything but stupid. Trained for years to stalk and hunt his prey by the military and schooled in the fine art of torture by his captors, Guy had learned the value of being cautious.
So, he’d waited. He watched.
What he’d learned had tempted him. The men searching for him had it all. They had friends. They had family. They had a woman. They had a mission.
Guy hated them.
Something inside of him wanted, needed, to destroy that happiness, to force the pain that ate at him onto those who dared to evoke even a slight hint of jealousy within him. He knew just how to do that.
Guy picked up the biggest of the plugs in the arranged collection and shook his head. “But if this is where it tops out, then they must not be that well endowed.”
* * * *
Molly barely spared Guy a glance, not wanting to think for a moment just what the bastard before her planned to do with all of the toys he’d pulled out. Instead, she focused all her attention on pulling on her wrists with as much strength and discretion as she could muster. Maybe it was a vain hope, but she thought she felt them loosening.
“Yes, indeed.” Guy nodded, turning to give Molly another one of his beaming smiles.
For a raging psychopath, the man before her not only looked normal but he was also unendingly cheery. His boisterous attitude didn’t disguise the crazy. It served only to highlight it.
“I’d have loved to use this kind of collection on that little blond next door.” Guy sighed heavily and shook his head as if he were disappointed, but his smile didn’t dip for a moment as he continued talking about Trisha in the past tense. “She was pretty. I’m betting she was a screamer, too. Not that I got a chance to find out. Kind of on a clock here.”
That was what worried Molly most of all. She was running out of time.
“I like screamers.” Guy rubbed a hand over his almost completely bald head. “Of course, every woman is a screamer once you find out what pushes her buttons.”
He was short, and suffering from middle-aged, white-man disease. That was he had no ass but carried a slight gut that hung over his belt buckle. The only difference between him and a million other men out there was that this guy was nuts.
That truth left Molly on the verge of overwhelming panic, but she didn’t give in to the urge to lose what little sanity she was clinging to. She couldn’t let go of that last shred of reason, or she’d be doomed because all she had right then to save her was her wits.
“I’m thinking you’re a hardass,” Guy declared as he studied her for a moment. “You prissy types normally are, but I know what cuts through that attitude.”
Guy laughed as if he’d made a joke as he turned to head out of the bedroom door. Molly didn’t want to find out what the punchline was. With that and every ounce of self-preservation strengthening her muscles, she pulled on her binds, but they only tightened around her wrists. They loosened, though, when she pushed back.
So she kept pushing, sliding the binds around her wrists down her arms and widening their hold. Still, when she pulled forward, they tightened back up. Molly didn’t give up hope, though, not with the sounds of Guy rummaging around in the kitchen driving her forward.
Once again, she shoved her arms back. This time, though, she didn’t try to pull back as the loops of leather slid downward. Instead, she bent her wrists and grabbed desperately at the end of the belt that kept her chained to the bed. She tugged on it, using all her strength and biting back a grunt as it finally started to give.
It was too late, though.
Even as the belt unraveled, Molly could hear Guy returning. He might not be big, but he was bigger than her. She wasn’t certain she’d win in an all-out battle, especially not with her wrists still bound together. At least she was free from the bed and now had the element of surprise.
She reserved that little bit of hope by burying her hands beneath the pillows under her head and praying that Guy didn’t notice the change in her position. Thankfully, he wasn’t even looking as he came back into the room whistling a happy tune. Unfortunately, he came back in carrying a whole bunch of knives. He dumped them on the side of the bed and stood back to admire the gleaming metal blades.
“Not a bad collection for a couple bachelors,” Guy declared as if they’d been having some kind of conversation. He glanced up at her, and Molly caught her breath, but he didn’t say a word about her new position. “Normally I bring my own, and I got my bag out in the car, but…I think it will really bother your men to know that their own knives tasted the softness of your flesh. In fact, I think it will drive them insane.”
Molly swallowed hard and tried to keep the trembling out of her tone, daring to speak to the maniac lording over her in a desperate attempt to buy herself more time.
“And that’s what this is all about? Driving Bruce and Logan insane?”
Guy smile took on a smug curl as he shrugged. “I didn’t even know their names until now, not that it much matters.”
“Then why?”
“Why?” Guy laughed as if she were an idiot. “It’s fun, that’s why.”
Molly didn’t dare to argue that point but watched with a cautious gaze as Guy settled down onto the side of the bed with a sigh. He stared off into space for a several long, tense seconds before finally speaking in a tone hardened by something Molly didn’t understand but feared with every breath in her body.<
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“You know, I have wife…and kids. They’re…perfect.” Guy’s chin turned, and Molly went still as he pinned her with a cold, hard gaze. “Perfect, but not fun. Everybody needs to have a little fun in their lives, don’t they?”
It was now or never. Molly could just sense that truth. Without a sound, she lunged forward, tackling the psycho before her. Catching him completely off guard, they both tumbled over the edge of the bed, Molly ending up on top. She didn’t hesitate to take advantage of her position, bringing her knee up hard and hitting Guy close enough to his groin to make him grunt and grimace and buying Molly just enough time to rear up and grab one of the knives off the bed.
She’d barely wrapped her hand around the handle of one blade before Guy was throwing her off. Molly rolled across the floor, the knife clutched in her hand, even as Guy jerked her to a halt and spun her back over. Instantly, Molly lunged upward, burying the knife into his belly without thought, without feeling. Nothing but feral instinct guided her motions as she ripped the knife upward and out as Guy started screaming.
He fell backward in a wash of blood, but Molly didn’t spare him a second glance as she scrambled for her feet and the door of the bedroom. Blinded by panic and a surge of adrenaline so strong it had her shaking as she fled down the hall, Molly raced for the front door, thinking only to escape.
It flew open before she could reach it, though. Suddenly, Logan was filling the doorway. Molly didn’t know if her mind had actually snapped, if she’d lost what little sanity she’d clung to, but there was no fighting the sudden surge of relief or the blackness that crested with it.
* * * *
Logan opened his arms and caught Molly as she fell into them, his shock at finding her rushing toward him covered in blood freezing him in his place for a bare second. Then instincts kicked in, and he was laying her out on the floor, checking for any wound with one hand as pulled his phone from his pocket with the other.
His thumb paused, though, over the nine as a groan from down the hall had him glancing up to spy a man dragging himself forward. He recognized the bastard bleeding all over the floor instantly. He’d bled all over Molly because she didn’t have a scrape on her. That didn’t change, much less diminish, the rage flaring to life in Logan’s gut.
He shot up to his feet. Without a word, he stepped over Molly, even as she began to groan and shift, coming back to awareness. Those small signs of life didn’t comfort or reassure Logan. Nor did they deter him as he walked slowly, steadily, down the hall toward the man.
He crawled forward, giving up only as he reached the tips of Logan’s boots. They met in the doorway to the bedroom. Logan didn’t dare look beyond the guy gurgling at his feet. Instead, he stood there with his fists clenched at his sides, watching the bastard slowly, painfully die.
It was an honor.
“Logan? Is he…is he…”
Filled with fear and quaking with panic, Molly’s soft whisper brushed over him, drawing Logan’s eyes back down to where she now sat, leaning against the wall, her eyes fixated on the dead man gazing back down the hall at her.
“Oh God.” Molly gasped and then began to scramble quickly toward her feet, rushing for the door.
Logan was right on her heels, coming to hold her as she bent over the railing and began to retch her guts out. With every heave of her small body, Logan vowed anew that Bruce was going to pay. Whatever had happened, he knew one thing for sure. This was all his cousin’s fault.
There would be time to settle that score later. Right then, they had a mess to clean up. Once again, Logan reached for his phone, even as Bruce jogged up the walkway, finally seeming to figure out that something was wrong.
Chapter Thirteen
The next several hours passed by in a whirl of motion and lights. Blue, red, and white flashed in a slow, rhythmic motion across the walls as people began to gather. First it was the police, and then it was the paramedics, followed by Bruce and Logan’s cousins, and finally a yard full of neighbors watching on as Molly was escorted out of the apartment.
They were taking her to the hospital, though Molly didn’t know why. She felt fine. Just fine. Probably too good, given everything what had happened. That seemed to worry everybody. It had them talking in hushed voices as if she’d gone deaf, but Molly heard just fine.
They thought she was in shock. Perhaps she was, though she didn’t think so. Molly wasn’t in the mood to argue the matter. She left the arguing to Logan and Bruce. The two of them were waging a silent but intense battle that was easy enough to read. Even Molly, in her supposed state of shock, could figure out what was going on.
Logan blamed Bruce for this disaster, and Bruce felt guilty. As far as Molly was concerned, neither one of them realized the truth of what had happened. She’d saved herself. She’d won. She’d faced a nightmare and beaten it back. How amazing was that?
Molly kept that thought to herself, allowing everybody around her to treat her as if she were soft and frail. It seemed to be what they expected, but the truth was that she’d learned something that night. She wasn’t soft. She wasn’t frail. She was a fighter, a survivor.
More than that, Molly could see things so clearly right then. Her long-term plans were good, but what if she didn’t have the long term to live? Then she’d have wasted what time she had simply working for a plan that would never come to pass. Where was the sanity in that?
There wasn’t any. She was denying herself the thrill of living simply out of fear, but no more. From now on, Molly was going to live her life to the fullest. That thought took root as she glanced back out the ambulance’s window to spy both Logan and Bruce standing in the yard talking with the police.
They were the first things on her to-do list.
* * * *
Bruce sat in the small, hard plastic seat attached to the floor by a steel rod and connected to a long row of identical seats that filled out the waiting room in the hospital’s emergency wing. Motion and sound swirled around him in a blur that was accentuated by small pieces and fragments of conversation.
“…in a state of shock…”
“…sedation…”
“…dead? Yes.”
Yes. Trisha was dead. So was Guy. Thankfully, though, Molly was uninjured. At least physically, but Bruce knew there were wounds that could run much deeper than a simple cut could ever go. There was nobody to blame for her pain but him.
He was the one who’d left her tied to a bed.
He was the one who’d left her at the mercy of a psycho.
A psycho that wouldn’t have even targeted her if not for him.
It was all his fault. Bruce would never forgive himself. He didn’t suspect Molly would either. Then there was Logan. It took a few hours for everybody to process everything, but eventually Logan came to stand before Bruce with a look he knew well.
Logan was pissed. Given the whiteness of his knuckled fists, Bruce was pretty certain what came next. He deserved it. He couldn’t deny it. Nor did Bruce bother to try and avoid it. Instead, he simply nodded toward his cousin and rose up, leading the way outside. The rest of their cousins, who had gathered there at the hospital to find out what was going on, followed, with Big Bob simply looking onward.
He had the police to finish dealing with, but he did glance over and nod. This was a fight that his uncle wouldn’t be interfering with. Instead, he looked the other way as the glass doors before Bruce slid open, allowing him to step out into the cool, night air.
Things were only mildly quieter outside, not quiet enough for Bruce and Logan to see to their business. So, he headed around back, to where the doctors and staff parked, where there was less light and even fewer people. Even then, they headed for the darkest spot far away from the concrete walls of the hospital.
When Bruce finally turned to face Logan, he could barely make him out in the shadows. The rest of their cousins fanned out to form a circle around the two of them. For a long, tense moment, nobody spoke until finally Logan cut through the silence w
ith a sharp tone.
“Did you hear them in there?” Logan asked indignantly. “You hear what they’re saying about you in there? Those doctors, the nurses, they think you’re in shock, but we know the truth, don’t we?”
Bruce slowly nodded. He wasn’t in shock. He wasn’t. That wasn’t why he’d gone silent. He stayed that way because if he opened up his mouth then the primal roar ripping through him might come out. Then Bruce didn’t know what would happen. He was holding on right then by a thread, and Logan knew it.
“That’s right.” Logan’s hands lifted as he cracked his knuckles and began to stretch his arms over his head. “You fucked up, and now you feeling guilty as shit…and so you should.”
With that, and without throwing a single punch, Logan turned and walked away, leaving Bruce to suffer.
* * * *
Bruce deserved to suffer as far as Logan was concerned. Hell, he was. He was just as guilty of leaving Molly at the mercy of some psychopath. Worse, it was because of both Bruce and him that Guy had targeted Molly. They’d brought this danger into her life, and it wasn’t gone just because Guy was.
That fact haunted Logan’s every step as he stormed back toward the hospital and right up to Big Bob, who was in the middle of talking with one of the local deputies. He fell silent as Logan came to a stop beside him. Logan could see the surprise in the old man’s eyes, followed quickly by a frown.
“Well, that was quick.” Big Bob smirked but no hint of amusement twinkled in his eyes. “Your cousin folded like a bitty baby?”
“I quit.”
With those two words, Logan turned and headed for the room they’d checked Molly into, leaving the old man staring after him. Big Bob didn’t follow, nor did he holler after Logan. Instead, he let him go, but Logan had to figure that wouldn’t last. Not that any argument his uncle made would change Logan’s mind.
He was done.
