by Riley Moreno
“So it ends here,” he said. “And the girls…”
Leo always seemed fixed on the fact that Kimberly Beyer was just back, screw the circumstances, and he sighed heavily when Morales failed to blink.
“What about the girls?” she challenged. “What happens to them?”
“They… they move on.”
That was Leo’s game. When cases drew to a close, he filed them away in the dark recesses of his mind and only recalled them if and when some tactic, one that had either soared or sunk, could serve the next victim’s interest. Beyond that, he simply let it all go, and for a time Morales thought that his was the best example to follow. There was always another case to solve and another monster to put away or at least try to place behind bars. But what about all those people, some revenged, others left to wonder why something had fallen through the cracks? They didn’t… they couldn’t just get on with the business of living…
“That’s super sensitive, Leo,” Morales said. “Like it’s all so fucking easy.”
Stomping out of the bathroom, Morales spied her clothing in loose piles, her blouse in the corner, her bra at the foot of the bed. Time to leave?
“Connie, come on,” Leo said as he followed her and tried to wrap her in his arms. Still fighting through her nightmarish doubts, she reluctantly let him hold her. Kissing her long dark hair, she imagined pulling him back to the bed and following his rules.
Let it go for tonight. Just be with him.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “I get that.”
She started to ask him if he really did when he brushed her hair aside, and his lips fell to her neck. Moaning against the feel of his warm mouth, she thought that the fights and her fears could wait. It felt good when he held her, and maybe for this moment it could be enough. Reaching over her head, she ran her hands through her hair and sighed as her back settled against his chest. Any thoughts of abandoning him started to evaporate as his kiss intensified, and again she was airborne as he turned her to the mattress. Leo’s lips hit hers gently, and then he started running his mouth down her sides. Under the power of his tongue, she started to spread her thighs, ready to accept the kindness that he could offer as he made her forget.
Leaning up on his elbow, he peered into her wanting face and wiped a faint sheen of sweat from her brow.
“But look on the bright side,” he whispered. “Maybe someday the girls will even try for another trip.”
And with that, she withered and died like a burning leaf, but the fire was not squelched by his kiss.
It only returned her rage.
“Not cute,” Morales spat as she sat up and nearly pushed him off the bed. Leo clasped her close before falling and peered hard into her eyes.
“What more do you want?” he asked “It’s over. Getting there at least. And… Julie’s with… with him.”
Leo still didn’t trust what the girl had with Ethan Graff, and there was a time when his suspicions nearly seeped into her mind.
“Guess it’d be easier for you if he really had something to do with it,” Morales said.
His face contorted, but Morales felt no fear. Leo would never hurt her, but once he had promised to hurt someone. For her.
“And Kim?” Morales asked.
Now he was slower to respond. On the surface, she seemed fine, was fine.
As fine as someone who had made a deal with the devil ever could be.
“Look,” Leo started. “It got her back home. And facts are facts.”
Morales bit down on her tongue, tensely waiting for what he might say next.
“I mean… it was Greg Heller that set them up,” he said.
She was silent for several seconds. Leo had a point, and it was asinine. If she were in Kimberly Beyer’s shoes, Greg Heller would have dropped to the bottom of her list; she would have wanted the men that raped her, nearly killed her, and left her to languish in the woods to suffer the worst kind of fate.
So what the fuck was up with Kim?
“And you’re really not even going to try to go after them again?” she asked.
Leo stood and started to tick off the ways in which she was being naïve.
“Connie, everything was predicated on a body that we never found. And now it’s walking and talking and saying that they came back for her,” he said.
“In the fucking nick of time.”
“Stop it!” he screamed. “Don’t you… you know that I want them to rot. But I played my hand without all the facts. And yeah; it kills me. But they’ll survive the shit storm. I can get Greg Heller now. And I… I’m not getting out of this without at least one win.”
A part of her thought that he was speaking on behalf of the girls, but she knew that he hated losing, hated being beaten by Vivian Porter at his own game. If he could get even a second place victory, Leo would take it and try to be content with the silver medal.
“Fine,” she said. “You do that, Leo.”
Morales started scooping up her clothes and sliding into them. Leo watched for a few seconds before taking her hand in his.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Don’t… please don’t go Connie.”
He held her fingers and kissed her wrist. She could stay; she wanted to stay. But she needed to know more of Kimberly Beyer’s story, and she finally pushed him back, gently and settled her gun in its holster as she picked her keys off the floor. Standing at the door, Morales paused with her hand around the knob, her shoulders sagging as she finally turned back.
“And you would have had them killed if it was me?” she asked.
Leo didn’t move; he just nodded.
“Of course I would, Connie. You… you have to know that.”
Stepping back to him, Morales kissed him full on the mouth. He relaxed under her lips, but as soon as he started to bring her back to the bed, she pushed back again.
“I do,” she said. “I think I do. But this isn’t about us right now.”
And with that she was back in her car, headed to Jersey.
4
“Brian.”
He looked older than she remembered, weak and worried, and Kim wondered if her absence had done that to him. Poor Brian. Poor her. It probably would have better for both of them if she had just married him after graduation. Had she done that, Kim would now be an old married lady with a baby on the way and not…
There was no way to go back.
“Kim.”
Brian shuffled towards her and touched her arm tentatively like a little boy. Some things never changed; he was always nervous around her. It was kind of sweet, and Kim took the lead and his hand.
“It’s so good to see you,” Kim said.
Choking back tears, Brian folded her into his arms. Kim stayed stiff in his embrace, but when she saw her mother hoping that this was the beginning of the end, she pressed her hands to his back and sighed into his shoulder.
“Same here,” she muttered.
Kim gave her mother a sly wink, and Amanda waved her hands in the air as she backed out of the room softly closing the door behind her. Once she was gone, Kim lingered in Brian’s embrace. His hold was so different from everything that was now familiar, but she imagined being able to get back to this place and pick up like nothing horrible had ever happened. That was what Brian wanted.
And maybe she could oblige him.
“Come and sit with me,” she said.
Brian did not need a second command, and they moved to the bed, hand-in-hand. Sitting in silence, Brian seemed shocked at the nearness of her. He brought his free hand to her face and caressed the bones poking out of her cheeks. His hands moved toward her tattered hair, and he frowned when it was nothing to find her bare neck at the edge of the torn locks.
“How did that happen?” he asked.
Rehearsing for the double act wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Kim got used to Colleen’s kisses, and when they were done for the night or when Boone was tired of watching, she went back to the nail.
“I’ll get i
t,” she swore. “One of these days.”
That day couldn’t come soon enough.
Boone kept moving up and down the stairs to check and fuck his chattel. When he came for Kim, she still had enough strength to try and fight him off and beg for mercy. Boone never listened and just tore into her harder. It was one in a long line of violations, but this hurt more when she saw Colleen crouched in a corner. Her kiss was the sweetest thing that she had known in months and seeing, knowing that it was so close, brought tears to her eyes.
Help me. Can’t someone… can’t you help me?
Colleen made no move as Boone started to break her. His vicious cock shredded her soul, and when she felt that he was at the moment of climax, he flipped her to her belly and invaded her from behind. Despite the months under the thumbs of Matt and Pete, she was still tight and tender back there, and Kim reached into the air as she tried to squirm away from him.
A silent Colleen stretched forward and grazed the tips of her nails against her palm. The slight feel of her hand helped Kim to forget what was happening. She wanted to curl into Colleen and finally feel safe, but the girl shook her head, and Kim knew enough to submit without words as Boone finished his vile pursuit. He body burned as he released inside her ass, and when he was done, he slapped her throbbing, torn flesh and laughed.
“Never was into redheads,” he said. “Until you came along.”
He kissed one of her locks before he ascended, and as soon as he was gone, Kim burst into tears. Where was Julie? How could she have left her behind?
“Honey? Hey.”
Colleen surrounded her body with a tender embrace, and Kim weakly looked up into her eyes.
“I know it hurts,” she said. “But I’ll help you. I promise.”
Kissing her softly, Colleen took her into her arms and hauled her into a dark corner. In the shadows, Colleen stroked her back and touched her bruised holes lovingly.
“You don’t belong here,” Colleen said.
No. No she didn’t. Kim dreamed of the wind whipping through her hair as she punched Julie’s arm and told her that the adventure never had to end. She had never shared her master plan with her best friend. Despite everything waiting for her back home, if the right opportunity presented itself, Kim intended to never go back and chase dreams forever. It would mean that that they would ultimately have to part, but Kim imagined scenarios where Julie settled into the everyday and they visited once a year on the sight of Kim content in the almost wild.
They should have turned back before they even got started.
“Hey?”
Colleen stroked her hair and kissed her with a smile. Needing her was strange. Her passing fantasies when it came to Julie aside, she always wanted her lovers stronger and hairier. That was so far from Brian; it was one of the reasons that she had left him. And maybe it was why she thought that Matt was a better option with his blonde hair and broad face.
Better to have stayed with Brian.
“Look at me.”
Kim lifted her eyes to Colleen’s blue pools, and as a lake’s worth of girls whimpered or slept fitfully around them, Colleen forced Kim to see nothing but her. She kissed her cheeks and held her close.
“Do you know how long I’ve been here?” Colleen asked.
Kim shook her head, and her new friend smiled softly.
“Neither do I,” Colleen said. “But I’m always looking for a way out.”
Kim couldn’t help but feel that she was the source of Colleen’s need to work the nail to a nub, and she grabbed her by the hand.
“Just you?” Kim asked.
Colleen’s face started to fall at the suggestion, and as Kim was seized by the thought that she would die here without the blonde to cling to for strength and sympathy. The woman in her hands was the most brutalized but also the bravest and the most beautiful creature that Kim had ever seen. And she was promising help to boot. Forget the stranger that had honed in on Jules. This was her savior, and Kim clasped her close as she wept into Colleen’s bruised breasts.
“I’ll take you with me,” Colleen promised. “I could never leave you here.”
Even as Kim’s body ached from Boone’s assault, she suddenly felt sure that she would get out with Colleen. The tears of the others echoing all around her promised more pain before the deed was done, but Colleen vowed to never let her down.
“Why would you do this for me?” Kim asked as she lifted her head. “You like don’t even really know me.”
Colleen kissed her again and played with her long hair.
“I know that you’re pretty,” Colleen said. “And sweet. That’s enough for me.”
Kim fell into her arms and truly believed that everything would be over soon.
“Kim?”
Brian’s voice brought her back to the present, and she winced when her former lover touched her shorn locks.
“You can tell me,” Brian said.
Could she? Would Brian understand that she had found love in hell and fed off of it in the hope of getting free?
No. And that wasn’t what she needed from him right now.
“Brian?”
He seemed ready for whatever she might ask next, and Kim sensed the tension rolling through him in waves. Brian trembled in her arms, and she saw the boy that was scared to fight when someone only looked at her the wrong way. There was the frat party that brought Kim to his door, Julie hanging behind as always, and when Kim lowered her coat, her red silk corset and black leather pants caused the room to erupt into a series of hoots and hollers. Out of obligation and nothing more, she moved away from Julie and took Brian’s hands. He heard, endured the cries that he could never satisfy her.
In that moment, the drunken men were on point. But now.
“Brian.”
With the shorn hair that she had yet to explain, Kim fell into his arms, and Brian was quick to hold her close. If she had only done things differently at that party and in the nights after, there might have never been any trip with Julie. There definitely would have never been a Colleen in her heart.
She couldn’t stand the thought of that.
“Hold me,” Kim whispered.
Brian did as he was told. The feel of him was good, nice. Worlds away from how she’d felt with Colleen. But now that---
They were driven apart by a light knock. Kim kissed Brian’s cheek and moved to meet the sound.
“What is now?” Kim asked as she flung the door open.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Amanda said as she hung her head. “But the cop. She’s… she’s back. And I can’t get her to go away.”
Like a dog with a bone.
Kim knew that this Morales wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Julie should be present to hear and repent for her part in the summer stretching into seasons that Kim could no longer define, but as the cop stood at the foot of the steps, Julie was nowhere to be found. Just Morales shaking and sweating as she asked if they could talk.
“My daughter doesn’t want to---”
“Sure,” Kim said. “Why the hell not?”
Amanda backed away, and Brian peered over the arm of the staircase as Kim glanced up at him and shook her head.
“I… you sure you don’t want me to come with---”
“Just wait for me, Brian. Okay?”
“Not a problem.”
Taking Morals by the hand, she led the cop to a quiet corner. As they sat alone, Kim took note of her shivering as she struggled to speak.
“Why are you freaking out?” Kim asked.
Morales tried to hold her breath, but that too became a losing battle. Kim blinked at the sight of the dark-haired woman struggling to make sense, and she feared that she might leap to the correct conclusion and blow the whole show.
“I don’t like thinking about it either,” Kim said. Clenching her hand, Morales asked how she could do it without going crazy. Kim was tempted to tell her that she’d already gone mad and back again more than a million times, but Kim wanted to be the one
to put the bullet in their brains, and something told her that Morales would explode into a wave of fury if she was given the chance to flash her gun.
“Tell me where he is,” Morales said.
“Who?”
“The other man that had you. Point me in the right direction, and I’ll take care of it for you.”
So easy to read, but Kim managed a smile as she shook her head.
“Not the way, Detective Morales,” Kim said. “I still know that much.”
And if anyone was going to take care of this…
Morales fell into a series of frustrated sobs, and she started to fall into Kim’s lap. At the last second she lifted her head and wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to imply…”
“Look, I was there. I know what happened. And as hard as it might be for you to believe, I trust the law to do its thing. Don’t you?”
“I… yes. But there’s still the matter of Troxel and---”
“We’ve been over that already,” Kim said as she fought to keep her voice steady and even. “It’s about Greg Heller now. And as for anyone else, they’ll find a way to make up for all I’ve lost.”
“Yes. But if you could just---”
“Can I please get back to my friend now?” she asked in the meekest voice that she could muster. “Sorry you came all the way out here, but there really isn’t anything else to talk about.”
Morales seemed miserable as she stepped away, and at the last second, she looked over her shoulder and frowned.
“I don’t want to let you down,” Morales said.
Kim bit her lip.
“Of course,” she said. “Want to help me just like Julie, right?”
Morales nodded, and Kim gritted her teeth as she left. There were questions that Julie had to answer. So many questions. She barely felt Brian at her side, stroking her arm, as she looked ahead to the ultimate confrontation, her fist clenching hard at her thigh.
5
Julie stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her scarred body. Her hair hung in loose curls about her shoulders, and she had applied just enough concealer to hide the mark on her face without looking like she was wearing a chalk mask. Better not to have Kim thinking of where they had been right out of the gate. In her fantasy, this was going to be totally normal. Just two old friends and their beaus heading out for a night on the town.
