by M. S. Willis
“Honor?” Her voice fractured when she spoke her name.
Xander moved to kneel down beside her, helping Hope lift her body and cradle her. He was still surprised at how identical the two women were. It looked as if Hope held her own broken and spent body in her arms.
“Honor?” Tears ran in streams down her face. “Baby, wake up. I’m here Honor, please wake up.” Hope’s body trembled over her sister and Xander had to shake away how familiar the scene was that played out before him. Images of Joseph on that stage and Emory taking his own sister from his mother’s arms — a quick snap and the baby he’d only known for a few months, was gone forever.
“Honor …” Hope smoothed her palm down her sister’s face, and when Honor blinked her eyes open for a split second, Hope’s expression changed from despair to a hesitant smile. “Hey, little sister, wake up, I’m here.”
The way Hope held Honor was tender and loving. Xander sat back, ready to help them in any way, but also not wanting to get in the way of them. He feared Honor’s reaction to the three men in the room when she regained full consciousness. She smiled brighter when Honor stirred and moved.
“My angel …”
Xander flinched back at the reaction on Hope’s face to Honor’s weak words. They were spoken out of confusion and it appeared Honor didn’t understand what was going on around her. Hope shook her gently, attempting to rouse her fully. Honor’s eyes closed, her body going limp in Hope’s arms, and Hope immediately moved to check her pulse.
“She’s gone back to sleep. She’s breathing and her pulse is strong.” Her shoulders dropped in relief and she continued to hug her sister to her body.
“Do you want Jason to carry her upstairs for you?”
Hope turned to Aaron, distrust flickering across her expression, but only for a brief moment. Aaron held up his hands in mock surrender, “I only ask because Xander and you are injured, it will be difficult to carry her yourself.”
Looking between Jason and Aaron, she let out a deep breath and nodded her head. Jason approached her and kneeled down beside her. He looked her in the eye when he promised, “I won’t hurt her.”
Hope appeared hesitant even though she’d already agreed. Breathing out another breath, she opened her arms and allowed Jason to lift Honor’s body. Once he’d moved away, Xander reached out and helped Hope to her feet. Honor’s eyes flicked open again and she looked up at Jason.
“My angel …” A small smile crept over her face and she was lost to sleep once again. Jason pulled her closer to his chest, looking down on her with caution and concern.
“Who’s her angel?” Aaron’s menacing voice growled.
Hope sneered, “Patrick, I assume. Is there any possible way he was able to escape this house?”
“Not alive.” Aaron responded. “I have men posted at every exit.”
Leaning against Xander for support, she nodded, “Well, then he has to be around here somewhere, hiding like a fucking coward.”
“Have you checked all the rooms in the basement?” Her thoughts instantly went to Erica. “There’s another woman trapped here that we need to find.”
Aaron’s expression fell. “I’ve found the women. None of them survived.”
Hope shook her head. “All the rooms? You’ve checked all of them?”
They left the side room to walk into the main space of the basement. Aaron motioned towards the cages. “No. I’ve haven’t checked them all; but, from what I see here …”
“They were dead when we got here,” she interrupted.
Hope moved quickly towards a side door, Xander following closely behind her. Both limped heavily, their bodies wearing down now that the adrenaline from the fight was slowly dissipating from their veins. He tried to hold Hope up, tried to remain the strength she needed to finally end this.
They reached a door to what Xander believed was only a small closet. However, when Hope opened the door and reached over to turn on the lights, a much larger space opened up before them. One body remained shackled to a wall, eyes that had gone gray with death staring out. Hope rushed through the room, completely distraught at her inability to find what she sought. Xander approached her, noticing the tears that streamed down her cheeks.
“She has to be somewhere!” Hope tried to break away from him, but he held on tighter.
“Who?”
“Erica; the woman who let me in the mansion. They have her because of me. I promised her, I’d get her out.”
A muffled scream sounded from within the room, and Hope’s body spun in the direction from which it had come. A bookshelf stood empty and Hope rushed over, grabbing the side of to knock it over, but finding that it swiveled out, revealing another doorway. Hope pulled at the door to find that it was locked.
She looked back at Aaron and Xander. “Break this fucking door down, please.”
Xander chuckled as Hope stepped away. He looked at Aaron and motioned towards the door. “Be my guest.”
Grinning, Aaron responded, “Fine. But only because I don’t think there’s an inch of your body not already injured.”
Aaron approached the door and kicked out at the handle. The wood splintered almost immediately and the hinges squeaked as it slowly opened into the hidden room. Hope ran in front of it and stopped in her tracks.
Xander stepped up behind her to look in over her shoulder. He smiled when he saw who was hiding inside.
Chapter Thirty-One
He sat against the wall of the tiny room, Erica held in front of him, a knife held to her jugular. Hope eyes met with Erica’s and her heart caught in her throat. Erica’s eyes were barely open, rolling back closed and open again as she held on desperately to consciousness. Blood seeped from where the tip of Patrick’s blade dug in at the skin. He sat completely motionless, his eyes locked to Hope’s face.
“Take one more fucking step, and I kill this bitch.”
Hope hesitated and felt Aaron and Xander position themselves at her back. “I’ll kill you, Patrick.” Hope spoke slowly — purposefully. “I will fucking flay you when I get my hands on you.”
He let out a humorless laugh. “And kill your little friend here? He motioned his head up towards the ceiling. Hope turned to look and saw the camera. When she looked back he smiled.
“I saw what you did for her — when the guard came for her. I also heard the little promise you made her. You’ll get her out of here alive? That’s highly improbable.” Another sick chuckle.
Hope’s eyes flicked to his hand, noticed how the blade shook in his grasp. Looking back at his mismatched eyes, she teased, “Don’t piss yourself, Patrick. You look nervous.”
He pressed the knife against Erica’s throat, her face not reacting to the pain. Hope looked down, noticed a crimson trail along the ground where Erica had been dragged, it puddled beneath her body where Patrick held her. Hope watched her arms and legs, noticing the trembling as her body grew cold from blood loss. When Erica’s eyes opened, they were hazy and unfocused.
Oh, God … no …
Tears burned at Hope’s eyes, and she shook her head in denial. “What did you sick bastards do to her?” Her voice cracked, rage returning and creeping along her spine as she watched an innocent woman become lost to the evil and vehemence of Hope’s world.
“WHAT DID YOU SICK BASTARDS DO TO HER?” Hope screamed, the sound tearing at her already shredded throat. She felt Aaron and Xander tense at her back, felt Xander’s hand touch her back in an attempt to calm her.
Erica’s eyes flicked open in response to the scream and moved over the room, finally settling on Hope’s face. She gasped for air, her body shivering violently in Patrick’s arms. Her jaw moved and, at first, Hope had thought it involuntary. Erica coughed, a thin trail of blood slipping down from her mouth, bright red against the pallor of her skin.
“Do … ” She coughed again, the tip of Patrick’s knife drawing more blood from the movement of her head. “Do me a favor.”
Hope blinked, the room seemingly slowing d
own. Reality altering so that every minute movement or noise was more pronounced with meaning. Hope nodded, unable to speak over the agony in her heart.
“Kill him.”
Patrick held the tip closer, the crimson trail dripping stronger down her neck. “Shut up, bitch!”
Erica jumped at the sound of his voice, but locked her eyes to Hope’s once more and her voice found strength and courage one last time. “And when you do …” She coughed, fighting to say what she needed to say. “When you do — make it slow.”
The slow motion in the room, the stillness, the anxiety and tension — it was gone, replaced instantly with dizzying speed. It was unexpected and Hope couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t react quick enough to do anything about it.
Closing her eyes, Erica threw her head forward, forcing Patrick’s blade into her neck, finishing off what he and his men had started.
Hope fell to her knees, her eyes wide with shock, her jaw opened wide on a silent scream. Her eyes remained locked to Erica’s face, Aaron and Xander running past her to grab Patrick; but, Hope couldn’t look away. They pulled Patrick up between them and Hope crawled forward, reached out to grab Erica’s hand, staying with her until the light had been extinguished from her eyes.
The anger that had simmered inside her just moments before, exploded into pure hatred and wrath. She placed Erica’s hand down and turned, pushing up on her feet in one fluid motion and locking her gaze with the mismatched eyes of a dead man. Patrick stared back, his arms bound at his sides by Aaron and Xander.
Hope sunk when she looked at him, falling into a darkness that floated her away from all feeling, where a numb madness drove her. She was a machine, one intent on destroying the man that was held in front of her.
“Take him upstairs; to the room where I was held.” Her voice was mechanical and cold.
Xander smiled and Aaron eyes narrowed; but, they didn’t ask questions, simply turning to drag Patrick out of the room and up the flights of stairs. Hope walked behind them, her feet falling heavily up the stairs, like a clock ticking down the minutes Patrick had left to live.
His feet slammed against the stairs from being dragged, his bones crunching against the edges, his face grimacing with each step. Hope smirked.
When the entered the room, she instructed, “Put him on the table. Hold his arms out to the sides, I’ll lock his ankles down. Xander eye’s widened and his brow furrowed in concern.
“Hope?”
She raised her hand up, stopping him in his thought. Her bottom lip quivered and images flashed through her head: her sister as a child, the bright smile and barrettes morphing into the woman at the end of Patrick’s chain and the woman with a chain in her hand, whipping Hope because she her mind had been lost to the madness Patrick had created within her.
“My angel …”
He’d broken Honor, made her worship him despite the abuse, and he made her mind fracture because of it. And for what? The look that he’d described to Xander? Or to simply break someone so thoroughly that he could feel powerful for having done it?
She snapped. Her body shook from the hatred and anger inside her and she saw red. All she wanted was to give back to him the pain he’d delivered to the people she cared about and all the other helpless victims he’d tortured and killed.
Her voice was eerily calm when she said, “It’s your turn, Patrick. Now, you get to scream for me.” She grinned.
Hope knelt down to secure Patrick’s ankles before moving to a side table to select a blade. She was suddenly thankful for the level of Patrick’s depravity –happy that it’d left her with a wide selection from which to choose. She grabbed a small, thin blade, one that would slice the skin, but not damage the muscle beneath. Her eyes fell on another blade; serrated and thick, it was designed for intimate torture, and she reached out relishing the feel of its handle on her palm. Turning back, she saw the concern on Xander’s face. She looked away, not able to handle any emotion or to witness the disappointment in Xander’s face at what she was about to do.
When she looked to Aaron, she was surprised. He smiled — his approval of her actions written clearly in his expression; a darkness in his own eyes that mirrored her own. He would enjoy this, and he wasn’t ashamed of it like her. She stared at him and he nodded at her before she looked down at Patrick and stalked towards him, the knife spinning over her palm as she approached. Patrick started to scream and Xander reached for a rag on the table beside him and shoved it into Patrick’s mouth to silence him.
Hope shook her head. “No. Let him scream. I want to hear him scream.”
Xander removed the cloth, replacing on the side table slowly, eyeing Hope as he did so.
She broke his stare, hatred festering inside her, she kept the images of the women he’d killed in her mind.
Reaching for his pants first, she used the blade to cut away the fabric, exposing him, limp and flaccid now that he was the victim on the table. “Not hard now, are you Patrick?” She placed the knife at the base of his genitals. “This … is for Erica.” She pulled the knife up, sawing through the skin with the serrated edge of the knife she used. Slowly, the skin split and tore over the steel, blood rushing over her hands and she kept her progress painfully slow until the flesh had been torn completely from his body.
The sound that came out of him was inhuman and unholy. She could hear the tissue in his throat being shredded from the horrifying volume of his scream. It was unnerving, but Hope breathed slowly, kept her mind focused on the task.
Aaron smiled and Xander grimaced from pain when Patrick struggled against them.
Hope wasn’t finished.
She looked around the room for anything she could use to turn this bastard into the angel he’d demanded to be with Honor. Spotting some rope, she moved to grab it, throwing it over her shoulder before moving to his side. Bringing her face down so that the tip of her nose touched his, she whispered, “You want to be a fucking angel? Let me help you with that.
Patrick’s eyes rolled in his head from pain, but he still managed a whispered response. “I’m not her fucking angel.”
Hope didn’t believe him. “This … is for my sister.”
She cut into the skin of his chest, flaying him open so that the flaps could be pulled aside. “Scream for me Patrick. Every angel needs his wings!”
Patrick screamed again, his voice so loud, it gave out and his body went into shock. Hope reached up, tapping him on the cheek. “Don’t go to sleep on me yet, it’s not over until I say it’s over.” Pulling the skin out at his sides, she used two smaller knives to pin the skin to his arms, the muscles, bones and organs of his chest and abdomen left open and exposed.
Moving quickly to unlock the shackles from his ankles, she looked up at Aaron, not able to look at Xander and see the concern she knew he was feeling for her. She needed to stay numb — to feel nothing — so she could finish this.
She wasn’t surprised to find approval in Aaron’s expression when she met his eyes.
“Carry him out of the room and to the railing.” There was no emotion in her voice and she didn’t wait to see if they’d follow her instruction. She knew they would — knew that they could no longer be surprised at the horrors hidden within a killer.
When they reached the banister, Hope tied the rope to the thick wood rail. She fashioned a noose from the other side and slipped it over Patrick’s neck pulling it tight. He continued to struggle feebly against Aaron and Xander, but his body was losing blood quickly and shutting down.
Looking into the eyes that were losing life, she smiled. “This Patrick — is for me.”
Shoving out with her palms, she struck his shoulders and knocked him over the banister. The railing cracked, but held his weight and she looked over and watched as his body convulsed at the base of the rope. Only when he stopped shaking, and only when it grew so quiet she could hear the creaking of the rope as it swung back and forth, did she breathe out the remaining anger that she held. It was over. She’d pa
id the bastard back for the cruelties he’d committed. She left him swinging; a macabre, carved monster, hanged and displayed over the death and carnage of his men beneath.
Her eyes closed when she felt a hand fall on her shoulder. Opening them again, she looked up and she was surprised to see approval in Xander’s eyes, something she feared she’d lose the minute he witnessed the true monster inside her.
He stared at her for a few minutes before he leaned close, his lips brushing her ear when he confessed, “We all have darkness inside us and, sometimes, it’s necessary to release our demons. You are no different and he deserved what you gave him.”
He pulled back, but she reached up, her heart pounding against her ribs, and she kissed him — slow and deep. She felt his body jerk, his pain obvious and she hated to have to let him go, but she did, not wanting to damage him any more than he already was. He straightened, but looked down at her and smiled.
Aaron disturbed the silence when he mused, “I think that just turned me on.”
Xander’s eyes shot over to Aaron. “What?” Every muscle in his body tensed despite his injuries. Hope turned around to find Aaron looking over the railing at Patrick’s body.
“That was an impressive kill.”
Xander sighed in frustration. “Aaron, if you ever say anything Hope does again turns you on, I’ll kill you for it.”
Aaron smiled.
Hope eyed him. “Actually, if you ever say I’ve turned you on again, I’ll kill you for it — on behalf of Maddy.”
Aaron smiled brighter and nodded his agreement.
Refocusing on the rebellion, he looked up at Xander and asked, “Were you able to discover how many units are involved in this?”
“Patrick said there were three total, that his partner was working on more.”
Hope’s mind flashed back to the silent man who’d raped her. “Did you find out the identity of his partner?”
“No. All he told me is that their reach is farther than we think, as if there was someone feeding him information from the inside. He knew I wasn’t actually on your list of executions.”
