by Ladew, Lisa
She would make it through this. She’d dealt with the king of corrupt, the master of malicious, and survived. If she could get through what Norman had done to her, she could get through this.
Craig! Her thoughts fell upon her sweet bear of a husband and sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. How long had she been gone? Had he noticed yet? He would find her or die trying, she knew that. But his heart had to be breaking.
Anger filled her again at the thought of this man, this evil man who had disrupted her life like this. How dare he? She tried to remember exactly what he looked like and couldn’t. His image was fuzzy in her pounding brain. Emma stilled for a moment and took inventory. Her head hurt, her lips burned, her throat hurt, and her hands were tied tight to her sides.
She pulled at her bonds and grunted in frustration when her hands wouldn’t move at all. The strangeness of the sound pulled her back to those thoughts again. What was strange about it? An echo, like she were in a cavernous, enclosed area, like a large cave or a huge church or theatre.
Emma opened her mouth to yell, to see if she could determine anything about the space, when a far off noise caught her attention. A car. She cocked her head and listened hard.
Definitely a car. Coming in slow. Stopping. The engine cut off. Emma held her breath, fear overpowering the anger. Emma fed the anger and tried her best to starve the fear, but it wasn’t easy.
A hydraulic, metal against metal sound rang through the large room and light appeared everywhere, blinding Emma and causing her to cry out in pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her legs up to her chest, wanting to curl into a ball. Someone was coming.
The pain from the light faded a little. Emma heard footsteps coming towards her, then leading away from her. She heard heavy items being moved. Slowly, she blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the light. She turned her head and her eyes searched out the person who had joined her while she blinked back tears.
She saw him. A man, moving in the corner of the huge room, picking up a box and placing it on top of another box, then lifting the lid of a third. He looked ordinary, maybe on the taller side, with a medium build and dark hair. He could be the guy who had abducted her. She wasn’t sure.
She looked around the room, trying to place it. The man had come in through a door big enough to be a garage door, but it didn’t lead to outside. It lead to another room just like this one. Smooth metal lined the walls, giving her eye nowhere to rest. The room was as big as a whole house should be—no two or three houses. A small desk and computer sat in one corner, boxes lined one wall, and crates were stacked against another wall. The crates all had red letters reading CAUTION FLAMMABLE on them. Emma craned her neck to look behind her. White buckets were stacked against that wall. At least fifty of them. They all had the same label on them that read FOOD STORAGE.
What was this? Some kind of survivalist bunker? Emma said a little prayer that she wouldn’t be here until the end of anything and searched out the man again. He had turned away from the boxes and was looking at her.
He looked plain, but familiar somehow. His face held none of the evil she had grown used to seeing in Norman’s expression. He seemed … normal. The flame of anger flared within her again and she stared at him hard, letting him see it. When he said nothing and did nothing, she felt her anger grow again.
How dare he?
“Hey!” she shouted. “Let me up, now!” She rattled the handcuffs that were holding her to the cot, looking down to examine how she was held on, then looking back up at her captor.
He hadn’t moved. He was staring at her like he was trying to make a decision. A hard decision.
Emma kicked her feet, wishing he were closer. She needed an outlet for her anger. Anger was winning again. This guy was nothing compared to Norman. She would make it out, she knew it. She had to.
“Did you hear me?” she shouted again. “I’m not a fucking piece of meat!” Emma’s voice broke on the last word and she was distressed to find herself close to tears. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to be weak and helpless. But she was helpless. Tied up and completely helpless. She hated it like fire and felt her anger rise again. Good. Anger was so much better than tears.
The man finally moved and Emma watched him closely, curiously. She could see in his face he’d made the decision. And he looked terrified of it.
He moved to her side and produced a key from his pocket. He pushed the tiny key into the tiny hole, then pulled the handcuffs open, off of Emma’s wrist. Emma didn’t plan it, but as soon as her arm was free she lashed out at him with all of her strength. She realized as her fist connected with the side of his head that she didn’t have very much strength at all. Her muscles felt like jello. Still the thud of flesh on flesh was satisfying.
The man jumped back, accusing eyes on hers. “What the fuck?” he sputtered.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Emma hurled at him, her top lip curled in a snarl. “Did I hurt you?”
His eyes narrowed and he watched her, rubbing his hand along his cheek where she’d gotten him. Emma moved her free arm over her head, her shoulders screaming at being held in one place for so long, the blood finally rushing to her tissues. She moved her head and the friction of it against the cot made her skull pound painfully. Emma reached her free hand to her hair and felt wet stickiness. She probed the area, almost crying out when a thick scab on the back of her head shifted and new blood spurted onto her hand.
Emma let her eyes drift closed against the pain, then sighed resignedly and opened them. She brought her hand in front of her face to see just how much blood was there.
She heard a strange boneless thump. Her head swiveled on her neck, seeking out the noise and sending searing pain down her injury again but she barely noticed it.
The man who had kidnapped her was passed out on the floor three feet from her.
Chapter 22
Jerry held Sara’s hand and prayed to God that Sara would be OK. That Velasco hasn’t destroyed her mind forever. Dr. McNamara was on her way. She’d told him not to say a word to Sara, but to look for Velasco’s notes and the drug he had given her. She’d also suggested Jerry call the police, because what Velasco had done was indeed a crime.
Jerry was going to call the police all right, but not until Sara was awake and functioning. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being carted off in an ambulance and waking up alone while he was stuck at the crime scene. He knew how these things worked. He knew the police wouldn’t let him go with her.
A female voice sounded from the waiting room. “Hello?”
“In here,” Jerry called, not wanting to leave Sara’s side. He couldn’t unlock the door without a key anyway. “You’ll have to come through the window, sorry.”
Dr. McNamara entered the room, her kind eyes taking in everything at once. She saw Sara and her face turned serious. “How long has she been out?”
Jerry looked at the clock. “I pulled into the parking lot twenty-five minutes ago. So just under that.”
Dr. McNamara walked to the big desk that took up most of the room. “These are his notes?”
“Yes, and the vial there is the drug I think.”
Dr. McNamara was silent for several moments, looking over everything Jerry had indicated. Jerry bowed his head and caressed Sara’s hand, thinking he’d never felt this hopeless, not even when they’d been stranded in the desert, being hunted like wild animals. That monster had been working on her for weeks, saying God knew what to her. Could that even be undone?
Dr. McNamara spoke, her voice cutting through his thoughts. “His last entry is from three weeks ago. He’d had her hypnotized and had been taking her through some incidents in her past, trying to release the pain and shame she felt around them. He’d jotted down some names she’d said. But then it just stops. You said she came to see him every week?”
“Yes,” Jerry whispered.
“She said something in this session that upset him. Do you know what it could be?”
“Is it impor
tant?” Jerry asked, not wanting to spill Sara’s secrets. He trusted Dr. McNamara, but he knew as well as Sara did that people treated her differently when they knew of her past. He’d seen it himself. They shrank from her.
“It is very important. I have to know why he did what he did in order to understand his motivations and the kinds of things he might have said to her.
Jerry dropped his head to Sara’s inert knee. “Sara killed his brother. He must have discovered it during that session.”
When Dr. McNamara didn’t respond, Jerry looked at her. “I don’t know anything about him in particular, but I know she killed many men during her time as a spy. I’m sure you’ve seen her on the news. She used to go into brothels in Mexico and clean house, sometimes killing men there.”
Dr. McNamara nodded slowly. Jerry pleaded with her with his eyes. He was afraid she was his only hope. Couldn’t people understand that wasn’t who Sara was anymore? That she agonized over that life every day? That was why she had been here in the first place.
Dr. McNamara turned her attention back to the desk, her demeanor startled, but open. She picked up the vial of the drug Velasco had given Sara. “This is a fairly new psychiatric drug here in the U.S., new and controversial. It makes the patient very open to suggestions. Doctors are supposed to use it for the betterment of their patients, of course. Never in the way you said this man did.”
Jerry nodded, hope filling him. She was still going to help them.
“Sara should wake on her own within twenty-five or so minutes. I want to talk to her that entire time, try to reverse some of the damage that has been done. Tell me exactly how she’s been acting again and exactly what you overheard here today?”
Jerry took a deep breath and launched into it, laying out every hallucination and nightmare and restating the exact words he’d heard from Velasco’s mouth. He tried to be as quick as possible. Then he stood back and watched, helpless, as Dr. McNamara took Sara’s hand and spoke to her in a quiet, soothing voice, her words taking on a lyrical quality, assuring Sara that Dr. Velasco had been wrong about her, that Sara was a good and whole person who deserved to live a long and happy life.
Jerry held his breath, drawing in a shaky inhalation only when necessary. He didn’t want Sara to even notice he was there. He just wanted her to listen … to believe! He didn’t want to lose her—he couldn’t!
Dr. McNamara’s words droned on, and after twenty-five minutes, exactly as she’d said, Sara’s head lifted from her chest. Her sunken eyes met Jerry’s and confusion leaked out of them. Jerry’s heart broke in two for her.
“Jerry, why…”
Her eyes fell on Dr. McNamara. She pulled her hand away from the woman she didn’t know and curled into a little ball on her chair, like a child.
“Sara, sweetheart,” Jerry began, not sure how to tell her what had happened, not sure how much she remembered
A tear dropped from one of Sara’s eyes and Jerry saw her face crumple as she began to cry, again like a child.
Dr. McNamara nodded to him. Good sign, she mouthed at him, then stood and walked out into the waiting room to give them privacy.
Jerry watched Sara in astonishment. He rarely saw her cry. He could think of only one other time, when she had told him about the child, Lupe, that she couldn’t save. He gathered her into his arms and rocked her like a baby, saying meaningless, soothing things. Trying to calm her fears and doubts. Pain pulled at his heart, plucked at his soul. If only he could help her …
Finally, she spoke. “What was he doing to me?” she asked.
There it was. The question laid bare. She was so intuitive, his Sara, she knew what Jerry being there meant.
Jerry explained what he could, as best he could. She tried to pull away from him. Her cheeks colored with hot shame.
“Sweetheart, don’t,” he tried, not wanting her to feel like that at all. “It’s not your fault. You’re not weak or any less than you ever were. He took advantage of you.”
“I don’t understand though,” she cried. “He never injected me with anything. I would not have agreed to be drugged.”
“Dr. McNamara,” Jerry called. The doctor reentered the room. “Could the drug have been given any other way besides injection? Sara says she wasn’t injected.”
Dr. McNamara shook her head and approached Sara. “May I?” She asked, holding out her hand for Sara’s arm. Sara let her look and Dr. McNamara twisted her flesh slightly to show Sara a tiny pinprick. “This was today’s injection.”
Sara shook her head in wonder. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“What is the last thing that you do remember?”
“He told me what a productive session we were going to have today, and then he told me how good I was going to feel when he was done, and then he sprayed his essential oils, like he always does—”
Dr. McNamara’s eyebrows raised. “Essential oils?” She headed to the desk and picked up a small spray bottle. “This?”
Sara nodded. Dr. McNamara opened the lid and sniffed it, then peered inside. “We’ll have to get this tested. It could be the same drug in aerosol form. Enough to make you sleepy, maybe. Just enough to let him inject you.”
Jerry felt his blood churn up into a seething boil. If he ever saw that guy again …
Sara grabbed his hand and squeezed, hard. He looked at her and saw terror on her face.
“Doctor, this drug, is it … is it safe if you’re pregnant?”
Jerry felt a strange mixture of apprehension and excitement shoot through him. So she was pregnant. But the baby…
Dr. McNamara’s face softened. “It is. Clannix is new here in the U.S. but they’ve been using it for decades in the UK and it’s tested out as completely safe. It doesn’t cross the placenta.”
Sara’s lips trembled and her eyes watered. Her hand relaxed in Jerry’s and tears spilled down her cheeks again.
She turned to Jerry. “I should have told you Jerry, but I felt so awful and I didn’t know what was wrong. I might be pregnant.”
Jerry smiled softly at her. “I’m pretty sure you are.”
Sara stifled another sob. “I was scared to take a test. I was afraid it was the pregnancy that was making me so crazy. That I was about to become psychotic.”
Jerry rubbed her arm. “No sweetheart, no. You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”
Sara stared into his eyes. “How do you feel about that—the baby?”
Jerry leaned forward and kissed her, catching her lips and pressing them softly in a sincere promise that would last a lifetime. He released her mouth but stayed close, pressing his forehead to hers. “More thrilled than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Sara laughed and then cried again and then laughed and buried her face in Jerry’s chest.
Jerry bit back his own tears. Could it be true? It seemed so. He had his Sara back. And a baby. Jerry felt his heart swell with a joy he didn’t know it could hold.
Chapter 23
Emma rolled her eyes. It had been several long moments since Mr. Bad Guy had passed out. She’d think it was funny if she wasn’t so thirsty and pissed. Not that he had hemophobia—that wasn’t funny. But what kind of an idiot passes out at the sight of blood and then decides to become a criminal? The only job she could think of that would be worse for him would be lab tech, or obstetrician.
As soon as he’d dropped to the ground, she’d taken a moment to get over the absurdity of the situation, and then sat up and tried to get free. If only she could reach him! He had to have the handcuff key in his hand or pocket still. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t reach anything. She had stood up next to the cot but hadn’t been able to move it from its place where it was bolted to the floor or pry her remaining handcuffed arm off of it, so she sat down to wait. A plan was forming in her mind and she thought it was a good one. She studied him, looking for any weakness. Well, besides the obvious one.
Finally, the guy moved slightly. His eyes opened and a strange whistling noise came from his
throat. Emma watched him from her awkward, hunched position on the cot. He avoided her gaze for a long time, taking deep breaths and holding his head. Anger took her over again and she snapped at him.
“What is your deal?”
When he spoke, his voice was dull and ashamed, making her wonder about his past. “It’s called hemophobia. It’s an affliction.”
“I know what hemophobia is. What I mean is, what’s wrong with you, kidnapping people and hitting them over the head when you know you pass out at the site of blood. How stupid are you?” Emma winced as the words slipped out of her mouth. She didn’t want to provoke him, but she’d never had a very good filter between her brain and her mouth, especially when she was angry.
“I didn’t know you were bleeding.”
“But you know people bleed, right? When you hit them on the head?”
“I didn’t plan on hitting you on the head. You shouldn’t have struggled.”
Emma bit her lip, trying to keep her sarcasm inside. She couldn’t do it. “Oh right, the next time you decide to kidnap someone, be sure to explain to them beforehand that they shouldn’t struggle. That will make it much better for everyone.”
Mr. Bad Guy pushed himself up into a sitting position and gave her a look of pure, venomous hate. Emma recoiled from it, fear finding a foothold inside her again. She tried to take it back, at least a little bit. “Seriously though, you look like a normal guy. Why did you do this to me?”
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” Emma said, not knowing what he had planned for her, and thinking that it could only be good if he talked to her.
“No,” he said flatly.
Emma studied him, knowing she was missing something. “Look,” she finally tried. “If you are doing this for money, I can get you money. I know people who would be happy to pay you a lot of money if you let me go. A ransom, I guess.”
“Oh yeah? They got four billion dollars?” the man said with a sneer and pushed himself into a standing position.
