Waiting In Darkness: A Sabrina Vaughn Thriller (The Sabrina Vaughn Series Book 1)

by Maegan Beaumont

  Melissa looked for her on the living room couch, but the room was empty. A hard ball of unease formed and settled in the pit of her stomach. She was suddenly struck with the certainty that she had to take the twins and leave—now.

  That’s when she remembered. When she put it together. The man outside her window hadn’t been Tommy, she was sure of it… but he’d been wearing a similar sweatshirt. Not just similar. The same—and it had been covered in blood.

  Tommy.

  She wheeled around, charging down the hall, heading for her room. Stepping through her door she almost shut it before she caught movement from the corner of her eye.

  Pete was sitting on her bed.

  As soon as their eyes met, he shot toward her like a bullet, closing his hand around her wrist with the weight of an iron manacle. By some miracle, she managed to pull free, her hip slamming into the doorknob, nearly crippling her but she kept her feet and one of them even made it into the hall before he swung at her, his meaty fist slamming into the side of her head.

  Stars exploded in her eyes and she cried out, stumbling back against the door. He grabbed her again, this time around the waist and she was too stunned to fight back when he tossed her on the bed.

  She was dimly aware of the twins wailing and it was the sound of them that had her swinging and clawing, fighting for what she was sure was her life and theirs. He hit her again, slapped her hard and heavy-handed across the face with enough force to split her lip open.

  She was still asleep. That had to be it. This was all one long, endless nightmare. She was still caught in it—that was the only explanation for what was happening to her now.

  Reeling, she felt her wrists being bracketed and held high above her head and then he came down on her with all of his weight, driving his knee between her thighs, making room for his hips as they pushed against her, what prodded at her from between them brought her a terrible understanding. This was not a dream. This was happening.

  No. No. No. No…

  “Shut up!” Pete yelled over his shoulder and Jason and Riley fell silent, nothing but snuffles and whimpers coming from them now. Turning on her, he grabbed her face, trying to make her look at him. “Open your fucking eyes,” he yelled at her and she smelled beer and the sour stench of the methamphetamines he favored. When she silently refused, he squeezed her face even harder, digging his blunt fingers into her face, cutting the inside of her cheeks against her back teeth.

  He shook her and screamed at her to open her eyes again and even though she thought she’d refuse, they opened of their own accord. His face was red, contorted with things that made new tears crowd the old. He held the multi-tool that Michael had left for her in his hand, the point of its knife attachment digging into the soft underside of her chin.

  “Didn’t I tell you? I told you when I was ready, I’d get in, didn’t I?” Pete said, giving her another jab with the multi-tool. Setting it aside, he hooked his free hand in the neck of her shirt, ripping it open. A fresh scream built in her lungs but he robbed her of it with just a few words. “If you scream again, I’ll hurt ‘em.” The knife dug in, deeper than before and then it was gone again, tucked into his back pocket.

  Her eyes rolled in her head, trying to see around him to the twins, huddled in their crib just a few feet away. Lying perfecting still, her eyes still turned away, she endured as he snapped the thin strap of her tank. He palmed her breast, his fingers dirty and rough, squeezing and bruising, fresh humiliation digging deep.

  “He won’t want to marry you after I’m through with you.” His words and tone matching the hate she saw in his eyes, his hand drifting further until it was tugging at the elastic waistband of her pants, pulling her underwear to the side. “No one will want you—not ever again.”

  Rough fingers thrust their way inside her but she didn’t feel it. Her brain fractured and she felt herself float away, the shame carrying her someplace else.

  Somewhere far away.

  She felt her pants being ripped off. Cool air against her skin but she didn’t care. She was going away. Somewhere safe. A place where she could get lost and no one would ever find her…

  “Lissa.” The word reached her before she could fully float away. Riley was saying her name. She sounded pitiful and small. Not at all like herself. Like she was lost. Like she knew that her big sister was going away. Leaving her behind.

  Pete let go of her wrists and he levered himself upward, just enough to allow room to work his pants down around his hips. He thought she’d succumbed, that she’d given up.

  He was wrong.

  While he was fumbling, she pulled her knee to her chest so hard and fast she clipped herself in the chin, before hammering the heel of her foot into his groin, not once but twice, in rapid succession. Pete let out a howl before he fell to the side, clutching himself. Not wasting any time, Melissa bolted from the bed, her legs wobbling beneath her, betraying her. Making her slow. Easy to catch.

  Lunging at her, Pete grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked but she kept moving and her hair came out in a painful clump even as she stumbled through the door and down the hall.

  He lurched after her, only a few steps behind, but she didn’t stop. Didn’t look, she just pushed herself across the kitchen, praying that she made it to the front door.

  He closed the gap with a shove and she was suddenly thrown against the door, her hands splayed out in front of her as she sought purchase, making contact with something hard and heavy. Her baseball bat.

  “I was gonna go easy on you, you little bitch,” he said, his words crowded by exertion and pain. “That motherfucking ship has sail—”

  Without thought or a moment’s hesitation, Melissa gripped the bat and rounded on Pete who stood a few feet behind her. She swung for the fences and incredibly, caught him squarely in the head, dropping him with a sickening crack.

  Pete lay sprawled on the floor—a widening pool of blood beneath his broken skull. Standing over him, chest heaving as blood ran down her leg and chin, the bat slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor. She barely heard it, was still for only the space of one breath before she was running again.

  Back in her room she threw on clothes grabbed randomly, pulling them on while Jason and Riley watched silently. She slung the diaper bag from shoulder to hip and picked them up, first one and then the other.

  Without pausing to listen or look she was out her bedroom window less than three minutes after she’d swung the bat.

  SEVENTEEN

  RUN.

  She didn’t think about where she was going or what she was leaving behind. She just ran… but she must’ve known where she was going—she must have because when she burst through the doors of the police station she knew exactly where she was and why she was there.

  “Hello,” she called out, banging on the desk bell with a hand that was shaky and pale. She could still feel it—the bat—her fingers wrapped around the hard length of it. The force of contact singing up her arms. Seeing it, she curled her fingers inward, making a fist.

  Stupid. She was so stupid…

  “Hello,” she yelled it, banging her fist on the counter hard enough to jostle the toddler in her arms. It’d been Riley who asked to be carried this time, while Jason plodded stoically alongside her. “Hell—”

  Wade appeared from a back room, arms filled with file folders, one clamped in his mouth. When he saw her, he dropped the lot of it, forms and files landing at his feet in a jumbled mess. He was around the counter, standing next to her before she could blink, his hands on her shoulders turning her to look at him, giving himself a better look at her face.

  “What happened to you, Melissa,” he said, giving her a small, frantic shake when she didn’t answer. “Answer me, Melissa—who did this to you?”

  “Where is he?” she said, reaching up to swipe at the dried blood on her chin. It hurt. Her whole face hurt. She could barely see out of her right eye. “Is he here? I have to talk to him—is he here?” She didn’t need
to specify who he was. Their father. She was looking for their father.

  Wade let go of her, taking a step back. “No, he and Zeke headed for Good Shepard in Marshall, about an hour ago—I got work-study until noon.”

  “Why are they both at Good Shepard?” She didn’t care about his schedule. Why he was there. She only cared why her father wasn’t.

  “An assault victim was found on the 80 last night,” he said, looking down at his own shuffling feet. “They went to take statements.”

  Highway 80 was the main artery that connected Dallas to Jessup. Jessup to Marshall. It ran directly behind the trailer park she lived in. Its traffic lulled her to sleep at night. Walking its shoulder home was a shortcut Tommy took all the time.

  “It’s Tommy, isn’t it?” she said in a voice that sounded small and far away. When he didn’t answer her, she reached out and gripped his sleeve. “Wade, is it Tommy?”

  He looked up at her and nodded, anguish coupled with something harder, shown plainly on his face. “He the one who did this to you?”

  Her breath hitched in her chest and she fumbled it, let it out in a gasp. “No.” Tears spilled over her bottom lids as she shook her head. She couldn’t think of Pete. What she did. Not now.

  She could call her grandmother but it would take too long. Too much explaining. She’d have to tell her about Pete. About her mother… “Take me there,” she said, reaching down to find Jason’s waiting hand. “I need you to take me there, Wade. Right now.”

  Are you in trouble?

  The words came to her suddenly, accompanied by a flash of memory—Michael standing over her, his hand gripped around her arm, gray eyes as still and dark as stones.

  As soon as the thought of him took root, she cut it down. Michael wasn’t around to help her. Not anymore, because no matter what he said or promised, in the end, he did what he always did.

  He left.

  “I can’t just leave,” he said, looking around the deserted station. “Someone’s gotta be here to answer phones…” He looked at her and the second he did, she knew what he was thinking. Who he wanted to call. The only other person either of them knew who’d help her without question.

  Jed.

  “Call him,” she said in a tone that’d gone flat. Looking down at Jason, she smiled wide enough to open the split in her lip. It stung, fresh blood beading at her mouth. “Come on, let’s sit down.” She pulled him gently to the row of chairs shoved against the wall. She sat down, pulling her little brother up beside her to wait for their ride

  .

  EIGHTEEN

  SHE WATCHED THROUGH THE large, storefront window of the station while Jed and Wade installed the car seats in the back of Jed’s convertible. Wade had brought them out not long after he called his friend.

  “Dad… ah, the Chief likes to keep a few handy just in case he sees someone driving around town with an unbuckled kid,” he’d said, looking down at the car seats. “He figures it’s better to make sure the kid is safe, rather than give their parent a ticket they probably can’t afford.”

  Melissa looked at him for a second before looking away. She didn’t want to know things like that. That her father was thoughtful. That he did nice things for people. He’d never done anything like that for her. Not once.

  Wade must’ve realized what she was thinking because he cleared his throat before carrying the seats outside to wait for Jed, leaving her alone.

  Now, seats installed, they stood next to Jed’s car, talking—Wade kept shooting glances in her direction even though the mirrored glass made it impossible to see her. They were talking about her. Wade probably telling Jed what had happened to her. That someone beat her up. That he thought it was Tommy who’d done it.

  Thinking about it had her digging in the twins’ diaper bag looking for the pack of baby wipes she kept there. Pulling a few from the pack, she scrubbed the dried blood off her face, despite the fact that it hurt so much she felt like she was peeling off her own skin.

  Afterward she changed diapers and set Jason and Riley on the floor with a few books and toys she found in a basket in the corner to keep them occupied. Somewhere, behind the counter a phone kept ringing. She thought maybe she should tell Wade that someone was trying to call but she didn’t move. Just sat there, dividing her attention between the twins on the floor in front of her and the pair of young men talking about her in the parking lot.

  After a few more minutes, Wade started across the parking lot, and she averted her gaze just as he pulled the door open. “You ready?” he said, poking his head into the lobby and she lifted her gaze from the floor, aiming it his way.

  She’d been ready thirty minutes ago. Instead of saying so she just stood. “Let’s go, kiddos,” she said, bending to lift Jason into her arms while Wade gathered Riley who instantly let out a protesting wail. “She doesn’t like to be carried,” she told him as they moved through the door. It made her think of Michael again. The way Riley had reached for him from the front seat of her grandmother’s car. She suddenly wished that it was him who was giving her a ride but he was long gone. Back to wherever he’d been hiding since his parents had died. Suddenly, she envied him. That made her hate him even more.

  Seeing her, Jed fumbled the passenger side door of his car open, levering the seat forward so they could settle the twins into their seats. He stood there, staring at her, arms folded across his chest, looking like he’d been on his way to school before Wade called. The swaggering braggart who took great pleasure in harassing her every chance he got was gone. In his place was someone who looked nervous. Almost guilty. As soon as his gaze landed on her face, it bounced off to settle on her shoulder.

  “I’ll call the hospital, let the Chief know you’re coming,” Wade said, shutting her car door once she was inside. He leaned down to give her a reassuring smile, reaching through the open window to give her an awkward pat on her shoulder.

  “Don’t,” she said, pretending to readjust her seatbelt when what she was really doing was trying to brush his hand away. “Don’t call him.” If Wade called, he’d give their father his version of the way things had happened. He’d tell him that it had been Tommy who assaulted her, making everything she told him afterward a lie. “Promise me you won’t call him.”

  “Okay—promise.” he said, nodding while he cut Jed a look. She knew what that look meant. Wade wouldn’t call but that didn’t mean that Jed wouldn’t take it upon himself to fill her father in as soon as they got to the hospital.

  Wade watched them drive away for a few seconds before turning away. She watched him retreat back into the station through the rear view mirror. As soon as he was gone, she looked out the window, determined to spend the entire fifty-minute car ride in silence. They made it less than thirty before Jed finally spoke up.

  “I brought you some shoes.”

  “What?” she glanced at him, eyes narrowed on his face.

  “Shoes,” he said, jerking his chin at the floorboard of his car. “Wade said you ran in barefoot this morning so...”

  She looked down at her feet. They were bare. Beside them a pair of pricey sandals, at least a size too small.

  He chanced a quick look at her face. He looked away, color creeping up his neck. “They’re my mom’s.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, aiming her gaze out the window.

  “Who hit you?”

  She looked at her own blurry reflection in the passenger side window. Her eye was bruised, swollen shut from where Pete’s haymaker had caught her and her lip was puffy and split, like a piece of overripe fruit. “Not Tommy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I didn’t ask you who didn’t—I asked you who did?” Jed said, edged in so much righteous indignation that it had laughter bubbling on her lips. He must’ve realized how ridiculous he sounded, especially after the way he’d treated her, because he dropped it, choosing instead to tackle a different subject. “You might want to take that off before we get where we’re goin’,” he said, shooting a quick glan
ce at the hand resting in her lap.

  She didn’t answer him, just bunched her hand into a fist until the smooth silver of the ring she wore bit into the web of her hand. Behind her, the twins started to fuss. They were hungry. Confused. Scared. Thinking about it, the drastic turn her life had taken in the past twelve hours, she felt tears start to prick at the back of her eyes. Things had never been good—not since she’d agreed to live with Kelly—but they’d been manageable. Survivable. Not like now.

  In an instant, her life has careened so out of control, she wasn’t sure she could steer herself out of the skid. She wasn’t sure she could survive what came next.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  She willed the tears away. She refused to cry in front of Jed. Instead she aimed a glare in his direction and spoke. “When was the last time you fucked my mother?” Her voice didn’t sound like it belonged to her. It was pitched lower. Full of something she’d never heard there before. Rage. “Last night?”

  The flush didn’t creep along his neck—it erupted there, an explosion of guilt and self-loathing. “What? No…” he shook his head but didn’t look at her when he spoke. “I was with Shelley last night. We had dinner with her parents and then I took her to see a movie.”

  She knew he was lying. He’d taken Shelley to see a movie Saturday afternoon, not last night but she didn’t argue. “But you do see her—Kelly.” It wasn’t a question and she didn’t phrase it like one. “You pay her for sex. Right?”

  “What is this about, Melissa?” he said, finally glancing at her.

  “Right?” Her voice climbed an octave, bouncing off the rolled up windows, adding another level to the twins’ anxiety.

  Jed opened his mouth before clamping it shut, his jaw tight, eyes aimed out the windshield. “What do you want me to say?” he finally said.