“I’ll fucking kill you!” Seth yelled, a surge of anger giving him the strength to push the bigger Connor off of him. He scrambled to his feet, eyes searching for another weapon. Connor rose and came after him until Mark spoke from behind.
“I’ll stun Sophia again!”
Connor turned, eyes darting to his love lying on the floor. Mark jabbed the stun gun into his chest and pulled the trigger. Connor’s sight grew dim and his legs buckled, but he took another step before Seth cracked a lamp over the back of his head. He fell to the floor unconscious and suddenly the room went quiet until a strangled cry came from Sophia, who’d regained enough sense to see the outcome of the struggle between the three men.
“Get her out of here,” snapped Seth. “Take her to the car.”
Jess hesitated before helping Mark drag Sophia to her feet and toward the front door.
“Connor!” Sophia called out, her voice strained.
“Shut her up,” Seth commanded.
“C’mon,” Jess said to Sophia. They made it to the car out front, where anyone driving by could’ve see them forcing a girl into a car, but no one came. Sophia protested all the way, calling Connor’s name repeatedly, angering Seth. He went into the kitchen and turned on the stovetop, then yanked down the curtains and threw them onto the now-lighted gas rings. The flimsy cloth quickly caught fire, so he grabbed a towel, set that aflame, and tossed it into the dining room to make sure the fire spread there, too. By then, Jess had returned.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed in disbelief.
“What the fuck does it look like? Burning the fucker down!”
“You stupid asshole!”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” He shoved her back so hard that she fell but quickly got up.
“Yeah, when the smoke alarms go off, the cops will figure out real quick that something happened here. We coulda had all night to get away. Now we got hours, maybe minutes.”
Seth stopped. “Shit. Well, come on then.”
“No.” She headed for the living room as the kitchen quickly became engulfed in smoke.
“Where you going?”
“To get Connor.”
“Fuck him!”
“Fuck you! I’m not leaving him in there to burn! Mark! Get the fuck over here and help me!”
Locking Sophia in the car first, Mark ran inside. Seth grabbed him by the arm and tried to yank him back, but Mark pulled his arm free with a look of such hatred that Seth let go, startled. The key fell out of Mark’s hand and Seth snatched it up, running outside, where Sophia was pounding on the windows from inside. He got in and started the car, suddenly wanting to leave both his accomplices behind, but the betrayal might make them return the favor and tell the cops about his camp.
“Quit crying,” Seth snapped at Sophia. “You only cry for me from now on, not some fucking Kendall.”
She ignored that, staring at the door for some sign of Connor, but no one appeared. Seth was looking, too. He finally swore and started the car, aggressively driving around to the back, where Mark and Jess had dragged Connor out, far enough away to keep him from getting hurt any more. The sight of him unconscious made Sophia’s stomach churn. Seeing Jess making sure Connor had a pulse surprised her. Maybe the girl had a conscience after all.
After lifting Connor’s shirt and feeling his torso for bullet wounds, Jess grabbed Mark’s hand and ran for the car. The whole attack had happened so fast and in such unplanned chaos that they’d left a bunch of evidence behind upstairs, which was another problem Seth had just caused with the fire, since they couldn’t very well go back for their stuff now. The fire had reached the back door they’d just come through. She got in the back with Sophia, knowing her life as she’d known it was over forever, but when she looked at Mark in the front seat, she saw a grin that surprised her.
Chapter 15 – Captive
“You’re never gonna get away with this,” shouted Sophia from the back seat as Seth plowed down the narrow dirt road beside Sugarloaf Mountain. The tall trees crowded in, making the black of night seem deeper and darker, the moonlight unable to pierce it. Only the glare of the headlights shone any distance. The warm summer air blew through the rolled-down windows, out of which one of Seth’s arms hung when he wasn’t toying with his cigarette.
He had death metal playing at full volume to drown her out, though it wasn’t really working, but he didn’t care. He felt good despite a welt on his cheek from Connor’s fist, a few bruised ribs, and a pain in his back from crashing through the table, which he now thought had been kind of awesome. Though this hadn’t gone as planned, exactly—in fact, everything since the first kidnapping attempt had kind of been a disaster—this was what he’d been dreaming about for years. Too bad he hadn’t spent as long planning as he had dreaming, or the abduction might’ve gone better, but that didn’t matter. He was beginning to discover that reality and fantasy weren’t the same thing, but in a little while he’d do something he’d been fantasizing about for a long time. Living in the moment and the immediate future was all that really concerned him. Thinking further ahead had never been his strong suit. Thinking in general wasn’t. Action produced results. Thinking only gave you a headache.
Jess was right about setting the fire, but it was too late now. He’d worry about it later. Now that he had Sophia, the search for him would likely increase, but they’d never find him. He could hide out for a few days, and then when ready, he’d steal a local car and get out of here. They’d never guess he was up on the mountain, the fools.
Seth slowed and took a smaller service road that rose up the slopes a bit. It wasn’t used anymore and had become partially overgrown so that some of the trees swiped the side of the car as he went through. Up ahead, he turned again and drove off the road between two trees. He’d long ago cut out the underbrush that used to be there so that his car would fit, and there was enough room for Jess’s, too. Even if someone came up here, they’d never guess the cars were behind the low hanging, dense pines, not unless they really looked at the ground.
He parked Jess’s car behind his and turned off the stereo and car engine, looking back over his shoulder in the sudden, deafening silence. Sophia’s tears had dried and she looked frightened but calm. “You can scream all you want. No one will hear you up here.”
“You’re never gonna get away with this,” Sophia repeated.
“I already did.” He got out and came to the back door.
Jess turned to Sophia and quickly whispered in her ear, “He wasn’t shot.”
“What?”
“There was no blood, no bullet wound. He’ll be okay.” Jess got out of the car quickly, leaving Sophia no way to ask more; Jess’s words had brought some relief, but Connor could still be badly hurt.
Seth grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out. “Get out. All of you. Head to the camp.”
Sophia cast a look at Seth’s menacing black car, the memory of it hurtling after her ramping-up fears. His nasty plans were coming to fruition and she felt helpless to stop him. She still had the bump on her head, which now seemed a minuscule sign of the violence he was prepared to do. He had fired a gun at Connor. Had smashed him over the head. Had burned down the inn. Seth Murray was a psychopath. And she was in his control.
She realized he’d been on the mountain all this time. No wonder the cops hadn’t found him. She had to give him credit for concealing the car like this, but they couldn’t stay up here forever, and when they left, he’d get caught. She just had to avoid being raped—or worse—until then. For a moment, she wondered how he’d gotten to the inn, but the obvious answer was that he’d hiked. It wasn’t that far.
They climbed up to his camp in the trees, Mark and Jess leading the way, with Seth right beside their captive. They sometimes passed a narrow deer trail and she wondered about sprinting down one, but running barefoot through the woods in the dark wasn’t the brightest idea and Seth kept a possessive hand on her arm. The twigs and rocks underfoot hurt her tender fles
h again and again.
She didn’t see the camp until they were nearly inside it, for Seth had hung camouflage netting on the two sides that weren’t sufficiently hidden by natural foliage. A small cliff wall backed to the camp on the side farther up the mountain. Opposite that and overlooking the valley below, several large rocks served as chairs, and this was where Seth forced her to sit. From that vantage point, she saw that a precipitous drop lay mere steps away, and only then did she realize they were just atop the rock face that she’d seen from Sunrise Meadow. The camp seemed virtually permanent. It was only detectable if stumbled upon, or if someone below had a telescope and knew where to aim it, which wasn’t likely.
Down below, the sound of sirens caught Sophia’s ears. A moment passed before she saw the flames from Sugarloaf Inn and a column of smoke rising into the night sky, visible for being lighter than the blackness it rose into. As she watched, the flashing lights of rescuers moved along Comus Road below, heading for the flames. A pang struck her at the destruction she’d inadvertently brought down on Connor and his family.
It paled next to the possibility of lasting damage to Connor himself, and she vowed to spend the rest of her life making it up to him. And doing something about the man who’d caused it. She cast a hate-filled glance at Seth. At least she wasn’t alone with him. She didn’t think he’d rape her in front of the others, though that had been suggested the first time they’d tried to grab her. But now she’d met the other two and had some sense that they weren’t as far gone as Seth.
But then Seth ordered the other two to leave the camp, and her heart sank when they disappeared into the darkness, Jess casting a concerned look over one shoulder.
Seth turned to Sophia with a gleam in his bruised eye. She shuddered.
* * *
As they tromped through the woods, Jess took Mark’s hand and squeezed. He smiled down at her, then stopped to give her a long, deep kiss. For a moment they forgot the world around them and the world of trouble they were both in. The minutes passed as they savored the last peaceful moments they were likely to have anytime soon. An air of doom surrounded them. Or at least, that’s how Jess felt on breaking the kiss and leading him toward her car, which they got into, closing the doors but not going anywhere, him behind the wheel.
Mark’s hand moved up her thigh.
“Not now, sweetie,” she said, putting a hand on his. “We have bigger problems.”
With a smirk, he pointed out his bulge and asked, “Bigger than this?”
She smiled despite herself and put her hand there. “You gonna be able to concentrate on what I say with my hand there?”
“Nope.”
She pulled it away and turned to face him. “Okay, seriously, we need a plan.”
“For what?”
“For not spending the rest of our lives in jail. Sophia knows who we are.”
“Yeah, but if Seth gets away from here with her, she’ll never be able to tell someone.”
“Connor also knows.”
“Seth whacked him pretty good. He might have amnesia.”
She rolled her eyes. “My purse is back at the inn and will survive the fire, from the look of all those flashing lights. They know, Mark, or they will. And they have your DNA.”
He sighed in resignation. “Okay, so they know. We’re fugitives. Hmm. That’s kind of sexy, dontcha think?”
“Stop it. I’m being serious.”
“Yeah, I know. There’s gonna be plenty of time for that later. Why don’t we fool around for now?”
She had to admit he had a good point. “I think we need to get the hell out of here, and by here, I mean Comus. We don’t have long. Ryan knows what my car looks like, which means we need another one. Since my car and us are missing from the inn, Lacy and Mark are top suspects.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right.” He frowned and turned to start the car when she laid a hand on him.
“Wait,” she said before biting her lip. “There’s a good chance we aren’t going to get very far.”
“All the more reason to go.”
“Yeah, but if we get caught, maybe we should do ourselves a favor.”
“Like what?”
“Like keep Seth from raping Sophia. A judge might be more lenient on us.” Jess saw the look of compassion in his eyes and leaned over to kiss him. She would’ve scorned him for that sensitivity a day ago. That Sophia was a decent girl was hard to miss and she felt a sudden pang about her former rival’s possible fate at Seth’s hands.
“So what do we do?” Mark asked.
“Get out of here and call the cops to tell them where Seth is. That gives us a chance to get away and her a chance to get rescued.”
“We don’t have our phones,” he observed.
She nodded. “Yeah, and I don’t think they even have pay phones around here these days. We’d need a landline at a house, but ours are being watched. Shit.”
“We could turn ourselves in.”
Jess pursed her lips. “I’d still like to give us a chance.”
He squeezed her hand. “Me, too.”
“The only other alternative is to go back up there.”
Mark nodded. “He’ll be pissed.”
“Fuck him.”
He looked far away for a few seconds, then looked into her eyes. “We really fucked up, didn’t we?”
She sighed. “Yeah, but at least we can put a stop to his shit going any farther. C’mon, let’s go.”
He took her hand. “Not yet. If this is the last time we’re ever going to be together, I want you one last time.”
Jess was about to protest, but then he pulled her over and planted one of those kisses on her and she let him do whatever he wanted.
* * *
Seth leered at Sophia, his crooked teeth doing little to aid his appearance, which was worse than usual because it had been days since he’d taken a shower. Greasy hair caught the firelight just like the sheen of oil on his face. Sophia had caught a whiff once or twice and nearly gagged. She thoroughly enjoyed the shiner Connor had given the bastard and was looking forward to Seth having a black eye. Maybe she could give him another one to match.
“I finally have you all to myself,” he said.
With a withering look, she scoffed, “Don’t get used to it.”
He gestured around them at the trees and slopes. “You think anyone’s gonna find you here? Because they’re not.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” She paused. “You do a lot of that, don’t you? Telling yourself some stupid bullshit, like that you have any chance of being with me, for real. Yeah, you can rape me, but you’ll still never have me.”
“Watch your mouth,” he snapped. “I’ll have you all right, and you’ll learn to love it.”
“Dream on. You know what they do to rapists in prison? You’re gonna find out.”
“You know, for someone who’s helpless up here, you got a lot of attitude.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s because of that fucker, Connor, isn’t it? I saw you two fucking. You think you like him, or something?”
Her cheeks turned red at the horror of Seth having seen her naked, not to mention while she was having sex with someone. She didn’t know how and wasn’t sure she wanted to, though the ignorance was killing her. Ignoring that with an effort, she replied, “I sure as hell don’t like you.”
“Say that shit to me again and I’ll fucking slug you. Understand?”
She tried to hide her fear in case that encouraged him. Lightening the attitude, she asked as if rhetorically, “Is that how you treat all your women?”
“Don’t matter how I treat other women. You’re the only one for me now.”
“I feel so honored,” she said, unable to resist rolling her eyes. “What did I do to deserve that?”
He looked at her in amazement. “You don’t remember? Shit, you don’t, do you? Remember that time in class, when I was in a bad mood and you sent me that note asking what was the matter? Anyone but you, I woulda ignored that. I didn’t
mean to tell anyone, not really, but you were being so nice and all. You pulled me out of that bad mood with those notes you were sending me. Shit, you even had me laughing.”
She remembered the incident, in spring of her junior year. The look on his face now was tender, even fond. She realized it had been a long time since she’d seen him as a person instead of a stalker, or a monster. He was still those things to her, but maybe if there was enough person left in there, she could reason with him.
“No one ever did that for me,” Seth continued. “No one. If anyone else found out I was hurting, they just made it worse. But not you. You made it better. I thought you were pretty cool before that, but you got to me that day, sweetheart. Been in love with you ever since.”
Quietly, she said, “It didn’t mean anything, Seth.”
“Like hell it didn’t. Why would you spend a whole hour, a whole hour, cheering me up if you didn’t like me?”
“I was just being nice. People do that.”
He snorted. “No, they don’t. Just on TV. It’s fucking lies that people act that way. Except for you. You did it for real. Now you know why I love you.”
She shook her head. “You don’t love me, Seth.”
“Yeah, I—”
“No you don’t. You don’t even know me.”
“Sure, I—”
“Stalking me is not knowing me. Spying on me is not knowing me. Watching me have sex with someone else isn’t knowing me, and by the way, that’s totally creepy and such a turn-off! How am I supposed to trust you after something like that? After kidnapping me? After attacking Connor? After setting the inn on fire and leaving him inside like that? How could you do that? You could’ve killed him. What about all of this is supposed to make me love you?”
Sophia felt like she was on a roll now but stopped to let him absorb all of that. For a moment, Seth looked surprised, the anger gone. The remorseful look on his face surprised her but encouraged her. If she could just get through to him…
Connor (The Kendall Family Series Book 2) Page 14
