by Dori Lavelle
Judson Devereux has murdered two innocent people. Three people dead at his hands in less than twenty-four hours.
How did he kill them so quietly that I didn’t notice despite being in a room across the hall?
“I thought it would be nice to have them die together in each other’s arms. Doesn’t get any more romantic than that. Neither one will have to experience the pain of losing the other.” He moves close enough to whisper in my ear. “Don’t worry. They didn’t suffer much. They were good people. Even though they had always preferred my brother. A few drops of a silent poison in the glasses of wine they enjoy before bed did the job.”
As the horror of it all sinks into my mind, my legs lose every ounce of strength. I sink toward the floor but he stops me before I reach it, holding me upright with his strong grip. He keeps my face directed to the bed. He refuses to let his moment of victory end just yet.
“Not so fast. Hang in there. It’s not too late for you to say goodbye. You could give them a proper send off with a kiss on the cheeks. They did risk their lives for you. Don’t be ungrateful. Show your last respects.” He pushes me forward. “Take all the time you need. I’ll wait.”
Aware that if I make a wrong move he’d not blink before sending me to join Damien, Adrian and Hanna on the other side, I obey him. I move further into the room, taking one small step after the other toward the death bed until I’m standing over them, watching them in their endless sleep.
Both their eyes are closed and Adrian’s head rests on Hanna’s hair that’s spread out across her pillow like a fan. The same hair that had hung on her shoulders only hours ago.
The stillness in the room confirms their death, as though the essence of life has been sucked out of the air. That and the unnatural coloring of their skins.
“I said give them a kiss.” Impatience sharpens his voice despite him telling me to take my time.
Swallowing the rock inside my throat, I bend and kiss Hanna’s cool cheek first before doing the same for Adrian. Without words I apologize to them for bringing bad luck into their lives and thank them for their efforts to save mine.
At the back of my mind I can’t help wondering what Judson will do to me after murdering me. Will he tuck my body into bed and burn the house to the ground with our corpses still inside? Will we end up at the bottom of the ocean?
My chest tightens at the thought of letting him win. I can’t give up yet. Not when my heart is still beating.
The moment I spot a potential weapon within reach, I don’t waste time thinking. Thinking in Judson’s presence is a dangerous game. I’d be foolish to give him time to read my mind.
Before I straighten up, my fingers are clutching the wooden African statue on Adrian’s side of the bed. What used to be his side of the bed.
Before fear recaptures me, I send the statue flying toward Judson’s head. Instead of striking him, it catches his shoulder. The gun slips from his grasp and lands on the carpet between us.
Our eyes lock from across the room before we both lunge for it. I never expected to be the first one to touch it, never expected to be faster than him, but my fingers are the ones that meet the deadly weapon. At the same time, our heads collide.
The explosive pain is a sharp dagger jammed into my brain, blinding me, weakening me. My fingers have no strength as he snatches the gun from me. I fall to the ground, my free hands cradling my head as though holding a broken piece of china together.
The bullets hit the floorboard inches from my feet, the gunpowder assaulting my nostrils. I ignore the pain and run from death, crawling away before I’m hit. He continues to shoot around me but not meeting my body. I doubt he’s a lousy shot. He wants to toy with me before ending it.
“You want to run?” His laughter bounces off the walls before hitting my ears. “Go ahead. Run, Ivy. See how far you’ll get. Make this more fun than it already is.” He continues to shoot and I continue to crawl as fast as I can, dodging the bullets.
Out of breath, I scramble to my feet. As bullets whisper past my ears, I stumble over furniture. Pictures slide off the walls, vases crash to the floor after being hit by bullets or knocked over by my body. I slip on the carpet and fall back to the floor, my bruised cheek taking the impact. I don’t feel pain as I scramble back to my feet. The gush of fear coursing through my veins is strong enough to numb me.
“When will you quit thinking you can outrun me? Do you seriously think you’ll make it out of this room alive?” Judson doesn’t move away from the door.
My lungs are burning up and my head is spinning, but I keep moving. I don’t even pause to communicate with him because it won’t get me anywhere. Hopefully he’ll run out of bullets and I’ll have the opportunity to take another swing at him. This time I won’t miss.
The bullets keep coming, and I keep running and falling, and screaming. Maybe someone will hear my screams mixed in with the sound of gunshots, and call the cops. But if anyone was going to help me, wouldn’t they have done it by now?
From what little I saw when Adrian brought me over, the house is pretty isolated.
While Judson is still determined on scaring the crap out of me, I run out of fuel and sink to the floor in one corner of the room, covering my head with my arms and making myself as small as possible. My eyes are closed so tight my eyeballs ache.
I hope any second now he’ll realize he’s won and quit the game with a bullet to my head. My disappointment burns hot in my eyes when he doesn’t shoot me. He grabs me at the back of the neck and pulls me to my feet, when I refuse to walk, he drops me to the floor and grabs one of my feet, dragging me across the room. On our way to the door, something sharp cuts my shoulder. What’s another wound to what I’ve already suffered?
Like someone who no longer gives a damn about her fate, I fix my gaze to the white ceiling, black spots in front of my eyes, tears spilling down the sides of my face. Some sprinkle the floor and others dry on my skin. Thinking of what he’s done to Hanna and Adrian brings on fresh, hot tears I’m unable to blink away.
Our destination is the room I slept in. I recognize the pink birdcage light fixture on the ceiling.
The fear of what he has in mind niggles at the back of my throat, but I don’t let it show on my face. At least I hope I don’t.
He’s won but he doesn’t have to know it.
The door slams and he drags me across the room, past the bed and other furniture. We enter the small en-suite bathroom.
When he drops me on the cool tiled floor, I fold myself into the smallest ball. “Why don’t you do it?” I say, staring at a piece of dried gum on the underbelly of the basin. “Why drag it on? Kill me already. I don’t care.” His torture is more unbearable than death. It reminds me of being inside the coffin and wanting to die fast instead of entertaining a slow death.
He stands over me, feet planted on both sides of my body, hands in pockets. “Not yet, ma chérie. We have unfinished business, remember? We need to bring to an end what we started and never got to finish at Damien’s place.” His gun is still trained on me as he moves away and turns on the shower. “But Damien’s smell on your skin disgusts me. We have to do something about that.”
A jagged scream cuts through my throat as he picks me up by the hair and throws me into the shower with my clothes still on. My skin tightens from the shock of cold water but I recover fast. I shoot him a glare.
The gun is gone and a sharp knife has taken its place. My body starts to tremble when he joins me in the shower. He doesn’t slit my throat with it but uses it to cut the clothes from my body, getting too close to my skin. Too exhausted and afraid to fight him, I let him.
I’m crying again, loud broken sobs that hurt my chest. I hate myself for being right where he wants me. He will rape me and if I try to stop him, I could end up with the knife jammed into my chest. My sobs make my chest hurt as he takes a sponge, squeezes vanilla-scented shower gel onto it and scrubs my face. I press my teeth together when he attempts to push the soapy sponge into my
mouth. He moves on down my throat, to my shoulders, and over my breasts and stomach. Whistling a tune, he squeezes more gel onto the sponge and scrubs my thighs, knees, and calves, as though his aim is to scrub the skin right off my flesh.
“You pretended to be so innocent. So pure. I never imagined you to be just another dirty whore. I’ll show you what dirty whores deserve.” He moves to the area I dread the most. I put up a fight as he spreads my legs and shoves the sponge between them. I fail. The scrubbing there is even more violent. Then he tosses the sponge to the floor. He straightens up and pins me to the wall, a hand around my neck. I bite my lip as I wait for him to pull out his dick. He doesn’t.
He gives me a hard slap across the face with his free hand, then moves it to between my legs, pushes a finger into me, then another, and another. I scream out with pain and anger. He shuts me up with a kiss. In a moment of insanity, I bite into his bottom lip hard enough, tasting his blood. He withdraws his fingers out of me but only to give me another skin-slicing slap that makes my head spin.
“There’s a price to pay for that.” He turns off the water, wraps my hair around his hand and throws me out of the shower. I land on the floor. The gun is back and it’s pressed against the side of my head. I hope he’s changed his mind about killing me later. I’d rather die than have his dick inside me again.
Chapter Fifteen
I whimper on the floor as he dries me. The towel feels like sandpaper on my skin at his harsh rubbing but I don’t fight him. What’s the point when my reward will always be pain? When he pushes my legs apart and continues the same treatment on my vagina, I lift my head from the floor.
With the palm of his hand he sends it crashing down again. The pain eats through my cheek before spreading to the rest of my head. The inferno doesn’t stop there but rages through my neck, throat, and shoulders, refusing to stop until it has ignited my entire body. I clench my teeth to contain the pain.
“Good.” I hear him say but his voice is so distant. “Now you’re going to pretend to be my little virgin again, not the slut Damien has turned you into.” He gathers me from the floor and throws me over his shoulder. Blood rushes to my pounding head as it sways and bounces against his hard back. Saliva drips from my mouth and I can’t stop it. I don’t care, anyway.
I wish I had a knife on me to stab him in the back with. But I have nothing, no weapon, no strength, no life to call my own.
He drops me onto the bed that had been my refuge for a few short hours, the bed that had protected me from him or so I thought. My naked body falls onto the pink and white quilt. His narrow gaze lands on me, sweeping across my naked body. My skin feels the heat of both his anger and sick desires. My brain tells me to move away from him but my body doesn’t obey. I’m frozen. The anger I had felt toward him earlier has transformed into mind- and body-numbing fear, more powerful than any chains. If he walks out of this room now, without chaining me, he might return to find me right where he left me.
I want to fight him, to stop him from killing me, but I don’t stand a chance against his revenge. Everything has been taken away from me. Damien started with the taking, eating away at me before his brother showed up to take the leftovers and to finish me off. I have a body and a functioning brain and mind, but I might as well be dead right now.
“It’s a shame you won’t be enjoying this as much as I will.” He bends to lick my unbruised cheek, his tongue hot and repulsive. “But it would be so much more fun if you try.”
My stomach churns at the thought of him inside me. There’s an itch under my skin, one brought on by his touch, his gaze, his very presence. I want to scratch it but I’ll never be able to get to it unless I peel my skin back.
He moves away from my healthy cheek and moves on to my injured one. His touch is gentle but his eyes remain hard and blank. He has the eyes of a snake. How did I not see it? How could I have visited this man in prison? How is it possible that I had searched his eyes and missed the evil buried beneath the depths of green? His eyes are a deep, dark sea, hiding many unknown dangers. Dangers only visible to those who are unfortunate enough to dive in and see them up close.
I’m one of those unfortunate people.
He places his handgun and knife at the foot of the bed, not far from my feet. Having crushed me completely, he no longer perceives me to be a threat. I don’t blame him. He did a fantastic job at breaking me.
Now he’s peeling off his drenched clothes, opening the buttons of his shirt one by one, his eyes holding me hostage. He throws the heavy shirt on the empty floor. The sound it makes as it touches the wood brings on a distant memory.
My drenched photographs had made the same sound when they’d hit the bottom of the trashcan months ago inside the new dorm room, the room that had changed my life forever.
“In case you’re wondering, I am a real professor.” He’s unzipping his jeans now. “I do hold a PhD in Art History. But lecturing was not a job to me. It was . . .” He stops undressing and places a finger to his lips. “It was an enjoyable hobby that gave me the opportunity to meet innocent little pussies in search of an adventure. Sometimes I was lucky enough to meet little virgins leaving home for the first time, craving their independence.” His lips twist into a sneer. “Many of them are well aware that the world can be a dangerous place. As little girls, their parents told them the story of Little Red Riding Hood. But guess what, they never expect the big bad wolf to be so close. I love the look in their eyes when they come face to face with danger. They look the way you do now.”
“What?” The single word comes out but the effort of talking makes my jaw ache so much I shut up. Which is just as well since I don’t even know what I want to ask him.
He tilts his head to one side. “What, ma chérie? Do you want to ask me something?” He waits for a response and when it doesn’t come, he continues talking while peeling off his pants. “Aren’t you going to ask what I did with them? I’m sure you already know that. Did Damien tell you about our lucrative family business, the one he was stupid enough to abandon?”
My eyes blur with tears and I blink them away furiously.
“I have lots of employees working for my company of whores all over the world, but I always enjoy the hunt. I never delegate that to anyone. I enjoy the thrill of meeting students and locking them into my web. I have to tell you though, I don’t normally sample the goods first but I make exceptions for the irresistible girls. You and Jennifer were among the lucky ones. I wanted to fuck you first before I sold you to another hungry cock. And the other faculty like fools wonder why some promising students suddenly abandon their studies and vanish. Parents search for their missing children, never knowing they are in a place where they are much more useful.”
I swallow the sour bile inside my throat and turn away from him. I can barely breathe as my anger returns. It warms my frozen body, bringing it back to life. I unfurl my fingers while glimpsing a snow globe on the bedside table. There’s a little cottage inside with a bridge on one side and miniature trees on the other.
I used to love snow globes as a kid. They reminded me of how magical the world can be. My father had been a collector. Every time I traveled to a place he hasn’t been before, I always brought him one to add to his collection. When he died, I was crushed to find my mother had thrown them all away as though they were trash and not memories.
I look back at Judson when I feel the bed sink from his weight. He’s fully naked but I don’t look below his waist. I don’t want to see his evil dick, to wonder how many girls it has defiled, how many innocent lives it has ruined. The thought of fearful abducted girls and grieving parents sends fire raging through my veins. He can’t continue this evil. I can’t let him hurt any more families. I will not let him hurt any more innocent people. He has to be stopped and I will be the one to do it.
Before the anger-fueled drive leaves my body, I grab the snow globe as he’s positioning himself above me. I strike him on the side of the head with it and watch him crumble on top of me
.
“I guess you underestimated this pussy,” I push him off me and lunge for his gun.
“Bitch.” As he clutches his bleeding head, I aim the gun at him. He tries to move but his body is fighting the unexpected pain. I try not to think of the fact that from this moment on I’ll be a killer. I think only of my freedom and of saving other lives.
“No,” I say with tears streaming down my cheeks. I get onto my knees. “You are the bitch, and I’m the big bad wolf you never saw coming.” My eyes are closed as I pull the trigger and shoot. I shoot him again and then once more. I feel him jolt and try to scream through a mouth full of blood. I hear him sink deeper into the small bed. His blood sprinkles my face, drop by evil drop. Finally I lower the gun to my thighs and open my eyes.
I don’t see him, not any more. His face is completely unrecognizable.
I did it.
It’s over.
I’ve ended the horror. Then why do I feel sick instead of relieved? My stomach clenches and before I can stop myself, I throw up onto his body, over and over again until I have nothing left inside me to give.
Chapter Sixteen
Only a towel is wrapped around my body as I stumble out of the room.
I descend the stairs, almost tripping on my feet, one hand holding tight to the banister, and the other clutching the briefcase with the money Damien had given me. There’s a phone in the living room and I pick it up, only to drop it again when I fail to recall the number of the police station.
Without thinking anymore, I swing open the front door and run out onto the street. The sun is warm for early in the morning, warming my damp head. I lower the briefcase to the ground and tighten the towel around my body. As I pick it up again, I scan the street for someone I can run to for help.
