by Ranae Rose
He started dragging her along then, moving with purpose, deeper into the woods.
She stumbled desperately, fighting the crippling pain in her back. Looking toward the house, she considered calling for Grey at the top of her lungs.
He might hear. Surely he and Sasha had noticed by now that she’d been gone for too long. If she called his name, he’d know it was her, know her scream wasn’t just part of the haunted house. But then…
He’d come after her. Try to save her. Get in a fight with a psychopath armed with a big knife and God knew what else. He might lose. She knew he’d lay down his life to help her as a matter of course, and the thought broke her heart. She couldn’t let him do that.
This – Brad – was her burden to bear. She wouldn’t let him hurt anyone else or ruin any other lives. Unless she could escape him now on her own, her life was already forfeit because of him. He was a monster she refused to unleash on anyone else, especially the people she loved.
Grey, Sasha, Alicia, Henry and Liam – they were her first real friends, her life, and they were all back on the mansion grounds. All of them would come to her aid without hesitating or weighing the consequences. She knew that, knew they were courageous – they’d proven it beyond any doubt that summer.
Now, it was her turn to be brave.
* * * * *
Grey searched the perimeter of the house, eyes sweeping the shadowed lawn. He started on the left side and worked his way to the right, where the grass bled into a creek framed by trees draped in Spanish moss.
There was a big gator that lived in that creek – Brutus. The thought sent a chill down Grey’s spine, but only for a second.
Kerry wasn’t an idiot – she wouldn’t have gone for a stroll on the creek bank, or waded in. And that was the only way she could’ve come into contact with the animal. It wasn’t like the gator would’ve strolled into the house and dragged her out. No, Grey was only worried about human threats.
“Hey.” A voice echoed from behind Grey – male, familiar.
He turned to see Henry, but was instead blinded by white light.
“Damn! Shut that thing off!”
Henry lowered his super-powered flashlight.
“Sasha told me Kerry’s missing. Any sign of her?”
Now, Grey could see that Sasha was by Henry’s side, a glittering devil shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“No.” Grey’s sense of dread threatened to choke him. Having Henry here didn’t make this all right. Nothing would, except finding Kerry. “I’ve looked all around the house.”
“Then let’s search the woods. She never went out to her vehicle – I would’ve seen.”
Grey nodded. It was what he’d been about to do on his own, without a light.
Shit. Henry probably had an entire duty belt worth of stuff in his cargo pockets. Henry needed him.
“Sasha,” Henry said, “you go find Faye and ask if she knows where Kerry is. Then, wait down with the crowd by the stage. Don’t leave the area.”
Sasha shook her head. “I want to come with you guys. If Kerry’s out there, I want to help find her.”
Henry leaned in and whispered something in Sasha’s ear, something Grey couldn’t hear.
It must’ve been a magic spell, because she turned toward the stage, leaving him and Grey alone.
They started for the woods. It was like working a PERT search, only without their gear, weapons or other team members.
“You armed?” Grey asked, keeping his voice low.
Henry shot him a look, reached into a deep cargo pocket and pulled out his Glock.
Grey felt half the world’s weight lift off his shoulders. At least now, if Brad had Kerry and was armed – he hated to think about it, but it was a real possibility – they’d be able to stop him.
Grey felt like an idiot in his costume. All he had was a fucking cape, and there was no question of concealing a weapon in all that spandex. He should’ve thought ahead – should’ve come prepared.
He hadn’t. He’d fucked up.
He should’ve walked to the house with Kerry, should’ve stayed by her side. If anything happened to her, it’d be his fault.
* * * * *
Getting Kerry through the strip of pine woods was like wrestling a pissed-off cat. Brad had to drag her by her hair, grabbing ahold of an arm too when she wouldn’t stop hitting him. Goddamn, she was one irritating, stubborn bitch.
He thought about knocking her out cold, but didn’t want to risk making her any crazier in the head.
Besides, he didn’t want to give her any reprieve. This time, he wanted her to endure every minute, realize how powerless she was. He’d let her fight tooth and nail every step of the way, if that was what it took to get the fact that he was in charge through her thick skull.
He needed to hurry, though. There was always the risk that someone might stumble through the woods between the mansion and the neighboring farm running the haunted house. He couldn’t afford a complication like that, needed to get her out of here and to somewhere private.
There, he’d punish her for what she’d done, pay her back until she realized there was no escaping: he was her life, just like she’d promised, whether she liked it or not. She was lucky he was willing to take her back, after all she’d done. There wasn’t another goddamn man on the planet who would’ve done that for her – not after what she’d done to his face.
She thought a few bruises were such a big fuckin’ deal that she’d run away, and then she’d gone and done that. She was a selfish little hypocrite, to the core.
He’d make her see that.
He’d make her change.
And he’d make her grateful for the chance to do so.
She was panting by the time they reached the edge of the woods, the end of the deer trail he’d followed from the road. His truck waited on the gravel shoulder.
She seemed to get a second wind when she saw it.
“I won’t go with you! I’m not your wife, Brad! I’ll never be your wife again. Let me go!”
She fought him, but she was pathetically weak – had been ever since he’d thrown her down on the ground.
He forced her into the cab of the truck, held both her wrists in one hand and tied them with some rope he’d stored under the seat. Forcing her down onto her belly, he made her lie across the seat while he bound her ankles, too.
“I’m gonna let you sit in the seat beside me,” he said when he was done. “And you’re gonna act like you have some fuckin’ sense, because if you try any stupid shit, I’m going to turn this back around and go find your Superman. I’ll make you watch while I kill him.”
He unzipped his jacket and showed her the .45 he’d taken from Michael’s bed stand.
“Either way, you’re coming back to Kentucky with me. It’s up to you whether you want to watch your little boyfriend die first.” He leaned in, got so close that he could feel her breath on his face. “Maybe you’re wondering whether I’ll really fucking do it.
“The answer is yes. I’ll do it in a fucking heartbeat. I want to do it. Just give me a fucking reason, Kerry. Give me a reason.”
* * * * *
“I know I heard something. I fucking know it.” Grey was sure at first, but his confidence ebbed as he and Henry went deeper into the woods. Were they going in the right direction?
It’d been two minutes, at least, since he’d heard anything. He was almost certain Kerry had made the noise though, mostly because he’d found a few stray sequins glittering on the pine needle carpet – sequins like the ones on her mermaid costume. His heart had been in his throat ever since.
“You don’t have to convince me,” Henry said. “Come on.”
Henry had the gun. Grey had the flashlight.
He didn’t feel as underprepared as he should have. The idea of tearing Kerry’s ex-husband apart with his bare hands was appealing.
With every step, he grew more and more convinced that Bradley Sawyer had gotten his hands on Kerry somehow. M
inutes ago, he could’ve sworn he’d heard a whimper, then rustling underbrush.
He hadn’t heard anything since then, but his mind had come up with a dozen scenarios already, all of them gut-wrenching. He couldn’t stop imagining, couldn’t stop the guilt, the burning desire to annihilate anyone who’d dare to hurt Kerry again.
“You’ve gotta hold the light steady,” Henry said. “You need me to do it?”
“No.” Grey gripped the flashlight tighter. It was all he could do to compensate for the tremors that were wracking him. He couldn’t keep his hands steady when they were shaking with the urge to destroy, to do anything and everything to get Kerry safe again – for good.
* * * * *
As Brad’s truck rumbled down the country road, everything seemed surreal. The shadows were deep and the Halloween moon was dim; Kerry could imagine the spirits of the dead walking the earth for the night, revisiting the places where their lives had been lived and lost, wondering how it had all gone wrong.
She could almost imagine being one of them.
Brad had some deranged plan to take her back to Kentucky, make her live there with him, like she was still his wife. But the pain in her back was knife-like, and she knew the tenuous control he maintained was only so that he could get her somewhere else, where he could do what he wanted without fear of being discovered.
His promises of revenge echoed in her mind and his scars stood out dull red in the moonlight, filling her with a fresh sense of horror. She knew that he’d probably beat her to death before sunrise, either purposely or because he couldn’t control his rage.
Unless she figured a way out of this.
As subtly as she could, she tested her bonds.
He’d tied them cruelly, and they were unyielding – already, her hands and feet were going numb, her circulation inhibited by the waxy yellow rope.
She focused on the pins and needles feeling, trying to distract herself from the pain in her back. If she let that overwhelm her, she’d curl into a ball and despair. That wouldn’t get her anywhere.
She forced herself to look at Brad. Unwanted memories flooded back to her, not just of the violence he’d subjected her to, but other things, too. Their first date, at the aging movie theater back in their hometown. Her first stab of doubt, afterward, when he’d shocked her by feeling her up in the car. The mingled excitement and guilt that had filled the downward spiral after that, the one that’d tied her to him with a sense of moral obligation that seemed absurd now.
Their wedding and the unbearable days, months and years afterward.
She didn’t like the man she knew, but she did know him. Better than anyone, probably.
She hated remembering, but she couldn’t forget.
They rounded a curve in the road, and something white flickered ahead, interrupting her memories.
At first, she thought – absurdly, really – that it was Alicia. A woman in white stood by the edge of the road, her dress trailing on the asphalt by a guardrail that lined the road as it wound around another curve.
Reality hit Kerry fast and hard, causing her heart to plummet like a stone dropped into water. She recognized the figure, could have sketched her with her eyes closed. And she couldn’t help but think that the warning was too little, too late.
It never occurred to her that Brad could see Elizabeth too.
Sure enough though, when she moved with unnatural speed into the middle of the road, he swore and hit the brakes.
Kerry pitched forward and barely caught herself with her bound arms before she hit the dash. In the span of a few seconds, they went from 50 miles an hour to maybe 10.
Brad kept swearing, but the woman in the middle of the road didn’t move.
As they drew closer, he swerved to avoid her, showing no signs of stopping.
“What the fuck?” Brad twisted in his seat, staring at the woman in white.
Kerry couldn’t – wouldn’t – let them pass the final warning by. This was her last chance. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and at 50 miles an hour, trying something like this would’ve been suicide. Now, though, the opportunity was as good as it was going to get. Brad was even looking away…
She ground her teeth as she laid her bound hands on the wheel and jerked, hard, tearing it from Brad’s grip and sending the truck into a violent arc to the right. Gravity seemed to forget about them for a few seconds as they spun, and Kerry felt strangely, terrifying weightless, like the ordeal had already evicted her from her body.
* * * * *
The woods seemed to absorb and destroy time, just like they did light. Grey sweated as he and Henry combed through the trees, searching. They’d been trained for this, had spent countless hours searching similar places that summer. But this was different.
It felt like they’d been in the woods for hours, though in reality it’d only been about ten minutes. During that time, he hadn’t found any sign of her, other than the stray sequins. He swept the light methodically across their surroundings, hoping for some flash of movement or color to zero in on.
There was nothing, only shadows and tree trunks, saplings and shed leaves scattered across the carpet of pine needles. And it was only him and Henry. Were they going in the right direction? Was Kerry still in the woods?
He didn’t know, and it was killing him. They might be wasting time. They might be moving away from her, if she was there at all. All he had to go on was that sound he’d heard and the direction he’d thought it’d come from.
When the woods ended abruptly, giving way to a road, his heart dropped.
Had they missed her?
“Shine the light over there.” Henry nodded to the left.
At first, Grey didn’t see it. Then the light glinted off a wheel 50 yards away, and he realized what he was looking at.
CHAPTER 26
From where she lay in the truck’s cab, Kerry could see the stars. Countless and brilliant, they made up for the near lack of a moon. They were also the only white light illuminating the scene of the accident now – Elizabeth’s ghost was gone.
Now, Kerry was alone with Brad again.
The wreck had thrown him on top of her. Kerry had hit the back of her head on the window, but not hard enough to be knocked out. He’d been thrown against it face first and hadn’t moved since. His blood was warm and wet on her shoulder, but she could feel him breathing.
She didn’t know how long she had before he woke up, and fresh panic filled her as she wondered. Her wrists and ankles were still bound, and he was nearly twice her weight. Besides the pain, her back had been weakened by whatever injury he’d caused it. She couldn’t get out from under his unconscious body.
She could only hope, desperately, that another vehicle would come along soon, that she hadn’t wrecked the truck for nothing.
She didn’t dare call for help, since that might wake Brad up, and so she waited, her frantic heart beats marking each desperate second.
Her heart leapt when she heard a voice.
* * * * *
The truck was facing the wrong way, and its tail end had crumpled into the guardrail. The flashlight beam showed the marks the tires had left on the asphalt, dark ribbons that swerved and spun. The headlights were on, and the vehicle was still running, but Grey couldn’t see anyone inside the cab.
He and Henry ran toward the truck anyway. It had a set of North Carolina tags, but other than that, it was exactly like the truck Brad had originally abducted Kerry in. The tags could easily have been stolen.
His boots were pounding the pavement just a few yards from the vehicle when someone cried out from inside.
He recognized Kerry’s voice, or at least, he thought he did. The sound of his own blood rushing in his ears drowned out everything else as he sprinted.
He was almost to the truck when he saw a shape rise up from inside – the shape of a person much too large to be Kerry. A man.
There was a second shape, a second person – Grey realized that when the man started swinging at the ot
her one.
The unmistakable sound of a hard punch came from inside the cab, and Grey yelled, angry beyond words.
He was ready to literally rip Brad Sawyer apart. But when he was a few feet from the truck, the windshield exploded in a deafening rain of glass.
At first, he thought Henry had fired at the truck. But when he looked at his friend, he realized that the gunfire had come from within the vehicle.
It kept coming, too, and Henry couldn’t fire back without risking hitting Kerry.
Grey dove in front of the truck’s grille, hitting the pavement hard.
It almost got him killed. The truck lurched forward and he barely rolled to the side in time to avoid being run over. His cape got caught on a tire and was torn away, sucked under the vehicle.
The truck made scraping noises as it went, its tires rubbing against its bent wheel wells. Still, the sound of Grey’s beating heart was louder, at least to his ears.
He was seized by the absurd urge to reach out and grab the truck, stop it in its tracks. Kerry was inside with the asshole who’d hit her, who’d hurt her, and that asshole was armed. As the truck’s damaged wheels turned, grinding broken glass against the pavement, Grey’s heart was torn halfway out. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – let anyone take her away.
An explosive noise rattled his brain, even his teeth as he clenched his jaw, steeling himself. He half expected to look down and see blood welling out of some part of his body, but no – Henry had fired his gun. Grey could see that now, could see Henry standing with the weapon raised, firing another round as the truck barreled toward him.
The scraping sounds coming from the vehicle got louder, and then came the squeal of metal against asphalt.
