Road's End (The Narrow Gate Book 4)

by Janean Worth

  Panic gripped her. Time was running out. Either she’d soon pass out from lack of air or she’d have to draw a breath and suck in the fumes from the cloth. She shook her head wildly from side to side, kicking her feet into his shin, but he was immovable.

  Her lungs were screaming for air. She couldn’t hold out another second. She reached up to try to claw his face, but he turned his face to the side, easily avoiding her fingernails.

  Biology took over then, and she gasped in a breath unwillingly. The fumes burned down her throat, making her eyes water, and almost instantly she felt the effect of them.

  Her vision blurred, her head swam, and she felt the strength go out of her arms. Though her heart still pounded in terror, a strange lethargy took hold of her body.

  As her vision began to go gray at the edges, the man moved her toward the curb. Her arms and legs flopped like a rag-doll with each stride that he took.

  Just before she lost consciousness for the second time that day, he finally removed the cloth from her face, holding her against his chest with one steely arm around her ribcage. She heard him open a vehicle door, and just as her vision faded to black, she felt him stuff her into the back of a dark‑colored van.

  Chapter Nine

  When Bella awoke, her head ached, her mouth tasted like she’d been eating ashes, and her eyelids felt as if they were lined with sandpaper instead of flesh.

  When she tried to move, she discovered that she couldn’t. She was bound to an uncomfortable metal chair with duct tape. Her ankles were taped to the blocky chair legs and her torso was taped to the sturdy back of the chair, several layers of the tape wrapped around her ribcage just below her breasts. Her hands were taped together, and oddly positioned to lie demurely in her lap.

  Her neck ached, and she struggled to raise her chin from her chest and right her slumped‑over position. While unconscious, her body had flopped forward and only the layers of tape around her chest had kept her in the chair. Her ribs ached from the unaccustomed pressure.

  Her body felt sluggish and slow to respond. The room was dim, but she still had to blink several times to bring everything into focus once she attained an upright position. When she was able to see clearly, she was surprised to see Lucien sitting across from her in another metal chair, only a long, metal table separating them.

  “Hello, Bella,” he said. “Glad to see that you’re awake.”

  “Where am I? Why have you done this?” Bella whispered, her throat scratchy from the burning chemical that the other man had forced upon her.

  “Oh, I haven’t done anything except protect you, Bella. I told them that you were mine, and that if they harmed you, I would not join them.”

  “What? Join who, Lucien? What are you talking about?”

  Bella kept her other questions to herself. Why did he think that she was his? Why would he want to join people who kidnapped innocent women? Why hadn’t he taken her from this place, if he were actually protecting her like he said? She didn’t think that she could ask him any of these questions without making her situation worse, so she kept them behind her teeth.

  “The Quislings. They want you and me to join them. They’ve been talking to me, and since I’ve expressed my interest in their undertakings, I’ve been allowed time to make my choice. But you, Bella, you were seen talking to an Invisible while under their surveillance, and they don’t want you joining that camp, so they’ve brought you here to convince you to join them.”

  Quislings? Invisibles? After the many shocks that she’d had earlier in the day, Lucien suddenly talking like he’d fallen down the rabbit hole probably shouldn’t bother her, but it did. If there were truly others around—and she saw no sign of them—then Lucien really could be the only reason she was still breathing. And if he was, she needed him sane, not talking crazy.

  “Their usual methods are . . .” Lucien paused, as if searching for a polite word, “ . . . rather violent, but I have persuaded them than they cannot use physical pain to turn you to their side. I even insisted that I be the one to bind you to the chair. The tape isn’t too tight, is it? I didn’t want to bruise your lovely skin.”

  For a moment, Bella could only stare at him, a myriad of conflicting thoughts jumbling through her mind, one thought returning over and over again. Someone wanted to commit acts of violence against her, and she was bound to a chair and helpless. Panic skittered at the edges of her mind and she closed her eyes before she could scream at Lucien that his question was absurd under these circumstances. He didn’t want to bruise her? But he’d let them keep her here, bound like an animal?

  “Thank you,” she finally choked out, gritting her teeth against the bile that rose in her throat at having to placate him. “They’re not too tight. The tape isn’t hurting me.”

  “Good, good. Then, I’ll tell them that they can begin.”

  Lucien rose from his chair and turned toward the door.

  “Wait! Wait, Lucien. Please don’t go. What are they going to do to me?”

  Ice‑cold fear chased down her spine. Lucien seemed to be insane, but at least she knew him. If he went to get others, her situation would only get worse, she was sure of it.

  “You’d like for me to stay? But, Bella, it is sure to be a humiliating and shameful process, with them digging around in your most private thoughts and feelings. Why would you want your future husband to witness that?”

  Bella gulped. They were going to dig around in her mind? Then she gulped again, realizing the rest of what he’d said. Future husband?

  That’s just what the other man had said to her earlier. The stalker must have been telling the truth. She immediately wondered if the rest of what the man had said had been truthful as well.

  She knew that she shouldn’t ask, but the question burned for an answer, “More humiliating than losing my fiancé because I wasn’t affectionate enough, Lucien? More shameful than losing my job because Mr. Bouthar thought that I was doing drugs?”

  Bella had thought that he’d get angry at her veiled accusations, but instead, Lucien smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners in genuine amusement.

  “Ah, so you’re more clever than even I had thought. Figured out that I had a little something to do with your bad luck lately, have you?”

  Astounded at this open admission, Bella felt righteous anger boil up within her. It searing away the hard edges of her fear.

  “How? How did you do it?”

  “With my gifts. You have them too, and that’s what they want to talk to you about,” he turned to go, stopping only when he reached the door. “And don’t worry, Bella. They will not hurt you . . . physically. Just cooperate, and this won’t take long at all.”

  He left without another glance at her, closing the door behind him.

  She didn’t want anyone digging around in her mind, and after all that she’d witnessed that day, what she would have once scoffed at as impossible suddenly seemed entirely too real to her.

  She glanced around the room. Unpainted concrete walls, bare concrete floor, no windows and only one door, sparsely furnished with only the two metal chairs and the metal table. A single bare bulb hung from an unfinished fixture in the ceiling, its weak yellow light not strong enough to chase away the shadows in the corners. The place looked like an unfinished basement that could have existed anywhere in any city. It gave her no clues as to where she was, and she saw no avenue of escape.

  She shuddered, trying not to think of what that meant for her.

  What did these people want from her? Quislings? Was Lucien involved with some sort of cult?

  Bella tested her bonds, trying to tear her upper torso loose from the chair, but they were too strong. She tried to push with her foot and tear the tape away from the chair leg, but the tensile strength of the duct tape was just too great.

  Panic rose within her and tears of pain stung her eyes as she rocked desperately against her bonds, nearly tipping over the chair, the tape cutting deeply into the tender skin beneath her br
easts. After several moments, she stilled, realizing that she was accomplishing nothing but hurting herself, and that wouldn’t gain her anything.

  There was only one thing that she could do. In a situation this hopeless, only the Lord would be able to save her. She closed her eyes and began to pray.

  She prayed for several minutes before she recalled a video that she’d seen once online. It had been a brief snippet created by a self‑defense instructor, designed to entice women to join his self‑defense classes, and it had shown exactly how to break duct tape bindings on the wrists. With a brief whispered prayer of thanks, Bella brought her hands up and twisted them in a fast snapping motion, just as the video had shown. To her amazement, the technique worked. The tape tore down the side of one wrist and with another couple of forceful twists, she was able to free both hands.

  Her eyes went to the door as she frantically ripped the loosened tape from her hands and bent to tear away the tape at her ankles, expecting Lucien to return with the Quislings at any moment.

  Trembling, nearly whimpering with panic, she tore at the tape frantically.

  Before she could finish tearing off the tape around her ribcage, she heard the snick of the lock at the door. Her panic returned and she clawed at the tape as she simultaneously attempted to stand.

  The door swung open and the burly man who had kidnapped her stepped inside. He was no longer wearing the long black trench coat, but he still wore his mean, half‑amused expression.

  Bella shuddered at the look he gave her. He had nothing good planned for her, she was sure.

  Three other men followed him into the stark room, and they could have been his clones. They were all big, muscular, and mean-looking. As they entered the room, the atmosphere seemed to change, as if they’d brought evil with them.

  The hair on Bella’s nape rose to attention, and gooseflesh puckered the skin on her arms as a feeling of heavy, permeating evil reached across the room and seemed to caress her.

  Seeing her tugging at the last of her bonds, all four of the men smiled an identical smile—predatory expressions of delight that their prey still remained caught and at their mercy.

  Bella shivered, her fingers still plucking at the tape frenetically, nearly hysterical in her need to free herself.

  As they drew closer to her, a single thought seemed to explode inside her mind with such force that it blocked out everything else—even her fear.

  Sing, Bella! Sing a song of praise! Sing now, and be prepared to run!

  She knew immediately that the thought was not hers, but it galvanized her into action nevertheless. She didn’t know where it came from, or how, or why, but she knew that she had to do as it instructed.

  She reached down to rip the last of the tape from her chest, freeing herself from the chair at the same time that she began to sing “Amazing Grace” at the top of her lungs. She didn’t know who had sent the thought. Didn’t even question that someone had been able to send a thought to her. She just sang.

  Chapter Ten

  The atmosphere in the room changed again immediately, and Bella no longer felt the strange press of evil that had sought to envelop her. To Bella’s shock, the men responded to her song as if someone had stunned them with a shock grenade.

  They covered their ears, wincing, groaning as if in pain. The burly man’s eyes widened as she dashed past him and out the open door, but not a single one of them seemed to be able to do anything to stop her.

  The door to her short‑term cell led out into a colorless gray hallway, and Bella broke into a run as she fled down it, still singing.

  The men did not give chase until she was nearly at the end of the hallway, some sixty feet away from them. She kept singing and running, running and singing. The words flowed from her lips easily—“Amazing Grace” was her favorite hymn—and seemed almost to take on a strange kind of power. She didn’t understand it, but it seemed as if her love for the Lord poured out of her through her song, creating a pocket of protection around her.

  There was a door at the end of the hallway, but it wasn’t locked. She flung herself through it and then up the flight of steps just beyond, starting to pant with effort. Her song suffered, becoming choppy as she struggled for breath, but she sang on, gasping out the words.

  When she reached the top of the stairs, there was another door. She hurried through it and discovered what looked to be a very large office area. It was filled with desks and chairs and tables and people. Lots and lots of people. And they all turned to stare at her as she entered the room, panting and singing loudly.

  Seeing them all, Bella faltered, then stopped singing. She stood near the door for a moment, panting, unsure of what to do. There were so many people. And they looked fairly normal, dressed in office attire, some drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups, some chatting around desks, others typing or writing, or talking on the phone.

  How could such a normal‑looking office sit on top of a kidnapper’s lair? It made no sense.

  And then she felt it. The place was not as normal as it had seemed at first glance. What she’d felt in the basement was here too, in this seemingly normal office. A creeping sense of pervasive evil cast an invisible pall over the room.

  Bella shivered and edged carefully away from the door at her back, feeling like a deer caught unexpectedly among a very large pack of wolves.

  A man detached himself from the group of people nearest to her, heading in her direction, his clothes and the embroidered insignia upon his arm designating him as security.

  He smiled at her, and when he neared, he reached out a solicitous hand.

  “May I help you?” he asked. His voice was calm and reassuring, yet lightly oiled with a strange, hidden malevolence.

  Bella felt an odd burning inside her mind, and then a paralyzing fear began to creep into her emotions. Powerful, irresistible, all‑encompassing fear . . . It seized hold of her mind in a vice‑tight grip, and she nearly cried out at the intensity of the emotion.

  Sing, Bella! Sing!

  The thought blasted through her mind with such force that it almost seemed to ring in her ears. It dislodged the fear, sweeping it aside with such power that for a moment, Bella’s mind felt like a blank slate, wiped clean of everything except a desire to follow the instruction implanted there.

  She didn’t hesitate a moment longer. She began to sing just as the security officer’s fake, oily smile morphed into a snarl and he lunged for her. Singing loudly, she dodged him and headed for the outside entrance to the office area, where she could see dusk staining the sky a deep orange through the double glass doors.

  As she passed amongst them, people covered their ears and turned away, almost as if her voice, her song, hurt them.

  The strange malevolence that filled the large room seemed to part before her, like water under the prow of an enormous ship, leaving a wake of silent, eddying wickedness behind her.

  The paralyzing fear seemed to snap at her heels, chasing her out of the office space, a weakened distortion of what it had felt like moments before. Her voice, the song, the words of praise seemed to hold it at bay while she ran as if her life depended upon her reaching the doors as soon as possible.

  She burst outside into the setting sun just as the four men from the basement, and Lucien, entered the office from the stairwell door.

  Lucien shouted at her, but she paid him no mind.

  To her never‑ending gratitude and utter surprise, not a single one of them gave chase. They just stood near the doors, frowning ferociously at her as she escaped, as if rooted to the spot by some invisible force.

  A very large parking lot spread out before her as she exited the glass doors. Waning sunlight limned the shiny blacktop with an orange tint, making her squint against its bright reflection. Panting, sweating, singing, Bella ran a few steps along the sidewalk. Confusion inundated her thoughts. She wasn’t sure what had just happened in the building behind her, but she felt lucky to have escaped it.

  She stopped singing, and
cautiously slowed to a walk, trying to catch her breath, expecting someone to give chase at any moment.

  She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, but her kidnappers were still not pursuing her. She could see them well enough as she passed by the full‑length glass windows surrounding the exit doors. If looks could kill, she’d be dead, but all they did was glare at her, their eyes promising painful retribution if they ever ran across her path again.

  Bella didn’t know what to make of it. She felt as if perhaps she had fallen down the rabbit hole too.

  Need a ride, Bella?

  Bella started, hearing the thought in her mind. It had the same flavor as the other thoughts that urged her so strongly to sing, though this one was more of a suggestion than a command. She looked around, trying to find the source and spotted the man easily.

  To her left, leaning against a sleek, red sports car, stood her stalker.

  She was close enough that she could see him roll his eyes in what appeared to be exasperation.

  “For the last time, Bella,” he said aloud, sighing heavily, “I am not a stalker!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Bella eyed the man and the short woman sitting in the passenger seat of the car, unsure. Had he just helped to rescue her from her kidnappers? Probably. Or, rather, his thoughts had.

  And how did that even work? How was he able to speak into her mind?

  “If you’d care to get into the car, I’d be happy to tell you,” he said. “Their inactivity inside will only last for so long. The pain of the Lord’s goodness is more quickly shaken off by the evil in the physical world, which is not the case in the spiritual realm.”

  “Oh, I forgot, you can read my mind too,” Bella said, unable to completely strip the sarcasm from her voice. It was all just so bizarre.

  “I get it, you don’t believe me. And, when I was in your shoes, I didn’t believe, either. But, after what just happened, I would think you’d be willing to hear my explanation, at the very least.”