by Blake Pierce
“Sounds like a snap,” Jessie said sarcastically, knowing her father would appreciate her reluctantly noting just how difficult that process must actually have been.
“If you’re prepared, yes,” he agreed. “Then all you have to do is put your extra clothes with your fake ID on the unconscious man, take him up to an industrial duct fan near a courtyard-facing vent, and shove him through. He’ll come down in pieces like candy dropping from a piñata.”
He paused briefly, almost as if he was waiting for applause. When none was forthcoming, he continued.
“And if you set things up ahead of time by shimmying down a rope to that vent when you know you’re on a camera that will be checked later, you’ve doubled your ‘confirmation of fake death’ pleasure. Chopped up body that looks like me? Check. My fake ID left with the body? Check. Surveillance video of me entering the vent? Check. My actual DNA splattered all over the scene? Checkmate.”
“That is pretty clever,” Jessie whispered hoarsely. “But how did you find me at the bar?”
As she asked the question, she rocked back and forth as if in terrible discomfort. She was but that wasn’t the point. She was trying to keep her arms from losing all sensation. Getting good old dad to describe his exploits was a useful way to extend her life. But if she didn’t have any way to prevent him from using that knife, all the delaying tricks would be for naught.
Her father didn’t seem troubled by her movement. In fact, seeing the blood from her wounds drip wildly on the floor as if she was the brush for an unfinished Jackson Pollock painting seemed to give him great pleasure.
“That was easy too,” he said. “After he escaped, I had a powwow with our mutual acquaintance, Bolton Crutchfield. He helped tidy up a few of the boo-boos I got in our last encounter. But I was suspicious that his loyalties might have been compromised. He used to be such a devoted young man, eager to learn, happy to do my bidding without question. But then he met you and he seemed to go a bit soft. His affection for you clouded his judgment. And when he learned I was going to punish you for good, he seemed…unenthusiastic.”
“Traitor,” Jessie volunteered sarcastically.
“Indeed,” Thurman agreed. “Luckily, I fed him a story about learning the location of your safe house, which was, I admit, a ruse. I also put a tracker with a bug on him. He didn’t expect an old fella like myself to use such new-fangled technology. That’s how I followed him to the bar. That’s how I learned he’d warned you about my possible attack on the safe house. That’s how I knew you’d almost certainly go back to that same bar to celebrate my “demise.” But in case you’re wondering, let me assure you, once I’m done with you, I’ll be paying a visit to Mr. Crutchfield to let him know just how I feel about his treachery.”
Jessie ignored the Crutchfield threat. His safety was pretty low on her list of priorities. Stalling her father long enough to get full feeling back in her arms was at the top.
She saw the girl trying to take advantage of the delay too. Whenever Thurman looked away from her, she managed to maneuver the rag stuffed in her mouth out just a little bit more. From the cuts on her swollen, discolored lips, Jessie could tell she’d probably been trying to get the thing out of her mouth for hours. She looked like she was close to spitting it out entirely, not that it would do her much good.
“But you couldn’t have known when we’d be at the bar,” Jessie pointed out, drawing his attention back to her. “How did you have time to tie up the people who live here?”
“The people who live here?’ he repeated, amused. “These folks don’t live here, Junebug. The owners of this house have been out of town for a week. I brought in these fine citizens from another neighborhood altogether.”
Jessie, amid all the blood and madness, found that extra perplexing.
“But why them? These are innocent people.”
Xander laughed.
“No one is truly innocent. You should know that by now, Junebug. Besides, it’s going to be so much fun watching this girl watch you die. I’ll get a front row seat. And despite all your stalling, I’ll still have time to leave. Your FBI friend and his lackeys have to go house to house searching for you. By the time they get here, you’ll be dead and I’ll be long gone.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jessie asked, genuinely dumbfounded.
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know,” he said gleefully. “I almost want you to live just you so can learn the big twist. I would love to see the look on your face when you discovered the truth. Unfortunately, you are part of the twist, so it’s just not possible. Isn’t it ironic? Anyway, enough chit-chat. It’s daughter gutting time.”
With that, he stopped talking and advanced on her.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Jessie wasn’t ready.
Her arms still felt floppy and weak, like a rag doll. As Xander moved closer, she watched him almost spring with enthusiasm. His once-short hair, now flopping over his forehead, bounced up and down.
As he approached, she noticed something she’d been too frantic to pick up on earlier. Underneath his drooping hair, on the right side of his forehead, was a small flesh-colored bandage.
It occurred to her that it was in the exact same spot that Bolton Crutchfield had circled on his own forehead earlier this evening as he stood by the tree outside the Jerebko house. She doubted it was a coincidence. Was Crutchfield trying to tell her something? If, as Thurman suspected, his loyalty now lay with her, the answer almost surely was yes.
Crutchfield was the one who patched Thurman up after his multiple injuries escaping from Jessie’s apartment. One of those injuries was a nightstick to the forehead. Jessie had landed the vicious blow to the head with it, in the exact spot where that bandage now rested. Was the wound worse than it looked? It seemed that Crutchfield thought so.
Before Jessie knew what to do with the information, Thurman was on her, swinging the knife down at the right side of her body. She twisted away from him and felt the blade slice down her back behind her right shoulder, mowing through her flesh.
She heard a scream, certain it was her own. It took a second for her to process that it was actually the girl in the chair, who had finally managed to spit out the rag. It surprised Thurman too and he turned to look at her in shock. He went over to her, retrieved and replaced the rag in her mouth, then turned his attention back to Jessie.
The brief reprieve had given Jessie the time she needed to come up with an idea. It was simple and stupid and unlikely to work. But it was all she had.
She waited until her father lumbered toward her again, making sure not to move until he was too close to back away. Then, with all the strength she could muster, she tugged down on the bungee cords with her tied-up wrists and used the rebounding momentum to lift her legs high in the air. She extended them out in one quick, violent kicking motion.
The heel of her right shoe made perfect contact with the bandage on Thurman’s forehead. She heard what she thought was a cracking sound as he stumbled backward, howling in pain. He bent over, trying to stem the sudden flow of blood spewing out around the bandage with one hand, while still holding the knife with the other.
When he looked back up at her, blood was streaming down the entire right side of his face, pouring into his eye. He wiped it away sloppily as he came at her, still moaning loudly. His already unsteady, shuffling gait was even clumsier as he bore down on her, his eyes blinking in a mix of pain and seeming confusion.
Behind him, the girl suddenly rocked back in the chair she was tied to and then violently flung herself forward, chair and all. Her body slammed into Xander’s back as he moved away from her, knocking him off balance. He stumbled and dropped to the ground, landing on his knees in front of Jessie
He was clearly disoriented, but not so much that he couldn’t raise the knife above his head, his unfocused eyes trained on the daughter directly before him.
As he did so, Jessie leapt up again, ignoring the crack she felt that probably indicated she’d broken her lef
t wrist. Xander swung down, the blade slicing along the outer edge of Jessie’s left calf as she clamped her legs around his neck.
With her legs resting on his shoulders, Jessie slammed her knees together hard, smashing her father’s head between them. Before he processed what was happening, she did it again, and then a third time. Each time, she heard a gratifying thwack as the hard bones of her inner knees collided with her father’s temples.
That didn’t stop him from swinging at her. He jabbed at the knees that were the source of his agony. But because Jessie kept moving them back and forth, he only got in a few clean blows. Finally, one wild swing dug deep into her right thigh, embedding there.
Despite the searing anguish she felt in her leg, Jessie didn’t stop beating her legs in and out. The force of the movement ripped the handle of the blade from Xander’s hand. Jessie watched, almost as an observer, as her knees continued to box her father’s skull, the butcher knife quivering as it protruded from her flesh.
Xander seemed bewildered now, his eyes unfocused, his breathing labored. He slumped forward slightly, held mostly upright by Jessie’s legs. With his neck now squarely between her thighs, she compressed them together, using all her remaining strength to squeeze off his windpipe and choke every last bit of air out of him.
It seemed to be working, as his eyes bulged wide as he gasped for breath he couldn’t find. And still she squeezed, even as it felt like the cord above her might tear her hands from her wrists.
Xander’s eyes fluttered closed and his weight slumped completely forward into Jessie. She pulled her thighs apart and let him collapse to the ground face first. Her feet slammed hard against the floor, like heavy dumbbells being dropped. But knowing fatigue and unrelenting physical anguish would take over any second, she didn’t allow herself even a moment to recover.
Bracing her left leg with the bloated knee on the floor, she raised her right leg, the one with the butcher knife still protruding from it, high in the air. Then she brought it down, her right foot slamming solidly into the back Xander’s head, smashing his face into the floor.
She heard a dull, almost inaudible moan. The sound only infuriated her and she raised her leg again and once more brought it down hard, connecting in the same spot. She did it a third time and saw that the impact made the knife slide out of her thigh and tumble across the floor, where it rested beside the girl, still strapped to the chair, looking up at her.
Jessie returned her attention to her father and focused her concentration on the bloody spot on the back of his head, almost like an “X” on a treasure map. She lifted her leg once more, knowing that she only had the strength left for this final stomp. With every last bit of force she could muster, she brought her leg down. The heel of her foot hit solidly and she heard a satisfyingly sickening crack as a chunk of his skull splintered open.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
She was done.
Without even the energy to slide her foot off the back of Xander’s head, Jessie slumped down, no longer aware or even interested in whether her arms were attached to her body. She breathed in slow, labored heaves. She could hear the blood dripping from various places on her body and splattering softy on the floor. Her eyes drifted lazily around the room as she flirted with unconsciousness.
They eventually settled on the girl in the chair, resting on its side on the floor. She was inching slowly toward the knife, which had landed near her. As she moved, the only sound in the room beside the continuous splatter of Jessie’s blood was the scraping of the wooden chair as the girl moved. She scooted over until she was able to grip it with her right hand and angle the blade back toward her wrists. She began to saw back and forth at the duct tape.
It was a slow process and she cut into her own wrist as often as she cut the tape. Jessie heard her muffled cries through the rag each time she nicked herself especially hard. Eventually, she had snipped through enough of the tape that she was able to extricate her hand. She moved on to her left wrist, which came loose much quicker now that she had the full use of her right hand. After that, she pulled out the rag and looked up at Jessie.
“It’s going to be all right, Junebug,” she said reassuringly.
Jessie chuckled despite the pain. Of course, the girl had no idea what her real name was. She’d only ever heard Xander call her Junebug. So that’s what she called her too.
The girl interpreted the laugh as a sign that Jessie was losing it, which wasn’t far off. As quickly as she could, the girl cut her legs free and, with much effort, got to her feet. She shuffled over to Jessie, carefully avoiding the body of the man who’d tortured her and killed her family. Despite the blood oozing liberally from his head, she gave him a wide berth.
When she got close to Jessie, she wrapped an arm around her to help support her weight as she cut the cord attached to her left arm. Jessie slumped down hard and the girl had to adjust her position to hold her up. Then she cut the second cord and Jessie collapsed into her arms.
The girl had been expecting it and caught her before easing her gently to the ground. Jessie smiled up at the girl with the concerned look on her face.
Free of the restraints and the gag, she looked surprisingly composed, all things considered. Without the mask of fear contorting her face, Jessie pegged her age as about seventeen. Her sandy-blonde, shoulder-length hair clung sweatily to her neck. Her green eyes, puffy and red from crying, exuded intelligence.
“My name is Jessie,” she mumbled, not sure if the words she tried to form were actually coherent.
“Hi, Jessie,” the girl said, confirming they were. “I’m Hannah. I hear sirens outside. I’m going to get help. I promise I’ll be right back.”
Jessie nodded as the girl staggered off to the front of the house. After she was gone, Jessie managed to roll over from her side onto her back. She looked up at the body of the other woman, likely Hannah’s mother, still dangling lifelessly above her. Somewhere off beyond the couch was the girl’s father.
Rolling her head to the left, Jessie looked at Xander Thurman. His head was on its side so she could see his face. It was drenched in blood, as the wound on his forehead was still seeping. His eyes were open, though the left was so encased in blood she couldn’t really see it.
But the right was mostly clear. And as she lay on the ground, waiting for help to arrive, Jessie stared at the green eye of the man who’d tried to kill her, her own father. She couldn’t help but admit, as she drifted off into oblivion, that it really was like looking in a mirror.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Jessie was freezing.
It took her several seconds to realize that was because she was in a thin hospital gown with no sheets covering her in a chilly room and ice-cold oxygen blasting from a mask on her cracked, parched mouth.
She wanted desperately to ask for a blanket or at least an ice chip. But neither her mouth nor her body was reacting to her brain’s instructions. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she managed to do the one thing within her power: she groaned.
She couldn’t open her eyes but heard shuffling nearby. Soon a voice she didn’t recognize, likely a nurse, spoke to her soothingly.
“Ms. Hunt, you are at California Hospital Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles. I’m Joanie, your nurse. You were attacked and suffered several serious injuries. But the important thing to know is that you’re going to be all right. You’ve been in surgery for the last several hours. Once you’re stabilized, we’ll move you out of the ICU. One of your colleagues will be in later to walk you through what happened to you. But for now, you need to rest.”
“Ahhss,” Jessie managed to moan.
“If you’re asking for ice chips, we need to hold off on that until the doctor gives the all clear. I know you’re uncomfortable. I’m going to rub some petroleum jelly on your lips, which may help a little. I’m also going to put a sheet over you in case you’re cold. You have goose bumps. If you don’t want that, make some kind of noise. If you don’t say anything, I’ll
assume you’re okay with it.”
Jessie remained silent. Soon she felt the chill dissipate slightly, which she assumed was due to a sheet, though she never actually felt it on her skin. She did feel the Vaseline being rubbed on her lips, which offered a bit of relief.
She thought about trying to say thank you, but somewhere between the thought and the words, she slipped back into sleep.
*
This time, when she woke up, Jessie was actually capable of opening her eyes.
As she looked around the room, she was able to immediately tell that she was out of the ICU and in a regular room. For one thing, it was much quieter. Instead of dozens of beeps and voices, she heard only one machine beeping occasionally.
The lights were off and the shades were pulled. But the bright sun leaking through at the edges told her it was the middle of the day.
Which day though?
She glanced over at the two small, uncomfortable-looking chairs in the corner of the room. Both were occupied by sleeping people. One was Agent Dolan, who snored softly. In the other chair was Kat Gentry. If she was here, that meant she’d come from Europe, which suggested Jessie had been out for quite a while.
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye. A doctor was coming in. He must have noticed she’d woken up. Seeing Kat and Dolan asleep in the chairs, he closed the door quietly after entering and walked over without a sound. With his baby face and shaggy brown hair, he looked far too young be a doctor, though Jessie suspected he was probably older than she was.
