Chained (Caged Book 2) (11 page)

R
OBBIE GRUNTED AS
I
HELPED
him through my front door. He had one arm around my shoulders and a crutch tucked under his other arm. “Fucking hell,” he grumbled, the loss of independence grieving him more than the pain. “I’m already sick of this shit.”

I chuckled, kicking the pile of post that sat on the rug to one side so Robbie wouldn’t slip on it. “Give it time, man. It’s gonna take a while.”

He blew out a breath as I lowered him on to the sofa. “It’s already been three weeks; I should be healing by now.”

Anger made me clench my fists. “Don’t worry, Rob. You’ll get your retribution.”

He quirked a brow at that. “I thought Terry was yours.”

Laughing loudly, I nodded and headed into the kitchen to fix us a drink. “He is, but I’ll let you watch.”

“You’re so fucking generous,” he shouted after me.

“I am.”

After passing him his coffee I went to pick up the mail. Red came trotting down the stairs, finally sensing mine and Rob’s presence and deciding we were worth a look in. True to her form, perception one of her strongest points, she gently climbed onto the sofa beside Rob and proceeded to lick his ear.

He brushed her away but smiled and started to stroke her head. He loved her as much as I did.

The first few letters were junk, and throwing them aside, I frowned when I saw a padded but thin brown envelope in between the usual white ones.

Tearing it open, I stared in confusion as I pulled out a memory stick and a thick knot of long, copper hair.

Every part of me froze in fear. My hand shook when I took the hair and lifted it to my nose. Air rushed from my lungs and my jaw started to vibrate when the soft but unique smell of honey and coconut – Kloe’s exclusive shampoo – struck every one of my senses.

“Anderson?” Robbie knew too, the wary way he said my name had me trembling harder.

Rage poured through me, my heart struggling to cope with the influx of adrenaline soaring my system.

Silently, I grabbed the laptop and inserted the USB. My hands shook harder, my fingers hovering over the play icon. I didn’t want to watch, yet every part of me begged to.

The screen was dark as the video came into focus. A dungeon.

My breath caught and my heart stopped beating when Kloe’s limp and naked body came into shot. She hung from a chain, her arms stretched high as her fingers clung to the links of metal. Blood trickled down her chest and her stomach, dripping onto her thighs and down her legs. Her hair had been hacked off, and short and matted curls clung to her damp face.

Ice flowed through me instead of blood. Shocks of electricity beat for my heart. And pure undiluted fury filled my lungs instead of air.

Robbie looked from the screen to me, but, wisely, he didn’t say anything.

My beautiful woman looked dead. And as if linked to her I could slowly feel my soul crumble and die within me too.

“She tastes delicious.” Terry’s cold voice filled the speakers but he didn’t appear in the video. “Her blood has such an exquisite aroma, don’t you think, Judd?”

Blood filled my mouth and trickled down my chin when I bit into my lip.

“We’re waiting for you, son. You know where to find us. And if you don’t… well, I don’t hold out much hope for our lady.”

“She’s mine,” I growled as the video ended and it asked me if I wanted to play it again. “She was always mine, you fucking cunt.”

“Anderson, do you have any idea where they are?” Rob asked cautiously, his own fear loud in his quiet voice.

I laughed. “I’ve always known.”

He looked puzzled. “What? But why have you waited?”

Why had I waited? That was a question I’d asked myself time and time again.

“It doesn’t matter. The wait is over.”

M
Y BABY WAS DEAD
. A
ND
inside, so was I.

Blood seemed to pour from every inch of me. My skin, my womb, my heart. Pain was no longer part of me.
The nothing
had taken over days ago.

Anderson had told me that his father had loved me. How very wrong he had been. Just as I’d always told him. Yet now it was too late for him to see exactly what his father had thought of me.

Hours had merged into days, and days into a week. I knew I wouldn’t get out of there alive, not now. Terry’s evil had morphed into something way beyond depraved. I had thought what he did to me as a child couldn’t ever be outdone. How fucking wrong I had been.

Urine trickled down the inside of my leg and the sensation of the warm liquid between my legs was, for a short period, relaxing, washing away the grime and blood that caked my sore skin.

I had been so hungry, but exhaustion now overruled anything else. I didn’t think my stomach could have sustained anything other than acid and bile now anyway.

As usual, soft music played in the background. It had been a constant since I had woken in this dark and cold room many days ago. I prayed for silence, begged silently for my mind to hear something other than the stupid orchestral pieces that plagued my waking hours, and now my fraught sleeping ones.

Terry occasionally removed my cuffs and allowed me a few hours’ rest on the hard concrete floor, my strung muscles screaming in both gratitude and agony. But today, once again, I hung limply from the chain, my body depleted of anything other than exhaustion.

There was a pool of dried and fresh blood beneath me, a wide circle of red liquid that I craved to curl up in for warmth and the very slightest hint of softness. It looked so appealing against the harsh expanse of grey, the deep hue of my own life tempting beyond anything.

The room was roughly twenty-foot square of nothing but bricks and cement. An old single iron bed sat in one corner and various sized chains hung against the flat of one wall. Thick loops of metal were secured into the wall and into the floor beneath, with a length of chain connected to each one, and a cuff connected to the end of each. Rickety wooden steps led to a door where, sporadically, Terry would enter. There was no routine to his visits, no regular sequence that I could build myself up for. He came when he wanted, and he only left when I was broken beyond the previous time he came to me.

I knew exactly where I was. And why I was here.

The Dawson’s farmhouse where Anderson had been held hostage for over twenty years was now the place where I would die. Somewhat ironic, really. As if haunted by some paranormal presence, I could feel the weeping soul of Judd Asher around me, as if the walls held the echoes of that boy’s cries and the floor was a sponge that had soaked up his many tears. My blood now mixed with his, and the infrequent beat of my heart played in perfect symmetry with a ghost’s.

The music paused and I tensed in the shackles. His footsteps grew louder, and if I’d had the energy, I would have lifted my head and glared at him when his cold chuckle chilled what little air was in the room. The hairs on my arms snapped tightly and my already dry throat swelled, making it difficult to breathe.

“Good morning, Samantha.”

I couldn’t give him a reaction. I was too far into the recesses of my mind to even contemplate answering him. It was warm in my head; a sunny place where bluebells swayed in the soft breeze. My father stood before me, his arms outstretched and his wide grin welcoming me into his heart. Although I’d never met him, never learned anything about him apart from the lies my mother told me, I knew in my heart that he was dead. I knew without a doubt that the only person who could have ever loved me had been taken away before he even had a chance to whisper his words of love in my tiny ear.

“Samantha,” my father whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”

I smiled. Death was now so close, so real. And I begged for it. I pleaded with my heart to stop, to take the break it so longed for, for it to give in and grant both me and my dad the time we never had the chance for.

“Samantha!” Terry’s voice broke through my pleas and my mind struggled on which to concentrate. Life or death. The choice was easy, but accepting it was harder than just letting go.

Pain struck my cheek and I finally opened my eyes. I couldn’t see. I had been in the dark for so long that my irises screamed in pain as a blinding light broke through the darkness.

Squeezing my eyes closed once again, the darkness a welcome relief, another voice brought my consciousness slamming to the front.

“What the fuck have you done?”

“Anderson?” His name was slurred and quiet as it left me and I knew he hadn’t heard me. But Terry had.

“I brought you a little gift, Princess.”

There was a scuffle, and then Terry’s vicious sneer. “Careful, Judd. A simple exchange. Her for you. Keeping promises is something I would have thought you’d abide by. Seems I was wrong.”

“I always promised to kill you,” Anderson spat. I wanted my eyes to work. I wanted to see his face, see the raging storm in the depths of his eyes, the only thing that could calm the raging storm in the core of me. But blindness still crucified me.

“And yet here we are,” Terry taunted. “If you want to free her then you’ll do as I asked, Judd.”

Silence descended but it was thick with fury and tension, both men refusing to back down. I wanted to tell Anderson to run, to go, but I sensed something holding him back, something I wasn’t aware of binding him to the room with me.

The silence broke as chains and metal clanged, each piercing sound hurting my sensitive ears. I fought to block out the volume after nothing but muted music and Terry’s voice for so long but then my ears pricked with every spoken word and my head became confused.

“You have what you want,” Anderson spoke. “Now let her go.”

There was a loud laugh, one that I knew came from Terry; I wouldn’t ever forget the sound of that.

I tried to shake my head. I knew what was happening. Anderson had put himself back in the very same chains that had held him for so long, just for my freedom. He said he hadn’t loved me. How wrong he had been about that too.

“You seriously think it’s that easy, son? That easy to forget?”

“Forget?” Anderson scoffed. “I’ll never fucking forget what you did.”

I was fighting with the light to see but it was hopeless. There were no blurred edges, no foggy outlines for me to concentrate on. My eyesight had gone. Whether it was due to shock, damage to my eyes with Terry’s cruel persistent hits, or due to the fact that the blackness around me had seeped into my vision as well as my soul I couldn’t say, but I knew I would never see again.

“Good, I was hoping you wouldn’t,” Terry sneered. “Some things are always worth a memory.”

Although I couldn’t see, I could feel every fibre of Anderson. I could feel when his eyes moved to me, when the beat of his heart stuttered, when the slight hitch in his breathing occurred, and when the feel of chains on his skin fractured him over and over. I was so in tune with this man that I physically felt his hand slip into mine and his comforting words float into my head.

“It’s okay, little wolf,” he whispered in my head. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. Trust me.”

“I trust you.”

Unaware that I had spoken aloud, I jolted when Terry spat, “What the fuck? You’ve gone crazy. It didn’t take long to break her. Such a tight little cunt, that one. But then again, it was much tighter when she was nine.”