Cold-Blooded Beautiful (15 page)

The pub was crowded, more like a club attached to the lobby of a hotel.  The infectious sounds of
Radioactive
, by Imagine Dragons, hit my ears as soon as I stepped in.  The gasp after the first verse took me away, and after my first pull of a brandy, I was far beyond the pub, in my own fucking universe.

And that was where I stayed, with an entire bottle of brandy.

Until I got knocked back down into the atmosphere, spiraling and plunging in a bloody free fall back to earth. A head of ginger colored hair, the same ivory coloring of the skin, cheeks flushed a deep rose from dancing… I bet if you could’ve seen my face right then, my eyes were glazed over in sheer animalistic lust.  Someone needed to pinch my mother-bloody-freaking arm or something, because I was seriously having the dirtiest of fantasies staring at that woman
who could
be Samantha.  Then I tripped and fell, quite drunkenly I might add, landing right at her feet. 
Yeah, that happened
. 
But, that was just a random gravity test.  It’s all good.  Bloody gravity is still strong
.

Stumbling up to stand, I almost lost my nerve.  Her eyes were a golden brown; they weren’t green, making me almost turn away. 

Then the first cords of a piano whispered through the speakers. 
Just Give Me a Reason
, by Pink.  All I saw, was Samantha standing in front of me, not the stranger who was smiling and sliding her body against mine to the heart wrenching rhythm of the song.

She spoke.  I heard no words, just listened to the song, watching her lips move in the strange shadows of the dance floor.  Her head tilted, locks of Samantha-like-hair tumbled into my hands, Samantha-like-smiles danced on her lips, all invitations to take what I needed.

“I can’t believe this. You’re
Cory Thomas
the writer.  You’re
like famous
…” Her voice whined high and irritating.  It would
not
be good to rip her throat out.
No, it wouldn’t
.  I’ll just jot that little drunken note down for later, insert that shit in a book.  Love to kill people in books.  Priceless.

“Don’t talk,” I whispered.  Don’t do anything but look like Samantha, just one night. 
Just one more night
.

Her teeth bit down on her bottom lip and I cringed. 
Samantha would never pull a fake porn-star pose like that
.  Pulling the woman closer, I swayed her to the music, laying a hand across her bare neck, and another skimming under the waist of her shirt.

“I’m game if you don’t fancy sleeping alone tonight,” she whispered, standing on tiptoes to reach her hot breath into my ear.  Warm hands gently tugged at my pants, sliding a palm over my cock.  “Doesn’t that sound good?”

“One condition.”

“What’s that?” she purred.

“You don’t speak anymore, and I’m going to pretend you’re someone else.  Someone named Samantha,” I said, sliding my hand down her neck, spreading my fingers across her collarbone and feeling her heart pound against my palms.

“That’s some kink you’re into,” she giggled, drunkenly.

“Shut up,” I snapped, pulling her off the dance floor and into the lobby of the hotel.

She waved a keycard in front of my face and giggled, pulling me towards the elevator, and shoving me into an open one.  Immediately, her eyes were closed, lips slack and she began unbuttoning her shirt.  She offered a pair of small high breasts with tiny dark brown nipples.  I leaned heavily against the wall of the elevator, the handle that protruded around the inside dug into my lower back. 

Slipping her hands into the waist of her pants, she dug into her crotch and started going to town on herself, moaning, and rotating her hips. 

I thudded my head against the wall.  Everything was spinning.

Ding
.  Sixth floor. 

The elevator doors slid open and she was shoving me out, yanking me into a room numbered 601, and slamming the door behind me.

Drunken hands grabbed at my buckle, fumbled with my belt, and unzipped my pants.  Lowering herself to her knees, she smiled up at me.

Shit
.

Every part of my body screamed.

Shit
.

She had shitty brown eyes. 

All I wanted was green.

She lowered her mouth to me and before she could lay one disgusting finger on me, I shoved her face away with an open palm, fingers splayed tightly and harsh.  “I can’t bloody do this.”

“What?  Why?  Call me Samantha. I’ll be whoever you want me to be,” she slurred.  “It’s all good.”

“No.  Fuuuuck, I really
can’t
do this.  I don’t bloody want anyone but her.”

I left her there, half-naked, eyes wide.  Lipstick smeared down her chin.  Was it smeared when I met her?  How could I think she looked anything like my Sam? My perfect Sam.

I walked around aimlessly, drunk as all hell, and ended up back at my mum’s where I threw up my entire night into the wastebasket of the guest bedroom.  My body crumpled to the floor and I lay there cold and alone, hugging a garage pail full of vomit.  Closing my eyes, the room spun quickly around me, and I gradually fell asleep.

The tranquil whispers of Sam’s voice rippled through my mind, “It feels like you can’t breathe,
but you can
.  It feels like you’ll never get through this,
but you will
.”

What if I just didn’t want too?  Huh?  Bloody hell, Samantha, what then?

Chapter 10

I wish I knew how much time had passed when I finally awoke.  It would have been a bit easier to gauge how much danger I was in, but with the heavy burlap bag over my head, and the stench of vomit that lined the inside of it, I could not think one straight thought.  My body felt as if it were sitting on some sort of hard surface, my hands were still tied around my back, and my legs felt bound together at the ankles and knees with something that made me itch with madness.  Secured so tightly that I could not move, and when I tried, the pain and ache of my muscles and bones screamed out of me in tears, letting me know they must have been stuck in this position for a while.  It felt as if someone had taken liberties with my body in a boxing ring.  My head hung heavily to one side.

 Something a small distance away made a soft thump.  I rolled my head in the direction I thought it came from. “Hello,” my voiced slurred slowly into the darkness.

A loud grumbly laugh burst out from somewhere right over my head, so close and abrupt that my head flinched back from the sound.

Bright light blinded me, as the hood was yanked up violently from my head, and I gasped for the fresh air that assaulted my nose and mouth. 

There, standing in front of me, wearing a smug smile was David.  Shoulders back, proud strong chin jutting out and perfect posture, arrogant and cocky, radiating an air of superiority around him.  The glint of a filthy serrated knife peeked out from behind his back, intimidating, and mocking me.  He smirked at me when my eyes fixed on the blade of the knife.

Rusty.  Filthy.  Staph infections.  Tetanus. 
He knew exactly how to torture me
.

Slowly, he moved over me, dragging the tip of the knife across my throat, burning a small lick of flame in its wake.  Tilting my head as far away as I could, I cringed, biting down on my tongue from the sheer disgust and hysteria that was taking over my body. I knew it was nothing more than a scratch, but the way his eyes were basking in my horror, my mind started to race into panic mode. 
I can’t let him do this.  I can’t let him control me with fear
. 

Calming my face muscles, I locked eyes with him and cleared my thoughts. 
I can’t let my emotions take over and chaos win
.  Focus.  Stay calm.

Slowly, he brought the blade away from my neck, dragging it gradually down the front of my shirt, over my breasts and stomach with just enough pressure to bite through the material.  I wanted to run and scream, fight back,
anything
.  All I could do was tighten my muscles, and clench my fists closed against the back of the chair.  I knew he was seeing signs of my panic; my skin was probably pale as hell, my nostrils flaring, and beads of sweat breaking out across my skin, and the quickening of my breathing, as my chest fell and rose in terror.  I tried to count, I tried to calm myself, so help me God I tried, but I knew David was going to kill me.  I knew my hours on this earth were numbered, and I was not in any control. All I could do was fight back the tears. 
I wasn’t going to give him any
.

With the knife, he slowly sawed through the ropes between my knees and ankles, deliberately taking his time, smiling, knowing he had all the control.  Then he stood and pressed his body against mine to reach to saw the ropes binding my hands behind me.  One slip of that knife and the pain would be unreal.

“Stand up,” he whispered into my ear before he stepped back.

I grabbed hold of the back of the chair to help me stand, and sat down again quickly before he could see me fall.  I couldn’t breathe. This man was an entire army in himself, and I felt like I had no armor against him. 

Then I thought of Kade. 

Oh, my God, Kade must be going insane right now
.

“Get down on your hands and knees, pet and crawl to the door.”

This man was going to kill me. I wasn’t going to crawl for him anywhere
.  I had just enough energy for one laugh, before his fist met my temple and my world blurred with rainbows and jaw numbing pain.

“You’re just as stupid as your brother was,” his hazy face whispered into my ear.  Thick strong hands grabbed onto my hair and savagely yanked my head to face his.  Strands of my hair snapped and pulled from my scalp, sending sharp needle-like stings over my skin.  Low guttural sounds escaped through my clenched lips, causing him to smile heartlessly.  “He tried to fight me, too,” he chuckled, darkly.  “He thought he could outsmart me, just like you.  It’s such a shame that
suicide
runs so rampant in your family, isn’t it?  Especially when he was helped by me.”  The wet slide of his tongue up my cheek made my stomach roll in disgust, but the acknowledgement of him playing a part in my brother’s death, made me scream and slam my head against his.  Primal screams of anguish tore from my throat, senseless words and guttural shrieks, as if I could kill him with the sounds of my shattered heart.

“You fucking piece of shit, David.  You’re a fucking coward, you son of a…”

His crushing fingers around my throat silenced my words.  “Will
these
be your last few breaths, pet?”  Pressing his fingers tighter around my throat, he laughed, “Your brother went quickly, a lethal mixture of a little Oxycontin to make him feel good, and a bit of Potassium Chloride to stop his heart.” 

Lowering my jaw down against his crushing hands, I squeezed my shoulders tight and pivoted on the balls of my feet.  Slamming my hands into the crooks of his arm, I gasped for breath as his hands lost their hold on me.  The weight of his body blasted into me, forcing me up against the wall, knocking the air from my lungs.  The pain in my chest was like fire.  The filthy blade of his knife was once again pressed hard against my flesh.

“Tell me why you killed Michael!  Tell me why you killed my brother!”

“Don’t act stupid, pet.  You and your brother were so righteous.  Just like you, he wanted no part of our little extra curricular money earning.  Your father and I have been building the SamMatt Pharmaceutical Empire for years. It’s a billion dollar industry, baby.  I have everything.  I
am
everything.  He was trying to stop me, and he was collateral damage.  You, though, I was surprised when you just left and didn’t try to stop me.  Even shocked me a bit when you emptied all the accounts and hid my money.  I always thought you were too strong willed, but I never knew how unintelligent you really were.” 

The burn of the point of the knife sliding along my jaw, separating my skin, made me squeeze my eyes shut and puff out a strangled gasp of breath.  “What the fuck do you want, David?” I stammered, through my pain.

“Oh, I want my money, pet.  And I will get it eventually.  I have every intention of getting every single penny.  However, right now, I’m enjoying this.  This beautiful torture we have between us.  I love playing God to you, pet.  Will you beg for your life, little one? 
Beg me
.  You’ll either bend to me, or die.  I
will
control you.  Getting away from me will be fucking useless to you, because I’ll haunt your nightmares, pet.  I’m going to make sure you never forget
you are mine
.”  Placing his hot open mouth over my cheek, he bit into my skin, making me cry out.  “You'll never be rid of me, pet. I'll always be right up here,” he whispered darkly, tapping me twice on my skull before slamming his fist into my head, blackening my world.

A thick heavy blanket of warmth settled over my body, dragging me deeper and deeper into my darkness.  No matter what I had ever been trained to do in my past, facing real danger-
real fear, and knowledge that you are about to die
, was sickeningly terrifying.  You could sit back when it’s over and think,
I should have done this
, or
only if I did that
, but to no avail.  Brutality is not prejudiced.  Violence is never kind.  When it strikes, it doesn’t give you a chance to understand it or change it.  Tragedies overwhelm, overtake, and conquer.  You have no control over it. You can just respond to it.  Sometimes, your body is just too beaten to respond hard enough.  I knew enough of seeing the effects of combat and violence firsthand, as a military doctor, but I was away from the violence. I was the one that dealt with the after effects of it, I was the surgeon, not on the field, I saw no action up close.  The dying was brought to me in choppers, Hummers, and stretchers.  Sure, they trained you for things. I knew at every moment I could die, you make sure you wear your boots with your correct blood type on them, and hope that no one needs to know the info, but this…this was a madman with a personal vendetta, with my named tattooed to it.  I was no longer in the military.  It had been years since I held a soldiers hand. I could barely remember the chaos of it, much for of the loneliness.  That empty blackness that engulfed me was an easy out.  Just floating in a sea of shadows and anesthetized emotions, waiting to feel again-and sunlight to warm my cold, cold skin.