Cold-Blooded Beautiful (16 page)

My eyes eventually fluttered open to the frightening thought of having the flu.  My body ached everywhere, inside and out, as if I’d been wrung out.  My eyeballs and the muscles that held them in their sockets pulsed to the throbbing pain that slammed inside my forehead.  I didn’t remember how I got there, wherever there was, and my thoughts were too distracted by my aching pains to think it through clearly. 

Wasn’t I just at work?

Didn’t Kade give me flowers?

A sharp boom of panic thudded hard in my chest, as I tried to move my arms and legs, which I found to be too heavy.  Panic surged through my chest, exploding in bright burst of light behind my eyelids, as I screamed into the empty room.

Nothing.

No one.

Kade wasn’t at the hospital with flowers, David was
.  David killed my brother and made it look like a suicide. My father helped him with
everything
. They are going to poison me again. 
They are going to inject me with filth, and I have no way of fighting this.
Panic surged up my chest and into my throat.  My limbs shook violently, my own heartbeats drowned out the sounds of my screams. 

Still no one came.

Stay calm and focus.  Where the hell am I?

Scanning the small room, deep red paint peeled from the walls in long curls.  It lay in crimson colored piles along the filthy tiled floor, looking quite similar to splatters of fresh blood.  In a few places along the damp walls, rusty water dripped down like a small rushing river, pooling into a puddle of corrosion and decay.  The floor tiles held thick spider veins of mildew and mold, growing black and chalky white.  A hideous mattress, ripped to shreds, coils popping through, was slung haphazardly in the corner of the room, next to a cracked porcelain bowl that seemed to smell as if it held fifty years of feces.  Panic set in.  Gagging back vomit.  The smell hit me so hard that I lost the entirety of my stomach, gagging until the burn of bile scorched my throat, but my stomach still convulsed.

I crawled up to my feet, pulling myself up by latching on to the sill of the boarded up window, and weakly made my way to the only door.  The knob was locked still.  Taking another survey around the dust covered room, I nodded to myself, and a cacophony of loud high pitched hysterical giggles poured from my lips.  The noise that sputtered from my lips fed my panic.  It flared itself into gulps of air I couldn’t get, and black spots formed in front of my eyes.

There was an open shower stall in one corner of the room, with a ripped curtain that dangled from one hook.  Dark mold grew from it creases and it smelled like rotted earthy remains.  With shaky hands, I pulled on the curtain, and with no more than an ounce of pull, it tumbled down, collapsing in a puff of white ash.  I gagged and covered my face, wondering what toxins I was inhaling. 
Mold spores?

Turning the spigot on, a downpour of red rusty rain drizzled weakly from the showerhead.    I let it run until the water was clear, and stepped into the icy water to wash off the blood.  I stared down between my bare feet at the filthy broken tiles, and watched the water spiraling around the drain.  Circling and circling; pouring itself in.  The chill of the water felt good against my skin, it numbed the bruises and aches to a dull roar.  Yet, I could still feel the ghost of David’s hands and heavy fists on my skin.  That would never wash off, would it?

Panic again.  Leaning back against the cold tiles, gasping for breath, my knees gave out.  My body slid down the wall, broken chipped tiles slicing bites into my skin, and I landed painfully hard against the floor.  I lowered my head between my knees, and let my sobs break free.  It was okay to break down, because there was no one here to see me cry.

When night fell, the only light in the room was that which filtered dimly through the boarded slats of the windows, from the one lone light source outside.  It made striped shadows across the walls and gave the room a morbid flavor.

Sharp spiked cramps racked through my stomach as I crawled towards the toilet bowl, where I wretched and heaved until I thought I would split in half.  My head swam and throbbed in sharp pains so that I could barely see. All I could do was feel, feel the scorching burn of my insides in my throat, and the tight convulsions of my body trying to expel its filth.

Somewhere behind me, a soft click and rustle.  Light flooded the room.

With his deep laughter, David was instantly behind me, grabbing me by my hips, and pulling me flush against his body.  Even without the recognition of his laugh, I would have known it was him the second his precious Clive Christian cologne hit my senses. 
Citrus and sandalwood
.  It was suffocating. 

His arms slithered up across my chest, pulling me tight, and burying his face in the crook of my neck, “My little wifey.  It’s been too long since I sunk my meat inside you,” he chuckled, darkly.  “You know, for a brief second, I’d thought you actually died.  But, I knew, baby.  Tiny little bothersome cockroaches are hard to kill, aren’t they?” 

“How…how did you find…”

His laughter tore at my insides, stabbing sharp razor-like cuts through my ear canals. “A little mishap with unsealed documents.  You greedy little bitch, still wanted to be a doctor, in this little tiny redneck town, they sent your new name and social security paperwork to our home, pet.  Seems like they didn’t believe you when you tried to prove you were in danger.”  Laughing against my skin, his tongue ran the length of my face.  “And really, pet, when one is trying to change an identity, you shouldn’t let people twitter thousands of pictures of you in his little economically awesome car.”

The harsh burn of a needle pierced through my flesh, and quickly spread a strange heat through my veins.

NO!  FUCK NO!

I could feel the tense sinewy muscles of his arms locking me in, and my stomach convulsed again, heaving nothing but air.  “What did you give me,” I choked, gasping for air.

“No…no…shhh…shhh…my little cockroach.  No questions, all I want is too hear you struggle, Sam.   All I want to do is watch you suffer, now.”

His hands moved quickly, in a blur, fisting and tangling into my hair and dragging me onto the filthy mattress.  The brutal pull of the strands burn and tear my eyes, as I fall hard against the coiled spring and metal that poke out from the top of the bed.  They scrapped and scratched into my skin, biting burns and stinging flesh.

He turned his back and began to unbuckle his belt.

And for a minute, I seriously surrendered. 

Fuck this shit, you win.  I’m done
. 

But then, my mind fills with Kade.

My gorgeous, dangerous, Kade, who had survived a massacre by the hands of his best friend when he was just sixteen.  David had taken everything away from me.  The perfect marriage I thought I’d had.  My Dignity.  My career.  My identity. My freedom.  My family.  But I can’t let him take me from Kade.  I can’t let him hurt Kade.

Cautiously, I slid my body against the wall, slowly, inch by inch.  Instantly, he’s in front of me, his hands closed, clenched into a tight fist, slamming into the wet drywall, so close to the side of my face I could smell his skin.  “You can’t leave, pet.  I haven’t run out of uses for you yet,” he whispered. 

I didn’t flinch. I would not let ANYONE try to terrorize me with their fists.  I will not let him hurt me without a hell of a fight. 
Underestimate me, go ahead
.  I needed an opening; I needed a clean, clear strike.  I needed patience, but the edge of my vision was darkening, and my limbs weren’t responding to my brain.  I moved sluggish and awkwardly. Whatever he’d given me, was some sort of paralyzing agent.

“You’re not going to get out of this alive, Sam, unless you tell me where the money is.  When you tell me, then we can negotiate your life.”  He stepped back.  “You don't have to bruise the skin or break the marrow to hurt someone.  Oh, but I so want to. To bruise your skin.  Your perfect skin, with your perfect mind, with your wild and carefree ways, you're like a wild rare little flower, and I want to rip off your pretty little petals.”

I wipe the tears and mucus from my face with a slow heavy hand.  I’m standing in a pool of my own vomit, as I slowly slid down, not able to hold my own weight. My body felt broken and covered with a thick blanket of weight.  I find myself wishing this were just a movie.  The end of a scene, where the audience thinks the heroine is just about to succumb to her terrorist.  However, movies and books don’t usually end that way. The gorgeous hulking alpha male comes charging in just in time, and she doesn’t end up taking her last wet gurgled breath, bleeding out into her own bile.  But, this isn’t some dramatic scene in a movie, is it?  It’s real, and it won’t end pretty.

There’s nothing that’s going to stop David from killing me.

He’s an out of control monster.  Real. Breathing.  Not a movie bad guy that will receive an Emmy for portraying such truths.  There is no fair play here, there is no long monologue where I get to reach for his gun and exact my revenge. This is it.  My real end.  This sucks, and it isn’t the way I wanted my life to end, but you don’t get to pick this kind of shit in your life.

I will promise you this, the man better kill me quickly, because the minute that man comes close enough, and I can get my arms to move, I’m fighting with everything I have left in me
.

“And what’s fun, is that this time, I don’t have to bother making this look like a suicide. I can just torture and kill you slowly, because everyone but that fucking nutcase writer thinks you’re dead.”

Blacking out.  Hard to breathe.

“Do you think your little writer will come and save you?”

Yes, I wanted to say.  Yes, if he knew where I was, yes he would, but my mouth wouldn’t move.

“Just because you believe in something, it doesn’t make it true.  Just like you believe I’ve done some very illegal things, but, it’s not true.  It was you, all along, it was you.  Your name is all over those papers, but rest assured, he will find you,
eventually
.  But believe me, he’s not going to want your rotting corpse when he gets here.  Besides, wife, I left him a little note. He thinks you left him to start your life over without him.  You think he’s too possessive and jealous and suffocating.”

Drool dripped out of my mouth. I felt it stream down my chin and land across my chest. 
As soon as Kade finds out what you did
, I garbled incoherently,
you’ll be dead
.  He’ll blow your brains out in broad daylight. In cold blood, he won’t care. 
I know I’ll be avenged
.

“Having this power over you is intoxicating.  Dance little puppet, hang yourself with my puppets strings.  To you, Samantha, I’m God, because I have the power to let you live, or let you die.  Every minute,
I
choose your outcome.  Just like at the hospital.  I will break you, my pet.”

His hands tore at my shirt, fists pulled at my hair, bruised, and pounded on my skin.  I could do nothing.  Nothing to lift my arms to defend myself.  Nothing to make him stop.  My body was useless, frozen. All I could do was take the pain.  Over and over, live through it, without giving him what he wanted. 

“Come now, pet…I want to watch the suffering.  I want to see your tears.  Give them to me,” he whispered fiercely, as he ripped my pants open with the knife.  His clammy hands slid over my flesh, following the contours of my body, making my skin crawl and rage on the inside.

Oh, God, no.  Please, don’t let him do this to me
.

Trailing the knife up my stomach, he slipped it under the front straps of my bra, slithered the cold metal under one of the cups, and savagely sawed through it with the blade of the knife. 

He stroked my bare skin, and then brought his lips to my neck, raking his teeth sharply against the cuts and bruises that lay there.  “Oh, Sam baby, your nipples are so hard.  You like it rough, you little whore?”

No!  Not with you. Please don’t
, my mind screamed.

The cool steel of the blade skittered over my nipple, and drew circles around it over and over again.  I waited for the pain, but there was nothing but the terror and anticipation of it, making me want to claw out of my skin. 

Scraping his unshaven cheeks over my breast, he flicked his tongue against my nipple. “I bet you’re soaking wet.” 

Lowering his ear over my heart, he smirked and wrapped the hand that held the knife around my throat.  “I can feel your pulse beating so quickly, pet,” he whispered, darkly.  “I can snap you little neck right now, can’t I, Sam?” Yet his hands slid down my sides.

Oh fuck no.  Please don’t let this happen, please.  Please let this drug wear off. Please let me be able to fight back
.

Thoughts raced though my head as he moved his body lower on mine.  “Your heart beats like a little hummingbird’s.  I love your fear, Samantha.”

Jesus Christ, how could I ever have loved this man?  How did I not see the emptiness in his eyes?  Black holes of emotionless shit.
Please stop, David, please stop, don’t do this to me
.  However, no words could come out. I cried in silence, inside my mind.

The tip of the knife skimmed down the swell of my belly, taunting me.  Then he was tearing my panties with the serrated edge of the blade, as he laughed and licked the skin of my inner thigh.  His tongue branded me with unimaginable terror.  My mind screamed with panic and wailed for rescue.  For something, anything, for the ceiling to cave in over us, killing us both, or my heart to seize up and die.  But there was nothing.  All there was were parted lips, heavy grunts of breathing, the smell of sweat from his efforts, and the pool of saliva dripping from the corner of my mouth.  Dormant muscles, heavy and unmovable, lay paralyzed under the tip of his knife and under the brunt force of his body.  I couldn’t even move the muscles of my eyes to look away.  I wanted to leave myself, jump out of that skin and abandon its terror, but the terror rode me hard and held me steady.  My extremities turned to ice, making me shiver from the inside, and slowly my blood flowed to an alarming sluggish speed.  “Yes, pet.  Yes,” he grunted.  “Give.   Me.  Your.  Tears.” And he gruesomely lapped up each one.