Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) (12 page)

“Yeah.
And not just serial killers.
Psychopaths, schizophrenics,
delusional people, pretty much all kinds of whack jobs.”

He
chuckled. “Maybe I should invest in a television after all.”

“You
should.”

He looked
at me with enough affection to turn my stomach, and then asked, “Did you watch
a lot of television?”

I winced
at the way he referred to me in the past tense, and said, “Not a lot.”

Shuffling
the cards, he asked, “What kind of programs did you watch?
Soap
operas?”

“No,” I
snapped. “I hate soap operas. Talk about a waste of time.”

“I’m
sorry, Nicole. I just assumed since you were a woman, you’d watch those types
of programs.”

“You
shouldn’t assume things about people.”

“No?”

“No. You
don’t buy a book based solely on the cover, do you?”

He nodded.
“You’re right, Nicole. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve known a lot of women who
watched that type of thing.”

“Was one
of them your wife?”

Quickly,
he stood, reached across the table, and slapped me hard, bringing tears to my
eyes. I’d never been slapped before. It hurt like hell. It felt like dozens of
pins stinging my face.

I know he
saw the shock on my face as I rubbed my left cheek with my free hand.

“I’m
sorry, Nicole. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said as he sat down in his chair
again.

For a
while, all I could do was look at him, shocked. I shouldn’t be surprised, of
course. He was a psychopath. I should be expecting anything at anytime. But I
hadn’t seen that coming.

“I’m sorry.
Let’s just forget that ever happened, shall we? It’s your turn,” he said,
indicating the cards.

“You can
kiss my ass if you think I’m going to play with you after that.”

“Nicole,
please.”

“No. I’m
not in the mood to play cards anymore.” I tried to cross my arms over my chest
in a childish manner, but with my right arm shackled to the underside of the
table, I could only cross my left arm. That probably looked at least half as
stupid as it felt, so I relaxed my left arm, letting my hand fall to my lap limply.

Maybe I
was crazy for talking back to him the way I was. I know he liked it when I did,
but I also knew there was a very thin line that I couldn’t see but knew I
didn’t want to cross. It would take him from amused by me to furious at me in
the blink of an eye. But I didn’t care at the moment. I was angry.

I didn’t
talk to him much the rest of the day. I watched as he cleaned the house, but if
he looked my way, I averted my eyes. Eye contact provoked conversation and I
wasn’t in the mood for that.

While he
cleaned, I pulled on my hand, trying desperately to free myself of the metal
handcuff. I tried to bend my thumb over far enough into my palm to make it
smaller. It didn’t work. I even spit on my wrist and rubbed it around under the
cuff trying to create enough lubricant to allow my hand to slip through. It
didn’t work either.

In fact,
the only thing I succeeded in doing was rubbing my wrist raw and making the
bones in my hand hurt.

There would
come a day, though, when the cuff would be just loose enough for my wrist to
slide out. Then I would be free. And Ron would be dead.

Chapter
18

A couple
of days later, I was cuffed to the table while Ron was in the basement. He’d
been down there for a while. I didn’t know what he was doing and I didn’t care.
When he’d first gone down, I’d heard Melinda’s screams, but they’d fallen
silent some time ago.

Now, I
just sat and waited.

Eventually,
Ron came stomping up the stairs in a huff. I could tell he was angry by the
sounds of his footsteps. They were heavy, quick, and purposeful. I didn’t turn
around. I didn’t want to face him, afraid I would be the center of his anger.

Turns out,
I didn’t have to turn around to be the center of his anger. And if I had put
half as much thought into it as I thought I had, I would’ve seen this coming.

I heard
his footsteps approach me from behind. They stopped directly behind me. I caved
and started to turn around to face him, but before I could, he had his right
arm across my right shoulder, and with his hand, he held my jaw tightly. His
left hand came up on my left side. Before I could register that he had
something in his hand, he was forcing it into my mouth.

I tried to
pull away from him, but I had nowhere to go. My right hand was bound to the
underside of the table. He was behind me, and I was trapped in his arms.

To my
surprise and his, I managed to keep my teeth tightly together for a full
minute.
But no more than that.
He stuffed his dirty,
meaty fingers into my mouth and pried open my jaw. With his left hand, he
managed to cram in a handful of the stuff he held, which I now knew to be the
rotten dog food I’d so cleverly hidden from him.

He’d found
it. He must’ve been down there cleaning and lifted the mattress. So as it turns
out, I wasn’t quite the genius I thought I was.

I was more
afraid than I had been so far. Even more afraid than I’d been as I’d watched
him hack Stephanie into pieces. I knew that he was angry. Not just angry, but
directly angry at me, with me, for lying to him. I didn’t even want to imagine
the kind of punishment he had for something like this.

“Eat it,
you stupid bitch,” he said as he continued cramming wads of rotten dog food in
my mouth. Some pieces were still hard and crumbled as they scraped across my
teeth. But other pieces had gone soft in their decay and fell softly into my
mouth, threatening to slide down my throat. It was a battle to keep any from going
down.

I only had
one free hand and I used it to alternately beat him in the face and pull at his
arms. It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe with my mouth and
throat full of the foul kibble. I was trying to keep it all in my mouth so when
he let go, I could spit it all in his face.

“You think
you can lie to me and get away with it?” he screamed in my ear. “Eat it!”

I began to
cough and choke. He stopped shoving more food in, but refused to allow any out.
He cupped his left hand, which was still covered in dog food crumbs, over my
mouth and bloated cheeks. With his right hand, he lifted up on my jaw, tilting
my head back against his chest where I could feel his furiously pounding heart
beating against his ribs, adding to the pounding I already had in my head.

“Eat it,
bitch, or I’ll snap your neck and then shove it down your throat while your
heart still beats.”

Trying not
to choke, I swallowed what was in my throat, some of the pieces scratching as
they went. It took a few swallows to get it down, but I finally managed. Then,
I chewed what was in my mouth. He didn’t give me any slack to chew, so I had to
grind the bits of food against my teeth with my tongue to get it small enough
to swallow. And worse, I could only breathe through my nose which meant I could
smell. And taste. To say that it was a struggle to keep from puking was like
saying that it was warm in Death Valley.
A total
understatement.

When he
was satisfied that I’d swallowed enough of the vile stuff, he let go of my
mouth and jaw. Just as I began to relax a little, he put a hand on the back of
my head and shoved my face down onto the table hard enough to rattle my teeth
and blur my vision. I’d managed to turn my head slightly to the left, making my
cheek cushion the blow and avoiding a certain broken nose. I had not been able
to keep from biting the inside of my jaw, however. The metallic taste of the
blood was welcoming, as it masked the putrid taste of rotten dog food.

He leaned
down and spoke directly into my ear loudly. “If you ever, ever, lie to me
again, I’ll bring your family here and make you watch as I slowly kill them. Do
you understand me?”

I tried to
nod, but his hand had my face pinned tightly against the table, so instead I
said, “Yes,” in a weak and defeated voice.

He let go
of my head and stomped back downstairs. To the sound of his fading footsteps, I
vomited. I threw up all the dog food, spilling it onto the kitchen floor. When
I saw the maggots writhing around in it, I vomited again.

Using the
back of my hand and the tail of my shirt, I wiped my face and mouth free of as
much of the gross stuff as I could. Still, I could smell it. To expel as much
of the smell as I could, I blew my nose into the tail of my shirt. It helped,
but I still ended up breathing through only my mouth for the rest of the day.

Also for
the rest of the day, I didn’t speak to Ron or look at him. He didn’t speak to
me either.

When he
finally allowed me to use the restroom, I saw myself in the mirror. I had bits
of dog food in my hair. My face was bruised on the right side, where he’d
slammed it against the table.

I didn’t
give a damn what he said. I stayed in the bathroom until I’d cleaned myself up
a bit.

I brushed my
teeth twice. I ran the sink full of icy water and plunged my face into it. I
considered leaving it there and drawing a deep breath. It shouldn’t take long
to drown. The only problem would be my body working against me, fighting for
life. I wasn’t sure I could overcome the will to live. And as Mason popped
forward in my mind, I knew I couldn’t. His adorable little face was enough to
make me pull my face from the sink and suck in a deep breath of air instead of
water.

So what?
What was the worst thing that had happened to me really? He’d shoved rotten dog
food down my throat? Left me hungry in the basement? Left me without water for
days? Made me piss the bed? Hacked up the body of a woman he’d killed only feet
from me? Gave me a slap and some bruises? That wasn’t so bad. I could handle
that. I had to.
For Mason.
And Wade.

I walked
out of the bathroom with my head held high, though I still wasn’t in the mood
to talk to Ron.

He seemed
to have forgiven me. He talked to me as though nothing had happened. He made
our dinner, and we ate as usual. We had drinks after dinner while playing
cards. I said little to him, but he made more than enough conversation all by
himself.

Shortly
after we’d finished dinner, I began to feel groggy. It became a battle to keep
my eyes open. I’d only had two drinks, so I knew that wasn’t the problem. When
the cards became blurry, I put my hand on the table and rested my head on it,
thinking I’d just lay there for a minute until the feeling had passed.

Right
before the blackness overcame me, I remembered the last time this had happened.
It was a repeat performance of the last time I’d made him angry with me.

He pretended
he was over it, made us dinner and drinks, and I became sleepy. When I woke, I
was in...Oh no. I knew as I fell into a deep sleep what I would find when I
awoke.

Chapter
19

Just as I
suspected, I woke in the basement. Only this time, I wasn’t on the mattress and
cuffed to the pipe. I soon wished I was, though.

With my
head pounding, I opened my eyes and surveyed the room around me.

Melinda
was still spread out on the floor as she’d been the last time I’d seen her, but
she didn’t look as good as she had then. Her hair was filthy and caked with
blood. Her skin was covered in dirt and bruises. Her wrists and ankles were raw
and bloody from struggling against the restraints. And worse still, the fight
had gone out of her. There wasn’t even any left in her eyes.

I sat in a
chair, hands cuffed behind my back and around the vertical beam not far from
Melinda. I was only a few inches away from her right foot. She didn’t appear to
be awake, but at least she wasn’t dead.

“Melinda,”
I said with a dry throat.

She didn’t
respond.

Once more,
I said, “Melinda.”

“She
doesn’t seem to be willing to talk to you, Nicole,” said Ron behind me. I
hadn’t heard him come down the stairs, so he must’ve been back there silently
waiting for me to wake up.

I was
terrified of anything he may have planned for us, but I had to keep my wits about
me, and more importantly, keep him liking me before I ended up like Melinda.

Slowly, Ron
walked around me and stood on the opposite side of Melinda, in a position where
he could see us both.

“Nicole,
I’ve given much thought as to what your punishment should be. You have no idea
how angry it makes me that you would lie to me like that,” he said, his voice
starting to boom. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm down.
Then, he continued. “I thought about putting you back down here on the mattress
that you hated so much. But I felt that just wasn’t going to teach you
anything. After all, it didn’t teach you anything the last time. So then I
asked myself what would be worse than
that?
Do you
know what I decided?”

I shook my
head.

“I’m sure
if you thought about it long enough, you’d know. Go ahead. Guess.”

“Sorry, Ron.
I’m
afraid I left my crystal ball in my other pants, and I’m no mind-reader,” I
said, hoping to remind him that he liked me.

He smiled,
but it was faint. “I’ve decided that as your punishment, I’m not going to
punish you.”

“Good. I
agree with that.”

“I’m going
to punish her.”

“What?”

“Yes, I’m
going to make you watch as I punish Melinda for the things you’ve done. Maybe
that will teach you what the mattress cannot.”

“No, just
put me back on the mattress. You know how much I hate it. Isn’t that punishment
enough?” I said quickly, trying to talk him out of hurting poor Melinda, who’d
clearly been going through enough punishment already.

He smiled
broadly. “I knew this would work.”

I watched
as he walked across the room and retrieved some items from the cabinet above
the utility sink. He returned quickly to Melinda’s left side, where he knelt
facing me, in a position for me to watch. How very thoughtful of him.

Slapping
her face, he said, “Melinda. Melinda
wake
up. There’s
someone here to see you.”

Melinda’s
head slowly rolled from side to side, and she began to moan. She said
something, but I couldn’t make it out. It was probably her husband’s name,
thinking he’d come to rescue her. I myself had woken up many times uttering
Wade’s name, having dreamt that he’d shown up and busted down the door, killed
Ron, and rescued me.

Using the
cattle prod he’d brought from the cabinet, Ron shocked her awake with a scream.

“There,”
he said. “I don’t want you to miss a thing. Now look who’s came to see you.” He
pointed at me with the cattle prod, and Melinda’s head slowly turned my way.

I expected
to see hope in her eyes, or fear. I would’ve been happy to see any emotion at
all, any sign of life. What I saw instead was nothing. She had dead eyes.
Just as Stephanie had.

“Nicole
has been a very bad girl, Melinda. And we’ve decided that as her punishment,
she will watch me punish you. How does that sound to you?”

She
groaned what I thought was a no and tried to shake her head, but it was so
slow, it appeared her head was just lolling back and forth.

“I didn’t
agree to that,” I said. I wanted to make sure she knew this hadn’t been my idea,
though deep down, I knew that it wouldn’t matter what she knew. The hours,
possibly the minutes, of her life was ticking down to zero. It was only a
matter of time until he killed her, and then it wouldn’t matter if she knew that
I wasn’t a part of his sick and twisted punishment or not. But I had to tell
her. I had to know that she knew.

“Really?”
Ron
asked. “Are you saying you’ll trade places with her? Would you like me to tie
her to the chair and put you in her place?”

My heart
raced. This was one of those moments in life that no one ever thinks is going
to happen to them. And when thinking about what if it did happen, they always
thought they would do the noble and honorable thing. And here it was, all laid
out before me, unfolding both in slow motion and at the speed of light.

I said
nothing. I felt horrible about it, but I couldn’t volunteer to trade places
with her. I just couldn’t. I tried to rationalize it by thinking that she was a
used-up prostitute whose husband urged her to sell her body. Looking at her
arms, I could see she was a heavy drug user.
Probably an
alcoholic.
She was middle-aged. Living the life she was living, she
surely only had a few more years ahead of her. If she had any kids, they were
probably grown. Unlike me, whose child was only a year old, and who hadn’t even
lived to see the end of her twenties. If it had to be one of us, it should be
her.