Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) (22 page)

“You,” he
said. And that was all he said. Then, he rushed across the room and slapped me
across the face.

“What the
hell?” I yelled at him.

“What the
hell? What the hell? I’ll tell you what the hell,” he yelled back as he angrily
unlocked the cuff from the headboard.

He jerked
me from the bed. Unable to get my feet under me in time, I crashed to the
floor, knees first. I gasped and cursed at the sudden pain. This was no way to
wake up. He continued pulling me along behind him, not giving me enough time to
stand. I had to struggle to get to my feet as we rushed along down the hall
toward the kitchen.

When he
finally stopped and turned to me, I was suddenly aware that I was naked. He had
a tight grip on my right wrist, but my left arm was free and I used it to cover
myself as best as I could. I had little other than my dignity. And at this
point, I was clinging to scraps of that.

He was
only a couple feet from me. I could feel the angry heat coming off him.

“Is there
something you want to tell me, Nicole?” he asked, his voice booming.

My mind
raced to think of what he could be talking about. Unable to think of anything,
I shook my head. “No.”

“Really?
There’s
nothing you want to say to me? Nothing you want to tell me about?”

I shook my
head.

He nodded.
“Alright then.”
And in a flash, he was jerking me down
the hallway. He opened the door to the basement and pulled me down the steps.
Immediately, my body tensed and I began to pull back, trying to remain
upstairs. He responded by pulling harder on my wrist, leaving me no choice but
to follow him.

“What are
you doing?” I asked, not caring that even I could detect the panic in my voice.
I hated the basement. Nothing good ever happened in the basement.

“Teaching you a lesson.
Apparently, you like learning the hard way.”

When he
dragged me off the bottom step, I was sure he’d take me to the mattress. But he
didn’t. Instead, he pulled me away from the mattress, across the room, toward
the shackles that were secured to the concrete floor. My heart froze in my
chest.

As he
pulled me past the beam that I normally sat against with my arms bound behind
me, I reached out with my left hand and grabbed it. I held on with all my
strength, which compared to Ron’s, wasn’t much. Barely noticing that I was
using the beam as an anchor point, Ron gave me a tug and kept walking, unaware
that my hand now contained several splinters of wood that stung my palm from
the inside. How I longed for the days when a handful of splinters was the
biggest worry I had.

When we
reached the place I dreaded the most, Ron turned to me and said, “Get down on
the floor.”

“No way.”
I
folded my arms across my bare chest, both in defiance and modesty.

“Get down,
Nicole. Don’t make me tell you again.”

“I’m not
getting down there. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“Stop
lying,” he screamed. I’d never heard his voice this loud or heard this tone
come from him before. Clearly, he was beyond angry. And I think it was safe to
say that I had crossed that line I’d been tightrope walking for so long.

“What do
you think I’m lying about?”

“Shut up
and get down on the floor.”

“No,” I
said defiantly. What did I have to lose? He was hell bent on shackling me to the
floor. I couldn’t do much to resist, but I was going to do what I could. No
sense making this easy on him.

“Nicole,
you can do this the easy way or you can it the hard way. No matter which you
choose
,
you’re getting on the floor.”

“Why?” I
asked.

Then,
everything got real dark real fast.

Chapter
38

When I
woke, I was alone. Still naked, I was cold. The left side of my face throbbed
furiously with each beat of my heart. I couldn’t believe Ron had punched me.
All this time, I’d thought his liking me, or as he’d put it lately, his loving
me would protect me from his wrath. Looking back now, that was a stupid
assumption to make. I’d been a fool to assume anything would protect me from a
psychopathic serial killer who suffered from mood swings.

Fully
awake now, I realized that I was lying on the cold, unforgiving concrete of the
basement floor. It was the same place where many women had died before me.
Would I be next?

I tested
my restraints. There was no getting out. The chains that were secured to the
floor were thick. The shackles around my wrists and ankles were tight.
Too tight.
There was absolutely no way I’d be able to slip
free of them. I was going to be here until Ron decided otherwise. And usually
when Ron decided to let you go, you left via trash bags.

I tried
not to think of that. If he really loved me, he wouldn’t chop me up and dispose
of me. Of course, even as I thought that, I realized it was silly. I couldn’t
depend on the love of a madman to save me. Madmen didn’t know what love was.
They didn’t understand that you never, ever hurt the people you cared about.

I realized
now how stupid I’d been. Shackled in the basement in the same place he’d
tortured and killed numerous women, I still thought I could figure him out. I
still thought his emotions were like those of normal people, and his affection
for me would save me. Ron was right. I hadn’t learned a damn thing.

With no
choice, I waited for Ron to come to the basement. I kept myself occupied by
thinking of Mason and Wade and all the things we’d do when I got out of this
madhouse. I had so much to catch up on. They’d spent about five months without
me. I wanted to hear all the details of their lives. All of Mason’s firsts that
I’d missed. I knew that Wade would want to hear all about what I’d been
through, but I didn’t want to tell him. And if I could help it, I wouldn’t. He
didn’t need to hear this. I’d seen things that would curl the toes of hardened
police officers and make their skin crawl. I couldn’t put that on him.

At some
point, I dozed off while thinking of Wade and Mason. I dreamt of them. The
dream was so real I could feel them, smell them, and I could clearly hear them.
I sat on the couch beside Wade, Mason on my lap. I smiled broadly at Wade as he
leaned in to kiss me. Just before his lips touched mine, his mouth opened,
revealing long, sharp teeth. Instead of kissing me, he sank those teeth into
the soft flesh of my neck.

I vaguely
became aware that the pain in my neck was more than just a dream. It was too vivid,
too real to be a dream.

As I
slowly opened my eyes, I saw Ron hovering over me. I blinked quickly a few
times and cleared my mind. I had to be on my toes with Ron.

“Do you
have something to tell me, Nicole?”

“I don’t
know what you want from me,” I said calmly.

“All I
want from you is the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“Everything.
More
specifically, anything you may have been keeping from me. A secret, if you
will.”

“I don’t
know what you’re talking about. How can I have a secret? You know exactly where
I am at all times.”

“Apparently
that isn’t good enough.”

“What does
that mean?”

The sharp
pain in my neck came again and I realized that whatever it was, Ron was doing
it. He seemed to be poking me with something sharp.

“Last chance to tell me, Nicole.
Then, things will get bad for you.”

“Ron, I
don’t know what you’re talking about. If I did, I’d tell you. I don’t keep
things from you. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

“And now
you’re lying to me.” He shook his head.

“I’m not.”

“You are,”
he screamed.

He held up
a short piece of plastic, the item he’d been using to poke at my neck. The same
piece of plastic that I’d used to try to unlock the handcuffs. The broken piece
of comb tooth that I’d been unable to find was now held tightly between Ron’s
thumb and forefinger. Somehow, somewhere, Ron had found it.

“Still
sticking with that story, Nicole?”

“What is
that?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.

“So you
are. Well, that’s your choice. Just know that whatever happens to you now is
your own doing. I’ve given you more than a fair amount of opportunities to come
clean and be honest with me, but you’ve chosen again and again not to. For
whatever reason, you choose to cling desperately to your lies. And for that,
you alone stand responsible for your fate.”

I
considered telling him the truth, but I figured it was too late for honesty.

He stood
and walked away. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d left, but he didn’t. He
walked over to the cabinet. That wouldn’t have been so bad either if I hadn’t
known that inside the cabinet is where he kept his implements of torture.

Suddenly,
I needed to pee. And puke. And cry. And scream. But I couldn’t bring myself to
do any of those things. I was too afraid to move.

With his
back to me, Ron fumbled around in the cabinet. It sounded as if he were picking
things up and sitting them down, probably trying to decide on which to use. I
thought of turning my head to look, but decided I didn’t want to know. If I saw
the tools he was choosing, it would only make matters worse. Sometimes it’s better
to not know. That’s why dentists always hold their tools down, out of the line
of sight until sneaking them around your cheek and into your mouth. Dentists
are in the know. And probably all five asked, not just the usual four.

I began to
tremble.

Though I’d
feared being in this position as I’d watched him destroy the other women, I’d
never actually thought I’d be here. In my arrogant stupidity, I’d assumed his
fondness for me would keep me from this spot. And now that I was here, I was
terrified beyond words. Images flashed through my mind of things he’d done to
them. And they were women who’d meant nothing to him. He claimed to love me. He
felt he’d been betrayed by the woman he loved. So the very thing that I’d hoped
would be my salvation, his love of me, was about to turn out to be my downfall.

I closed
my eyes and wished with all my might that whatever he was about to do to me
wouldn’t be that bad. I started out wishing that he’d let me go, but I felt
like that was a long shot, so I concentrated my efforts on the lesser
punishment. As long as I could survive and live the rest of my life in peace
after this, I would be okay. But if he started slicing off my breasts, well, I
didn’t know how I’d handle that.

When I
opened my eyes, Ron was standing over me.

Holding a hammer.

Shit.

Chapter
39

“Ron,
can’t we talk about this?”

He
squatted beside me. “I tried to talk to you, Nicole. Talk time is over.”

“What are
you going to do?”

“You’ll
see.” Then he smiled at me. Had I had use of my hands, I would’ve ripped that
smile off his face and shoved it up his ass.

He turned
my left hand over so that my palm was flat on the floor. He placed his foot on
the back of my hand at the base of my fingers. He put all his weight on it,
causing me considerable pain. Of course, that was nothing compared to what came
next. And somehow, I knew that’s how it was going to be.

I stared
at my left hand, but I couldn’t see it because Ron’s leg was in the way. His
right knee was on the floor, his left foot on my wrist. I saw him bend over,
and then I felt him messing with my fingers. The same fingers which were
starting to go numb from lack of circulation due to his foot on my wrist
cutting off the blood flow.

Unsure of
whether I actually wanted to see what he was doing, I alternately squeezed my
eyes shut and tried to see around his foot.

When the
pain came, I was glad I couldn’t see.

I tried to
hold back, but the third time he hammered, I cussed loudly. I said every bad
word I knew. I even invented some new ones.

After
hammering five times, Ron stopped. He stood up. I looked at my poor hand.

The blood
came rushing back to it, causing a pins-and-needles sensation that was
agonizing, especially for my forefinger, where the tingling sensation faded
into the background and was replaced by an intense throbbing. Lifting my hand
off the floor as far as I could, I could see why that finger hurt more than the
others.

The broken
piece of plastic was about half an inch long. Almost every bit of it was buried
under my fingernail. Nothing more than the very tip of it poked out from under
my nail, which was cut off even with the tip of my finger. Blood ran from under
the nail and slowly rolled down the side of my finger and into my palm. As it
trickled its way down my wrist and under the cuff, I shot a hateful look to
Ron.