Chapter 32
They say death is peaceful. That there’s no pain, no fear, no anger or worries or dread. Just peace.
That’s how I know I’m still alive.
But I don’t open my eyes.
I can feel a weight next to me, like someone lying down beside me on a bed. Somehow, I know it’s not Emmett. It doesn’t smell like him. It doesn’t feel like him.
Even though whoever is beside me doesn’t touch me, I can feel the energy radiating off them, and it’s dark. It makes every cell in my body vibrate with anxiety.
It’s him.
I don’t have to open my eyes to know it’s Trevor. Even though it should be impossible–he should be locked away behind bars–I can feel that it’s him. My body reacts to his presence on some innate level, screaming at me in warning.
“I can tell you’re awake,” his smooth voice comes from beside me, too close for comfort. “You always were bad at pretending to be asleep, darling.”
Bile rises in my throat at the term of endearment. It makes me want to lash out, as though, somehow, I could remove him from my presence.
Still, I don’t open my eyes, my mind trying to process everything that’s happened. Little bits and pieces of last night start coming back to me in a blur.
After I finished burying the chickens, I remember walking into my house and thinking something was wrong. One of the bar stools at the kitchen counter was pulled out, like someone had been sitting there waiting for me. Yet there had been no other vehicles in my driveway. I’d heard no one else come up to my house.
My skin prickles as I remember whirling around and seeing a man in a mask in my doorway. My hands start to sweat as images flash through my mind.
Me, pulling the gun from the small of my back and firing at the intruder. Him charging at me, hitting me over the head so hard I passed out.
Distant memories of me riding in a vehicle of some sorts, getting jostled around as I laid in a small dark space, come flooding back. And then a latch opening, and that same masked man peering down at me, before putting something over my mouth.
That’s when I notice the pain radiating from the back of my skull. I was knocked out and drugged. And brought back to…
Opening my eyes, I roll my head to the side to see Trevor lounging casually beside me in bed. He’s propped up on one elbow, peering down at me with his intense brown eyes. His light brown hair is longer than usual, the locks disheveled like he’s been tugging at them. He has a short beard now too, while before he was always clean-shaven.
He’s shirtless, his defined chest and abs on display. He always was attractive. Yet the sight of him makes my skin crawl.
I’m relieved as my eyes track lower that he’s wearing pants. Although it’s not like that would stop him from…
My tongue darts out of my mouth to lick my chapped lips. It’s to no avail. My mouth so dry it’s like a desert.
Forcing my eyes from the man who”s been the source of my nightmares for so long, I take in the room around me, looking for any clues as to where I am.
I’m in a bed, in the center of a room with plain white walls and a concrete floor. There’s a window on the wall to the right, but it’s small, and awkwardly far up the wall.
A basement. I must be in a basement.
A shade is pulled over the window, so I have no idea if it’s day or night. No way to grasp how long I’ve been out for.
To my left, beyond Trevor’s shoulder, is a closed door. I’m assuming it leads out of the room. Straight ahead of me is another door leading to a bathroom. I can see a small vanity to the side and a tub/shower combo at the back.
There’s a closet to one side of the bathroom door, its sliding doors haphazardly closed, and a wooden chair on the other side. Other than that, there’s nothing else in the room, save for the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling. It’s missing the decorative glass, the two bulbs glowing unobstructed, casting the room in an uncomfortably bright light.
Hair sticks to my face, but when I go to brush it away, I realize I can’t move my arms. Giving them a tug, I feel the bite of something harsh into my wrists, holding them captive above my head.
“You’re not getting away this time, darling,” Trevor drawls in a low voice. Years ago, I would have said that voice was seductive. Now, it makes me cringe.
I try not to panic, instead moving my legs to see if they are also restrained. Shifting as casually as I can, I test my boundaries, pulling my knees up and being relieved when I’m able to. Giving my feet a little twirl, I don’t feel anything on my ankles.
“How—” I start, then clear my throat when my voice cracks. It’s so damn dry. “How did you get out?”
Trevor smirks at me. “Did I get out? Anyone who looks will see a paper trail saying I’m still in. Pays to have friends in the system.” He looks at me intently. “Though, I must say, life back on the outside hasn’t been nearly as enjoyable as I thought it would be.” Reaching a hand out, he gently brushes the hair out of my face. It takes everything in me not to shrink back from his touch. I learned a long time ago that doing so would just make him mad. “But I have a feeling it will be a lot better now that you’re mine again.”
His words slice sharper than any knife ever could. I will never be his.
“Untie me,” I say, keeping my voice quiet and level. “Please.” I swallow the miniscule amount of saliva I’d managed to work into my mouth. “I need water. And then we can talk.”
I know fighting him while I’m at his mercy like this won’t get me any favors. Not to mention it will drain the little energy I have. The best thing I can do is try to keep him calm, and go along with his delusion that I’m his. I’ve played this game with him before, and if I want to survive it again, I can’t make him mad.
Even though all I can think about is how badly I wish I had my gun. At least that would level the playing field.
Trevor leans over, smiling down at me while one hand comes to cup my jaw. “You thirsty, darling? I can help with that.”
My still foggy mind can’t keep up as he climbs on top of me, straddling my torso with his strong legs. When he goes to unbutton his jeans, I freeze.
“What are you doing?” Somehow, my mouth gets even drier.
His eyes darken as he undoes his pants and pulls out his dick. He strokes the hard length of it, before leaning down and whispering, “Giving you something to drink.”
Anger and humiliation burn through me and I begin to buck my hips, trying to throw him off me as my legs flail out behind him.
It’s useless, his weight and my restrained arms holding me in place.
He grins down at me as he strokes himself, his eyes narrowed with a malicious glint to them.
Then he shuffles up closer to my head, bringing his dick near my mouth. “This is just the first hole I’m going to fill tonight. So much time to make up for.”
Clamping my mouth shut, I pull on my arms, trying desperately to shake him off me. I can tell my struggle just excites him more, pre-cum dripping from his cock as he starts to grunt with his quick, hard strokes.
When he’s close, he reaches out and grabs my cheeks, squeezing so tightly I’m forced to open my mouth.
I shake my head, fighting his grasp, but it’s no use. He brings the tip of his dick to my mouth as he climaxes, warm strings of his cum filling my mouth, and I fight not to choke on it. When he finishes, he pushes my jaw shut, clamping his hand over my mouth.
“Swallow it,” he says, his voice cold and void of any emotion.
But I don’t, squirming and twisting myself underneath him.
His other hand comes to clamp my nose shut, stealing my breath. “If you want to breathe, swallow it.”
I fight. I try so hard to fight, but ultimately the burn in my lungs wins out.
I swallow, the thick, warm liquid getting caught in my dry throat. My ears feel like they”re filling with fluid as I work to swallow down his release while he keeps my mouth and nose clamped shut.
When I’ve finally swallowed it all and think I’m going to either pass out or choke, he removes his hands. I cough, taking in big gulps of air as I try to replenish my lungs while keeping the emotions trying to break free at bay.
His smile is pure evil as he watches me struggle. Once I’ve got my breathing back under control, he gives me two light slaps on the cheek.
“Rest. You’ll need it.” He gets off me, putting his dick away and closing his pants.
My stomach churns with bile at what he just did to me, but I refuse to let him see how much he can hurt me. Refuse to let him have that kind of power over me again. Because I know the sick bastard gets off on it.
He heads to the bedroom door, opening it and flipping off the light. It’s only when he walks out of the room, closing the door behind him and leaving me in total darkness, that I let the tears break free from my eyes. They run down my temples, into my hair, and eventually onto the pillow beneath me.
Taking a deep, steadying breath through my nose, I swing my blurry eyes over to the small window. No light seeps in from around the shade, so it must be nighttime. Whether it’s still the night he took me, or the next, I don’t know.
I focus on my breathing, trying to center myself, but then I hear the click of a lock on the outside of the bedroom door, and the calm I”ve been trying to find completely vanishes again. Terror fills my stomach as that old feeling of being trapped comes rushing back.
I can’t get out. As if the restraints on my wrists weren’t enough, I’ll never get out of this room.
And for a moment, I almost give in.
It’d be so much easier if he just killed me because I can’t go through the pain again. I can’t go through the torture that he can so easily inflict on me.
But then I think of Emmett, and I know–know–that he’ll come for me.
And I tell myself that, over and over again, like a mantra, as sleep overtakes me.
“Do you know what they do to cops in prison?”
My eyes fly open and anxiety grips my chest.
The light in the bedroom is still off, but the bathroom one is on, pouring around Trevor and casting him in shadow as he stands in front of me at the foot of the bed.
“I asked you a question, darling,” he says, his voice eerily calm.
Instinct has me pulling at my restraints, as though maybe they somehow fell off while I slept. But they don’t budge, my bindings holding strong and rubbing my wrists raw.
I can’t see Trevor’s face, but I can feel his eyes on me. My head still hurts and my heart races, the combination making me lightheaded. Blinking heavily, I force myself to focus.
“No,” I croak, my throat still dry and getting sore. “I don’t know.”
He circles the bed, coming to stand at my side. His skin glistens, like he just got out of the shower. He’s got on a pair of boxer briefs and nothing else.
Facing me, he angles his torso toward the bathroom light and points to a long scar on his abdomen. “They hunt them.” He points to another scar, this one a short, jagged line over his left pectoral muscle. “Every criminal in there is looking for payback. Looking for a pig to gut.”
He brings his other hand up from his side, and that’s when I see the knife in his hand. He holds it in front of his face, like he’s examining it, before drawing it over the scar on his chest, a thin line of blood blooming on his skin.
“After I got jumped a second time, they moved me to solitary for my own safety.” He tilts his head to the side, as though he’s deep in thought. “I spent fourteen months in there. Do you have any idea what that does to a person, Riley?”
I shake my head in response, afraid that my voice will reveal the fear pulsing through me. Trevor thrives on my fear. He thrives on the fight. And I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me scared of him.
Even though, right now, I’m terrified.
“It drives you crazy,” he says, coming back around to the foot of the bed, knife still clutched in his hand. “No one to talk to. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. You’re an animal in a cage, with no control over anything.”
I can’t help the sarcastic laughter that escapes me when he says this. “So you’re saying you got a taste of what you put me through? Is that it?”
My fear melts away, replaced by a sudden burst of hatred. My words are going to set him off, but I can’t help as they tumble from my mouth.
Self-preservation be damned.
“You didn’t let me leave the house after I found out you’d cheated on me. You didn’t let me talk to anyone. You took away my control. You treated me like an animal in a cage.” My words are coated with animosity, and I hope he feels every ounce of it. “You deserved everything that happened to you in there.”
I expect him to lash out at me. I expect him to hurt me. To hit me, choke me, knock me out or threaten to kill me. But he doesn’t.
Instead, he laughs, leaning forward and bracing his hands on the bed. “For someone so upset about being controlled, you sure were quick to find someone else to control you.”
His words hit like a slap to the face.
“You know nothing about him.” My voice is sure, though inside I’m not.
Emmett and I have fought about this very issue so many times, and Trevor, being the one to point it out, makes me feel sick inside.
“No?” His eyes shine with anger. “So him stalking you, putting a tracker on your phone, hiding cameras in your house, watching your every move, somehow makes him better than me?”
I’m taken aback by his words. How does he know all of this?
My shock must be evident on my face, because he says, “That’s right, darling. I know everything about you and Emmett.” He climbs onto the bed now, kneeling between my ankles. “I hacked into those cameras he had installed on day one. I watched you at your office. I watched you at your apartment. And then, I watched you at your house. I watched as you let him force you to your knees and take his dick down your throat. I watched as he fucked you raw. I watched as you let him take over your life, like the weak, pathetic woman you are.”
He moves up the bed, knife still clenched in his hand, and kneels between my legs. My heart drops. He’s close enough now that I can see the cruel smile on his face.
“Seems Emmett and I are a lot alike, doesn’t it? We both like a woman we can control. And you,” he leans over me, bracing his hands on either side of my head, “you’re still the ungrateful little bitch who thinks she can do no wrong.”
“No.” The word leaves my mouth instantly.
I couldn’t care less what he says about me. I’ve heard it all before. But I won’t let him compare himself to the person who made me feel again. The person who made me love again. The person who, despite all of our problems, would never, ever hurt me like Trevor has.
“He’s nothing like you.” I spit the words at Trevor, like I can somehow put all my contempt toward him into those syllables.
He leans back on his heels and shrugs. “Maybe not, but it doesn’t change who you are. And right now, you’re going to pay for every single month you made me spend behind bars.”
Trevor tosses the knife to the side and grabs at my leggings, yanking them and my underwear down my legs. I kick at him, twisting the best I can to get away from him, but it’s futile, my efforts hindered by my inability to get up and move.
When he has my bottoms pulled off my legs, he gets back on top of me, straddling my thighs and grabbing his knife. Fear seeps back into me as he leans forward, grabbing my sweater and slicing up the front of it.
I still as he cuts at my sweater, afraid that fighting him will just result in me getting injured. Once he’s through the sleeves, he pulls the scraps of material from my body, then cuts away my bra next, leaving me naked beneath him.
He leans forward, pressing the blade to my cheek as he murmurs in my ear. “I’ve missed this. You’re still just as gorgeous as the day I met you.”
Tears trickle down my temples as he starts nuzzling into my neck, his lips making a path up to my ear, then my jaw. The blade against my face keeps me from fighting against him, even though every part of me wants to thrash at him, his touch like acid burning a trail across my skin.
When he presses the flat side of the blade harder into my cheek, I can’t help but think how ironic it is that this is probably how I’ll die. At his complete mercy. He tried taking all my control in life. Why shouldn’t he also take control of my death?
The idea shatters me.
I’ll never break free of this cycle.
A small sob gets lodged in my throat and he pulls back, his brow dipping as he looks down at me. “What are these for?” He pulls the blade from my face, using his thumb to wipe at a tear. “Don’t worry, darling. I won’t cut up this pretty face.” He sits back up, moving down my body until he’s straddling my lower legs. “Can’t say the same about the rest of you.”
Before I can register his words, he brings the blade across the muscle of my upper left thigh; the pain making me scream out as blood starts to trickle down the sides of my leg.
“That’s one,” he says, a sick sort of amusement in his voice. “Count them. Out loud.”
My leg burns, and when he brings his palm down across the fresh wound, I scream out.
“I said fucking count!”
“One!” I cry out.
“They cut me up in prison,” he says, bringing the blade down again across the top of my other leg. Another sob escapes me, fire erupting in my thighs. “I think it’s only fair that I return the favor to you. One for each month you stole from me. One for each month I suffered because of your lies. One for each month you let me rot in that cell. Now fucking count!”
“Two,” I say, my voice barely a whisper this time as I try to calm myself, panic slowly seeping in.
He brings the blade down to my left thigh again, this time holding it there longer as he slowly drags it across my skin. When I dare a glance at him, his body is tense, his focus on the blade against my skin, a sick fascination on his face.
I arch my back, the pain shooting through my body as he presses the blade in deeper before finally pulling it away.
“Three,” I gasp.
The pain is too much, my body jerking as he goes back to the other leg, dragging the blade even slower across it this time. Sweat breaks out on my skin, blood rushes in my ears, and my body shakes as I try to breathe through the pain.
I barely even notice when he pulls the blade away this time, the pain lingering, my body unable to differentiate each cut. It’s only by tracking the movement of the blade that I’m able to count out each slice, afraid of what he’ll do if I miss one.
Time slows. Every agonizing second starts to feel like an hour. When I lift my head, my legs are completely red, blood soaking into the bed around me. The sheets are wet beneath my back, and when I arch on a particularly brutal cut, they stick to my skin.
It’s too much.
It’s too much.
It’s too much.
I scream.
I cry.
I pull at my hands, over and over again, the restraints cutting into my wrists and offering a reprieve from the pain Trevor’s inflicting on my legs.
And then…
“Fifteen.”
My head lolls to the side, my eyes heavy. There’s a thud, like something dropping to the floor, and then Trevor’s hand on my face, tapping at my cheek.
“Not yet, darling. Stay with me. We’re almost done.”
I barely notice as he spreads my legs, grabbing my ankles and holding them at his shoulders so my legs are flat up against his torso as he kneels.
His dick nudges at my entrance, but I’m too tired to fight him, my body exhausted and the pain numbing my mind.
My eyes fall closed, my body limp as I fight the dark trying to pull me under.
He thrusts into me with brutal force, forcing his way in as I lie here, unable to do anything about it.
It isn’t until his hands move from my ankles and down to my thighs that I become fully aware of what’s happening again.
I scream, my eyes flying back open as his fingers dig into the cuts on my thighs, gripping tight as he thrusts into me. His hands slip in the bloody mess, causing him to dig his fingers in even further, pressing into the exposed tissue and muscle.
“Please… Trevor…” My voice is barely my own as I breathe through the pain. His fingers clawing into the fresh wounds feel like razor blades along my nerves.
“You’re doing so good,” he says through gritted teeth. “So fucking good.”
He grunts as he slams into me once, twice, then slows, his thrusts short and sporadic as he spills inside me.
He pulls out, dropping my legs. The impact of them hitting the mattress feels like being run over by a truck.
Jumping off the bed, Trevor puts his underwear back on, his fingers leaving trails of blood everywhere he touches. He walks toward the head of the bed, picking up the knife along the way, and my heart rate spikes again at the sight of the blade. He smirks at me as he uses it to cut away the restraints at my wrists.
When my hands are free, I pull them to my chest, cradling them against me as he walks into the bathroom. I hear the sink turn on briefly, then the opening and closing of drawers, before he makes his way back to the bed.
He sits down beside me, setting a red first aid box next to him. Rummaging through it, he pulls out a bottle of something and a stack of cotton pads.
“This is going to hurt,” he says, pouring the liquid onto the pad.
I almost laugh, as though I could be in any more pain than I am now.
But when he puts the soaked pad on my thigh, I scream, the pain searing into me all over again.
My screams are the last thing I remember before I pass out.