CHAPTER 1 NOT DEAD YET
Savannah's blood was thick with terror. First, time stopped: Maddy’s body folding up, a burst of color from his shirt, a wet slap she would remember all her life.
Then, time sped up: her own screams raw and animal, the man’s hands the size and weight of shovels, her shoes dragging over concrete, fingers clawing at seams in the air as if she could shred through to somewhere safe.
The flashlight clattered and rolled, its failing bulb painting a mad kaleidoscope of shadows over the room.
He had the knife still, and the hand on her upper arm was unyielding, but the way he spoke was oddly gentle.
“Breathe, sweetheart,” the man said, and she thought she’d vomit at the word, but her body obeyed.
The first breath was a howl. The next few, hiccups.
“I know you’re scared. I’d be, too. But it’s almost over now. ”
He half-led, half-dragged her, and the darkness in the hallway seemed to press up against her skin.
Her mind chased itself in circles: run, fight, beg, collapse.
She did none of them, only stumbled over her own feet, and at the end of the corridor, he turned and looked down at her with a calculation so intimate she felt it like hot breath against her ear.
“You're a pretty little thing,” he said, his face bland as bread. “I could do you the way I did your boyfriend, but I'm not a brute.” He tilted his head. “Well, not always.” He ran a thumb along her cheek, smearing Maddy’s blood into her skin. “You can make this easy, or you can make it hard.”
Savannah gagged. The smell coming off his hand—raw iron and something sweet, like rotting fruit—made her knees buckle.
She sank to the floor, her wrists still bound by rough nylon cord.
She crumpled and started to hyperventilate, hands fluttering so violently they looked like they belonged to someone else.
Something was happening inside her—her vision pulsed at the edges, everything taffy-stretched and dreamlike.
She was suddenly, deeply cold, and her teeth started to chatter. She couldn’t stop them.
He crouched, bringing his face almost level with hers.
His eyes were mild and flat like a pond.
“You know, a lot of girls are so dramatic. All that mascara, those little notes they pass. But you’re so quiet.
” He was almost whispering, as if they were kneeling together at the edge of a church nave, not in a concrete hallway.
“That’s good. Quiet girls last longer. Don’t you want to last? ”
He gripped her jaw, not harshly, but insistently, and tilted her head side to side. Her body was shutting down, a whiteout roaring in her ears like a blizzard. She could hear her own heart, frantic in her chest. When he let go, she dropped her head as if the strings holding it aloft had snapped.
Savannah’s thoughts folded inward, collapsed into the small, desperate flame of survival.
All the stories she’d ever read about girls who got out alive, girls who bit down hard and tricked their captors or waited for a single mistake—none of those girls sobbed like she did, wrung out and trembling.
She was not the girl who survived this. She was the girl for whom they held a candlelight vigil.
“Look at me.” A soft command. She looked. She felt the moment he decided: how his posture shifted, the weight of his hand, the calmness inside his gaze. “Such a pretty thing. So much better than the others,” he murmured. “Makes it worth the trouble, you know?”
He hauled her upright again by the crook of her elbow.
She barely felt the pain, even when the tight, corded rope bit through her skin and raised a bruise.
He walked her through another steel door, then another.
Her legs worked without her; she moved the way people moved in nightmares, slow and sticky, disconnected from everything but the knowledge of her own terror.
He led her into a room where the walls were painted the color of old teeth and a single chair sat in the middle under a spotlight, the kind she’d seen in interrogation scenes on TV.
Its metal seat glimmered faintly. An array of tools rested on a cheap folding table nearby—pliers, clamps, a hammer, and beneath them, the tape, cords, and knives, all laid out tidily like silverware at a picnic.
She stared at them, recalling rumors she’d heard about the gangsters’ Guest Room, and had always imagined a scene like this.
The man sat her in the chair and turned his back to her as he studied the tools.
“Tell me, darling,” he spoke casually, as if they were friends having brunch.
“How did you feel when I pushed the knife into your boyfriend?” He turned, an odd look in his eyes.
“Describe it to me, I need to know. I feel so little. I’m always curious and intrigued by what normal people experience in these situations.
” He squatted next to her and rested his hand on her knee.
Her legs were shaking, her heels tapping rhythmically against the cold stone floor.
Her insides felt like liquid—her very bones sinewy—nothing solid to hold her together.
Savannah stared straight ahead, eyes vacant, seeing nothing but Maddy’s body crumpling to the floor… blood everywhere. Their family had always awakened from the nightmares… but not this time. The nightmare had consumed them, and there was no way back to what used to be.
Abel curled into a tight ball in the farthest corner of his cage, his fists jammed against his mouth to stifle the anguished cries that threatened to escape.
His eyes were wide and frantic, tears streaming down his flushed face in torrents.
Each breath he took was a desperate, ragged gasp, his chest heaving violently and constricting as if it might collapse under the pressure, leaving him gasping for air.
He couldn't tear his gaze from Maddy's lifeless body, abandoned where it had collapsed, blood oozing out in a thick, dark crimson pool, relentlessly inching its way toward the bars of his cage like a creeping tide of horror.
Abel whimpered as he clawed the cage floor, heels scraping raw against metal, desperate to escape the crimson tide crawling toward him.
The blood crept closer like some sentient, viscous predator, its metallic scent filling his nostrils.
His mind fractured, thrusting him back to his childhood, living with parents who didn’t give a shit, waking up from nightmares, and forced to soothe himself because the only other person in the world who loved him was Savannah—and she was too young to comfort him.
Except he couldn’t soothe away these terrors—because this nightmare was real.
Maddy… Maddy…
Outside the spacious room, Savannah’s screams had ceased. Would the madman kill her, too?
If he were going to kill her, he would do it in front of you.
Fear crippled Abel as horrific images filled his head of what the man meant to do with her.
You have to get free! You have to save her!
Abel sat as if frozen, his body unresponsive, while his mind oscillated between a frenzy of thoughts and an unsettling numbness.
His gaze was locked onto the slowly spreading pool of blood, its deep crimson hue inching ever nearer to the cage.
The sight held him captive, and without realizing it, he pulled his knees closer to his chest. His lips pressed firmly against his knuckles, and his teeth sank deeper into his skin, the pressure intensifying until a metallic taste of copper flooded his mouth.
This is the end… we’re going to die…
Would Devlin know what torment he suffered before the madman finally killed him? Would the monster make sure he knew—that they all knew? Had he chosen Abel and the kids for a reason?
It doesn’t matter. Knowing the reasons why won’t change your reality.
As the pool of blood crept toward the cage and started to seep through the narrow bars, Abel clenched his eyes shut, trying to block out the horror.
He curled his arms protectively over his head, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as he huddled against his bare, ice-cold knees.
The chill of fear enveloped him, and he felt like a terrified child once more, utterly alone with no comforting presence to calm his fears or rescue him from this nightmare.
I wanna go home… I wanna go home…
Daniel watched the girl’s face closely as he caressed her thigh.
She was barely responsive, her eyes adopting a vacancy he found nostalgic; that look that crept into his former victims’ eyes when they realized there was no escape, and they were going to die.
Fuck, he’d missed that look while in prison.
Leroy, the guard, was dealt with too quickly for him to fully recede into that state of despair that fed Daniel’s cravings.
But this girl… she was a fighter, and her descent had been slow at first—which enhanced the flavor of her fear.
Witnessing the brutal death of the boy had shoved her over the edge, though, as Daniel had anticipated.
He suspected her brother wasn’t far behind her, although it might take a bit more to break him, as he was a protector , and protectors fought harder and longer, even when consumed by hopelessness.
The young man had nearly broke when he was convinced it was his sister that Daniel raped and killed in the other cage.
Had it been his sister, the boy would have mentally checked out.
So, now, Daniel knew which method of torture would be most effective for him.
When the time came, Abel Simms would get the whole show—and it would be a long one.
But the young man wouldn’t be the only “viewer.”
The girl only responded when Daniel slid his hand between her legs; a whimper, like a baby animal in distress.
Her expression remained empty, yet tears formed in her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
She was still with him—if not, she wouldn’t be shedding tears.
He’d had ladies who checked out completely, and regardless of what he did to them after that, they didn’t feel it, didn’t exhibit fear, because inside… they were already dead.
Savannah Simms wasn’t dead yet, though she teetered on that edge. There remained enough life in her to still play with her.
To prove his point, if only to himself, Daniel ran his hand beneath her shirt and cupped her breast—so pert and rounded, nestling perfectly in his palm.
The girl began to breathe harder, chest hitching, almost gasping for air.
When he squeezed her soft, warm flesh, she came back to life and tried to jerk away from him.
“ No…” she cried, choking on her sobs, twisting her body. “ Don’t… Don’t!”
“But it’s been so long since I’ve had one as fresh and young as you,” Daniel cooed close to her ear. He pressed his nose to her neck and inhaled her sweet aroma, then licked her tender skin, moaning pleasurably.
The girl whimpered and turned her face away, breath catching in her throat. “ Please stop… leave me alone… let me go… please let us go… please…”
She didn’t really believe he would let them go; her words were merely the desperate pleas of all condemned victims when they had exhausted all other options, and begging for their lives was all that was left.
Still, the pleading made Daniel hard. In some respects, it was his favorite part—that final signal that the victim knew they would die, but still fought for survival.
“Let you go?” Daniel murmured, nuzzling her ear.
“But we’re just getting to know one another.
I thought you liked me? Don’t you want me to…
make you a woman?” He kissed her neck and rubbed his fingers firmly against the crotch of her pants.
“An older man who knows what he’s doing?
That boy would have disappointed you; young, inexperienced, awkward.
Mm-Mm.” He inhaled deeply. “A pretty young girl like you needs a man to show her the ways.”
“ No…” the girl sobbed and squirmed against his invasive touch.
Daniel stood and lifted the girl to her feet. He cupped her face, stroked her wet, flushed cheeks with his thumbs, then kissed her on the mouth. Not the kiss of a shy teenage boy—the kiss of a man who knew what he wanted and meant to have it.
The young girl whimpered loudly and squeezed her eyes closed as she pressed her lips tightly together.
His tongue was stronger and forced into her mouth.
The girl gagged as he dipped the appendage into her throat.
His erection inflated at the sound of her gagging—he would hear it again when something much larger found its way into her mouth and throat.
Daniel broke the kiss, and the girl dropped to her knees in a sobbing heap, coughing and gagging.
Watching her kneel before him, it was almost too much to resist. One hand went to the front of his pants, intent on satisfying his lust right then, but he paused.
It wasn’t time yet. When he took her innocence— ripped it from her virgin body—he wanted an audience.
A very special audience.