Chapter 26 – ANNA
26
ANNA
“ C an I get you anything?” Summer asked in a low voice.
All morning, she’d been knocking at the guest room door, then lingering in the doorframe, waiting for me to spring up and be happy again.
As if that was ever happening.
My photos were gone, and it felt like my career burned up in the fire along with them.
I’d severed my relationship with Dad, and along with it, any connection to my home.
I desperately wanted to talk to Carter. He would hold me tight and stroke my hair. Then, he’d probably spank me, choke me, or fuck me until I forgot everything and turned into a wiggling pile of want. At least I wouldn’t feel like this.
But I still didn’t know if he’d really let my dad bribe him into staying away. And with all our history, I didn’t even know if I could be with him the way he wanted.
Basically, the only thing I had going for me was how comfy Summer’s guest bed was. So I wasn’t getting out of it anytime soon.
“I don’t need anything. I’m fine,” I told her.
Summer sighed. “Well, I hope you don’t just sit there and mope all day. Maybe take my advice and start shopping that portfolio around to galleries. You could be out of my guest room in a blink if you sold a couple of those photos. Oh! God. Not that I want you gone. I didn’t mean?—”
“Summer, it’s fine. I’m fine. Just go. You’re going to be late meeting up with James.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what Dad did to my negatives. She still had so much hope that I’d be showing them in a gallery in no time when in reality, I’d never have more than a few small prints to show for all that time. All she knew was what I told her; that I couldn’t stay there anymore. She didn’t pry, but I knew she’d want at least some answers eventually.
“Okay, well, you should at least take a walk. It’s nice today.”
“We’re in California,” I pointed out. “It’s always nice.”
…and I didn’t feel like being followed around by Carter’s men.
She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, you know what I mean. At least take a shower, will you? Eau du sad bitch is not your scent, babe.”
I wanted to snap at her and say I didn’t feel like doing anything except lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. But Summer didn’t deserve that. When I told her that I needed a place to stay, she invited me to take her spare room, no questions asked. The least I could do was act a little grateful.
“I will.”
“Good.”
Satisfied with her work, she closed the door behind her, blowing me a kiss on her way out. I sniffed my pits and my nose wrinkled.
Fuck, she was right. It’d been days since that bath at Carter’s villa and eau de sad bitch was not in fact my scent.
I really meant to get up right away, but before I knew it, my eyes were heavy and I could barely keep them open. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go.
I’d run away. Again. That was what I did. That was what I was good at.
I flipped over in the bed, facing away from the window so maybe I could get back to sleep. I slipped in and out of consciousness, the sounds of vehicles and the ocean outside merging with the images and sounds of my dreams.
Vicious images of my father and fire and Carter and blood and Josh and pain and the ocean and drowning, drowning, drowning ?—
I gasped, sitting bolt upright in my bed, sobs fighting their way out of my chest. I looked around the room wildly. Right. Summer’s guest room. I was alone.
You’re alone.
You’re okay.
Except I wasn’t.
If Carter just wanted to know what it would be like to fuck the rich girl and then break her heart, that would’ve gone down easier than him taking money to abandon me.
All those years ago, I thought he was different and I loved him for it. I didn’t care how wide the divide was between us. We were the same in the ways that mattered. Coming back to town, I didn’t want to admit it but I still had hope.
At least my dad was upfront about it. Carter lied.
I wrenched myself out of the bed, not ready to think about it anymore. Not yet.
I’d promised Summer that I’d shower, and frankly, it was the least I could do. I went to the bathroom and splashed water on my face.
Patting it off with a towel, I stared down my reflection in the mirror. I looked like hell. My eyes were bloodshot and puffy, the skin beneath them dark and sallow.
It was a face I recognized.
That was months ago, stepping foot in my childhood bedroom for the first time in years. I looked in the mirror over my vanity and saw the reflection of a beaten, bruised, sunken-faced version of myself looking back at me. I didn’t look quite as bad as I had then, but this was a close second.
Tossing my pajamas on the floor, I started the hot water. Steam quickly filled the bathroom, and I sighed when I stepped under the stream. Summer’s jasmine-scented soap was nice, but it made me miss my Dior body wash.
Fuck, Rosie.
Thinking about Rosie made my heart clench. I said I’d never step foot in that house again. Would I ever see her? If I asked her to meet for coffee, would she even come if my dad asked her not to?
I stayed in the shower until my fingers turned to prunes. Finally, I forced myself to turn the water off. I’d have to reenter the world at some point.
I pushed aside the shower curtain, only to meet a pair of crazed hollow blue eyes. Eyes I hoped I’d only see again in my nightmares. My blood felt like ice water in my veins. After everything I’d done to stay out of the spotlight, he’d still found me.
My ex-boyfriend, Josh, stood mere feet from me.
Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around my wet, naked body. All the fear and vulnerability he made me feel came flooding back. All the bruises and black eyes, every mark he left on me. My stomach twisted painfully as I moved to snatch the towel from the hook next to the shower, covering myself.
Run.
Run, Anna.
I froze. I couldn’t think, couldn’t figure out what to do next. He just stood there, staring. His eyes looked hollow. His skin pale. Lips almost purple.
He was using again.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He shifted forward and I blurted out the first thing that came into my head, trying to buy time.
Stall him. I needed to stall him.
“How did you get in here?”
Where was my phone? I scanned the bathroom counter. The floor.
Shit, it was still plugged in in the bedroom. Was Carter listening right now? If I screamed, would he hear me? I swallowed hard, watching Josh warily as his lips turned up in a devious smirk, like he’d been very clever.
“Actually, I got in much more easily than I anticipated. Did you know your girlfriend’s downstairs neighbor is into ketamine? Has a nice Prius, too. The trunk isn’t very big, but it’ll work.”
I was going to be sick.
He stepped forward, and I shrank back against the wet tile of the shower to try to keep distance between us.
He cocked his head.
“I’ve been looking for you, you know,” he said in a low tone, reaching out to run a finger down my arm, making me want to gag. “Since you left, actually. You should’ve told me who you were, Annie . Things could’ve been so different for us.”
“They could still be different,” I lied. “You don’t have to do this.”
His eyes narrowed and I noticed how blown his pupils were. Not good. This was not good.
“It’s already done.”
“Y-you need to leave. Summer and her boyfriend are going to be back any second.”
“You think I’m just going to leave ? After all the trouble I went through to find you? Your friends in high places might’ve stopped my collection team, but not before they told me exactly where I might find you. Exactly how I might get to you. They were smart guys, Annie. You would’ve liked them.”
His expression darkened and like it always did, Josh’s mood shifted as quickly as the flick of a light switch. I readied my lungs to scream, but the sound was choked off as his hand wrapped around my throat and he pressed me hard against the tile.
I clawed at his hands, the towel dropping as dark spots danced in my vision and I struggled for air. “Josh,” I wheezed. “Josh, stop. Stop . I can’t…I can’t breathe.”
The words were nothing but barely audible wheezes but just as the world started to darken, he released me. I slumped to the wet shower floor, gasping for air, my head spinning.
He threw his head back and laughed, a deep, spine-tingling laugh.
Cruel fingers twisted into my hair, wrenching me up and out of the shower to land on my hands and knees, coughing and spluttering as I continued my fight for air.
Muscle memory kicked in and I crumpled. I survived Josh’s fury before, plenty of times. I knew how. If I folded into a ball, protecting my face and stomach, the pain wouldn’t be so bad. I could go somewhere else in my head—think about Carter, think about our beach—and deal with the pain later.
This won’t be like the other times .
A voice that sounded a lot like Carter’s floated into my head. I already knew Josh was escalating. He’d hired men to find me. To capture me. He wouldn’t settle on just leaving me battered and bruised this time. This was different.
I couldn’t afford to cower.
I had to fight back.
You have to fight back.
Gathering my strength, I shoved to my feet and took a swing at him, putting my whole weight behind my fist. I caught him in the mouth and he let out an animal cry, swaying on his feet as blood bloomed from the side of his mouth.
My knuckles and wrist ached from the impact and a strangled sound came out of me.
Carter. Carter! I had to get to the phone. I needed to scream.
“ Cart —”
“You fucking bitch!” Josh roared. He tackled me, bashing my head against the tile and knocking the lights out in my mind. Blindly, with half-dead arms, I pushed at his vicious hands, scratching and kicking.
But Josh was so much bigger than me. I couldn’t move his weight, and my muscles burned with the effort. This close, his unwashed stench overwhelmed me and I gagged on it.
I wasn’t going to be able to force him off me.
“Help!” I shrieked desperately.
Josh swore and covered my mouth with his filthy hand. I screamed against his grimy palm and he shifted his grip, covering both my mouth and my nose, making it practically impossible to breathe.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch!”
I panicked, thrashing against his grip as he hooked his other arm around my arms and his legs pinned me against the floor.
Without oxygen, my strength dwindled fast. My kicks got slower and weaker. Keeping my eyelids open felt impossible. The edges of my vision grew dark and hazy, and all I could see were Josh’s horrible, horrible eyes. Eyes that I once loved.
This can’t be how it ends .
My vision blackened and my lungs ached with a burn so deep it felt like they were on fire.
No.
Not yet.
I gave one last thrash and felt my limbs go uselessly limp.
But…I just…got him back…
It was Carter’s face that filled my mind as the world went black.
Somebody was pounding at the back of my head. Like a little man had crawled in my skull and was banging on the bone, trying to force his way out. I shifted, rubbing my eyes. When I opened them, I saw the heavy metal shackles around my wrists.
What the hell?
I was sitting on the floor of a strange room, propped up against a wall with my hands cuffed in front of me. My mouth was bone dry, and every one of my muscles ached. The light was dim, but it still hurt my sensitive eyes.
Slowly, it all came back. How Josh appeared outside my shower, then suffocated me until I passed out. He slammed my head against the bathroom floor during the struggle—that explained the headache.
You’re still alive.
That meant there was a chance I could still get out of…wherever I was.
The room was dimly lit, all the light filtering in around the tobacco-stained curtains hanging in the windows. The carpet underneath me was rough and synthetic. It looked like there had been a print on it once, but now, it was muddied into obscurity.
I searched for anything that would tell me where I was, piecing together that I was in a cheap motel room. Discarded fast food cups and bags littered the floor and overflowing ashtrays covered every other surface.
Through the open bathroom door, I could see used syringes scattered on the floor.
And on the couch…
My breath caught. For all his faults, Josh had always been good-looking. He had meticulously styled hair, clear skin, and a well-filled out physique. Now, he was barely recognizable. He looked like he’d lost thirty pounds. His cheeks were hollow, his skin pockmarked and pale. He hadn’t shaved in at least a week, and there was hair missing from the underside of his chin as if he’d burned himself.
He looked sick and wretched, like he’d given up on being human the moment I left. Or maybe, the moment he found out who I was.
His unfocused eyes were trained on the TV. He couldn’t really be registering the infomercials playing there. He just stared ahead, like he had no idea I was there.
Trying not to make any noise, I looked down at my own body. I was wearing an oversized t-shirt, probably Josh’s, and a pair of someone else’s panties. I shuddered, imagining who they might have belonged to, trying not to throw up.
I took stock of my body, feeling for more than the aching muscles and the pounding in my head. I didn’t think he hurt me or touched me while I was passed out. Whatever he had planned for me, it would happen later.
I shifted, testing the bounds of my constraints. Apart from having my wrists handcuffed in front of me, they were also connected to the radiator by a long chain and padlock. The manacles didn’t feel super tight. Maybe, just maybe, I could squeeze my hands out of them.
Pressing my thumb in as tight as possible against my palm, I tried to force my hand free. For a few minutes, it felt like I was making progress, even if I was taking off a layer of skin. The right manacle was almost to the knuckle of my thumb. I pulled harder, and the metal chain rattled with movement.
Time seemed to stand still as Josh turned to look at me, and I pulled my arms in tight to my body, not letting him see the loose manacle as my heartbeat skittered behind my ribcage.
“Hello, Annie.” His voice sounded eerie and wrong. Not like himself at all. Or had I just forgotten? “You’re awake.”
“Let me go, Josh.”
I tried to put as much authority into my voice as I could, but he just laughed in my face.
He tilted his head to the side, the angle looking unnatural.
“Now why would I do that?”
Shoving to his feet, he shuffled over to me. I noticed again how huge his pupils were and gulped.
“Little Annie Taylor ,” he crooned. “You didn’t tell me you had a big fancy family. You should have said. I have one, too.”
Of course. Josh was always bragging about how wealthy his family was. Maybe I could appeal to that.
“I know,” I said, my voice taking on a tone I recognized and hoped I’d never have to use again. A placating tone meant to diffuse him. “Your parents are probably so worried about you. Have you called them since you came after me?”
He blinked, confusion crossing his face. “What?”
I pushed ahead. “I know, it’s been a hard time for you. I—I shouldn’t have left like I did. I know that if we told them—I know they’d pay for rehab, probably somewhere exclusive. Like that place they sent you before that you told me about. The place with the horses. We could call them together.”
I could practically see his mind working as he opened his mouth and closed it, eyes turning down, brows drawing in.
“I—I haven’t…”
Then, the storm cloud crossed his face and I knew I lost him. The switch flicked.
His hands tightened into threatening fists. “You’re so full of shit, Annie.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Josh, look at me. I want what’s best for you. It’s like you said. We’re toxic together. Remember?”
My words were starting to tumble together in a rush and I licked my dry lips, trying to swallow past the razorblades in my throat.
“You said if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even have started using again. Maybe if you let me go, you can get yourself better.”
In a flash, he crossed the room, his hand shooting forward, fisting the hair in the back of my head to jerk my face close to his. I sobbed as he hit the tender spot where I hit my head against Summer’s tile floor.
Summer! She would’ve noticed I was gone by now, right?
Would she have called Carter? The police?
Maybe they were coming. They had to be coming.
“ Shut up !” Josh spat in my face, flecks of saliva scattering over my cheeks. “I know what you’re doing, you stupid whore. You ran away from me, and now you want to escape your punishment. And I’m gonna ruin you, like the dirty slut you are. You chose to be Annie Taylor. You’re the reason I had to treat you like that. I would have treated you better if I knew that you were a Vaughn.”
Tears welled in my eyes. The only value I had was my last name. If people cared about me at all, it was because they wanted my father, not me. Because when I was Annie Taylor, I was just another faceless girl in a sea of others no one would ever miss. A girl without family or many real friends. The perfect girl to isolate and hurt until he got tired of me.
If I disappeared from this hotel room, would anyone really care? Even my photos, the only thing I’d ever done that really mattered, were gone, turned to ash. As far as the world was concerned, I was just the vapid, unworthy heir to what Hudson Vaughn had built.
Carter’s face swam before my eyes. His sharp blue eyes looking right through me, telling me I was his.
He would care.
And he knew the real me, stripped down, with all my flaws and insecurities laid bare.
And if Carter saw me cowering in front of Josh and acting like what he did was okay…
His voice drifted through my mind, a memory from the beach when we were kids and he was talking about the first tyrant in my life; you have to fight back, Anna. Don’t let him control you.
It was possible no one would ever find me in this motel. I had to fight for myself like Carter would fight for me or I’d never forgive myself.
I squared my shoulders and gave Josh a superior, icy glare that would make Carter proud and then I screamed.
If this was a motel, that had to mean there were other guests, other guests who would hear me.
I braced, my pulse racing as I anticipated being hit or choked or suffocated, but Josh just watched me scream.
He released his hold on my hair, and I stared at him with so much unconcealed hatred as I screamed again. And again. Until my lungs started to hurt and the sounds came raw and broken and I needed to stop to catch my breath.
“Are you finished?”
It hurt to swallow. I struggled to listen over the drone of the TV. The whir of the bathroom fan. The sound of my own breathing as loud as my heartbeat in my ears.
I couldn’t hear anyone, I realized. No one was coming.
“There isn’t anything around here for miles, Annie.”
“My name is Anna.”
“I bought the place last week with my money from my father’s shell company.” He spread his arms wide with a mean smile. “We’re the only guests.”
“Fuck you, Josh,” I spoke over the ball in my throat, refusing to cry again. “You don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as me after what you did back in St. Louis.”
He smiled, showing newly yellowed teeth. My mouth went dry. Josh had completely broken from reality. He told me how he was before we met. How he had it under control now. That the drinking wouldn’t lead him back to using, no matter what his sponsor said.
In this state, I didn’t know what he was capable of, but I didn’t want him to see how scared I was. That usually only made it worse.
“If you’re hoping to collect ransom from my dad, I’ve got bad news,” I told him. “He’s done with me. He won’t give you a cent.”
Josh’s crazed eyes widened. “Why would I ransom you when I worked so hard to get you? Do you know how expensive it was just to find you?”
“Any idiot with half a brain and an internet connection could’ve found me, Josh.”
Grabbing my collar, he ripped the grungy t-shirt I wore down the middle, making me jerk forward. The sleeves caught on my handcuffs, keeping me partially covered. Josh growled in annoyance, spinning to prowl over to the bed. He rummaged through a pile of stuff on the bedside table. I shivered when he held it up to the light.
A dull blade.
Josh sauntered back, getting off on the fear in my eyes that I was working so hard to hide.
He sank to a crouch and brought the knife to my wrists, tutting when he saw my one hand a third of the way free. He heaved the manacle back down, taking a layer of skin with it until it was back around my wrist and my throat burned with tears I wouldn’t let myself cry.
His hands were shaky as he tried to cut away the t-shirt fabric. The tip of the knife flicked against my skin, making me wince, but it wasn’t sharp enough to break the surface.
But Josh paused at the sound, a slow grin widening over his face.
“ Josh —”
He pressed harder. I screamed when he sawed the blade against the sensitive flesh of my forearm.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It stung like hell. Blood bloomed on my pale skin and Josh’s eyes lit with grim satisfaction. He made quick work after that, slicing through the fabric until my chest was bared to him.
“Just as pretty as I remembered,” he whispered. He pressed two dirty fingers hard against the fresh wound in my forearm. Bitter tears flooded from my eyes, and I gritted my teeth, willing myself to be silent.
Maybe if I could get the joined manacles around his neck, I could?—
He traced his bloody fingers up my stomach and all thoughts ceased to exist in my panicked mind.
Josh circled my breasts, outlining them in red as I tried to cave in on myself, trying to absorb myself into the wall at my back, anything to put space back between us.
“Josh, please…”
He pinched my nipple, watching with satisfaction as my body responded. It didn’t matter that it was cold and fear that made my skin prickle and my nipples tighten. I could see Josh’s cock hardening under his dirty sweatpants, and my stomach roiled.
He dragged two skeletal fingers along the side of my face.
I jerked away from his touch and he frowned.
When his hand cupped my pussy through the borrowed panties covering it, I let out a gasping sob.
He wouldn’t, I told myself, needing the lie. Josh had done a lot of things to me, but he’d never raped me. He wouldn’t.
He couldn’t.
“We’re going to have so much fun, Annie.”