21. Petra
Each sound makes me flinch. The sound of what I assume is a gunshot makes me sick. My dad is out there. Some assholes just came in and dragged him out, and now Jake… I’m guessing it’s Jake… is trying to frighten him with gunshots. I don’t know what they want my dad to tell them, but I hope he doesn’t.
I’m trembling so hard the pole I’m attached to shakes with me. I can’t keep still. Especially when the shot is followed by a moment of silence. That quiet pierces through me and leaves me chilly to the bone. I can’t stand this. I hate being in this room alone more than with my dad. I need to know what’s happening.
“Hey,” I yell out, desperate for attention now. Unfortunately, the fear has my voice shaking and not loud at all. A racket has resumed on the other side of that door, so I don’t even think they can hear me. “Hey!”
I suck in a breath, preparing myself to yell louder, but the air slips out from me as the door swings open and a little trickle of light floods the room. Maybe someone did hear me, after all…
“Come with me.” It’s the same hollow-eyed asshole who dragged Dad roughly out of here moments ago.
“Where’s my dad?” I demand as he yanks hard at my already raw wrists, not that the physical pain is the worst of my problems right now. “What did you do to him? He”d better not be hurt.”
I don’t know who the fuck this guy is and how he’s linked to my husband, but the piece of shit actually laughs at me. He seems to find it funny that my father might be hurt. I wonder if he’d feel the same way if this were his family being tortured for no other reason than having something someone else wants. Jake knows that my father would sacrifice all the money to keep me alive, anyway. He has been around my family long enough to understand that. This seems to be for something else. He wants me tormented.
I don’t think I did anything wrong in our marriage. I don’t deserve to be hated by him. I was a good wife, a faithful one. I always treated him well. I only ran away from him because of his plans for me.
No, I tell myself fiercely as the man drags me into the other room where I just know I will finally have to face the man who wants me destroyed. Don’t show any weakness. Don’t give him what he wants.
I’m utterly determined that I won’t crack, that no tear will fall, that Jake can go to hell as far as I’m concerned… until I see the blood spilling out all over the floor and the corpse.
“No!” I howl, a guttural sound that comes from deep within my soul. I leap forward, overcoming every scrap of pain to wrap my arms tightly around my dad. It wasn’t a warning shot, a way to make him spill everything. Jake killed him. For no fucking reason, Jake killed my father. “No, why did you do this?”
Laughter floods the room, echoing off the dingy warehouse walls, but I tune all of that out. In the intensity of my grief, I hear none of it. Just one angelic voice shattering through it all.
“Petra, it’s time to go.” It’s Harry, but I have to be imagining things. Harry can’t be here. He’s still on the island. If this is the way that I’m finally cracking up, then so be it. “I bought your freedom. Come on.”
I glance up to see a vision of the man I adored spending time with, the only person who has ever really made me feel safe in my life. He’s offering me his hand, but if I take it, I’ll be dragged away from Dad.
“Come on.” Harry is starting to look impatient with me, which is weird. Why would I make him like that? “We need to get out of here. You can’t clutch onto your husband like that. He treated you like shit anyway, didn’t he? I killed him to save you, and I really don’t want either of us to end up dead regardless.”
“What?” I hiss. My voice is pretty much a whisper, but the venom burning in my tongue gives it power. “What are you saying? You killed him? But… but you wouldn’t do that to me.”
“I thought you hated him, Petra.” Harry is becoming infinitely more real. An end-of-life fantasy shouldn’t have so much confusion and evil within it. I would never imagine Harry doing something like this to harm me… unless it’s the truth. But why? There is no explanation for this. “He wanted to sell you, remember? He was trying to turn you into some kind of sex slave. You don’t owe him any of your tears.”
“But… but this isn’t Jake,” I stammer awkwardly at him. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s Jake.” Harry points at him as if I don’t understand. “That’s Jake, your husband. They told me… they told me he was useless so if I kill him, you will be free.” He furrows his brows. “That’s Jake.”
I shake my head and sniff back painfully. “No, Harry, you don’t understand. This is my dad.” I glance over to the other side of the room where Harry is pointing to see a nasty, laughing asshole. That fucking piece of work couldn’t be happier with what he’s done. “That man over there, that’s Jake.”
“But… but he’s the boss,” Harry whispers as he staggers backward away from me. “He told me.”
“As if I’m ever going to let either of you go,” Jake cries out in sheer delight. “Fucking hell, hero, how stupid can you be? Do you really think that I would let that whore of a wife of mine go?”
Harry stammers a few more times but doesn’t really form words as a bunch of Jake’s men jump on him. The gun flies from his fingers as fists connect with his face. I cry harder, trying to scream at them to stop, but I can’t get anything out. The only piece of shit who isn’t getting his hands dirty is Jake.
“How could you?” I yell out to him. Since his eyes are fixed solely on me, I can only assume that he wants to see my reaction as he tears my life apart. “What did I ever do to you? How could you?”
“See what your hero has done?” Somehow, his voice manages to travel loudly. “He’s killed your father. You ran off with this man, and he’s a daddy killer. But don’t worry, sweetheart, I will now kill him too.”
Harry might have been the one to pull the trigger, but he was tricked, and anyway, my emotions are all over the place right now. Nothing is making any sense. I leap up and charge toward Jake, wanting him dead now for real. The only weapon I have is my unbridled rage, but that will have to be enough.
“Fuck you,” I scream loudly, the anger bursting through with every yell. “Fuck you, Jake.”
But he’s ready for me. Of course, he is. He’s planned every bit of this out right down to the last detail. He knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold my feelings in for long. He was probably banking on it.
“Ah, husband and wife, back together again.” He wraps his arms around me and roughly spins me around. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I thrash about and kick. He has control of me now. “Isn’t this just wonderful? I was so worried that we wouldn’t get to see one another again. Weren’t you?”
“Fuck off, Jake,” I spit back. “I hate you for what you’ve done to me. How could you? We were married.”
“Oh, you didn’t believe that was real, did you?” He pities me, and I hate it. The putrid way that I despise this man shoots and darts through me like lightning bolts. “You didn’t think that I would actually like you, did you? Oh, Petra, that is so sweet. But you are a bit too prissy for my liking.”
“A slut and prissy? Make your fucking mind up, will you?” I struggle some more, but it gets me nowhere. If anything, it’s just a waste of energy, but I need to keep trying. “Jake, just stop this now. You have already killed my father. Harry doesn’t need to die as well. You can just let him go.”
“Look at him.” Jake yanks me around to stare at the fight scene unfolding in front of my very eyes. “Your precious little Harry is about to be beaten to death. Military man or not, he can’t take on seven men.”
“Fucking coward,” I scream, the sound aching in my lungs. “That isn’t a fight, it’s an ambush. Not one of you would stand a chance in a one-on-one fight with him. He is a million times the man any of you are.”
The words fall apart on my lips as something icy cold presses up against my throat. I don’t need to glance downward to know that it’s a knife. The blade isn’t piercing me yet, but the threat is real.
“Oh, you really are a little slut, aren’t you, Petra?” Jake snarls. “How dare you fall in love with another man while you’re still married to me? How dare you let another man be inside you? Of course, I’ve been fucking other people the entire time because being with you was so boring, I couldn’t possibly be satisfied, but that is the right of a man. A woman needs to be faithful to her husband the entire time.”
“But our marriage wasn’t real,” I whisper back, now too scared of being sliced to be loud. “So it means nothing.” The blade forces harder against my skin. “Jake, please, you don’t need to do this.”
“Oh, I do need to do this, and I am going to as well,” he sneers. “You have brought this on yourself. The life that I had planned for you wouldn’t have been that bad. You are so judgmental.”
“Fuck you.” I can’t let him think that this is normal. No one does this sort of shit to their wife. “Fuck you.”
A brand-new sound fills the air and silences everyone. Sirens. I don’t want to feel hope because I’m scared shitless, but the way everyone stops and freezes in place make me wonder… is this real?
“The cops don’t know about this place,” Jake yells. “How the fuck have they found us?”
No one speaks. No one dares answer. At least not until Harry staggers upward. He’s clearly been beaten badly, nearly as badly as my father, yet he’s surviving it easily. That man is amazing in a lot of ways.
“I have a chip in my arm,” he tells Jake coolly. “My boss knows where I am at all times. This is the end for you. You might as well give it up now. In seconds, the cops will be all over this place. It’s too late for you to even run. I suggest that you step away from Petra before you make it worse than it already is.”
Much to my surprise, Harry’s words work. Jake drops the blade and me as well. I can breathe a little easier knowing that I’m free from his grip now and I’m going to be safe. I guess my body accepts that everything will be okay as well, which is why it succumbs to the exhaustion and lets the blackness claim it.
The world pinholes, it vanishes, leaving me with the knowledge that Harry has done it again. He has saved me. He really is my hero.