60 - Frankie
60
Frankie
—
Consciousness returns slowly, dragging me from the depths of a dreamless void. Groggy and disoriented, I blink repeatedly, unable to clear the milky cloud that blurs my vision.
I lie on my back, legs extended. Wrapped in a soft cocoon of bedding, my body feels heavy and unresponsive, as if crushed beneath an unseen force.
Struggling to breathe, I sluggishly piece together flashes of memory.
The needle. The duffle bag. Rhett.
Panic flares, sharp and consuming, and I realize I can’t flail. I can’t move my limbs at all. My heart thunders, booming so hard it pressurizes in my ears. I try to scream, but my throat remains silent, my lips unmoving. I can’t even gasp for air.
Complete muscle paralysis.
Don’t freak out, Frankie. Don’t let the fear take over. Stay calm. Find a way out.
I feel every sensation in my body, and that acute awareness dominates my thoughts. I focus on my heart rate, commanding it to slow. Sweat trickles down my forehead, pooling in the hollows of my eyes.
My eyelids respond, opening and closing. I encourage them, trying to regain my eyesight.
Slowly, the haze over my vision recedes, revealing a dimly lit room, the air cool and musty.
Familiar.
Horrifyingly familiar.
As my eyes adjust, recognition hits me like a white-out blizzard.
No, no, nononono!
Two-story windows, glossy wood floors, stone fireplace, curving staircase to a catwalk…
The cabin.
I’m back in Hoss.
My worst nightmare realized.
Panic spikes anew, my pulse vaulting into a war cry of terror. The cabin closes in on me, walls pressing nearer, air growing thinner.
A soft, rhythmic whirring sound buzzes from somewhere nearby. What is that?
I concentrate on the ceiling, counting the beams, desperately trying to anchor myself. But the sense of suffocation only grows. My breaths are too shallow, too rapid, each one fighting against the invisible weight on my chest.
Only my eyes move. I dart them side to side, frantic, searching for escape, for someone to assure me I’m not alone.
Lying on the couch in a sitting room full of memories, I’m swaddled in a blanket, the soft material tickling my skin. My bare skin.
Head to toe, I’m completely naked.
Where are my clothes?
Where’s Rhett?
An IV line snakes in my peripheral vision, connected to my arm. The other end attaches to a fluid bag and small portable pump.
That explains the whirring sound.
I’m drugged.
Trapped.
A prisoner in my body.
In this cabin.
This hellish place.
Every crack in the wall, every shadow cast by the window light, brings back the fear, the endless night, the cold, the hunger, the abuse, the hopelessness. All of it lives in my bones.
Yet everything looks different.
During our final months here, we tore apart every wooden structure to fuel the hearth.
There’s no trace of our struggle for survival. The destruction is gone, the wreckage swept away. New furniture fills the space. Repaired flooring. The cabin looks reborn, untouched by its haunted past.
The transformation is jarring, making my skin prickle and crawl.
Rhett has been traveling nonstop for the past five months.
Mostly to major cities. I’ve been working closely with top hospitals in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York.
I know Wilson investigated this. Rhett’s flight plans checked out. But were all his flights confirmed? He must’ve been taking trips here, too.
How did he find Hoss? Leo and Kody searched and searched and couldn’t locate it.
They don’t know where I am.
They’ll never find me.
I try to move again, but my limbs lay like dead things. I look down and study the IV drip in my arm.
My mind races. Whatever he’s giving me only affects skeletal muscles. I feel every twitch, pulse, and breath in my body.
I can feel pain.
And wetness.
Wetness between my legs.
Did my bladder empty? Or is it something else?
Don’t go there, Frankie. Don’t think about it.
I’m wide awake. Fully aware. My brain is working, and I need to use it.
Rhett is my stalker.
He sent creepy messages and dismembered body parts to me.
Is he a serial killer? Or does he paralyze his victims the way he’s paralyzing me? Does he keep them alive, trapped in their bodies, while he tortures them?
Is that what he intends to do to me?
Silent tears slip down my temples.
He has Wolf’s body.
Tightness compresses my chest, my breath ramping into shallow puffs of air.
Sound comes from the arctic entryway. Doors open and close. Then Rhett appears, his expression unfamiliar, his eyes cold. Dead. I hardly recognize him.
“You’re awake.” He strides over in jeans and a thermal shirt, his hair windblown. Far removed from the heart surgeon I’ve known since my residency in Anchorage.
My only friend.
I glare at him with all the venom I can pour into my burning eyes.
You kidnapped me.
You’re sick.
Let me go.
Please, don’t do this.
The phone in his hand isn’t a typical smartphone. The fat antenna and bulky size suggest it’s a satellite phone.
It holds his attention as he approaches. When he reaches the couch, he shifts his gaze to me, a sad smile on his lips.
“Don’t look at me like that, sweetheart.” He sits on the couch beside my hip. “I’ve waited years for this. There’s so much I need to tell you. So much you don’t understand. But right now, all you need to know is that I love you. I’ve loved you since the day I met you in Anchorage.” He glances at the phone again, watching something on the screen. “I saw you first, you know. Before any of the Strakh men knew you existed, you were mine.”
He’s insane. It’s right there in his wide, unnervingly alert, deranged eyes.
As his stare fixes on me, it doesn’t waver, as if he’s in a trance, lost in the fantasies of his obsession. The edges of his eyes twitch, a small, involuntary signal of the madness and chaos twisting beneath the surface.
He knows what I endured in this cabin. I confided in him, trusted him, and he listened with compassion.
All the while, he was stalking me and planning this.
He brought me back to the nightmare I fought so hard to escape.
On this day, of all days.
Exactly one year ago, I watched Denver rape Wolf. Then I walked down those stairs and made the devil’s bargain.
Does Rhett understand the significance of this date?
Does he know winter is rapidly approaching? Does he know what that means in the hills of shivers and shadows?
Does he intend to keep me alive long enough to find out?
I direct my eyes to my unresponsive arm on my chest, narrowing my gaze on the IV port.
“Succinylcholine.” He stares at his phone again. “It’s temporary but necessary. The only way for you to stay calm and listen.”
I’m not calm.
I’m the fucking opposite of calm.
Succinylcholine can be used to induce short-term paralysis. An injection wears off in ten or fifteen minutes. But he modified it, controlling the dose through the IV drip to extend its effects.
If he loved me, he would have a heart monitor set up, watching the spikes and ensuring the drug doesn’t kill me.
My longevity is probably not part of his plan.
The horror of being trapped in my own body, aware of everything but unable to move or beg him for mercy, is more than I can withstand.
How did he pull this off? He sent creepy text messages to me while sitting beside me on the yacht. He has a successful career and a promising future. Why risk all that? What’s his endgame?
I have so many questions and can’t ask any of them.
My thoughts spin, drowning me in my own head. I need to get out of here, but how?
“I’m doing this for you. For us. You’ll see.” He leans down and kisses my forehead, the feel of his cold lips flooding me with nausea. “I’m not gay, Frankie. Never was.”
His words slither ice down my spine.
No wonder he never married. I never saw him date or even touch another man. Come to think of it, he never outright said he was gay. Over the years, I assumed it based his comments about Monty’s good looks when Monty and I started dating.
Mostly, I just thought Rhett was married to his job.
I’m so fucking stupid.
“I let you believe that because I needed you to feel safe around me.” Another peek at his phone. “You are safe with me. I know it doesn’t feel that way right now, but this will all make sense soon.” He pulls in a breath. “They’re almost here.”
The shaking inside me goes still, paralyzed by a voltage of fear.
Monty, Leo, and Kody?
He must be watching them on his phone.
I search his indiscernible features, begging his blue eyes to tell me.
He shifts his position to run his gaze down the length of me. Holding his phone in one hand, he fists the blanket with his other. Then he drags it completely off me.
Cold air sweeps in, biting along my nude skin.
He leans closer, and I shrink inside my paralyzed body.
“Don’t be shy.” He reaches out, gently sliding a finger between my legs. “We’ve already been intimate.”
My heart rate bursts into horrified tremors, and my stomach churns violently as he lifts a come-soaked finger and rubs it across my limp tongue.
“When I carried you out of the hospital in my duffle bag, I drove you to my bush plane at the Sitka airport, put you in the cargo hold, and…” He wags his head. “I couldn’t wait. You weren’t awake, but goddamn, you looked so beautiful and vulnerable, I had to have you before we took off.”
He swipes the screen on his phone and turns it toward my face.
A photo of me.
Naked, eyes closed, head lolled, legs spread, and a dick shoved up inside me. A dick with blond pubic hair.
My gaze flies to his blond head.
He raped me while I was unconscious.
Nausea surges, a stabbing, sickening agony that floods my mouth with saliva, compelling me to hurl. But even that simple reflex is denied to me. I can’t retch. There’s no relief from the roiling churn in my gut.
I scream in my head, sobbing and wailing without sound as my body ignores me, leaving me helpless and confined.
“You felt so fucking good, Frankie.” He fingers my pussy, pressing his vile digits inside, molesting me until my mind fractures amid the shrieking screams of my trapped pain. “I sent that photo to the Strakhs.”
No!
Oh, God, no! That would destroy them. It would cut them so deeply there will be no way to stop the bleeding.
And they’re coming here?
Rhett must know that he’ll have an army of bloodthirsty, murderous fiends charging in with claws and fangs unsheathed.
He would’ve prepared for that.
He’s going to kill them.
I fight to control my thoughts, to quell the meltdown splitting my skull.
“I sent the photo to all of them with a link to the instructions to find you.” He removes his hand from my body and returns his attention to his phone, swiping the screen. “When they opened the link, spyware downloaded to their devices. The instructions advised them I was watching and listening and included threats against their security team if they involved them. Threats against the lives of anyone they involved. They followed my instructions, made no phone calls, took the yacht to Sitka, boarded the bush plane I left for them, and smashed their phones when they took off.”
They’re alone. Walking into a trap.
“Once they were in the air,” he says, “I sent the coordinates for the cabin to the avionics GPS in the plane. The communication system is disabled, but I can see where they are through the GPS system.” He glances around the cabin. “This place is special. It’s our safety from the world. Our home. I don’t want anyone to find it.”
Maybe they found a way around his instructions without his knowledge. His confidence in his plan makes my blood run cold, but Monty, Leo, and Kody are smart. They’re survivors.
I have to believe they’ll outsmart him.
“I’ve been watching them the entire way.” He gestures at his phone. “They haven’t deviated from the flight path. Haven’t made any stops. They have no advantage. No way out unless they turn back in the next thirty minutes. If they do, I’ll activate the bomb on board.” He squints at me, his expression chilling. “Turns out you were right. They are willing to die for you.”
The backs of my eyes catch fire as tears swarm my vision. I blink them away and shift my focus to the closed door. No help there.
Then I look at him and blink hard, two quick blinks, a desperate Morse code for no.
“No?” He brushes the hair from my face, sending a shiver along my dead limbs. “You don’t want to see the men you worked so hard to unite? The men you love so much? They’re my gifts to you. And there’s more.”
He stands and paces out of view. I track his footsteps into the kitchen. Straining my ears, I try to pick up any details, something that might help me as he moves around in the other room.
What did we leave behind when we escaped? Weapons in the armory. Knives in the kitchen. Scissors on the counter. None of that helps when I can’t lift a finger.
My brain works frantically, formulating possibilities.
I will not let them die.
We survived this place once. We’ll survive it again.
Think, Frankie. Fucking think.
I know the drug’s effects are short-acting if not continuously administered. If I can disrupt the IV, maybe I can regain control of my body.
Scanning the room, I look for anything within reach. The edge of a table, a zipper on the couch cushion, anything I can use to dislodge the IV. My mind whirls with desperation.
In extreme situations, a surge of adrenaline can sometimes help the body override paralysis. If I can just get a hand moving, maybe I can pinch or damage the IV line.
I shut my eyes, listening to his footsteps in the kitchen while willing my fingers to move, to close, to tear. Perspiration beads along my temples. Tears leak down my face. My insides tremble with the effort to unlock my joints.
The sound of his approach snaps my eyes open, the burst of energy quickly fading.
Not yet. But I can do this. I’ll find a way.
He reenters the room, his demeanor calm. Too calm.
His blue eyes meet mine, and I hold his gaze in silent defiance.
“As much as I don’t want to cover your gorgeous body, I don’t want you to be cold.” He kneels at my side, holding a velvety green robe. “I have something to show you. Something I’ve been collecting for you.”
I don’t want it. Please, don’t show me anything.
He maneuvers my limbs, the IV fluid bag, and portable pump into the robe, ties the sash, and sets the bag on my stomach. Then he lifts me into his arms and carries my immobilized body into the kitchen.
While my arm dangles like a lead weight, my eyes are restless, frantically taking in each new angle.
I don’t expect to find a table. It was one of the first things we burned in the hearth.
The scent of cold, damp earth merges with something sterile, something wrong. My heart rattles against my ribs, but there’s nothing I can do.
Rhett carefully lays me on a new kitchen table.
A table surrounded by people.
People propped up in chairs, motionless.
No, not people.
Corpses.
My breath seizes, my eyes widening in terror as I take in the faces. I recognize them. Most of them.
Horror mauls my insides, turning everything to ice. Every muscle, every nerve screams for release, for escape, but I can’t move. I can’t fight back.
I can’t escape this nightmare.
My nervous system riots with panic while my body remains silent, paralyzed, and compliant on the table of death.
Sirena’s long black hair tangles around her shoulders, her eyes hollowed out, leaving dark voids where life once sparkled.
Doyle sits beside her, his handless arm on the table, the rest of him unnervingly still.
And Denver.
Holy fuck.
I inwardly recoil, unable to purge the bile in my throat.
Shirtless, he bears a gaping hole in his chest, his face beaten, disfigured, and partially decomposed, mostly as it was when I killed him. His eyes, open and glassy, have the same vacant stare as when he took his last breath.
There are two others on this side of the table that I don’t recognize. An older man and woman. Their faces are unfamiliar but lifeless like the others.
I know another body sits behind me, but I can’t turn my neck.
I don’t want to turn it.
“That’s Alvis Duncan and Thea, his wife.” Rhett circles the table, approaching from above my head.
He leans over me, his face upside down, utterly unruffled, as if this grotesque scene is normal.
Alvis Duncan.
The man in Whittier who kept the flight logs, who watched Denver for decades.
But why? Why are they here? None of this makes sense.
It’s a macabre dinner party with dead bodies arranged like guests around the table.
The trophies of a mass-murdering psychopath.
Numbness seeps into my bloodstream, dulling my senses. There’s only so much a person can accept before the mind breaks.
I’ve reached my breaking point.
Or so I thought.
Rhett cups my face and turns my head to the other side of the table.
Wolf.
My Wolf.
The sight of him shatters what’s left of my sanity.
My heart cracks open, and I try to roar, to howl in agony, but the chemical invasion in my veins imprisons me. All I can do is stare, helpless, my soul sobbing silently in a body that refuses to respond.
He looks exactly as he did when he jumped from the cliff.
Beautiful.
Broken.
His head hangs unnaturally on his shoulders, his hair draped across his face. His eyes are closed, his body unmoving.
Dead.
Just as dead as the others.