Chapter Twenty #3
I jump up and begin redressing. I notice that my panties are gone; he must have taken them, fucking sicko.
I stride into the bathroom allowing myself a moment of privacy.
The disgust, the shame, the repulsion, the sadness, the anger.
It all glides over me. But I hold onto the anger, not letting it get past me.
I take the washcloth from the hanger next to the sink and wet it with the faucet, then wipe between my legs.
The more I can get rid of the feeling of him inside me, the more I can focus.
Once clean, I slide all of my clothes on one by one.
Fortunately, the gun was still in my shirt so I slide that into the waistband of my pants and walk over to the door.
I push it sideways, and it slides right open.
This is going to be easier than I thought.
I see that the creepy dude, let’s call him Fuck Face number five, is not where Gavin told him to stay. Tisk tisk.
I walk along the wall until I am in front of the other girl’s room.
I look into the room and see she is on the bed, and I have found Fuck Face number five.
He is on top of her. I slowly push open the door which thankfully doesn’t require a code due to the power outage; thankfully he is facing away from me.
I grab my knife from my shoe and sneak up behind him.
I catch her eye it hits me all of the sudden.
I know her. It’s Natasha. I show her the knife, tapping my lips with my finger to indicate to her to be quiet.
She just looks away and doesn’t say anything as the guard continues to thrust into her.
I am right behind him and refuse to second-guess myself.
I take the knife and stab it right into the side of his neck, and blood instantly starts pouring from him.
His body stops thrusting, falling to the side of the bed as he struggles to hold his neck.
Natasha is pulled with him, but I catch her before she is drug under his fat, ugly body.
His attempts to cover his neck wound are no use though. I got him right in the carotid artery. That’s where Papa always told me to stab someone. You’ll bleed out too fast to get help or do anything about it.
As he lies there I step closer to the bed, helping her shift back onto it.
“Natasha?”
She looks at me with a surprised expression.
“You’re Natasha, right? I am so sorry for what has happened to you. I am Surry. Gavin is my ex-husband. I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Brenden Slater has told me all about you, and I know Corver has been searching for you since we, well, since we saw the video…”
She closes her eyes and nods but doesn’t move.
She is wearing a dress and nothing else.
I see shoes in the corner, so I grab those and bring them over.
She hasn’t said anything, so I begin to put the shoes onto her feet myself.
I know she is in shock. I know exactly how she feels.
But I won’t let her stay here. She needs out of here just as bad, if not worse, than I do.
BANG.
A gunshot goes off somewhere else in the warehouse.
“Natasha, you don’t need to face him, but I can’t let you stay here in a room that will lock again if the power comes back on.
I need you to get up and walk, okay?” I grab her hand and begin to pull her up very slowly.
The longer I pull, the more she comes out of the stupor she is in.
By the time I have pulled her to a standing position, she has a fire in her eyes.
Good. I need her to be angry. I hold the knife out to her, and she takes it.
I reach down to Fuck Face number five’s body and grab both the guns and the knife he has.
I hand one of the guns to Natasha, stashing the knife in my own pocket.
“Are you ready?” I ask her, looking her in the face, trying to read her expression.
Without looking at me, she nods. “I have never been more ready for anything,” she says in her thick Russian accent. “He needs to die.”
I nod. “I couldn’t agree more,” I reply, an ugly grimace on my face. “We need to try and save my friend before we get out, though. Can you help me?” I have people on the way right now to help us. The Slater’s in fact.”
Her eyes shine slightly in the emergency light, and I know she is desperate to see someone she knows. Someone to save her. “Okay, what’s the plan then?”
“Well, I don’t really have one. I just got here, and it all happened so fast. But we each have a gun and a knife. I am hoping that’ll be enough.” I shrug, because I don’t really know what else to do.
She looks at me like I might be a little off my rocker, but nods anyway.
We don’t really have another choice. We sneak out of the room and begin to walk along the walls as quietly as possible.
When we reach the end of the short hallway that leads to the larger main room we both look around the corner into the room.
There is so much going on. I am not sure how we didn’t hear it before.
The rooms must be soundproof. That’s when I see him.
Brenden. He and Gavin are locked together in some weird fight hug.
I nearly sob when I see him. But it isn’t them who notices us first. One of the fucks who collected me at the port sees me and Natasha and starts running toward us.
“GET BACK IN YOUR ROOMS!”
He starts yelling at us. I look at Natasha, ready to fight my way out of this, seeing if she is as well.
She nods, and we both pull our guns out and pull the trigger.
We each fire two shots, and he is down on the floor, two holes in his head for sure, and at least one body wound.
Now that is out of the way, but we drew attention to ourselves.
A few more of the Fuck Faces start running toward us, most likely with the order not to hurt us, as none of them raise a gun to us.
We, however, do. We take all of the ones that run toward us out, taking turns firing one bullet at each man, right in the face each time.
Finally, it seems that anyone who has noticed us—is dead.
How they all didn’t hear that, I’ll never know.
We stand there, not moving. Taking in what is happening.
That is, until I see Bridget. She is sitting in the chair still, her head slumped forward.
There is blood dripping from her face, and she isn’t moving.
Then I see the blood on the wall behind her.
She’s dead. I am frozen and can’t move. She is dead.
The woman who cared for me all my life. Who loved me as if I were her own.
She is gone, and I will never get to see her again.
Everything I did was for nothing. Coming here.
Killing people. Gavin assaulting me once again, and I can’t do this.
It was all for nothing. I fall to my knees, unable to remove my eyes from her slumped form.
Natasha notices and bends over to look at me, seeing where my eyes are looking.
“She would not want you to die with her,” she tells me. She’s right. But I’m not ready to hear it. I nod, but make no other move to get up.
“Come, we must help. We must get out of here.” Natasha slowly raises her pistol and begins to walk forward into the shadows further, staying against the wall. I breathe deeply, begging to count to five, remembering the only therapy lesson that ever stuck with me.
1…Feel the emotion.
2…She is gone.
3…Process..
4…Anger. Feel the anger. The sadness.
5…Use the anger. Feed it with the sadness.
That’s it. I can’t give myself any more time. I stand and follow after Natasha. The pistol is now warm in my hand, and I mentally tally how many bullets I likely still have. When I reach her, I lean in close.
“If we can avoid it, don’t kill him. I have a plan on how to deal with him.” She nods.
BANG.
Another gun goes off. This time, we can see. Gavin has Brenden by the throat and his gun pointed straight in the air. Everyone froze.
“Well, well, well. It seems you have come much sooner than I was prepared for. But don’t worry, I will take great care of our girl for you.
Where is Stefan? I might as well get this over with if everyone is already here?
” At that moment, a man walks in, holding a shadowy figure by the shoulder with one hand behind his back.
Dad. How did this happen? How are we…losing?
I watch in disbelief. We are really about to… to lose.
Gavin's voice cuts through the air like a blade.
"Hello Stefan. Did you see that video I sent you with the Russians?
" My dad's silence is deafening. "Should I retrieve Surry so we can get this union back on track?
" Gavin's words hang in the air, met with nothing.
His face contorts from the lack of reaction he receives.
"No? OKAY THEN." He slams the gun barrel against Brenden's temple, drawing blood.
"TIE HIM UP!" I cringe seeing the blood, and then the spittle that flies from his mouth as he screams, veins bulging in his neck.
Brenden crashes to his knees. Gavin's eyes are feral now—pupils blown wide, nostrils flaring with each ragged breath.
My heart hammers so hard I taste metal. I lock eyes with Natasha, her terror mirroring my own.
Following her gaze, I see them—Gavin's men forming a death circle, weapons trained on Josh, Gunnar, and my father's crew.
The metallic click of safeties being switched off echoes in the sudden silence.
A hand comes around and covers my mouth, and I try to spin around but can’t. I use my peripheral to see that Natasha also has her mouth covered. Between us a blonde head comes into view and starts whispering to us.
“It’s me, Corver, don’t scream.” Just before he removes his hand from our mouths Natasha lets out a tiny sob, and we turn to face him.
Corver and Natasha just look at each other before she falls into him, his arms wrapping around her, and he presses kisses onto the top of her head.
I can see her shoulders shaking as she begins to fall apart.
I gesture to the others, and Cover looks at me with sadness in his eyes. “What are we going to do about this?”
“Arnie is still over in the other building, I have him in my ear. He says hi.” Corver whispers and gestures toward his ear.
“We turned the lights out and are the only ones able to get them back on. But through the cameras we could see what was happening to you, and to Natasha, and then everyone else. So I decided I’d better get in here.
I have a gas bomb, but I only have one respirator. Do you have any ideas?”
“Actually,” Natasha says in her low Russian accent. “I do.”