15. Nix
15
NIX
Now I know what real torture feels like. Before today, I only thought I understood. Keeping myself away from the world, living in the shadows, holding myself back. It’s been hell, and I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Now I know better.
My pulse is pounding and sweat rolls down the back of my neck as I follow the car Leni is in. I don’t know how I managed to sit there silent and still when my instincts screamed at me to stop them. I could’ve hit the horn, so they knew someone was watching. I even saw myself hitting the gas, aiming directly for the car they stood next to once I spotted Dennis approaching Leni from behind. Why didn’t I stop them?
Because they, of all people, can’t know I’m still alive. It’s bad enough Colt knows—it was stupid to think Leni would be able to keep my visit a secret. I told myself she could because it meant getting what I wanted, and now I have to be more careful than ever.
But showing myself to Dennis would’ve been the biggest mistake of all. Especially out in public, on the street.
Meaning all I can do now is follow them. The sun is setting, and traffic is getting thinner the further we drive away from the center of town. I have to hang back half a block, sometimes more, to make sure they don’t get suspicious. Deborah might be a dumb bitch, but she’s sneaky. She’ll be keeping watch, making sure nobody noticed what they did.
I only hope Leni is unconscious, the way she looked when they shoved her into the back of the car. I don’t want her to know this is happening. If she’s ever going to be afraid, I want her to be afraid of me, of what I can do to her, not of these pathetic assholes. What do they think they’re doing? What’s the point of this? Fuck, if I could only ask. Not that it would make a difference even if I could.
Farther and farther, Dennis drives until the landscape changes around us. The buildings thin out, changing shape from homes and shops, turning into factories and warehouses. There are a few other cars on the road to give me cover, mostly trucks and vans, but at least I don’t stick out too much.
By the time the car in front of me slows down and the right turn signal blinks, my palms are sweaty enough to make steering a challenge. I go around them, slowing down, watching in the rearview mirror as Dennis turns into the gravel lot of an old, darkened building whose windows are either broken or boarded up. After driving another block to make sure I don’t raise suspicion, I make a U-turn and park across the street.
My feet don’t make a sound as I run, or maybe that’s the pounding of my heart drowning out everything else. What the fuck do they think they’re doing? And what can I do to help her? How can I do anything when I can’t let them see me? But I can’t stand back and watch without doing everything possible to help her, either.
By the time I reach the building, they’re inside, bickering. Dennis must be desperate if he is willing to put up with Deborah’s shrill voice. “Tie her the fuck up,” she demands. “I can’t wait to have a little fun with her.”
“Remember what we talked about,” Dennis warns. Peering through one of the broken windows, I find the space barely lit by a handful of lanterns surrounding a folding metal chair where Leni is now slumped, with her head hanging forward and her eyes closed. The only thing keeping her up is the way they’ve tied her hands behind the chair. She’s going to be in pain when she wakes up.
They are going to make her hurt.
Everything around me goes red while my heart pounds harder than ever, and I imagine the satisfaction of snapping Dennis’s neck. Deborah’s, too.
But I can’t do it alone. Fuck me, I need help.
There are only three people in the entire world I care enough about to do what I’m going to do now: Mom, Leni, and Colt.
Backing away from the window, I take my phone from my pocket and dial up one of those three people. All I can do is hope he won’t waste any fucking time on things that aren’t important now.
Shouldn’t I know him better? “Oh, so you’re finally going to sack up?” Colt asks as soon as he’s answered the phone.
“There’s no time,” I whisper, cutting off anything else he was about to say. “They took her. Deborah and Dennis.”
“What?” he barks. “Where?”
“A warehouse on Lake Street between Pine and Poplar,” I tell him. “I need you to get down here now. We’ve got to go in and get her out of there.”
My brother isn’t perfect, but he has his good points. Right now, that means taking my word for it without asking a bunch of questions. “I’m on my way. Don’t do anything until I get there.” The thing is, I can’t make that promise when I can’t predict what they’re going to do next. All I can do is grunt in response before ending the call and hoping he gets here soon.
Creeping back up to the window, I see Deborah leaning down, lifting Leni’s chin. “Wake up,” she croons, giggling nastily. “It’s time to have some fun. But we can’t if you’re still sleeping.”
“I soaked the hell out of that rag,” Dennis explains. “She’s going to be out of it for a little while.”
“We’ll see.” Deborah pulls back her hand, and I bite my tongue, watching her slap Leni hard enough to make her head snap to the side before her chin drops to her chest again.
“Wake up, you stupid bitch,” she almost sings, giggling before taking Leni’s jaw and squeezing. “Time to answer some questions, just the three of us.”
I am going to enjoy the fuck out of bringing her pathetic life to an end. Grim satisfaction spreads through me at the thought and even makes my dick twitch before finally, there’s a buzz in my pocket. A text from Colt. Almost there.
He needs to hurry. Deborah is getting frustrated, like a kid who can’t wait to play with a new toy. “How is she supposed to give us any answers if she’s unconscious?” she whines, wiping her hand on her thigh like Leni’s skin soiled her. Like it isn’t the other way around.
“She’ll come around soon,” Dennis mutters. I recognize the tone in his voice. He’s tired of her, probably wishing he hadn’t gotten involved in the first place. “Be patient.”
Patience isn’t something I have a lot of, either. Looking over my shoulder, I catch sight of a car pulling into the lot with its lights turned off. Smart move. He pulls to a stop close to the chain-link fence at the sidewalk, then jogs my way.
My brother. Not the way I saw us reuniting, but then I never really planned on reuniting with him. I was ready to stay away forever.
“She’s in there?” he whispers once he reaches me, because there’s no time to talk things over now. He knows it and so do I, both of us creeping closer to the window so we can see what’s happening. She’s starting to stir, groaning softly while Deborah taunts her.
“That fucking bitch,” Colt whispers. “What are you thinking?”
“I’ll go around to the rear—there’s a door on the other side of the building. Can you see it from here?” I whisper. He nods, and I point to the entrance Dennis and Deborah used. “You distract them by going in through this door and I’ll take advantage.”
“Have you seen any weapons?” he asks, watching them.
“No, but I doubt they brought her here without one.”
“Okay. Wait, though.” His words bring me up short before I can sneak away. My mouth is opening, ready to ask why he wants to wait, when the sight of his right fist cocking back answers my question. Pain bursts to life in my jaw when he makes contact hard enough to send me stumbling backward.
But I keep my balance, remaining on my feet while touching a hand to my throbbing face. “I deserve that, I guess.”
“Damn right, you do.” He surprises me again, this time by taking hold of me and throwing his arms around me in a brief but fierce hug that fills a hole I didn’t know existed in what’s left of my heart. “Asshole.”
I deserve that, too. Before he can ask any questions or hit me again, I jog around the building, barely avoiding tripping over weeds growing up from the cracks in the pavement. From the looks of it, people have been using this place as shelter—there are bottles, fast food wrappers, even an old blood-stained mattress sticking out from under a tarp. It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone else here tonight, thankfully. We don’t want any witnesses.
“What do you think you’re doing with her?” Colt’s voice rings out inside a second before I reach the partly open door opposite where he’s standing. From the looks of it, Dennis and Deborah are shocked, frozen stiff, staring at him while Leni’s head moves from side to side, and her soft groans get a little louder.
“What, do you have a fucking tracking device planted on her?” Deborah demands.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Dennis mutters before stepping up behind Leni. From where I’m standing, I can see him reach into his back pocket. The lantern light is enough to make out the metal gleam when he withdraws it. A knife. They’re going to cut her.
Leni gasps when he steps up behind her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to hold her still with the blade against her throat. “Get away from her,” Colt warns in a voice that trembles with rage.
“What are you gonna do about it?” Deborah demands with a high-pitched laugh. “Tonight we’re getting answers, once and for all.”
“Take a step, and I will open an artery,” Dennis promises. With his attention on Colt, I’m able to creep up slowly, silently, while Colt pretends I’m not here.
“She has nothing to do with any of this,” he insists. “You have a problem with me? Talk to me about it. Not her. She’s innocent.”
“And you’re not innocent?” Dennis asks. I’m only a few feet away now, and I see what needs to happen next. It’s all in front of me, crystal clear. My heartbeat slows, my breathing goes even. I’ve never been more prepared for anything.
He doesn’t realize what’s happening until I have a handful of his hair in my fist. There’s not even time for him to gasp in surprise or pain by the time I take his wrist in my other hand, the one holding the knife.
“What—?” That’s it. That’s all he has the chance to say before he buries the blade in his own neck, with my help.
Deborah spins around at the sound of his strangled gurgling. “Oh, my god!” she screams while I pull Dennis away from Leni, still holding onto him while he thrashes weakly.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get your turn,” I promise her before forcing Dennis to remove the knife from his flesh. Blood pours from the hole we created, splashing across Deborah’s dark hoodie, spraying her face.
From the corner of my eye, I see Colt rushing to Leni, untying her, helping her out of the chair. Right now, I’m more interested in the blood-soaked girl staring in horror as Dennis drops to the floor. She’s too shocked to move and too stupid to realize she’s looking at her own immediate future.
The blade is still coated with hot, sticky blood when I take the knife from Dennis’s hand. He presses that hand to his neck, but it’s no use. Every beat of his heart makes his life force pour from between his fingers, looking more like oil in the lantern’s light.
“You said you want answers?” With my other hand, I pull back my hood. Colt’s soft grunt is nothing compared to Deborah’s gasp of horror as she realizes who she’s looking at.
Her eyes go round, her mouth falling open. “How?” she whispers, backing up, stumbling over the empty chair and landing on her ass.
“You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” I whisper, savoring her horror as I advance one step at a time. “This didn’t have to happen.”
“But… you’re dead!” Her terrified gaze bounces from my scarred face to the knife and back again. “Please!”
“Oh, no,” I reply, reaching down and taking a hold of her platinum hair when she tries to scramble away. Her pained gasp is music to my ears. I yank her head back until her tear-filled eyes meet mine. “It’s too late for that.”
The satisfaction of sinking the knife into her chest is indescribable. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed penetration this much. The parting of her lips in a gasp, the look of surprise, the way she claws weakly at me—I don’t even feel it. I only drive the blade into the hilt, then turn it before pulling it free.
“Say hi to Bradley,” I whisper, watching the life drain from her eyes while blood drains from her wound, pouring out to soak her sweatshirt, bubbling from her lips with every wet breath she tries to take.
To her, it probably lasts forever, but to me, it’s over in an instant. I’m almost disappointed by how short her suffering lasts. Dennis, too—he’s dead now, his eyes wide and unseeing, blood pooled under his head.
Now what?
Colt is already thinking along those lines. “We have to get her out of here,” he decides, his arms around Leni. She sags in them, still dazed from whatever they drugged her with.
“What do we do with them?” I ask, wiping my fingerprints off the handle before dropping the knife on the floor.
“We have to leave them here, at least for now,” he replies. “We can come back for them once we figure out what we want to do. Nobody’s going to find them here tonight.”
He’s right. The most important thing is getting Leni out of here and home, safe. “And you’re coming with us,” he adds, lifting her in his arms, cradling her close to his chest. “Now, come on. I need you to open the door for me so I can get her into the car.”
Home with them? I’m against the idea, coming up with reasons why it won’t work as I follow him out of the warehouse and across the lot. “That wasn’t the idea,” I argue as we reach the car, opening the passenger side door for him to place Leni inside. She falls back against the seat, her eyes half closed, a pathetic little groan stirring in her throat. What would they have done if I wasn’t watching her today? The thought is enough to make me wish I could kill her kidnappers again.
“I don’t care what the idea was.” Once he has her safely belted into her seat, he closes the door and faces me. “You’re coming home with us so we can figure out what to do next,” he insists. “Got it?”
“All right,” I agree, because at the end of the day, it feels damn good to be back with him. With both of them. Like the part of me that’s been missing these past seven months is finally back.
And we do need to discuss what happens now. What to do with the bodies, and how to keep Leni out of this.
“No, ride with us,” he insists when I start off for my car. “We can come back and pick your car up. No offense, but I don’t trust you to follow me.”
He has a point. I don’t bother arguing before climbing into the back seat, feeling more alive than I have in a long time. Whatever happens next, I won’t be alone. For the first time in months, I don’t have to be alone.