Chapter 51 THEO
THEO
I drive past the small turnoff twice before I see it. Danny will hear me if I drive up to the house, so I slam my car into park and sprint up the long dirt road.
I’ve never run a faster mile in my fucking life.
I slow down to catch my breath when I see the small, well-kept cabin sitting along the river, a shiny rental car parked out front. I need to be smart about this. I need to make sure Alex is safe and get her out of here before I fucking kill him.
I stay low as I approach the cabin and slowly try the handle, but the front door is locked.
I peer through the living room window and panic races through me.
There’s a bunch of scattered photos, a discarded first aid kit, some duct tape, and a small pool of fresh blood on the floor with a trail leading away from it.
Oh, fuck.
I need to get her out of here, now.
I notice a door in the kitchen visible from the living room, so I keep low and walk around the side of the small cabin quickly. I slowly turn the handle of the back door, closing my eyes briefly and sighing in relief because it’s unlocked.
Alex and I have to be connected, because there’s no other way I’d be this fucking lucky.
I leave the door open a fraction of an inch and go scope out the other rooms first. I need to know where they are before I go in, and I need to see if he’s got a gun.
I duck low, keeping under the windows except to peek in the rooms. The small back bedroom has an open suitcase, a camera, a laptop, and an empty holster.
Shit, of course he has his gun on him. I round the corner, peering into the empty bathroom as I sneak toward the other bedroom window.
I can hear muffled sounds through the wall and raise my head just enough to look inside.
I freeze, and my head empties out, everything replaced by a deafening, furious buzzing as I see Alex’s pale, naked body on the bed.
Her arms are tied beneath her, and her shoulder looks pulled out of the socket.
There’s tape around her mouth, and it’s covered with blood from her nose, which looks broken.
She’s got finger-shaped bruises starting to appear on her arms and throat, and huge bruises starting to blossom over her stomach and ribs.
Thick red welts and long, irregular cuts are strewn all over her body, and she’s got a soaked, bloody bandage wrapped around her mid-thigh.
The bed beneath her leg is dark with blood, and Danny’s on top of her, her limp body moving with the impact of him.
Her eyes are open, staring blankly at the ceiling, but she’s not reacting.
She’s so pale, and her skin has a sickly grey pallor.
My heart stops beating, the world stops turning, and time freezes.
I’m too fucking late.
He killed her.
She’s dead.
The panic in my body transforms into something icy and horrible as I turn around and head for the back door. This is so different from anything I’ve felt before. All I see is red, all I can feel is fury, but I’m entirely present and completely in control.
I know that I need to be quiet, and I know I have time, so I do everything carefully.
I enter the cabin quietly and slip a kitchen knife from the block before I head towards the front bedroom.
My control wavers when I see them again through the open door, but I’m clear headed enough to notice his gun is on the bedside table.
I can’t let him get close to it, so I go slowly, but my control starts slipping as I hear how much he’s enjoying himself.
He’s taken so much from her. He ruined her life, then he took it, and he’s still fucking taking from her.
I’m going to enjoy taking everything from him.
I tighten my grip on the knife and hang on to the last threads of my fading control as I approach him from behind. I just need to get a little closer, and then I’m going to rip this motherfucker’s guts out.
“Stupid - fucking - dead - bitch,” he says, punctuating each word with a thrust. He hauls off and slaps her, and her head falls to the side with no resistance.
There’s no control after that.
By the time hears me, I’m already shoving the knife deep into his side, twisting it as much as I can.
He starts to scream, and I rip the knife out and pull him off her, throwing him back into the wall and stabbing whatever I can reach.
He yells in pain, blocking me and hitting me hard as he tries to fight me off.
I register the impact of his fists and feel something snap in my side, but I can’t feel any pain, so I keep stabbing him.
He’s slightly taller than I am, larger and definitely stronger, but none of that matters.
He has something to lose. I don’t.
He’s trying to grab me, but he’s getting weaker, and his hands are slick with blood, so he can’t get a good grip.
His blood is getting on my hands, and the knife almost slips from my grasp at one point as he blocks my stab.
The momentary distraction of me regripping the knife gives him an opening to punch me in the face, and my nose breaks as my head snaps back.
Danny bodychecks me into the bed, scrambling away from me, and I fall onto Alex’s injured leg.
For a fraction of a second, I’m grateful she can’t feel any pain.
I launch off the bed and rush after him as he grabs his gun, but I’ve got the knife lodged in his throat before he can take aim.
His eyes go wide, and he starts gasping out these horrible, wet sounds as he falls to the floor.
I follow him down and rip the knife out of his throat right before I feel the impact of something tearing through my left shoulder and my left side.
Oh, right.
The gun.
I drop the knife and wrench the gun out of his hand and shoot him until it’s empty, then I bring the butt of the gun down on his ugly fucking face.
I smash the gun into his face twice more, then throw it to the ground and grab his head with both hands, picking it up and bashing it into the floor, throwing my whole weight into it.
My left arm isn’t working that well, so I’m mostly using my right, but he’s not fighting me anymore.
I don’t know when he stops moving, but I can’t stop moving.
I pick up his head and slam it into the floor again and again until it cracks open, and then I keep fucking going.
What’s in my hands starts to get less solid and harder to hold, and the pool of blood beneath us keeps getting bigger, but it’s only when a jagged piece of bone slices my palm open that I’m able to stop, and only because it cuts so deeply that my hand becomes hard to use.
I drop what’s left of his head onto the floor, vaguely aware that I’m exhausted and in pain, but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters.
As I stare down at what used to be Danny, the buzzing inside my skull starts to fade as the reality of the situation sets in.
Alex is gone. She’s just…dead. I can’t fucking fix that.
A black hole opens in my stomach and my fury is replaced with despair. It’s my fault she’s dead. I fucked up and got here too late. I didn’t do enough to care of her, to protect her, and she got fucking tortured to death because of it. This is all my fault. I failed her.
I struggle to my feet, looking down at Danny’s annihilated face.
At least I did that right.
I close my eyes and take a shaking breath. I don’t want to look at Alex and see how badly I let her get hurt, but I can’t leave her on the bed like this, tied up and fucking abused. She’s mine and I still need to take care of her, even if she’s not there anymore.
I force myself to look at her, and my body involuntarily convulses in horror. Alex’s body is limp on the bed, her head turned towards me, her wide eyes looking towards Danny’s corpse.
I’m feeling some of the pain now, and it’s excruciating, but it’s nothing compared to this.
I don’t want this to be the way I remember her.
I want to remember the way she looked at me this weekend, how she looked when she felt happy and loved and cared for.
That’s what she deserved, not this. I reach for her slowly, hating that Danny’s blood is even touching her as I gently turn her face up towards me and brush the hair away from her eyes.
I can feel the faintest hum of connection between us, but I know it’s just my brain playing tricks on me because I don’t want to accept that she’s gone.
“Sweetheart, please wake up,” I beg softly. I shake her shoulder gently, but there’s no response at all. This can’t be fucking happening. Alex has always been such a liar, so maybe this is just another lie she’s telling. I press my fingers to her neck gently, and I sob when I don’t feel anything.
Why can’t this be a fucking delusion?
“Come on, honey, wake up.” I want her to be alive more than I’ve ever wanted anything, so I press harder against the delicate column of her throat. I know I’m being stupid, but I just want her back.
Deep beneath my fingers, I feel a faint, sluggish pulse.
Everything instantly snaps into sharp focus.
Her chest is barely moving, and my ears are ringing from the gunshots, so I can’t hear if she’s breathing, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t. Even with my fucked-up hand, I manage to rip enough tape off her face to pull the gag out of her mouth, but she doesn’t even react.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart, just hang on for me,” I beg rapidly.
I try to be gentle as I roll her to the side, and she’s completely unresisting.
At least one shoulder is dislocated, and her wrists are handcuffed, raw and bloody beneath the metal, and I lay her down gently before I tear through Danny’s clothes looking for the keys.
“Everything’s going to be okay, sweetheart.
” I unlock her wrists and move her arms to her side gently before I rip my bloody flannel off, ignoring the pain in my left side as I jerk my arm free.
I wrap her in the shirt to try and get any amount of warmth into her before I pull her from the bed and into my arms as best as I can.
“Please fucking stay with me, Alex. Don’t leave me, okay?” She’s like a rag doll, absolutely limp in my arms, and I take care of getting her out of the cabin, snatching the keys to Danny’s rental car off the coffee table as I go.
Now that some of the adrenaline has worn off, I’m starting to move slower, starting to feel the pain from the gunshot wounds and the snapped ribs and the deep cut on my right hand, but none of that matters.
Getting Alex to the fucking hospital matters.
The hospital is twenty minutes away, but she doesn’t have twenty minutes.
I don’t know if she even has ten.
“Stay with me, honey. Everything is going to be okay if you stay with me, Alex, I fucking promise. I promise, okay?” Alex doesn’t even register me as I get us in the car and start speeding as fast as possible.
Her eyes are unfocused, her head is lolled to one side, and her pulse is getting slower and weaker.
I keep checking it as I drive, having to push my fingers deeper into her throat to feel it.
I keep talking to her, telling her it’s going to be okay, that I love her, that I’ve got her, that I can fix this, that everything will be okay if she can just fucking hang on, and I beg her over and over to stay with me.
We’re halfway to the hospital when her eyes start to drift closed.
“Alexandria, don’t you fucking dare!” I start screaming at her, begging her to wake up, but she doesn’t.
I almost hit someone as I bring the car to a screeching halt right in front of the emergency room doors.
People are yelling at me and I’m yelling for help, almost falling in my rush to get Alex out of the car.
Nurses move me aside and do it for me, getting her on a gurney and rushing her into the ER.
The second Alex is taken away from me, blinding pain hits me all at once. I slump against the side of the car and stare after her as two large nurses rush over and haul me onto another gurney.
I close my eyes for a second, and when I open them, I’m being wheeled quickly down a brightly lit hallway. I’m in so much pain that I can barely understand anything, but I can hear people talking to each other over my head.
When I ask them if Alex is alive, no one answers me.
I keep asking until I lose consciousness.