15. Anna
15
ANNA
“ Y ou can do this,” I mutter to myself and peel my white-knuckled fingers from around the steering wheel of my powder blue VW bug. “It’s just college. No big deal, right? Not like being forced into an engagement with a total psycho, or kidnapped.”
Rescued. I can practically hear Mark and Jax’s teasing voices in my head.
With a huffed laugh, I turn off the engine and unbuckle my seatbelt. As far as pep talks go, it’s a little lackluster, but I take a deep breath, push back the nerves and anxiety, and get out of the car.
Before Patrick, I’d given up on my dreams of becoming a teacher when my mom got sick again. We couldn’t afford the tuition. Sure there was financial aid but being at my mom’s bedside was more important. Especially when I found out we couldn’t afford her hospital bills either. And after Patrick? Well, there’s no way he would have let me earn a degree and have any chance of independence, financial or otherwise.
It wasn’t until Jax and Mark stormed into my life that my dreams started to feel like a possibility again. And now, they’re becoming a reality.
For the first time in a long time, things are looking up. Mom is responding well to the treatments. Mark and Jax are insatiable but attentive. I’ve never felt so cared for, so loved in my entire life. And there’s been no sign of Patrick. I can finally see through the clouds, beyond the silver linings. I can see the sun and bask in its warmth. This is what happiness feels like.
“Anna? Is that you?”
I slow my pace, craning my neck over my shoulder to put a face with the unfamiliar voice calling to me from behind. Mark and Jax assured me we put enough miles between us and my hometown that no one should recognize my face, never mind know my name.
A shadow creeps over my peripheral. A hand latches onto my arm with an unyielding grip. Before I can demand this person let go of me or utter a cry for help, I feel the prick of a needle in my neck and an icy burn spread out under my skin.
I shouldn’t have slowed down. I should have been paying attention to my surroundings, kept going until I could slip into the safety of the crowd of students rushing into the English building up ahead. I shouldn’t have let myself get caught off-guard.
Would have, could have, should have.
It’s too late for any of that now. I’m being stuffed in a car’s trunk and taken to who knows where. A sense of dread settles like a weight in my stomach because truth be told, I have an inkling of where my abductors are taking me.
Back to Patrick.
Another round of should haves runs through my mind. At the top of the list is that I should have known better. I should have known this happiness wouldn’t last. That this perfect life Mark and Jax created for me was too good to be true. But the most glaring and painfully obvious is that we should have killed Patrick Calhoun when we had the chance.
Because deep down, I knew he would come after us.
The drugs and the rocking motion of the car calm my fears and lull me into blissful oblivion. I don’t think about my mom. I don’t think about Mark and Jax riding to my rescue. I just slip into the nothingness and just sleep.
“Anna.” A man coos. “Wake up, sleeping beauty. Your audience awaits.”
Everything is blurry and muffled, like being underwater with your eyes open in an over-chlorinated pool. My brain is sluggish, and my memory is fuzzy, but one thing keeps running through my mind. Danger. I am in danger.
“Anna.” The man’s voice cracks like a whip in the air.
Oh, fuck. Patrick. Everything comes rushing back. The prick of the needle, being taken by two men and shoved into a moving vehicle. The irony of my former fiancé’s plan is not lost on me.
“There she is. Just in time for your performance. I wouldn’t want to start without the star of our show ready for her close-up.” Patrick’s face comes into view, hovering just above mine. His bourbon and cigar-laced breath washes over me.
The smell of alcohol and stale tobacco, combined with the nauseating side effects of whatever drug I was injected with, is enough to make me retch. I try to roll over to my side so I can throw up, but I can’t move. Oh, god, I’m tied up.
“I think I’m going to puke,” I warn him as my stomach clenches again as I take in my surroundings.
I’m tied spread eagle on a bed, with a naked Patrick kneeling between my legs. There’s a camera fastened to a tripod set up behind him. The red light blinks a signal that it’s ready and waiting to record.
“Puke all over yourself. I don’t give a shit. I’m here to fuck you. Not make love to you. Besides, do you think I want to kiss that filthy mouth of yours? I know where it’s been, whore.” Patrick leans over me and grabs a condom from the box lying on the mattress beside me. He tears the foil wrapper with his teeth, removes the condom, and barks out a bitter laugh as he sheaths himself.
“Better safe than sorry, right? Well, at least I won’t be. You, on the other hand? You’ll not only be the sorriest little whore when I’m through with you, you’ll be the sorest. And your boyfriends get to watch. This is live streaming to that flat-screen TV mounted on your living room wall. Oh, and their laptops. And cell phones. Don’t worry, slut, they won’t miss a single depraved thing I do to you. They’ll hear every scream and see every tear, in real-time.”
“You’re fucking sick.” My stomach threatens to upend itself, but I choke it back, along with the tears threatening to spill over my lashes. I won’t give this bastard the satisfaction.
“I’m sick? That’s fucking rich coming from you. You and your boy toys inspired this little show we’re about to put on, just like the one you put on for me. You remember that, don’t you, Anna? Me being tied to a chair, choking on your panties, being forced to watch while they fucked you. And you loved every minute of it because you’re a filthy, disgusting whore.”
Patrick never raises his voice. Not once. It stays even—ice cold, and that’s more terrifying than if he was screaming at the top of his lungs in a full-blown rage.
“You won’t like it this time.” Patrick’s lip curls back in a sneer as he leans over me again and pulls out a knife from the folds of the comforter.
I slam my eyes shut and try to block Patrick and whatever he’s going to do to me out of my mind. Praying for an out-of-body experience, a way to slip into the furthest corner of my mind and pretend this isn’t happening, I feel the mattress shift under his weight and the cold press of steel against my skin.
“Look at me,” Patrick commands, pressing the knife against my skin until the warm bloom of my blood welling up replaces the cool sting of the blade. “I said look at me. I want you to fucking watch me.”
He switches the direction of the blade and slices up through my bra then moves to my panties, slicing through the thin bikini straps on both hips. My gaze is fixed on Patrick like he demanded. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my cries and desperate pleas from escaping my mouth, denying him what he wants, but I can’t hide the tremors that rack my body.
“Perfect.” He knows I’m afraid, and he’s enjoying it. “You like it rough, don’t you, whore?”
A percussive boom and the sound of shattering glass stops Patrick from penetrating me.
“Oh, good. Looks like your boyfriends decided to join the party. A little sooner than I’d hoped. Unlike some people, I don’t like to share. Guess our fun will have to wait until after I kill them.” He gets off the mattress, grabs a gun off the nightstand beside the bed, and without bothering to put on any clothes, storms out of the bedroom.
Gunfire.
I unleash every scream pent up inside me since I woke up tied to Patrick’s bed with the first crack of a gun. With each bullet that’s fired, I twist, turn, and pull against my restraints. The ropes tighten.
I’m still screaming, thrashing my body against the bed when I hear heavy stomps up the stairs. “No, no, no.” I squeeze my eyes closed and shake my head violently, refusing to look at my tormentor as he comes back to claim his victory.
“Anna.”
I flinch when I feel a hand wrap around my wrist. Another hand closes around my other wrist. “No,” I scream again.
“Baby.”
The endearment snaps me out of my terror-induced haze. Patrick never called me baby before, and he sure as hell wouldn’t do it now. I force myself to open my eyes and a sob breaks free at the sight of them.
Mark and Jax make short work of the knots and release me from the bonds while whispering comforting words and soothing sounds.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” Jax scoops me off the bed and cradles me to his chest for a moment before setting me on my feet. “I thought we wouldn’t make it in time.”
His hands tremble as he collects my clothes scattered around the room and helps me get dressed while Mark calls the police.
“How did you know? How did you find me?” I rasp. My throat feels like I swallowed razor blades and chased them with shards of glass.
“I put a tracking device in your bag.” Jax shrugs as if that’s a normal thing to do, which in our circumstances, I guess it is.
“Told you we should have killed him,” Mark grumbles, shoving his phone into the back pocket of his jeans before enveloping me in the safety of his arms.
“Kind of a moot point now, jackass.” Jax jerks his head toward the door. “Come on, we’ll wait for the cops downstairs.”
“Why did you call the police?” The reality of our situation comes crashing down around me. How the hell are we going to explain this? “They won’t believe us. We’re going to be arrested.”
“No one is going to arrest us for killing a piece of shit like Patrick Calhoun. The cops have been after him for years. Even if we lied, which we don’t have to since he abducted you and tied you up in his bed, they wouldn’t push our story too hard. We did them a favor, trust me.”
And I do. I trust them with my life. But more importantly, my heart.