26. Chapter Twenty- Six
Chapter Twenty- Six
Wyatt
Larken is huddled against the far end of the crate in nothing more than a soaking wet tee shirt. Her back is facing me, but I can see how violently she's shivering from several feet away.
There are a number of things disturbing me about this, but the most alarming one is her absolute lack of response or reaction when I whisper her name. She doesn't flinch. She doesn't turn to look at me. She doesn't immediately panic and start shaking the bars of the crate. There is no movement at all to indicate that she's aware of my presence. But she is alive. Alive is something to work with, I just need to get her out.
Getting her out is going to be a feat. I understand now why Tabor couldn't be fucked to lock the door of the shed. There are lengths of chain woven through the bars of the crate. They circle the whole perimeter of the crate, side to side, top to bottom, and the padlock locking them is thick. Doesn't matter. I brought tools, including a bolt cutter. It might not cut the lock, but it will cut through the chains. The way they're wrapped is more about keeping her inside than me out.
“I'm here, Larken,” I whisper, trying to sound far more calm than I am. “I'm going to get you out now. Everything is going to be alright.”
No response. I roll my neck and shoulders again and get to work. The chain is easy to cut through and I quietly remove just enough of it to be able to open the door of the crate. By the time I get it open my anger is almost at a boiling point. The fan is facing the crate directly, blowing constant cold air at Larken. I'm freezing after being in it for only a few minutes, I don't know how long she's been subjected to this and why the fuck is her shirt wet? Just when I think I have a handle on the rage coiling through me, I'll see her body shake with a tremor and it takes all my concentration to finish what I'm doing instead of screaming. I need to get her out and safe more than I need to march into the house and bash in Tabor's skull. That's what I have to remind myself. Getting her out is more important than my anger.
“Larken,” I say softly. “Come on, baby. We've got to get you out of here.”
She still doesn't respond. I get down on my knees and lean into the crate to touch her arm. I don't need her to fight me when I pull her out. She's so cold. Her skin is like ice.
“Larken, honey, we have to hurry. We've got to get you out of here.”
She turns to look at me and I have to fight to get a handle on my reaction. Half of her face is a mottled, blue ruin. One eye is nearly swollen shut. Moving further into the crate, I wrap my arms around her and haul her out. We don't have time for it, but I pull her into my lap when I fall back into a sitting position.
“Oh baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”
I'm going to kill him. I'm going to take her someplace safe and then I'm going to come back here and kill him. Then I'm going to resuscitate him and kill him again. Then I'm going to find her fucking husband and peel his skin off, one limb at a time while he watches. Then I'm going to feed it to him. And then I'm going to kill him, too.
But I have to get her out of here first.
My hands are shaking with the wrath I have to keep in check, but I get us up and out of the shed. She's stumbling along beside me, barefoot and wet in the cold dark of night, blindly letting me lead her away. I'll be carrying her soon. She still hasn't made a sound. Not one. It could be shock. It could be unseen damage. It could also be the result of a complete and total nervous, and probable mental breakdown. Every silent minute that ticks by makes my anger burn even hotter. I might end up having an aneurysm before I can get us back to the car.
I parked the car in the backyard of the empty house with the greenhouse. Probably not my best idea, but it was the best available option. It's out of sight unless you come into the backyard. Hopefully, anyone who might have been paying attention thinks I'm doing maintenance on the house. Either way, no one came by to assuage their curiosity, so it doesn't matter.
What matters is getting her to the car and us out of the area before Tabor decides it's time to check on her again. She's starting to stumble more often. I'm almost dragging her at this point, so I stop long enough to scoop her up and keep going. It's not that much further and she weighs next to nothing anyway. Carrying her will take less time than trying to keep her on her feet.
When we get to the car, I put her in the front and fasten the seat belt for her. She seems borderline catatonic. This is so much worse than her quiet cooperation when Shaun and I first took her. If I can't pull her out of this … No. Unacceptable. I will drag her out of it, one way or another.
I get in without trying to coax any further communication from her. It can wait until we get to the motel. I thought about taking her back to Conner's place. Shaun's there, her friend is there; but those are the exact two reasons why I can't take her. The risk is too great, and Larken would never forgive me, or herself, if something happened to her friend because I took her there.
I pull out of the driveway and start putting distance between us and Tabor. Once the vehicle has had time to warm up a little, I reach down to turn on the heat. I am a chronically over-prepared person, but I don't have a single blanket in this car. I have a bag of extra clothes in the trunk, though, so hopefully I can get her thawed out enough with just the car heater by the time I have to get her back out. We're heading to one of three motels that aren’t near enough to Conner's place to be a danger, but they're close enough if I need to get her there quickly. They are all also far enough away from her husband’s house that she shouldn't get nervous about her him finding her.
I glance at her from time to time as I drive. She has remained silently slumped in the seat with her head resting against the window since we got in the car. She isn't shivering as much anymore. It's a relief, even if violent shudders take her every now and then. I should pull over to get her into some warm clothes. I really should. But the sooner I can get her cleaned up, warm, fed, and resting, the better she'll be. She's going to be fine. She has to be.
“Want to listen to some music?” I ask and hit the power button for the radio. A classic rock song starts blaring and I scramble to turn the volume down. “Sorry,” I tell her, but she doesn't respond, not to me or the explosion of sound. I press the gas pedal down a little more. I need to get her to the motel right now. She needs a warm shower, a bed, something to eat.
I should take her to the hospital. It's the rational thing to do. The hospital would call the police. But the police would call her husband, and they would send her home with him. Especially if she's unable or unwilling to tell them that her husband orchestrated all of the terrible things that have happened to her. I don't care how rational a hospital would be, I'm not taking her somewhere where she could potentially be put in danger. Conner will have to help her if I can't. I've seen him work miracles before, he'll just have to work another one if I need him to.
The rest of the ride to the motel is filled with my babbling small talk and silence. There are a few other vehicles in the lot when I pull in, most of them with out of state plates. When I concocted this plan, she was wearing the last outfit I saw her in; it didn't include standing in the lobby with an obviously traumatized woman wearing nothing but a tee shirt and panties. I can't take her inside to get the room, not like this.
“Okay. I'm going to go inside and pay for a room. You stay right here. I'll be back in just a few minutes.”
That gets a reaction. Her hand snaps out to grab my sleeve in a white-knuckled grip and she gives me such a wide-eyed look of stark terror that it physically hurts to see it.
“It'll be alright, Larken. I can't take you in there like this. The front desk staff will call the police and I'm afraid that the police might call your husband. I will only be inside for a few minutes.”
She pulls on my arm, shaking her head.
“It has to be this way, honey. I know you're afraid, you have every reason to be, but I have to do this. You'll be alright. I promise.”
She reluctantly lets go of my sleeve and turns back to lean against the window again with her eyes closed. Guilt pulls at me, but I realistically can't take her inside looking the way she looks. I need to take her directly from the car to the room and lock the door behind us.
“Stay exactly the way you are, Larken. I'll be just inside, and only for a few minutes. I'll be right out and then we can get you into a room. It's going to be okay.”
She doesn't say anything or nod, but I know she heard me. I'll go in, book the room, and get out before she has time to worry too much. We weren't followed, not once. I just need to get her into a room.
The front desk clerk is in just as much of a hurry to get me checked in and on my way as I am to get it over with. This isn't a dump, but it is the kind of place that will still accept cash and a copy of an ID instead of requiring four credit cards and your first born child before they'll give you a room. It is very much a no questions, no comments place, and that's exactly what we need. He doesn't give the bogus ID I present him with a second thought. He just took it and the cash and gave me a key before disappearing into the back office again.
Larken hasn't moved when I get back into the car.
“Our room is around the backside of the building,” I tell her as I start the car and put it into gear. “Just a few more minutes and we can get you nice and warm.”
Our room is on the second floor. We will have to walk up a set of outdoor stairs to get to the door. I'm not thrilled about it, but I didn't want to do anything memorable like ask for a specific room. Hopefully the clerk has already forgotten what I look like and I'm not trying to do anything memorable.
I park the car and go around to open Larken's door. “Come on,” I hold out my hand to help her get out. “Almost there.” She puts her hand in mine and allows me to help her, but she's still so quiet and still that I'm becoming more concerned with every passing minute.
My increasing concern gets burned to a charred crisp by the anger that slams through me when she physically can't make it up the stairs. Her legs crumble underneath her about halfway up, and I keep my belligerent curses to myself when I pick her up and carry her to the door. She's too light. She was already alarmingly thin when we took her from her house, but she was getting stronger with just a few days of a decent diet. Now she's almost worse than she was when we first picked her up, and it does nothing to calm my temper. It's nothing to keep her in my arms while I unlock the door and get us inside the room, but once inside she struggles against me.
I gently let her down and take my hands off of her when she's steady on her feet. “It's alright, Larken. I wouldn't hurt you. You know that.”
She wraps her arms around her middle and shakes her head, but she won't look at me. “That's not it,” she says hoarsely.
“What's wrong? Tell me.”
“He,” she starts, but closes her eyes against the word.
“It's okay. Tell me so I can fix it.”
“You can't.”
All the worst scenarios start spinning through my mind. Every single horrible thing that could have happened to her. All of them. “I can try.”
She takes a shaky breath. “He sat in front of the cage and … when I was sleeping … he … I didn't want any of it to get on you.”
It.
It .
A few seconds drag on while I work out what it probably is and then other, more violent thoughts start cycling until everything quiets into a dangerous calm. I'm going to hurt him. It will be violent. Brutal. Messy. He is going to suffer.
I grab her wrist and pull her behind me to the bathroom. I turn on the water, making it just a little hotter than I like and turn back around to pull her shirt off. She doesn't fight me, with the shirt or the panties, and she lets me put her into the shower without saying anything else. Then I yank my shirt over my head and toe off my shoes.
“I'm getting in with you,” I tell her, forcing every ounce of calm I can into my words. “I don't want you to fall, and I'm going to help you. It's going to be okay, Larken.”
I quickly kick off my jeans and boxers. It doesn't matter that I'm naked. The only thing that matters right now is scrubbing her down until she feels clean. All I've got is the generic hotel soap and shampoo, but it's better than nothing.
I set to work scrubbing her with the rough, white washcloth. The soap is supposed to smell like chamomile and honey, but it mostly just smells like soap. She stands there, holding onto the safety bar while I make my first pass with the soapy cloth. I wash every inch of her skin, scrubbing vigorously without really seeing what I'm doing. I'm focusing so hard on getting her clean that she is less Larken and more human body. She doesn't need me to see her right now. I can see her another time if she wants that, but right now this is what needs to happen.
“Okay, rinse.” I turn her around under the spray of water. I will never understand why they don't put detachable shower heads in hotel rooms. It would make things so much easier.
“Lean your head back,” I say softly, but she loses her balance when she does it and her hands scrabble along the shower wall and curtain. I put her hands on my waist and hold them there firmly, pressing her fingertips into my hips. “Hold onto me, Larken. I won't let you fall. We need to get your hair washed. It will help.”
She does as I say and tips her head back under the water. After her hair is wet, I turn her back so that the hot water is hitting the front of her. The shampoo is supposed to smell like chamomile and honey, too, but again, it mostly smells like shampoo. I wash her hair twice, making sure every strand is clean by the time I finish with the second rinsing. I reach outside the curtain to grab another washcloth and wet it to wash her face, scrubbing carefully around the goddamned bruising until her skin is flushed a nice rosy pink. Then I soap it up again with the bar and switch places with her so that the hot water is beating down on my back while I make my second pass over her body.
She starts shivering again when I'm working the soapy rag over her thighs. I know it isn't from cold, the water coming from the shower is almost too hot to tolerate and the air in the bathroom is more steam than it is oxygen. I finally notice the pink, almost red tint her skin has become and it occurs to me that maybe I've been too rough. “Is it too much?”
She doesn't answer, and I glance up at her. She's got a death grip on the safety bar, but her eyes are closed.
“Larken,” I say, a little sharply. “Am I going too hard? Am I hurting you? You have to tell me.”
She doesn't open her eyes, but she does answer in a quiet, faraway tone. “I can't feel anything.”
“What do you mean?” Between the water temperature and the intense scrubbing, her skin is hot to the touch.
“I don't feel anything,” she says through chattering teeth.
I stand up and rub my hands up and down her upper arms. “You can't feel me touching you?”
She leans forward to rest her head on my shoulder. “I just feel cold.”
That's shock. I know it is. I should take her to a hospital and leave her in the care of the staff so I can splatter her husband’s skull all over the pristine, sanitary, white floor of the waiting room. I should. But I won't. Maybe I'm too paranoid. Maybe I'm too distrustful of the system. Maybe I'm a lot of things. I'm definitely too selfish because all I can seem to think about is how terrible it is that she feels so cold and that I need to fix it right now.
Without weighing any consequences or having a plan in case it blows up in my face, I wrap my arms around her and pull her into the heat of my body. Her hot skin slides slickly against mine but the way her body clenches and trembles hurts my heart. She will never feel this way again. I won't allow it.
I let my hands slide across her back, down her sides, even around her ass. The only thing she does, no matter where I touch her, is lean into me, pressing closer to me. My hands climb back up her torso to wrap around the back of her neck and tangle in her wet hair. She makes the smallest sound, a mix between a sigh and a whimper, and it undoes me. I keep my fingers laced in her hair and angle her to face me so that I can brush my lips against hers. It isn't quite a kiss, but I do it again and again until it turns into one. It's been a while since I kissed someone, really kissed them. Larken's trembling lips are so soft against mine. This is a mistake. I'll never want to stop kissing her now.
Her hands lightly slide up my ribs to settle on my chest, her fingers spreading through the coarse hair as she opens her mouth against mine. It's difficult to give her the easy, sweet kiss I know she needs when I want nothing more than to tighten my fist in her hair and devour her lips, but somehow, and with great effort, I manage. She lets me kiss her while I touch her. Her muscles are still giving small involuntary jerks, but nothing like before. She needs something to anchor her. I can give her that.
“I'm going to touch you. If you want me to stop, all you have to do is tell me.”
I don't wait for her to respond before slowly sliding my hand down to cover her breast. I watch her face while I do it, looking for any sign of distress, but she's watching my hand move over her. Gently, I cup her breast, pushing it up into a mound and rubbing across the nipple with the pad of my thumb. Her hand snaps up to grip my wrist, holding me close against her, pulling me closer until her flesh is nearly flat against her body.
She closes her eyes and sighs when I press just a little harder. I don't want to hurt her, but if this is what she needs, this deep, intense pressure, that's what I'll give. Her head drops back with a sigh as she gives herself to the sensation.
I lower my head to draw her nipple into my mouth, pulling hard, and her hand leaves my wrist to sink her fingers into my hair and push me more firmly against her. I rake my teeth against her nipple, barely an experimental graze, and she gasps, moaning softly and arching against me. Her first real vocal response makes me throb, and press my teeth into her skin to bring another sound from her.
Putting one hand on her hip to steady her, I drag my hand from her breast down the front of her body until I reach her pubic mound. I pause to give her time to process and object, but she doesn't. She spreads her legs a little more to give me room to push my fingers between her thighs and press my palm against her mound. I cup the whole of her pussy every bit as firmly as I did her breast and she rewards me with another breathy moan.
I hold her still like that, one hand gripping her hip and the other covering her pussy, while I kiss her again. I hold her until she moves against me, lifting her hips and seeking more. Spreading my fingers, I slide them between her sensitive folds until the tip of one finds her entrance. The heel of my palm rubs and presses harshly against her clit and she grinds against it in small movements. I glance back to her face to check on her and find her watching my hand between her legs. Slowly, deliberately, I push two fingers inside her, making sure she can see the way my wrist contorts and twists, letting her see the way my grip changes so that my thumb presses against her clit instead of my palm.
She isn't shaking anymore. No more teeth chattering. All her focus is on my hand and I take full advantage of that. If this is what she needs, if this is what helps, then I won't stop. I thrust my fingers in and out, slowly fucking her with them while she watches. By the time she starts clenching around them, she's making the most beautiful sounds and water splashes between my hand and her skin every time I fuck my fingers into her. This won't be enough, though. It feels good, and it will feel better, but she needs something deeper. Something more consuming.
“Trust me, Larken,” I say gently against her lips, then bend to lift one of her legs up to hook over my hip. “Tell me if it's too much.”
She nods, keeping her eyes on the space between us while I wrap my hand around the base of my cock. I slide the tip across her swollen clit and between her lips until I can thrust inside her.
I thrust slowly at first, in shallow movements that are meant to open her up. I'm not going to pound into her, that's not what needs to happen. I'm going to fuck her so deeply that it takes her breath. So deeply that all she can think about, all she knows for just a little while, is how I feel inside her.
After a few minutes, Larken is groaning in earnest and moving to meet my thrusts. She's given up trying to keep her eyes open to watch me fuck her, her eyes are closed against the pleasure I'm giving her. I could fuck her like this for hours – slow and deep, watching every moment of it on her face, but the leg she's standing on is beginning to shake again and I know it's from exhaustion. Guilt closes in on me. I should have taken her to the bed, but I didn't want to give up the warmth of the shower until she wasn't trembling anymore.
I bend again to lift her completely, wincing when her nails dig into my shoulder and upper back as she fights for balance.
“I've got you, Larken. I promise.”
It's nothing to maneuver us so that her back is against the shower wall, and I let her settle between me and the wall, forcing my length deeper and deeper inside her. I keep my hands firmly on her ass and thighs and thrust upward. She wraps her arms around my neck and cries out, long and loud. I thrust again and again, never going fast and stilling deep inside her for a drawn out second between each movement of my hips.
Her legs tighten around me and I use leverage and our weight to grind into her in slow circles. I pull back and thrust back inside in one deep, hard movement, and grunt when her teeth bite into my shoulder as she clings to me. I fuck her like that until she throws her head back, gasping and crying out in sharp little sounds as her orgasm hits her. Then she sags between me and the wall. “Don't stop, Wyatt. I need to feel it.”
“Okay,” I say, kissing her temple. “Okay.”
I don't need to fuck her any faster or harder to give her what she's asking for. This deep, intense fucking will make me cum harder than anything else right now, the knowledge that she's completely given herself over to me is almost more pleasurable than the physical feel of it. I keep the same slow, controlled pace until it overwhelms me and my own thighs tremble as my stomach clenches with my release.
I hold her for just a few more moments before letting her legs lower to the bottom of the tub. The water is still warm and I turn us so that it pours down on her as I gently wash her one last time before I turn it off and carefully help her out of the tub. I dry her off myself and put the shirt I was wearing on her, as well as my boxers. It isn't much, but hopefully it will keep her from shivering during the trip from the steamy bathroom to the warmth of the bed.
“Snug as a bug in a rug,” I tell her as I tuck the blankets in all around her and go to crank up the heat on the unit under the window. She lifts the blankets for me when I come back to the bed and I pull her close.
“Tell me something,” she whispers.
“Like what?”
“Anything,” she yawns. “I just need to hear you talk.”
So I talk. I tell her about the dog I had when I was a kid. I tell her about the snake plant and the vine I can never remember the name of, that are still somehow clinging to life despite my ill treatment. I tell her about my obsession with the worst hockey team on the planet, until her body relaxes fully and her breathing slows and deepens.
I hold her until she's well and asleep, then I slip out of bed and tuck the pillows around her. I didn't grab the bag out of the trunk with the extra clothes and food I packed when I brought her up to the room. She'd never let me leave her alone to get it if she was awake, and I only just got her to stop shaking. I'm not about to take her back out into the cold wearing nothing but my shirt and boxers. I just had to wait until she was asleep to sneak out.
I tiptoe to the bathroom to put my jeans and shoes back on and throw on my jacket and lock the door behind me when I quietly sneak out the door. There aren't any new vehicles in the lot, and I don't see or hear any people walking around in the dark, so I descend the stairs as quickly as I can. I need to grab the bag from the trunk and the gun from under the driver's seat. I should have brought it up when we got here, but I was too concerned about getting her out of the cold.
It takes me less than four minutes to get back to the room, but it's four minutes too long. Larken isn't in the bed. She isn't in the bathroom. It isn't until I'm stalking around the foot of the shitty motel bed that I notice the adjoining door to the room next to this one is cracked open.
I storm through it, gun drawn, but there's nothing to see in the room. The bed isn't mussed. Not a single thing is out of place. But there is a cigarette still smoldering in the bathroom sink and an unholy combination of seething, coiling rage and stark panic makes me suddenly and violently nauseous. Tabor found us. And he's taken her again. I don’t know how he did it without being seen, and I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I just need to get her back.