CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FREEDOM
Rapid footsteps approached the door. Ben had never moved that fast before, never with such urgency. Terror and uncertainty rattled my heart, my throat working over and over with every swallow.
Today, I was going to die, and as badly as I needed this perpetual torment to end, I was scared.
Scared of the pain, scared of being greeted with an eternal nothingness, scared of leaving this world without saying goodbye to the people I'd survived this long for, to have the chance of seeing them again.
Scared of never seeing my child come into the world.
Scared of forcing Meg to raise him or her alone.
But I couldn't have picked a better woman for the job, I thought as the door flew open to Benjamin, wearing a face more angry and wicked than usual.
He was in a perfect mood to execute this plan, the only one I had to get out of here … even if it meant giving my last breath to make it happen.
He'd dump my body somewhere. He'd allow Meg to find me.
She and my parents would have closure. In time, they could let go, heal, move on, and I hoped they would.
God, I hoped they would. I hoped they'd live the lives they all deserved to live without my ass lingering around, backsliding into trauma time and time again.
Ben slammed the door behind him as I thought, I'd never get over the shit this guy put me through anyway. All the therapy in the world wouldn't be enough.
No, this is for the best.
For me. For everyone.
I plastered a grin to my face as I greeted him, “Hey there, Benny. Bad day?”
His eyes met mine, and on adrenaline alone, I pushed myself to continue smiling. And in one, two, three steps, he crossed the room while pulling a handgun from the waistband of his jeans.
That was easy, I thought as I widened my eyes before squeezing them shut, bracing myself for the inevitable impact.
Cold steel crashed against my face as he pistol-whipped me. The darkness behind my eyelids sparkled with stars at the onset of pulsating pain, and the taste of copper burst against my tongue.
Something, a foreign object, clattered against my teeth, and a moment passed before I realized he'd knocked one of them out. A molar.
I spit it out onto the bed with a string of blood and saliva.
“You could've said hi first,” I croaked, my lungs working overtime.
“We're past being friendly,” Benjamin sneered before smacking my exposed armpit with the muzzle of the gun in his hand.
I hissed at the sting against the sensitive tissue.
He clambered onto the bed, straddling my waist. He aimed the mouth of his gun beneath my chin, digging the metal into my flesh. I winced and braced for impact, hoping death would be quick. Hoping Benjamin wouldn't let me wait long for the relief it'd bring.
“You're gonna talk right now,” he said, his raspy voice low and sinister.
“Whatcha wanna talk about?” I asked through a clenched jaw, swallowing. “Politics? Religion? Whether or not you're gonna get into Heaven? ‘Cause, no offense, man, but I don't think—”
“Shut your fucking mouth!”
“But you wanted to t—”
The hard steel dug deeper into the soft skin beneath my chin. I gritted my teeth, my head tipping back against the mattress.
“Who's been in here?” he hissed, leaning over and bringing his face within inches of mine.
Alarm bells rang loudly in my head as I thought of the man in black. “J-just you,” I strained to reply.
“You're lying to me.”
“No,” I said, bringing my gaze to his. “If I was lying—”
“Someone's been coming in here to help you,” he stated, assessing me with narrowed eyes.
He seemed so sure in his insinuations, and I knew he must've known something.
Which meant the man in black wasn't working with Ben.
He truly was helping me.
“This ends here today, Noah,” Ben said, his voice calm and eerily steady. “We have to be done. Tell me who has been helping you, and I'll make sure your death is fast and painless.”
I couldn't help but laugh. “Benny, nothing about what you've been doing to me has been painless.”
“Your death,” he replied, “will be … if you tell me who's been helping you.”
“And if I have nothing to say?”
“You're still dead,” he said, his lips curling into a smile. “You might as well make it fast and painless.”
My brain was working overtime as I slowly shook my head. “I … I don't know what to tell you, Ben. I—”
Ben moved the gun, shifting his arm lower and lower until he found my groin, where he dug the open mouth of his pistol. Panic set my heart at a gallop, my breath ragged and tripping against my throat.
“I watched my uncle chop a guy's balls off once,” Ben muttered, his hot, rancid breath against my cheek.
“He bled out right there on the floor, but, man, oh man …
it was slow. And I can still remember the way he screamed.
This big, tough guy … bawled like a fuckin' baby until he just”—Benjamin shrugged casually—“stopped.”
He pressed down harder with the gun, and my teeth ground together, my jaw aching from where he’d pistol-whipped me.
“I wonder how long it'd take for you to die if I blew your cock right off. How much would that hurt?”
Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. “P-p-pretty fuckin' bad, I b-bet,” I stammered, my eyes squeezed shut tight.
Meg. I tried to conjure her image with the thought of her name. Tried to see her eyes, the cascade of soft curls framing her face. Tried to hear her voice, telling me I'd be okay, that I was almost there, that I was one step closer to salvation.
Just keep going. You're almost there.
Meg.
I hoped I'd see her again. After she lived a long, good life … I hoped.
“You wanna find out?”
“No,” I admitted in a hoarse whisper as a single tear worked its way through my lashes.
“Then speak.”
“I-I don't—”
RING! RING! RING!
A strangled sound of terrified anticipation escaped my throat as my lungs deflated with a gasp at the sound of Benjamin's phone ringing from his pocket, its vibration passing through his leg and against mine.
His grip on the gun slipped.
RING! RING! RING!
I snapped my eyes open and watched as his nostrils flared, and I wondered what he was going to do.
RING! RING! RING!
He was hesitating. On answering, on shooting.
RING!
The phone stopped its shrill chime, and his resolve returned. He pressed the barrel of the gun against me, and I gritted my teeth as he leered closer until I could smell his rotten breath.
“Talk or—”
RING! RING! RING!
“Fuck!” he screamed as he climbed off the bed, giving me a moment to breathe.
Why am I disappointed?
He pulled his phone out, pointing the gun at my exposed groin. “You say a fuckin' word, and this gun goes off—you got it?”
I nodded erratically.
“Hey, Gerry,” he answered, thrusting the phone to his ear. “What's up?”
His face remained unfazed for one beat, two, before the color drained from his cheeks and his eyes widened.
“Wait, wait, wait … hold up. You said they found the car where?”
Car. What car?
His panicked stare landed on me. “N-no! I know nothin' about a missing cop! What—”
My lips fell open. My car. They'd found my car. Who had found it? From the look on his face, it was the authorities. But …
What does this mean?
What did it mean for me?
“I swear to fuckin' God, man! I'm not … shit, I'm not stupid!”
Oh, but he was.
As it turned out, Benjamin was very stupid.
“The cops are at my place right now?!” He turned the gun away from me to press the side of his hand against his head. He looked afraid, weak and petrified, as he listened to whoever was on the other end. Then, his face was overtaken by upset as he spun around to face the door. “Fuck!”
His scream was that of a helpless, wounded animal. He pulled his phone away from his ear to jab a finger against the screen, letting it drop to the floor, and then he turned toward me.
“The cops are questioning my wife,” he said in a tremulous voice. “They found your fucking car on my property.”
I didn’t dare speak as he walked toward me and stumbled, tripping over the leg of the wooden chair he often sat in.
It teetered onto the bed, settling a couple of inches from my feet.
I stared at the chair, the way Benny stood between its extended legs.
I could kick it. I could shove it into his legs.
But what good would that do? It wouldn't kill him.
It wouldn't even incapacitate him. Without the use of my arms or full range of my legs, I couldn't take him down.
He'd just be more angry, more likely to shoot me in the head—or worse—and leave.
Unless …
My gaze fell to my legs.
“They know I got ya, Noah,” Benjamin said calmly, not moving another inch closer. “They're gonna get me too. So …”
He raised his gun-holding arm. “It's time we said goodbye.”
I released the stale air in my lungs as I stared into the barrel of the pistol.
I could die now, I thought. But if the man in black is coming … if I could be saved right now …
Without another thought, I twisted as far as my binds would allow and shoved my legs against the back of the chair. My strength was much less than it was before my capture, but it was enough. Benjamin grunted and tumbled forward, the gun firing amid his fall, but the bullet missed its target.
“You son of a bitch,” he grunted, landing against the foot of the mattress.
Ben had made a mistake when he allowed enough slack to maneuver my body, to roll me over and spread my legs.
Because, with little leverage and not much strength, I shimmied from my position to lay those legs over his head.
He tried to get up, tried to move away, but luck was on my side this time, and he lost his footing.
He slipped against the floor … just enough for me to maneuver into something like a triangle choke, with his head between my legs.
With a squeeze of my eyes, I mustered the little control and power Ben hadn’t taken from me to hold on as tight as I could as he scrambled, cursing all the way.
Something fell to the floor.
The gun.
He's unarmed.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I tried to tighten my hold, using the adrenaline and will to live to choke the life out of him, but my strength was rapidly depleting.
Yet so was his, and the two of us battled through a race against the clock, for the second time in both our lives, knowing one or the both of us would be dead in the end.
Until Benny stopped, and I didn't.
Unable to hold on any longer, I released him, gulping for air between tearless sobs. He could've been playing possum, lulling me into a false sense of security, but he didn't move, didn't attempt to get up.
I glanced down to watch him, unwilling to blink as I studied his lifeless form and …
A shallow breath shifted through him, and I cried out with frustration.
He was alive. Unconscious but … alive, nonetheless.
I had mere seconds before he awoke. Seconds before he regained his strength. Seconds before he found his gun, wherever it had landed. Seconds before he fired and didn't miss.
“Fuck!” I cried out again, desperate without any other choice but to lie here and take whatever he was going to do to me. Just as I had for the days he'd held me here in this room. All of that, all of this … to just die.
But I tried, I told myself, staring at the ceiling, waiting for Benjamin to regain consciousness. I tried, and that was more than I could say for what I was going to do earlier.
I didn't give up.
I closed my eyes to acceptance and waited.
Benjamin gasped and groaned, struggling a bit initially, then slowly got to his feet.
I waited as he seemed to stumble, the wooden chair scraping against the floor.
I waited as he cursed and dropped his weight once again to the bed, straddling my waist and wrapping his hands around my neck.
He uttered a slew of curses into my face as he squeezed, and the pressure in my head grew more intense by the moment until my eyes ached and threatened to pop.
And I was six years old again, waiting to die, as he increased pressure, cutting off all hope of air getting through, and—
His grip loosened from my neck at the same moment his weight pressed against my body. He was lying on top of me, barely conscious. Confused, I gasped for breath, hindered by his head against my mouth, until he was pulled away and onto the floor with impressive ease.
I opened my eyes, greeted only by hazy darkness for a moment, before the view of the room came back. And with it …
The man in black.
I’m coming home, Meg, was the last thought that crossed my mind before Ben sat up behind the man in black, the gun in his hand.
I’m coming home.
BANG!