Chapter Four #2
“He doesn’t get to do that,” I mutter.
Neither of them responds right away, but I feel it shift between us. The understanding. The agreement. We will die before they allow him to take me away from them.
“He doesn’t,” Brady says, finally. Silence settles again, heavier this time, but different.
Then I hear it.
Footsteps.
All three of us go completely still. Luke reaches over and clicks the flashlight off, and darkness swallows us instantly.
My heart starts pounding so hard that I’m terrified that it’s loud enough to give us away.
The footsteps come again, slow and deliberate, coming from the direction of the road.
I grab onto both of them without thinking, my fingers digging in as the sound gets closer.
The silence that follows is unbearable, stretching out until I almost convince myself we imagined it, that it’s nothing, that we’re just—
My thoughts are interrupted when a twig snaps behind us. In this moment, I remember something.
Months ago, he cut my leg. I remember being in a ton of pain when he shoved something into it.
I thought he was just torturing me, but what if it was a tracker?
I can still feel it, and my fingers drift to that spot on my leg, and there it is.
Small, but it’s there. How did I forget about that?
I made every excuse in the world for the longest time.
“I knew you all were stupid, but I didn’t think you were this stupid,” Austin says as the barrel of a gun presses against the back of my head. “Get up.”
“Austin… Please, let them go,” I whimper. “I’ll go with…”
“Oh no,” he laughs. “I need them for this part. Get up. All of you.”
I slowly stand, but shriek when he loops his arm around my waist and yanks me back from Luke and Brady as they turn to face us. They look angry, but calm. I glance between them, and we know we need to just shut the fuck up and do what Austin says.
“Handcuff their wrists behind their knees,” Austin tells me simply. “Sit them against those trees.”
“Austin, please…”
“Now!” he screams at me, making me instinctively flinch and cower away from him. I sniffle and take the handcuffs from him. Brady and Luke move toward the trees Austin was referring to and just sit down.
“Just do as he says,” Brady murmurs quietly enough that Austin can’t hear.
“We love you so much,” Luke says, matching his quiet tone. I tighten the handcuffs, and sitting like this, they can’t move. They are huge men with thick muscles; there is no way they can get out of this without severely hurting themselves.
I scream out in pain when Austin grabs me by the hair and drags me away from them. I know better than to talk or plead for mercy, because he will just make it hurt more. “Take your clothes off,” Austin commands. “Now. Get naked, Krista.”
I am nearly sobbing as I do what he says, and he takes it all from me immediately.
He holsters his pistol before grabbing my wrists and securing handcuffs around them so they are locked around a thick branch.
My toes are touching the ground, but I can’t stand flat-footed now.
He has me facing Brady and Luke so I can see the emotion on their face.
It's a mix of sadness and rage. They tried so hard to keep me safe.
Now they will watch him brutalize me before killing me.
I am anticipating something, but I don’t expect to hear him take his belt off. What is he about to do? “You let them touch you,” Austin says. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I sob.
“Fucking whore,” he screams, slapping his belt across my back.
“Stop!” I scream as he whips me. “Austin, please. Stop!”
“Stupid fucking bitch. I told you. Didn’t I?
I fucking told you what would happen if you left me,” he yells at me as he hits me.
Brady and Luke are crying and pulling against their cuffs to try to get to me.
They are begging Austin, but I can’t focus on their words.
All I can do is scream as he hits me over…
And over…
And over…
My screams break apart into weak, fractured sounds as my voice gives out, and everything inside me starts to shut down.
For a second, I think this is how it ends.
This is how I die. Not in a fight. Not in some big moment.
Just like this: helpless, broken, owned.
The word hits harder than the belt ever could. Owned. He thinks he owns me.
That breaks something inside of me, and for the first time, I stop begging.
I stop fighting the way he expects me to.
I go still. He thinks he has broken me down enough so I will comply.
That satisfies him, and with one turn, the key unlocks my cuffs, and I crumple to the ground.
I move up to sit on my knees, knowing that is where he wants me.
“You done now?” he sneers, breathing heavy.
I don’t answer. I let my head hang, my chest rising and falling unevenly as I force myself to stay still.
“Look at me,” he snaps, but I don’t
“I said, look at me!” he screams. Austin grabs my hair and jerks my head back hard.
My eyes meet his, and for the first time, I’m not afraid.
The calm look on my face throws him off, and I see it.
For just a second, he doesn’t see the broken woman he made me into.
I refuse to be her anymore, and he knows it. Still, he tries to keep control.
“Good,” he mutters. “Now you remember who you belong to…”
“No,” I say simply. The word is soft, but it cuts through everything. His grip tightens instantly.
“What did you just say?”
“I said no,” I repeat, louder this time.
The air shifts. Behind him, Brady and Luke go still, not panicked this time, not desperate. Waiting. Trusting me. That’s all I need.
Austin lets out a sharp, humorless laugh.
“You don’t get to say no, Krista,” he says, slapping me across the face.
He still has a hold of my hair as he pulls his dick out.
I let him force himself into my mouth, but I do what none of us expect and bite down.
He screams out in pain before hitting me in the head until I release him.
Brady and Luke move at the same time, throwing their weight forward despite the cuffs digging into them. This grabs Austin’s attention long enough, but he reaches for his gun.
I react instantly and grab the nearest thing I can reach. It’s a thick fallen branch, and I swing it with everything I have left. It connects with the side of his head with a sickening crack. He drops to one knee, dazed but still moving, still trying to recover.
It's not enough.
I swing again, harder this time. The branch splinters on impact, and Austin collapses fully to the ground, the gun slipping from his hand as it hits the dirt beside him.
Everything goes quiet.
Too quiet.
I stare down at him, my hands shaking, my body trembling from pain and adrenaline. He groans, trying to move, trying to get back up.
Still alive.
Still a threat.
No.
I’m not doing this again.
I am not letting him hurt them.
I step forward and grab the gun with shaky hands. It feels heavy, wrong, but I force my fingers to tighten around it anyway. Austin shifts, trying to push himself up, and our eyes meet again.
That look is still there.
The evil.
Like I belong to him.
Like this isn’t over.
Like I’ll never escape.
My hands stop shaking.
“You were wrong,” I whisper.
Confusion flickers across his face, and I pull the trigger.
The sound is deafening in the quiet woods.
His body jerks once before going completely still.
The silence that follows is different now.
It isn’t suffocating or waiting. It’s empty.
I stare at him for a second longer, my ears ringing, my chest rising and falling too fast. I am hyperventilating.
My knees give out, and I drop where I stand, the gun slipping from my fingers as my entire body starts to shake.
“He’s dead,” I choke out, not sure if I’m saying it to them or to myself.
This is what freedom feels like. This is what I have longed for. I didn’t expect to find it looking into his lifeless eyes, but it’s real.
I drop down to my knees and just look at him. I know I am in shock, but I am waiting for something. Anything. What if he isn’t actually dead? What if he is merely pretending to throw me off?
That doesn’t happen because I just sit here, surrounded by darkness, and look at his dead body. The evil in his eyes has drifted away.
Eventually, I snap out of it and find the keys to unlock Brady and Luke. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I got kinda lost…”
“It’s okay,” Brady says, wrapping his arms around me. When he pulls away, I sigh.
“Do either of you have a ?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Luke says, pulling a pocket knife from his shorts. I take it from him and flip it open.
“Whoa. What the fuck are you…” Brady says as he starts to try to take the knife from me, as I slice one of my scars open.
“He put a tracker in me,” I growl, trying to force the tiny object out of me.
Blood is trailing down my leg and covering my hands, but I eventually get it out and toss it on Austin’s dead body.
Luke and Brady tear a strip of the blanket off and tie it around my leg to stop the bleeding before they help me get dressed.
We then start walking back toward the truck.
When we get there, Austin’s bike is parked behind it. “I’ll go look for a phone and call Maverick,” Luke says. “Kris, try to rest, okay?”
“Okay,” I sigh.
“I’ve got her,” Brady says reassuringly. I get into the truck and curl up on the back seat. They talk for a moment before Brady sits with me and pulls me up so my head is in his lap. He gently strokes my hair, and we let the sounds of the woods take over as I fall asleep.