Chapter Twenty-Seven
Gemma
Irub at my elbow, tears stinging my eyes.
“Ow,” I mutter. “What the hell?”
My body feels heavy and quickly becoming useless. What’s wrong with me? First, I nearly crashed through the wall after using the toilet, my elbow taking the brunt of the fall, and now I feel like I might pass out.
I need to go home.
After fumbling through washing my hands, I unlock the bathroom door and drag my sluggish body back toward the main room to tell Two. He’s no longer sitting where I left him and Dr. Skeller is gone.
Where did they go?
Outside?
I get turned around but manage to find a door that leads outside. Once I open it, I groan, realizing it’s a back door that faces the lake, not the one where the car is parked. Something flutters in the wind, catching my eye, and I glance down.
Yellow flowers dance happily in their beds.
They’re familiar.
I fixate on the flowers, fighting through the fog inside my head. Why are these flowers important to me?
I’m about to turn around and continue my search for Two when a memory niggles at me. Wait. These flowers look just like the ones…
No.
A chill skitters down my spine and a shot of adrenaline sends a fleeting moment of clarity in my mind.
Oh my God.
We have to get out of here.
I spin, ready to rush back into the cabin, when I run right smack into a broad chest. Hands grip my arms to keep my swaying body from collapsing. With trepidation, I tilt my head up, finding my eyes on Dr. Skeller and not my boyfriend.
No.
Tears prickle at my eyes and a sob catches in my throat.
It’s a trap.
We walked right into a trap.
My legs buckle and the room spins. I find myself blacking out and coming back to as my body bounces. I’m no longer standing, but I’m being carried. Squinting, I force myself to focus on the man carrying me.
Dr. Skeller.
Gone is his jovial smile.
Fierce determination paints his features now.
My heart hammers in my chest, but my body has become useless to me. I’m unable to move or fight. A small whimper escapes, earning his intense gaze on me.
“Hush, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You’re safe. I’m going to take care of you.”
For a split second, I pray I have it all wrong. That, once again, I’m overreacting and being paranoid. That this man—my dad’s friend—is going to protect me, not hurt me.
Where’s Two?
Where are we going?
I must doze off because I wake again in a darker space. Wine bottles line shelves on the walls. A wine cellar? My head lolls to the side and I see Two.
He’s asleep on the ground, arm stretched over to a pipe.
Handcuffed.
All hopeful thoughts fade as sheer terror floods in. Hot tears leak out of my eyes, but I’m unable to do anything else. My eyelids drift closed and my chaotic thoughts start to dull.
“Shh,” Dr. Skeller whispers as he sets me down on something soft. “I want you to rest a bit. Don’t fight the medicine, darling. Everything’s been taken care of. You’ll see.”
I feel him gently remove my shoes and then cover me with a blanket. It’s warm and feels relatively safe. I’m no longer able to fight to stay conscious. Blissful darkness steals me away.
I wake to a slight tickle on my thigh and a banging inside my skull. Nausea curdles my belly as I attempt to gain my bearings. I feel worse than the time me and Dempsey drank a whole bottle of Mom’s wine when we were like ten years old. We threw up. A lot.
But this?
This is worse.
More ominous.
Why?
Cracking my eyes open, I squint to orient myself with my surroundings. I see wine bottles lining a wall.
Where am I?
When I go to rub the sleep out of my eyes, I realize my wrists are zip-tied together, resting on my belly. The rest of my body feels heavy and sluggish, but I’m quickly gaining clarity in my mind.
It all comes flooding back.
The workshop. The sweet tea. Dr. Skeller.
He drugged us.
A whimper crawls up my throat. It’s then I feel the tickling again. I dart my eyes over to my right and see the wicked man himself.
“You’re quite beautiful when you sleep,” Dr. Skeller says with breathy awe. “Better than I imagined.”
Terror prickles its way through me. “I—”
He hushes me with his thumb to my lips. “Rest, my love.”
Bile burns my esophagus and I dry heave. Dr. Skeller slides off the bed I’m on to quickly grab something. The next time I heave, acidy vomit spews out of me. He positions a small bucket in front of me, catching the mess as if he’s expecting it.
When I finish, he takes the bucket someplace and returns with a warm, wet washcloth. Hot tears leak from my eyes as he cleans my lips and chin.
“W-Where…” I croak out, more tears streaming.
I can’t seem to make my voice work. My body sure as hell is barely responding. It’s just me and my erratic, horrified thoughts running rampant.
Dr. Skeller, no longer in a suit and now donning a simple black T-shirt and jeans, strokes his fingers through my hair. I shudder at his revolting touch.
“I always thought you were cute,” he says, eyes twinkling as though he’s reliving a memory. “You probably don’t remember this, but I saw you at the country club once. You were waiting on your father to finish talking to some of his friends. While your brother terrorized the wait staff in the restaurant, hiding under tables and being a little shit, you stood primly right where you were told to wait.”
He’s right. I don’t remember this. Me and Dempsey have spent a lot of time at the country club. Our parents dragged us there a lot when we were younger. Once we got old enough to stay home on our own, they’d go without us.
“The sun was beaming in through a window and found shimmering golden strands hidden in your dark hair. You wore the prettiest little smile and kept your small hands neatly clasped in front of you.” He touches my bound hands. “Like this, sort of.”
A full-bodied shudder ripples through me.
“My wife caught me staring,” he says sadly. “We’d been trying for kids for a while at the time and couldn’t have any. She mistook my longing as something fatherly.”
“S-sicko,” I rasp out.
He chuckles. “Oh, sweetheart. It wasn’t like that. You were barely six or seven at the time.” His hand finds my thigh and I realize it was what the tickling sensation was from before. “I didn’t just want kids, Gemma. I wanted you. You, my perfect little girl.”
“T-Two.” I try to move my aching head to look for him, but I can’t see past Dr. Skeller and the bed and the wine bottles.
“We’ll discuss that later,” he says gently, giving my thigh an affectionate squeeze. “I didn’t see you much after that. It was probably for the best. Advancing my career was more important at the time. Children weren’t in the cards for me and Dawn. Infertility is a bitch.”
I have to get the hell out of here.
He continues with a heavy sigh. “Infertility was the death of my marriage. But it was probably for the best, though, because fate had other plans.”
I’m still unable to properly move, but my mind is racing right along with my heart. In my current state, I don’t think I could escape, but the second these drugs clear my system, I’m out of here.
I’ll find Two and we’ll run from this psychopath.
“This past summer, when your dad brought you and your brother in for a tour of PMU,” he says with a wide, wistful smile, “I was reminded of that day when you’d stood so sweetly at the club. Like before, your brother was causing trouble, but not you. You were always the good little girl. Something was different this time, though. You looked at me like a woman looks at a man—with respect and admiration.” He chuckles and shrugs. “To tell you the truth, it sent a thrill right through me.”
“N-no,” I say, barely audible, while slightly shaking my throbbing head.
“Yes,” Dr. Skeller says firmly, giving my thigh a tight squeeze. “I’m not delusional. I saw it for what it was. A connection between us.”
He’s completely insane.
“At first, I simply wanted to admire you from afar, despite being a lonely bastard. Dawn and I had recently split at the time. She kept the house and I got our lake home. I’d spend hours down here in the cellar, making my way through our most expensive bottles, longing for another life—a better one.” His palm skates up my thigh and his fingertip brushes the edge of my pussy, making me realize for the first time I’m completely naked. “And my mind always went back to you. I’ll admit, I became a bit obsessed. Thankfully, you put yourself online a lot. I’d spend hours watching your videos and scrolling through your pictures.”
“Don’t t-touch m-me,” I stammer out, shuddering again. “W-Where are my clothes?”
“Shh,” he says, not losing his smile. “You’re mine now. I’ll touch you as I please. Keep quiet while I finish my bedtime story, sweetheart, or I’ll need to gag your pretty mouth.”
Fear has a whimper rising in my chest.
“The first time I took my cock in my hand while watching you on a live feed, I came so hard I saw stars, Gemma. Fucking stars.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Of all the years with Dawn and the women I’d been with both before and after the separation, not once had I felt like that. It was otherworldly. Transcending both space and time. All because of you.”
He gently slips a finger inside of my body and massages me. I gag again, feeling disgusted at his touch, but unable to do much about it. My bound hands clumsily attempt to push his hand away from me. Thankfully, he pulls it away. I watch in rapt horror as he brings his finger to his nose, closes his eyes, and inhales deeply. Then his features pinch.
“You still smell like him.”
More tears stream out of the corners of my eyes. “L-Let me g-go. D-D-Dr.…”
“Call me Owen, sweetheart. No need for formalities.” He eyes his finger warily and sighs. “I knew I was too late. That boy got to you first. Stole what was mine.”
“N-not y-yours.”
He lets out a derisive snort. “I told you not to sleep with him. Over and over again I told you. Did you listen?” He closes his eyes and his jaw muscle ticks. “I’d planned to woo you the old-fashioned way, but the considerable difference in our ages, my connection with your father, and my position at the university were all roadblocks. I needed to move more quickly, especially when you started seeing that boy.”
“I want t-to go home,” I say through my sobs. “P-please.”
Owen gives a sharp shake of his head. “That’s never happening. I went through a lot of great lengths to get you here—right by my side where you belong. There’s no turning back for either of us.”
“The w-workshop? You f-faked that t-to get us here alone?”
“A clever ruse, indeed,” he says with a delighted chuckle. “I had a lot of fun planning that. For any outsider, they’ll see my receipts for the catered food, all the plans and emails via my work email, and even my speaker notes for the workshop. All of it will keep the finger from being pointed my way. No one will be the wiser that it was all a farce.”
The pounding in my head intensifies. I want ibuprofen and to find Two. I want to get out of here, far, far away from this monster.
Dad will find me.
The sudden thought has my heart hammering in my chest. Yes. Dad will notice I’m missing and track me down. He’s overbearing and protective, so I know he’ll have tabs on me at all times.
“You w-won’t get away with t-this.”
Owen’s lips curl into a bright grin that makes his eyes twinkle. “I already have.”
“No. D-Dad will f-find me.”
He smirks. “I’ve taken considerable steps to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“How?”
“I was busy while you slept,” Owen explains, once again roaming his palm up and down my thigh. “As soon as both of you were out cold, I gained access to your phones using your faces to unlock them. Then I went back and forth, texting between the two of you. To everyone else, you used the workshop as an excuse to be together but then took off for Vegas to get married.”
My stomach clenches at his words. “H-How long have I been asleep?”
“Almost twenty-two hours. And that, my dear, is why you’re naked. You wet the bed in your sleep, but don’t worry, I took care of my girl. You’re all cleaned up now.”
Twenty-two hours. He undressed me and cleaned me and let me sleep for so long.
At least, by now, my parents are most definitely searching for me.
“T-Two?” I ask again, a mewl of terror following after.
“He woke up hours ago.” Owen’s lips thin out before he continues. “He’s been gagged because he wouldn’t shut his disrespectful mouth.”
“They’ll still find me,” I rasp out. “My phone—”
“Is at the bottom of the lake. Along with that piece of shit car.” He arches a brow. “Don’t worry. Your parents will think you two destroyed your phones to keep them from tracking you down and they’ll never find his vehicle. I tell you, it really was the ultimate plan and I executed it to perfection.”
My mind reels. Without our phones and with Owen leading them in a completely different direction, they may never find us.
So what happens next?
It’s clear to me Owen has plans. He speaks of us as though we’re a couple finally getting to be together. I’m not sure when, but he’ll eventually force himself on me. The thought of this monster on me and inside me makes me gag again.
“As soon as I get rid of that little shit,” Owen states, jutting a thumb over his shoulder, “it’ll be just you and me, sweetheart. Forever. Hell, I may retire early just so we can spend every waking hour together.” He studies me intently. “As for your virginity, I’m going to consider it still intact. I’ve given it much thought. Mr. Sheridan is nothing but a boy and knows the basics at best, whereas I’ve had years of experience in pleasuring a woman. The moment between us will feel like heaven for you, I assure that. It’ll feel like your first time when I make love to you and I’ll know exactly how to make your toes curl.”
“Rape,” I hiss. “It’s c-called rape. N-not love. Rape.”
Owen ignores me as he moves to stand. My heart nearly stops beating with worry. Is this when it happens? I clench my thighs together, openly sobbing now. He leans over and grips my jaw. Then he plunges his tongue into my mouth, moaning as he kisses me. I’m glad I can still taste the puke in my mouth. I hope he gets a taste.
He pulls back, panting, eyes locking on mine. “You see how good I am with my tongue, darling? I’ll show you soon. Here.” He fondles me between my thighs, causing me to cry out. “After I deal with the boy.”
“What are you going t-to do?” I choke out.
His grin is vicious and cruel. “End his life, sweetheart. I’ll end his life so ours together can finally begin.”
I find my voice and let loose a deafening scream.