Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two
Every bone in my body aches from sleeping for only God knows how long on a cold, concrete floor while handcuffed to a pipe and my bladder feels like it’s going to burst at any moment. When I’d come to, Dr. Skeller wrenched my other hand to the handcuffed one and zip-tied it to it. I started cursing up a storm and making vicious threats, all of which ended with him stuffing a washcloth into my mouth and slapping thick utility tape over it from cheek to cheek.
I’d been forced to listen to his heavy breathing and then his psychotic monologue as he explained how and why we got here.
He’s obsessed with Gemma.
Gemma’s stalker is Dr. Skeller.
We waltzed right through his front door and right into his poisonous trap.
Unbelievable.
I wanted to believe it was only a matter of time before our parents found us, but then Dr. Skeller—or Owen as he said to Gemma—revealed his detailed plan he’d executed to lead the search elsewhere.
If we want out of here, we have to do it ourselves.
But how?
I’m handcuffed and gagged, for fuck’s sake.
I attempt to shift my body to alleviate the ache in my lower back but only manage to send more pain shooting through my tressed up arms. A grunt of frustration whistles out of my nostrils.
Gemma’s sudden scream has me tensing. From my position on the floor, I can’t twist around to see her. Is he raping her? I yank on my bindings hard enough both metal and plastic cut into my flesh. Breaths heave in and out of my nose heavily as my eyes water.
I have to save her.
I can’t.
Footsteps make their way over to me and then Owen is towering above me. He’s no longer in his suit but now dons regular clothes. If I had my hands free, I’d tackle him, grip his neck, and squeeze the fucking life out of him.
If only.
He squats down in front of me and grins. “We both know you’re not good enough for my Gemma.” He pats the top of my head in a condescending way that makes my blood boil. “She’s quite literally a gem and you’re nothing but a waste of air.”
If I were free, I could take this old man. There’s nothing special about him. He’s not big and muscular like Dax or Dempsey. He’s just old and fucking crazy.
“I’m about to work on my garden,” Owen says jovially. “Your rotting corpse will make for perfect compost.”
He’s going to kill me.
Fuck.
Tears of frustration, rage, and utter fear burn hot down my cheeks. Owen touches my wet cheek before wiping the tear off on his jeans as though I’m diseased.
How will he kill me?
As though he can hear my thoughts, he smirks. “A gun will be too loud. I have neighbors nearby and I can’t risk it.”
Gemma shouts at Owen, filth flying out of her mouth, and then quickly turns on her charm to beg. She’s begging for me. For my life. Trading anything he wants from her to let me live. Sex, submission, her own life. My heart aches to be with her.
“I said hush, sweetheart,” Owen chides. His eyes meet mine. “It’s unfortunate, but I’ll need to gag her as well.”
He disappears again. Then her shrieks are silenced as he does as promised. Her sobs are my undoing, breaking my heart shard by shard. I’m useless to help her—to help us.
I want my dads.
I want me and Gemma to wake up and this have all been a stupid nightmare.
“Yes, where were we?” Owen asks as he walks back over to me. “Ahh, I remember. I was explaining my kill method.” He laughs as though this shit is funny. “A knife would be too messy. Again, I’ve contemplated this a lot. Exactly how I’d end your short life.”
Groaning and grunting, I struggle against my bindings, wondering if I can swing my leg up to kick him in his face. He must sense my plan because he sidesteps me and walks up the stairs and out of the cellar without another word. Minutes later, he returns with a shovel.
“This, Mr. Sheridan,” Owen says, thrusting the shovel toward me, “is how it ends. Not messy but still destructive.” He cocks his head to the side. “I wonder how many bones I can break before you succumb to internal bleeding.”
Gemma’s sobbing grows hysterical and I ache to see her. Life is shitty. I go my entire life hurting over this girl, tormented by her existence, only to fall in love with her. Not like or smitten or whatever the fuck kids these days say. No, I love her. Deeply. I had plans for us. Long-term plans. Kids, house, dog, the whole nine yards.
Now it’s being stolen from me.
Owen rests his chin on the top of the shovel, watching me with narrowed eyes. A chill skitters through me. His eyes are vacant and I sense no trepidation whatsoever. He’ll kill me without a second thought.
Then what?
Then he’ll spend hours, days, months, years torturing my beautiful girl. He’ll rape her in captivity until she’s a husk of her vibrant, beautiful self. Then he’ll get bored. Probably kill her too. Maybe find a new obsession and repeat the process all over again because he never got caught.
This can’t happen.
I have to stop it.
“For your sake,” Owen says, straightening his spine. “I hope this goes fast for you. I can’t imagine, even with the drugs still in your system, that it’ll feel too good.”
His features twist into something malevolent and vile—straight from a horror movie. He swings the shovel up in the air, the metal blade cracking against the ceiling before he drives it down toward me. All I can do is tense as the flat side of the shovel smacks against my ribs.
Pain explodes in my abdomen as I howl through my gag. The world in front of me blurs with my tears. Owen grunts as he swings the shovel back up above his head. This time, I manage to block with my foot. Another blast of pain assaults me, this time in my ankle. I black out, only to be awoken from another whack right smack in the gut. It knocks the breath out of me and I gasp desperately for oxygen. My bladder, unable to hold any longer through all the pain, releases.
I’m going to die on this cold floor in excruciating pain and soaked in my own piss.
I’ll never see Gemma or my dads or Dax again.
This is it.
I hope I go quickly.
Owen stops, his entire body trembling, and uses the bottom of his T-shirt to swipe the sweat off his brow. He releases it and then swings the shovel up again. I brace for impact, waiting for the final, deadly blow.
Pop!
The shovel clatters to the cement, but I don’t hear it because my ears are now ringing. Owen staggers away back toward Gemma, out of my line of sight. I hear her shrieking over the ringing in my ears, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
Darkness clouds my vision and I fixate on a droplet of blood on the ground. My blood? His?
It’s then I see a man, squatting in front of me. Not Owen. Someone else. He’s speaking to me, but I can’t seem to make out the words.
“Tristan Sheridan?” the man says as he fumbles with his belt. “Stay with me, buddy. I’m going to uncuff you and free your hands. Eyes on me. I’m Officer Holt. You’re safe now.”
I blink at him in confusion. Officer? The cops are here?
“Sit rep,” a familiar female voice barks out. “Holt, how are we doing over there?”
“Vic is alive,” he says back as he shoves the key into the handcuffs. “Contusions around his wrists and his ankle’s sitting a funny kind of way, Detective.”
More police officers flood into the cellar, guns drawn, searching for threats.
“Suspect still has a pulse,” the woman hollers. “Where’re the ambulances?”
“En route,” another man assures her. “Ma’am, how’s the girl? She alive?”
“Gemma is alive, but we’re looking at a possible sexual assault,” the woman says back. “They’re both alive. Someone get Tanaka on the line and let him know we have them.”
More people rush in, these wearing EMT uniforms. My vision grows hazy as they assess my injuries. The comforting cadence of their reassuring voices has me fading into nothingness.
We’ve been rescued.
“If you can’t get up and use the toilet,” a woman says, “we’ll need to do a catheter. Come on, Mr. Sheridan. Open those eyes. Your dads are here.”
The mention of my dads has me struggling to fully wake. I wince against the harsh light. It only takes a few moments to realize I’m in a hospital room and the woman is a nurse. My dads hover nearby, both of them red-faced from crying. At seeing them, a sob catches in my throat.
“Oh my God,” Dad chokes out, rushing over to me. “My sweet baby boy. You’re still here with us. Daddy’s here.”
I’m in pain from head to toe, but it’s shrouded by whatever they’re pumping into my veins. The pain I’m feeling right now is in my chest.
“Gemma?” I rasp out, grimacing at the sharp stab in my ribs.
“She’s okay,” Pops assures me, eyes locking on mine. “Her parents are with her down the hall.”
Tears flood down my cheeks but not from pain. I’m relieved to know we made it out alive. We fucking made it out.
“He was going to kill me and do awful things to her.” I swallow hard and my chin wobbles. “I was scared. So fucking scared.”
Dad gently squeezes my hand. Bandages cover both of my wrists. I wonder what other injuries I sustained.
“I know you all are happy to see him now that he’s coherent,” the nurse says, “but I’d like to get him up and over to the bathroom. I’ve got a crutch for him to use.”
I shoot Pops a questioning look.
“Your ankle,” Pops says with a frown. “They’re going to have to do surgery on it once you’re out of the woods from your internal injuries. It’s in a bright orange cast for now.”
My bladder throbs and I wonder how this nurse knew I had to pee. Grunting, I attempt to sit up, but then more pain shoots through me.
“Can you give him something?” Dad asks, terror in his voice. “He’s in agony.”
“I gave him something a few minutes ago through his IV. This pain is something he’ll have to work through. The quicker we get him up and moving like normal, the quicker he’s going to start healing.”
Pops frowns and Dad rolls his eyes. My heart lurches with happiness. They’re here with me and everything’s going to be okay.
We spend the next twenty minutes painfully getting me out of the bed, onto a crutch, and hobbled into the bathroom. Pops remains to help me stand as I do my business while Dad and the nurse wait outside the closed door. Once I finish, Pops kisses my head and swallows a strangled sob that makes my eyes well up all over again.
An eternity later, I make my way back to the bed and relax my hurting body.
Knock! Knock!
“Come in,” Dad calls out to the visitor.
I expect Dax maybe or a doctor, but Sloane peeks her head inside. She gives me a tight smile before walking over to my bedside.
“Gemma?” I ask, still breathless from all my bathroom efforts.
“She’s well. They’re going to release her in the morning.” Sloane crosses her arms over her chest and frowns at me. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been beaten nearly to death with a shovel in a maniac’s wine cellar.”
Sloane smirks. “I see your snark remained intact.”
“He never leaves home without it,” Dad chimes in with a singsong voice.
I start to laugh, but then the searing pain in my ribs stifles it. “Fuck. This hurts.”
“I know,” Sloane says softly. “It’ll pass, though. I thought you might want to know that Skeller was treated for his gunshot wound to the shoulder and will be transported soon to jail to await sentencing. He’s been arrested for kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder.”
Thank fuck.
“Too bad you didn’t get him center mass,” I grumble. “That asshole doesn’t deserve to live.”
Sloane gives me a sympathetic smile. “He’s going to go away for a long time. Rather than a quick death, he’ll have decades to think of what he did. He’ll die in prison, Two.”
“How did you find us?” I rasp out. “He said he made it look like we ran away together and then got rid of the phones.”
Not to mention, my car is now at the bottom of the fucking lake.
That hurts almost as much as my physical injuries.
Sloane steps closer and lowers her voice. “Let’s just say we had unofficial help from an associate.”
“Who?”
The nurse excuses herself and Sloane’s shoulders relax.
“Jude,” she says quickly. “Nathan had him looking into all of his friends for anything suspicious. Jude, no doubt illegally, hacked his way into Skeller’s emails and other cloud-saved documents. In all his digging, he found pictures of Gemma. A lot of them.”
I scowl, the hatred for that man boiling my blood. “Sick fuck.”
“He also learned that the workshop you two supposedly bailed were the only real people he invited. The rest were newly created emails. It was obvious it was a setup and Jude picked his way through all of it.”
I owe Jude a beer.
“My God,” Dad hisses. “The lengths this Skeller man went through. Horrible.”
“With our ‘anonymous tip,’” Sloane continues, arching a blond eyebrow, “we were able to get a warrant and move quickly. It looks like we arrived just in time, too.”
“If you didn’t…” Dad trails off. “Thank goodness you did.”
Sloane nods grimly.
“I’ll get out of your hair and let you rest, but when you’re up to it, we’ll want to ask some questions,” Sloane says, handing a business card to Pops. “Skeller was caught in the act. It’s an open and closed case, but we do need Two’s full statement to button everything up.”
Sloane leaves and my dads relax. Exhaustion wins over and I start to drift off.
It’s finally over.
That stalker is out of my girl’s life.
Forever.