36. Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Lucy
My fingers stilled, the pin wrenching painfully tight against the plastic binding at my wrists. My back straightened.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I started moving before I could stop myself, the notes on the floor forgotten as I rocked weakly onto my feet.
Deana eyed me methodically, and I was careful to face her in a way that she couldn’t see behind me.
She sneered, “Yep. My father killed his mommy, he killed my father, I killed his father, and now I’m gonna kill you too.
” She took a deep breath. “Wow, it really does sound quite messy when I say it out loud, right?” She let out a psychotic laugh.
My stomach rolled as I tried to process that information. She was the daughter of Domenica’s attacker? Jesus. I guess the apple really didn’t fall far. And then it hit me. She killed Dax’s father…he didn’t commit suicide—she’d just made it look like he had.
Chase rolled the wagon to a stop in front of my cell and gave me a cutting grin with yellow teeth. “By the way, how’s Tara doing? Did she tell you how she begged us to spare her life? What she did in exchange for it?”
Hot anger burned on my tongue. “Fuck you, asshole!” I wrenched the pin into another twist and felt the zip tie snap from the pressure of the continuous knot. The sound made a little clicking noise, but the echoes of my yell seemed to cover it.
“With Wrangler’s permission, I might.” He leered back at me.
“As if consent matters to any of you psychopaths!” I screeched, struggling to keep hold of the pin as I tucked it back into my waistband. I tried to keep my arms as still as possible so they couldn’t tell they’d been released.
“Save your screams for the audience, bitch.” Deana snapped her fingers at the two armed guards, who had both remained silent throughout this entire exchange. They started pulling things from the wagon and setting them up outside my enclosure.
They plugged in studio lights that cast a dark, ominous red glow throughout my cell. Chase propped up the tripod and attached an expensive-looking camera to it, humming like an evil maniac the entire time.
One of the guards lifted a roll of heavy-looking chains from the wagon while the other lifted a tactical axe.
My gut lurched as terror worked up my throat like acid.
Deana procured a large pouch and unrolled it on the cement floor.
Knives of all shape and size—from scalpels to Chef’s knives that looked exactly like the ones Dax cooked with.
The fluorescent lights above mine and Phoebe’s cells flicked off, the entire room lit a deep crimson.
It was happening, and I didn’t have a plan.
My eyes darted around the dark space, searching for something, anything that could help me.
I had the hair pin, but what good would that do when there were two armed guards plus Deana and Chase right in front of me?
I glanced at Phoebe, who was cowering in the corner of her cell. She wouldn’t look at me, but I think she knew I was trying to get her attention.
Our captors were busy fussing around with the settings on the camera when I inched my way closer to the bars that separated our cells.
Slowly, I sank down with my back against it, my eyes glued in front of me.
Even if it was too late for me to get out of there alive, maybe there was a chance Phoebe could.
Carefully, I slid my hands down my back, angling my body to the front of the cell where the others could see me.
The zip ties now hung loosely around my wrists, and I reached my fingers into the waist of my pants to pull out the pin.
Slowly, I slid it through the crack underneath the bars.
The scratching of metal against concrete made the smallest noise, but luckily they still hadn’t noticed.
I slid the pin as far as my hands could reach before I inched away from the wall and then stood up.
I glanced at Phoebe, who stared at me reproachfully. When she caught the glint of metal, her eyes shot down, her welted mouth dropping open.
I gave her a subtle nod and turned back toward the front of my prison just in time to see Deana slip a bandanna up around her nose, and black gloves around her scraggly hands.
She was wearing a baggy suit that hid her features, and black leather boots.
Her hair had been pulled up into the cowboy hat, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d assume she was a man.
“It’s time,” she said cheerfully through the bandana’s fabric. I saw a light on the camera flick on, and Chase flipped open a laptop propped onto one of the folding chairs outside the cell.
“There’s already six hundred subscribers in the waiting room,” Chase announced with an unsavory sense of glee. “That’s double what they were for the last one.”
I saw Deana’s eyes squint between the bandana and the brim of the hat. “I had a feeling there would be. They’ve been anticipating this one.”
My insides felt like they were being frozen to ice and then melted down in a quick, vicious cycle. My stomach was too empty to heave, but my entire body started shaking despite the heat.
This was when it finally hit me. Dax wasn’t coming. Nobody was going to save me, and I was about to die. Panic turned to something smooth and numb inside me. Resignation. All of it had been for nothing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I jumped a little when I heard the squeal of the lock turn on the door caging me in, where Chase was turning a rusty-looking key.
It clicked and the gate swung open with a loud creak.
The guards entered the cage, and I instinctively backed up a couple of steps, keeping my hands locked behind my back.
They positioned themselves in the corners closest to the entrance, facing me with their guns drawn and pointing in my direction.
Were they going to shoot me? If they did, at least that would be a much less painful way to go than by the paraphernalia Deana had spread out could do to me.
No. That wasn’t her style. They wanted to watch me suffer.
Deana stepped into the cage, her hat pointed low so I could barely see the wicked glint in her eyes. My gaze shot to the large, jagged knife she held in her hand.
“And…we’re live.” Chase clapped, standing behind the laptop and the camera. “It’s been nice knowing ya, bitch.”
I could barely hear what he said over the rush of blood pounding in my ears. I held my hands together like a secret prayer behind my back, trying to keep myself from shaking as Deana approached me.
“Oh shit,” Chase remarked. “One of the subscribers already placed a bid.”
Goosebumps settled like unwelcome parasites over my skin.
The black hat on Deana’s head nodded down, letting him know she heard him.
My eyes locked directly onto her dilated pupils beneath the hat’s brim.
The red light cast them in a sickening shade that made them look as though they’d been sent here straight from hell.
She approached me with the knife, and I tensed.
The flat of the blade reached out to caress my cheek, not yet drawing blood.
I stood still as a statue, petrified one small movement would send it through my throat.
I felt the tip of the blade turn as it twisted right down the column of my throat and rested in the divot of my clavicle. I couldn’t help my dry gulp, and the small pressure sent a little prick against the blade, a bite of pain spearing to the incision.
I couldn’t take it anymore, and my lids shuttered. It would be better if I didn’t watch, and I refused to give her the satisfaction of screaming.
I felt the pressure of the knife slide meticulously down the center of my chest, the thin fabric of my blouse snapping at the buttons.
The pain of the cut seared into my skin, just deep enough that I felt the tickle of blood start to build at the seam and trickle down as the moist air hit my breasts through my bra.
Heat and shame flared up my cheeks. The only point at which I didn’t feel the knife cut into my skin was at the small thick gap of lace material between my breasts that held the cups of my bra together at the front.
I bit the inside of my cheeks to keep myself from whimpering and ended up sniffling through my nose.
The knife continued its path straight to my bellybutton, leaving a scathing line of blood behind. Then the knife lifted off my skin, and I felt the rest of the fabric tear from my blouse.
I was exposed.
Against my better judgment, my eyes squinted open the tiniest fraction, and I saw Deana had moved to the side so the camera could get the full view.
I was so humiliated and repulsed. Then as I watched Chase staring lasciviously across from me, something else rose inside me. Pure, unadulterated hatred.
I peeled my eyes from him, and something caught my eye on the floor. It was one of the bricks I’d pulled from the wall earlier.
Then it struck me. If I was going to die here, I couldn’t go down without a fight. My fate would have a better chance getting shot by those guards than sticking around to live through whatever torture Deana and Chase were about to inflict on me.
Adrenaline pumped hot in my veins.
Before I gave myself the chance to back out, I ripped my arms from behind my back, the broken zip tie flinging off my wrists, and lunged for the brick.
I snatched it from the cement and dove at Deana, smashing the brick into the side of her face with every drop of strength I had. She swayed, the cowboy hat tipping off her head.
Gunshots rang.