Allison

by Strand, Jeff

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “It can’t work between us. I’m going to have to reconcile the fact that I killed a lot—a lot—of people on purpose, but I refuse to risk killing you by accident. I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now. I have to go.”

  “But you’ve been shot.”

  Allison glanced down at the taped-up bullet wound. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to find one of those doctors who don’t ask questions. Wish I’d gotten a referral before I killed everybody around here. I’ll figure it out. I’ve got the Internet.”

  “All right,” said Cody. “Be careful.”

  “I always am. I mean, not so much today, but overall, in general, I’m careful.”

  “You don’t have to tell me where you are, but will you let me know that you’re okay?”

  “I’ll try.” Allison stood up and walked toward the doorway. Then she stopped and turned back around. She looked down at Maggie. “I’m going to need a favor from you.”

  Daxton looked at his cell phone. A text from Maggie. There was a picture attached.

  He almost dropped the phone when he saw it. She was holding a baby.

  He immediately called her.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “It’s been...I can’t even describe how it’s been. Mr. Winlaw! He went insane! He kidnapped me! I barely got away!”

  Wait, did she not know he knew she’d been abducted? Did Winlaw not tell her?

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

  “He kidnapped me and locked me in a room, but the baby came early, and he had to help deliver it, and then I just ran! He’s going to come after us! Daxton, you have to come pick me up as soon as you can! We have to run! We have to get our baby away from him!”

  Was this possible? Was he going to have a happy ending after all? All he’d wanted in the first place was to take Maggie and get the hell out of town. He’d go get her and his daughter, then drive somewhere that Mr. Winlaw would never, ever find them.

  “Where are you?”

  Epilogue

  Three Months Later

  Allison lay on the couch, legs wide open as she imagined Cody on top of her, kissing her neck as he thrust into her.

  The vibrator hummed. It was a top of the line model and worth every penny. She’d bought a couple of other expensive ones that didn’t quite do the trick, but this one was absolutely stellar. She would leave a five-star online review later tonight.

  She whimpered. She was getting so close.

  So close.

  Almost there.

  Her legs began to tremble.

  When the orgasm hit, she completely let herself go, thrashing around on the couch as she cried out in pleasure.

  It took her a few moments to calm down. She just lay there, panting.

  She turned off the vibrator, set it aside, and got up off the couch in the basement. She pulled her dress down and smoothed it out. Then she walked around to the other side of the curtain.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  Daxton didn’t answer. Of course, he couldn’t speak, not with his mouth taped shut, but she’d learned from previous experiments that she couldn’t climax if he was making disparaging comments, so she had to muffle him.

  He was chained to a steel table. He wore only a pair of boxer shorts—not because of anything kinky, but so she could more easily check him for injuries. His broken legs weren’t healing very well. Allison was no medical professional and she didn’t know how to set a broken bone, especially one that had burst through the skin. His arms were also looking pretty bad.

  He’d stopped coughing up blood a few days ago, so that was good.

  Of course, right now she didn’t care about the older injuries. She cared about new ones. She didn’t see any that hadn’t been there before she used the vibrator.

  “I asked you a question,” she said. “Did you feel anything break?”

  Daxton shook his head.

  He wouldn’t lie to her. Not again.

  “That’s great news,” she said. It was amazing how quickly she was improving her skills when she could practice on a daily basis. Oh, there was still plenty of work to do, but this was the third time she’d had an orgasm with only the privacy curtain separating her and Daxton without him suffering any new injuries.

  She was really learning to control this.

  She was on her way to a much happier life.

  “I’m making a lot of progress, thanks to you,” she told Daxton. “I can’t wait to give Cody the latest update.” She looked over at the clock. “He’s not quite off work yet, so I guess I’ll try it one more time. Practice makes perfect.”

  — The End —

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Tod Clark, Donna Fitzpatrick, Paul Goblirsch, Lynne Hansen, Michael McBride, Jim Morey, Rhonda Rettig, and Paul Synuria II for their bone-breaking assistance with this novel.

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  Subscribe to Jeff Strand’s free monthly newsletter (which includes a brand-new original short story in every issue) at http://eepurl.com/bpv5br

  And remember:

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