by Raven Rivers
Chelsea shook her head hopelessly. “How are we going to stop him when we’re chained to the floor like animals, huh?”
“She’s right,” Gabby sighed. You always talk about making it, about escaping, yet we’re still here. How long has it been now? We’re not going anywhere. Not breathing, anyhow.”
“We’re getting out of this. I don’t know how, but we are. Don’t give up,” Jade insisted.
“Jesus, do you even hear the idiocy coming out of your mouth?” Gabby scoffed. After nearly two weeks of being held captive, all trace of hope had vanished from her eyes. Chelsea looked unconvinced as well.
Hearing him at the door, they sealed their lips and prepared themselves for what was to come. Bursting into the room, he had no interest in the other two women and hurried directly to over to Jade, kneeling in front of her with his twisted face in hers.
“It’s time,” he hissed, grabbing her cheeks with one hand and squeezing hard. “You hear me, bitch? We’ve been playing house all week. The honeymoon is over. It’s time for you to play my games with me and, when I’m done, you get to watch what I do to those two,” he snarled, pointing behind him at Gabby and Chelsea.
“Baby, you don’t have to do this,” she said with a feigned smile, but she couldn’t mask the fear in her voice. Manipulating him wasn’t going to work. Not this time. She could tell by the rage in his eyes that today was the day it was all going down. Either she’d escape and free the others, or they’d all die at the hands of this insane monster.
Despite her racing heart, everything began moving in slow motion. He unlocked one cuff and then the other, and she watched him stuff the key into the tiny pocket of his jeans. She now knew where the key to their cuffs resided, just like she knew the keys to his van were hanging on a hook by the front door. After five days of being led in and out of the basement, she knew where her best chance to fight back was. It would be as they exited the top of the stairs and into the kitchen where an array of pots and pans hung from the wall. Steeling herself for what was to come, she imagined it in her mind’s eye. She could do this. There was no choice. She had to do it.
Hauling her to her feet, he led her up the stairs with a gun to her back in the usual fashion. However, when they reached the top of the steps and he turned to lock the door, she used the moment to her advantage. Taking one step to the right, she grabbed the decorative cast iron skillet from the wall and spun around. Bringing her other hand up, she wrenched free and used both hands to swing the heavy skillet into the side of his head. Looking at his face the second of impact, she saw his expression morph into one of disbelief. She stood frozen as he dropped to the floor and groaned, shocked that the blow hadn’t knocked him out cold. Using all the strength she could muster, she hit him with the skillet again. Instead of his brains spilling out like she imagined they would, he went motionless and a small puddle of blood began to form by his head. She stood over him for few seconds, skillet ready to strike should he show any sign of life. Looking down at the limp body of the man who had caused her and so many others unimaginable grief, she reached out to grab the handle of his gun. Feeling the cold metal against her skin, she drew back. Instead, she grabbed the cuff key from his pocket and tore the door to the basement open. Running down the stairs so quickly she almost fell on her face, she crashed onto her knees in front of Gabby. Unlocking the cuffs, she tossed them to Chelsea.
“What the hell is going on?” Gabby asked, her face full of confusion and panic.
Watching the other woman unlock her cuffs, Jade began backing up towards the steps. “He’s dead. I think. I don’t know. We need to get out of here. Come on, hurry!”
Surging towards the steps, they spilled into the kitchen, stumbled over the prone body lying on the floor, and headed for the front door. After grabbing the keys and making a run for the van, Jade unlocked it with shaky hands and jerked the sliding door open. Ushering the two women inside, she slammed the door shut and hurried to open the driver side door. However, as she jumping into the seat, someone snagged a handful of hair on the back of her head, stopping her. Before she could be pulled off balance, she threw the keys into the vehicle, pushed the door lock down, and slammed the door.
As she struggled against whoever was holding her back, she screamed, “Go! Get the hell outta here! This is your one chance!”
Chelsea’s terrified face was visible through the window a second before the engine roared to life with Gabby in the driver’s seat. The van jerked backwards as a strong arm came around her stomach, locking her against a muscular male body.
“I always knew you were like me,” Calvin’s slurred voice said. “Capable of violence when the occasion calls for it. We could have been really good together, my sweet little flower.”
She couldn’t believe he was not only alive, but actually mobile and speaking. With how hard she hit him, she figured he’d be dead or in a coma. He was clearly tougher than she’d given him credit for. That, and with how little she’d eaten over the last week, her strength wasn’t exactly all it could be.
Spinning her around, he used her hair to pull her head back painfully as he growled, “You’re gonna die now, bitch.”
“Why are doing this, Calvin?” she cried, stealing a glance at the house he’d been holding them in and the surrounding neighborhood. There were houses lining the street, but nobody had appeared to question the commotion.
“Help!” she began to scream, only to be silenced with a punch in the mouth.
“You should have been mine. My flower. Such a pretty flower. Such a bad flower,” he rambled nonsensically as he began to drag her to the front door, blood dripping from his head. “Now you’ll never be able to blossom.”
She could taste the blood in her mouth as he continued dragging her towards the front door, his hand clenching her hair tightly. She fought him every step of the way, knowing that once she was inside, she wouldn’t have another chance to escape. Hoping a neighbor would see and rush to her aid, she clawed on to the doorframe to keep him from pulling her inside. She lost the battle but it slowed him down. Back inside, he dragged her down the hall to a room that made her stomach turn. The walls were spattered in blood, and the carpet was stained with it. In the middle of the room was a chair that had been bolted to the floor, leather straps attached to its arms and legs. A variety of knives and tools sat on a small shelf along with familiar red hose, and a large, blue barrel was positioned in the corner. The room’s putrid smell made her gag, and she suspected the remains of his previous victim were inside the barrel. It was his kill room, that much was obvious, and she panicked at the sight of it. She kicked and hit him, trying her hardest to escape, but her attempt was quickly thwarted with a punch to the face so hard she began to black out.
“Don’t fight it,” he hissed as he threw her into the chair and dropped to his knees, securing the straps around her wrists and ankles. “I lost years of my life because of you, you know that? Having to live in some shitty country. Having to use a fake name. All because you refused to be with me. Refused to see how happy we could have been together.”
“P-please, don’t do this,” she sobbed. At this point, she knew pleading for her life was the only option left. “Y-you don’t need to do this. We can s-still be together.”
“We’re going to be together, alright,” he smirked. “Just not in this world.”
“Calvin, please!” she screamed. “Don’t do this!”
“The others got away. The cops will be here soon,” he told her, his face so close to hers that she could smell his foul breath. “They won’t be finding you alive. They won’t be finding us alive. We’re going to live together in eternity. My beautiful bride. My beautiful flower.”
Reaching out, he tore her shirt open. It felt like the oxygen had been sucked form the room. As she struggled to get her breathing under control, he jerked up her bra, exposing her breasts. Reaching out with both hands, he pulled on them, using his fingers to pinch and twist her nipples so hard it hurt.
&
nbsp; “We don’t have long now. We’ll have to play my games quickly. You’ll do exactly what I want. Right now, I’m going to kiss you.”
She fought against the restraints when his hand came up around her neck. When she resisted his lips, the grip around her neck tightened until it threatened to close off her windpipe. When she stopped struggling, he eased back enough for her to breathe as he plundered her mouth. Grateful when he pulled back slightly, she hoped that he’d made his point. Instead, his mouth drifted down to her chest. He was enjoying every second, but to Jade it felt like being licked by a diseased lizard. He bit her right breast hard enough to leave a mark, and she cried out in agony. Licking over the burning pain with his tongue, he murmured, “Bites are love notes written on the flesh. You’ll come to know that, my flower.”
“Jesus, Calvin, just stop! The cops will be here any second. It doesn’t have to end this way!”
He pulled away from her. Looking down at the bite he’d left on her skin, he seemed pleased with himself. “You were worth the wait, Jade. Ten years. My, what a beautiful flower you are. Just look at those magnificent breasts.” Rubbing a finger over her left nipple, his eyes lifted to hers. “You like my touch. I can tell that you do.” Running his hand down to cover her mound, he allowed his middle finger to delve beneath the fabric of the soft cotton shorts she wore. Rubbing the pads of his fingers over her soft flesh, he asked quietly, “Are you wet for me, my flower?” Finding that she wasn’t, he smiled knowingly. “Maybe not yet, but you will want me. I’m going to do things that will make you beg for my cock. You’re going to serve me with your pretty mouth.”
“I’d rather you just kill me,” she spat.
“Oh, I will. Don’t you worry about that. But first, I’m going to make you want me.”
“That’s impossible. I’d never want you.”
Staring into her frightened eyes, he smoothed his fingers over her sex. “I’d like to be inside of you right now, but there’s no time. No time to make you want me. Not here, anyway. You will want me, you know it. It’s just… going to take longer than we have. We need to move.”
Letting out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, she refused to look at him as he righted her clothing. Scurrying around the house, he began gathering up things and throwing them into a duffel bag. He returned moments later, gun in his waistband, and collected a few knives and saws from the shelf, tossing them into the bag. He paused for a moment, then threw in the red hose as well. Realizing he was going to move her to a new location, she tried to stall him by telling him what she hoped he wanted to hear. How handsome he still was. How he really had turned her on. How she liked a man who wasn’t afraid to take control. How they could still live a long, happy life together. It was all an effort to buy time in hopes the cops would show before they left, but her words fell on deaf ears. He was either ignoring her, or so preoccupied with fleeing the scene that her words simply didn’t register. She should have kept bashing him with the iron skillet until he didn’t have a head anymore, she scolded herself as he mumbled to himself like a lunatic. Finally done gathering whatever he needed to presumably torture her with, he knelt down in front of her.
“The other flowers took my van,” he said as he unbuckled the straps, disturbingly calm given the circumstances. “But it’s okay. I have another place we can go.”
“Won’t your wife worry about you?”
“I killed her today,” he replied nonchalantly.
Why Jade was shocked by that, she didn’t know. At this point, nothing should shock her. Slinging the duffel bag over his shoulder and taking her firmly by the arm, Calvin forced her from the house with the gun to her back. Outside, they were greeted by a neighbor who’d heard the commotion and had finally made his way over to investigate.
“Is everything okay?” the older man asked with a look of concern. “I thought I heard—”
Without warning, Calvin shot the man in the head. Jade shrieked in horror, but her captor didn’t flinch, nor did he say anything as he continued leading her towards an embankment behind the house as if nothing had happened. She purposely dragged her feet as she walked, hoping she’d leave marks that could be followed. After walking for what seemed like an hour, they came upon a small, run-down cabin that was hidden beneath a tangle of brush. Her adrenaline spiked. There was no way anyone would find her here. Again, she did her best to escape but stopped when he stated flatly, “You know, it kind of turns me on when you put up a fight.”
The last thing on earth she needed was an aroused psychopath. Chaining her to one of the old support beams holding the place up, he dropped the bag out of her reach before leaving without a word. Recognizing the futility of her situation, Jade tried to rest so she’d be able to fight when the time came.
Chapter 26
Never Look Back
Yuri
As they neared the address Tony’s father had given them, Yuri still wasn’t sure the man in the video was Calvin. If it was him, he looked like a shadow of the teen Yuri once knew. Still, he had to know for sure. The property being registered in his wife’s name made sense since putting it in his own name might have raised a flag. After all, Calvin was still a fugitive.
As Luka drive, Yuri considered the likelihood of finding his Jade alive as he watched the road narrow into a bumpy two-lane county road. That’s when he saw a shiny red van that appeared to be the same make and model they’d been looking for speeding in their direction. Without hesitation, Luka spun his car, blocking their passage. Jumping out of the car with Luka at his back, Yuri pulled out his weapon. He could hear Tony’s vehicle screeching to a stop as well. Running up to the van as it slowed, he saw two terrified women inside and lowered his gun. He gestured for them to remain calm and tapped on the window.
“Where are you coming from?” he asked, seeing their obvious panic. The two were clearly running away from something bad.
Cracking the window, the driver asked, “Are you Jade’s Russian?”
“I am Yuri Kozlov,” he nodded. “Jade is mine.” Realizing how inappropriate that sounded, he added, “And I am hers. We are here to rescue her.”
The door came flying open and the two women stepped out. Looking over his shoulder at Luka and Tony, they both seem to relax a little.
“I thought it was you,” the woman who’d been driving said. “I could tell by your accent. Look, you need to hurry. He still has Jade and he’s not fucking around. If you go now, you might be able to save her.”
“Where?” Yuri growled.
“His house is about twenty minutes in that direction,” she explained quickly, pointing over her shoulder. “I… I didn’t get the address, I’m sorry. It’s an older place near the end of the street. I’m not going back there.”
Yuri swallowed thickly. “She’s alive?”
“She was,” the woman who’d been in the passenger seat said.
Stepping forward, Tony showed the women a picture on his phone. “Is this the house?”
The women looked at the picture, then each other. “That’s it,” they said in unison.
“There’s a dead body in the back of the van,” the passenger said, visibly shaken. “In two bags. She’s… she’s cut in half.”
“Go now!” the one who’d been driving told them. “He’ll be upset that we got away. He’s dangerous when he’s upset.”
“Please stay with the women and keep them safe,” Yuri instructed Tony. “Take them to the police.”
Tony opened his mouth to protest, but closed it and nodded, “Sure thing. Whatever you say.”
Luka was was back on the road in an instant, with Yuri in the passenger seat barking directions from his GPS. Jade was still alive and in terrible danger. Luka didn’t disappoint, pushing almost one hundred miles-per-hour as they raced to save her. They made it to the house in ten minutes flat and flew out of the vehicle without even turning off the engine. On the ground lay the dead body of an older man who’d been shot between the eyes. Glancing around the neighborh
ood, Luka spotted a woman peeking out from behind the curtains of a nearby house. She looked terrified and held a phone in her hand.
“Somebody either saw or heard whatever went down here,” Luka said, “and I’m sure the cops are on their way. We need to hurry.”
“Agreed,” Yuri nodded, noting the panicked woman in the window.
Stepping over the old man’s body, they drew their guns and slowly approached the front door that had been left open. They cautiously entered the house, remaining as quiet as possible as they listened for voices.
Luka spoke first, breaking the silence with a whisper. “I don’t think anybody’s here.”
Knowing he was right, Yuri lowered his gun and replied at a normal volume, “No, the house is empty. Whoever was here left in a hurry. We need to find where they went.”
Looking for clues, the two did a quick search of the upstairs that revealed nothing. Downstairs, they found the kill room with the torso of a female rotting in a blue barrel. Yuri knew from a visible tattoo that it wasn’t Jade. In the kitchen, they spotted a pool of drying blood by a door that led down to the basement. Halfway down the steps, they were hit with the stench of urine. The basement, they both agreed, was where Calvin had clearly been keeping his victims. Three buckets served as toilets, with three sets of shackles found by each. Yuri was overcome with anger at the conditions Jade had been kept in but fought hard to maintain his composure. Stomping back up the steps, the two walked out of the house to search the property. Yuri shut off the car they’d left running and shoved the keys in his pocket before scouring the ground for clues. It was Luka who spotted what appeared to be tracks on the ground leading behind the house and down a steep embankment.
“You have a keen eye,” Yuri told him as they followed the tracks.
The footprints stood out noticeably in the mud, making them easy to follow. They led the two men to a small field where they stopped, scanning the area. Yuri spotted something that looked like it might be a shack of some kind, but he couldn’t be certain. Pointing, he drew Luka’s attention to it.