Captured Lies

by Maggie Thom

"You'll never get away with this." Bailey tested the plastic tie wraps he'd used on her wrists. They didn't budge. Every time she moved they cut into her skin like a row of tiny razor blades. He placed his hand firmly in her back and pushed her forward. She tripped but was able to stay on her feet. They rounded a dense growth of trees and entered a small clearing. He directed her to walk towards the thick foliage. The only thing she could think of was that he had a cave he was going to throw her into. She couldn't see anything but she didn't want to stick around to find out either. She glanced around looking for an opportunity to run although the blade he was carrying though, rarely left contact with her shoulder. Her t-shirt clung to her back in several places, glued there by the blood oozing from the cuts he'd had great pleasure in giving her.

  He pushed her to walk around the side of the massive, plant covered area. The smell of mold, mildew and rotting lumber assaulted her. There was an underlying pungent smell that was so strong, she coughed a few times and tried to bury her nose in her shoulder.

  He laughed. "Don't like the gourmet scents I've made. You disappoint me." Shoving her hard, she tripped over the vines and thick undergrowth, falling but able to twist in time to land on her shoulder. Rolling over, she glared at the man who had a sick, demented smile on his face and the evilest darkest eyes she'd ever seen. Maybe she really had seen the devil in them earlier.

  "Stay there."

  He moved aside the cascading vines. Behind them was a solid structure, from which he removed a few boards. She rolled over but the quick stab of the knife into her arm kept her immobile. She could do no more than lay there and watch. The camouflage had been so good she hadn't thought there would be more than a den area. He flipped open a small door before jerking her to her feet and shoving her towards the hole.

  "Climb in."

  The door was three feet off the ground, three feet high and three feet wide, not an easy place to climb into. She'd obviously taken too long for him, though. He planted his hands on her butt and heaved her through. She shot through like a missile. Unable to brace herself she landed head first. Black and white spots danced before her.

  He scrambled over the top of her not giving her time to recover. Then he grabbed her by the shoulder and the crotch and tossed her the rest of the way in. His lower hand digging in much more than was necessary. She shuddered. A look of lust contorted his face. He stood over her, pressing his fingers to his nostrils as he drew in deep breaths.

  A violent revulsion shook her body. Fear and panic fought for control, moving over her in waves, like the tide crashing on the shore, rolling over itself.

  Hang on. Hang on. Don't give in. Guy will come. DO NOT GIVE IN! Her tiny voice of sanity, repeated over and over in her head. Guy would get there in time... she hoped.

  "Get up."

  Not wanting his hands on her again she quickly got to her feet. Swaying slightly, she stared at the man she'd make sure would pay for this. He gestured for her to go up the stairs. After taking in her surroundings, she noted that although the outside of the building looked like nothing more than vines and trees, the inside looked as solid as a vault. It almost looked like he'd built a house within a house. Then it hit her. That's exactly what he'd done. He'd left the shell of an old place and built a new one inside. Sturdy two by fours framed several unfinished walls, obviously the support for the place. The floor was dusty plywood. But all of it was new.

  "Couldn't find an interior decorator? You know, if you'd asked I'm sure I could have come up with something fair. You didn't have to get me here under these pretenses. You know I'm really good at what I do. I won't charge you that much. I'm sure we can agree upon a price."

  He growled at her.

  No sense of humor.

  She moved up the well built bare stairs. At the top, he shoved her to go left. The upstairs looked much the same except there were finished walls. He opened the only door, hustling her through it.

  A king size bed filled one end of the room. A beautifully multi colored - browns, oranges and reds - silk bedspread was draped over it. Two large mahogany dressers stood against one wall. Two oak closet doors completed the room. It was very masculine but classy.

  The dread that had been trying to crawl through her veins earlier, threatened to do so again.

  His raping me is not going to be the last memory I have on this earth.

  "I see you did a better job of getting a good decorator in here. May I suggest you stick with the one you found. Not good practice to change when in the middle of renovations. No two designers ever see a place quite the same. And since you seem happy with-"

  He slapped her with the force of a crack of a bat. Her head whipped back. She stumbled, falling into the wood support structure. He shoved his face into hers.

  "Shut your mouth, bitch. I thought I'd dealt with you a long time ago. You will not ruin my life!"

  She scanned through her memory but couldn't come up with ever meeting him before.

  "I'm sorry about that. I know I sometimes talk or do things without thinking-"

  "You have no idea what you've done." Stepping back, he grabbed her upper arm in a vice grip and forced her towards the twin oak doors just off to her right.

  "I need-"

  He jerked her hard, snapping her body around like a pretzel. Pain radiated through her body. It also reminded her that her hands were securely tied behind her back. She'd thought about asking him to let her go to the bathroom only to realize that he might have taken that to be an invitation to help her with her pants. He dragged her through his clothes closet, twice the size of her bedroom.

  That thought brought back all that had happened over the last seven days. Weakness threatened the stability of her knees. The emotional clutch, sitting at the back of her throat, caused her nostrils to flare and tears filled the corner of her eyes. Bowing her head slightly, she struggled to pull herself back into control. It wasn't until he set her aside, unlocked another door, flipped on a light and pushed her through, that her disturbed state turned to one of horror. Her mouth went dry. Her breathing became choppy, labored. Any thought of escape or help vanished. This was to be her grave.

  The state-of-the-art, shiny electronic equipment caught her immediate attention. Other than it, everything else was black - the thin carpet, the walls, the ceiling and the one tiny window. Well, almost everything. Her eyes widened as it registered what she was seeing. Sticks of dynamite adorned the walls, in about ten places around the room. She couldn't blink as her gaze followed the path of the connectors, going from one stick to another around the room. Wires, hanging as though hastily put up, dropped behind a small square box in the corner. One that looked as innocent as a clock radio. The number twenty blinked at her. The detonator was set and waiting for its final command.

  Everything seemed to stop as the import of what she was seeing hit her. "Why?" she gasped.

  He straightened himself to his full six-foot two height, as though it improved his status. "Because you will ruin everything. You never should have been. I did everything to prevent you. Everything. Yet you came. The joy for everyone." His fist came so fast she didn't have time to avoid it. It landed full in her stomach with the impact of an amateur boxer's punch. With the wind knocked out of her, she doubled over, crumpling to the floor. Bile rose in her throat. Pain radiated, spiraling outwards. Dry heaves threatened to produce something more substantive.

  He walked across the room and flipped a switch. The wall turned into a larger than life screen. It wasn't until he'd hit the third button and she saw Guy's grandma sleeping in her bed, that she understood. He continued to flip through live video feed from the main house.

  Her instincts kicked in. "So I'm the basis of all your problems. I'm sorry but I don't remember meeting you before. Can you refresh my memory?"

  She'd seen a lot in her life. Not much shocked her - not the ugliness of people, the selfishness, nor the meanness. But she'd never seen anything like him. The muscles in his face contorted, displaying ridges and dips that l
ooked more like a mask than something that was physically possible. His eyes went black. Lifeless. It was the meanest, ugliest thing she'd ever seen.

  "Oh, we met my dear. You were only a few hours old, so I'll forgive you for not remembering. You never should have been. I was giving Gina stuff that should have prevented a baby. But you. You had to be born. Damn you." He pointed his finger. "I had everything planned. Then you came along and ruined it. Threatened all I had built up."

  "I was only a baby."

  "BUT A LEGITIMATE ONE!" His face was almost purple with rage. He stormed over and drove his fist into the wall over her head, missing only by inches, thanks to her quick slump sideways. He backed away, his eyes glazed.

  She couldn't help but cringe as she waited for the impact, which thankfully never came. "But what about-uh-Dorothea's daughter? M-my mother?"

  "Was not interested in the business, which broke Dorothea's heart. Of course it was really easy to screw up that relationship. Gina hated her mother for a long time." He laughed. "But with you she was already making plans to groom you, to bring you into the fold. To teach you to be president of this company, my company. Which means, she'd have started looking a little more closely at what I was doing. Even back then the company was paying me well for things that never existed." He chuckled at his own joke. "That was not going to happen. You were not going to mess up everything I worked for. She was talking about you being her little golden princess. Her opportunity to make things right. She was always trying to make things right. To make up for our parents' shortfalls. To make up for how our parents treated me. This company was mine. Should have been mine. I deserved it. Not her. She already had the one thing that meant anything to me and she planned on giving it to you as soon as you were educated. You. So I took away what had meaning for her. I am not the acting CEO, I own this company... she just doesn't know it yet. You were not going to be. You were not going to take what was mine."

  He straightened his tie. "How did you survive? I'd gotten rid of you. The woman who took you died. Why didn't you? That would have solved everything. Everything."

  The time to get away from him was now. She scooted on her butt, along the wall. Something tore into her hand, causing her to wince in pain. Her first thought had been to shift away but then it dawned on her that whatever had ripped her skin just might cut through the plastic bands on her wrists. Quietly and slowly she lifted her arms methodically up and down over the sharp object. Things could not end this way. Guy flashed in her mind. She hadn't ever really given him a chance. Them a chance. She did what she knew and what she knew was how to protect herself. Could they have had anything? Would she get another chance to find out?

  The ties hadn't given yet but she felt they were close to it. She just had to keep him from figuring out what she was doing. He glanced her way, she squirmed around as if protesting sitting on the hard floor.

  "Do you know how much I paid to make you disappear?" he bellowed at her. Then he smiled at her with the anticipation of someone who's won.

  "Well obviously not enough because I'm still here."

  He growled fury radiating off him. He stormed over to the window, grabbed the black covering about to pull it back. It was then she realized that the loud hum she'd heard was a vehicle. Praying that it was someone looking for her and not someone to help him, she kicked out with her foot. The metal stool sitting in front of his electronic equipment clanged loudly as it crashed into the table. He whipped around. Rage contorted his face. He stormed over to the detonator and punched in a code. The flashing stopped. The countdown began.

  19:59

  19:58

  19:57

  19:56

  She stared at the numbers that were steadily dropping one at a time, slowly, methodically.

  "You're finished. And all because of me." He laughed. "Oh, the people that will cry over your death. It's like music to my ears."

  "You really think you're big enough to get away with this?"

  He strode over to her and clipped her jaw. Her lip immediately bloomed into a fat puff ball. A buzzing sound filled her ears. Just at that moment, the ties gave way on her wrists. She jumped to her feet, driving the top of her head into his nose. There was a loud cracking sound followed by his howl as he stumbled backwards. Blood gushed between his fingers as he tried to stop the flow. She spun on her heel and made it about three steps before his hand lashed out, grabbing her shirt. Fighting for all she was worth, she twisted, raised her arms and ducked at the same time. The top slipped over her head. She was free. She ran for the door.

  A loud thwack sound brought her head around to the right. She wasn't sure if he was a bad aim or if she was just damned lucky but the knife he'd been holding to her neck earlier was now embedded in the wall three inches from her chin. Panicking, she raced through the closet, out of the bedroom, grabbing and slamming the doors behind her. Using the railing, she jumped down the stairs, three at a time. On the main floor, she raced for the entrance they'd used to enter the house. She was about to shove out the makeshift door and dive through, when a bullet whizzed past her ear.

  "You're mine."

  Raising her hands in surrender, she turned slowly. Her gut clenched and she no longer heard the sound of anything but the thundering of her heart.

  He shot again. The impact crumpled her leg, dropping her like a sack of potatoes to the floor. She landed heavily on her side. The pain took a moment to register but when it hit, she clenched her jaw, refusing to give in to the searing agony burning through her calf. Blood flowed like a gentle fountain, up through her fingers which she'd clamped over it. She collapsed in front of the opening.

  "You will suffer as I have suffered."

  With the last vestiges of strength she had she lifted her head and faced her captor. "You win. Go ahead and kill me, you bastard. But you better be prepared because I will haunt you for the rest of your life. I will see you in hell."

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX