Huck

by Jessica Gadziala

  A joke.

  No, calling or insinuating someone was heavy was never a joke. It wasn't funny.

  And, well, fuck him. I was perfectly fine weight-wise. The asshole.

  Was that what was in my future? Limp lettuce and water to try to get me smaller, weaker, easier to handle?

  God, I refused to become one of those chicks that guys keep in their basements for decades, dressing them up, having dinner parties, taking advantage of them.

  Fuck no.

  I just had to play along in the hopes that he took me out of this room. I needed to get my bearings, figure out how to get away.

  I just needed to bite my tongue and be smart for a while.

  "How long have I been out?" I asked, keeping my voice low, whiney.

  "Couple hours. It's fine. We have all the time in the world."

  "I didn't realize you lived in Florida," I said, making small talk, trying to stay on his good side.

  "I didn't until about a year ago."

  A year?

  He'd moved here to be closer to me?

  How long had he been watching me? Planning to take me?

  "I felt weird telling you at first. I didn't want you thinking I moved here because of you." I wouldn't have thought that since I thought he was a she and we were good buddies. I probably would have been excited since I had pretty much no real-life friendships. Then, what? I would have walked right into this situation blindly, willingly? "I got a job here," he added, making excuses. Because, chances were, he'd been looking for a job in Florida.

  "Oh, nice. I would have been happy to know. We could have met up for coffee."

  "I don't like coffee," Kit snapped, jaw getting tight, tone getting sharp. "I have told you that a dozen times," he added.

  "Yeah, of course. But you know... coffee for me. You know me," I added, shrugging. "And some hot chocolate for you. Or iced hot chocolate, since it's so hot here," I said, thankful I remembered his drink of choice.

  "You drink too much coffee. It's not good for you. It's probably why you don't sleep."

  "Probably," I agreed, even though I drank the coffee to make up for the lack of sleep, not the other way around. "Do you think I could maybe lie down for a little bit?" I asked. "My head is still splitting."

  "What? You don't want to spend some time with me?" he asked, sounding a lot like a petulant child.

  "It's not that at all. I just want to be my best for you," I told him.

  "You seem fine to me," he declared. "You'd think you'd be more grateful," he said, moving out into the bedroom, and I shifted as well, moving just far enough toward the other side of the closet, so I could see into the other room.

  There was a bed there, covered in three mismatching blankets and no pillowcases on the pillows. There weren't curtains on the windows either, which worked in my favor because I could see right out. And while nothing was familiar to me, at least I could tell I was on the second or third floor of an apartment or house. Probably the latter, I decided, when I didn't see any fire escape attached to any of the windows.

  "After all, I saved you from those brutes," he added, drawing my attention back to him where he was rearranging something on a food tray he'd brought up.

  "I... um... yeah," I said, nodding. "They are, ah, very rough men."

  "I knew something was wrong when I saw him behind you in that video, acting all cocky, touching you like he had any right to."

  "Right," I agreed. "He's very, um, possessive."

  "And then, then when I saw him force himself on you... I knew I had to get you out of there."

  Force himself on me?

  My stomach dropped as the parts started clicking together.

  "Were you... were you watching me?" I asked, feeling that bile that I'd fought down so hard start rising back up.

  Maybe back at my house, it wouldn't have felt quite so invasive since most of the time I was in front of my computer, I was working, recording. So it wasn't like he'd have seen anything compromising.

  But once Huck had moved me into his room? When he'd set up my computer right there in plain sight of the bed and the bathroom. God, I'd walked out of that bathroom naked on more than one occasion.

  A strange, cold, slimy sensation coated me, feeling almost unfathomably exposed.

  I'd never been a shy person about my body. But that was when it was my choice to show it.

  He'd taken that from me.

  "You've been watching me?" I heard the words burst out before I was aware of thinking of saying them, my words coming out sharp, accusatory.

  And before I could try to soften them, say something about how it was nice he was looking out for me, that I felt safer knowing he was there for me, his head whipped over, his eyes went cold. God, so cold. I felt a shiver move through me in response.

  "I had to watch you," he snapped, jaw so tight that the words seemed like they barely made it out from between his teeth. "What was I supposed to let you do? Keep making a fool of yourself with them? Like you did with all those other men in your past? Shamelessly whoring yourself out to anyone who had tattoos and a big dick."

  I had to calm him down.

  This was getting bad fast.

  And he was slowly approaching me, body tense.

  "I've always had a thing for nice guys. A soft spot for..."

  "Don't lie to me," he snapped, voice so loud it made me jump back a step, backing myself into a corner.

  "I'm not. I'm not lying. You know I'm not lying. I have a soft spot for you," I told him, attempting a smile, but I felt my lips trembling, the shakiness of my voice.

  "Bullshit," he snapped. "As many times as I stood up for you against those dickheads online, you never so much as flirted with me. Never. But you kept throwing yourself at the assholes who told you that you have nice tits. You like that, right? Being treated like you're garbage? Well, I can treat you like that if you want."

  "I don't want..." I started to object, something inside me understanding that look in his eyes. The anger mixed with something else heated that turned my stomach sour, even though I had never seen it before. A woman knew that look. That was the look of a man who didn't give a shit what you wanted, they were going to take what they wanted from you.

  "You want me to tell you that you have nice tits?" he asked, backing me into the corner, his hand moving out, grabbing my breast, squeezing to the point of pain. "Nice tits," he said, voice getting a little rougher as his fingers moved to pinch inward, looking for my nipple. "This is what you like, right? A man who takes charge? Takes what he wants?" he asked as his body pressed closer, his hard dick pushing against my hip.

  No.

  No no no no.

  This couldn't be happening.

  Tears filled my eyes as a strange sort of helplessness paralyzed me again, leaving me standing there, unresponsive as his hand went under my shirt, pawed at me without any barriers.

  "Yeah, this is what you like. A man to take control," he said, nuzzling into my neck even as the first tear slipped down my cheek. "Are you crying?" he growled, pulling back, jaw tight again, eyes more enraged than turned on.

  "Don't do this," I begged, trying to tell my arms to lift, to smack him, to shove him back. Something. Anything. What was wrong with me?

  "Don't do what?" Kit growled. "Treat you like shit? Like all those other men do? Grab at you like this?" he asked, hand pressing between my legs, over my shorts, but the revulsion rose up, threatened to make the bile finally force its way out.

  I don't know where the words came from, why, when there were so many others that could be said, these were the ones that came out, but they did.

  "Huck didn't treat me like shit," I snapped, feeling a righteous anger start to replace the strange numbness in my body.

  "Dragging you around. Forcing you to move in with him!" Kit raged.

  "Like you are doing?" I snapped, watching as his face fell for a moment before the anger returned.

  "Don't compare us. We're not the same. I care about you. I've alw
ays looked out for you."

  "You're right," I said, feeling an unexpected calmness settling over me. "You're not the same. He's twice the man you are. And you—"

  "Shut up," Kit snapped, hand moving from between my legs, pressing into the lowest part of my throat, uncomfortable, but not cutting off any air.

  "He will be looking for me, you know," I added, knowing it right down to my bones. He would look for me. He would move heaven and earth to bring me back, to hurt someone who hurt me. That was the kind of man he was. Good, but ruthless. Fair, but unforgiving.

  "I'm not scared of him."

  "You should be," I said, raising my chin, feeling strength unfurling in my body, making my hands curl into fists.

  "He's too stupid to find me," he declared, the corner of his eye twitching ever so slightly.

  Was Huck a genius? No. But neither was I. Neither were most of us. But he wasn't dumb. And when it came to the criminal underbelly, he knew what he was doing. And, what said even more about him as a man, if he didn't know, he outsourced to those who did. He wasn't too proud to ask for help.

  "He thinks it was the drive-by guys who hit that guy in the woods when he chased me off. He'll be chasing them around while you and I get to know each other," he said, making my stomach flip over.

  "We already know each other."

  "Not in all the ways I want us to know each other."

  "What if I don't want that?"

  "You'll learn to," he said, shrugging, anger draining, once again replaced by the lust that made me feel oddly powerless.

  But I wasn't powerless.

  I wasn't.

  I could at least try.

  I had to get out of the damn closet.

  There was nothing in there to fend him off with.

  If I could at least get into the bedroom, I could find something to strike him with.

  If it was him or me, I wanted it to be him, damnit.

  I had to try.

  No matter how scared I was, how uncertain.

  I couldn't sit and wait to be rescued.

  I had to try to save myself.

  "I could never learn to want you that way, you sick fuck," I snapped, hands raising, shoving at his shoulders even as my knee came up.

  When all else failed, a knee to the groin was always a good move. And I imagined it was all the more unpleasant when you had a hard-on.

  "Bitch!" he hissed, breathless, half hunched forward.

  I shoved again at his shoulders, pushing him out of my path as I flew out of the closet, taking a second to slam the door, grabbing the food tray he'd brought in, all the contents falling to the floor.

  I broke out of the bedroom and into a hallway that led in both directions, feeling disoriented as I ran, and my heart stuttered in my chest when I realized I took myself into a family room with no stairs, no exit save for a free fall down onto hard cement below.

  I hadn't heard him approach through the pounding of my pulse in my ears, the whooshing of my blood through my head.

  But a hand reached up, grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking me violently back. Pain shot across my scalp, blinding white, as strands were yanked out of my head.

  Disoriented, I raised the tray, swinging as best i could with him holding my hair so tightly, feeling satisfaction when the hard wood cracked against Kit's elbow, getting a howl of pain from him but, even more important, I felt his grip loosen on my hair, letting me yank away and whirl around.

  I had to get past him to get free.

  I swung back with the tray, started the forward momentum, only to feel it stop abruptly as he reached out to grab it, yanking it out of my hands, swinging it himself.

  His aim was much better, catching me on the side of my face making pain blank out my vision as I started falling sideways, knowing I was going to hit the ground, but not quick enough to brace my fall.

  I crashed down a fraction of a second later, more pain coursing through my system as I threw myself onto my back, remembering something I'd seen once that said never to let yourself get attacked on the floor from behind because there was no good way to fight that off.

  Even as my back met the cold hardwood, Kit's body was over mine, his knees on my inner thighs his whole weight there making me cry out, trying to reach out, trying to push him away, to get some relief.

  It was right then, over the pounding of my heart, the gasping of my breath, that I heard it.

  Bikes.

  Coming this way.

  Hope swelled in my system.

  I only had to hold on a few moments longer.

  Then they would be here.

  Huck would be here.

  He would save me.

  But then I heard them keep moving past, disappearing, making a crushing sort of despair crash down on me even as triumph crossed Kit's face.

  "I told you they weren't coming for you," he sneered. "You're all mine now," he said, his hands going to my shirt, yanking it upward even as my hands put up a weak fight, trying to bat them away, but feeling my shirt go up, the cool air washing over my breasts, making my nipples harden in response.

  "See?" Kit said, lips parted, air coming out quickly between. "I knew you wanted me," he said.

  "Stop!" I demanded, hands slapping, punching, raking down his arms, his neck, nothing seeming to deter him. His focus was single-minded as his hands squeezed, his fingers pinched. There was nothing soft about it either, each touch hurt, and no matter how much I writhed, I couldn't dislodge him.

  Hopelessness made those damned tears sting my eyes once again.

  "Stop," I demanded again, my voice coming out weaker even as he leaned forward, his teeth sinking into my nipple before rising again.

  "I've waited years for this," he told me, eyes triumphant as defeat overcame me.

  But then his body jolted.

  Blood sprayed across my face.

  And my mouth opened to scream.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Huck

  It was one of her fucking friends.

  Here I was thinking that it was one of the dickheads who talked shit to her when she was just trying to provide some content for them to consume.

  But no.

  It was this Kit Kat person who she'd had a close relationship with, who defended her against the trolls, who'd had lengthy conversations with Harmon for what seemed like years.

  "I think Harmon thinks this is a woman," Arty said. "She shared a lot with them."

  "It's not? You're sure? Chicks can be crazy stalkers too."

  "Sure. But statistically, only toward exes. But no. This is a guy. The address comes back to a Kit whose middle name is actually Kat because his parents must have hated him," Arty said, not one for jokes in general, but the relief of wrapping up the case was probably making him feel the deviousness from his lack of sleep.

  "Okay. So that's who was in the video? Kit Kat something-or-other."

  "Gadleigh, yeah. He even moved down here about a year ago, got a job, set up shop in Miami."

  "He's in Miami," I said, feeling purpose chase away my worry. "What's the address?" I asked, already making my way to the door.

  I could hear McCoy, Remy, and Che behind me as I made my way down the stairs and out the front door, where I was stopped by Seeley who pressed something into my chest as I moved past him.

  My hand went out automatically, my fingers finding the cold metal.

  A silencer.

  "Go get her. And don't get caught," he said, reaching for a cigarette. "I think there's a patch waiting for me when this is all done. I'd hate it if you got killed or locked up before I got that," he said, giving me a small smirk as I rushed past, getting on my bike, putting on my helmet this time, likely put there by Seeley who was always thinking ahead of the rest of us.

  We flew down the road as my mind raced from one scenario to the next.

  In half of them, I got there in time, I saved her before anything too bad happened.

  In the other half, though, my mind reminded me that there was a ver
y good chance that we were too late, that there was a fuckuva lot of bad shit a psycho could do to a woman in just a few minutes, let alone hours.

  It felt like it took hours to get to Miami despite giving the finger to speed limits, to speed readers we passed on the way.

  Mind a little more clear, I drove past the place, parking down a side street, so no one would place the bikes at the scene, tucking my cut under my seat, my gun up in my waistband, nodding to McCoy before taking off at a brisk walk, not wanting to draw any more attention to us than necessary.

  We weren't in a partying area of the city where no one would remember anyone being around who was out of place.

  Kit lived in a small rental apartment building made of a hideous orange stucco, the place looking like it hadn't seen a renovation since the eighties. And judging from the cars in the lot, it was the kind of place for people down on their luck, transitioning from marriage to singledom, not for anyone who actually wanted to call the place home for long.

  "In the back," McCoy said, nodding toward the small alley between the building and the fence to the property next door, making it so we had to run through single-file, finding a staircase up to the second floor.

  "How'd he get her up here without someone asking what he was doing?" Che wondered aloud, voice hardly more than a whisper as we moved in front of the apartment we wanted.

  I didn't know the answer to that.

  I didn't give a fuck.

  All I could focus on was being close.

  Too close.

  I lifted my foot to kick even as McCoy reached in front of me, grabbing, and turning the knob.

  I was sure he shot me a raised brow look, but I wouldn't have seen it, my focus was on other things.

  On her.

  On saving her. I rushed through the kitchen area, down the hall where I could hear a soft, low plea.

  Stop.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  I broke into the family room to find him kneeling on her thighs, her shirt yanked up to expose her, her breasts red and pained-looking.

  And I nearly fucking blacked out with rage as I charged forward, raising, cocking, and sending a bullet through the mother fucker's temple.