by Sadie Jacks
Willow.
I’m a stupid fucking idiot, cupcake. And a stupid fucking childish one at that. Let me find you. One more time. Let me find you and I’ll never hurt you again. I’ll be everything you need me to be. Just give me one more chance.
Let me save you so you can save me.
We can save each other.
Chapter 38 – Willow
The sedative was working too fast. The slowly encroaching blackness of oblivion pressed on my mind. Taunted me with more failure. More death.
“Willow, you’re not trying hard enough,” Ethan said. His eyes were so full of disappointment. And something else. Something I’d never seen before in all of the five years of our marriage.
Enjoyment.
Somehow, someway, in the last eighteen months of being divorced, he’d found some kind of sick, twisted fun in torturing these women. He spent more time playing with his subjects this time around. Less time recording his precious data.
I wasn’t the focus of his attention. Or at least not completely. There were moments, longer spans of time than I could ever recall previously, that it was like I wasn’t even in the room with him.
I blinked once. The bastard had been right about the new serum. I could function better with it than any of his earlier concoctions. But that didn’t mean I would be able to save this poor girl.
When he’d left for his ritual lunch, he’d dropped her body on the floor like she was a used mop. I’d tried to move. Tried to speak. Tried so hard it felt like my mind was on the verge of breaking. Nothing. A vast chasm of nothingness except my ability to blink.
But he was back, his energy and vigor renewed. And I was about to lose the slightest abilities to interact with him once the sedative finally kicked in fully. That’s when I sought the oblivion. The active ignorance of anything he might do to my body while I was unconscious.
He chained her to the large X he’d placed at the foot of the bed. Her head lolled forward, her eyes closed. I wasn’t sure she was still alive, but that didn’t bother Ethan. At least not yet.
No, Ethan was busy getting his next torture device ready. A blunt length of rebar that he was heating to a fiery orange-red glow. He caressed the rebar with the flame like a lover would his partner’s leg.
I searched my brain for this particular tool in any of the five years I’d been held hostage. My cold and detached personality told me, No. There’s no record of this in our data. I would have frozen in that instant if my body hadn’t already been a paralytic that turned me into a lump of useless tissue and bone.
He’d expanded his repertoire. His library of torture. He was experimenting on the subjects, not just the assistant—me, in this particular instant.
Instead of only researching the brain’s capacity to overcome paralysis in the presence of overwhelming psychological distress, he was looking for ways to cause more damage. Greater damage.
No wonder he’d gone through so many subjects and assistants. He was abusing his toys. He was devolving. Getting reckless. Getting arrogant.
I prayed and pushed at the seeping sedative as it crowded my sight. My thoughts. If I could stay awake, I might be able to call for help when he left me for the night. I’d have eight hours. Eight hours to actively battle my body into motion.
But first. First, I had to make him believe that I was sedated. If I could manage that, then I’d have to find some way to keep myself awake. Awake during a time I’d never experienced conscious thought.
What if he raped me? Used my body in some kind of awful manner?
Would it really be any different than what he’s doing now, the cold side of me asked. At least if you stayed awake, you would have a sliver of a chance to escape. To save those women he’s undoubtedly holding in the basement. Stop being so fucking selfish for once. Think about someone else for a change.
I steeled my resolve. I could do this. I would do this.
I would beat him at his own game. I would stay awake, finally face the horror oblivion had protected me from. If not tonight, I would do it tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the next day. And every day after that until I got free.
Ethan Embry Errington was about to find out what I was really made of. I’d brought humanity and emotions to Ryker Fucking Penn. Ethan Embry Errington was nothing but a new challenge.
One I would overcome. One I would make my bitch.
Chapter 39 – Willow
I clicked back into the room around me. Whimpers ghosted through the room as Ethan shoved the smoldering rebar into the girl’s abdomen. His back was to me. I wasn’t the object of his focus. He was fully involved in his torture.
I forced the cold analytical side of me to the front, demanded she watch, learn. Anything and everything she saw, I wanted to know about it. I spoke with the emotional side of me while she was busy.
We’re going to do this. We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to stop him. Even if it kills us, this ends now.
My conscious ripped open as the colder side of me thrust me back to the forefront of our mind.
Ethan was watching me, a calculating look on his face. “You’re still watching, aren’t you, Willow? I’d hate to think that you were working against me in these experiments.”
I blinked once.
He smiled. It was sweet—one of the first features I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. A mischievous little boy who just wanted me to join him in his antics. The man who would make me smile on the darkest day.
Ryker’s face appeared in my mind’s eye. I shoved him aside. I couldn’t afford to get distracted. Not yet. Not now. Not this close to death and psychopathy.
Using all my strength and concentration, I worked to get my eyes to move up to the right side. Forcing deep focus was not my strong suit. I’d been made well aware of that fact almost five years ago now.
But now, now I had something to live for. A goal I could almost touch. Like the key ring in Ryker’s pants pocket.
Fucking Ryker. Leave me alone, you emotionally stunted asshat. I’ve got work to do!
Ethan’s face was inches from mine when I came back to myself. “Do that again.” His blue eyes were wide, excitement blew out his pupils. “Now, damnit.” He shook the hospital bed I was strapped into.
Do what? I had no idea what I’d done except try to kick the image of Ryker from my brain.
Ethan moved back, picked up his tissue-crusted length of rebar. He began heating it again. “I might have finally found your trigger, Willow. Let’s see if we can repeat the results, shall we?”
I was the sole focus of his attention now. He noted every single twitch. Every single breath. Every minute reaction was being observed.
I’m going to kick your ass for this, Ryker. Just you fucking wait and see. I’m going to chop your dick off and feed it to the geese down at the river. I’m going to kiss you silly then slap your face. Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think I’ll go all soft and squishy on you when I see your stupidly handsome face again. Or your ridiculously hot body.
Who fucking needs muscles on their muscles, huh? Show off much, you douche canoe dirty twat spanker?
The sound of metal crashing into the cement floor had me focusing on the room around me one more time. Ethan’s face was bright. All smiles and wide open expression. A look of love so profound it sickened what was left of my soul lit his hated blue eyes.
“You did it, Willow.” He came over, yanked the ventilator harness from my mouth. I couldn’t tell what else he did, but I knew when I began running out of air.
The harsh beeping of the machine that monitored my heart added to the panicked thudding of my pulse in my ears. He pulled back, slid the harness back over the tube. His hands were shaking so bad, he jerked my head to the side trying to get it reattached.
My lungs inflated immediately. The blood whooshed, whooshed, whooshed through my brain, pounded at my ears. The fucker almost killed me in his excitement.
Men. Forgetting the important things when my life was at fucking stake
.
Ethan leaned back from the side of the bed, tears in his eyes. “I knew you could do it. I knew it had to be you. You were the only one to achieve full positive outcome, Willow.” He brushed the tears from his cheeks. “I’ll let you rest after I’ve run a full scan. We’ll need you in tiptop shape for round two.”
He lowered his face to mine, pressed his lips to the ventilator harness. “Sleep healthy, my love. In three days, we begin again.” He stepped back again, another flash of love lighting his face.
He walked to the woman who’d been strapped up like a pig in a butcher shop. His hands closed around the rebar. He steadied her head with one hand, his touch gentle as he held her chin on his open palm. He was still for a moment before he stepped between me and the girl.
At one point, he leaned forward. As he stepped back, he eased to the left and tossed me a saucy grin over his shoulder. He looked back at his victim, raised the rebar to shoulder height.
With one mighty shove, he slammed it through her right eye.
I dove into the blackness.
Chapter 40 – Ryker
I was this close to throwing these assholes off my forty-story balcony. So far, I’d been electrocuted, stabbed, stitched up, stabbed in a different place, and been mocked and insulted. If this was the family Willow had chosen, I shuddered to think how awful her biological family was.
“Again. Ping it again,” Massimo said as he laid his knife point between my first and second knuckle.
“You damage my hands, I won’t be able to help you.” I hit the series of keys that would send the signal to Willow’s phone.
“You’d come up with a way, I’m sure. Losing your hands would be the best of your options of what I’d really like to cut off.” He slapped the flat of the blade against my knuckles.
I added something else to the list for retribution. Forgive me, Willow, but I’m going to maim your brothers. How you thought I was an asshole in light of their behavior, we need to discuss. But they are awful, I said to her mentally.
Talking to her, even knowing she couldn’t hear me, kept me sane. Stable enough to do the work required of me. Eager enough to keep searching even though we’d gone down at least three wrong paths so far.
Thankfully, I hadn’t been out with the Amatuccis or their men on those hunts. No, the dubious pleasure of remaining here with Rafe had been my fate. Luckily he didn’t like messing up his own work. If he’d been less finicky, I probably would have more holes than when Massimo got his hands on me again.
The ping signal died without anything to hit. I shook my head. “Phone’s still off.”
Massimo paced away, his fingers clenching and relaxing around his knife’s hilt. Rapid, husky, whispered Italian flowed through the room. His brothers snorted and nodded.
Willow, baby, we’re going to start learning Italian, poste fucking haste.
Luckily, I hadn’t gotten too far into Crazy Town that I was able to answer for her mentally, but I kinda wished the conversations weren’t so one-sided. I was trying not to imagine her reactions. Her facial expressions.
“What else do we know about Dr. Bout to Die?” I asked again.
The Amatucci brothers were some of the most closed-mouth people I’d ever met. I could understand it, logically. But we were literally fighting for their adopted sister’s life. I’d think that would loosen their lips.
But no. I’d lost their trust. I wasn’t even on the fringes of their outer circle, let alone close enough to the inner circle to be given free info.
“You’ve got your own dossier. Find your own leads,” Domenico said, his voice a low growl. His phone rang—again. He snatched it up, put it to his ear, and walked out of my home office. “Go,” he said.
To use any of the information Nik had pulled together, I would have to call her and get her to decrypt it. I wasn’t sure I could pull that off. Not at the moment. Not with what I needed from her.
I tried to get their help once again. “If one of you would just call Nik, I can give you the code that will get her to release the information to me.”
“Call her your fucking self, asshole,” Turo said.
I lost it. They were stonewalling me. I knew why. Would probably do so if I were in their shoes. But that wasn’t helping any of us find Willow. “Pull the sticks out of your asses before I beat you to death with them. You want me to find Willow? Then pull the phone out of your pocket, call my guy, and get me access. I’ve told you, if I make the call, Nik is going to know something’s wrong with me. Unless you want NTPD showing up, you’ve got to make the call.” I bit each word off carefully.
I wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings—although how there could be with the tenth time of repeating the same information was beyond me. I gritted my teeth and clenched my fingers together to keep from letting my fists fly again. I’d learned my lesson the first time.
Rafe sidled over, his face pinched and tight. “Give me her fucking number. This doesn’t work out, I’m stabbing you with a scalpel.”
I rattled off the number, held my breath as I waited for Nik to answer. It rang four times. Just as it started on the fifth, she answered. Out of breath and angry with it.
“Tell me your name so I can make sure to spell it right on your tombstone, you cocksucker. I was in the middle of something great. You’ve got ten seconds before I obliterate your digital world around your feet.”
“Rafael Amatucci. I would suggest you not try to threaten me. I’ve got a message from Penn. Alpha-Three-Zulu-Zulu-One-Zero-Four-Charlie.”
“Why didn’t you just start with that, you dumb fuck?” she spat. Her breathing picked up over the line.
“Because you’re a bossy woman who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut?” Rafe suggested.
I felt my eyes widen as I thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t in the vicinity of her expert Brazilian Jiu Jitsu feet. I smirked when I thought of Rafe and Nik meeting in person for the first time though. That was going to be an amazing encounter. I had money on Nik.
The sound of computer keys clicking came over the line. “There. And good luck trying to restore your credit, asshole Rafael. Speak to me that way again, I’ll wipe your whole organization off the face of the Earth. You’ll be back to writing on stone tablets to send your messages.” She clicked off.
Rafe looked at me, fire in his eyes. “If she’s done something to my credit or this family…” he trailed off.
I lifted my hands into the air. “That’s all on you, bro. You were an asshole to her. Would you have spoken to Willow like that?”
He opened his mouth. Snapped it closed.
My computer dinged with an incoming secure data packet. I turned away as Rafe pulled the phone back up to his ear. I heard the words “I’m sorry” come from his mouth before I got sucked into the information that I’d pulled up on my screen.
I skimmed through the known information. I wanted to know if there were any holding companies, shell corporations, anything even remotely attached to Errington that held land that hadn’t been disclosed on his public information.
It was going to take forever at this rate to find anything. We’d already gone to the house Errington had listed on his driver’s license. The house Willow had been held in before. And we’d even gone to his apartment. All three were strike-outs.
And this was taking too much fucking time. Every single second her phone stayed off, was another mile he could be moving her. A different place he could be holding her.
And I had no one to blame but myself.
Chapter 41 – Willow
When I surfaced through the haze of worn off sedatives, I had no idea what time it was. In my old life, I could have listed the minutes and seconds. But since the new paralytic serum had reacted differently, I had no clue as to when I was right now.
All of my straps had been removed. Ethan didn’t like the idea of me getting bed sores, so he made sure I could get up and wander around my space between each experiment. A small ensuite bathroom was nestle
d in the left corner of the room.
That dry burning ache of a newly removed catheter had me forcing my thoughts to just getting into what little privacy I had in the tiny bathroom. I pushed through the door, did a quick check to make sure no new cameras or listening devices had been installed since the last time I was here.
It was clear. I guzzled down a large cup—plastic, of course—of water. I forced myself to drink so much that my belly hurt from the rapid expansion. I pulled my pants down, did a quick check to see if any new marks had been added.
A long, thin cut had been sliced into my upper right thigh. Just a couple inches north of the matching horizontal bruises of the table. Almost directly below the crease of where my leg met my body. I pushed on it. No pain. No sensation at all really.
I bit back the scream that flooded the back of my throat. Move on. You can’t fix it now. Do the rest of the check, the cold side of me ordered.
Raising my shirt, I checked my upper body, my back as well as I could. I was truly astonished to see that my phone was still plastered between my side and my bra band. I pulled it from the material and powered it on.
Please, please, please, please, please, the word sounded on repeat in my head as I waited for the device to finish its startup sequence. I held my breath, prayed I had enough battery power to send a message. I was in the same room, so that meant they already knew where to find me. I just had to let someone know where I was.
I felt the water try to slide back up my throat as I looked at the time and date stamp in the upper corner of the phone. Two days. I’d only been here two days and already one girl was dead.
I bit my lip to hold in the scream as the phone started buzzing in my hand. An almost constant stream of buzz buzz buzz as message after message, missed call after missed call came through. I kept an ear out for the sound of a key in the door.
By the time the phone was silent in my hand, I had over 120 missed calls and 432 messages waiting for me. I didn’t bother checking my voicemail box. I knew it was going to be full.