by Michelle Lee
“I don’t understand; how can Brody see us?”
“I have a camera in your room linked to a laptop he is watching from your apartment.” He reaches up and holds my jaw pressing a kiss to my mouth. Then, he drags me back over to the bed; and throws me onto the mattress.
He stands at the end of the bed pulls my legs so they are hanging over the edge, and stands between them. He grasps the waist band of my shorts in his eager hands and pulls them off in one wrench. Next goes my shirt. I lay there in my underwear, frozen; still paralyzed by the reality that Brody can see everything.
I want to cry out for him to help me; as I am lying with Michael standing between my legs. I know what happens next. I am powerless to stop it. I look up and Michael looks off to the corner of the room, and that’s when I see the camera, on the ceiling. He smiles for Brody watching as he rips the tin material covering my most private and intimate parts, exposing me to the electronic eye.
My head is growing fuzzier, from the drug or the knowledge of what is going to happen, I can’t be sure of. I try to press my knees together but they don’t respond. Michael feels me trying and pushes them open spreading my legs wide open. I start to cry of humiliation, I don’t want Brody to see me defiled this way. I cry silent tears as Michael traces his finger down my uncovered, completely exposed center.
I try to move my arms, if I could just reach the side I could get to the razor I hid there earlier. Michael grabs my hands hold them above my head and looks at me. “I don’t think that is a good idea, Charlie. Now, let’s put on a show for Brody, shall we?”
He lets go of me to take his clothes off. He comes back over to me and runs his hands all over me. He takes off my bra, the only thing I had left covering me. Standing back he sighs, “I have been waiting so long for this.”
I use every ounce of strength I can gather together, and kick my legs at him. The more I move, the easier it is to move. I keep going trying to connect with any part of him. He bats away every assault I can make. I feel like a child trying to hit a man. He is so much faster and stronger than I am.
He grabs my hands and pins them again with only one of his hands. His other hand backhands my face, connecting with the already sensitive areas that have received his attention earlier, and stuns me for a second. That is all he needs. He plunges himself into me hard and deep. I scream as loud as I can. He wraps his hands into my hair holding me in place while he pumps in and out of me.
I yank my hands free of his hold for a split second, before he gets a better hold and rewards my attempt by smacking me so hard my lip splits open; I taste blood inside my mouth. He holds my arm so tightly I’m afraid it will break. “Charlie, I love how you feel. It is so much better than I remember. I am going to cum so deep inside you.”
I feel him tense up as his release hits him. He shudders and moans in my ear over and over as he spews inside of me until; when he is finally finished he collapses on me. I am crying so hard I can’t breathe. The sobs are racking my body. I push him off me and run for the bathroom. I barely make it, on rubberized legs, before I throw up over and over into the toilet.
**********
Brody is sitting on the floor he watches as Charlie stashes the razor under her mattress. “Good girl Charlie.” She goes over and sits at the table. When Michael comes in she smiles at him; I hate the way he looks at her. He undresses her with his eyes.
She smiles and they make small talk, “God, I wish I could hear what they were saying.” She stops eating and looks at the tea she just drank. She stands up from the table and tries to run. He tackles her and throws her on the bed. “NO! Charlie!” I am completely panicked. What do I do?
I watch in horror as Michael strips, and returns to the bed. He is touching her, he runs his fingers over her bare lips and I can’t catch my breath. I know what he is going to do. I trace Charlie’s face with the tip of my finger. There are tears of horror running from my eyes. I have failed her again. She is screaming and a sob rips from my throat. I can’t watch it anymore. I close the screen and wait for it to be over.
“I’m so sorry Charlie.”
I find the courage to open the laptop back up, just as Charlie is running toward the bathroom. Michael rolls over on the bed and looks at the camera. He lifts his fingers to his nose in inhales, and then he sticks them one by one, in his mouth; licking them very slow and dramatically.
I hate this man so incredibly much. I want to kill him slowly with my bare hands. I have never felt such pure rage toward another human being. He will be sorry for ever touching Charlie, for hurting her in anyway. Michael gets off the bed and walks over to the table. He writes something on a piece of paper and holds it up for me to see. It reads: 15231 Old Mill Road. Come alone, or I will kill her.
I stare at the screen, frozen in place, he said he’d call. This I didn’t expect. My lungs seize up; I can’t draw air into them. I inhale a deep breath, snapping out of my stupor, and jump into action. I take the paper out of my pocket and write down the address Michael gave to me. Running out the door I stop at Mrs. Clinton’s and give her the paper. “If the police show up here, give this to someone and tell them it’s from me, and that is where Charlie and I are.”
“Ok. Be careful.”
I run down the hall and get into my truck. I call Patrick and Chris, leaving them both messages. I tell them the address as well. I hope they are all close by; it is going to take at least an hour to get there depending on traffic. One hour and Charlie will be safe.
“Hang on, baby, I’m coming.”
**********
Patrick, Chris Fitzpatrick, MJ French, and Sarah Keller all sit in on an interview with the home improvement store manager, Brad Smart. He is 38 years old. He is telling the Agents how long Roger Warren has been working there.
“He is a great employee. He shows up on time, he works late if we need him to, he does inventory; no one does inventory. Why are you asking all these questions about Roger?”
“We just need to find him to ask him some questions about an investigation were doing.” French answers, she seems to put Brad at ease.
“He has been working here for about 2 years.”
Patrick looks at Fitz; they are both thinking the same thing, he has been here all this time. “Do you know where he moved from?”
“His application says he moved here from Florida.”
“Did you check his references?”
“No, I didn’t feel I needed to. He wasn’t fired, so I figured whatever he did there was irrelevant to this job.”
They ask a few more questions and leave the store. They are no closer to finding Charlie than they were before. Even with the name from O’Rourke. They are waiting for a search warrant for the old mill, but so far no word. Doing everything by the book sucks sometimes.
CHAPTER 78
Charlie comes out of the bathroom, she sees Michael sitting on the bed and all the anger she has stuffed down to the deepest darkest parts of her soul, resurface with a vengeance, swift and unrestrained. It physically hurts. She runs at an unsuspecting Michael and round house kicks him in the face.
Blood explodes from his nose. He cries out in pain and shock. When he lands on the floor on his hands and knees, she kicks him again in the face. The force causes his head to whip back. He falls on his side and screams, “You stupid whore!”
Charlie takes a defensive stance, like she was taught, and waits for him uncover some part of himself she can strike. Blood is pouring from his nose, his lip is cut open, and his gums are bleeding. He spits on the floor and stands up. Charlie, taking advantage of his disorientation punches him and grabs his hair bringing her knee up to meet his face.
Michael is ready this time though; he grabs her knee and then the other. He is holding both her legs while she pulls his hair. He drives her backward towards the bed and pins her under him. She is fighting like a wild animal. He twists her legs so she is on her back, drags her to the end of the bed and forces himself roughly into her. No warning, no preparat
ion, just dry and deep. She screams in pain, which only makes him go faster harder. He wraps his hands around her neck and squeezes.
Charlie stops moving, stops fighting, it hurts so bad. She can hardly breathe. She lies still, letting herself cry and going somewhere else in her head. She has no idea how long he is behind her, and she doesn’t care anymore. She just wants it over. She has one last card to play and if that doesn’t work she knows she’s dead.
Michael’s blood is all over her. She can feel it drying on her back where he rubbed his face. She hopes Brody is proud of her for fighting him off for as long as she could. She hopes he doesn’t watch anymore. She thinks about Brody’s beautiful eyes; the always changing blue, a sea of mixing hues to get lost in, always the same but also always different. She misses his eyes. She misses him. She looks up at the camera and mouths “I love you, Brody.”
Charlie can feel herself being ripped apart by Michael’s thrusts. Physically, it feels like skin is being removed with every movement; mentally, she feels a part of her close off. Her brain shuts down; a door closes forever, as she lays there not moving silent tears fall from her eyes as she cries for the woman she will never be again. This time Michael wins. She is beyond broken.
She feels him tense and slow as he gets close to finishing, she uses this moment to scramble away out of his grasp. Lurching for the side of the bed she pulls out the razor and slashes Michael. He screams as the razor connects with his cheek. Charlie doesn’t stop there she swings it again and again, slashing his hands his arm, anything that she can get.
She throws all her weight against him tumbling to the floor with him. They land with her straddling his hips. She presses the blade to his throat. He freezes. She can feel his erect penis pushing against her and is revolted that he is still turned on. Michael must have seen the emotions play across her face; because he picks that moment to push against her.
“Do that again, and I will cut you.”
“Charlie, you can’t kill me with that razor. The worst you can do is make me bleed. It isn’t sharp enough to go deep.” Then he punches her in the face she flies backward and smashes her head on the metal of the bed.
CHAPTER 79
I open my eyes to a blinding pain in the back of my head. It’s so bad I either want to pass back out or throw up. The light is like shards of glass being stuck into my eyeballs. I squint trying to reorient myself to my surroundings. I am in a different room. It looks like a factory space of some kind.
There are a lot of windows, but they are dirty or painted over, I can’t tell which, so no one can see in. They let in very little light as well. I am still naked, and my hands are suspended above my head on long chains attached to a high metal beam that runs the length of the ceiling, supporting the roof. If I had any strength, I could use the length of the chain to my advantage by swinging on them to kick Michael in his face again.
There is also a drain in the floor between my legs. I guess for easy clean up. There is a rope around my neck, hanging loosely, I know the more I wrestle the tighter it will get, eventually killing me. I hope it’s quick, but I know it won’t be. Michael likes to watch the suffering; he craves the feeling of power when taking the life of another person.
I knew when I used the razor this would be my fate. However, anything is better than being raped again. I will gladly die not to be touched by him again. I don’t understand why he isn’t here with me. This is the moment he has been waiting for; why not be here to witness the moment I realize what my fate is?
Then, more terrifying than anything that has happened so far, I know why he isn’t here. Brody. He has always wanted to get to him. Michael has found a way to get Brody here by himself. He isn’t going to kill me. He is going to kill Brody, while I watch. The tears that fall down my face are uncontrollable.
I start to scream, “Michael!” I struggle trying to get the rope off my neck. It’s so loose if I could just bend my knees and turn my head the right way I could get it off. As I fight I realize that it’s getting tighter and now there is no way it will fit over my head. I give up and wait for my fate.
**********
Brody is driving to the address that was given to him. He is speeding and running red lights. All he can think about is Charlie. He needs to get to her before anything else happens.
He can’t get the image out of his head of Michael touching her. The way his hands groped her and grabbed her, makes him sick. He will do whatever he has to, to keep Charlie from living through that again. He hopes nothing else is happening to her now. He hates that he had to see what he did, but it is better than not knowing what she is dealing with.
He is about 10 minutes away from his destination, when his phone rings. He grabs it and answers without looking at who it is; expecting it to be Michael since he is so close. “Yeah?”
“Thank God, Brody. Where have you been?”
“Pat, sorry. I haven’t been able to call you I have been at Charlie’s apartment. I left a note with her neighbor explaining everything. Michael has her. He set up a computer in her apartment so I could watch her. He raped her again, Pat.” I can’t keep the anguish out of my voice. “I couldn’t watch while he did that to her. I closed the laptop, but I saw enough. I’m going there now. He gave me an address.”
“Whoa, slow down Brody. You can’t go in there alone.” I could hear him wrestling with the phone and crinkle some paper, “ok, give me the address. I will meet you there with the rest of the team.”
“No time. I am almost there. It will take you an hour to get here, plus you have to get everyone ready before you leave.”
“You let us worry about that. Just give me the address.”
“15231 Old Mill Road.”
“That’s one of the addresses we are looking into. Apparently, he bought it using a fake Id from O’Rourke. He used the name Roger Warren.”
“His mom’s boyfriend was a Warren; I bet that is why he picked the name.” I see the mill out my window. “I have to go Pat, I’m here.”
“Alright, Brody, be careful, I will be there as soon as I can. I won’t wait around here if it starts taking too long.”
“Thanks, I think it’s already too late. Take care of yourself and thank you for everything you’ve done.” I hang up the phone before he can say more. I park the truck at the end of an over grown path, about half a mile away. He probably has cameras watching everywhere but I can sneak in on foot. If I drive, camera or not, he knows I’m coming. At least if I walk; I still have the element of surprise. I get out of the truck and start to walk.
I am so close to seeing her. My heart is racing, my palms are sweating, and I am starting to shake. The fear of being too late is clawing its way up my neck and nestling deep into my bones. I can’t shake it off, I can’t clear my head, and this is no way to go into a situation that requires all of my mental abilities.
I stop walking; take a cleansing breath, check the gun in the waist of my pants. I focus on why I’m here and what I need to do. I start to walk again; my mind is a little clearer. I set one goal to help me focus, kill Michael. The rest will be left up to fate.
CHAPTER 80
“MICHAEL!!” I scream his name again. It feels like I have been here forever. I can no longer feel my arms, I try to lift up on the chain to take so pressure off of them but I’m just not strong enough. I haven’t had a decent meal in a week and it is starting to show. I look down at my emaciated body.
My hip bones stick out from the top of my legs. My stomach is concave; my skinny legs look like they belong to a child not a thirty year old woman. My hands are too big for the wrists and arms attached to them. I can count every rib from my collar bone down.
The sight of my body disgusts me. I have black and blue bruises on my arms. There are finger marks on my wrists, forearms, and inner thighs. Every part of me has Michael’s mark on it. That makes me sicker than anything else. When I look at myself I relive everything he has done to me; every touch. I need to focus on something, anything, else.
An over head light comes on somewhere near me; illuminating the area a little better then the outside light coming in the dirty windows. The room is big there are flowers in every corner. Purple, red, yellow, varieties I have seen but don’t know the name of. There are yellow roses in one section that look just like the ones delivered to me at work. Michael must be growing his own flowers. Off to my left, there is row after row of dark burgundy roses, mixing in with them are black roses.