I immediately start kicking and swinging my legs in a frantic attempt to pull the fixture out of the ceiling with my weight. I’m vaguely aware of my own screams as he stalks toward me.
“Really, Violet, after all we’ve been through together, you really want to deny me this pleasure? I will say that this is definitely going to hurt. But now there will be no doubt who you’ll belong to forever.”
He clutches my body against him in a tight, full torso hold and wraps his free leg around mine, essentially immobilizing me. With my hands pulled taut above me there is nowhere to go. I pant as I feel the heat coming down toward my outer left thigh.
“Aaaaagheeeee!” I let loose a tortured wail of absolute agony as the brand is held against me. The kaleidoscope of pain coupled with the smell of my own burning flesh is unlike anything I could ever imagine. My heart feels like it’s about to explode within my body. I begin to sob uncontrollably as the iron hits the floor. Damon still holds me tightly against him.
Why, why, why?
“Oh, yeah, I knew you could do it, feel how hard I am against you sweetheart. Do you want to have a look? I bet you do. Be patient, my greedy Violet. Let’s have a look at that brand first.”
Luke, please, please find me before it’s too late. Don’t let him get away with this.
“Damon, please stop,” I plead helplessly. “I’ll do whatever you like just please don’t hurt me anymore.”
Smiling like a little kid about to unwrap a present, he unzips his pants and says, “Ah, Violet, you know you love it and want more. Don’t play games with me. Now watch me come and you had better not let your eyes stray from me for one second, bitch.”
I keep my eyes riveted to him in disgust as he strokes himself. He’s much smaller than Luke, I observe. I am about to pass out from the searing burn on my thigh. I can hear his sick groans and desperately want to look away. He is beyond vile.
He finishes quickly on the white tile with a gross, “Yeah, shit, yeah!”
I stare right at him, my eyes full of contempt.
After he zips up and comes toward me again, I cringe.
“I’m letting you down to rest up for round two,” he says. “Don’t want you passing out, now do we? I promise that it’ll be far more entertaining for you.”
Please no!
“Don’t worry, I won’t make you wait long, I have a flight to catch in six hours. By the time anyone even realizes you’ve gone missing I’ll be on a beach in Cozumel. Brilliant plan, right?”
As he lets me down. I fall to the floor onto my right side and begin sobbing hysterically. The door locks with a click behind him. I know that he’s going to kill me, but first, how much more of this can I take?
“Luke, where are you?” I sob into the empty white room.
* * *
The pain in my leg has not let up in the least. Maybe it’s infected, I think to myself as the wooden door is shoved open once again. I try to scramble backwards but he crosses over to me in five long strides and smiles as he swiftly kicks me in the chest.
Whoosh.
I hear the air leave my lungs in a rush along with a sickening crack. I can feel my ribs strain as excruciating pain lances across my side. I grab at his calf and bite down as hard as I can, tasting the tang of blood through his dress pants.
“That’s the spirit, you nasty cunt. Fortunately for you I’m current on my tetanus shot. Now get the fuck up!” he roars.
I wince as I’m pulled up by my long hair and brought to face him. His eyes look totally crazed as he asks me, “You know what I want, sweetheart, that I haven’t had yet?”
My eyes flare as I realize that I’m about to be raped along with everything else.
Noting my reaction, he grits between his perfect white teeth, “That’s right, you’re going to feel what it’s like to be fucked by a real man, baby.”
I spit into his eyes and try my best attempt at head butting him with my forehead. He shouts and lets go of me momentarily as I scramble away from him.
He leaps on me from behind and hisses hotly against my ear, “This may hurt, sweetheart.”
He pulls my hair with tremendous strength in an attempt to get me to submit to him.
“Screw you, Damon, you crazy asshole!” I shout behind me. I reach back, grab blindly and twist his balls in an unyielding grip. He howls in pain and doubles over.
Run, run!
This buys me mere seconds to lurch to my bare feet, clutching my side as I make a break for the door. I just get it open when he grabs my right arm savagely and flings me to the floor. I hit my head with a sick thud and begin to black out.
He’s on top of me again and I imagine I hear voices coming from the other side of the door.
My mind must be playing tricks on me because I’m so desperate to be saved.
Suddenly I hear a loud familiar roar and Damon is flung off of me. Someone’s in the room and crouching near me. My vision is blurring but I see flashes of movement and spraying blood.
Oh God, so much blood.
I must be dying.
Chapter Twelve
Luke’s Desperation
That’s strange, she usually texts back. We agreed that she would text every hour today to let me know she was all right.
After waiting a few minutes longer, I feel the anxiety eating at me and I try her cell. It rings four times before shooting to voicemail.
“Violet, it’s me. Call me as soon as you get this.”
Something isn’t right. The hairs on the back of my neck are at full attention.
“Hawk, I’m cutting out early. Today is Violet’s first day back on the mountain. I can’t get a hold of her and I know that she has reception where she’s working.”
With a serious look Hawk says, “I’ll come with you. Did you give her the gun?”
“Yeah, and I hope that she would have the sense to use it. Let’s go check the lodge first.”
* * *
I burst into the lodge and spot Ross sitting behind the reception desk, his eyes riveted to a crossword puzzle. He looks up at me as I say, “Looking for Violet, Ross. You see her today?”
“Not since this morning son. You can check the shed to see if the Cats are out back.” He nods his head to the door behind the reception desk that leads to the shed out back.
“Thanks. And have you seen Damon?”
Ross sets the crossword down, studying me cautiously. “He’s most likely at his place. He’s catching a flight out tonight to vacation in Mexico. Lucky guy. You want his cell?”
“Another time. Thanks, Ross.”
Hawk and I rush through the door behind the desk. Jogging over to the shed, we quickly see that all the sleds are gone.
“Up to my place. Let’s hop on my snowmobile and get up to her site. Fuck!” I shout, adrenaline fueling my blood.
“What the hell do you think is going on, Luke? Try her cell again,” Hawk says.
We hop into my truck and I call her repeatedly on our way up the mountain with no luck. I’m almost out of my mind with fear. Who knows what we’ll find up there?
It doesn’t take long to get the snowmobiles moving up the mountain. Pulling up at the work site, we immediately see Violet’s Cat with the rifle still strapped to the side. Gabe and her two other partners are staring at the ground near it. Gabe’s shaking and is as white as a sheet.
Glancing up, he tells us in a panic, “This isn’t happening, holy hell! I was only gone like ten minutes. She’s nowhere to be seen and there are fresh snowmobile tracks leading away. I didn’t even hear another snowmobile! We’ve searched the whole area.”
“Why didn’t you call for help?” I roar. “Obviously she isn’t here anymore.”
Hawk clenches his fists, “Jesus Christ, man. Whatever happened, she put up a hell of a struggle. Shit Luke, there’s blood everywhere!”
Gritting my teeth in rage, I see a straight line where someone has been dragged across the snow.
“Fuck!” I roar into the cold air as I throw m
y hat down onto the snow. “Fucking Damon has her! He has Violet and I’m going to take his fucking head off!”
Hawk gets in my face and grips my shoulders tight. “Listen to me, breathe through your nose. Good, now again. We are gonna work this out together. My buddy Mike was a contractor on the cabin that Damon built a few years back. Let me call him and find out where it is, all right?”
I nod and yell out, “Hurry, he’s gonna rape her or kill her. I can’t lose her Hawk.”
His eyes go wide in surprise as he quickly connects with Mike and gets the info he needs. As soon as he hangs up, Hawk shouts, “Gabe, get the others outta here and go to the lodge to contact the cops. Tell them that Damon Holden’s got Violet.”
* * *
“Seriously, did he have to build this place way the fuck out here?”
I barely hear Hawk as we pull up and see Damon’s snowmobile parked alongside the cabin. I’m out of the truck as soon as it lurches to a stop. Sprinting for the front door I hear Hawk say from behind me, “Shit man, wait up. What’s our plan?”
“The plan is I’m going to kill that sick fucker the moment I get my hands on him and he better not have harmed my girl.”
The giant front door is locked and it takes me three tries to kick it in.
“Violet!” I shout into the silence. “Fuck!” I run from room to room in the empty cabin, yelling her name as I pull open doors.
Hawk grows still and says, “Wait, man. I remember Mike telling me once that he thought it was weird as shit that Damon ordered thousands of white tiles to build some kind of music appreciation room or some bullshit like that. Do you see one?”
I shudder. “A cellar.”
“What?”
“He has her locked in a fucking cellar!”
“How the fuck are we supposed to get to it? There’s no door anywhere here that I can tell.”
Scanning the place, I say, “Move anything big. There must me a hidden door in the floor with stairs that lead to a cellar. You start in the living room. I’ll go to the bedroom.”
Where are you hiding her, you sick fuck?
I heave against the bed but there’s nothing underneath it except for a navy travel bag.
“I’ve got it!” I hear Hawk call out moments later from the living room.
Jacked up on adrenaline I yell, “I’m going in first, get your gun ready.”
Please baby, hang on, I’m almost there.
Descending the narrow stairs, I hear muffled cries and I race to push the half cracked door fully open. I totally lose it at the sight before me. Blood streaks the white tiles of the clinical room. Damon is on top of Violet, who is fucked up so badly that she barely looks like she’s going to make it. Bruises cover her body and a massive welt glares from her left thigh.
I rip him violently off her as a red wall of rage washes over me. I savagely pound into him, vaguely aware of the look of terror on his face. Soon he’s simply a bloody mass of flesh that’s no longer moving. Hawk doesn’t look. He knows better than to stop me. He couldn’t if he tried. Instead, he pulls Violet away and wraps his large tan Carhartt work jacket around her.
Nobody messes with what’s mine.
I step away from Damon, his face now nothing more than a revolting mess, and turn to see Hawk hovering over my angel. I fall to my knees beside her and whisper desperately, “Baby, can you hear me? Violet?”
No answer.
“She’s a mess man, may have internal injuries. See this swelling on her side? But you best brace yourself, he did something seriously whacked to her leg, Luke.” With a worried look, Hawk gently pulls his coat away and turns her so I can see what he’s talking about.
“Fuck, oh fuck no!” I roar.
“Luke, is that a cattle brand? Shit that is fucked up!”
I want to kill him all over again. My heart rate is through the roof. “Oh, God, let’s get these fucking needles out of her nipples. That sick motherfucker!” I can no longer see straight, I am so angry and scared that he has hurt her in more ways than we can see.
“Luke, we have to hurry and get her to a hospital, man. She may not make it.”
I gently tug on the needles while whispering a plea to her, “I’m so sorry baby, you’re safe now. Hold on for me please, angel.”
Glancing up at my brother I say quickly, “Okay, I’ve got her. Go upstairs and grab a blanket then meet me at the truck. We’ve got to keep her warm. And Hawk, drive like the devil is on you, got it?”
“Yeah brother, I got you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Confusion
I shoot upright because someone is screaming … loudly.
That can’t be coming from me?
“Angel, baby, it’s me, Luke. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
“Oh God, get away, get away from mmmmmeeeeee!” When I open my eyes I can see that I’m still in a white, sterile room. I thrash on the bed and wail, “Go away! Oh, God, don’t hurt me again!”
It takes me a while to register that I’m in a hospital bed, not Damon’s dungeon, and I focus my eyes in time to see Luke’s tortured expression as he slowly backs out of the room. At the same time several nurses and a doctor rush past him. The doctor, an older man with a gentle expression, rushes to my side but takes care to not touch me.
“Miss London, you are in a hospital in Whitehorse. Do you recall arriving here?”
I barely register what he’s saying as I scan the room in terror, still looking for Damon.
Clutching the sheet to me, I cry out in confusion and pain, “Is Damon here? Please, please don’t let him hurt me!”
“Nurse, get her a sedative.” In a soothing voice he tries again, “Miss London, I promise you are safe now. You have been unconscious for twenty-four hours, and as for Damon Holden, well, I can assure you that he will never harm you again.”
The nurse shoots something into my IV drip beside the bed. A strange warmth spreads up my arm and I fight against the sudden urge to sleep.
“Is he dead?”
The doctor looks uncertain, as if he is deciding how much information to give me.
“Tell me, I have to know!” I shout. My head is beginning to feel thick, my thoughts even more muddled.
The doctor takes my hand in his and says, “Yes, he’s dead.”
I fall back onto the white pillows and sob uncontrollably until the sedative knocks me out. I gratefully let it take me under.
* * *
“Miss London, are you awake?”
I slowly open my eyes to see a petite older nurse with a kind face looking down at me. “Sweetie, there’s a detective here to ask you just a few questions. Is that all right?”
In a panic, I clutch at her arm. “Please don’t leave me.”
With a worried look she tells me, “I won’t, I promise.” She waves to the detective to enter my room.
An officer in his late forties walks in with a notepad flipped open. I can tell he is purposely keeping his distance so as not to freak me out. His back is against the far wall near the door and I’m grateful for his consideration.
He speaks in a slow drawl. “Hello Miss London, I am Detective Callaway. May I ask you just a few basic questions? This concerns the events that occurred two days ago. The ones that brought you here to the Whitehorse Memorial Hospital.”
I reply with a shaky, “All right.”
“Thank you, Miss London. First, can you tell me how you came to be at Damon Holden’s cabin?”
The horror of that day bears down on me. Images of Damon wielding a brand, a maniacal grin on his face, flash across my eyes. I start to tremble and breathe in short gasps.
“Maybe she is not ready yet, detective,” the nurse says.
“No, it’s all right.” I try to be strong and begin again. “He came to my research site and punched me in the face and then he strangled me until I passed out. I suppose he drove us to his cabin after that on his snowmobile.”
I watch him scribble a few lines and then look up. “Were
you conscious when your injuries occurred?”
“Of course. Half of them are from me fighting back. He is, I mean was, such a sick bastard. Oh God, do his aunt and uncle know?”
Poor Ross and Janelle! I’m sure they have no idea what a twisted nephew they have. I mean, had.
“Yes, Miss London, sadly they do know. In fact they are here and would like very much to see you. They have been here every day since your arrival. Actually, your entire team has been taking turns sleeping in the reception lobby in case you woke up. There’s also a Mr. Luke Benoit who has been present ever since he brought you in two days ago.”
Oh, my beautiful Luke. I’ve got to get my head straight before I see him!
Weakly I ask, “Do you have any other questions for me detective?”
“Only one more for now.” He pauses before asking, “Did you witness Luke Benoit’s attack on Damon Holden, which resulted in his death?”
Oh shit! Shit, shit!
I don’t stall and figure that it’s best to be truthful. “No, I had fallen before Luke got there and was in and out of consciousness at the time. Unfortunately I missed it.”
Fucking psycho deserved that and more.
“Are you going to press charges against Luke?” I ask, gripping the white sheets between my fingers.
“Possibly for breaking and entering, although under the circumstances I’m confident that those will be thrown out. He saved your life Miss London.”
Did he ever …
“I’m going to let you rest now, but I’ve left my card at the nurse’s station. Kindly contact me if you can think of any additional information that might be pertinent to the case.”
He gives me a sad smile and starts to leave.
“Wait!” I shout. He turns back to look at me in surprise.
“Wait, please,” I whisper, my voice trembling. “I do remember something. The girl, the missing girl, Cassie Richards.” I see his eyes flare with interest. “He told me that he killed her and, oh God, he killed her and fed pieces of her to the wolves.” I end in a whisper and break down in jagged sobs.
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