Never Coming Home
Page 28
Chapter Eighteen
“Stay behind me,” said Lincoln to his daughter as he inched closer to the door of the featureless room. He used the barrel of the shotgun to test if the door would open to no avail. He cautiously reached out and fiddled with the handle, but it was locked. He backed up a step, and then kicked the door near the handle in an attempt to bust it open. His kick was weaker than intended, a victim of the abuse his body had suffered over the past hour. He tried again, with a similar result. He was out of shots, and couldn’t blow the door open, but he also didn’t want to set the gun down. He didn’t want Devin to know it was empty.
Lincoln kicked again, this time achieving his goal. The lock broke free, and the door swung violently open. He moved forward, ready to lead the way to freedom, but then he heard a man’s grunt just a fraction of a second before the head of a sledgehammer came swinging in at him from outside of the room.
Lincoln only had time to turn away. The hammer struck him on the left side with enough force to send him careening back into his daughter and then fall to the floor. The gun clattered on the cement beside him as he gasped for breath. The strike had been devastating enough to steal his air, leaving him broken and beaten, gulping like a goldfish out of water.
Devin was at the door, recovering from the swing and preparing for another attack. There was nothing Lincoln could do. He’d been beaten.
But Darcy wasn’t.
She regained her footing beside her father, crouched, and then lunged at their attacker with Lincoln’s pocket knife in her bloody hands. Lincoln tried to get up, but his body revolted against him. His arm was badly broken, and his lungs were desperately trying to pull in air. He was forced to watch as his daughter battled with a ruthless killer.
Darcy got to Devin before he could swing his hammer a second time, and she plunged the blade into his stomach. Devin dropped the hammer, and it slammed down on the concrete as he pushed Darcy away. She retreated, the blade still in her hand, and Devin grabbed his new wound. Blood seeped between his fingers, but this only seemed to enrage him.
“I’ll kill you,” said Devin as he rushed at Darcy, undaunted by her weapon. She slashed at him, this time cutting deep into his arm, but he wasn’t deterred. He grabbed for her throat, as if intent upon choking her no matter what damage she inflicted on him in the process.
Darcy’s back collided with the wall behind Lincoln, rattling it as Devin gripped her throat. He looked demonic, his face twisting in anger as he squeezed the life out of her. From Lincoln’s vantage, he saw his daughter doing her best to fight back, stabbing at him again and again, but Devin seemed content to die as long as he took her with him.
Lincoln struggled to get up. All he wanted to do was help his daughter in any way possible, but he was helpless, still unable to breathe. He grasped at Devin’s pant legs, hoping to pull him away from Darcy, but nothing he did made any difference. This was her fight.
Darcy quit attacking Devin’s midsection, and went for his throat. She stuck the blade deep into the side of his neck, severing the carotid, and issuing forth a torrent of hot blood that spurted out of him with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Blood sprayed out against the wall beside the bed, covering the former brown stains of old blood left there by previous victims. Yet even still, mortally wounded, Devin continued his assault.
The knife fell to the ground and bounced on the concrete.
Darcy was losing, despite how hard she’d fought.
Lincoln reached out for the knife, and his lungs finally allowed him to draw breath. He picked up the blade, and was about to try and stab up at Devin when the killer backed away.
Darcy fell, lifeless.
Devin staggered back, his hand pressed to the gushing wound on his neck. His skin had already turned deathly pale, and he fell against the wall beside the door. He pivoted, as if about to flee to the stairs, but then fell forward and crashed into his computer table. His monitors collapsed, and Lincoln saw the image of Betty Kline’s school photo on one of them as it struck the floor beside Devin’s head.
The monster was finally dead, the cracked image of his first victim staring out at his fallen form.
“Darcy, baby,” said Lincoln as he crawled over to his daughter, terrified that he’d lost her.
She coughed and then fell into his embrace, weeping as he held her.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You did it. He’s dead.”
Her gaze was transfixed on the dead man, and Lincoln looked back at him as well. Devin was lying face down, blood pooling beneath him.
Lincoln looked back at his daughter, and put his bloody hand on the side of her face to adjust her line of sight. He wanted her to focus on him instead of what she’d done. “You’re okay. He’s dead. You beat him.”
They heard a commotion upstairs, and then several footsteps above as a male voice yelled out, “Police Department! Is anyone here?”
“Down here,” yelled Lincoln. “We’re down here.”
A police officer hurried to the stairs, his pistol held out ahead of him, and he paused near the top of the stairs when he saw Devin’s body. “Hands where I can see them.”
“He’s dead,” said Lincoln, attempting to calm the confused officer’s nerves.
“Hands where I can see them!” The officer made his way cautiously down the stairs, the gun pointed through the door of the cell.
Lincoln raised his right hand, and tried his best to raise his left, although his arm was almost useless. He encouraged Darcy to raise her hands, but she was too stunned to comply. Lincoln screamed out to the officer, “We’re the victims!”
“Get your hands where I can see them.”
“Darcy, put your hands up,” said Lincoln.
She looked at him, as if whatever spell had been cast on her was slowly being broken. She raised her hands, and began to cry.
Lincoln ignored the officer’s commands and wrapped his arm around his daughter. He held her tight, and she reciprocated. He never wanted to let her go.