by Kate Dunbar
But he doesn’t move. He’s passed out on my pink and purple bedding. I don’t check to see if he’s breathing. Instead, I walk to the door as quickly as I can on wobbly legs, unlock the door, and bolt down the hallway. Tears stream down my face as I run out of the house. My legs carry me toward the grove of trees knowing only one person will think to look for me here. I fall to my knees sobbing and crying out in anger when I spot the hammock.
Why is this my life?
I hate him.
Long after the tears dry and my moans quiet, I stand and move to sit on the hammock. The moment my hands touch the rope, though, I stop and drop to the ground instead. I crawl on my hands and knees, curl into a ball under the hammock, and cry myself to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The shrill ring of a phone shrieks through the air around me, causing the pounding in my head to thump in my ears. The room blurs and spins in front of me for a few moments before coming in and out of focus. I blink my eyes open, and a wave of nausea rolls over me. A ball of vomit shoots up my throat and stops before it gets to my mouth. I think I’m dying.
“Why the hell does he keep calling? Leave us alone,” Lucas yells. A crash reverberates through the room, and the piercing sound suddenly stops.
I move my head to the side and watch a blurry Lucas dressed all in white walk across the room.
He bends to pick something up from the floor. “Everyone is set on making me do things I don’t want to do. The police. The judge. The other inmates. Family. Everyone has their way they want me to do things.”
I close my eyes when I see him turn his body in my direction and try to breathe steady and deep despite the shooting pain radiating through my limbs and head.
“I’m not doing it anyone else’s way now. They can all go to hell.” He shuffles closer to my side. “Especially this one. Stepping in and trying to take Sabra from me … I’m going to have to kill him.” His mutters get louder the closer he gets to my makeshift bed. “I’ll cut his throat and drop him in the lake.”
A sound like something being dropped in water draws my attention to my left side. Water droplets splash onto my cheek and mix with the sweat dotting my brow and sliding down my temple. Cold fingers brush along my forehead. It takes everything in me to lie as still as I can and not flinch away from his touch.
“Don’t worry, Songbird.” He straightens the collar and sleeves of what I’m wearing. “We’ll always be together now. I’m not going to let anyone get in our way. I’ll take care of Trevor.”
Fear runs through my body.
Lucas pats my left hand, which is tied to my right and lying on my stomach. “No one will ever come between us again,” he says. “I have a plan. And anyone who gets in the way of it will pay.”
I squint my eyes open when I feel him walk away and wait for them to adjust to the dim lighting. The queasiness threatens to overtake me. I roll my head to the side until I spot what made the splash. My phone has sunk to the bottom of the glass bowl sitting on top of the small table beside me. A washcloth still folded over the side of the bowl has started to dry along the edges.
“I’ll kill them all.” Lucas’s voice floats across the room to me.
I move my head to look in the mirror above me. The long white maxi dress covers my body now. My feet peek out of the bottom of the skirt, and the chains holding me to the table are gone. The deep V-neck of the dress shows too much skin, and I want to yank it up. My bra is missing. Silver duct tape still covers my mouth and yellow roses still ring my head.
“Each one of them a special death. Hanging. Gunshot. A slit throat. Drowning. Strangling. An ending all their own if they try to cross me.”
A couple of tears drip out my right eye, and my heart pounds in my chest. I stare at my hands in the reflection. He’s used duct tape to bind them together, one wrist over the other. Moving my wrists confirms there is no breaking out of the restraint.
I slowly move my head back to the side and find Lucas in the corner of the room walking around a Christmas tree. He’s finishing stringing the lights and starts humming “Carol of the Bells.”
My mother used to hum that Christmas carol all the time starting on Thanksgiving Day. She would put up our tree while the rest of us napped our turkey coma away. We’d wake in the late afternoon still wiping sleep from our eyes and find our way into the living room where a huge and glorious tree decked in red, green, and gold would greet us. Christmas music would be playing in the background. Mama would hand us each a mug of hot chocolate and challenge us to a game of cards sitting on the floor. We’d play long into the night and snack on leftovers in the twinkle of the lights.
Why does this room look so familiar to me? I take inventory with as little movement as possible, scrutinizing each wall and peering into each dark corner. Suddenly, I know there will be sliding glass doors out to a balcony on my other side. I glance to the right, and the vertical blinds confirm what I already know.
A gasp races up my throat, and I swallow it. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to hold my mind together. It feels like it’s fracturing.
This is my apartment, except it’s not. Everything is opposite. But the only way that could be is if … no. He wouldn’t dare be that bold. Couldn’t be that stupid to move this close to me and into my apartment complex.
Lucas is evil, but he’s not stupid. He’s sick, but he also always makes sure his T’s are crossed and his I’s dotted. He’d never be so reckless. Unless he was desperate.
The room looks like my friend Janie’s apartment. I can’t shake the feeling I’ve been here before. Janie lived across the breezeway and down the hall from me—close to the other set of stairs—before she transferred to a college closer to home in Atlanta. This looks just like her apartment except her living room walls were red. The walls here are white.
I hear Lucas opening boxes and containers. I track his movements with my eyes in the mirror until he disappears. Then I move my head until I find him again and start over.
Lucas pulls out Christmas decorations and places them on the tree. Beading and ornaments, all of it glows brightly against the shine of the white lights. Everything except the flowers is stark white. Yellow roses dot the tree, scattered throughout the pine needles.
“I can’t wait for you to wake up and see my surprise for you, Songbird.” He reaches into a box and pulls out a white dove. “You’re going to love it.”
Lucas hangs the ornament high. He brushes his fingers across the bird’s wing, making it swing from the branch. He opens another container and hangs the balls in random spots on the tree. They glitter as if they’re covered in snow.
“We’ll sit together in front of this tree on Christmas Eve, and I’ll tell you everything that’s happened over the past seven years. I have so much to fill you in on, my dear Sabra. I’ve imagined this moment for so long,” he murmurs to himself and places the last ornament on the tree.
I watch him pick up the plug, walk over to the wall, and push it into the outlet. White lights awaken and shoot drops of dazzling radiance across the room. Lucas pauses to take in his handiwork. He chuckles to himself and straightens something out on the tree. The needles rustle when his hands hit them.
He’s still muttering to himself, but a roar fills my ears. His words aren’t clear. I can’t stop looking at the wall. Specks of red paint peek out from the sides of the white outlet cover.
Dear lord, I know where I am. Alarms sound in my head. Missing pieces click together. I know exactly how the message on the wall came about so easily, and the roses mysteriously appeared. Everything is suddenly crystal clear to me.
“And after I’ve fed you dinner and the last drop of wine is drunk, I’ll finally have you as mine,” he continues speaking to the tree.
Lucas is psychotic. He’s going to push me farther than I’ve ever been before. This will be it. I’m going to die because of him.
The room spins and blurs again. I see him turn back in my direction. Black shadows invade the edges of my vision
. My eyelids droop, and I can’t fight the exhaustion. Fear overtakes my body as I hear him say one last time.
“You’re only mine.”
“No, there’s no need for you to come here.” Lucas yells into his phone again. He paces back and forth in front of the Christmas tree across the room. “Mom.” He sighs and takes a deep breath. “Sabra came here because she was upset.” His voice becomes calmer, steadier, and stronger.
There’s a pause while he listens to whatever she’s saying on the other end. “I don’t know why she chose me.” He raises his voice slightly at her. “She texted me from the lodge and asked me to come get her. Said she needed to get away and wanted a safe place.” He shrugs his shoulders as if she’s in the room with us. “I didn’t ask questions. She’s my sister.”
I glance into the mirror above me and notice the chains are still missing. There’s duct tape over my mouth and around my wrists, but the chains are still gone.
“What do you mean they found one of her shoes in the forest by the lodge? Who found one of her shoes?”
He spots me watching him closely, puts one finger to his lips, and walks over to a table where the same silver gun he held against my head lies. Lucas picks it up, twirls it in his hand, and smiles at me as he tries to get off the phone with our mother.
“I don’t know, Mother,” he rasps out in exasperation. “I only know she was upset, and she came to me. It’s been a long time since she’s come to me for anything, so I wasn’t going to question her about it. My job as her brother is only to be here for her. To protect her.”
Lucas throws his head onto the table and lays it across the arm holding the gun. He stares at me while I survey myself in the mirror again. A loud clatter draws my attention back to the corner of the room where Lucas sits. He’s crawling on the floor, scrambling to grab the gun. It fell from his fingers and slid across the floor.
My eyes open wide. This might be the only moment I have to try to save myself. I can’t lie here waiting for someone to rescue me. I’ll die in the process. Lucas is going to kill me.
My elbow hits the glass bowl on the small table next to me as I throw my body to the side and fall to the floor. Muffled screams ring out through the room. Pain shoots up my injured left leg, but I can’t focus on it. I need my mom to hear me.
“Huuullllpphhh!” The muffled yells sound like groans and grunts instead of words, but I keep making them as loud as I can and pull myself to my knees.
Lucas chucks his phone against the floor and throws himself at me. He grabs me around the waist as my feet begin to find purchase against the wood floor. The weight of his body throws me off balance, and I crash back to the floor with him partly on top of me.
But I’m not going without a fight. This is one battle I won’t back down from.
I find a large piece of the glass bowl lying on the floor and grasp it in my bound hands. Taking a deep breath, I throw my arms toward Lucas’s face. Glass slices through his skin. Red drops land on the back of my hands and blood slides down his cheek. He falls back a few inches, his hands flying to the cut.
“You bitch!” He screams at me and lunges.
But this time, I swing my right foot around and catch him in the ribs with my heel. The tape across my mouth comes free on one side.
“Nooooo!” The scream rips through me as his hand grabs my forearm and squeezes tight.
Lucas reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a switchblade. He pushes the button and smiles wickedly at me as the knife springs into action. He raises it above his head and swipes down.
My leg kicks out again, and I catch him in the same cheek causing the blood to gush out more. The knife lands in my shin. I wail from the fire spreading down my leg, but I don’t stop moving.
I scramble away from Lucas and use my legs and arms to army crawl across the floor.
He starts to move and stand. He reaches out to grab my ankle, but I pull my foot out of the way and continue to slide on my hands and knees to the door. He stands, and I see his shadow in my peripheral vision.
I grab the doorknob and pull myself up as I unlock the handle. My fingers slip and slide over the metal.
Lucas laughs behind me. His breath moves my hair.
“Help,” I moan into the room. “Help me.”
Lucas slides his hand into my hair and jerks me backward. He turns my body around and slams it into the door. The anger in his eyes burns, and his face contorts in fury. Hot heavy breaths pump his chest. His other hand closes over my neck and squeezes, cutting off my air supply.
My hands push against his chest as I fight for air. I keep kicking with my good leg and ignore the pain. Battle for the power to triumph over the darkness creeping in and around the edges of my vision.
Lucas slides his leg between mine and presses his body closer. He never lets go of my throat. Instead, he bears down harder as I gasp for air. Lucas’s face blurs in front of me.
This is it. His face will be the last thing I see.
My bound hands claw at his chest. He loosens his hold and slides his lips across my cheek. “You’re mine, Sabra,” he breathes across my face. A wicked gleam flickers through the anger in his eyes. “You’ll always be mine.”
He slides the palm of his hand down my throat and rests it in the valley between my breasts. Lucas pins me to the door and shifts his legs to the outside of mine, chuckling. His body shakes and vibrates through mine. “It’s me or nothing,” he whispers.
I lift my eyes to his and stare. One beat. A second. A third. His shoulders relax, and he strokes my cheek with the back of his hand.
“Then I choose nothing!” I screech out the words, lifting my leg with every ounce of fight I have in me to knee him in the groin as hard as I can and shove him away at the same time.
Lucas collapses to the floor groaning, and I fly into action not caring how much pain I’m in. I don’t notice the blood spots all over my white dress or look over my shoulder.
The door slams open as I twist the knob and hobble on one good leg down the hallway, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Someone help me. Please. Anyone. He’s going to kill me.”
My ankle buckles when I take the first step, but I grasp the railing and hold myself up. I push myself down the steps, slipping against the concrete, and feel it rip through the soles of my feet. “Help me!”
I make it to the last three steps and hear a voice in the distance yell my name, “Sabra!”
My head snaps up. Trevor’s standing behind a row of police cars in the parking lot. My legs give out, and I fall down the last steps, landing hard on my knees.
“Come back here, you whore.” Lucas’s voice tears through the air behind me with the pounding of feet on the walkway. “I’ll kill you. I’ll shoot holes in you and watch you bleed in front of me.”
I try to get up and keep running, but Trevor’s voice cuts through the rest of the noise.
“Get down!” he screams across the expanse. “Sabra, get down!”
I watch the policemen, dressed all in black, shift with their guns trained in my direction and throw my body flat against the ground to the side of the stairs. I use every bit of strength I have and army crawl into the grass, tears and dirt mingling together.
“He can’t have you.” Lucas’s shouts are drowned out as the police aim their firearms on him and pull their triggers. Loud pops and bangs explode through the air, and I lie there sobbing and shaking. Praying for help and reprieve as the gunshots fade on the wind.
“Don’t move.” A deep voice booms above me, and I pull my legs into my chest, curling into the fetal position.
“No, no, no,” I wail into the air around me. “I don’t want to die. Help me!”
“Shh … I’ve got you. We’ve got you.” The voice dances over me. Strong hands pick me up and start carrying me away.
“Put me down!” I flail my arms in every direction, trying to find some leverage or purchase against the chest I’m being held against.
My eyes frantically search for any
thing to help me get away until they land on two men placing a sheet on top of a body dressed in white. Blood pools around it, and when I see the switchblade in his hand, the fight rushes out of me. My eyes land on Lucas’s vacant eyes for a few seconds before the workers straighten the fabric, and his face disappears underneath.
“Miss Valentine, it’s me, Officer Toliver. I’ve got you.” The arms don’t let go. They hold me securely. “You’re safe now. We’ve got you, and you’re safe.”
My eyes fly to his face and take in the dark skin and dark eyes. He looks grimly at me, but I see kindness shining out under the concern.
“I’m safe?” My body shakes uncontrollably in his arms. Tears track down my cheeks. “It’s over?”
He nods. “It’s over. I’m going to take you to the ambulance, and Paul and Maria are going to check you out, okay?”
I hear him, but I stare at him blankly. There’s nothing in my head except a rushing sound. Niagara Falls roars through my ears.
“Sabra?” he calls out to me and sets me on a stretcher. Red and blue lights flash across my skin and the white dress, mixing with the splashes of blood.
“Miss Valentine.” Gentle hands help me lie down and a soft, high-pitched voice washes over me. A pair of scissors cuts through the tape around my wrists. “I’m Maria. You’re safe. We’re going to take good care of you, okay?”
I nod my head at her and stare at the lights.
A voice thunders across the parking lot. “Sabra!”
“Trevor.” I struggle to sit up and turn in the direction it came. “Trevor,” I cry out again.
“I’m here.” His voice flows over me before I see his eyes. Soft hands cup my cheeks. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe.” He stares at me with tears pooling in his eyes. “You’re safe.”