Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance

by Vesper Vaughn

  “Good,” he snaps.

  I see that he’s leaving a trail of blood on the floor. But I stare at it too long. Jason notices, too. “Nice try.” He tears off a piece of my bathrobe and wraps it around his hand, tugging me outside and down the road.

  I pray silently for someone to drive by right now. But my road isn’t exactly busy on the best of days. And tonight, everyone is at the fair. My mind is racing. I know you shouldn’t make two crime scenes. I know that. But I have no way of getting away from him.

  A nondescript, beat up four-door Geo is parked in the bushes a few lots away from my house. Jason shoves me into it, clicking the manual lock into place before he shuts the door and runs to the other side. There’s no way I can get out and away from him in time.

  He’d probably just run me over with the car anyway. Jason has to turn the key twice to start the engine.

  “You bought this on purpose. Just so you wouldn’t be noticed, didn’t you?” The level of planning he’s put into this chills me to the bone. But I keep talking. “Jason, you don’t have to do this.”

  He laughs and spins the steering wheel. “Do what? What am I going to do to you?”

  I take a deep breath. “You could let me go right now. Right this second and just walk away. I wouldn’t tell anyone. You could have your career. Your life. Your friends.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? You think for a second a rich guy like me is going to prison for something like this?” He turns to look at me with a lopsided smile on his face, his eyes wilder than ever. “I’ve clearly lost my mind, Ella.” He pushes out an impromptu stream of believable tears. “I just don’t know what I was thinking. Clearly it was my lack of moral training from being raised in a rich family with no consequences.” He stops crying on a dime. “You get it now? Once my face heals up, and with a mostly female jury? Nothing can stop me. You know that. I got you into bed on my looks alone. Fat little bitch like you must have creamed herself when I gave you a second look.”

  “Fuck you,” I spit at him. He’s slowing down for the stop sign. I’ve moved my hand toward the lock. I figure I’ll only have a bit of road rash and maybe a broken bone or two if he just slows down a little bit –

  “Nice try,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a gun. He holds it to my temple. The cold metal of the gun barrel scares me more than anything else tonight. “I didn’t want to have to use this. Do you know how easy it is to get a gun in the state of Texas? I probably could have purchased an assault rifle if I had been able to fit it in my pocket. This is a great place. Better than California, maybe.” He laughs at his own joke, the gun still pressed to my skull.

  I realize with a start that I know exactly where he’s headed. An oh of recognition escapes from my lips against my will.

  “Finally figured out where we’re headed? Yeah, see. I was thinking a nice little tableau for your boyfriend when he comes home later tonight. I think he’ll like that. I plan on being exacting with my work. I am, after all, a plastic surgeon.”

  He turns the wheel down Luke’s long, tree-lined driveway and I feel all my hope evaporating. No one will find us out here until it’s too late.

  All I can hope is that Luke figured out my text message and is good at reading minds.

  It’s not much to hold on to.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  LUKE

  She’s not in the clinic.

  She’s not in the clinic.

  She’s not in the clinic.

  These words pound through my head as I assess the situation. My phone rings and I nearly break my hand trying to answer it. I see that it’s Corina, my contact. “Speak to me,” I say. “You lost him. You obviously lost him.”

  I can practically hear Corina rolling her eyes. “I had a last-minute assignment come through. I had to give it to Carl.”

  “Carl? Fucking Carl?” I yell, my accent barely letting me pronounce it.

  “Easy country boy,” Corina says. “I know your man is in Buxwell. Bought a car with cash yesterday in Ft. Worth.”

  “Yeah, no shit he’s in Buxwell. You’re a little behind, Corina.” I rub my hand through my hair and run out the back door of the clinic towards Ella’s house. The lights are all on. “That intel is really not that helpful.” I pound up the stairs to her red door. It’s half-open. I rush into the house screaming her name. “Ella! Ella!” She’s not in the bathroom or in the loft.

  She’s gone.

  “Subtle way to enter a potential hostage situation,” Corina intones through the phone.

  “Do you have something useful to give me? Because otherwise I’m hanging up,” I say. Pain shoots through my leg and it’s all I can do at that moment to stay upright. I nearly drop the phone.

  “Take a breath, Davis. Just for a second. Breathe for me. In and out,” she says calmly.

  I do as she says, because if I don’t I’m going to pass out from the pain.

  “You’re breathing. Good. This is good. I want you to tell me if she has her phone, Davis.” I hear her typing on a keyboard.

  “How the fuck should I know that?” I ask her.

  “Look for it, asshole.”

  She’s right. I’ve completely forgotten myself. I rush around her tiny house. “Not here,” I say. “Hang on, I’ve gotta go back to the clinic.” I run across the yard in the full light of the rising moon and back into the clinic, the rusty screen door swinging shut behind me. I look on the ground and see drops of blood. “There’s blood,” I say to Corina. “She was here.”

  “How much blood?”

  “Not a lot. Superficial wound, I’d say. Let me check one more place.” I look in her office and on the floor of the clinic rooms. I stop dead when I see her underwear laid out on the table like some sort of pornographic art installation. “Jesus…” I whisper.

  “What?” Corina asks.

  I shake my head as if she can see that. “She probably has her phone unless Jason ditched it for her. I’m guessing she does.”

  “I need her number, Davis,” Corina says calmly.

  I give it to her.

  “Wow, you memorized it? I’m impressed. Most people don’t-“

  I cut her off. I don’t have time for this. “You’ve got something for me, I assume?”

  “Hang on a second. I’m messaging my contact in New York.” She clicks more keys with rapid fingers. As frustrated as I am with her right now, I know that she’s actively trying her best. “Her phone is at your house,” she says.

  I hang up on her and run to my truck.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ELLA

  Jason pushes me into the dark house. The smell of lumber that I’ve now come to associate with happiness, sex, and Luke rushes into my brain and confuses me momentarily. This is surreal. There is no way that this place - this happy, happy place – can be so horrifying right now.

  We turn the corner into the living room and I see that Jason has already been here. The blinding white construction lights are on. My breath catches in my chest at the scene before me.

  He’s set up the sawhorses with a sheet of hardwood that I know Luke was planning on making into a coffee table. On the hardwood is sheet plastic. On the sheet plastic is a leather folio with a string of leather binding. The construction lights surround the table.

  He pushes the gun into my back as he leads me toward the makeshift operating room. “Take off your robe,” he says.

  I undo the tie as slowly as I can and step out of my shoes.

  “Shoes on. I think it will be a nice touch,” he hisses in my ear. His breath is hot and foul against my skin. His cologne that I once thought smelled so good hangs in the air like toxic waste, a fug of poison surrounding my head. I put my shoes back on and drop the robe. The level of exposure I feel right now nearly makes me sick. I climb, naked, onto the table. I lay on my back without him asking me to.

  “Good girl,” he says. He keeps the gun trained on me while he opens up the leather roll. I don’t need to look to know that
he has surgical tools in there. I keep my eyes focused on the ceiling beams. Luke and I sanded those beams together a few weeks ago. That was a good day.

  If I had known it was going to be one of my last good days, I probably would have savored it more than I did. I hold back my tears. I won’t give any of them to Jason. He doesn’t deserve to see them and I won’t die a coward.

  Jason starts whistling while he chooses his tools. He leans down to get close to my ear and I shudder again at his stench. “I need to put some gloves on, alright? That’s kind of hard to do, though, with a gun trained on you. So I need you to be a good girl and lay really still for me. If I see you so much as flinch while I’m doing this, I’m chasing after you and cutting out your tongue while you’re still alive to feel it.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  He pokes the gun into my carotid artery. “I need an answer from you, bitch. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, still not looking at him.

  “Good,” he says, and I can hear in his voice that he is wearing the self-satisfied smirk that usually decorates his demeanor. I hear him set the gun down on the table along with the snapping of latex gloves over his delicate fingers that make him such a prolific surgeon.

  He picks up the gun again and holds it squarely between my eyes. “You haven’t asked me why I’m doing this.”

  I feel a surge of bravado. “I know why you’re doing this. It’s because you’re a fragile, toxic asshole who doesn’t understand the word no.”

  Jason pushes the gun harder into my forehead and sharp pain shoots through my skull. His hands are shaking with apparent rage, but he pulls back and smiles his scarred, bloody smile at me. “I don’t like that a fat, ugly, fire crotch bitch like you broke up with me. Especially not the way you did it, in public like that. And on the day before our residency graduation.” He takes a step back and sets down the gun, leaning on the table. The instruments are by my head. I have no chance of slipping one into my palm. My heart is pounding, but I know I need to keep him talking.

  But Jason’s doing enough talking. He doesn’t need the encouragement. “It got me thinking, you know? It felt like you planned it. Like you wanted to humiliate me the most. I’d already told people that we were moving in together over in Los Angeles. I’d already told my parents. And then I have to show up in Santa Barbara and explain why my fat ass, no-talent, family practice girlfriend wasn’t with me. Do you know what that felt like, bitch?”

  I ignore his question and he leans forward, grabbing my shoulders to shake me. “I asked you a question.”

  “I don’t respond to the name bitch,” I hiss in his face. “My name is Ella.” I take a steadying breath. “I’d prefer that you call me Ella.”

  Jason grips my shoulders so hard I know for sure that his fingers are leaving bruises on my pale skin. Not that I’ll be around to see or feel them blossom.

  He lets go of me and steps back. I hear the sound of metal clinking against metal and I know he’s choosing his first instrument to use against my flesh. “Ella,” he says, my name in his mouth like he’s eating shit.

  “You know what?” I say boldly. “On second thought, I’d rather my name never pass your lips ever again.”

  Jason brings a scalpel to my stomach and lightly traces it across my skin. I clench all of my muscles in reaction to the sensation. “I think I’ll start with your stomach. I always hated how it jiggled when we had sex. It disgusted me. If you were my patient, this is what I’d recommend you have removed first. All of this disgusting fat.”

  I stare into his eyes for the first time, resolute. “You are a piece of shit. You disgusted me, which is why I broke up with you. You rode your daddy’s coat tails all the way up to the job you have now. I bet your coworkers hate you. You know what I was told? That people didn’t even care that you were gone for the last few weeks. They were relieved to not have a life-sucking, emotional vampire narcissist in the office for a few weeks of blissful respite. It was a relief for every single one of them to not have to come to work every day and see your disgusting face cloud the doorways.” I pause and take a breath. “You know what else?”

  “What,” Jason hisses through clenched teeth. I can feel his hand is shaking, the tremors vibrating through his muscles and down the scalpel to the tender skin of my stomach.

  “Everyone thinks you’re just a daddy’s boy walking joke. They all say that your dad paid off the dean of the medical school to get you into a better residency. They think you’re an embarrassment. A walking sham. You are nothing, Jason.” My body is shaking now.

  He lifts the scalpel up off of my skin. “You know what? I changed my mind. The thing I hate the most about you is your fucking bitch mouth. I think I’ll start there.” Jason moves up to my face and I squeeze my eyes shut as he presses the scalpel into the skin above my lip. I feel sharp pain and then a warm cascade of blood as he slices into my lip. “That’s better already, you little fucking –“

  BAM.

  The front door slams open, scaring Jason. He jumps away from me and I hear footsteps rushing into the living room.

  “Ella!” Luke calls out.

  “LUKE!” I scream back.

  Jason fumbles for the gun.

  “He has a gun!” I yell before Jason presses his fist onto my mouth, the pressure against the fresh wound causing me to scream. It’s muffled by the palm of his hand though. I realize Jason is distracted enough that he’s dropped the scalpel on my abdomen. I reach for it slowly. He’s pointing the gun at the entrance to the living room with one hand, the other still on my mouth. The pain is unbelievable.

  I hear Luke enter the room before I see him. Jason is blocking most of my view. The gun goes off and I take my opportunity. I push upward against Jason’s hand and jab the scalpel into his neck, slicing through his carotid artery. Blood spurts everywhere as Jason howls and the gun goes off a second time. He falls onto the floor and I scramble to sit upright. Jason is still holding the gun but he’s losing blood quickly.

  I hop off the table and grab my bathrobe, pressing it to Jason’s neck to stem the bleeding. I leave the scalpel in place. “You fucking bitch,” he says, exhaling. He’s pale underneath the makeup on his face. “You fucking-“

  BAM.

  A gun goes off and I see Jason’s head explode underneath my hands. My ears are ringing and tears are stinging my eyes. The room is blurry and I think I hear more people shouting behind me but I can’t be sure.

  I feel Luke’s hands under my armpits and I hear screaming. He drags me off of Jason and picks me up. I see red and blue lights flashing outside and blurry figures walking into the house. Something warm, wet, and sticky is covering me. I realize it’s Jason’s blood.

  Luke carries me upstairs. It’s not until he’s put me into the bathtub do I realize the echoing screams are coming from my own mouth.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  LUKE

  I sit in the plastic chair, my hands in cuffs at the county police station. They’ve brought me coffee, which I rejected. It’s not like I can lift my hands anyway and I’ll be damned if someone’s going to hold it up to my lips like I’m some fucking infant.

  I’m not an infant. I’m a fucking man.

  There’s still blood on my clothing, and I figure I’ll have to strip naked and have my clothes put into evidence bags before this entire thing is over.

  I shift my weight and the plastic chair creaks under me. The metal table with the handcuffs is cold under my forearms. All I can think about is having to leave Ella in that bathtub, the water rushing over her, tears in her eyes as they took me away.

  The door to the interrogation room opens and I’m torn from my reverie to see the rotund belly of a balding police officer. Next to him is a young woman with a dark, low ponytail. She has her thumbs in her belt loops. She introduces herself and her partner but I don’t bother retaining their names.

  I just don’t care. All I want is to get back to Ella.

  “I’m guessing you�
�re gonna play the role of bad cop,” I say to her.

  She isn’t amused and her partner pulls up a chair with a smile. “We just have some questions for you.”

  “Shoot,” I say.

  “Interesting choice of phrasing,” says the woman.

  I shrug. “Don’t care.”

  The guy opens up a file and reads notes from it. “Looks here like you might have tried to punch the sheriff upstairs at your house?”

  I nod. “That’s correct.”

  “You are aware that is considered resisting arrest along with the attempted assault of a police officer?” the woman says haughtily.

  “Sounds about right,” I say casually.

  “Why’d you do it? Why didn’t you just go along with them? I hear the sheriff’s your friend. Small town. You must know him.”

  “I didn’t want to leave Ella,” I reply simply. “Where is she?”

  The woman almost looks sympathetic to me in that moment. “She’s with a friend.”

  “Alexa?” I ask.

  The man laughs a little. “Not only Alexa. Seems like you’ve got a full house of folks watching over her. Dean, Tim, a few other people stormed up there, crime scene and evidence be damned.”

  I feel proud of my friends in this moment. “As long as she isn’t alone. She doesn’t like being alone.”

  The woman leans up against the table. “We’ve got a guy downstairs at your place, head blown off. Tell me about that.”

  “He’s Jason Martin Bradley, twenty-nine years old out of Santa Barbara, California. Graduated from UCLA medical school by the skin of his teeth, went on to do his residency down in San Diego. Plastic surgery specialty. He used to date Ella Hanover but doesn’t like taking no for an answer.”

  The guy looks impressed, and even his woman partner gives me a nod of approval. “You’ve certainly done your research, Mr. Davis,” the woman says. “Why was he in your home?”

  “Presumably to butcher my girlfriend using his little surgical toys,” I say.

  “How did you come across the two of them?”