That was when the tears came. They flooded down her cheeks in a maddening rush of emotions she was powerless to stop. Each flow burned a hot path, making the skin feel tight and itchy. She tried to wipe them, tried to stifle them with the pillow she crushed to her face, but they just kept coming until she was certain she’d fill the entire room.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she was crying. Despite everything, she wasn’t scared. She didn’t believe Dimitri would hurt her, or that John Paul wouldn’t do everything in his power to see her safely home. In all reality, the entire situation was more bothersome than frightening. Yet, she couldn’t stop the stupid tears. It was irritating.
Maybe it was seeing him again. That had certainly been a mind fuck. She’d just begun to get used to the idea of not being with him ever again. Maybe it was anger and a mixture of hurt. It was hard to tell when everything was all tangled together inside her. Seeing him again had definitely brought on things she’d fought to repress, things like that morning, of waking up and finding him gone. The countless voicemails that went unanswered, the hours spent at their favorite meet up spot waiting for him, the nights curled up in bed wondering what she’d done wrong. Then the weeks that passed, the months, the years, and finally the conclusion that he wasn’t coming back. Maybe it was the absence of closure, the unanswered questions, the unhealed wounds. He’d left a crater in her and that was bound to have screwed with her emotions.
A soft click had her head coming up. It was incredibly loud in the crackle of nothing only nature could conjure. Ava had always hated that weird, eerie whisper the absence of civilization held. John Paul had tried to take her camping once, but he was no better at it than she was and they never did it again, which had been a relief for both of them. But the snap of locks tumbling into latch had her bolting upright. Her head snapped in the direction of the door, still shut, but holding a sinister edge to it now.
“Dimitri?”
Tossing back the blanket, she sprinted to the door. Her hand closed around the knob. She twisted and yanked. Nothing happened.
“Dimitri!” She smacked the wood with the palm of her hand. “Unlock the door!”
In the distance, from somewhere below, a door shut. An engine started. Twigs and leaves crunched as a car rolled back.
“Don’t leave me here!” she shrieked.
Nothing answered back, not even the wind. The house sat in a morbid stillness that made her think of every horror movie she’d ever seen that started with a group of idiots going to a cabin in the middle of nowhere and unleashing something terrible. It didn’t help that she had absolutely no idea if he was even coming back. For all she knew, the exchange had been made and she would be left there until John Paul came to get her. She wasn’t entirely certain she could survive until morning in a haunted cabin with a weird smell.
Chest thumping with dread, she took a step back. Then another. She kept going until her knees caught the edge of the mattress. She sat heavily, making the mattress springs jingle.
It was impossible to tell how long she waited. It felt like hours. Like the rest of the house, the room was a square, colorless box with a metal bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. There was an empty closet in one corner that was something straight out of a horror movie and a window that was painted shut despite her many efforts to try and get it open. The rest of the place was decorated in fine strings of cobweb and dust. It was evident that no one had spent any length of time there since it was built. It wasn’t cared for properly. The air was stale and thick with the sour stench of decay. The smell of whatever had died in that place was beginning to make the climb from downstairs. It hadn’t been as bad when they’d arrived, but it was all she could focus on. It was a physical force seeping from the walls and creeping out from beneath the door.
Maybe it was a body, a human body, she mused. Or maybe it was the normal stink of nature. She wasn’t sure, nor was it something vastly important in the scheme of things. Her bigger concern was the full bladder she’d been studiously trying to ignore for the better part of forever. Without her phone, she had no real idea how long it’d been. She was so dependent on technology that she didn’t even own a bloody watch. But the way she was beginning to squirm, it had been longer than an hour.
“Fuck!” she moaned quietly to herself, and wondered if she would need to start doing her business in the closet. But did she trust the closet not to eat her alive? That was the real question.
She hopped to her feet and began to pace, busying her mind with the cracks in the ceiling and the number of times it took her to get from one wall to the other.
It was during the fortieth pace when the lock on the door clicked and the knob rattled. Ava expected John Paul, or even Jarvis, but Dimitri stood in the darkened doorway, looking particularly sinister with his broad shoulders caped in shadows.
“You locked me in!” she exclaimed, savage in her outrage. “I nearly died!”
Not waiting for a response from him, she shouldered past and bolted for the bathroom. The door slamming echoed through the hallway, ringing of her desperation.
“Asshole!” She kept yelling all the while doing her business. “Next time, I’m shitting on your bed!”
There was silence, but she knew he was there, no doubt still standing by her open door, waiting for her.
“What if there was a fire?” She washed her hands and emerged. “What if I was possessed by the lost souls trapped in this place?” She’d been right. He was exactly where she’d left him. “Have you any idea how hard it is to exorcise a demon?”
Her concerns were met with a deadpan stare, then the careless lift of his shoulders. “Do you?”
Ava stilled. She considered his question.
“No,” she admitted. “But the movies make it look really hard.”
He hummed quietly, a pondering sound. “Are you hungry?” he said instead, clearly unconcerned about her concerns.
“Of course I am.” She folded her arms. “Last time you fed me, it was the wee hours of the morning. I’m not a bloody robot.”
He chose to ignore her sarcasm as he turned and started down the long, dark hall to the stairs. She followed him, nearly dying as the smell grew stronger at the bottom.
“Seriously.” She mashed a hand over her nose. “What is that? Do you not smell it?”
Maybe it was just her, like how people smelled burnt toast before a stroke. Christ, was she having a stroke? Maybe it was a heart attack.
“What are you doing?”
She kept both palms flat on her breasts, silently counting each heartbeat. It felt regular. But she wasn’t a doctor.
“How do you know if you’re having a heart attack?”
They stepped into the kitchen and her concerns were set aside as she took in the plastic bags piled high on the counter. There were enough items there for a week, which in no way built her confidence that she would be leaving any time soon.
“You haven’t heard from John Paul yet?” she guessed.
He walked to the bags and started taking items out. Most of it was food, but there was the odd dish soap, shampoo, men’s razors, and a box of dishes.
“He texted,” he said at last.
“So, when can I go home?”
“Not yet.” He shook out a stalk of celery.
“But when?” she pressed. “I can’t stay here forever. I need to call Robby. He’s probably worried sick, and work. I’m going to lose my job. Dimitri!” she shouted when he went on emptying the grocery bags and ignoring her rant.
“You can’t.”
Furious, she crossed her arms. “And why not?”
He pulled out his phone and held it out to her. “There’s no reception up this far out, that’s why. I had to drive nearly an hour to get even a bar.”
Ava snatched the device from him and checked for herself.
Nothing.
But she did notice the text exchange between him and John Paul. It didn’t tell her overly much. It was four lines.
John Pa
ul: “You have my word.”
Dimitri: “You’ll get her after.”
John Paul: “I want to talk to her.”
Dimitri: “Tomorrow.”
“Okay, then take me there,” she said.
Dimitri shook his head. “Not tonight.” He turned to the fridge, arms laden with supplies. He yanked open the fridge door. “You can come with me tomorrow.”
Because he’d promised John Paul he could talk to her. He wasn’t doing her any kind of favor. It was right there in their texts.
“What about Robby? I want to call him.”
He took the phone from her and stuffed it into his back pocket. “Fine.”
“And my work,” she pressed on.
“Fine,” he said again.
With no choice but to believe him, Ava went to help him deposit a carton of eggs, a pitcher of milk, and a bag of green apples—her favorite —into the icebox.
“I’m trusting you,” she told him as he shut the door. “If you lie to me…”
He met her gaze in the dim glow of the room, but he said nothing.
It was growing bright outside the windows when the palm clamped over Ava’s face, jolting her awake mid sleep. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified as they searched into the semi darkness.
“Get up!” hissed the voice.
“Dimitri?” His name was a muffled, garbled gasps.
The hand moved to her arm. She was dragged out of bed and onto her feet.
“What—?”
She was silenced by a sharp, “Quiet!”
He hauled her from the room, not even pausing to let her pull her pants or shoes on.
At the bottom of the steps, he motioned her back against the wall just next to the front door and scooted up next to her to peek sideways out the corner of the window overlooking the front porch.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“A car pulled up,” he said. “I heard at least three doors slamming.”
Ava frowned. “John Paul?”
Dimitri shook his head. “I never told him where we were. No one knows.”
“Someone does,” she whispered when they heard the faint crunch of footsteps moving up the path to the front door.
“Did you tell someone?” he hissed, gun already drawn and ready between his hands.
Ava’s frown deepened. “Who?” she cried. “How?”
“If you did, you better tell me now, because I’m about to blow their heads off.”
“How would I tell anyone?” she snapped. “Smoke signals?”
He didn’t ask her again. Instead, he peeked out the grimy window.
“Eight,” he muttered to himself. “Heavily armed.” He cocked back the hammer on the Glock. “Definitely not friendly.”
“Is it the same guys from the hotel?”
“No.” He spared her a sidelong glance. “They’re dead.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “I mean one of them.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t understand how they found us.”
“But they did, so what’s the plan?”
Dimitri seemed focused on their guests and didn’t answer. When he did, it was to take her hand in his, in the one not gripping the gun.
“Come on.”
They abandoned their place and ran into the kitchen. The wobbly table was shoved aside to reveal a square box cut into the linoleum. Dimitri took the steel ring and yanked open the hatch.
Eerie darkness greeted them from the bottom. Ava had seen enough horror movies to recognize a bad idea, but Dimitri shoved her down the slanted steps and followed her.
The smell was astronomical. It plowed into them with a ferocity that had Ava retching. Every inhale burned in her chest. Tears blinded her. She was sure this was how it would all end when Dimitri dragged the table back into place and shut the hatch on top of them, sealing them in with the dead thing in the dark.
Unaffected by the animal rotting in his cellar, he took her hand and led her through the passageway with the agility and night vision of a cat. His precision would have amazed her if she wasn’t more preoccupied with her supper making a reappearance. Her stomach roiled and brewed up in her chest. Throwing up was an inevitable fate, but she found herself scrambling after Dimitri, struggling to keep up with her bare feet.
They must have walked for at least twenty minutes before coming to a stop. His hand slipped from hers and she heard him rifling around a few feet away. The air was thin and oddly moist. It smelled of earth and rotting leaves. It was unclear how far underground they were, but it was apparent that they were beneath the wilderness in some unknown direction.
Rusty hinges squealed. There was a groan and a glowing half-moon appeared against the black. It widened the harder Dimitri pushed against it. Fresh, clean air rushed through the opening, bathing her damp skin and making her shiver.
“Where are we?”
Rather than answer, he helped her up and through the hole that opened into the side of a trench. The ground beneath her feet sank a little, moist from the early morning dew. Above their heads, leaves rustled wildly with the crisp breeze. Somewhere beyond that, she heard the faint hum of traffic.
Dimitri climbed out behind her and unfurled to his full height. He closed the iron hatch, twisted the lever that locked it into place and then took her hand. He led her up the incline to the other side. The breeze swept up beneath the hem of her t-shirt and toyed with the thin bit of cotton covering her crotch. She tried not to yelp at the invasion.
“You could have let me get pants,” she mumbled, holding tight to the bottom of her top and keeping it firmly over her backside.
“Didn’t have time,” was his answer.
Maybe, but she was certain they could have found two seconds. Nevertheless, it was too late to think about it now anyway. Instead, she focused on the climb and the view once they reached the top.
They were surrounded by trees, but not as densely populated as the cabin had been. Each one was spaced further apart and the ground was more pine needles than grass, a sure sign they were closer to the road.
Dimitri marched to a clump of bushes and reached inside. Ava watched in amazement as he tore the shrubbery up in a clump and tossed them aside. But the awe died when she realized it was a green tarp with bits of hedging glued around it. Underneath it was an old model Jeep, topless and the same green as the tarp. Dimitri climbed in and reached for something beneath the visor. It dropped into his lap and she caught a glimpse of a remote.
“Get in,” he called to her.
Not needing to be told twice, Ava darted around the hood and crawled into the passenger’s side seat. She watched as Dimitri put the keys into the ignition and turned. The engine sprung to life almost immediately. Its low rumble vibrated beneath her bare thighs. She expected him to put it into drive and make a speedy getaway, but he turned in his seat and aimed the garage door opener over his shoulder. She heard a click. Then nothing. For a full second, the world was quiet. Even the winds had calmed. She studied the direction he was aiming, searching for signs of change and finding only the subtle sway of treetops.
“I don’t think it—”
The explosion tore up from the ground in a deafening boom that ripped up whole trees from their roots. Flames plumed into the air, an angry, red fist punching into a flawlessly blue sky. Smoke bellowed, suffocating the fresh scent of pine with the stink of sulfur.
Ava cried out. Her hands flew to her mouth, but her eyes remained fixed on the destruction. The rumble washed clear across the distance in a hot, repressive heat that stung her cheeks. The Jeep rattled, but remained firmly situated.
“Oh my God!”
“Hold on!” he ordered, eyes focused on the narrow path ahead rather than inferno of the cabin as it was demolished.
Dimitri’s grip tightened on the wheel. He pushed harder on the gas and shot them the half mile to the highway, away from the blaze. The mushroom cloud of smoke and flames danced in the rearview mirror as they drove in the opposite d
irection.
Chapter Seven
“Where are we going?” Ava asked after an hour of driving in no clear direction.
Dimitri hadn’t thought that far ahead. His only clear objective was to get as far away from the wreckage as possible, regroup, and then find the bastards and kill them. But he knew he needed to stop. He needed to find a safe place to put a better plan in motion.
The highway was barren, an endless stretch of winding asphalt that lead nowhere but deeper into a tunnel of looming trees. He kept hoping they’d come across something, a restaurant, a gas station, maybe even another person, but all there was for miles was nothing.
He looked away from the phone he’d been trying and failing to pick a signal up with and peeked at the road before adjusting his arm further away from his body.
“How is there no reception?” he muttered to himself.
“Because some genius brought us out to the middle of nowhere,” Ava answered. “There are too many trees for the signal to pass through.”
With a grunt, he tossed the phone into the cup holder and focused on driving. He considered turning around, but couldn’t risk running into any survivors they might have left behind. Plus, he was nearly confident they would hit some form of civilization sooner or later.
That didn’t happen for almost two hours. Not until the trees had dissolved into wide stretches of farmland and the scent of pine was conquered by wet animals and heaps of manure. He found a motel out in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, surrounded by miles of endless nothing and despair. It could have been abandoned for the way it was falling apart were it not for the sign blinking lazily about its vacancy.
“This is where hopes and dreams come to die,” Ava muttered, eyeing the boarded up windows on several of the rooms, the door missing on another, and the strange smell that seemed to be doming the entire lot.
The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) Page 10