TORTURE ME: The Bandits MC

by Leah Wilde

  “Okay,” Mrs. Greenwood said softly, keeping her daughter close to her body as she began walking down the front path. “Can you call her father, Mr. Preston?” she asked Gage. “Tell him to meet us at the university hospital. That’s the closest one to here,” she said as they walked over to the car in the driveway.

  “Will do,” Gage said, taking Fiona by the elbow. “Come on, we’ll follow in our car.”

  Fiona was tempted to argue with him, wanting to stay as close to Tori as possible, but before she could answer, Mrs. Greenwood already started up their car and pulled out onto the street, speeding away towards the hospital. “Fine,” she mumbled, heading back towards Gage’s car.

  They rode over to the hospital in complete silence, Fiona fighting back tears as the images of the bloodied teenage girl replayed themselves over and over again inside her head. She looked so broken, Fiona thought. So defeated. But she got out, just like me. She fought her way out and made it home, just like I did. Fiona’s chest ached like she’d been shot, like a hole had been blown through her body. She needed to be by the girl’s side, no matter what, even if she couldn’t help, even if she could only watch. She had to see that she was okay. She had to see that that fucker hadn’t broken her, not completely.

  After fifteen minutes, they rolled to a stop in the hospital parking lot, and Fiona, once again, bolted from the car at the first opportunity, leaving Gage in the dust. She ran into the emergency room where she saw Mrs. Greenwood crumpled over in a corner in the waiting room, sobbing quietly.

  “Mrs. Greenwood, where is she? What happened?”

  “The doctors took her,” Mrs. Greenwood said, forcing the words out in between silent crying fits while tears skidded down her face and neck and disappeared into her shirt. “They said they needed to do a rape kit.”

  Fiona nodded, reaching over to take the mother’s hand into her own, rubbing the backs of her knuckles with her thumb. “Okay, that’s normal. That’s just procedure. It’ll be okay. They might knock her out for it, give her a sedative so that they don’t hurt her again.”

  Her words didn’t seem to help Mrs. Greenwood very much, as she just used her free hand to cup her face, sobbing more loudly as the seconds went by. A minute later, Fiona felt Gage walk up behind them. She knew it was him just from the sound of his feet, without turning around. He didn’t say anything, just stared down at them—Mrs. Greenwood in a chair, Fiona squatting to look her in the eyes.

  “Can I tell you something I haven’t told anybody in a very long time?” Fiona whispered, clutching the mother’s hand a bit tighter within her own to make sure that she got her attention.

  Mrs. Greenwood looked up at her but didn’t say anything in response.

  Fiona decided to interpret her silence as a “yes.” She cleared her throat and looked down at the ground, summoning up whatever courage she had to tell the truth. It was the hardest thing for her to do, but she had to do it, for this woman, for this family. For Tori.

  “When I was your daughter’s age, I was stolen by a very bad man.” That seemed to get Mrs. Greenwood’s attention, as her eyes suddenly focused, her pupils going wide as she looked at Fiona. “A very bad man. He took me and he put me in a cellar somewhere, and he put handcuffs on my wrists and ankles to keep me in place. And he’d come by at night, when the sound of the traffic faded away, and he’d…do things to me. And he’d always clean me up after, wipe me off. He’d torture me, cut into me, hit me, call me names. I still hear him sometimes, in my nightmares,” Fiona confessed, the words spilling out of her like they had been waiting, perched on her tongue for years, ready to launch off at the first opportunity. Mrs. Greenwood’s face had crumpled, obviously picturing all the same things happening to her daughter, but Fiona persisted, continuing the story. “He was stupid, though. One day, he forgot to lock the handcuffs back up after…well, after doing things to me. I managed to hop over to the window, and I pried it open with a stick he left in the room, and I climbed out, and then I hopped all the way to a road and screamed until a cop came to pick me up.” She cleared her throat. “I wasn’t as strong as your daughter is, ma’am. I didn’t make it all the way home by myself. But I did get home. I did make it home. The other girls…the other ones didn’t.” She reached over for Mrs. Greenwood’s other hand, bringing them both close to her chest so that the older woman could feel her heartbeat. “I’m alive. That’s got to count for something, right?”

  Mrs. Greenwood was still crying but the tears came out faster, without the same choking sobs as before. “Are you…okay?” she whispered, pressing her hand harder against Fiona’s chest.

  Fiona smiled, feeling tears pool in her own eyes. “Yes, yes, I’m okay,” she whispered. Somehow, it felt like a lie, but she repeated it again. “I’m fine. I’m totally okay. I survived. Just like your daughter. Just like Tori.”

  Mrs. Greenwood nodded, the tears slowing down in the path down her cheeks. Fiona reached up and wiped a few of them away with her thumb, smiling as brightly as she could manage at the mother. “It’s a miracle, Mrs. Greenwood,” she whispered, cupping the side of her face. “Your daughter. She’s a miracle. Cherish her, no matter what.”

  “Mrs. Greenwood?” a nurse said on the other side of the emergency room. “Mrs. Greenwood? Your daughter is ready to see you.”

  Fiona pulled Mrs. Greenwood to her feet, holding on to her hand as they walked forward towards the nurse, following her down the hall to Tori’s room. “I’ll give you a minute alone,” Fiona whispered, staying out in the hallway with Gage as Mrs. Greenwood walked in to see her daughter.

  “That was amazing,” Gage mumbled, leaning his head back against the wall of the hospital hallway.

  “What was?” Fiona asked, totally oblivious. Her fingers were shaking a little bit, distracting her from her surroundings. She willed herself to calm down. It’s just a story, she told herself. It’s just a story in your head now. You’re free. You’re away from all of that.

  “What you just did in there,” Gage said, lifting his eyes to look directly into Fiona’s. “Calming her down. Giving her hope. It was amazing.”

  Fiona’s natural instinct was to argue with him. I didn’t do anything good. I just lied to her, made her feel like things are over. Things aren’t over. They’re going to continue to haunt that family until all of them die. This will never leave them. Instead, she just cleared her throat and shook her head. “They’ve got a long fight ahead of them,” she said.

  “Yeah, but Mrs. Greenwood is better armed for it now that you’ve said what you said,” Gage argued.

  Fiona shrugged, letting the topic fade away. She didn’t want to fight with him right now. She felt too tired, her muscles already aching, even though she hadn’t even talked to Tori yet. Her scalp started itching, a weird habit that her body pulled when she was under stress, so she reached up to undo her ponytail, letting her hair fall back down to her shoulders. “We still have a girl to save,” she mumbled, more to herself than to Gage.

  Gage nodded. “Yeah. The girl who just went missing. I wonder if Tori saw her or if he kept them in separate rooms.” He paused for a second before speaking again. “I hope…I hope he hasn’t killed her yet.”

  “The missing girl?” Fiona asked.

  “Yeah,” Gage said. “I can imagine him killing her out of anger that Tori got away.”

  Fiona shook her head, thinking back on all the crime scene photographs from before. “No, he wouldn’t do that. There’s a process to his killings. He…he wouldn’t let it get fucked up just because one girl got away.”

  “What do you mean?” Gage asked.

  “I mean, he cuts them very methodically. He’s not doing this for fun, at least not just for fun. He’s doing it because he thinks it’s his mission, and he has to do it right. The girls have to be cut up for several weeks first and then cleaned and prepared as if for a religious ritual. Then, the heart is taken out,” Fiona replied, her voice coming out wooden and flat, like she was talking about the weather or mathem
atics rather than the very real prospect of another girl being brutally murdered.

  Gage nodded, stepping forward to close the distance between them. He reached out as if he was going to grab her hands, but then he stopped short, pulling back and leaving her untouched, at least for the moment. “I couldn’t do this without you,” he murmured, his eyes glued to the floor rather than looking across at Fiona.

  Fiona didn’t know what to say to that. They hadn’t even accomplished anything yet. All of her expertise was good for nothing, as far as Fiona was concerned. But for some reason, she held herself back from saying that, at least while they were outside Tori’s hospital room. And…there was something else, some other reason why she fought against the despair that wanted to dominate her mind. For the first time in a long time, Fiona felt determined about something. She licked her lips and said the words that were on her mind. “No matter what, we’re going to get him. No matter how many girls he takes. We’re going to get him, Gage.”

  “We will,” Gage said, and Fiona wasn’t sure if he meant it as an affirmation or a question, but it didn’t matter. She already knew the answer.

  “We’re going to get him,” she swore, “if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

  “Mr. Preston?” Mrs. Greenwood called from inside the hospital room. “Ms…? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “Fiona,” she said, turning to face Tori’s mother as she exited the room and walked out into the hallway. “I’m Fiona.”

  “Fiona,” Mrs. Greenwood said, smiling sadly, the tears faded from her eyes. “Could you go in and talk to my daughter, please? I can’t…I can’t get her to tell me where she was. I thought maybe you could help.”

  Fiona’s skin immediately prickled with anxiety, tingling almost painfully like it was waiting to be stabbed. That was how her nerves worked, at least for the last fifteen years. She was always waiting for her skin to be punctured, for her flesh to be torn apart. Fiona never quite got used to it, feeling that way, but she was better at shaking it off nowadays.

  For now, she nodded at Mrs. Greenwood and forced a smile, despite the fear that clawed up against the sides of her stomach like a caged beast. “I’ll do what I can.”

  She walked into Tori’s hospital room, feeling like she was entering an arena, readying herself for battle. Time to face your fears, she said, swallowing the bile that rose up in her throat as she walked in to see the bruised girl staring at her from the hospital bed. Time to face the darkness again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gage followed Fiona into the hospital room, but he stayed far from the bed, wanting to avoid overwhelming Tori with his presence. Fiona, however, sat right next to the bed, scooting the chair up so she was as close to Tori as possible. Gage felt like he was waiting on pins and needles, half-expecting the traumatized teenage girl to scream at them to go away. He wouldn’t blame her if she did.

  “Do you remember me, Tori?” Fiona asked. “From a few hours ago, at your house?”

  Tori slowly nodded, but her jaw was shut tight, as if it was screwed shut by a metal contraption. Her lips were sealed into a thin, flat, expressionless line, but her eyes were wide and clear, unlike before when she was stumbling up to her parents’ house.

  “Do you want to tell me where you were, Tori? What happened to you?” Fiona asked, her voice soft and sweet, as kind as Gage had ever heard her. Usually, Fiona was more blunt and direct, a very no-bullshit kind of person, but he guessed she was different when she was dealing with victims. Or “survivors,” he supposed was the preferred term. Was that what they were supposed to be called, technically? Something about that sat wrong with Gage, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.

  Tori stared at Fiona for a long moment, her gaze unblinking and intense, but after a minute or two passed, she looked down at her lap and shook her head.

  Gage expected Fiona to push, but instead she just said, “Okay. That’s okay. That’s fine, darling.”

  They were all silent for a minute, and Tori looked up to stare at Gage, her gaze piercing him like a knife, but he didn’t move. He wanted to be there for Fiona, in case she needed it. He’d only leave if Tori told him to get out. After a minute, she looked away from him, refocusing on Fiona.

  “Can I hold your hand, Tori?” Fiona asked, reaching across the bed and turning her palm upwards, offering it for Tori to take. Tori didn’t answer her either way, not shaking or nodding her head; she just left Fiona’s hand in the middle of the bed, untouched.

  Gage expected Fiona to retract her hand, but she left it there, awkwardly lying on the bed. Another minute passed before Fiona spoke again. “Can I tell you a story?” she asked.

  Tori’s mouth moved a little at that, one side of it twisting upward for a second before falling back down again. Gage wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but Fiona seemed unbothered by it, just waiting for Tori to answer the question. Eventually, Tori nodded slowly, her eyes slipping down to stare at Fiona’s hand on the bed next to her legs.

  “Once upon a time, there was a little princess in a dirty, filthy kingdom. She wasn’t really a princess, but she liked to pretend that she was, just for fun. One day, she was so caught up in her own head that she didn’t realize she was talking to a monster. The monster was very charming and very nice. He gave her an apple to eat, and well, you might be able to guess what happened next. The princess fell asleep and when she woke up, she was in chains in an awful dungeon, somewhere far from home.”

  Tori shifted a little on the bed, clearly uncomfortable, her brow furrowing as she listened to Fiona speak.

  “The monster visited the princess at night, sometimes during the day, and he’d do bad things to her. He hurt her. And he said he was going to cut her heart out because monsters like to destroy good, pure things. Because they’re scared of goodness. Because they’re terrified of beautiful girls.”

  A single tear fell from Tori’s left eye, streaming down her face before falling down on the bedsheets below. But Fiona kept going.

  “But the princess wasn’t just beautiful, she was strong. She was really, really strong. She managed to get out of her restraints and find a way out of the dungeon, running away across the forest and the fields until she got back to her palace. That’s the kind of princess she is,” Fiona said softly, and Gage could tell by the thick, strained way that she spoke that she was holding back tears herself, pausing to collect herself before speaking again.

  “And the monster is scared of the princess because she has the power to destroy him. She can make him into a tiny, insignificant little man again. That’s his true form. He’s just a little boy, playing with magic he doesn’t understand.”

  Tori fumbled with the edge of her sheet, picking at it with her nails.

  “Do you know who that princess was?” Fiona asked.

  Tori shook her head, eyes flicking up to look at Fiona for a single moment before going back down to her own lap.

  “It was me,” Fiona said softly. “And you.”

  Tori was very still for a long moment, frozen in place like a photograph, before a single, choked-off noise left her throat. A single sob—that was it. The next second, Tori’s hand flew forward and grabbed Fiona’s. Gage could see, even from across the room, that she was clutching it as hard as she could, holding onto it like a lifeline.

  “Yeah, there you are; that’s the girl I knew you were,” Fiona mumbled encouragingly, bringing her other hand forward to cover Tori’s. “So strong.”

  “Am I?” Tori asked, her voice hoarse. Gage wondered if she had ever spoken while she was being held captive. It was as if her throat was relearning how to speak.

  “You are,” Fiona said, sounding more confident and secure in her statement than Gage had ever heard her. “You’re like me.”

  Gage felt a weird sensation in his chest, like a painful bubble that grew in diameter the more he looked at Fiona holding the battered teenager’s hand. She would make a good mother, he suddenly thought out of nowhere. The thought stung him like
he’d been burned; he physically reared back and hit the wall behind his head, causing both Fiona and Tori to look over at him for a second before turning to stare at each other again. That’s a stupid thought, he said to himself silently. You’re not with Fiona. You don’t have her, no matter how hard she fucks you. She’s not yours, not really. You have no future with her. You have no future at all.

  Tori and Fiona were quiet for several long minutes, just holding each other’s hands and trying not to cry, visibly fighting to hold back tears. Tori opened her mouth and shut it a few times in quick succession, seeming to struggle to force words out. But Fiona was patient, just sitting there, waiting rather than pushing for information.

  “I wasn’t far from home,” Tori finally mumbled, using her free hand to rub at her own knees, scratching through the thin white sheet that covered them.

  “What?” Fiona asked, an urgent tone seeping into her voice for the first time during this conversation.

  “The dungeon, where I was kept—it wasn’t far from my house. That’s why I was able to get back. I don’t…I don’t remember exactly where it was, but it was near my neighborhood, so I could walk back without getting on the subway,” Tori said.