by Riley Moreno
“What was the plan?” she spat. “Ruin me all over again?”
Thinking that she saw a slight nod, Julie tensed and let him just move back to his feet when she stuck him again, her heart swelling at the sound of his pained groans.
“But you… you couldn’t what? Get it up? Kim didn’t pick the right man for the job?”
He started to remove his mask, but Julie didn’t want him human. Better that he stay a phantom. She’d deal with the nightmares and hope…
“Just take me to him!”
Julie smacked him upside the head and reveled in his moans. Did that make her no better than Kim? Maybe. But even with the reduced sentence, Julie had suffered. And she wasn’t about to come out the other end and leave him behind.
“On your fucking feet!”
The man stumbled as he stood, and Julie pushed the branch into his back.
“I want to see… I have to see Ethan. Move.”
Holding her breath, Julie guided the man back into the dark places. The first time around, she had hardly taken notice of the tall trees now bursting into bloom. Then she wanted nothing more than a way out. And Ethan gave her that and so much more. She vowed under her breath that she was coming back for him, that she would save him and hold him again.
“Oh God…”
The cabin was there. A leering structure that oozed pain as soon as it met her eyes. More men than she ever wanted to know. Icy hoses washing her down as she dried in anguish and prayed for death. Was that Ethan now? Hanging from a hook and hoping that Kim would just slice his neck open? Anything to take the pain away?
“I’m here,” she muttered. “No way I’m leaving without him.”
Pushing the tip of the branch into the man’s back, Julie pressed him forward. Taking a split second to look, to hope for Morales and seeing nothing, Julie looked back to the cabin and felt a firm fist smashing into her jaw.
She fell to the ground with a groan and lost the branch. Her head turned from one side to the other as the masked man’s shadow hovered over her.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
Looking up with a stinging face, Julie couldn’t stop the man from slinging her over his shoulders. She tried to form fists and slam into his back, but her hands stayed weak, and she caught the stench of sweat labor and unwanted sex as soon as he had her behind the wooden walls. They moved past the room where she had languished for months, and Julie breathed a small sigh of relief when he did not open that door.
But there was another knob.
“On your feet.”
Julie struggled to obey the command, and she tried to speak when she felt her body kicked away like an unwanted piece of lint. Stumbling backwards with a horrified scream, Julie braced her body on her belly, and she slid into the dank dark as her hands caught on a firm set of legs. Recoiling in fear, she hid her eyes in her hands and imagined having to serve someone rotting and vile all over again. Pressing her hands under her skirt, she hoped to protect her body for as long as she could and not have to endure---
“Juliet?”
Even in the darkness, she knew his voice and crawled towards him.
“Ethan!”
Her fingers were careful around his bruised face, and she choked back a sob as she folded him close and whispered into his neck.
“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I never should have let you---”
“No, Juliet. You---”
“But I came back,” she insisted. “And I… this time I can help you.”
Reaching her arms behind him, Julie worked to undo his bonds, and she squealed in delight when his arms were free. Ethan’s hold was weak as he took her into his arms and stroked her hair.
“But you shouldn’t have,” he said through his busted, bloodied lip. “Juliet…”
Their eyes locked, and she minded his bruises as she lightly kissed his mouth and ran her hand across his neck.
“I’m not leaving you behind,” she said. “Every bad thought… it… it was all a trick.”
“Some trick,” he groaned as she dragged him towards the foot of the steps. The way up and out seemed long, and the masked man could rouse at any time. But they had done this dance once before.
“Juliet, I never… I never…”
“Shhh.”’
She kissed his battered cheeks and kept carrying him into the light. Let the masked man stay down. Morales had to still be somewhere, and once she knew that Ethan was safe, the cop would call on for all the backup that she wanted. Maybe Kim even deserved it, but there would be time to sort that all out later when---
“Right on cue, Jules.”
25
Kim loomed large as Julie struck her scarred cheek and sent Julie spinning from Ethan’s side. He screamed out and tried to reach for her, but Julie could do nothing but brace a set of fresh bruises on the backs of her elbows. As soon as she hit the cold floor, Julie tore her hands way from her battered head and saw Ethan’s hands raised as Kim pushed the butt of her gun into her back and drove him towards her side.
“There she is,” Kim said. “The girl you want to marry.”
Ethan’s eyes brimmed, but his body tensed as Kim wrapped her arm around his waist and coldly kissed his cheek.
“I could tell you so many stories about her,” Kim said. “Jules always… she always like went all red when she even thought that a man would touch her.”
“Kim, just let us---”
“And I always wondered why. Did Daddy Dearest prepare you for our trip before we even took off?”
A part of her wanted to say yes. It was a way to understand it. But Greg Heller had never laid a hand on her while he played at being her father.
“I… maybe something was wrong with me,” Julie admitted, lied.
“Making you only good enough for this!”
She forced Ethan back into her arms, and Julie clung to him as she rested her chin to his shoulder and stroked his back.
“Jules…”
Trying to hide Ethan under her limbs, Julie watched with wide eyes as Kim aimed her weapon in their crumpled direction.
“Maybe it would have different with a real live girl,” she said. “Someone who could have played ball and got both of us out.”
Kim paced the dark room, and Julie clutched Ethan’s hand.
“Colleen could have done it,” Kim said. “She was strong. And she… she was just waiting for the chance.”
Watching her seethe where she stood, Julie kissed Ethan’s head, and she started to stretch to Kim’s flying feet.
“I shouldn’t have left. But I… I’ll take you both out.”
She peered up into Kim’s eyes and pleaded with her eyes.
“Kimmy… we were… we are friends. You don’t have to do this.”
As Kim lowered her gun, Julie gasped and hoped that Kim would relent.
“I... I don’t have to, Jules?”
Julie was on her feet, ready to take Kim into her arms and repeat how sorry she was when Kim pressed her away and pointed to the floor.
“If I was wrong, go back to him.”
She shook Kim’s arm and felt better as she slipped back to Ethan’s side.
“Juliet…”
“I’m right here.”
Holding him close, Julie cradled him to her breast, and she tried to kiss the pain from his cheeks.
“Is it wrong that that… that it makes me happy?”
Falling into him without another word, Julie nodded into his chest and just held him.
“I love you,” he said. “From the moment I saw you.”
“Ethan, I---”
“But I can’t stand to see you here. We… you have to get away.”
Julie nodded as she pulled him to his feet. Kim held back, and as their eyes locked, Julie hung her head.
“I’m sorry, Kim,” she started. “And I’ll forget.”
She nearly had Ethan’s shuddering leg over one step and just before the other when Kim snatched her away from his side.
“Ethan!”
Julie screamed as she struggled and saw Ethan reaching for her. But without her arms, he fell flat on his face and moaned on impact.
“Juliet…”
Ethan stretched his fingers towards her face. Kim tied him tight again, and Julie moved fast to collect him back into her arms as Kim circled their bodies and kept aiming her gun.
“But will your boy here?” she asked. “When he has to really see what it was… what it is…”
Julie tried to give an answer when
“Take a look now!”
Julie saw Ethan’s neck straining forward as her hand held her down. Their eyes locked for all of a second, and she tried to tell him that it was okay, that she loved him even now when a sharp hand hit her cheek.
“Man’s hairy and hard,” Kim said. “But you’ll get used to it. Fuck knows I did.”
A grizzly man dangling a set of shackles under his hands stepped into the light. Julie shuddered at Ethan’s side as she shook her head and begged to be left alone.
The bearded man just licked his lips.
“You don’t lie,” he said.
“I keep my promises.”
“Whatever. This one… she’s gonna get all kinds of hearts rolling.”
He lifted her away from Ethan. Julie struggled and screamed as she tried to hold him again.
“I ordered you to just watch!”
Kim slammed the butt of her gun into the side of his head, and Ethan fell back. Screaming, Julie tried to reach for him, and she nearly had his chin under her fingers when Kim forced her away from his arms and cruelly slapped her cheek.
“Or do you want to see it all?” she asked.
“Kim… don’t…”
She hit Julie again, nearly sending her body to the cold floor when Kim pushed her back to her feet and brought her to a hard wooden table. Julie groaned as her arms and legs were stretched wide and bound in place. Splinters hit her back, and she struggled even as her couldn’t move and just lifted her head to see Ethan struggling around his ropes as he focused on her eyes.
“Whatever… whatever happens…”
“Don’t talk!”
Kim answered Ethan’s assurance with a swift slap of her gun to his eyes. He felt back with a groan, and Julie longed to reach for him as she struggled against her own bonds.
“Remember when you wanted to live happily ever after?” she asked. “Never thought you were talking about this sad sack.”
Kim pushed her gun into his mouth, and Julie screamed for her to stop when she cocked the trigger.
“Please… please leave him alone…”
As she pulled at his hair, Kim pulled the gun from his mouth and held him to the ground under her heels with a cold glare.
“I only want him to watch, Jules. To know what he thinks he’s been fucking.”
26
As Julie struggled to catch her breath, her lungs burning in her chest as she squirmed against the coarse wood of the crude table, Ethan started to speak, to beg for mercy when Kim slammed the butt of her gun into the back of his head. He slumped to the ground in a heap of groans, and for one awful second, Julie forgot her own pain and shifted her head in a desperate bid to meet Kim’s wild eyes.
“Kim,” she croaked. “Don’t… don’t hurt him. Whatever… whatever you have to do to me… I don’t care anymore. But please. Please just let him go.”
Ethan worked his way to his knees, and furiously shook his head in a bid to cut off Julie’s words.
“Stop this,” he begged. “Take… take me if you have to, but---”
Kim smacked him with her gun again, and Ethan lost his voice as she kicked him to his back and pushed her feet against his quaking thighs.
“I’m sure she taught an old dog like you all kinds of new tricks,” Kim said. “But… I don’t know.”
Her head cocked from one side to the other, and Julie saw her shoot the man undressing at her feet a quizzical stare.
“You in the market for middle-aged meat, Boone?” she asked.
He tossed his head back with a wicked laugh, and unfurled his belt, crushing the sharp buckle to her feet. Julie tried to suppress a cry of pain, but her voice wafted into the air on the back of her heaving breath.
“Nope” Boone said as he dropped his pants. “This sweet young thing will do just fine.”
Whimpering as he completely stripped below the waist, Julie started to scream when her voice stuck in her throat. Her father’s death was supposed to the worst moment of her life, the one thing that she would get through as she hoped that nothing could ever equal that pain. Until the diner and the boys and the cabin. And she should have died there. A part of her did, the part that believed that men were good and had gentle hands. But then there was Ethan, and the trials and the truth aside, at least she knew… she believed that she would never have to go back into the pitch black and dance with the devil. Ethan wouldn’t allow it.
And neither would she.
“Don’t you fucking touch me!”
Despite the ropes cutting into her ankles, Julie managed one kick into Boone’s thigh, hoping that it would send him spilling to the ground. Let him smash his head open of the cold gray floor, his brains splattering in every direction as the life drained from his body. There would still be Kim, or whoever this now was that wore her face under short red locks, but no degenerate was ever going to put his hands on---
“Fighter!” Boone exclaimed as he bounced back and almost playfully slapped her captured leg. “Got some clients that might like that. You’re gonna be real popular real fast.”
Just lifting her head, Julie screamed and writhed as his hard hands took hold of her hips, and she whipped her head as she demanded that he stop.
“You won’t get away with this. Someone is already---”
“But a little less talk,” Boone said as he cracked her jaw and sent a steam of blood pouring from her lip. Julie fell back, hating the feeling of defeat washing over her in waves as Boone pinched her breasts and tugged on her hair.
“This… now this is good.”
His cold finger danced up the length of the scar dotting her cheek, and Julie froze as he touched her other marks, working his way around her ruined flesh like a man tracing lines on a map pointed towards hell.
“Gonna give them all kinds of ideas as to what to do with you… after.”
He licked his lips and forced a clammy kiss to her mouth. Nearly gagging on the taste of his tongue as Ethan’s anguished moans filled her ears, Julie bit down as soon as the tip started to slip away with another kick.
“Fucking cunt!”
She almost managed a smile when he wiped a slim stream of blood from his chin and darted back to Kim’s side.
“What the fuck did you bring me?” he demanded. “Hell cat’s good for business and all. But not if she breaks the bank before they have a chance to pay out.”
Kim kicked Ethan hard and started towards the table. Julie’s chest heaved as she waved the gun before her eyes, and she clenched her teeth when Kim followed Boone’s lead and touched her scar.
“It’s funny,” she said. “I mean, I got the same marks on my back. But this?”
She almost cradled Julie’s cheek, an old light briefly returning to her eyes.
“You had to get this one on the way out,” she said. “Boys always said that they wanted to keep us pretty.”
“Kim… you can stop this. Right now.”
“Can I, Jules?” she asked as she pushed a lock of hair behind Julie’s ears and coldly patted her cheek. For the first time in a long time, the scar stung, and Julie remembered the knife ripping into her skin.
“Can we just get back on the road?” Kim asked. “Pick up our perfect trip like nothing ever happened?”
Somehow she nodded, and Kim leaned closer. With her gun at Julie’s temple and her free hand lost in her matted hair, Kim parted her lips and claimed her mouth. Stiff under the force of her strange kiss, Julie watch Kim’s eyes open, and she thought she saw
her finger curl around the trigger when Kim pulled back and smirked.
“Even if I could, it would never be with you. I’d rather go anywhere with the real friend I lost and see you in a grave that no one could ever find.”
Certain that the gun would fire, Julie closed her eyes and wished for it be a dream. A nightmare. She would wake up with Ethan; she would never have left the hotel. There she wasn’t a slave or a toy for perverse pleasure. She was a fiancée about to have everything that she had ever---
“Get the hell away from her!”
Julie didn’t see Ethan move to his feet, but he crashed his shoulder into Boone’s chest. Now the man went flying, and Ethan barreled towards Kim, aiming for her back like a bull in heat as he forced her away from Julie’s side. She called out his name and begged him to run. But Ethan stayed close, his back turned as he tried to pick at the ropes lining her wrists as he spoke fast.
“Just… just hold still,” he cautioned. “I’m getting you out of here, Juliet.”
Desperate to be free of the ropes and the rooms, hoping that Morales would find them at any second and turn her gun on the gory scene, Julie tried helping him along, her nails scraping against Ethan’s bonds. If she… if she just pulled the right strand of rope, everything would fall away, give him the use of his hands. They would both be free, and then… then they could run.
“Shit,” he hissed. “I… I can’t get you out.”
“Keep trying,” she said. “Ethan, Morales is---”
Before she could spit the words out, Ethan fell from her side, a splash of swat mingled with blood dotting her flushed cheeks. Kim loomed large again, and Julie watched in terror as she forced him to his knees and aimed her gun between his eyes.
“You can’t help her, Mr. Graff,” she teased. “Poor little Julie. What will she do without you?”
Julie didn’t want to think about the next moment let alone the rest of the world without him, and again she started to ask him to leave, if he could, hoping that he would run into Morales in the thick of the forest and somehow find his way back while there was still time when Kim forced him back to the edge of the table and centered her gun on Julie’s side.