“You could die,” I whisper, a single tear dripping from my eye.
“We need to go,” Howard says impatiently, then picks Heather up in his arms so she doesn’t have to walk on her raw, cut open feet. “Now. Fucking now, Owen.”
“No, please. You found me. I won’t be able to find you.”
“Howard will. We found you quick. You’re right off the property line five miles back. He knows where to go if I don’t come home.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t say you aren’t coming home. You need to come home to me, okay? Okay? I love you. I love you so much, Owen.”
“I know you’re scared but have a little faith. I’m going to be just fine. I love you.” He kisses me, pressing his mouth against mine until I can hardly breathe, and then he pulls back. I want the kiss to last forever because that means we’re back home, in the comfort of our own home.
Together.
Love is comfort and comfort doesn’t kill unlike obsession.
I sob when Howard pushes me out the door. I stretch my arm out and reach for Owen, and our fingers slightly brush together before I’m too far away. The way Owen stares at me, it’s love, it’s heartache, it’s determination, it’s fear—it’s murderous.
It’s everything I need to believe that he is going to be okay, and that he is going to win this. Owen steps inside the bedroom where me and Heather were kept and shuts the door. The lock is broken, but it isn’t too noticeable, and I bet Owen is hoping the man who lives here doesn’t notice.
“I want you to keep your eyes shut, okay? The both of you,” Howard informs us as we make our way out the door.
“Why?” We walk around the back just as the sound of an old truck ambles down the road.
“Fuck, we need to hurry. Can you run?” Howard directs, his narrowed eyes at me as we pick up the pace.
“I can,” I say, looking at Heather who has her eyes shut, and her face buried in Howard’s chest. She’s listening to Howard, but why?
As we walk through the backyard, I gasp in horror when I see all of the crosses stuck in the ground.
“All of these women…” I whisper, wanting to throw up at the amount of crosses I see. They seem to go on forever. When he ran out of room, he started to use the woods.
“Twenty years-worth,” Howard says as he run up to the top of the hill and completely out of sight from the small cabin nestled in the woods. I pause and debate on going back, to risk it all to be there for Owen, but I’ll end up getting in his way.
He asked this of me, and even though I don’t like it, I have to deal with it.
“Take Heather to the hospital. The Cliff House crew is there, and they’re waiting. It’s best if you stay there until this is done. I’m going to stay here with Owen,” Howard says as I trip over a tree root, coming face to face with another cross.
This looks fresh.
I’m starting to wonder if the man killed even though he had me to warm himself with at night. I wasn’t enough to stop his killing rage. I was just the woman he got to torment for a little bit longer, but my time was coming. If I hadn’t escaped, I would be buried next to these women.
But if I never returned, so would Heather.
I hate to say everything happens for a reason because right now, the reasons are shit, but the future looks better than it did before.
I follow Howard through the woods, my shoes muddy from how wet the ground is. Every step I sink into the earth. A light mist falls against the leaves of the trees, and the water feels good over my heated skin. I’m not sure how long we walk, but by the time we get to the clearing, I’m gasping for breath.
“We’re almost to the truck. When we get there, you get the hell out of here, okay?”
“But what about you and Owen?” I question, stumbling over my own two feet when I hit pavement.
“We will be fine.”
I’m starting to think the word ‘fine’ doesn’t mean fine at all.
Twenty-Four
Owen
I take out the small bottle of whiskey from the guy’s cabinet and take a long swig. I hate this room. I hate that these walls hold Jolie’s screams, cries, blood, and tears. This room is haunted, and I’m going to kill him in here if it’s the last thing I do.
I pick up the stirrup Jolie used to attack me with and shove the sharp end into the mattress, tearing the cheap cot in two. Even the fluff that stuffs it is stained to the color of rust, which means it’s blood.
Swallowing another long drag of whiskey from the bottle, I tug the makeshift weapon free and head toward the other bed. This one is cleaner, like he preferred his victims on the other bed.
So I tear this one in half too.
After twenty years, I’m finally going to get my revenge. I’m finally going to come face-to-face with the man who decided to set his eyes on ruining my life. I sit on the ruined bed and down the rest of the bottle, and the intoxication buzzes through my veins. I’m ready to rid this damn planet of one more cruel individual.
All those damn graves that we walked by. There must have been dozens, hundreds even, and if I can bring those women justice, then I’ve made this world a better place.
That’s all anyone can do, right?
I plan to give every woman who’s known this man’s wrath the peace they deserve, the peace Jolie deserves. She’s my main concern.
The front door opens and slams shut. A smile tilts my lips as the last drop of whiskey falls onto my tongue. “Perfect. It’s show time.” I toss the bottle to the side, then get comfortable on the bed. Maybe I’m too relaxed. I should be ready to fight at the door and not give him the chance to fight back.
But this isn’t what this is about for him. He wants to fight me, or maybe he’s too much of a coward to face me after all these years; I’m not sure.
Things always find a way to come back around, don’t they?
“I brought my favorite girls some food,” he says from the other side of the door. “And then I want you to get into positions. You remember how to do that, don’t you, Jolie?” He chuckles darkly, and that makes me reach for the whiskey again. This time I squeeze the bottle so hard, the glass shatters in my hand and a few pieces lodge themselves in my palm. Blood trickles out, but I’ve had worse.
I grab a large shard and tuck it in my pocket.
He realizes something is wrong when he tries to open the door, but it swings open without effort. “What the fuck?” he growls and stomps inside. He hasn’t seen me yet. He’s staring at the empty bed, and he drops the bags in his hands and roars, spinning on his heels to run to search for them when his gaze finally lands on mine.
“It’s been a long time…” I pretend to search for his name. I have no idea who he is. Nothing about him looks familiar to me. He has a shaggy beard, long hair, aged skin, and bad teeth. If I did know him twenty years ago, I bet he looked a lot different. “It seems you’re a pretty difficult man to kill. Bullet in the chest, not many can live to tell the tale.”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“Like I’d tell you.” I swing my legs over the bed and stand. “This is between me and you. Let’s settle it. Tell me what I fucking did to deserve this, what these women did to deserve this.”
He pulls out a knife and points it at me. The blade is long, rusted, no doubt hardly used and has never been cleaned. I look at him closer, and alarms go off in my head, warning me that I know this man, but I don’t know how. His eyes look familiar, but it’s been too long to place them.
“You killed my wife. All these women, they were supposed to be here. They were supposed to replace her, but—”
“The death of your wife turned you into a killer.” That makes sense.
“You don’t get it, do you? You don’t see it? The connection? You don’t recognize me? You’re pathetic.”
“You’re the pathetic one. You’re killing innocent women.”
“I wanted my wife back!” he roars. “Just like you wanted yours back, but I took that from you. It sucked killing
her. She was great, your Annabeth. I should know.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I take a step close, and my palm closes around the glass I have in my hand.
“Well, she was my sister, after all.”
I stumble back, hitting the bed as I lose all train of thought and control of my body. “Derek?” I whisper through watery eyes. “It can’t be.”
“It is. You didn’t even know. You didn’t blink when you saw my name across the company page. List after list, you must have wondered who done it, who killed Annabeth. Maybe it was her brother, the one who fell off the face of the earth after Teresa died. You remember Teresa. She made the honey ham you loved so much at Thanksgiving.”
“Why?” I blink, staring at my former brother-in-law. “Why would you do that?”
“You deserved to know what it felt like to lose her.”
“I didn’t know!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “I didn’t know about the medical equipment. I didn’t know it was faulty. I didn’t know.”
“You should have.”
“You killed your own niece. How could you do you that to her?”
“Because Teresa died pregnant.”
“You’re a sick fuck.” I throw the piece of glass through the air, and it pierces his shoulder.
He grunts as the glass is dipped in red, and his shirt stains from the blood.
I never looked for Derek after Annabeth died. I didn’t care to. He wasn’t a good brother. He treated Annabeth like shit, so when she died, I had no reason to keep in touch with him, especially since Annabeth didn’t like him either.
“And you dared to move on to someone who looked like Teresa.”
What? Jolie looks nothing like Teresa. Derek has gone off the deep end. There’s no hope for his mental state. The death of his wife broke him in ways that ruined him for life. I’m thankful the same fate didn’t fall on me.
Sure, I was broken, empty, depressed, and had no idea how to live, but not once did I ever think about killing women who looked like Annabeth.
Derek pulls the glass out of his shoulder and tosses it on the ground. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this, Owen.”
“I’m going to guess about twenty years.” We circle one another like wild animals, preparing to launch, debating on the right time. It makes me sick that I’ve known the man this entire time. I hate that he got Jolie pregnant. The things he did to her… I’m disgusted. I can’t wait to gut him where he stands.
Just as I expected, he comes at me first. I dodge left, missing the knife swipe, then duck when he tries to stab my neck. I roll to the right and grab the piece of glass on the floor that is dripping with his blood.
I plunge the glass into the femoral artery but don’t drag it down to open the wound. I want him to slowly bleed out.
I want him to die a long, painful death, the way my Annabeth died.
The way all those women who have small wooden crosses on their graves did.
The way Jolie almost did and Heather.
“Oh, look at that,” I say, the blood flowing out like water spilt from a gallon jug. “Oops.”
He tries stabbing me again, cutting the knife downward toward my head, but I move out of the way, and he falls forward.
Looks like he’s bleeding out faster than I intended. A pool of blood gathers on the wood, and he grips his thigh, squeezing it to stop the bleeding, but only a doctor can do that.
I know how to do it. I had to stop plenty of wounds like that in the Army, but I’m not going to waste my fucking time and energy on this asshole.
“You know, I regret convincing Annabeth not to get rid of you sooner. She wanted to keep you around, and I told her you were no good. You only came around when you needed money or a damn ride. You used her. You never loved her.” I kick his chest, and he falls to his back. “That’s why it was so easy to kill her, wasn’t it? You have always been a psychopath. It all makes sense.” My boot kicks the knife in his hand away, then I press my foot against his throat. His face is getting pale and clammy as he tries to breathe. “Struggle,” I tell him, slicing his cheek open with the piece of glass. “Struggle!” I yell, and spittle flies from my mouth. “Actually, it doesn’t matter.” I pound my size fourteen shoe against his throat, crushing his windpipe. “I want to get home to my family. You might have taken Annabeth away, but I’m not broken like you. I’ve rebuilt. It took a while, but I did it, and you’re going to die knowing how happy I am and how happy I’m going to be for the rest of my life.” I kneel on the ground next to him and watch as his face turns red since he can’t inhale. The whites of his eyes turn next. I place the jagged edge against his throat and cut as deep as I can. Buckets of blood flow down his chest like a tainted river. I bet his blood is toxic. If it’s ingested in anyway, evil will probably turn the veins black and the heart to stone.
The blood bubbles in his throat, and his hands fall limply to his side, but he’s still alive. Not for long, but long enough for him to know what I’m about to do.
“I’m going to rip your head off your body now, Derek, just like I said I wanted to.”
“And I said I would hold down his body, but that doesn’t look necessary,” Howard says, leaning against the wall in the doorway.
“I told you, I deserved more credit. I knew he couldn’t fight. He preyed on women. He never faced me because he didn’t know how to pick on someone his own size.” I settled behind his head and grab his skull with my hands and twist. His neck almost pops, almost, but I want to keep him alive so he can feel the first tear of flesh.
“Oh, there it is,” I say, ripping skin from skin and tendons from their rightful place. “I hope you burn in Hell,” I whisper in his ear, bury my fingers in the wound in his throat, and break his neck. Even after he’s dead, I continue to rip and pull.
No way is this bastard coming back to life.
I’m heaving by the time I’m done, drenched in too much blood, but I manage to stand.
“That’s disgusting,” Howard notices, curling his lip as he stares at the head in my hand that I’m holding by the roots of Derek’s hair.
“Yeah, but what he did all these years was worse.”
“I agree to that. What do you want to do now?”
“I want to burn this place to the ground. I want you to find homes for these bodies in his backyard. I bet there are families out there who have never had peace.”
“I’ve already called a team. They are on their way here just for that. When the crime scene is wrapped up, I’ll help you douse this place in gasoline, and you can light the match.”
I drop the head onto the floor and nod. “That sounds good.”
Karma always finds a way to come back around, and this time, it was me.
I was Karma.
And I will be when it comes to what is mine.
Epilogue
Owen
Six months later
I wake up to a hot mouth wrapped around my cock, pulling me from a dirty dream. I love it when I wake up and find out my fantasy is coming to life. I glance down and see bright green eyes staring up at me through thick brown lashes.
“Fuck, Jolie. I love the way you suck my cock.” She had never sucked cock before me and my God, I love being her first. The way she sucks me, she has no limitations. She doesn’t care that she gags or chokes, spits or coughs. She bobs and hollows out her cheeks until I’m punching the back of her throat, and she’s drinking every drop of me down.
Her hand disappears down her body, and I know what she’s about to do.
Which makes me need more than a blow job.
I need to be inside that tight cunt. I flip her over onto her back and steal her lips for a moment before I lean back on my haunches and stare at the magnificence in my bed. I rub my hands over her pregnant belly, cupping it with both hands protectively. She’s gorgeous pregnant, all belly.
And we’re having a girl.
Jaxon and Quinn’s kids are going to be best friends with ours. The hou
se is about to be full of children. There’s Dillon, Grayson’s son, but he’s older. I have no doubt he’ll make a good brother to everyone here.
I bend down and give the spot below Jolie’s navel a kiss, a new hot spot. There’s a new one every day since this pregnancy, and I love discovering them. I’m also fiercely protective. I’m not going to let anything happen to my new wife and child.
I wouldn’t survive it this time if anything did.
“Owen, please. I need you. I’m on fire.”
These pregnancy hormones are no fucking joke. I have to be ready when she’s ready, which is random, at any time during the day. Making love to her is a full-time job, one that I do gladly without complaint.
What really gets her going? When she catches me drinking water from a water bottle. I don’t know what it is, but she says it has something to do with how my throat bobs.
Whatever the case may be, I’m fucking happy she wants me like that.
“Is my wife needy?”
“Yes,” she whimpers, stretching her arms out.
Her breasts are swollen with milk a bit bigger than they were before. I rub my palms over her swell and knead her tits, squeezing the nipples, then tugging them how she likes. She can come just from nipple play now.
“Owen,” she grunts my name as a bead of milk flows free. I lap it up, and my cock oozes more pre-come. I think it’s hot that her body is preparing for our daughter. It’s more of an aphrodisiac than fucking lingerie to me. I think it’s a caveman thing too. She’s pregnant with my kid.
Mine.
Fuck. I need to be inside her. I can’t wait.
I knock her knees open and guide my girth to her tight cunt. I watch the bulbous head disappear, and the vein protruding along the shaft pulsates one last time before I slide all the way in.
Cruel Intoxication: A Dark Romance (Underground Kings Book 4) Page 19