Carved in Darkness

by Maegan Beaumont

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  Carved in Darkness © 2013 by Maegan Beaumont.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2013

  E-book ISBN: 9780738737393

  Book design by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

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  For my parents—thank you for loving me.

  One

  Yuma, Arizona

  December 22, 1998

  Waiting was the worst part. The sporadic stretches of time between his visits—when he came and hurt her—were the hardest torture to bear. She had no idea how long she’d been in the dark. No longer trusted herself to count the days. It’d been October first when he took her. What month it was now was impossible to figure out, but if every time he raped her marked the passing of a day—every time he cut her, the passing of an hour—then she’d been locked away for centuries and everyone she loved was dead and gone.

  Shifting, she felt the pull of dried blood and unhealed wounds across her skin. She couldn’t see them—the only kindness the darkness granted her—but she could feel them. Smell them. They were everywhere. Cuts, long and thin, ran the length of her spine. The inside of her thighs. Along the swell of her breasts. The soft flesh under her arms. The soles of her feet. The stench of old blood and infection mingled with the warm, revolting smell of the bucket she was forced to use as a toilet. She tried not to think about it. About what had been done to her body. About what she’d been forced to do to survive …

  Sounds penetrated the dense folds of black that surrounded her.

  Footsteps. Slow and measured.

  Terror gripped her, forced movement into limbs no longer totally under her control. Lurching to her feet, she swayed beneath the almost impossible heaviness of her own body weight. She took a few shuffling steps, kept one hand braced against the wall, while the other hovered out in front of her.

  He wanted to play.

  Her hands closed on the knob and grappled with it. Her hands were encased in duct tape—wrapped round and round until her fingers were fused together and rendered useless. Without working fingers, getting the door open was difficult but not impossible. Using both hands, she gripped the knob and turned. The door unlatched and swung inward.

  Step by step, she forced her legs and feet forward until she slammed into the wall opposite the door. Pressing her battered cheek against it, she dragged cleaner air into her lungs in ragged gulps.

  Light glowed a dull, muted red against her lids. Instinct seized her, her brain sent the signal, tried to open her eyes even though she knew she couldn’t. Her lids wouldn’t budge—they hadn’t since she woke in the dark.

  Experience told her that going right was wrong. There were stairs to the right, but they led to nothing more than a locked door. He wanted to chase her. It was his favorite game. She could feel him, standing at the base of the stairs.

  Staring at her.

  Her heart started its frantic kicking. It bounced around her chest, tried to claw its way up her throat. Turning left, she moved her legs as fast as they’d go, her shoulder hugging the wall to keep herself upright.

  Footsteps echoed after her, slow at first but then faster and faster.

  He was coming.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs and smiled when the door flew open. Watched her stumble across the hall and slam into the wall in front of her. He took a deep breath—pulled the sweet smell of her blood into his chest and held it.

  Even at a distance, he could feel the heat of it. The way it tingled across his skin. His mouth began to water. The need to taste her was a fire in his blood. He’d fought against the burn for years. Not because he felt like what he wanted to do to her was wrong, but because he knew.

  Eventually he’d go too far and end up killing her. Killing wasn’t the problem; the problem was the more he had of her, the more he tasted her, the less he was able to control himself. Every time he drew his knife across her skin, the urge to push the blade in just a little deeper grew stronger and stronger. Sooner or later, he was gonna snap. Wouldn’t be able to stop himself. The thought worried him. He could feel it, circling closer and closer. Not that he didn’t like killing—no, killing was fun. He’d killed lots of times. Animals, cats and rabbits mostly. A dog here and there.

  Some people said animals didn’t have souls, but he knew that wasn’t true. Felt them plenty as they wriggled free of the meat

  and bone that trapped them. Sometimes he had to force it out, and sometimes that slippery thing seemed almost grateful to be set free. He liked it better when they put up a fight. Liked to peel back the skin—layer by layer—until the screaming thing beneath him simply … stopped.

  But his Melissa was different.

  There was fight in her. More than he’d bargained for—it thrilled him beyond measure. He’d had her for eighty-two days—eighty-three, if he counted today—and she hadn’t given in. Hadn’t wriggled free.

  Not yet, anyway.

  She lurched forward, her gait made slow and uneven by the drugs he kept her on. Her naked body was smeared with blood he’d drawn. Covered in wounds he’d inflicted.

  Beautiful. Almost too beautiful to be real. He swept his gaze over her face before it settled on her eyes and the neat row of stitches that kept them closed. He was sorry for it, not being able to see her eyes. He wanted to rip those stitches out of her lids and force her eyes open, make her look at him. Make her see him. But he couldn’t; seeing him would ruin everything.

  His eyes traveled downward. The blood was freshest between her thighs. Thick and dark. Moist and warm. Seeing it killed his amusement, dried it up. The thought of nesting there—pumping himself into that slippery hole between her legs, cutting her while he did, over and over—moved him forward. He could see it. Her blood-slicked skin, marbled with his semen. His hands and cock covered in both.

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the KA-bar he always carried. The knife had been a gift from his father for his twelfth birthday. If he knew
what he’d been using it for, his daddy wouldn’t be too happy. Thinking about it made him smile. He flicked the blade open and gripped it tight.

  Looking at her always made him hungry.

  He started after her, took the distance slow at first, but every inch forward pushed him harder and faster until he was nearly running. He fell on her, dragged her under, and she went down swinging and screaming.

  Just how he liked it.

  She hit the floor, her skull bouncing off the unforgiving pad of concrete that had only seconds before been under her feet. Her arms swung wildly, hitting him again and again.

  The sound of his laughter told her he found her efforts amusing. Anger roiled around with the terror. The scream forced its way out, nothing more than a dry croak that burned her throat as she drove the flat of her foot into something soft. He grunted in pain and let go.

  Suddenly free, she rolled over. Tried to crawl but couldn’t. Digging her fingers into the rough floor, she pulled—dragged herself until she had nowhere to go.

  Dead end.

  Pressing herself against the wall, she drew her legs to a chest that heaved and wracked with dry, wordless sobs. He’d recovered from whatever minor damage she’d managed to inflict and was standing over her. He wasn’t laughing anymore.

  She heard the jerk and snap of his belt as he yanked it off. Felt the bite and hiss of his zipper as he drew it down.

  Battered knees forced themselves harder into her chest. Her swollen face buried itself against her thighs.

  Please … please let me die this time. Let me go. Please—

  His hand fell on her head, gripped her hair and flung her to the floor. He crouched beside her, his warm breath excited and hurried against her face and neck. Grabbing her arms, he looped his belt around her wrists, yanked them above her head. Bent them back until they felt like they’d snap in two. Her eyes rolled in her sockets. The red burn of light behind her lids went black.

  Hands fell on her thighs and yanked them wide. A fierce burn, accompanied by the horrible pressure of him inside her as he rammed his hips against her—faster and faster—his grunts and moans a dull roar inside her head.

  “Mine. Mine. Mine ...” He muttered it over and over, each thrust accompanied by the only word she’d ever heard him say. She knew him, but every time she tried to focus on the voice behind the guttural tone, she got lost. Let herself drift away from what was happening to her until the pain and horror faded away into nothing more than shadow.

  The tip of his knife sank in, dragged along her breast, skirted around the rapid, uneven rhythm of her heart, but she hardly felt it. His tongue came next, flat and wet against her breast, lapping at the blood his knife had drawn. The feel of it turned her stomach—she was almost glad when he pushed the blade in farther, and she prayed this time he’d force it deep enough to kill her. It bumped along her rib cage, its journey made jagged and broken by each brutal thrust of his hips. The blade skated along her belly. His muttering became frenzied, almost enraged. The pounding between her thighs came even faster, even more violent.

  Over. It was almost over—

  The blade at her belly sank in deep, a vertical breach that stole her breath and answered her prayers.

  The lift and drag of the knife being yanked from her torso set her on fire, followed by another thrust of both hips and knife. “Mine.” This time he sank the blade in at a diagonal angle.

  Lift. Drag. Thrust. “Mine.” Diagonal.

  Lift. Drag. Thrust. “Mine.” Vertical.

  It was the letter M.

  Something inside her broke free and floated away. The legs she’d tried so desperately to close, even with him between them, went lax. A sudden warmth stole over her, and she smiled.

  She was dying. She was finally free.

  He felt for a pulse. Nothing.

  He watched her gore-splattered chest for the rise and fall of breathing. It was still.

  He bathed her and put her in the trunk before driving toward the place he’d picked out a few weeks before. It was far from where he’d kept her, even farther from where he’d taken her. A small building appeared to the left of the road, and he turned. It was a Catholic church, Saint Rose of Lima. The structure was squat and brown, hunkered in the dirt it sat in, as if afraid of the wide night sky and endless desert that surrounded it.

  Saint Rose served a transient congregation. Mostly migrant workers who labored in the cotton and melon fields that dotted the landscape. He drove around the back of the structure and killed the engine. He watched the building for a few minutes to ensure it was empty.

  The first time he’d ever seen her was in a church—one much different from Saint Rose. It’d been a Baptist church. Tall and proud, surrounded by trees. He’d seen her sitting in the front pew with her grandmother—her stunning face so serious, her Sunday dress clean but faded and nearly too small for her growing frame—and knew she was meant to be his. She belonged to him. Looking at her, one word pounded through his brain, over and over:

  Mine.

  She’d been young, too young to be alarmed when she caught him staring at her. She’d looked at him from across the aisle with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen—and smiled. Just remembering it took his breath away.

  He popped the trunk and got out of the car. This time he cradled her in his arms like he was crossing the threshold with his bride. Hunkered down, he freed one of his gloved hands from his bundle and unlatched the gate to step into the tiny prayer garden behind the church.

  It was nothing more than a few trees and some rosebushes planted next to a marble bench, but he imagined it was paradise as he stretched his Melissa out over the bench. Kneeling beside her, he pulled a pair of cuticle scissors from his front pocket and used them to snip the sutures from her lids. As careful as he was, each pass of the scissors tore the delicate flesh. Blood leaked from the corners of her eyes and he swept it away, smearing it across her temple with his gloved thumb. After the stitches were removed, he peeled her lids open, eager to see her beautiful blue eyes. Anticipation soured in his belly as soon as his eyes locked onto hers.

  They were empty.

  The blanket fell open, gave him a glimpse of naked flesh. Distracted, he moved it aside completely to give himself some more. He cupped her breast, still warm from the blanket, and fondled it—felt himself go hard at the sight and feel of her. His eyes travel downward until they found her stomach and the collection of stab wounds he’d left there. His groin began to throb and his free hand fell to it, began to stroke it through the rough fabric of his jeans.

  He considered having sex with her one last time, but the thought was fleeting, chased away by a flutter—weak and sporadic—beneath his hand. The hand on his crotch went still and he flattened the other against her chest and pressed down. Searching for the heartbeat he was sure he’d just felt, but there was nothing there. A minute passed, then two. He dropped his hand. She was gone.

  He was unsure of how much time had passed, but when the lone howl of a coyote cut across the desert, he took it as a warning.

  It was time to leave.

  Two

  San Francisco,California

  October 1, 2013

  It was October first.

  Sabrina rolled over and stared at the wall. She knew the date. Not because she’d checked her calendar or because the leaves on the trees outside her bedroom window were turning from green to gold.

  No. It was because she hadn’t been able to take a deep breath for weeks now. The feeling that someone was watching her. The long hours stretched between the setting and the rising of the sun spent wandering her silent house, kept awake by the certainty that if she closed her eyes, she’d never be able to open them again. That was what told her what day it was.

  Fifteen years ago, today, she’d been kidnapped. Held for eighty-three days. Raped. Tortured. Left for dead in a churchyard.

&n
bsp; It was October first.

  She looked at her alarm clock. It was five a.m. Rolling out of bed, she made her way to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face in a vain attempt to wash away another sleepless night. Afterward, she pulled on a pair of yoga pants and a plain black T-shirt over a tank of the same color. Socks and her trusty running shoes came next. They fit her like a second skin from the countless miles they’d pounded out together. Under her bed was a shoe box. In it was her Ruger LCP .380. She strapped it to her ankle and stood, the full leg of her pants concealing it perfectly.

  Jogging down the set of exterior stairs from the attic’s third-floor landing, Sabrina took the cobblestone path she laid herself around the side of the house. The rambling Victorian, situated on an oversized lot, was a complete nightmare, defensively speaking. Too many trees and bushes offered an obstructed view from the street. Too many exterior doors and windows presented multiple points of entry. Its saving grace—the only reason she’d agreed to buy the place, was that it had a finished attic, set apart from the rest of the house, with its own entrance. As much as she loved her family, she needed her own space.

  Her running partner waited on the sidewalk for her, as he did most mornings. He whined with excitement just beyond the pretty picket fence bordering her front yard. Seeing him, she pulled up short with a shake of her head.

  “We can’t keep meeting like this, Noodlehead. One of these days we’re gonna get caught.” Opening the gate, she stepped onto the sidewalk. Noodles, the neighbor’s chocolate Lab, whined in response. He danced around in a tight circle at her feet before planting his rump on the cold concrete. He lifted a paw and cocked his head, tail going a mile a minute.

  “Fine, you can come, but if we get caught, I’m blaming it all on you.” She heaved an exaggerated sigh and grabbed his paw. He pulled his paw from her grasp and shot down the sidewalk toward the park at the end of the street.

  Sabrina’s feet absorbed the shift from hard pavement to soft earth as they hit the trail winding through the woods surrounding the park. Once swallowed by the trees, Noodles ran off into the brush, his occasional happy bark sounding back to her.