Let Me Out (For Me, #1)

by Nichole Severn

  He stepped toward the figures lying across the floor, unable to identify them until he grew closer. In the dark each man looked the same, but no Harlow. He rolled them over, checking for a pulse with one hand as he covered his mouth and nose with the other.

  “Someone would have noticed if Harlow had been dead this long.” He looked up when movement caught his attention from the top of the stairs. Marcus stood, his instincts alive. “Adelaide.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve been looking for you.” He took to the stairs. “Where’s Harlow?”

  She stood motionless, the green color of her eyes flat and lifeless.

  “What’s wrong?” He took another step toward her.

  Adelaide wrapped her hands around the door and started to close him in.

  “Adelaide!” He ran as fast as he could. The door closed in his face at the top step, the sound of the lock engaging loud in his ears. “Adelaide!”

  * * *

  She held the gun to his head steadily from the passenger seat, forcing Harlow to drive.

  He pressed his eyes forward, concentrating on the road, but Adelaide saw the beads of sweat dripping down onto his eyebrows and upper lip. He had kidnapped her, terrorized her for nine years, beat her and made her into the monster.

  Time to repay the favor.

  Doesn’t he look frightened? the monster asked from the backseat. Doesn’t he look delicious?

  Harlow turned left and she pushed the barrel of her gun harder against his temple. “Do you have to keep that pointed at me, Snow White?” His eyes flickered to her.

  Adelaide didn’t answer.

  “Of course you do,” he whispered to himself.

  They sat in silence for the next few blocks, drawing closer to the location she had in mind.

  * * *

  Marcus had given up screaming her name, his throat raw.

  He’d noted the difference in her eyes, but even his soothing voice wouldn’t have been able to change her mind. Her monster had already shown through.

  He leaned against the door keeping him prisoner, contemplating how to free himself. There weren’t any windows; only cinder blocks made up the walls and steel lined the wood on this side of the door. He pushed back on it, feeling the door bend under the pressure. A sliver of light seeped into the room. He pushed against the door a second time and the glow appeared again.

  Studying the door carefully, he noticed the inside had only a single sheet of steel over the back of the bookcase. Marcus clawed at the screws holding the steel in place but gave up after a few tries to get them loose. His only hope would be the latch.

  He pushed against the door and saw it. Located halfway up, the lock resembled an overdone screen-door latch. He needed something to pull the lock up. Trudging back down the stone steps, he searched for tools.

  Carefully, he turned two bodies over one at a time. The smell nauseated him and the sight of their juicy skin only made it worse. Marcus couldn’t recognize them as human any longer and wondered how long they’d been down in the cellar, waiting for someone to let them go. Another thought crossed his mind absently. How did Daniel survive?

  He searched slowly, trying not to touch their rotting flesh more than necessary. He felt his way along the dirt floor, covering himself in dust and other things he didn’t want to think about.

  A noise caught his attention.

  The floorboards above creaked from the weight of someone else in the house.

  “Hey! Down here!” Marcus wasn’t sure they heard him from the bottom of the cellar and he ran to the top of the steps, pushing against the door. “Can anyone hear me!”

  After a few seconds a shadow blocked the sliver of light coming in from the kitchen. “Yeah, I hear you. Now shut up.” The Spanish accent told Marcus one of Harlow’s gang members had come back to protect the house. Hope blossomed in his chest.

  “Hey, listen—” he started.

  “No, you listen,” the voice said. “You’re down there for a reason. Now shut up and die before I come in there and kill you myself.”

  “No, it’s not like that. Listen”—he inhaled sharply—“Harlow has been taken. He was kidnapped and I have to stop the person who took him before she does something irreversible.”

  The voice on the other side didn’t respond, but Marcus knew he’d heard.

  Still standing in front of the door, the voice finally responded. “She? Man, you’re full of it. Harlow can protect himself from some bitch.”

  “Not this bitch. He’s gone, isn’t he? The house is a disaster? What does that tell you?” The lie slid off his tongue easily. He hadn’t actually searched the house before going down into the cellar, but he knew Adelaide wouldn’t take the time to clean up her mess.

  “Then where’d they take him, fool?” the voice asked, coming closer to the door.

  “Let me out and I’ll tell you.” Grabbing at another straw, Marcus had no idea where Adelaide would’ve taken Harlow. Somewhere private, somewhere quiet, with over a hundred different possibilities just in the neighborhood.

  “Man, you’ll kill me if I let you out.” The shadow started backing away from the door.

  “I am Agent Grant of ATF. For one, I don’t want to kill you, and two, I can’t kill you without losing my badge and going to prison,” he reasoned. “As long as you don’t try to kill me, I won’t try to kill you. Deal?”

  Silence pounded against his ears for more than two breaths.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth? What if you’re the one who took him?”

  He couldn’t believe this. “Don’t you think I’d be with him if I took him?”

  “I guess,” the voice countered and Marcus heard the latch release.

  The door swung open, the kitchen lights blinding him for a moment. He blinked against the bright light, covering his eyes with one hand. After a few seconds the world came into focus and he recognized a shotgun aimed at his face. “Not again,” he whispered in defeat, unable to understand his bad luck. A kid, no more than fourteen, stood at the other end.

  Stepping out into the kitchen, Marcus ignored the gun and searched for some sort of clue to tell him where Adelaide would have taken her prisoner. He’d been right about the house being a disaster. Harlow must have fought as hard as he could against her, but in the end it still hadn’t been enough.

  “Yo, where is Harlow at?” the kid asked, brandishing his gun in Marcus’s direction.

  “Put that away before I arrest you,” he snapped and continued looking around the kitchen. He started to go through the drawers and the cabinets, rifling through paperwork, and once he’d gone through them all he turned toward the living room.

  The kid had lowered the weapon and stood back to watch.

  “Why don’t you make yourself useful?” he suggested, reading through a stack of papers on a side table.

  The kid stepped into the living room. “What are you looking for?”

  “Some idea of where she would’ve taken him. An address would be great.” The last statement had come out sarcastic.

  “You don’t mean that blonde chick, do you?”

  Marcus froze, glancing over to the kid. “That’s exactly who I mean. Do you know where she would have taken him?”

  “No, man, but I don’t think I want to know. That bitch is crazy.”

  He smiled to himself. “You have no idea.” He picked up an invoice, reading through it quickly. It was a repair invoice for heating and air conditioning, with an address he didn’t recognize on the bottom. “What’s this address?” he asked, shoving the invoice into the kid’s face as he continued to look for something more concrete.

  “That’s Mr. Vicente’s uncle’s warehouse. He keeps it to do work on cars and things.”

  “That’s where he is.” He rushed back through the kitchen toward the door with instinct loud in his mind. Adelaide wouldn’t have taken Harlow to her territory. She would humiliate him as much as she could on his own turf.

  The sweet smell of clean air filled his nos
trils as he pushed his way out of the house.

  “How can you be sure?” the boy asked from behind.

  “I’m not,” Marcus called over his shoulder and ran toward the car.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Adelaide imagined Harlow’s wrists burned. She’d tied the ropes too tight and he couldn’t move a single limb to get more comfortable. Perfect. The cuts on his face pulsed with his heartbeat. She could count his pulses just by looking into his face and watched blood drip into his eyes.

  She sat in a chair directly in front of him, no more than five inches away, and just stared at him, studying each plane of his face, each hair growing from his jawline. She wanted to memorize every moment of this experience because Harlow wouldn’t escape this time.

  She’d make sure of it.

  The monster picked at its nails close by, uninterested in the proceedings thus far, but remained patient. It would get what it wanted before the night ended.

  Adelaide couldn’t decide where to start first and so she waited for inspiration to strike, to fill her with the need to get her revenge.

  The cold air in the warehouse tickled her bare skin and she shivered in pleasure. It’d been twenty-four hours since she’d taken her last dose of medication. She felt everything, including the heat radiating from Harlow’s naked body. She had no way to drug herself if her delusion decided to misbehave, but so far they agreed.

  There would be no need for the sedative.

  The steel of the chair he occupied clung to his skin, tearing pieces off as he moved, but his expression never showed fear or anguish. “Are we going to sit here all night, Snow White?”

  The name hit a chord. She hated it. She always had and she winced, her tough exterior cracking with two words. Standing abruptly, she knocked her chair to the floor. The metal clanged hard against the cement, making her ears ring, but she kept her focus on her victim. Inside, she fumed, trying to control her emotions with everything she had, when suddenly inspiration struck.

  Her fist slammed into the side of his face with more force than she thought possible. Adelaide could go all night like this but expected Harlow to beg for her to stop soon.

  “Do you remember the day I took you?” he asked, spitting onto the floor between hits.

  Ah, the monster sighed from beside her. It leaned down close to their prisoner, getting mere inches away as it stroked his face. He’s taunting us. It looked up to Adelaide with a smile. He wants it to end quickly.

  She didn’t move, daring him to go on.

  “I do.” Harlow tried to move his arms again, but failed. “It was January thirteenth and you were only seven years old. You’d just gotten into a fight that day with a boy in your class and you broke his nose and teeth.” He smiled up at her as blood trickled over his tongue. “I knew then that I had to have you. To punish your father, of course, but mostly for my own pleasure.”

  She hit him again, slamming his head back against the steel frame of the chair.

  Harlow chuckled, obviously relaxed. “That’s my girl.”

  The process of letting her monster take over got easier with each episode, like slipping into a second skin or relaxing into a tub full of water, and the last remnants of air left her lungs.

  Adelaide lost control as her fist struck him again, slamming Harlow’s head back against the chair for the second time.

  It would be a long night, but she’d make herself enjoy every second. Tiny bits of flesh stuck to the steel chair Harlow was tied to and it excited her. She circled him, assessing the damage already done, and struck from behind.

  His upper body slumped forward in pain and she had another strike of inspiration. Pulling the knife she kept on her from its sheath, Adelaide started on his back.

  The first scream didn’t satisfy her nearly as much as she thought it would. “Is that all, my Snow White?”

  The blade cut shallow marks at first, but as she continued they grew deeper. She followed the lines of burnt, mutilated skin down his back repeatedly, cutting down further with each pass. Blood dripped onto the floor, making wet sounds as Harlow cried out in agony for the second time.

  Her head rolled back in pleasure at the sound. “Yes!” she screamed. “That’s what I want to hear.” She’d never soothe his pain, taking her time as she dug into his back. Her skin burned, tingling with anticipation. She’d lived a life of violence without a choice and now she’d make Harlow pay for it at last.

  Make him scream, just as we did.

  His breath grew shallow as he neared his end, still bent at the waist over his knees. The ropes cut deep fissures into his wrists.

  She’d keep him alive as long as possible and enjoy the feeling of his life slipping away. Just like he’d done with her. With his last breath, he’d take her demon with him. She only stopped for a moment to circle back around to face him. Her mind emptied of thought as she tilted his head back, staring directly into the eyes of her murderer. Every second of her imprisonment flashed across her mind. Her physical form may still be alive, but he’d spent a good portion of his life killing a piece of her she’d never get back.

  “I hope you’re happy with yourself,” she whispered to him lovingly, wiping a mixture of blood and sweat from his brow. “Are you proud of what you’ve done to me?”

  Harlow managed a smile, his lips cracking at the effort. “You have no idea how proud.”

  Anger gathered inside her chest. Anger at being taken, being made into a weapon, being forced to be what everyone else wanted her to be. Nothing seemed real. She was seconds away from reaching her desire, of killing the man who’d ruined her life, of getting her revenge, but something changed.

  Adelaide’s vision cleared, her body in her own control for just a moment as she stared directly at the broken man before her, watching the streaks of blood run down his face. She’d finished with him. She’d made him pay enough and the monster had disappeared.

  The words she wanted to say hung on the tip of her tongue, but it’d been so long since she’d used her own voice voluntarily, she wasn’t sure she knew how to put truth into them. She licked her lips, parting her mouth. “I forgive you.”

  The statement sounded foreign to her.

  His eyes widened in disbelief, as if he hadn’t really heard the words.

  Her monster sucked her in a second later, forcing her to lose sight of her newfound realization and any hope Harlow’s death would cure her mind. She’d been suppressed into the corner of her own mind.

  “You forgive me?” he asked, shaking his head.

  Her monster laughed. “Hardly,” it said, using Adelaide’s lips against her will. “Now, where were we?”

  * * *

  Marcus watched Adelaide in horror, never having seen her monster in full view before. He barely registered the fact Harlow would die as he inhaled the thick coppery smell of blood drifting over to him in the shadows. Careful not to let the predator or prey notice his presence, he reached down for his cell phone quietly.

  Blood covered her hands, and for a moment Marcus expected her to lick at her fingers, the way she looked down at them. Adelaide turned them this way and that in the dull light but never moved her fingertips closer to her mouth.

  Harlow bent over in his chair, watching his life force drip onto the floor as he remained motionless.

  Marcus forced himself against the far wall, not daring to move any closer as he opened his cell phone. The light from the screen blazed in the darkness, almost giving away his position, but just when Adelaide turned her head at the interruption, he’d hidden behind a cement column supporting the decades-old warehouse.

  She’d never let anyone see this side of her, always keeping distant and inside her own mind. It had to be hard with another person in your own head. He could only imagine what that felt like: feeling like a monster, that force just beneath her skin, worried of losing control at any moment or hating what you’d become. Nothing had prepared him for this. The sight before him defined what Christian Wren had been afraid of and
now he understood why.

  Adelaide circled Harlow for the second time. Grabbing a handful of hair, she forced Harlow’s head back, staring down at him.

  He wasn’t sure what would happen next or what thoughts bombarded her mind. He removed his cell phone again, pressing the number for backup lightly as he kept his eyes on Adelaide.

  Marcus pressed send.

  His stomach turned at the smell of mutilated flesh, of blood dripping to the floor in puddles. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to watch Adelaide kill a man before his eyes. And he couldn’t just wait for her to finish the job. He’d taken an oath to protect citizens, and unfortunately, however much Marcus hated to admit it, Harlow classified as a citizen.

  Backup would come through the doors in less than two minutes, but until then Marcus couldn’t watch Harlow be cut to pieces by the woman he’d thought he’d fallen in love with.

  He closed his eyes, waiting for the next scream to cease, but it seemed like it never would. Taking a deep breath, he unholstered his weapon, making sure it was loaded. Another scream erupted and he couldn’t hold himself in place any longer.

  The possibility of being killed reverberated in his mind, but his life didn’t matter now. Swinging around the column, his arm and weapon aimed in the center of her back, he revealed himself. “Adelaide.”

  With one word, she froze.

  The warehouse no longer echoed Harlow’s scream, and he heard the sound of car doors slamming shut outside.

  Backup had arrived on scene.

  She turned around slowly, her hands raised in surrender with the knife. Her eyes sparkled with emerald green highlights, but the woman in front of him wasn’t Adelaide.

  Someone else entirely stared back at him through her eyes.

  “It’s over,” Marcus said. “Drop the knife.” His arm remained steady for the time being, but he’d gotten soft. He only had a few more seconds before he’d have to switch hands.