My breath hitched in my throat. The rest of the world ceased to exist. It wasn't a head injury that gave me tunnel vision. It was pure terror.
He wasn't meant to be in Wellington. He was meant to be over five hundred kilometres away. Did Pierce already know? Had he tried to warn us? I had no idea where the walkie-talkie was now. With Ben? Discarded on the floor in that pitch black hallway?
My disbelieving gaze took in the reedy frame of Roan McLaren. His dull black eyes hungrily washed me from head to toe, he licked his lips lecherously and stroked his greying goatee beard.
Oh shit. My stomach plummeted. Shitshitshitshit!
"Sarahhhh," Roan said in that high pitched nasal voice of his, elongating my name as though he was savouring it.
The sound of him speaking scratched imagined claw marks down the middle of my back, making my insides roll and bile rise up into my mouth again.
"You came home," he purred, and I actually swallowed back a little sick.
He took a menacing step towards me and my chest began to hurt. A real sharp pain, as though I was having a heart attack. Not that I've had one before, but I could guess at the agony involved. I simply did not have the strength to face this man. After everything I had been through, after coming so far personally in the past three days, I wasn't strong enough to confront him. To stand up to him. To look in the face of my wretched past and stand tall.
Every little thing he'd done, that I had witnessed, flashed before my eyes. Followed swiftly by every little thing he threatened to do me after I became his. It was too much. My mind couldn't cope with the onslaught of horrific images. The fear that coated each one grew and grew, until I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't survive. This.
For five whole years I had evaded this man, but the sacrifice my father had made was for nothing. Because I had simply walked back into his clutches in the end.
The enormity of the situation threatened to drown me. The pure dread of realisation choked off all air. I spluttered, trying to draw a breath in, but the sound I made only heightened my fear. I felt disconnected from that high pitched keening whimper. It was me making it, but it wasn't. I needed to get a grip, but for too long Roan had been the monster knocking on my door. And my giant was in another room fighting for his own life.
Or already dead.
I was alone, facing my past. And it was winning.
"You have changed," Roan said, the sound like a snake hissing or a rat scratching. I'd despised Roan's nasal tone, I'd always cringed when I'd heard it.
I stared up at him. Holding his gaze gave me a measure of strength. But I wasn't sure it would be enough in the end. He loomed over me, and although Roan McLaren had never been a muscular, big bodied man, he'd always been menacing. His long limbs and lithe frame towered above me and I had to stifle another whimper when my eyes met the evil of his.
"I like the longer hair," he said, his gaze washing over my ginger locks. "Even the beads are attractive. More feminine. You will keep them," he demanded.
Abi keeps them, yeah?
Ben's voice in my mind filled a gaping hole that my father's words would have occupied at moments like this. But I hadn't heard my father's remembered advice in my head for what seemed like a long time now. Had it only been a day?
Still, I wrapped Ben's voice around my fragile mind and held on tight.
Roan's words were nothing to me. I could ignore them, when Ben's voice sounded in my head.
It was enough to keep my lungs open, air flowing in and out. But anything more, like getting up off my butt, was impossible right now. I clung to the sound of Ben's words in my mind, even as I tried to tell myself that he was OK. Tried to block all thought of what Andrews could be doing to him. What that gunshot meant. I had enough to contend with, I had to trust that Ben could get himself out. Facing Roan was immobilising, soul destroying, courage zapping. I was plumb out of resources to pull on, just keeping my head above water with Ben's beautiful voice in my mind.
Roan started to pace before my crumpled form, his beady eyes assessing every little detail in front of him. I felt like I was being looked over for a purchase. Roan was getting his first good view of the prize he had sought for so long. I couldn't track his progress, my head was still spinning, my vision was still wavering, and the only spot I could focus on was a scrap of dirt on the floor. I put all of my concentration into looking at that smudge. The shape of it. The texture. The size.
Why was it there? How had it come to be there? What led to that small, insignificant, but sanity-anchoring, smear of dirt being right there on the floor? Stupid questions flicking through my consciousness; all I could do to stop myself from screaming out in fear.
The smudge of dirt got covered by two highly polished black leather shoes. Roan might have been a rat, but he was an expensively dressed one.
"Look at me," he demanded. I took a shaky breath in and tried to obey the command.
I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. My head wouldn't move on my neck. My eyes wouldn't pull away from the sheen on his shoes. I knew I had to, Roan didn't care for disobedience. He'd make me pay. But my body simply wouldn't do what my mind was telling it to. I was struck numb with fear.
He crouched down in front of me, surprising me by his sudden proximity and the fact he'd bothered to bring his face in line with mine. Roan didn't usually go for such niceties. He was more a fist-in-the-hair and yank-them-up-to-his-height kind of guy.
He'd obviously been training Kasey.
"Sarah," he said abruptly. "Look... at... me!"
My eyes moved, even if my head couldn't, and met the dull brackish black of his.
"That's better," he said with a sneer. "I see we have some educating to do. Five years is a long time to pick up bad habits, Sarah. Have you forgotten how I like my women?"
I didn't think he really wanted me to answer that, which was just as well, because my mouth was frozen shut.
"You have led me on a merry chase, my dear," he said, conversationally. As though we were old friends meeting up after a lengthy time apart, and nothing more. "I almost had you in Cardrona. What made you choose such a small place to hide?"
My body had started shaking, small tremors dancing across feverish skin. I knew all colour had fled my cheeks. I knew my eyes were larger than normal; fear coating a fine gloss on each one. I wanted to swallow, but I had absolutely no saliva left in my mouth. All I could do was stare at this creature who had tormented me for so long, and listen to him pull apart my world.
"Christchurch was a good first step," he was saying, still crouched before me. Not touching, not reaching out in any way. But I could feel his gaze as though it was a brand. Hear his words as though they were chains around my wrists and feet. "But it said a lot about the woman you had become," he added. "The Devil's Henchmen were most accommodating in the end."
Oh shit. Oh please, no. No.
"My little Sarah had learned to hide well. When I showed your former boss the picture taken the day before you left me, he didn't recognise you. Bravo! Bravo indeed." I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear the rest of Roan's mocking monologue.
My hair was tugged back viciously as Roan's hand fisted in the strands.
"Open your fucking eyes!" he shouted in my face, spittle washing over my skin.
My lids lifted and there he was. An inch away from me. I screamed, panted, then tried to puke my guts out all over his finely polished Italian shoes. He just yanked my hair tighter, lifting me to my toes and dangling me before his eyes. The movement stilled my vomiting attempts - or maybe I really did have nothing left in there to puke - but brought Roan's frame flush against mine.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't inhale my next lungful of air. I was frozen in a case of ice. Alone before the monster. Trapped and going nowhere fast.
"Where was I?" Roan asked, casually. Having determined I wasn't going to ruin his expensive attire. My feet were lowered back to the floor, but his hand didn't leave my hair, nor his body move away from my frame. I could sme
ll rancid coffee on his breath. I could feel his thighs rub against mine.
I wanted to be sick. But the ice that surrounded me placed me in a stasis. Here, but not here. Present, but not counted.
"Yes," he continued. "Your boss was very helpful when given an incentive." He shook me slightly, from the grip he had in my hair. Making sure I was listening, or maybe my eyelids had lowered and I hadn't realised. "Aren't you going to ask me what I did to convince him to share details of your time there? No? Well, I'm not shy, I'll tell you it all. There is so much for us to catch up on, Sarah. So many delightful reprimands to give. You have been a naughty girl, but that's why I always liked you. You made the chase worth it."
I blinked slowly, wanting so very desperately to close my eyes and pretend I wasn't there. But I knew he'd only yank me around the room, pull all my hair from my head, ensuring I never looked away ever again. I held his gaze and searched for that voice inside my head.
Are you worth the risk, red? I think you might be, but I'm not sure.
"A stovepipe to the face is a beautiful thing," Roan said wistfully, as though remembering fondly the moment he used it on my former boss. "And then he had so many helpful instruments in his place of work. Is that why you chose a mechanic? Instant weaponry at your command. I'm sure your father taught you well to use a sledgehammer or a socket wrench appropriately. He certainly taught you many things, didn't he, Sarah?"
I didn't answer. This was Roan's show, he wasn't in the mood to share the stage, even if he pretended this was a conversation between friends. It was only ever going to be his moment to shine. His moment to put me in my rightful place. To remind me I was his and always had been. To ensure I could never escape and tell the world what I had seen.
There was power in knowledge. Roan knew I held some power over him, but right now it seemed so very inconsequential. What was the benefit of me witnessing him commit murder, do dreadful unlawful things, if I didn't survive to tell anyone about it? Oh, how I wished I'd given Detective Pierce that information already.
But it was too late. I couldn't see an out. I would never survive this now.
You fill the shadows with your light, red. You make everythin' seem bright and clear. Your strength of character. Your depth of heart. Your will to survive.
I could survive this.
"But I had so much fun making your father pay for your indiscretion," Roan added, and I felt my fists clench at my sides. The first voluntary movement I had managed since facing this nightmare of a man. "He was always so very careful about what jobs he took on for me, and the promise of you meant, until your departure, he could pick and choose. What do you think happened after you left me, Sarah? How many jobs do you think your father could refuse then?"
I glared at him, but still didn't answer. Saying anything would be a waste of breath, and right then I didn't have any oxygen to spare.
"None," Roan said with a smirk. "In fact, I made it my sole purpose to fuck with Sarah Monaghan's father. To fuck with the man who insisted he hadn't helped you to escape." His face came closer, so close his nose brushed against mine. "But he fucking lied, didn't he, Sarah? How else could you afford the identification your boss in Christchurch showed me? How else could you afford to turn up there in leathers and with a completely altered appearance?"
My dad had suffered, because of me. Roan had taken his anger at me out on more than just Kasey, he had targeted my father too. But, he didn't kill him, because he was waiting for the moment I returned. So he could execute my father in front of me. That strategy had backfired. My dad had remained a distrusted member of his organisation, on the 'in' enough to gather evidence to bring Roan McLaren down. And then escaped.
Roan wasn't as clever as he made himself out to be.
"You've managed to stay one step ahead of me for the past few years," he said breezily, moving his body back slightly to gain a better view of my frame from head to toe again. "You've taken care of yourself too. You look good." I managed to swallow the bile that surged up my throat, before it hit my mouth. "I am impressed, my dear. You will be an asset to my organisation. But first you must learn your place in it."
He shoved me to the floor at his feet. My knees slammed into the bare hardwood floor, thankfully missing any rusted, raised nails. His hand still fisted in my hair urging my face toward his shoes. It was clear what his objective was. If I wasn't so tortured and afraid right now, I could have laughed. In fact, when he forced my mouth to the toe of one of his shoes, a strangled giggle escaped my lips.
He wanted me to kiss his feet? Really? This is what the great, scary, evil Roan McLaren wanted me to do?
Pain lanced through my cheek bone as the polished tip of Roan's expensive shoe connected with my face. I went sprawling across the floor, landing in a bruised heap some distance away. He stalked after me.
"You laugh?" he demanded, his nasal voice rising an octave or two with his increasing anger. "I'd like to see how you laugh at this."
My ribs cracked as his foot kicked my side. I curled in a ball, trying to protect my body from the next attack. A second kick landed in the centre of my back.
"Can I make you laugh, Sarah? How about this?"
I closed my eyes tightly, locked my jaw to stop from crying out and went somewhere else.
Now, see, you got me wonderin' whether I can make you laugh like that when you're in my bed.
"You're not laughing, Sarah," Roan taunted. "Perhaps I'm doing this all wrong."
A pain-filled sound escaped my lips as he roughly lifted me off the floor and carried me over to a couch. He threw my body down on the cushions, following behind immediately with his. Two legs straddling my thighs, two hands pinning my shoulders to the seat.
"Maybe you'll laugh when I make you mine," Roan suggested, a feverish, hungry look in his eyes.
I closed my lids and twisted my mouth away from his as he leaned in closer. Hot, sticky breath streamed over my cheek as he panted above me. I couldn't face this. Too many memories of what he threatened to do to me once I was his, came screaming back inside my mind. For a moment I was nothing but fear. Nothing but a constant torrent of dread, horror, apprehension, fright, angst, dismay and terror.
"Open your fucking eyes," Roan breathed menacingly above me. "Open up!"
Open up, red. There's nothing to be scared of here.
Even Ben's voice in mind wasn't working.
This was it. In the city where it all started. Darkness encroached from the edges of my vision. A bleak world surrounded me, kept me imprisoned in the paranoia and panic I'd felt for so long.
Trapped where I did not belong. No chance of escape, no possibility to ever be free of this man, or what he does to my mind, ever again.
Gonna make you let go. Gonna watch you come apart. Gonna set you free, little red. Right along with me.
I'd had a taste of freedom for such a short amount of time. I wrapped the memories of Ben's words and touch and scent around me. That expensive cologne I could never quite identify and the musk of man. Why hadn't I found out what his aftershave was? Why didn't I ask him, or check in his bathroom while I was there? It felt like a missed opportunity. Like I'd passed up the chance to know something so very special about my shadow man.
Now I would never know and I couldn't help feeling that knowledge would have kept me going. Would have allowed me to survive. To find a place in my mind where I could live, ignoring everything else.
Shit, I could even smell his cologne now and I wasn't asleep having a vivid drug-induced dream - or in this case nightmare - I was beneath a raging lunatic, a madman hell bent on destroying everything he couldn't completely possess. Roan had never owned me. I'd spent the past five years proving that. And just because I was in his clutches now, didn't mean I was his.
I took a deep breath in through my nose, found a bottomless well of inexhaustible courage in the scent of Ben, and started to fight back, vaguely aware that Kasey had joined in on the fun too at some stage. Railing on Roan's back with her fists.
The pads of my two thumbs stabbed hard into both of Roan's beady little eyes. Kasey's screams of defiance met my ears. My forehead followed, smashing against his hooked nose. I felt hot, wet blood pour over my head, soaking into my hair and dribbling down my face. I spat, what had made it to my lips, at him. Kasey added to the chaos by pulling tufts of Roan's hair out in her fists as he screeched above us. Her small hand wrapped ineffectually around Roan's neck, while his larger one wrapped successfully around my throat. He pulled his upper body back as he did it, struggling to shake Kasey off his shoulders in the process, allowing me an opportunity I wouldn't necessarily have had. I shifted beneath him, unable to suck in air and starting to see stars and bright flashes before my eyes. Then carried out the one move that had saved me many times in the past.
I kneed him hard between the legs.
He howled out and rolled away from me, taking Kasey with him to the floor. And allowing me a chance to get to my feet. I staggered, lost my balance and went down on one knee. But I would not give up now. I was alive. I was breathing. I would survive this.
I tripped on something on the floor, a rug maybe, I couldn't tell. Panic made deciphering shapes a little difficult right now. I stumbled and banged into the corner of an armchair, spun around and slammed my body into a wall nearby. Who needed to have an attacker to beat the shit out of them, I was doing OK on my own.
My knee found the hardwood again and in all the confusion one single piece of clarity broke through. Ben's beautiful cologne mixed with him surrounded me; so potent and strong. So real and present.
He was here.
I let an hysterical bark of laughter out, then had it promptly shut off as Roan's arm wrapped around my neck. My body was hauled back against his chest, his hot, sticky breath washed over my cheek.
Sweet Seduction Shadow Page 25