Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series)

by A. T. Douglas

  As we get back in the car and I start the engine, I’m torn between excitement and pessimism. The clerk made it sound too good to be true. He followed them to the road leading into the Santa Lucia Range. He says there are only a few small towns and some scattered secluded houses throughout that part of the mountains.

  If the information is true, then they’re as good as trapped, and we’re going to find them.

  We leave Soledad and quickly find ourselves on more winding and treacherous roads surrounded by mountains. Trees and brush flank each side of us, seeming to close in on us the further we drive.

  My nerves hit a small peak when we arrive at the first small town and get directions for a few parts of the mountain range where there are known to be secluded houses. By the time we reach one of those areas and see a turnoff up ahead, anxiety is absolutely consuming me. This could be it. This could be the road that leads us to Morgan.

  I glance at Robert. He appears to share my nerves, a look of uneasiness on his face beneath his signature hardened look that he always puts forward to the world.

  The small dirt road is rough and uneven, jostling us around in our seats the higher we climb. I drive slowly to keep our noise and dust level down. There’s no telling what could be waiting for us at the top of this hill.

  When I see the cabin appear in the distance, I immediately stop the car and reverse direction, opting to pull over where there was a small clearing at a previous widening in the road.

  “We should walk the rest of the way. Hidden approach,” I explain as I put the car in park.

  “Agreed. Let’s go.”

  Robert and I open and close our doors quietly before arming up with knives and guns from the trunk. I grab a small pair of binoculars and close the trunk with only the slightest click.

  We move directly into the trees and brush, working our approach from the tree line to maintain as much cover as possible. I want to go in there with guns blazing to pull Morgan out as fast as possible, but I know it’s better to scope out the cabin first.

  We hit the tree line that surrounds the large clearing out in front of the cabin. The building and the pickup truck parked outside it are tucked away within the trees at the back end of the clearing, the perfect place to hide from the world.

  I take out the binoculars and look through each of the windows for any sign of movement, but I see nothing. We keep circling the cabin from the tree line, checking all the windows over and over again.

  I’m not willing to sit here and let our minutes of waiting turn into hours. “We need to go in. We can’t wait–” I cut myself off as I finally see it. A curtain moves in the room next to the front door and a light turns on. The outline of the figure through the thin curtain is all I can see, but it means there is life within there. Answers are within our grasp.

  On the other side of the front door, a light is now visible through the window. I briefly see hands reaching across the viewable space of the window for something, but I don’t see who they belong to. My heart is beating so violently in my chest that I’m sure Robert can hear it next to me. The anticipation is almost unbearable as we wait to see who it is.

  She enters our view.

  An elderly woman.

  “Fuck,” I curse under my breath, dropping the binoculars from my eyes. It feels like the world has just been pulled out from underneath me.

  “What is it?”

  “This isn’t it. It can’t be the right place.”

  Robert grabs the binoculars from me and looks at the cabin himself. Even without the binoculars, it’s now easy to tell that the person we’re observing is not Mark, Jack, or Morgan.

  When an elderly man enters the view of the window, it’s certain.

  She’s not here.

  With a quick sigh, Robert hands the binoculars back to me. “Let me go talk to them. Maybe they have some information. Back me up from here just in case.”

  Robert drops the majority of his gear, taking only his handgun and tucking it in the holster on his hip under his jacket.

  As he emerges from the tree line into the clearing, I feel the tightening in my throat.

  As he approaches the door and knocks, the tightening becomes a hard knot.

  As the old woman answers, speaks with him, and shakes her head, a tear falls down my face.

  I wipe my eyes on my sleeve with my shoulder without losing sight of where my gun is trained. I take a deep breath and refocus.

  I will not abandon hope. There is no giving up.

  15

  His Determination

  ∞

  Not once have I forgotten him.

  The man who woke me up,

  made me see, breathed life into me.

  His grip tight on my fingers.

  Holding on.

  Pulling me from the gray,

  the static, the solitude.

  He faced it all despite his own demons,

  never wavering,

  and will continue to do just that.

  He will find my reaching grasp again.

  In his arms I will be free.

  ∞

  Comfort. Warmth.

  With my eyes closed, these feelings around me are even more pronounced, as if I have a heightened sense for them given the amount of physical and mental pain my body has had to endure.

  I won’t be fooled, though. I may only just now be reentering the conscious world, but in that down time that I was gone from here, I haven’t forgotten what happened.

  Mark found me.

  I open my eyes and draw a deep breath. Jack’s sitting in a chair next to me, his head bowed, the light in the room fighting to reach his face. His hand rests on my forearm just below where an IV line is inserted into the crook of my elbow. The rest of me is sprawled out on a rustic couch. The cozy cabin that is my hell surrounds me, lit up in the teasing glow of sunset that seeps through the window from the outside world.

  Jack looks up at me, absolute concern affecting every aspect of his face. “Thank God,” he whispers.

  Mark doesn’t appear to be around, and I’d rather keep it that way as long as possible, so I match my voice to Jack’s whisper. “The baby…”

  “Is fine,” Jack finishes for me. “You, however, are not in good shape. You’re dehydrated. Your hands and wrists are a mess. If you got stuck out there, they could have become infected. So many bad things could have happened. We’re lucky we found you.”

  I can’t help turning away as he says this. The disappointment of my failure weighs heavily on me. “I tried, Jack. I had my chance, and I blew it.”

  “You were in no shape to try to escape this place. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking.”

  He sounds just Leo, and it fuels the deep-seated fury inside me that results from the people in my life questioning my decisions. It makes me angry, causing my words to come out as a low growl. “I was thinking I needed to escape the man who beat me and raped me and wants to take my baby as his own.”

  “It’s his child, Morgan.”

  “It’s not.”

  The moment the words slip out of my mouth, I look around the room in terror. I cannot let Mark know that there’s a chance the baby isn’t his.

  Thoughts flash through my mind of what he would do to the innocent, defenseless child if he found out that it didn’t carry his own DNA. He’d harm it, destroy it, or use it against me. He could keep the baby from me until he was certain I was pregnant again with his actual child, or keep us separated for the rest of our lives.

  He can’t know.

  Jack’s lips part in shock. He leans in closer to me. I can barely hear him speaking. “What are you talking about? You and Leo?”

  I give him a small nod. “The night you told us. I asked Leo to do it just in case our escape plan failed. It’s possible the baby’s his.”

  Jack looks away from me, lost in his own thoughts.

  I’ve been so concerned about the baby that I haven’t even looked at my own physical condition until now. My lef
t hand is splinted with something in my palm and my fingers are separated by something soft, cotton balls maybe, all underneath a thick layer of stretchy material that keeps my hand completely in place. My right hand is wrapped in gauze from wrist to knuckle. The blood I taste on my lip and the aching feeling throughout my head tell me I’m probably better off not knowing what my face looks like right now.

  I hear a door open and close. Mark walks in the room from down the hall, and my body instantly stiffens. I wish I could sink all the way into the couch and disappear.

  Jack sees him coming straight for me but makes no move to get up from the chair by my side. He’s protecting me, and I love him for it.

  Mark looks down at me with disgust. “You’re a stupid girl, you know.”

  “I’m strong,” I bite back. The sharp tongue I’ve held back for far too long is reemerging with a vengeance.

  “No. You’re just foolish and careless. I don’t know how you thought you could survive out there like this.”

  Internally I know he’s right, but I won’t admit it to his face. I remain silent.

  Mark moves for my shirt, grabbing it and pulling me up from the bed forcefully until I’m right in his face. I should be terrified, but I’m not. I think of Leo and how many times he must have been in this situation with Mark when he was growing up. Mustering all my strength, I keep my face even and hold his gaze.

  “She’s been through enough!” Jack yells from behind Mark.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him pulling at Mark’s shoulder to get him off me, but Mark pushes him back with the simple sharp movement of one arm, knocking him off balance and causing him to slam his head against a shelf and crumble to the floor.

  Mark’s full attention is back on me, his deep brown eyes bulging. “Don’t you ever endanger the life of my child again. Do you understand? That baby saved your life today. If not for it growing inside you, I may have ended you back there in the woods or strangled you here on this couch. If I didn’t need you to provide nourishment for the baby when it’s born, you wouldn’t live past childbirth. If I didn’t want to keep you around to provide me more children, I’d have no reason to let you live beyond the first.”

  He’s trying to break me down, to instill fear in me and remind me of my place, but I’ve found my stubbornness again. I won’t give in to him, not yet.

  I remain silent.

  Mark lets go of my shirt, and I fall back to the couch. For a moment I bask in the feeling of success in remaining strong, enjoying this rare victory over him.

  Then he grabs my face, digging his nails into my skin and drawing blood. He brings his nose within inches of mine. “You’ve only made things worse for yourself. I hope you realize that.”

  My breathing quickens involuntarily as his other hand pulls up my shirt to find my tender breast. He cups it in his palm and squeezes hard before pinching my nipple and giving it a violent twist. It’s the first time he’s touched me intimately in months, and I can’t deny the fear that suddenly swells within me from it, chipping away at the tough exterior I’ve put forward.

  I start to panic as Mark reaffirms his grip on my face and lowers his mouth to my nipple, pulling at it and sucking on me aggressively. “You’ll give in to each of my wants and desires.” He takes my nipple between his teeth and bites down, causing me to flinch at the sharp pain. “You’ll sleep in my bed at night. You’ll live in this part of the cabin, but you’ll never leave my sight.” His free hand slides down beneath the lining of my underwear, and I gasp as his fingers invade me and rub me and feel me, his entire hand participating in this latest sickening violation of my body that I am powerless to stop. “I will own you, Morgan, more so than I ever have before, and there will be no further attempts at escape. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  My body trembles beneath him as his words sink into me, and what’s left of my stubbornness gives way.

  I nod slightly.

  “Good.”

  When Mark’s hands leave me and he walks away, I feel like I’m left with nothing. I look to Jack recovering on the floor from his fall and observe the concern and worry on his face.

  I’ve truly failed. My face and hands are mangled. My body is no longer exempt from Mark’s sexual intentions. My sleeping arrangements have just taken the worst possible turn. I will be tied to the hip with this monster for months and possibly years to come, expected to give him anything and everything he wants from me.

  There will be no escape, but I will continue to be strong. I may slip back into the depths of darkness but with the hope that a guiding hand might find me. Someone may be there to pull me back up someday, and I will be ready for it.

  I will endure so that someday I may be free.

  16

  Her Beauty

  ∞

  My eyes had never seen

  that which is true beauty.

  So fragile, yet serene and content.

  Out there and unafraid.

  Perfection.

  Inward and outward.

  Mind and body.

  In all things so real,

  yet simultaneously impossible.

  She is and will remain to me

  beyond beautiful.

  ∞

  The darkness of night is well upon us, but we continue through the mountains. We follow a winding dirt road, endless and teasing, through the valleys.

  It’s difficult to know that Morgan is somewhere in these woods but remains unseen. She is well within my reach, yet I am blind to her. I can almost hear her screaming for me, her sounds all around me, and I have no direction how to find her.

  It’s maddening.

  My fingers tap nervously on the steering wheel as I drive the car as fast as I can take it without running off the swerving road. Robert sits next to me quietly. The deflation in spirit between us is disheartening, but we aren’t giving up. Not tonight. Not ever.

  A curve in the road comes up too quickly for my speed, and I jerk the steering wheel to keep the car from running into a ditch. Adrenaline shoots through me, but I readjust and slow down, my senses now hyperaware and focused on the road ahead.

  “You okay? Not falling asleep, are you?” Robert asks with concern.

  I glance at him. In the glow of the lights from the dashboard, he looks a bit terrified. I’m about to apologize to him for my wild driving when my eyes turn back to the road and I see it.

  A smaller dirt road ahead curves off up the hill in a perfect spotlight from the car’s headlights. It has to be the turnoff we’ve been looking for in this part of the mountains.

  A chill runs through me, and my nerves peak again. I immediately slow down and take the dirt road, turning off the headlights so that only the yellow glow from the parking lights illuminate our slow climb up the hill.

  “I don’t want to get my hopes up again,” I say quietly, as if whoever is at the end of this road may hear me.

  Robert shifts around in the seat next to me, readying his weapon and double-checking his gear. “There’s nothing wrong with hope.”

  Hope. I suddenly love that word and want to embrace it fully, to pour every ounce of my broken soul into it and let it repair me.

  The moment I see the light from a building in the distance, I take in a mental image of the road in front of me and cut the parking lights completely. The light of the moon through the break between the trees for the road is just barely enough to guide me to where it opens up in an area surrounding the cabin. I stop the car just before it and kill the engine.

  As I step out of the car, I realize we’re much closer to the cabin than I’d ideally want us to be for an approach to evaluate the scene. The dirt road was too narrow though, there being no turnoffs or wide shoulders for turning around. Our only course was up.

  Robert and I are silent as we arm up again and sneak through the trees, looking for an unblocked window. When we get a view of the other side of the cabin, my heart just about explodes in my chest.

  An old pickup truc
k, the same general model as Russo’s truck used the day that Morgan was taken during our failed escape from Mark, is parked next to a newer truck in the faint light coming from inside the house.

  “This is it,” Robert whispers with excitement next to me. “We fucking did it, Leo. She’s inside this house.”

  I’m speechless. I don’t even know what to say or think. My brain is thrown into even greater chaos when my eyes gaze upon the most beautiful sight.

  Morgan stands up into clear view through the window, her head bowed and her face shadowed, but the light from behind makes her hair and aura glow for me, highlighting the outline of the soft curves of her cheeks and the wisps of hair that fall down past her shoulders. My body screams at me to go to her, to pull her body to mine and hold her there for the rest of eternity, because I don’t think I could live through losing her again. She is right there. I need her, and she needs me.

  As she tilts her head up and turns around toward the light, all the excitement and elation I felt at seeing her gets ripped from my body. Her somber face is bruised and swollen, and her lip is cut. Fury builds inside me, but the moment I move to act upon it and run up to the house, Robert’s hand grabs my arm.

  “We can’t go barging in. We need a plan.”

  Robert’s eyes pierce into me through the patch of moonlight highlighting his face. I remain completely still. His words aren’t getting through to me.

  “We have one shot at this,” he emphasizes. “One shot. If we fail, he’ll kill her. We can’t blow it, Leo.”

  With another glance at the house, I realize Morgan has disappeared from the window. I wonder for a moment if she was ever there, if perhaps my mind conjured her up out of the hope I had been clinging to so desperately.

  My body finally concedes and stands down, inching back away from the cabin. “Okay. We observe and wait it out. We plan.” I take in our surroundings then look back to the cabin. “We need to scope out the entire place, identify entry points–”