He grabbed a smaller chain—no more than four feet long and weighing next to nothing—then turned away from the wall. Those other farm tools weren’t necessary to teach Adeline a lesson. Between the chain and his fists he would school her well. He’d warned her. He’d promised that if she went near Liam, he’d beat her, then kill him.
He exited the cellar, slamming the wood door behind him. Taking several backward steps, he glanced up at the house. Light glowed from the second story and attic rooms. But he was only interested in one room.
Her lover’s.
Blood rushed to his head. Holding one end of the chain, he let the rest drop and dangle. As he slowly began wrapping the chain around the crease of his hand, he continued to stare at the window, noticed the creeping vine reaching for the glass, pointing, as if giving him a signal. Then the ivy, the window and house blurred into a yellow glow. In his mind, he stood in the hallway of the attic, a voyeur in his own home, holding his breath, fighting the agony and tears. Watched as his beautiful, manipulative, hateful Adeline rode another man. He ignored his numbing fingers, the way the chain pinched his skin. He only saw Adeline. Climaxing. “Taking that bastard into her mouth,” he muttered.
He knew she wasn’t capable of loving Liam. There were times he questioned if she even loved him. But she had a fondness for the man. Like an artist for his sculpture, she’d molded Liam’s mind, manipulated it in order to create a version of herself.
She did the same to you.
No. His eyes swam with unshed tears. She had been right. He was, and had always been, just like her.
After all these years, he’d finally realized the truth.
He should be analyzing the situation, making plans to seek medical help, go to the authorities and tell them what he and Adeline had done, who Adeline had murdered in the past. For forcing him to take a long hard look at himself and making him understand exactly who and what he was, he should want her dead. He couldn’t kill her. Whether he wanted her to be or not, she was his life force. The one person who had kept him going. Even before his obsession with finding a cure for her murderous ways, she’d inflicted him with something that had gone beyond love. Now he knew she hadn’t inflicted him with anything. She hadn’t poisoned his mind. Just like Adeline, he was born wrong.
Now it was time to find out what it was like to be her. To beat and have no remorse. To kill and not care. Tonight, there would be plenty of killing. Starting with Liam.
With murder on his mind and the urge to break bone, he ran onto the porch and tore into the house. He slammed the backdoor shut. Glass shattered.
“What happened?” Adeline called, and hurried around the corner. Her eyes widened when she saw him, and her foot slipped as she stopped herself against the corner of the wall. “Why do you have that around your hand?”
“I told you to stay away from him.”
Still staring at the chain, she took several quick steps backward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to bed.”
He rushed her, raced around the corner, lengthening his strides until she was a foot away. He lunged, fell on top of her, then gripped her by the hair. She screamed, the sound almost as pretty as her sensual groans.
“Shut your filthy mouth,” he said, dragging her by the hair with his chain-free hand.
She clawed at him, broke skin, kicked her leg and twisted her body. When they reached the staircase, he continued to drag her by the hair. She’d smartened up, though. Used the heels of her hands and feet to help her ascent, and to likely keep her hair from coming out at the roots.
“Rod,” she pleaded on a tortured cry. “Please stop. Tell me why you’re doing this.”
When they reached the second story landing, he let go of her hair, bent, then gripped her mouth. “Get up.” He squeezed her jaw tightly. “Or I’ll lift you by the throat.”
Tears streaming down her face, her dark curly hair a tangled mess, she moved first to her knees, then to her bare feet. He shoved her against the wall. Her head bounced off the plaster. Her eyes dazed, her mouth slack, she started to slide down the wall and to the floor.
“Either get on your feet and walk up those attic stairs, or I’m going to wrap this chain around your ankles and drag you there.” He fisted his hand and shook the rusted chain. “What I should do is free the blonde, strap you to her bed, tape open your eyes and take her right in front of you.” Nodding and liking the idea, he added, “After I cover you in Liam’s blood.”
Narrowing her eyes and pressing her palms against the plaster, pain crossed her face as she slowly rose. “Have you been shooting the A-Line?”
He smiled. “This is all me. Just like you wanted.”
She shifted her gaze to the staircase leading to the attic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you want to kill Liam, do it.” She looked back at him. “He means nothing to me. I never wanted anything to do with him. I just wanted to make you jealous so you would come to my bed again. But I see I pushed you too far.”
If he hadn’t watched her have sex with the man, he would have believed her. She was a damned fine actress.
“I am going to kill him, after you say those exact words in front of him.”
Her dark brow lifted slightly. “No problem.” She pushed off the wall, swayed, then started for the steps.
“While I fuck you in front of him.”
She paused, and glanced over her shoulder. “And you think I’m the psychopath.”
****
Mel held her breath, tuned out Madeline’s recorded voice, and waited. Strained her ears, hoping to hear the creaks and groans of the stairs. In a short time, she’d grown accustomed to the sounds of the house. Although she’d been unconscious when brought to her prison, she’d seen the staircase when she’d scooted her way into Harrison’s room. While she’d lain in bed, avoiding the gore on the TV, she’d heard footsteps along the stairway to the attic, to the point that she could tell the difference between Roderick and Madeline’s. Right now, it sounded as if both of them were heading up the stairs. But who was residing on that level?
She assumed Eliot was there, but now wondered about another man. Liam. At least that was the name she’d thought she had heard. She’d been so shocked and scared—sickly satisfied, too—when Madeline had been screaming and crying, she could have imagined the man’s name. The rest of Madeline and Roderick’s conversation had been too muffled to understand, but based on Roderick’s tone, on the way the walls had rattled, it was obvious the two were arguing.
The stairs continued to creak under two sets of footsteps. She finally released the breath she’d been holding, then went back to work. Madeline had been so concerned with keeping her distance when Mel had been forced to move from her room into Harrison’s, then back again, the woman hadn’t noticed when Mel had pulled the switchblade free from her sock. The crying jag Mel had gone through on the floor of Harrison’s room hadn’t been for Madeline’s benefit, it had been real, and had given her the opportunity to try for the knife. Once she’d had it in her fist, she’d crawled to her room, her heart breaking for Harrison as she’d vowed to get even with Madeline. But she couldn’t think about Harrison, or how he would be once they left this place. She needed to maintain focus.
Her eyes stung. Her stomach continued to seize with the same painful cramps that had been piercing her abdomen from the moment she’d become conscious.
She wouldn’t give up. Although her eyes were taped open, she worked blind and on instinct. She’d had the small switchblade since she was kid, and had always kept it—along with all of her knives—razor sharp. Dull knives were more dangerous than sharp ones. Right now, she needed this blade to cut through the rope attached to her wrist.
Madeline and Roderick had made a mistake. Although they’d made sure the rope had been tied tightly around her wrists, they’d given her enough slack to turn her arm and use the switchblade to saw the rope tethered to the bed frame. She had no idea how much of it she’d cut through. For
now, her only concern was keeping the blade in her hand.
A door slammed above her. Straining her eye muscles she looked upward, then smiled when Madeline screamed…until a thought occurred to her.
What if Roderick was crazier than Madeline?
****
Roderick struck Adeline again, knocking her to the floor. She didn’t cry out this time. With the back of her hand, she smeared the blood trickling from her lips. “Is that all you got?” she asked, but didn’t try to rise.
He glanced to Liam, who glared at him with hatred. The malevolence in the man’s eyes would have meant something if he were still conducting an experiment. But his ideologies had changed. Or rather, he’d finally accepted who he and Adeline were. There was no need to fix them. There was nothing wrong with either of them. The years he’d spent studying the brain and how different drugs affected it, had been a waste. Maybe he and Adeline, and others like them, weren’t sick or deficient, but special? Only the special ones had the courage to take someone else’s life. The rewards? Power. Freedom.
He shook his head as he realized how right Adeline had been. “Freedom of the mind, freedom from morality,” he said, repeating what Adeline had told Liam while she had been riding the bastard. He took his fist wrapped in the chain and punched Liam in the groin. “Freedom to embrace being a psychopath.”
Liam’s muted cries filled the room. Rodney glanced away from the prick to look at Adeline. “I wonder if I broke your toy. Do you want to pull his penis out of his pants and investigate?”
She shook her head. Instead of showing fear, her eyes held curiosity. “What do you plan to do to me?”
“Nice apology. You’re not going to try and defend yourself, or offer up a valid excuse for why you cheated on me?”
“I’ve murdered four people, and tricked you into killing Troy. Cheating doesn’t quite rank up there on my list of no-nos.”
His vision swam with rage. She’d tricked him? “Troy beat you. He tried to rape you. When I walked into the room he was choking you.”
She leaned against the wall and spread her legs. “He was mad that I wouldn’t finish him off.”
The chain bit into his skin as he tightened his fist.
“I knew you were just about done with Noah, and that you’d be right outside the door. So, I sucked on Troy’s big cock, took him right to the edge, then stopped.” A sexy smile played along her bloody lips as she touched herself. “You should have seen the look on his face. He still had A-Line humming through his veins, so I knew he wanted to kill me.”
“He was on the placebo.”
“Every time you gave him the placebo, I gave him A-Line. I wasn’t ready to see if your drug worked.” She rested her head against the wall and cupped her breast. “I could have done without being choked, but God did I love the way you stormed into the room to save me. You looked so damned sexy. When you wrapped your belt around his throat…” She slipped her hand inside her panties. “Then smashed his head.”
He rushed over, then yanked her arm from her underwear. “How did he get free?” he asked, releasing her.
“I loosened the rope, silly,” she said, then dipped her finger into her mouth.
“Were you planning on doing the same with Liam?” he demanded, the thought tainting his love for her, the betrayal crushing him. “Or were you going to have him help you kill me?”
She frowned. “If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you a long time ago. I might have done things you disapprove of, but I never want to see you die.”
“Right. Because you love me,” he said with sarcasm, yet clung to the hope that she did love him. Maybe he didn’t know the true meaning of the word, but whatever it was he and Adeline had, he didn’t want to lose it. He’d been with her for too long to know how to go on without her.
“As much as you love me.” She cocked her head and looked toward Liam, who’d finally stopped moaning. “Again, what do you plan to do to me? You said something about beating me, then killing him.”
“You’re right, I did mention that.” Except Adeline could take the beating, and he doubted she’d care if Liam died. He wanted her to show remorse. He wanted her to hurt. And not just her body. For what she’d done to him, to them, she deserved it. “Stand up.”
“I can’t. I’m too weak,” she said, her tone bored.
Liam’s muffled chuckled came from behind him.
Hatred and humiliation suddenly burned through his veins. He yanked her by the hair. She gripped his wrist, cried and struggled as he pulled her toward the bed where Liam lay. “Shut your mouth.” He let go of her hair, pulled the handcuffs from the drawer near the bed, then reached for her.
She swung her arms and kicked her legs. “Don’t do this,” she shouted and panted. “Beat me, kill him, but don’t do this.”
He pinned her with his weight, loved the way she clawed at his back, and snapped a cuff around her wrist. “Why are you afraid?” he asked, pressing his hand with the chain against her throat. “Are you worried about not having control?” She wheezed and slapped his arm, just as he secured the other cuff to the bedframe.
He eased his hand off her throat and leaned back. Ran the chains along her breasts, then stood. Adeline coughed as he snagged duct tape off the table. He tore a piece. “You have no idea how many times I would have liked to shut you up,” he said, sealing her mouth mid-cough.” He leaned down and placed his lips to her ear. “I don’t think beating you and killing Liam will hurt you enough. What will?” He nipped her ear. “What would humiliate you? You on your knees begging?”
For the first time ever, Adeline’s cold exterior cracked. Her eyes dilated with fear. Her nostrils flared as she took in short, quick breaths. He smoothed her hair from her face. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. But I will teach you a lesson. No one cheats on me.”
He stood, then left the room. The equipment he used for his experiments were in his childhood bedroom on the first floor. Adeline had been determined to create a psychopath, and he honestly believed she’d succeeded with Liam. He also believed that because she’d vested herself in the man, had risked punishment to be with him, that simply killing Liam would be too easy. The man’s death would probably bother her for a split second, then she’d move on and forget about him. That had been the way she’d acted after she’d murdered her roommate and Geoff. She hadn’t shown an ounce of remorse over killing their child, and he hadn’t a clue that she’d decapitated Gramma. So Liam’s death wouldn’t be a big deal. But he knew Adeline just as much as he now knew himself. He knew what would hurt her.
He’d kill Liam, had planned to all along, but he’d fix him first. He would destroy what she’d created, and in the process, make one important fact crystal clear…he held the power.
Chapter 19
The House of Archer, Bower, Georgia
Monday, 9:47 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time
MEL SHOVED THE knife between the mattress and box spring. She glanced to the heart rate monitor. Moving too fast. She forced herself to relax and use some of the breathing exercises she’d learned from doing Pilates. As her heart rate dropped, she kept her eyes off the TV and listened for movement from the hallway.
Two people had gone to the attic, but only one set of heavy footsteps had pounded down the staircase. Roderick’s? Then where was Madeline? While she couldn’t care less if the woman was dead, she was concerned what that meant for her and Harrison, along with anyone else being held there.
With no intention of becoming another one of Roderick and Madeline’s victims, she used all of her energy and pulled her arm toward the bed, hoping, praying, she’d cut the rope enough it would snap. No luck. There was extra give, so she must be close.
Should she risk using the knife again, or wait for more of Roderick’s footsteps? She knew he hadn’t gone into Harrison’s room—the hinges of his door could use oil—and assumed he’d gone to the lower level. What if he’d gone down there with the intent to come to her and Harrison, drug them again or, t
his time, kill them?
Deciding to risk it, she ran her hand along the side of the mattress. Her fingertips brushed on the small handle of the blade. Keeping her concentration solely on retrieving the knife and nothing else, she carefully pulled it free.
Roderick’s heavy steps groaned from the hallway. She froze, squeezed the handle tightly, worried fear and an unsteady hand would make her accidentally drop the switchblade.
She let out a shaky breath when the stairs leading to the floor above her complained, creaking under his weight. Confident he wouldn’t be coming for her—yet—she went back to work on the rope. She would free herself. She’d cut the damned rope, remove the rest of her bindings, then help Harrison.
Harrison.
He’d been in a strange state of mind when she’d crawled from his room, and rightfully so. Since returning to her prison, she’d tried to not think about him, about what had happened, but she couldn’t help herself. Madeline had raped him, with the intent to humiliate, and to test what she’d thought was a married couple. They might not be married, but she’d realized how much she loved her friend. She ached for him, for what Madeline had done to him, and couldn’t wait to tell him how much she admired his strength. He’d kept his cool, had endured the assault with gritted teeth, and in the end he’d won. He hadn’t given Madeline any satisfaction, forcing the raunchy whore to quit.
A loud thud came from the ceiling, rattling the walls and the windowpanes.
Then Madeline screamed…
****
“Go ahead and rape me,” Adeline shouted as Rodney tossed the shirt he’d ripped from her body to the floor. “If that’s what will make you feel like a man.” She grinned and decided to go for the throat. “Better yet, why not make this rape interesting and force me to suck on him while you take me from behind. I promise not to enjoy it.”
He grabbed her throat, thankfully without the hand wrapped in metal, and squeezed. “Or maybe I should cut off his dick.”
Perfectly Toxic Page 31