Текст книги "Both of Her"

Автор книги: Kathy Coopmans

Соавторы: Alisa Mullen
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

TWENTY -ONE

Annie is standing in the basement with a sponge and a bucket. This is the basement? It smells almost as bad as the barn, but different. My eyes move to the right where there are rocks falling down from the side of the concrete on one of the walls. They look like they have been there a while since there is a disgusting looking cat poking its face into the holes in between the rocks. What the fuck is it looking for? I smell cat piss, but there is a different smell that I can’t seem to place my finger on. The floor looks like animals have been slaughtered in here. Just a few minutes ago, I felt like I was being dragged to a slaughter house and here I am ready for the slaughter.  Annie looks down at the floor to inspect it, seeming satisfied with her cleaning duties.

Annie’s office clothes are long gone. She looks like a little kid in overalls, with a V-neck sweater underneath, and black combat boots on her feet. She matches Colin’s attire in an eerie way. Are they part of some weird underground murder ring or something? How did I not know who they really were all of this time? She stands at attention for Colin to give her the next set of instructions. I can’t help keeping my mouth tight in a firm line because of the wretched smell. I think I’d rather smell Heath’s shit and piss compared to this.

“Over there?” she asks with her finger pointed. Colin and I look toward a cot with a pillow and chains hanging from the concrete walls.

“That’s perfect,” Colin gleams. “And the camera is set up?”

Annie huffs. “Why do you want to tape this? It will be really bad if we ever get caught.”

Colin shakes his head furiously. “No way. I want my first time with Luca West on video.”

Annie looks pained as she picks up the bucket and takes it to the sink on the other side of the basement.

“Why does she look so sad?” I ask, my voice is steel. I could give two fucks about how sad she is. If Lucia were here instead of Luca, I might enjoy screwing this man right in front of her, if only for the satisfaction of seeing her squirm while the man she loves take another. Stupid. Stupid girl.

Colin pulls me over to the bed and as he starts to chain me to the wall, he rolls his eyes. “She thinks I want to fuck her.” He laughs and looks back at Annie. “She didn’t know she was just a stepping stone to you. She isn’t all that bad in bed and I’ll probably do her again. She likes it rough and up the ass.” He looks her way, his eyes landing on her behind.

I blanch at his disgusting, vulgar words. Annie’s snickering sounds forced and yet, I imagine that she listens to this type of talk from Colin all the time. I look to find her setting up a tripod and a video camera directed toward me. I am still so damn cold, but don’t know what type of treatment I will receive from Colin if I say so. It is definitely warmer than the barn… where Heath is still tied up and dying. My heart sinks and I remind myself that all those times I took advantage of the men and their jewels were wrong. I should’ve listened to the angel on the right shoulder when it said to be the good girl my parents expected from me.

I can’t help but start to cry. My parents have absolutely no idea the fucking mess I am in. I hiccup when I think of what they will say at my funeral. Will they be so disgusted when they hear about the life I’ve led for all of these years that they decide against a funeral? Who the hell would go after everything I’ve done to hurt my friends, my business, and my family?

“She’s crying, Colin,” Annie laughs out. “I think it’s time we give her a little something to really cry about.” She sounds so damn pleased with herself. Doesn’t she know she is committing crime after crime? She never would have gotten a job at Divider with a record, so either she didn’t tell us who she really is or she is changing everything she is for this joker. For a moment, I feel badly for her. She is a promising woman who is mixed up with the wrong type of people.

The wrong type of person.

Me.

I am the key ingredient to all of this. I did this with my lifestyle. I never thought any harm could come to me, and yet, here it was all along.

Colin looks taken back from the tears streaming down my face. It looks like he is struggling between wanting to reach out and brush the tears away and well…something else. Something much different. I notice the minute his face turns resolute and he’s made his decision.

Leaning up against the wall with my hands chained taught, I watch as Colin puts his forearms underneath my ass. He pulls down my yoga pants and stares at the tiny white lace thong I have left on. His breathing becomes hard as he pulls out a knife.

I gasp and scream at the same time, knowing that he wants to cut me. He wants to fucking cut me, all over my body, so I am ugly to all the other men out there. For the first time in my life, I don’t care about how any other man will look at me. I care about Camden, and if by some miracle I do survive this, I know without a doubt he will love me no matter what I look like.

“Spread your legs,” he growls out. He shucks off his shoes and tosses them to the wall far away from my cot. Turning around, he sees that I haven’t complied with his demands and he grows agitated.

“Spread those fucking legs, Luca,” he lividly yells, shoving the knife closer to my pussy to make a point.

“What…what are you going to do?” I struggle to get out. Annie laughs and I throw a look at her to see that she is already recording whatever it is he is going to do.

“Well, first, I’m going to have some fun with that beautiful pussy of yours. Then, I’m going to cut you in ways that will make you bleed all over, so you’ll remember who was here. You will beg for me to lick your wounds, then I plan to take that ass of yours forever.” He pauses, before saying, “Should I continue with what I’m going to do with you after I eat dinner?”

I shake my head vigorously. Panic encompasses my whole being. I am filled with such panic that I think I am going to fucking pass out. This is just like my dream I had about Heath, but, fuck, it was Colin all along.

“Why?” I draw out the word through my gritted teeth.

Colin pushes my legs apart for me as he slowly rubs his hands up and down the insides of my thighs.

“So beautiful,” he states, mesmerized.

A grunt comes from Annie behind him. He whips his head around with a foul look on his face. “Get the fuck out of here, Annie. Your services are no longer needed at this time.”

She pales as I watch them stand off in a stare down. What the fuck did she think was going to happen?

“You said you were going to torture her, not make her feel good. You said…” Annie starts.

“I changed my fucking mind. I’ve wanted Luca since I first met her. She was always meant to be mine, and if there is a tiny chance she will agree to be mine, I plan to have a long, happy life with her. She was always supposed to be mine.” His? I will never be his. I would rather him kill me, cut me until there is nothing left. Never will I be his.

Annie looks as if she was just punched in the face. “But you said you loved me,” she whimpers to Colin. I want to snort, but I am so damn cold and terrified, I can’t find it in me to sympathize with the fucking bitch.

“Get the fuck out of here, Annie!” Colin screams out at her.

Annie scrambles to move toward the stairs. With one look over her shoulder, I see the contempt and hatred she has for me. How can she seriously be in love with this fucker? He is certifiably psychotic and she wants him? Like this? She threatened to kill me, so I couldn’t have him. Why is she walking away? I want to scream at her to come back, to make good on her promise to let me die by her hands. My tortured soul to float away into the red and black depths of hell.

Turning my head back to Colin, his sinister smile makes me want to throw up. He takes the knife down to the edge of one side of my thong and with a snap, he cuts it off. He slowly moves to the other side with the tip of the knife grazing my stomach. Another snap and my thong is off. His deep inhale tells me he is happy. The erection he grinds against my leg tells me he is about to do things to me that I never imagined.

“Please, not like this. I don’t want to get pregnant. I don’t want you to…” I try to think of anything that will get him to stop. He has to stop and I have no control over how to get this done.

Colin begins to chuckle as his tongues starts to lick the line above my pussy where the knife had just skimmed.

“Please, I don’t feel so good. I think I’m going to be sick. I…I…” Tears are flowing down my face and I feel so damn helpless. He is going to rape me and there is nothing I can do about it.

“Will you just shut up for a little while? I’m not going to take you on a basement cot. We have lots of time to be with each other. This is the beginning of us, Luca. Don’t you see? We were always meant to be together. When I have you, it will be in a bed, surrounded by candles and you won’t be tied up against your will. You will want me just as much as I want to be with you.”

Loud stomping and yelling comes from above and I twist out of Colin’s hold on my stomach, only to feel the burning of the blade cut into my skin. Even the cold strumming its way through my body doesn’t stop the sharp pain where he glides his knife through my flesh. He fucking did it. He cut me. But when I look up to his face, he is scowling at the ceiling of the basement, not realizing that he cut me. I look down to see it is about an inch long and it probably wasn’t premeditated. When I moved, he cut me. I shouldn’t have moved. What am I thinking?

Annie’s loud voice and boots barrel down the stairs. When I finally see her face staring at Colin, I know something is happening and it isn’t good for them.

“He’s gone,” Annie yells. “The fucker got out of the barn. I followed a trail of blood to the start of the road, but then the blood stops. It’s like he was picked up on the road.”

Colin swears over and over as he starts to get up. Before he turns to leave me, he swipes the knife straight across my stomach so deep I immediately start to scream in pain. Before I know what he is going to do to next, he and Annie are gone. I am left alone in the basement of this house, bleeding so badly that I can feel the wetness pour all over every inch of my bottom half.

TWENTy – TWO

I know a long time has passed since Colin and Annie were down here with me. I am going in and out of consciousness and the small window that is above the sink slowly goes dark with the encroaching night. How long have I been gone? They drugged me back in Chicago and I woke up in the barn. How long was I out?

My stomach is aching both inside and out. I scream. I whimper. I groan. My hands can’t find their way to my stomach because they are so tightly attached to the cement wall. I can’t even move to cover up my exposed bottom half. I try to curl up, but when I move the wound that is fighting to clot reopens. The bleeding begins again.

I want my mom. I want Camden. I am going to bleed to death and no one will be here when I take my last breath. Never in my life have I been so scared of being alone. I call out for Colin, hoping at least he will come down here and stay with me as I die. Then, I think if he comes back down here, he will do other things to me before I take my last breath. I can’t decide which is worse at this point. My mouth is so dry. I close my eyes, thinking of all the things in my life I have taken for granted. The beaches of Lake Michigan. Not visiting my parents as often as I should. The way I’ve lived my life. Using men for my own personal selfishness. I’m a fraud. A disguise, even in my own body. I don’t even know my own true self.

After what feels like hours, I hear a door upstairs slam shut and I jump. The female crying has to be Annie. She is out of control. She sounds inconsolable. Colin is talking, but I can’t hear what either one of them is saying. It’s like I am in a bubble of plastic again and everything feels so far away from me.

The words “hand cuffs” and “gone” shrill through Annie’s outburst. So, had Heath done it? Had he gotten out of the handcuffs with my hair pins? If she is still crying out in hysteria, he is obviously gone. If he is gone, then maybe he will go find me some help. I can’t help but remember the last time I saw Heath before today. He was so raging angry at me. He wanted nothing to do with me or Divider. He isn’t on my side. Come to think about it, he’s probably already half way back to his restaurant in Atlanta, not giving a second thought that I am still being held here. If Camden is dead from the gun shot, then he doesn’t have any reason to let anyone know about me.

“Don’t worry, Annie. We will get him. He will surface somewhere and my contacts will let me know when. I have everything under control.” Colin sounds irritated with Annie, but I don’t care, because they are on their way down to the basement to check on me.

Annie gasps the moment she sees me covered in blood.

“Oh Jesus. What did you do?” Annie asks. She’s as phony as I am. Her pouty little smirk tells me she hopes I do bleed to death.

She looks dirty, like she was out in mud, rolling around in the grass, but what I notice the most is that she looks warm. The flush in her face says that she is sweating. I’d do anything to feel warm.

“It’s just a surface cut. No big deal. She won’t bleed to death, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Colin covers his chin with his hand in an introspective gesture. Annie and I both watch him as he decides what next to do with me.

“I suppose those cuts will need to be cleaned before I cut her anymore. Go grab the alcohol and gauze I put out in the dining room. I need to get her cleaned up,” Colin says. He still looks like he is thinking about what he is going to do next.

“Alcohol? Are you crazy, Colin? She will scream bloody murder. We cannot use…”

“God damn it, Annie. Shut the fuck up. No one can hear her out here. Let her scream. Let the alcohol burn. She needs to feel the pain. The pain she’s caused me for years while I stood around, time and time again, picking her up from the airport, knowing she was with someone who was not ME!” he yells at the top of his lungs. I can’t take any more of this. Destiny is an unpredictable bitch. If Colin would have told me his feelings for me, who knows where our lives would be today? They definitely would not be here and those clients of mine would still be breathing.

Annie leaps up the stairs. I watch her disappear and within a minute, she is back next to my side with the first aid kit. She starts to take out brown and clear bottles of liquid. As she starts to uncurl my body, I scream in torturous pain. God, help me. I can’t get cut again.

My thoughts become my words.

“Please don’t cut me again. Please don’t cut me again. Please, I’ll do anything. Please,” I plead. I have never felt this vulnerable ever. I am so terrified.

“Colin, these cuts are really deep. She needs stitches,” Annie says in a hesitant tone. I cry out when she roughly swipes across my cut with alcohol. A moment ago she didn’t want to use this form of treatment. She’s afraid of him, scared to disobey his commands.

In that moment, I know exactly what I have to do. I have to give Colin everything he wants if I want to live another day. I reach down deep for Lucia, the woman that sometimes had to pretend she loved the dresses she is given, or would scream in happy delight over a gaudy piece of jewelry I planned to never wear again, or the woman who would fake an orgasm just to get the weekend over with. Those weekends didn’t happen often; maybe once a year, but Carl always got an ear full after I had to perform the role of my life. Lucia pretended she was someone else. I have to pretend I am her and I want Colin so badly that I would do anything.

With all my resolve and all my Lucia power in mind, I feel the transition as if I am really sitting in first class and getting into role. It is so seamless. I don’t feel the cold. I don’t smell the mold, the piss, or anything but flowers, gowns, and jewelry.

“Colin, honey, please. I don’t want to get hurt again. I need to be warm and healthy for you. For our many nights together,” I say smooth and demurely.

The air in the room transitions the moment I purr out those words and like a subtle earthquake. I immediately see the moment Colin knows exactly what he plans to do next.

“Honey, I need a bath,” I whine. “Please, baby, I need the good bubbles and a loofa. Get me a warm bath going, would you? You’ll need to scrub my back and tend to my cuts. Did you already plan our dinner? I hope there will be plenty of champagne for us to toast our time together.”

The words are flowing out of me like a glacier melting in the sunlight. It’s pure and wild. I feel every word and it’s so easy, because when I’m Lucia, everything goes. There are no rules and like it or not, I am prepared to fuck the shit out of Colin if it’s the only thing I have to do to live another day.

“Wh-what the hell is she talking about?” Annie looks up to Colin with a scowl.

Colin’s grin is smug. He knows I am ready to play and I am ready to play with him. He rubs his hands together and shoots Annie a look of annoyance.

“Get upstairs and cook our dinner. We will want it in the master bedroom seating area. Set up the candles, Annie, and make sure the champagne goes on ice immediately.”

Colin comes to me and begins undoing the chains from my hands. He is so gentle and loving as he touches each of my wrists. He kisses them before lowering them to the sides of my body. Annie wasn’t able to stop the bleeding of the cut, so he picks me up and carries me up the stairs. Colin halts in the kitchen and places me on an old wooden chair that might break from the weight of my foreboding. Fear is creeping up every side of me like vines of a weed that grow, even in the dead of winter. It is impossible to think that this situation will end in anything but disaster.

Annie is talking and complaining about cooking our dinner and what I am trying to pull, but as Colin and I look in one another’s eyes, he ignores her. I can’t be happier about that. I have him under my spell, just like Lucia never failed to do. Annie won’t penetrate this. No one ever does.

“Are you actually going to believe that woman? She doesn’t want to have a fucking bubble bath with you. And a loofa? Are you fucking kidding me? She’s playing you, Colin. Don’t be so fucking stupid. She’s playing you so bad that…”

It all happens so fast. It’s like an old movie reel flying through black and white images of a guy flailing and a woman pointing her finger out at him like she is putting him in her place.

Except in the old comedy movies, there aren’t any murders. Not real ones, anyway. One minute she is bitching at him, telling him he is a stupid idiot and the next minute, he has her pulled in a choke hold and the one slice across her neck has me screaming at the top of my lungs.

Annie’s face registers shock in her last second of her life. Colin looks pissed, but as soon as her body drops, his knife is wiped off on his black jeans, his shit eating, smug grin is back in place, and he is delicately taking my hands so we can get to that bath.

“Hush, baby. It was a long time coming. She was needier than most girls I am with. It was getting pretty annoying,” he says in a tender voice, drawing me into a hug. “She’s in a better place now. She didn’t want me to be with you in the first place. Didn’t you see that? We saved her from that pain.” His voice shows no strain. No emotions from killing Annie. Nothing. His warped mind is focused on me, while I cannot help but pray for Annie’s soul. That somehow she truly is in a much better place than I am. That any of us are for that matter.

“But you…you killed her. You sliced open her neck,” I say, fighting the urge to throw up. I need to vomit. I need to heave and sob, but if I do anything out of control, he might get tired of me, too. I can’t do that. I have to stay in character. I have to stay strong. It’s the only way I will survive.

“You don’t have to worry about me, baby. I’ve done that quite a few times and I haven’t been caught yet. We will be together. Now, let me get you into the bath and I will clean this up. Once I am done, I will join you in the tub.”

He runs down to the basement without notice and immediately I look around for a phone. I know if I went outside right now with this cut and no pants, I wouldn’t make it far. I see a mustard looking phone hanging from the wall and I plow toward it with all my strength.

Picking up the receiver, two things happen at once – Colin is back up the stairs staring at me with the phone at my ear and I realize the phone is dead. They don’t have a working land line to this property. Of course they don’t.

“Come on, Luca. Do you think I’m that stupid to have a working phone out here? We had all of that checked before I brought you here. No one knows you are here. No one will ever find you here. Don’t fight it. Just love me and everything will be okay. I get that you’re frightened, that this is a shock to you, but it will be okay,” he says, as he hands me the first aid kit in his hands. He looks like he is disappointed in me. That can’t be good.

I take the kit with shaking hands and quietly ask where the bathroom is. I can’t be in the same room with Annie’s bleeding body anymore. There is no hope for her. All I can do is tend to my cut and take a bath. Maybe if I pretend to become hysterical, he will inject that medicine in me again so I can sleep.

The last thing I ever want to do is have sex with Colin, pretending to be Lucia or not.

I cringe, stifling back my cries after cleaning myself up and stepping into the tub. I laugh uncontrollably. Why? I have no idea. I shouldn’t even be in this tub with a gash so deep. Dear god, put me into some kind of septic shock. End my life now, please.

“No.” The sweet sound of my mother’s voice embarks my thoughts. “I did not raise a quitter. I raised a strong confident woman who fights for what she wants. Works hard. Your father did not work his fingers to the bone for our daughter to give up. Fake it, Luca. Fake being in pain until you heel.”

I scramble to sit upright. Water sloshes all over the floor. That’s it. I can fake it. I’ve been faking two different lives for years. Smug. Confident. I can do this. For the last time in my life, I can become two different people. I can become both of her. Only the other woman will not be daydreaming about staying with a man her body demands to have, this time she will be planning his death.