HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) Read online

  “Sarah, she used to kill little girls. Suffocate them in their sleep,” said Linden, beaming from ear to ear with a big toothy grin. “She started this little habit when she was a kid, like nine or some shit. If that’s not the M.O. of a serial killer then I don’t know what is.”

  Sarah pressed her hand against her chest, feeling the bullet pendant beneath her shirt, and willed herself not to break down, as the axis of her entire world skewed off course in the blink of an eye. They had a long drive ahead of them, and this case just got personal.

  Chapter Six She hated to admit it, but the air here, the cool and fresh country air, its crisp, faintly humid texture, the way it thickly coated her lungs, alleviated Devon’s anxiety. She had promised herself she wouldn’t miss anything about the farmhouse, that nothing about it was good, likeable, worth missing, but she had forgotten about the air. It was so pure, so cleansing. Did the air have any idea what went on here? Or was it a blind angel, blissfully unaware?

  Devon tried lifting her head from the pillow, but a searing pain immediately tore through her right temple, and her head started swimming. The entire right side of her face felt sticky. She knew it was blood, cold drying blood. Instinctively, she reached her hand towards her temple, but was instantly met with the clang of resistance. Metal cut into her wrist. She tested it, jerking her hand up, challenging the handcuff. It rattled, but didn’t budge.

  She was completely shackled to the narrow steel bedframe, both wrists, both ankles.

  When she had been a little girl here, there had never been a need to use cuffs, though the men had threatened. The girls had all been so afraid they wouldn’t dare try anything. Devon guessed that since Hunter had escaped, followed by a great number of the girls including herself, the men had changed their game, stepped up their security and made good on their threats.

  Devon rolled her head to the left, sensing she wasn’t alone. The room was dim, but she could tell it was still daytime. On the neighboring bed a few feet away, Devon could make out a girl’s shape. For a split second, Devon panicked when she couldn’t see the girl’s chest rise and fall, breathing. Her face was turned away. Only the silhouette of a dark, messy, mop of hair could be seen. Devon didn’t recognize that mop of hair. Where was Margot, Andy, Jenna? Why had Devon been placed in some kind of common room, separated from the other girls? And why, for God’s sake, was that girl on the bed next to hers not moving?

  Devon again lifted her head, this time arching it this way and that, trying to get a sense of who else was here, which beds were occupied and which weren’t, and with any luck, find out where the windows were and if they were open.

  Without warning, she gasped, startled by the hollow pounding of boots against the wood floor. The sound was coming from just outside the doorway, echoing through the room.

  Her heart raced in terror, as memories flooded through Devon’s mind, carried by the loud footsteps. She had experienced this fear a hundred times, if not more. Suddenly she noticed her breathing was out of control. She was drawing in desperate heaves one after the next in such rapid succession that she worried she might pass out. But she couldn’t help it. There was nothing she could do or think to calm herself, as she stared, eyes wide and glued to the doorway.

  A figure filled the doorway, revealing the source of the footsteps. It was a tall man, his frame thick, broad, like a wall. He stood in shadows, in the darkness that he seemed to bring with him.

  Her vision blurred with tears. Devon knew he had come for her. But it was daytime, nothing bad usually happened during the day.

  As the man stomped slowly towards her bed, Devon watched his facial features come into view with the shifting light. She didn’t recognize him. She had never seen this man before in her life. Had Grizzly expanded his circle? Had he brought in more pedophiles to carry out his dark agenda?

  The man lifted Devon from the bed. When had he uncuffed her? It was a bone chilling realization. She remembered what it had been like here all those years, the terror induced loss of time, the holes in her memory, the way a child’s mind could block out the most heinous experiences. Had she already lost the memory of being released from the handcuffs?

  Devon screamed, kicking and clawing at the man, as he dragged then carried her from the room. When he passed through the doorway, Devon grasped hold of its frame, refusing to be taken any further. The man yanked her, saying nothing. It was eerie how silent he was. It was as though he wouldn’t acknowledge her, as though she was nothing more than an object.

  Suddenly she saw the face of the girl who lay in the neighboring bed. Devon screamed, releasing her grip. The girl’s face was black, charred, as though she had been burned. Her mouth was frozen, wide open. She must have died mid-scream.

  Panic more gripping and horrific than anything Devon had ever experienced seized her, stealing her breath, and stopping her heart from beating.

  Whatever nightmares she had survived all those years on the farm was nothing compared to this. She could feel it. Things had changed here. Girls were chained to their beds. The dead bodies of some were left to rot before everyone’s eyes. It was exponentially worse than it had been.

  It was then that Devon realized wherever the man was taking her, she would not return.

  The barn lay just ahead. He was carrying her across the field.

  A powerful rage surged through Devon and she began pounding her fists against the man’s chest, screaming all the while. He grabbed her by the hair abruptly in response and shook her. It was jarring enough to disorient Devon into a subdued state.

  There was no use fighting.

  Devon allowed her fear to consume her. She had been fighting it, trying to use the panic to her advantage, but there was no use. Enveloped in fear, her body went limp, falling hard to the ground.

  The next thing she knew, he had her by the ankles and she was being dragged through the back door of the barn.

  Once inside, Devon became instantly reminded of the horrors that had taken place behind these walls.

  A crowd of men stood towards the back. The sound of their breathing, coughing, and sniffling conveyed a sickness Devon had hoped she’d never hear again. There were more men than usual. They approached, gathering around a table.

  Devon knew the table was meant for her.

  She pitted her heels into the wooden floor of the barn, desperate to prevent herself from being tied up, but her strength was no match for the man’s.

  She knew what would come next. The thought of it, the anticipation made her stomach lurch in a violent dry-heave. She bent her head forward, allowing a trickle of bile to come up, dripping from her tongue. She tried spitting it out. The acidity burned her throat. The mess only only trickled down her chin.

  The hooks. The hooks would come next. She tried not to think about it, but how could she not?

  Devon looked up. There they were. Five thick metal hooks ordinarily used to hang large hunks of cow meat, sometimes deer, sometimes bear. That’s what would happen to the girls who didn’t obey. They would be strung up like a piece of meat. They would be gutted and hang dead for days, rotting in the heat. And eventually, they would get stuffed into a barrel, taken to the lake, where they would be gone but not forgotten.

  But Devon knew obeying was somehow worse. What the men would do to the girls who were strapped down on that table was a fate worse than death. She couldn’t believe she was back here. If she could have stopped her heart from beating, if she could have suffocated herself here and now, ending it all, escaping what was about to take place, Devon would have.

  Suddenly, Grizzly stood between Devon and the table. His eyes were too black pools of evil. He seemed to be laughing at her, though she couldn’t hear a thing. Her gaze drifted to the men behind Grizzly. They seemed to be laughing as well, cheering in fact, but Devon couldn’t hear them. It was as though her overwhelming terror had deafened her. Her legs turned rubbery and again the man had to hold her up. She was completely limp, petrified with fear.

  Tha
t’s when the song began to play. It was so loud she jumped. It wouldn’t matter if she screamed. No one would be able to hear her over the song.

  Just when she thought she would be carried to the table, the man dropped her to the ground instead. Were they going to make her crawl there as though she was choosing this?

  Grizzly turned, shifting his focus from Devon to the back of the barn. Devon strained to see what was there. The men turned as well, parting aside, revealing that there, standing against the back wall, was Blair.

  They weren’t going to torture Devon, at least not directly. They were going to do it to Blair. And they were going to make Devon watch.

  The men swarmed around Blair like vultures, causing Devon to lose sight of her temporarily, until they lifted her high above their heads, carrying her to the table.

  Devon noticed the hooks were lowering down, and the men each grabbed a hook while others held Blair down.

  Devon gasped. They were going to string her up alive. She couldn’t watch this. She pinched her eyes shut.

  Suddenly a blindingly bright ray of sunlight pierced through the cracks in the barn’s side, striking across Devon’s eyelids. She could feel the heat. She pinched her eyes, closing them even more tightly, but the sun seemed to burn through. She opened her eyes, but could see nothing. Nothing but the white blaring heat that filled her vision.

  Devon screamed, but no sound came out.

  There was nothing but the bright light of the sun.

  * * *

  Hunter woke with a gasp to the sensation of her eyes stinging with stark white heat and realized it was the angle of the sun cutting through the passenger’s side window.

  She tried to steady her uncontrollable breathing and orient herself to her surroundings. Ash was behind the wheel, Twitch in the back. She must have fallen asleep.

  The hooks.

  Her sister.

  The terrible nightmare surfaced in her mind. She had dreamt she was Devon. Her sister was about to be murdered.

  How much time did they have? Two days, maybe three. Hunter had lost all sense of time ever since she had found that horrible song playing on her stereo.

  “We have to get serious about handling Grizzly,” said Hunter, as she draped her hand over Ash’s thigh. “We only have a few days.”

  “We go in at night and kill all of them,” said Ash. “That’s the plan.”

  Hunter exhaled, considering his lack of strategy.

  “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison, Ash,” she said. “Do we have any hope of wiping them out and getting away with it?”

  “You’ve already shot a few people back in Brooklyn. I thought we threw caution to the wind on actually getting away with any of this a long time ago,” said Ash.

  It was a decent point.

  “Where are we going to go after all this?” she asked.

  Ash smiled, glancing over at her for a long moment before returning his gaze to the road ahead. “Now that’s a question I like.”

  “Oh, really?” she asked, her tone turning sultry and deep.

  “Definitely,” he said. “Tell me about what our lives will look like once we get through this.”

  Hunter gazed out the windshield at the road ahead. The late afternoon sun was sinking towards the mountains on the horizon, causing a stark, orange glare to cut across the land. The mountains looked purple and blue, dark but not dangerous. The landscape seemed peaceful. If it didn’t remind her of the farmhouse land, its acres and acres of fields and forests, Hunter would say she’d like to live out their days in the rural northeast.

  Then it occurred to her, was there anywhere they could go where she’d be able to escape and forget where she had come from? Maybe if they went someplace truly foreign she could. They’d probably never be able to set foot on an airplane, so that left them with options to flee north into Canada, or south into Central and South America.

  “Do you speak Spanish?” she asked.

  Ash laughed. “Not even a little bit,” he said, “but I could learn.”

  “I could see us lounging on a beach somewhere. Find a desolate beach where the sun warms our skin, and the water cools us down. When this is all over, I want to live carefree. I want to feel relaxed all the time. I want my life to be a vacation.”

  “That sounds nice,” said Ash, envisioning it all. “We could live in a cabana, fall asleep to the sounds of the ocean. What would we do for work?”

  “That’s a good question. Maybe we can find a beach restaurant and work there, or at a coffee place. It might sound crazy to you, but I liked my job in Brooklyn. I worked part time in a coffee house. It always smelled amazing. There was something nice about serving lattes, watching the customers chat. It had a simple atmosphere I miss,” said Hunter, remembering that aspects of her life were in fact, nice, uncomplicated, relaxing.

  “Maybe I could learn to surf and teach surfing,” said Ash.

  “I could totally see you doing that,” said Hunter. “Well let’s see, if we want to go someplace that has restaurants and surfing, we might need to choose a touristy spot. That could be nice. Then we’d really feel like we were living an extended vacation.

  “We could go to Brazil,” said Ash.

  “Rio de Janeiro,” added Hunter.

  “Or a little coastal town outside of Rio,” said Ash, elaborating.

  “Would we drive the entire way down?” asked Hunter.

  “We’d have to,” he said.

  “That could be nice. We’d see a lot of countryside,” she said.

  “Yeah, we’d have to drive through all the southern states. We could stop at all the landmarks along the way, see the capital, see New Orleans. Then head into Mexico and continue on.”

  Hunter realized how much ground they would need to cover to get to Brazil. It seemed like a world away. She wondered if she should have any real hope of getting there. Alone she was certain she’d never make it that far, but with Ash anything seemed possible.

  “Would Blair like it there?” he asked.

  Hunter smiled, “I think so.”

  “Would the girls?”

  She shrugged, “You know them better than I do at this point, but who wouldn’t like it there?”

  Ash looked over at Hunter. The way the sun kissed her cheek, its amber hue casting a glow across her face, she was beautiful, like an angel. She squinted against the glare, but even her furrowed brow, its imperfections, warmed his heart. He felt at home with Hunter. He would go wherever she wanted. Whatever she wanted, he would do.

  He reached across, scooped her hand into his and squeezed. She looked over at him, a coy smirk growing across her face. Soon it would be night. They would have to stop at another motel. Ash would have another chance to show her the ways in which he loved her. He couldn’t wait.

  Hunter returned her gaze out the window, as she cradled Ash’s hand in hers. He felt so good. How did she get so lucky?

  “Oh, shit,” said Twitch from the back seat.

  Hunter sat up and glanced out the side view mirror.

  No sooner than she did, the shrill cry of a siren sounded off loudly. Hunter jumped, staring at Ash with wide eyes for a long moment before turning all the way around.

  Behind them was a police cruiser. Its lights were flashing red and white in rhythm with the siren’s alarm.

  “What should we do?” asked Twitch. “The trunk is full of your weapons.”

  “I have to pull over,” said Ash.

  “Don’t,” said Hunter. “Just drive.”

  “It’s a cop. We can’t do that,” he said, with an edge of agitation in his voice. “We can’t do anything. Fuck!” He yelled, hitting the steering wheel.

  “Let me kill him,” said Hunter.

  “Are you crazy?” He shouted. “Kill a cop? Even I’m not good enough to pull that off! Not to mention his squad car has a camera that faces front. All cop cars have that nowadays. You’re not thinking, Hunter. Just let me handle this. Don’t say anything, got it?”


  Hunter nodded.

  “That goes for you, too,” said Ash, glancing at Twitch in the rearview mirror.

  Ash removed his foot from the gas and began pressing the brakes, pulling over to the shoulder of the road.

  This was so unfair, thought Hunter. The cops should be arresting Grizzly, raiding the farmhouse, shutting down his operation, and throwing all of the men in prison, not pulling them over. This was bullshit.

  Hunter reached down between the door and her seat where her purse was located, and grasped hold of it. It was heavy and hard in her grip. The gun that lay beneath was ready. Hunter had left it fully loaded with the safety off and a bullet in its chamber. She could shoot and kill in an instant.

  And she would if anything dared to stand in her way of rescuing Blair from her father’s promise.

  Ash stared, eyes glued to the cop. He was still behind the wheel of the squad car. The siren still blared loudly, the lights flashed. The cop seemed to be looking down, his lips were moving. Ash was hoping they had been pulled over for speeding or a broken taillight, anything minor and unrelated to Brooklyn. But the fact that this cop seemed to be in conversation greatly worried Ash. If this officer already knew that he was in possession of a dead man’s vehicle, then things could get very complicated very quickly. Hunter’s suggestion to take the guy out might not be the worse plan. But unless they could ditch the car and proceed with cash alone, then the very same problem would find them again and again.

  There was no way to get out of this.

  Not this time.

  Ash returned his gaze to Hunter.

  Her gun was drawn.

  And the police officer had just stepped out of his vehicle.

  Chapter Seven “Hunter, don’t,” said Ash, his nerves rising into a panic at the sight of the gun in her hand. “Put that away, please. We don’t know why we got pulled over, just hang in there and let me handle this.”

  Hunter gripped the gun even more firmly, hesitating to relinquish control. The cop was slowly approaching the car up the driver’s side, Hunter could see looking through the side mirror. He would be at Ash’s door any second.