Reclaimed (Powell Sanctuary #5)

Chapter 32

32

Isla

Left of the interstate. Right on Parkway Road. Two tight turns where the road curves around a body of water. Left onto County Road 18.

In the silence that follows Henry discovering my phone, I memorize the turns in the silence. I feel like Dory in Finding Nemo as I repeat the steps over and over in my head. Dried tears stick to my cheeks. The skin feels tight. The discomfort of tacky skin has nothing on the steady throb on the left side of my face.

Losing my last connection to Aiden feels physical. Even if we weren’t speaking, for twenty-seven minutes we shared heartbeats and breaths. Maybe for the last time.

The ache in my stomach grows to the point where I can’t think of anything else. To the point that I worry about my unborn son and what the extreme stress could be doing to him.

Can terror cause a miscarriage?

Curled up on the passenger seat, I rest my head on the cold window. Slow, deep breaths keep my pulse to a manageable level. A shiver runs through me from the November chill and lack of heat in this old beater car.

The vehicle turns down a dark gravel road. Tall trees tower over each side, casting the nearly hidden road in shadow. Rocks pop and spit beneath the tires as Henry accelerates.

Five minutes later, the car stops on the side of an old cabin.

Without a word, he exits and forces me from the passenger side. The cold muzzle presses beneath my chin. I lift my head impossibly high, desperate to dislodge the weapon, but he holds it steady.

“In,” he orders, dragging me up a set of rotted steps by my arm.

The inside smells musty. Shadows lurk in every corner. The waning sun from outside isn’t enough to light the space much through the dirty windows. We step into a weathered kitchen containing only a fridge, a fireplace, and a kitchen table. The laminate floors are cracked from years of wear and disuse.

He presses into me then. Hot, fetid breath drifts across my face as he forces me flush against the refrigerator and buries his face in my hair. “Welcome home, my Stella.” He groans into my tangled locks, ignoring the way I recoil. “We’re going to be so happy here.”

My stomach roils violently. I fight to keep my composure. “You can let me go. You don’t have to do this.” If pleading brings me back to Aiden, I’m willing to do whatever I can to stay alive.

“I do,” he snarls, yanking something from the drawer and slapping it to my wrist. The shiny black cuff fits snugly, biting into my skin. “I thought I lost you forever. I’m not letting you go now.”

“I think you’re confused. We don’t actually know each other.” I stick with facts, hoping something will break through this fog of delusion.

Ignoring me, he locks the remaining circle around my other wrist and shoves the gun into my abdomen.

“We’re going to be a family.” He brushes the gun down the side of my stomach. The muscles there hollow with alarm. “You don’t understand how bad I wanted to kill you for leaving me, but luckily for you, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Tell me.” If I’m going to die, I need to know why. I need to buy time.

He grips my bicep and hauls me around the corner into a makeshift bedroom. In lieu of living room furniture, a large bed takes up the middle of the floor. The black iron headboard has a silver chain hanging off one side, and it doesn’t take much to put two and two together.

“I was so angry that you were gone,” he mutters, shoving me onto the bed. I fall on my side, and immediately scramble back to my feet. “They said you were gone, but I couldn’t believe you left me. I went looking. There were so many women who looked just like you. I’d pay them to dance, and they’d make me hard and act like they liked me.” His lip curls. “They were liars . They just wanted my money.”

“They didn’t know you were looking for me. They were doing their jobs,” I gasp in horror.

“So I killed them,” he goes on as if he didn’t hear me speak. And maybe he didn’t. Lost in his delusions, his world isn’t reality. Henry throws a flower printed gown, thirty years past its prime, on the bed and picks something up from a table against the wall. His sinister stroll sends the hairs on my neck standing. Thick fingers pick up my limp hand. “I strangled them. And do you know what I left them with?”

I’m frozen as he brushes the pad of his thumb over my knuckles. “What,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.

His eyes drop to my hand. With his thumbnail, he digs a straight line from the last knuckle of my thumb down toward my wrist. At the end, he crosses two lines in an X.

“Know what it is?” He stares proudly at the pink impression.

I give a minute shake of my head. “No.”

“It’s a falling star. Because I knew when I found you, it would be your end.”

Automatically, I move a step back. I don’t make it far. My knees bump into the edge of the mattress. The grip on my hand turns bruising as he jerks my arm back.

“You thought you could fool me with hair dye and a new man, and I’ll admit, at first, I was angry. So angry that I couldn’t have you right then that I found another girl. One with brown hair dressed like a slut, and I took it out on her so I wouldn’t hurt you.”

No. Does he mean the girl from Halloween night? The one Sutton said didn’t fit the profile?

The one without the calling card.

Because that was the night he decided he wasn’t going to kill me. I wasn’t a falling star to him anymore.

“I knew it was really you when I saw you dance, proudly showing off my baby.” He licks his flaky lips. “I knew I’d never let you go again.”

With more strength than I’d have guessed, he yanks my arm straight and jams a gold ring onto my ring finger. I choke on a scream and tears drip down my cheeks.

The too-small band cuts into my flesh as he forces it into place over my knuckle. The strangulation is immediate, cutting blood supply to my finger. I whimper into the cold room.

“ My wife ,” he says proudly. He raises his left hand, showcasing its gleaming match. “We’re going to be a family.”

“Okay.” My lips move without my permission. The agreement falls from a desperate place. One where I’m fighting to stay alive long enough for someone to find me. If that means playing into his twisted delusion, I’m willing to try anything at this point. Every minute my heart beats is a minute closer to being found.

His serene smile sickens me. “I knew you’d come around.”

I have to swallow three times to unstick the words lodged in my throat. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to change out of those whore’s clothes.”

“Okay.” My voice is hardly above a whisper. Without waiting for direction, I pick up the flowered dress and tug it over my head. He doesn’t object to the clothes underneath, and I’m not about to draw attention to the extra scraps of fabric. The dress smells like mothballs and cedar. I’d bet it hasn’t been worn for a very long time.

Wetting my dry lips, I hold my hands out. “You need to unlock one of these so I can get my arms in.”

He doesn’t hesitate to pull a key from his pocket. “You need to take off your clothes first.”

Air ceases to flow from my lungs. “What?”

Gripping the ugly dress, he tears it back over my head while tsking. “Take those off.”

“No,” I wheeze as fear grips my throat.

“You want me to do it for you?” he taunts. The look in his eyes turns lecherous.

I disconnect from my mind as I peel the shirt mechanically over my head and push my leggings over my hips. Standing in nothing but a bra and underwear, I tell myself it’s no different than being on stage. I scramble to retrieve the dress from his hands.

With satisfied eyes, he watches me settle the floral fabric back over my nearly nude body then cuffs my wrist again. “You look beautiful.”

I force my lips to stretch into a semblance of a smile. “N-Now what?”

“Now we burn them.”

I trudge back into the kitchen. The floorboards creak ominously beneath my weight. Henry follows with the gun loose in his hand pointed at my back. For the moment, he seems placated.

“Where do you want me to burn them?”

He nods across from us at an open fireplace. “Good old open fire.”

My neck prickles as he watches me collect the wood from a stack beside it. I kneel on the hearth and stack the logs in the firebox. The newspapers seem too damp to light, but with the flick of a match, the crumpled pieces prove me wrong. Within minutes, an orange blaze roars within the grate.

“You’re a natural.” The praise has the opposite effect.

I avert my gaze as I toss my things into the intense flames. The clothes didn’t hold a strong attachment, but getting rid of the final personal item in my possession feels like a knife between my ribs.

With one hand cradling my belly, I clutch the side of the fireplace to help me stand. I keep my attention on Henry the entire time.

“Check the fridge, Stella.”

Henry’s smile has me wanting to do the exact opposite. Finding out what he’s storing in there is the kind of game I’m not interested in playing.

My fingers tremble as I reach for the handle. The second the door opens, a rotten smell hits my nose. The fridge is empty except for a pack of steaks leaking all over the top shelf. The red juices drip steadily on the bottom drawers. It’s as if he bought them in preparation but overshot the use by date. I wonder how long he’s been planning this. How long he’s known where to find me.

“These?” I ask hoarsely. Saliva fills my mouth as a wave of nausea peaks.

“It’s a celebratory dinner.” With the gun trained on me, Henry backs himself into one of the kitchen chairs. “You’re going to cook them.”

I almost puke as I retrieve the expired meat. The cuts are unlabeled, but I refuse to think of them as anything other than beef. My eyes water and my sinuses swell as I retch every few minutes. The kitchen doesn’t contain anything useful, not even basic spices, so I toss the rancid steak onto the singular pan I find in an empty cabinet and set it on the mounted grill in the fire.

The burning wood pops and crackles. I pray the old cabin holds and doesn’t burn down as the smell of smoke fills the air. The odds are stacked against me with this gun-holding psychopath. I’m not sure I can survive a raging fire too.

When the hunks are black, I pull them out. I don’t know what to do now. I stand in the middle of the room holding the pan in the bunched-up fabric of my dress.

“Don’t just stand there. Serve me my dinner!” The wooden table groans beneath his heavy fist.

The entire pan clatters loudly in front of him, and I scurry back against the wall.

He sighs. “Thank you.”

Vomit rushes up my throat. I cover my mouth to hold it at bay as he takes the first bite. I feel the blood drain from my face. Sweat dots my forehead. I might actually pass out. This is so fucked up.

My legs shake, and for a minute, I’m afraid they’re going to give out. I’m weak from adrenaline and hunger. I’m tired. Dehydrated. Nothing about this is good for the baby, but I’m not about to eat expired, burnt meat. I’m not about to eat anything offered to me from this monster.

My best chance at escaping is when he goes to sleep. The chain on the bed is a challenge to overcome, but he had a key for the cuffs in his pocket. I’d be willing to bet he has a key for the rest in there too.

The question is how far am I willing to go to retrieve them? Could I touch him? Put my hand in his pocket?

Henry doesn’t question my lack of appetite. He chews the dried-out slabs as if they were prepared by a world renowned chef. I pray for food poisoning to incapacitate him. When he’s finished, he announces it’s time for bed, despite the evening light still lingering outside.

“Wouldn’t want you to run again.” He smiles, locking the chain on the headboard around my shackles.