Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) (26 page)

Pushed too far, Nicole
seeks her revenge, using Ron’s own devices against him.

PUSHED

KIMBERLY A.
BETTES

1

A
s
the flesh peeled away from the bone, she screamed. Had there been windows in
the room, the glass would’ve rattled in the panes from the vibrato of her
shrieks. Not dissuaded by her suffering—in fact, even more motivated by it—Ron
continued to slowly pull on the flap of skin, watching as first her ankle and
then her heel bones became exposed.

Buried amidst the screams were curse words, all
aimed at him.

When she called him an asshole, he ignored her.
When she called him a motherfucker, he shook his head. But when she called him
a son of a bitch, he smiled.

“How right you are,” he said, watching as his
hands slowly stripped the meat from her foot, careful to not lose his grip on
the slippery, bloody skin.

Seconds later, the screaming stopped. She’d
blacked out once again.

Two days earlier, when this woman had leaned down
into his car window and asked if he was looking for a good time, he’d
immediately said yes. Of course she had no idea that her idea of a good time
was so vastly different than his, but it was a lesson she would soon learn.

He could tell right away that she was a fighter.
It was evident in her voice, demanding and strong, slightly raspy from years of
nicotine use. It was in her eyes, steely and cold, hardened by all they had
seen. Most of all, it was obvious in the confident way she carried herself. The
life she was living was a hard one indeed, but it had yet to knock the wind out
of her sails or strip the steel from her spine. There was no doubt that she
would give him the good time he sought.

She wasn’t exactly a young woman. He guessed her
to be in her thirties, though she looked a decade—possibly even two—older. Life
on the streets had that effect on people. It made them age before their time.
The crow’s feet that sprouted from the corners of her eyes as well as the
parenthetical lines that flanked each side of her mouth were etched deeply into
the leathery skin of her face, put there by years of hard living.

As a prostitute, she’d surely had it rough, both
with pimps and johns alike. Beaten, battered, raped, used, and addicted to
drugs, she’d seen it all. Her story was written in those lines on her face, in
the gaping holes in her mouth where teeth used to be, and in the track marks on
her arms.

Yet she continued on, selling herself for money
that was used to feed the addiction she needed in order to sell herself. It was
a vicious cycle, and yet she trudged ahead like a trooper, proving that she was
strong.

But was she strong enough to survive him? Only
time would tell.

Pulling the last of the skin away from the bones
of her foot, Ron smiled. Without her screams the basement was quiet, allowing
him to hear the slurping sound of the meat pulling free of her body. It was a
gratifying sound, the beautiful result of his tedious work.

Careful to not damage it, he rinsed the bloody
shell of a foot in the stainless steel sink at the end of the long work table.
He then placed it in a jar of alcohol and screwed the lid on tight. In order to
get a better look at the fleshy bone sock, he held the jar up the fluorescent
bulb which hung over the table, allowing the white light to penetrate the jar
and the clear liquid within.

It looked
fake
, like a
hollow rubber foot you might find in a Halloween prop shop.

Pulling the skin off the toes had been tricky. The
cut marks where the scalpel had poked through were tiny testaments to that
fact. But overall, it looked good. Much better than the first couple of times
he’d performed the task.

He set the jar on the shelf above the work table
where it stood alongside the others. There were ten jars in all, each
containing a foot that had been taken from a different woman. Two of the jars
consisted of the entire foot, bones and all, while the others held no more than
skin.

Personally, he didn’t care for feet. He found them
to be disgusting appendages. Usually ignored by people, they became hard,
calloused things with crusty toenails and flaky skin. Women wore shoes that
restricted and bound their feet until their toes were twisted and gnarled,
laden with bunions and hammertoes. Men neglected their feet, allowing fungus to
grow along with the thick, hard toenails. And then for some reason, in the summer
everyone felt the need to show them off, donning flip flops and sandals as if
they were proud of themselves for what they’d done.

Feet were hideous things that should remain hidden
away.

However, the main character in Ron’s latest book
had a foot fetish. He collected the feet of his victims and kept them in a jar
on a shelf in his basement, which meant that Ron had to do the same.
Whether or not he liked it.

Turning to the woman on the table, a woman who had
introduced herself to him as Candy though that was undoubtedly not her real
name, he saw that she was still unconscious. She probably would be out for a
while considering the amount of blood she’d lost. That was fine with him
because he could use a break, both from his work and from her shrieks.

He removed the latex gloves he wore to avoid
having to actually touch her feet, and he tossed them into the trash can at the
end of the work table. He then picked up the remote control and turned on the
television, a 42” flat screen that hung on the back wall of the basement. It
was a new addition to the work area, one that he was glad he’d installed. He’d
just recently bought the TV, and had only done so in order to watch the news.

The media was a foolish entity that passed out
information nearly every hour of the day, information that often times
should’ve been withheld from the public. Day after day, news anchors gave away
police secrets, telling viewers what evidence they had, what they knew, what
they didn’t know, and what their plans were to catch the criminals. And they
said it all with a smile.

He was grateful for the news, however ignorant it
may be. Without it, he might have been captured already, or at least be a blip
on the police radar. But because of the media, he was still one step ahead of
the cops, still free, and still able to do the research necessary to give his
novels the realism they needed in order to be successful.

Like keeping jars of feet on a
shelf in the basement.

As the evening news came on, he pulled the water
hose from the hook on the wall and attached it to the faucet at the sink.

He listened to the news as he sprayed water on the
whore’s body, washing the blood into the trough that ran around the inner edge
of the stainless steel embalming table which he had modified to suit his needs.
He had drilled holes and attached two U-bolts to the foot end of the table, one
at each corner. He’d done the same thing on both sides and the opposite end of
the table. The purpose of the bolts was to have a place to connect one end of
the thick leather restraints that was used to subdue his victims. The other end
of the strap was wrapped securely around whichever woman had the misfortune of
finding herself on the table. Currently, that was Candy, who was passed out,
temporarily relieved of her nightmare, his joy. But she would soon be awake and
the fun would recommence.

While the anchor told about the body of yet
another prostitute that had been found with the skin stripped off one of her
feet, Ron began spraying the floor, sending Candy’s spilled blood into the
drain in the center of the room. The news anchor then made a poor segue to the
next topic, a local politician’s sex scandal, and Ron finished spraying the
blood off the floor, not listening as intently now as he had been.

2

I
kept my eyes low, staring at the white vinyl floor as I made my way down the
long brightly-lit hallway, passing door after door, most of which were closed.
The cold and impersonal fluorescent bulbs burned overhead, but the majority of
the light came from the sun, which streamed into the hall through the transoms
above the doors and then bounced off the cream-colored walls, nearly giving me
a headache.

There
were many reasons I dreaded the trip down this particular hallway. The most
immediate reason was standing about twenty feet ahead, leaning against the
wall, almost as if she was waiting for me.

Without
lifting my head, I raised my eyes and glanced at her.
Linette
.
A girl I’d grown to
despise.

As
usual, she stood on one leg with the other leg bent, her foot pressed against
the wall behind her. She leaned heavily on the leg bearing her weight, making
her look off-balance, seemingly on the verge of tipping over. Her arms hung
limply at her sides. The faded pink house shoes she wore matched her robe,
which was flapped open, belt hanging loosely, revealing the hospital-issued
gown beneath. With pale skin and limp, lifeless hair, she looked right at home
in this place.

Not
at all like me.

I
wore faded blue jeans, a dark blue t-shirt, and pink tennis shoes. My hair was
brushed and pulled neatly into a ponytail. I could’ve given up and dressed
myself in hospital attire, could’ve walked around looking like
Linette
and all the others like her, but I chose not to.
Instead, I chose to keep every semblance of normality I could. I chose to keep
as many ties to the outside world as possible. It was the only thing that kept
me grounded, the only thing that kept me sane in an otherwise insane
environment.

As
I neared
Linette
, I lowered my eyes again, hoping she
wouldn’t notice me but knowing that she would. Not once had I ever been able to
sneak past her undetected. With some people it was possible. They were so
withdrawn and so
lost,
they were oblivious to their
surroundings.
But not
Linette
.
For some reason she liked me, even though I’d never given
her
a
reason to.

As
I approached, I felt her eyes on me. I picked up my pace, hoping to pass by
without an interaction.

As
usual, it didn’t work.

“Hey,”
she said. “There you are, Nicky. I’ve been wondering about you.” She sounded
inebriated, her words slow and drawn out. From the amount of medication the
doctors had her
on,
I was surprised she could talk at
all.

Ignoring
her, I continued down the hall.

She
pushed herself off the wall and took a wobbly step toward me. Dodging her, I
stepped left and kept walking, putting more pep in my step.

“Hey, Nicky.
You
wanna
do
something later?”

I
remained silent, intent on not saying anything that would give her the
impression I wanted to talk to her.

She
continued talking to me even after I’d passed by her. “Nicky.
Hey, Nicky.”

Unable
to listen to her another second, I said, “Stop calling me that,” and kept
walking.

“Okay,”
she said. It was the same thing she said each and every time I’d told her to
stop calling me by that name. Yet she continued to use the unwanted moniker,
always choosing to call me Nicky instead of Nicole.

Without
breaking stride, I continued down the hall to the very end, the last room on
the right. Though I had an appointment and was expected, I knocked and waited
for the invitation to enter the room.

“Hello,
Nicole. Have a seat.” He motioned to the brown leather chair directly across
the desk from where he sat.

I
eased onto the chair and faced him for the last time.

“So
I see you’ve decided to leave us.”

I
nodded.

“Do
you think that’s wise?”

“Why
wouldn’t it be?”

“Well
the last time I saw you, which was…” He consulted my chart. “Two weeks ago, we
discussed whether or not you were ready to leave, and I got the feeling that
you weren’t. What’s happened between then and now to change your mind?”

I
shrugged. “Nothing’s happened. I just…I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.
Some of the things you’ve said to me make a lot of sense.”

“Like
what?”

“Like leaving the past in the past.
Not carrying old baggage
into the future with me. Not worrying about things I can’t control.”

The
doctor leaned back in his chair and nodded. He kept his eyes on my face,
studying my expression, which was one that I hoped to be unreadable.

I
kept my hands folded in my lap and my fingers still, even though my thumbs
wanted to twirl around each other. My legs remained uncrossed, feet flat on the
floor. If I crossed my leg, I would bounce my foot. If I bounced my foot, the
doctor might read something into that, something that could possibly delay my
release. So I concentrated on keeping my hands and feet still, my face as
relaxed as possible. I did all this while trying to appear as though I wasn’t
concentrating on anything.