Monster (Impossible #1) (2 page)

“You’ll…”  I said faintly to my captor.  “You’ll have to finish.”

The world swirled around me, and the ground rose up to meet me.  But I never felt the impact; I was already lost to darkness.

My head was pounding painfully, the discomfort rousing me from my sleep.  I was in the dark, trying to stave off the moment that I would have to awaken and face the full pain.  What was wrong with me?  I didn’t usually get migraines.  I pulled my hand down from where it was stretched above my head to pinch the bridge of my nose in order to alleviate some of the pain.  Only, something stopped me short as my wrist jerked against something hard and unyielding.  My eyes snapped open and bright light seared them, making the pounding in my head worsen.  But I forced myself to twist my neck so that I could look back at my hand.  My left wrist was handcuffed to a metal bedpost.

Everything came flooding back: the kidnapping, the dying man, the world spinning around me as I fainted.  I gasped, suddenly terrified.  I jerked at my hand reflexively, desperate to free myself.  I was rewarded by nothing but bruising pain.

There was a low moan beside me, and I looked over to see that I was
lying next to the man whose life I had saved the night before.  Through my terror, I could see that the bandages had soaked through with his blood.  They needed to be changed.  I rolled onto my side and propped myself on my elbow awkwardly, reaching out for him with my free hand.  I needed to check on the wound, so I began to slowly unwrap the gauze from around his chest.  He was completely still as I worked, likely still unconscious from the blood loss.  But now that I had given him a transfusion of my own blood, some color had returned to his cheeks.  He had naturally pale skin, but he no longer had the pallor of death upon him.  Now that I was able to look at him properly, I was struck by how handsome he was.  His jaw was strong and masculine, covered in rough stubble that gave him a distinctly sexy rugged aura. His dark auburn hair glinted hints of gold in the morning light, which cast shadows beneath his angular cheekbones. 

I abandoned my task, suddenly struck by the strange urge to touch him.  Gently, I pressed the back of my hand to his forehead to check to see if he had a fever.

As soon as I made contact with his skin, his deep green eyes snapped open.  He moved faster than I could comprehend, and I suddenly found myself on my back, his weight pressing me down into the mattress.  He held my free hand above my head, pinning it there.  His forearm was against my neck, applying pressure to my windpipe.

“Who are you?”  He growled fiercely.  “Where am I?”

My mind was two steps behind, still shocked by the sudden turn of events.  My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water as I struggled for an answer.  But he wasn’t pleased by my hesitation, and he pressed his arm down harder, nearly cutting off my breath entirely.

“Please,” I forced out, tugging fruitlessly against his grip on my wrist.  “Don’t…”

“Who are you?”  He asked again, half-shouting this time.  His green eyes were ablaze with some inner fire, a furious inferno that threatened to swallow me up.

“
Cl-Claudia,” I gasped for breath.  “Claudia Ellers.”

“Sean!  What the fuck?”  I recognized my kidnapper’s voice.

A pair of hands suddenly closed around his shoulders, and his weight left me as he was jerked away.  He cried out as the jarring movement pulled at his stitches.  He fell back onto the bed, clutching a hand to his injured shoulder as he winced in pain.

“What the hell is going on, Bradley?”  The man – Sean - demanded through gritted teeth.

Bradley looked down at his friend angrily.  “You were shot, asshole.  What the fuck do you think you’re doing moving around like that?  You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Sean closed his eyes and groaned.  “Shit,” he mumbled under his breath.  “I forgot that he shot me. 
That motherfucker.”  His brow was furrowed, and he was suddenly glaring at Bradley.  “I hope you gave the bastard what he deserved.”

Bradley rolled his eyes.  “I was a little busy saving your life. 
Sorry, you ungrateful douchebag.”  His words were harsh, but his relief was clear in his eyes.

Sean took a moment to get his bearings, taking in his surroundings.  “How am I home?  How am I not in a hospital?”  He turned his hard gaze on me.  “And who the fuck is she?”

Okay.  That was it.  I was tired of being assaulted, tired of being disrespected.  Especially when I had given my own life’s blood to save the man’s life.  “Oh, I’m nobody,” I snapped, my voice dripping with sarcastic venom.  “Just the woman who brought you back from the brink of death.  You’re welcome, asshole.”  I tugged at the cuffs that tethered me to the bed, turning my glare on Bradley.  “And it wasn’t enough that you kidnapped me at gunpoint and threatened my life?  Now you have to go and chain me up like some animal?”  I scoffed.  “I should have just let him die.”

Bradley’s face tightened in fury, and his hands clenched into fists.  “The only reason you’re still alive is because he is.  If you don’t want that scenario to change, I suggest you shut the fuck up.”

“What did you do, Bradley?”  Sean was looking at his friend, wide eyed and shocked.  “You
kidnapped
her?  That goes way beyond anything…  You know you can’t come back from that, right?  What are we supposed to do with her now?”

His friend looked at him levelly.  “You know I couldn’t take you to the hospital.  Not without getting you arrested.  I didn’t have another choice.  I wasn’t going to let you die.  The doc here patched you up.  You’ll be fine now.”

Sean lifted his hand as though to run it through his hair in frustration, but he gave a small cry of pain and quickly dropped it back onto the bed beside him.  “That hurts like a bitch,” he hissed.  He turned his eyes on me.  They were no longer burning, but they were dark with pain.  I felt a moment of sympathy for him, but then I reminded myself of how he had just assaulted me, and my heart hardened.

“Do you have anything for the pain?”  He asked me.

“No,” I said flatly, feeling a surge of vindictive pleasure.  But I immediately felt guilty about it.  It was my calling as a doctor to fix people, to alleviate their pain.  I dropped my eyes, a bit ashamed of myself.  “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

“I’ll get you some pain killers from Jerry,” Bradley said.  “But first…”  He turned to me, and dread filled my gut at the coldness that I saw in his eyes.  “Is he going to be okay, doc?”  He asked.

“Y-yes,” I said, undeniably intimidated by his hard stare.  “So long as the wound is cleaned and the bandages are changed regularly, he should be fine.”

Bradley looked at me appraisingly.  “I think I can handle that,” he said finally, nodding.  Then my heart dropped as he pulled his gun from his waistband and pointed it straight at my heart.

“Please,” my voice hitched.  “Don’t do this.  I won’t tell anyone.  I swear-”

“Bradley!”  Sean’s hard voice cut across me.  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?  You’re going to add murder to kidnapping now?  What are you thinking, man?  This isn’t you.”

“I’m doing this for you, Sean,” he told his friend, never taking his eyes off me.  “There’s no other way.”

There was a terrifying click as he cocked the gun, and my heart stopped. 

Chapter 2

“Stop, Bradley!”  Sean shouted.  With a grunt of effort, he struggled upright, his fists clenched threateningly.  “I won’t let you do this.”

Bradley glared at his friend.  “What other choice do we have?  Let her go?  She’ll go running to the cops as soon as she leaves.”  The gun remained trained at my heart, which was now fluttering wildly in my chest.  I hardly breathed, as though any sudden movement would make the gun go off, ending my life in the space of a second.

“I won’t say anything,” I forced out, my voice strangled.  “I swear.  Please…”  I couldn’t say anything else; fear had risen up in me, squeezing my throat like a boa constrictor until I couldn’t draw breath.

“Put the gun away, Bradley,” Sean’s voice was hard and unyielding.  “I’ll never forgive you if you do this.  She saved my life.  We can’t kill her.”

I stared up at Bradley, my eyes wide and pleading, praying that he would listen to his friend.  He glanced over at Sean.

“And what are we supposed to do with her?”  He demanded.  “You know we can’t let her leave.”

Sean ran a hand through his hair in frustration.  “Fuck,” he barked out.  “I don’t know.  Keep her here for now.  Then we can figure out what to do.”

Bradley stared at me for a long moment, his mouth set in a grim line.  Finally, he lowered the gun, tucking it back into his waistband.  I heaved in a shaky breath, my burning lungs
gratefully drawing in the oxygen that I so desperately needed.  I collapsed back onto the bed, all of my muscles turning to jelly.  The clinician in me rationally told me that I was going into shock, but the rest of my brain didn’t give a shit about what she said.  I was trembling all over, gasping for breath as my skin went cold and my vision blurred.  I wrapped my free arm around myself as I shook, my mind going blank as the residual fear of what had almost happened to me consumed me.

“Hey, doc,” came a gentle voice from beside me.  There was a reassuring hand gripping my shoulder.  It was hot, its warmth seeming to spread throughout my body, pushing back the ice in my veins.

“Claudia.  Take a deep breath,” the voice ordered.

I did as it
said, raggedly sucking in air.  Once; twice.  The third time, my breathing came easier, the deep, regular rhythm soothing me.  I blinked several times, my vision clearing.  The first thing I saw was a pair of gorgeous green eyes, their depths filled with concern.  Sean smiled down at me gently.

“That’s better,” he said softly.

He jerked as Bradley cleared his throat pointedly.  Sean’s expression shifted suddenly to an unconcerned mask and he backed away from me.  Some of the coldness inside returned, but I shoved it back, determined not to show further weakness.

“There’s just one problem with this plan,” Bradley said to Sean resentfully.  “People are going to be missing her.  If they find out she was kidnapped, then they’ll come looking for her.  They might trace it back to us.”

Sean’s brow furrowed as he thought for a moment.  “Then we call her family and her work to give some excuse,” he said finally. “I’m not letting you kill her.”

Bradley cocked his head at me, considering.  “Well, that all depends on how cooperative she is.”  The way he kept referring to me in the third person, as though I wasn’t even there, got my hackles up.  I propped myself up on one elbow and glared up at him, but I still didn’t dare speak.

“Where’s your cell phone?”  He demanded.

I gritted my teeth, not wanting to answer, but his hard stare told me that I didn’t have a choice. 
“In my purse.  It’s still in my car.”

“Alright, I’m going to get it.  But if you try anything while I’m gone…”  He left the threat open-ended, making it all the more frightening as thoughts of what he might do to me ran across my mind.  Sean had convinced him not to kill me, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t do… other things.

He left the room, locking the door behind him.  As though I could go anywhere when I was cuffed to the bed, I though derisively.  And somewhat dejectedly.  I could feel Sean’s eyes on me, but I resolutely stared up at the ceiling.  For the first time since the beginning of my ordeal, tears were pricking at the corners of my eyes.  And I was determined not to betray my desperation to these men who had captured me.  I had already shown enough weakness in front of them.  I didn’t have time to fall apart; it was time to pull myself together and start coming up with an escape plan.

Uh-huh,
a voice in my head said to me snidely. 
Good luck with that.

“So,” Sean said, breaking the tense silence.  “This is awkward.”

Awkward?! 
Was he honestly making a joke about my situation?  I glared at him.

“I think you’re confusing the word ‘awkward’ with the term ‘completely fucked up,’” I snapped. 
“‘Awkward’ is when you accidentally text the wrong person.  ‘Awkward’ is when you trip over nothing and fall on your face.  ‘Completely fucked up’ is when you kidnap a woman, threaten her with a gun, chain her to a bed, and tell her that life as she knows it is over.  Can you see the difference there?”

His eyes darkened.  Was that shame in his expression?
  “Okay, doc,” he said lightly after a moment.  “You’re not up for chitchat.  I get it.”

Anger bubbled up within me, burning away my fear.  How dare he make light of what he was doing to me?  I opened my mouth to hurl venomous words at him, but I stopped abruptly.

I could hear Bradley’s footsteps just before the door unlocked.  I tried to suppress a shudder as he entered again.  Sean was injured, weakened.  Although he had scared the shit out of me when he assaulted me, he had also calmed me when I had been having a panic attack.  And he was more infuriating than intimidating.  Bradley, on the other hand, had shown me nothing but coldness.  His fierce loyalty to his friend, his determination to keep him alive and safe, meant that my life was of no consequence to him.

Bradley fished my cell out of my purse.  “Alright,” he said.  “You only have one missed call: Work.”  He raised a quizzical eyebrow at me.  “So, it seems I don’t have to be too concerned about anyone missing you.  I’m assuming that you don’t have a husband or a boyfriend? 
No one who would panic when you didn’t come home?”