Sons of Mayhem 2 Chaser (Sons of Mayhem Novels, #2) (15 page)

As his head lowered close to mine I raised my hands slowly and gently to his head and slipped them through his hair, just as I sometimes had when we were teenagers.

We both had soft smiles on our faces. One fake, one seemingly sincere. Seeing the soft look on our faces anyone watching would have been amazed by the sudden change as my eyebrows furled, my forehead wrinkled, and my mouth opened in a yell of years of pent up rage. I unleashed my body like a rapidly expanding spring in a sudden fury of pent-up rage that had been locked away for the last four years.

I stood up violently sending the wooden chair flying away behind me, using my now iron-tight grip on his hair to pull myself up even faster. As his head was rapidly pulled down I put all my weight onto my left leg and forced my right knee up high to meet his fast descending head.

Crunch. It was perfect. He didn’t even have a chance to let out a yelp of surprise before my knee impacted with his jaw in a satisfyingly sickening thud and crunch. I didn’t even notice the pain shooting down my leg as I continued my rapid series of actions.

I stepped back and raised my right leg again, this time for a kick. My stunned ex raised wide eyes to look at me just as my foot shot forward into his stomach. It was like kicking a tree. After the initial shock of my first assault he had been ready for me, tensing his tight stomach before my foot could impact. Uhoh.

As I hesitated, he didn’t. Recovering from the shock of my sudden and violent attack he launched himself at me, delivering a walloping smack across my face that set my right ear ringing as I stumbled to the side, and then fell as my right leg failed to support me.

When I fell on to the ground I knew it was over. He had me. I wouldn’t have another chance to escape.

K
aren

I rolled onto my back and glared at him as he stood over me. Between heavy breaths I spoke, knowing it was all over now, wanting to hurt him with my words if I couldn’t using my body. “I went home with that guy Red because I wanted a fuck, not because he took advantage of me.”

The rage on his face was delicious and I no longer cared about the danger of upsetting him. What did it matter now. I was dead already.

“And it was a million times better than it ever was with you!”

He stood over me, shaking his head, as tears rolled down his face. “How could you? How could you say those things?”

The sadness on his face didn’t last long, and a moment later it turned to rage. He pulled a leg back and then swung it forward into my stomach. “You bitch! You fucking slut!”

His foot impacted into my hands which were futilely held in front of me to protect my abdomen. Air rushed out of me, my head span and I felt sick. My brief moment of pleasure in his moment of emotional despair was filled by sick terror.

“I waited for you! For
four
years I waited for you. We were meant to be together!”

I’d managed to inhale a little air. I guess he hadn’t winded me that bad. “I was in there because of you!”

From my curled position on the floor I watched him pace back and forth, his head in hands that pulled at his hair as if in confusion.

“No! You were there because of
you
Karen. It was
your
fault.”

I was livid. How could he spout that bullshit? “How in the fuck was it my fault? You drugged me! You framed me!”

He stopped his pacing and glared at me again. “You know why! Because we were supposed to be together, and you nearly ruined it! You were an ungrateful bitch Karen!”

His twisted logic couldn’t have made sense to anyone but himself. Did he really believe the crap he was spouting, that he was the noble one and I was the bitch who had been ruining everything? That because I tried to break up with him and move away I deserved to be framed and sent to jail, and that I would take him back after his latest insane actions.

“You need help Dewey. You need to go to a doctor, a psychiatrist. Please. Stop all this.”

He looked at me wide eyed. “
I’m
crazy? Are you out of your
fucking mind
? You threw away four perfect years together.
Four. Perfect. Years.
And I’m the crazy one?”
Yes, you are
, I thought to myself, unable to speak as I continued to refill my lungs with air. “And now I’ve come back to you,” he continued, “given you another chance. If I’m crazy it’s because I was willing to give
us
another chance. “

I had managed to move up into a sitting position and I gave him an incredulous look. “There never was an
us.
There was only
you
. Crazy Dewey. You manipulating me, you using me, you tormenting me!” I was breathing heavily after my outburst, my body shaking with fear and exhilaration from getting those feelings out.

“I gave you everything! You... you ungrateful bitch!” He stopped pacing again and stood over me. His eyes cold with fury locked with mine. “You know what? We’re done. Done.”

“Hell yeah we’re done. You want to know something else?”

His eyebrows shot up. He wanted to know. Of course he wanted to know.

“It wasn’t just Red. Bottle too. The night after Red. And do you know what?”

His mouth opened, drooling blood, but no words came out. He was apoplectic.

“He fucked me so good, Dewey.
So good.
God, having his hot biker body ride me made me
so
wet. Not like
you.
”

He licked his lips and flapped his mouth like he was about to say something. I could see thoughts churning in his head but he was struck speechless by my venomous invective.

“
You
never made me come Dewey.
Never
. You’re no man. Bottle and Red,
they
are men.
Real
men. They know how to see to a woman’s needs. Not like you, you arrogant, crazy asshole. You’re just a fucking twisted, delusional psycho.”

His mouth gaped open and finally he managed to produce something. But it wasn’t words. It was a blood curdling screech of rage.

He pulled back his foot and gave me a determined kick in my side.

“That all  you got?” I managed to spit out.

Another kick. “You no good lying whore!” Another kick. “Don’t think I’m letting you run away again,” another kick, “
you
are fucking done. You had your chance, and now,” a harder kick, “you’ve fucked up for the last time.” A bigger kick. “You don’t deserve me, bitch!”

My eyes were closed and I was wracked by painful sobs as he picked me up. From the tinny speakers the refrain of Ian Curtis singing
Love Will Tear Us Apart
continued on, an endless loop Dewey had been playing for years.

He slung me over his shoulder like a sack of miserable potatoes and stalked out of the room.

K
aren

He took me outside into the bright sunshine. As best I could tell, we were approximately in the middle of nowhere. We came out of a dilapidated  building that might have been an old farmhouse and he stalked around the side, not speaking to me. As he’d said, he was done. Done with me.

My body was still wracked with sobs and I hurt too much to offer any resistance. Even if I escaped his grasp now there was nowhere I could go, he’d catch me in seconds. I was done and I knew it. He was going to kill me and there was nothing else to do about it.

We arrived at an old weathered shed around the corner from the abandoned house. Everything about it looked ancient except for the sturdy padlock on the front. He let me hang on his shoulder like a corpse as he undid the padlock. A moment later the door was open, he stepped inside briefly and dumped me unceremoniously onto the dirt floor of a wooden shed.

“Goodbye, Karen.”

I didn’t and couldn’t respond, still finding it hard to breathe after the rain of kicks he’d poured into my aching, tired and defeated body.

I curled up on the floor making myself as small as possible. Behind me I heard the door close with a thunk and then the padlock close with a metallic scrape and a click. That was it, I was locked in.

The dirt floor was cool and welcoming. I stifled an absurd laugh as I realized what I was thinking. How far had I sunk and what had I become, that I thought a dirt floor in a dark shed was welcoming? I imagined teenage me and Katie in here. We would have been screaming and panicking about spiders. I let out another little laugh.

“It’s pretty funny, huh?” came a voice out of the darkness. Shock at the voice was quickly followed by elation.
Bottle!

I laughed again. “No!” I forced out before a giggle followed. Was I manic, was I going crazy, or was I just making light of the fucked up situation? I wasn’t sure.

“That is you, Karen?” he asked.

I brought my giggles under control. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

He let out a little laugh of his own before putting on a mock hurt voice, “What, you’re not glad to see me?”

“Ha ha”, I said, “I can’t see fuck all in here though.”

I heard Bottle shift around on the floor. “Give it a minute, your eyes will adjust. There’s light leaking in through some cracks.”

I turned my head to look up, and sure enough I could see bright lines in the ceiling where light was forcing its way through boards which, while once tightly pressed together, had forced themselves apart after years of being teased by the elements.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice more serious than before.

“Still alive. For now.”

There was silence, for a moment, then “Oh shit.”

“What?”

“I was nodding sympathetically.”

I laughed at the thought of him sitting there nodding his head in the dark. “I’ll take your word for it. Hold on, I’ll come over to you.”

“Good idea. Wait, you’re not tied up?”

“No, not any more. He took the tape off my wrists before, when we were getting on better.”

“You were getting on better, huh?”

I let out another little laugh. “Well, he thought we were. Until I kneed him in the jaw.”

“Good girl!”

I followed his voice and made my way painfully over to him. It’s weird how even in the worst of times you can still feel a whole range of emotions, or at least I can. There we were, kidnapped, locked in a shed in the middle of nowhere, but when I crawled over to Bottle I felt a sense of elation and pleasure to be in his presence again, to not be alone in this mess.

My eyes had begun to adjust and I could make out his outline against the dark back wall of the shed. Unlike the other three walls and roof no light was coming in from that side, perhaps the sun was in the wrong position I thought.

He was leaning back against the wall, his arms behind him, his legs out, extended in front of him, secured at the ankles. I shifted over next to him, and joined him sitting leaning back against the wall.

“I guess the plan didn’t work, huh?” I said.

“Nope. Fuckin’ Gauge...”

“Tough break.”

He let out a chuckle. We were in the exact same situation but I was offering him sympathy. I winced in pain as I joined him laughing.

“Since you’re untied, wanta’ try the door? You know, just in case. I gave it a good kicking when he first threw me in here, but I couldn’t do much all trussed up like this.”

“Sure.”

I clambered to my feet slowly because of the thousand different aches and pains bothering my body. I felt the outline of the door. There was a simple wooden latch, but it wouldn’t move when I tried to lift it. Dewey had padlocked it from the outside, of course.

“Ain’t doing,” I said.

“Worth a try.”

“Yeah,” I said as I went to sit back down next to him again. If we were going to get out we’d need someone to let us in from the outside.

“So, you never finished telling me your story.”

I punched him on the arm. “You disappeared and left me locked in your room!”

He rubbed his arm, pretending I’d hurt him while I knew I hadn’t. “Hey! I was off laying a trap so we could catch the bastard.”

“Some trap.”

Bottle let out an exasperated sigh. “The bastard had night vision fuckin’ goggles. He was watching the area to make sure we didn’t lay a trap.”

“Fuck. Told you he was clever though...”

“Yeah. I guess you did. So go on, give me the rest of it.”

“Well, the last year of high school is when things really got fucked...”

K
aren

After Dewey made that comment about my mother’s impeding death, when he said to me, “We’ll be able to spend more time together soon, babe. Soon it’ll just be us.” Something switched inside of me. I knew I had to escape from his grasp while I still could.

I don’t know whether I ever really had a chance, but back then I thought I did. Maybe if I’d made different decisions and been more careful I could have gotten away with it. Ha ha...
gotten away with it...
as if I was committing some kind of crime.

It was the senior year of high school, and while for some kids that meant the beginning of adult life, for others it meant time to move on to the next stage and go to college. Dewey had decided that we would be going to the local community college together (
it will save us money, it’s the responsible choice
), taking a criminal justice course after which we would go to police academy. Together, of course.

Actually, he often dropped hints that maybe I didn’t need to go, maybe I should be home with the children. The children. He was always talking about our non-existent children - he wanted to have them young, but I don’t think it was because of a burning love for them, I think it was more to do with his burning love for control.

If we had kids it’d be one more way to control me, to keep me locked away from anyone else and one more anchor to keep me in place and stop me fleeing. And of course it’d give him one, then two, then more little people he could manipulate and control, only these would be ones he could sink his claws into from birth and no doubt
truly
fuckup.

I needed a plan to escape him, and it would have to be put in place soon after Mom died (it was inevitable by then). My biggest problem was a lack of time to think, to plan, to take actions to help myself without him around.