Category: Flash Fiction

Sounds, soft beeping entered his consciousness.

Dean bolted upright as memories of what had just happened flood through his mind.

The sound he had thought was beeping he quickly realised was actually Tayla moaning.

“Tay,” he said flipping over the chair she was still bound to and immediately noticing the blood drenching her shoulder and the myriad of bruises. Anger surged through him and he glanced over the chair to see Jason dead, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. The man didn’t deserve to get off so easy for everything he had done to Tayla.

“Dean,” she whispered, her voice was weak and strained and he was worried that he was going to lose her all over again.

“Hold on, baby,” he begged as he grabbed the small pocketknife he kept on his keychain and began to cut through her bonds. He’d just gotten her back and there was no way he was letting her die.

No way.

He’d walked away all those years ago because he’d been consumed with guilt, convinced he didn’t deserve a sweet, smart, gorgeous woman after inadvertently getting his cousin killed. But now he had her back, she was single, and she’d forgiven him, he wasn’t letting Jason take away their second chance.

She tried to lift a hand, but she didn’t have the strength. She gave him a weak smile, her one good eye locked onto his. “Love you, never stopped,” she murmured.

Then her eyes closed and she went limp.

She wasn’t breathing.

Panic cut through him, he was losing her.

“Tayla, don’t you dare give up on me now,” he ordered as he laid her flat on the floor and covered her mouth with his own, forcing air into her. “Tayla, I love you, I don’t want to lose you, I can’t. Come on, Tay, fight, please, baby, fight for me.”

Tayla couldn’t take much more of this.

If Dean didn’t find her soon then all he was going to find when he figured out Jason was the one who had taken her was her body. She didn’t want that for him, he had ben through so much, and they had both lost so many years together, they deserved a chance.

That’s why she was fighting as hard as she could.

She was just afraid it wasn’t enough.

The door opened and Jason was back. “Please,” she begged weakly, “please, Jason. Stop this, we can get you some help.”

“Like you helped me last time?” Jason sneered. “It’s never easy like that, talking to a shrink doesn’t help. Nothing helps.”

“You weren’t honest with me, you didn’t tell me what was going on in your head,” she reminded him even though she knew it was pointless, she was dealing with a man who wasn’t in his right mind.

He swung his fist, connected with the side of her head and sent a sharp stab of pain through her already aching head.

The world began to fade around her and Tayla wondered whether this was it, if this was the end. Was she about to die?

Something loud echoed in her head and she squeezed her eyes closed against it.

“Tayla,” someone screamed her name.

Dean.

It was Dean.

“Its’s over, Jason,” Dean said.

Her would be killer vibrated with rage. She knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Dean, look out,” she called out as she launched herself, chair and all, towards Jason, she’d rather die than let him hurt Dean.

Guns went off.

Jason’s maybe, or Dean’s, possibly both.

The force of the chair hitting the floor was enough to send her spinning towards unconsciousness and she wondered if any of them would make it out of this room alive.

“You’re awake.”

Dean looked over at Jax as his partner entered the conference room. “Of course,” he replied like it was obvious. Because it should be. There was nowhere else he was going to be than working this case until he had Tayla safe and sound in his arms, and he certainly wasn’t going to waste time taking a nap even if he was supposed to still be in the hospital.

Ninety hours now.

That was how long she had been gone.

Almost four days.

Four days and they were no closer to finding her than they’d been when he awakened in the hospital forty-eight hours after the shooting.

“How can we not find him?” he demanded, shoving away from the table and pacing the length of the room, ignoring the pain in his arm, the lingering nausea, and the raging headache he knew was a mixture of dehydration, lack of food, and leaving the hospital too soon after being shot. “We know his name, finding where he has Tayla stashed should be easy.”

“We know his name but he’s basically off the grid,” Jax reminded him. “He has no listed place of residence, no job, no credit or debit cards.”

He knew that but no one could live in today’s world and not leave a footprint somewhere.

Somewhere, somehow, Jason would show them where he was hiding out but the longer it took the less likely Tayla would still be alive by the time they found him.

Dean opened his mouth to say something but then his gaze flew to the screen of his laptop. He’d been going on a hunch and assuming that Jason had to be getting about somehow which meant he had to be using a car, a stolen one since there was none registered in his name. That meant at some point he would have to go to a gas station.

“Bingo,” he grinned. “There he is.” Dean pointed to a man standing at a pump filling up an SUV. Grabbing his keys and cell phone he ran out the door. All they had to do was follow that car and it would lead them straight to Tayla.

Now he just had to pray she was still alive.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The sound penetrated the haze Tayla was trapped in, irritating her and nudging her out of her cosy little cocoon of peace and darkness.

Was the tap in her bathroom dripping?

The kitchen tap had been giving her trouble for a while now but she couldn’t hear that all the way from her bedroom.

Cold air washed over her and with a horrifying shudder everything came rushing back to her.

She wasn’t at home in bed and it wasn’t the bathroom tap that was dripping it was her blood hitting the polished concrete floor.

How long had she been here?

Tayla wasn’t sure but it felt like months and surely had to have at least been a few days.

Jason had brought her to a house in the middle of nowhere, straight down into a basement he must have prepared just for her. He’d tied her to a chair and beaten her until she’d lapsed into unconsciousness. Then he’d come back and done it again and again and again.

Dean’s mind would be racing, trying to figure out where she was, but …

Not if he was dead.

Her throat closed up at the thought and tears stung the backs of her eyes, she would gladly endure more beatings if it meant that Dean was okay. He had sacrificed so much already over his misplaced guilt about his cousin and she hated the idea of him blaming herself for what Jason was doing to her.

Footsteps sounded and then the scrape of a metal door being opened.

Jason was back.

She sucked in a breath and tried to find a place in her mind to hide, she wasn’t sure she could do this again. Her body was weak, from he gunshot and the beatings, and she didn’t know how much longer she could last. If someone didn’t find her soon Jason would get what he wanted and she’d be dead.

What do you want, Jason?

The words seemed to be stuck on repeat in his mind, he kept hearing them over and over again until he felt like it was driving him insane.

The voice.

It was Tayla speaking those words, but who was Jason, and why did she want to know what he wanted?

Dean wished he could remember but the only thing floating through his brain was those words.

Where he was he had no idea.

What had happened, he didn’t know that either.

All he knew was those words, he was sure they meant something, something important, but he couldn’t for the life of him put his finger on it.

One minute he was hearing those words and the next he was opening his eyes.

White.

White ceiling, white walls, white sheets, so much white that for a moment it blinded him and he had to scrunch his eyes shut.

“Dean.”

He snapped his eyelids up when he heard his partner’s voice, the first voice that wasn’t Tayla’s he’d heard in … he didn’t even know how long. He didn’t know what had happened or what was going on.

“Dean, you with me?”

“Jax?” he croaked, surprised at his weak and raspy voice. “What happened?”

“You were at your place with Tayla, her stalker must have followed you there, he shot up the place, got you in the arm, you lost a lot of blood, you were unconscious when cops showed up.”

Memories came rushing back at Jax’s words and he bolted upright. “Tayla? What about Tayla? She was hit too.”

Concern creased his partner’s face and his anxiety jumped up several notches.

“Jax? Where’s Tayla? Is she …” he couldn’t even say the word.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What does that mean?” How could he not know, Tayla had been unconscious, bleeding badly, it wasn’t like she could have gotten up and walked off.

“She wasn’t there when cops arrived.”

“The stalker got her.” Panic sliced through him cutting him deep to the core. “Jason. His name is Jason. I remember her saying, What do you want, Jason. We have to find her before its too late. We’re int he hospital, right? We need to get back to the scene, maybe if I’m there I can give crime scene something to check out, or give you something more to go on.”

“Dean,” Jax said, resting his hand on his shoulder. “You lost a lot of blood, you’ve been unconscious for the last forty-eight hours.”

Forty-eight hours?

While he’d been lying here in a hospital bed Tayla had been with a man who clearly hated her for forty-eight hours.

Was she even still alive?