Tag: crime

“Police! On the ground!” a voice yelled.

Loudly.

Too loudly.

“Its Graham and Liam,” the man who had been untying her yelled back, and she assumed he must be Graham since Liam had flung his body protectively over hers the second the room went completely dark.

For Cara just staying awake was enough work, so she didn’t bother listening to the voices as they spoke in hard angry tones, but she hoped Liam wasn’t in trouble for saving her. Even if he had killed the man who had viciously tortured her body.

“Don’t let them take you away from me,” she whispered, trying to cling to Liam even though his arms felt heavy.

“Never,” he vowed.

But almost as soon as he made the promise, paramedics began to swarm around her, taking her vitals, and tending to her wounds.

When they tried to pull Liam away from her side, she cried out. “No! I need him.”

“Try to take her from me and I’ll kill you,” Liam snarled in a voice she hadn’t heard him use before.

“He doesn’t mean that literally,” Graham quickly piped up.

Liam snorted in such a way that said he absolutely would kill them if they tore her away from him. Call her crazy but she was fine with that plan.

“Am I dying?” she asked the medics.

“No, ma’am.”

“Then I’m going to the hospital with him,” she said firmly.

Although they tutted their disapproval, she didn’t really care. Cara got that she had a long road ahead of her, she’d seen and felt everything her abductor had done to her, and it was going to take a long time to heal. Maybe Liam wouldn’t stick around for all of it but she doubted it.

Liam carried Cara out of the horror show place and carefully put her in his car and drove her to the hospital. Well he tried to drive, but his friend rolled his eyes, and ordered him into the back so he could hold her. She wasn’t arguing with that.

“If you don’t want … its going to take a long time to heal, and …”

“Better not finish that sentence, honey,” Liam warned, his lips millimetres from hers.

“But we’ve known each other any time at all.”

“Don’t care. I know, feel, that you’re mine. Never letting you go. Not ever again, not even for a second.”

Before she could remind him that there was no way that was a feasible way to live the rest of their lives, his lips descended on hers. In that split second before Liam kissed her, Cara saw Graham’s wistful gaze watching them in the rear view mirror, then she surrendered to the kiss of the man she was already positive she wanted to spend there rest of her life with.

A cloud of rage descended upon him when he saw Dave Davidson standing above Cara, who was bound to a table, with a knife dripping with her blood held over her still body.

Too still.

Was he too late?

Liam refused to believe that as he launched himself at the man trying to steal from him what could be the most amazing future. At the last second Dave turned, the man’s eyes widening as he swung the knife in Liam’s direction.

But he wasn’t dying here today, because if Dave killed him then Cara was next.

Tacking Dave to the ground, Liam barely registered the sting of the knife cutting through his flesh, because he was blinded by rage. His fists swung time and time again, hitting Dave’s head, letting out all the fear he’d felt from the moment he watched Cara’s car slide down the side of that ravine.

It wasn’t until he realised that Dave was no longer trying to fight back, that he finally stopped. He was breathing heavy, covered in blood, some of it his, some of it Dave’s, but there was only one thing he cared about.

Staggering to his feet he moved to the table where Graham had removed Cara’s gag, and was freeing her of the ropes binding her to the table. There was blood all over her, more bruises on her pale skin, one of her wrists was at a strange angle, and her eyes were pools of tears.

“Liam,” she choked out. “You’re not dead. You came for me.”

“Always, honey,” he said as he stroked her hair, and although it seemed weird to make a promise like that when they’d known each other such a short time, it felt right.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he murmured as he slipped his arms beneath her knees and behind her back. “Let’s get you out of here, get you to the hospital.” But just as she was being lifted everything went dark.

Pain.

That was all her world had descended into.

With each slice of the blade Cara’s body jerked against the restraints, but those movements were becoming weaker, each drop of blood spilled stole another piece of her strength.

Soon she’d just wither away and … cease to exist.

Fighting was useless, the ropes at her wrists and ankles held her firmly, the wooden table beneath her was solid, and with the gag muffled any sound she tried to make.

Her attacker was enjoying every second of this. He’d been grinning since he peeled that first layer of skin off, and every so often he’d squeal in delight and congratulate himself for removing a large piece of skin intact without any tears.

Death was coming for her and she just wanted it to take her already. End this. She no longer allowed herself to entertain the possibility that rescue could happen. She couldn’t think about Liam, not without an ache in her chest that was worse than the pain each time the knife sliced through her skin.

He was probably dead too, and soon she’d join him.

Another muffled cry fell from her lips as his knife cut off skin along her abdomen. Cara couldn’t stand looking at her mangled body, so she’d closed her eyes, and now she was just waiting.

Waiting to die.

Waiting for the suffering to end.

Cara was losing hope when unexpected voices pulled her from despair. Her eyes jerked open, and then the next thing she knew a dark figure came rushing towards the table, tackling her attacker to the ground.

It was hard to focus when he was so scared for Cara.

“What if I’m wrong?” Liam asked Graham.

“The cops won’t give up on her,” his friend soothed, or tried to anyway since the only thing that was going to comfort him right now was getting his girl back in his arms.

“She can only survive so long once he starts,” he reminded his friend. All he could see in his head was the fear that she is losing all hope of being found alive.

“What you remembered about the smell makes sense, and fits with what the cops know about Dave Davidson,” Graham reminded him.

“Still there are six building sights his family’s construction company is currently working on.” Six chances to find her if he was right, but even if he was right and they didn’t find which site he was at quickly enough she could still be gone by the time they found her.

“Don’t give up on her yet,” Graham urged.

“I won’t.” He couldn’t. Instead Liam focused his attention on the blurring lights as they raced towards one of the building sites. After he’d remembered the smell on the body, they’d called the cops, who had warned him to stay out of it and let them do their job.

Not happening.

He and Graham had called the Davidson family construction company, got a list of their current sites, and were currently on their way to the one they thought was most likely to be where a psychotic killer would go with a victim for privacy. The new housing estate was huge, meaning the nearest occupied houses were far enough away not to hear the screams.

What they’d do when they got there he wasn’t sure yet. Neither he nor Graham were armed, and they had no idea what condition Cara might be in.

But this was better than doing nothing.

Graham drove as close to the speed limit as he could without getting them pulled over, and forty-five minutes after he’d had his revelation they pulled up at the site.

Both of them jumped out of the vehicle, and as they headed for the nearest partially built house he saw it. A dumpster. On the ground outside it was a piece of duct tape and a rag.

They were in the right place, but had they gotten here in time to save Cara?

Running had been a waste of time but Cara had tried it anyway. All it had gotten her was a tackle to the rough ground hard enough that she was sure she’d broken her wrist.

Screaming had been a waste of time but Cara had tried that too. All that had gotten her was another blow to her already aching head and then a disgusting, dirty sock shoved in her mouth as a gag, held in place with a strip of duct tape around her head.

Now as she lay on a wooden table inside the half built house, ropes binding her wrists and ankles to the legs of the chair, Cara felt such despair as all hope drained away.

No one was coming.

If Liam was dead then no one even knew she was missing. Even if he’d survived, been able to get to help, they wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for her.

She didn’t have a choice but to face reality. And that reality was that she was about to my killed by a deranged man who seemed to adore his knife.

He stood beside her, knife held up, the blade practically glowing in the thin light of the lantern he’d set up beside them.

“These have to go,” he muttered, frowning at her clothes. Well Liam’s clothes since she was still wearing the sweater and sweatpants he’d given her at the cabin.

Pleading for him not to do this through her gag didn’t even capture the man’s attention as he began to cut the clothes off her body, stopping only when he’d removed them all.

“So soft, so pretty,” he murmured as he ran his palm across her now naked stomach. “I don’t like these though. They’re ruining things,” he grumbled as he fingered her bruises from the crash.

Tears leaked from her eyes, and she tried to shrink away from the knife as the tip glided across her skin, but there was nowhere for her to go.

Nothing for her to do but scream into the gag as the blade began to peel her skin from her body.