Cold-Blooded Beautiful (20 page)

“We have to do something,” Jen cried softly when her eyes locked onto the video loop playing Samantha’s abduction.  “He’s really going to kill her.  He’s going to torture her until he finds the money!  My God, we need to do something. She might be...
oh, God
,” she sobbed.

“You all need to realize that there is a great possibility that she is already dead. The blood in the trunk was a match with blood Samantha donated to the hospital for the last blood drive.  So put your adult pants back on and let us do our job without getting in the way.  Understood?”  His pale brown eyes softened as he looked straight at me, “You also need to realize that the woman who is missing was trained for traumatic situations and spent six years in the fucking military, and the blood that was found on the
outside
of the trunk was someone else’s match, but we have no DNA evidence as to who.  What we do know is that we have her hospital ID card code with her coming in and leaving twenty minutes later, and we’ve all just seen on the surveillance tapes who really left.  Now, Deputy Tatum here is going to stay with you, and escort you all home.  I have a department full of deputies and rangers combing through the woods in the fucking dark for anything that will lead us to find her.”

Calmness overcame me. If it fell between the two, Samantha had more experience with violence.  She knew the monster well. She had seen more violence and lived through more pain than I ever did.  She’d survived worse than David. 

Right?
 

She was a fucking surgeon. She could shank a bitch, gut her, feed her own intestines to her for dinner, and fucking keep her alive while doing it.  It’s David’s arsenal of weaponry I’m fucking worried about. If he starts pulling out his handy dandy bag of pharmaceutical toys and shit, she can’t fight against him. 

They had to find her. 

“There is nothing more that you all could do for her tonight, so go home and get some rest.  I know you think that’s an impossible feat, but you have to try. Tomorrow, when daylight breaks, if you want to volunteer in the search parties we are setting up, you can, but you need to leave your emotions home, Kade.  It will not help her for you to lose control.”

Too fucking late, control has already been lost
.

Chapter 14

Slowly, I cracked open the door and swept the room for David with my eyes, I would have given a limb for a gun right about then.  My hands tightened and braced themselves against the wall as I slipped out silently.  It didn’t feel right, being so
vertical
.  That wasn’t the best of signs, but I wasn’t giving up, and I wasn’t stopping for anything.  My skin was too raw and too hot. It burned from the inside out.  It prickled and stung like thousands of little needles were piercing my skin, making me shiver with chills that crept into the nape of my neck, but I couldn’t stop and self diagnose. I had to concentrate, keep my eye on the target, and get out alive.

Aurora’s clothes were huge on me, and I practically had to tie them around
things
to keep them from dropping around my ankles.  With slow calming breaths, I silently closed the door of my prison.

The room on the other side was crammed and cluttered with battered mismatched furniture, and hundreds of piles of tied up newspapers.  Cartons of what smelled like rotting food littered every surface with swarms of bugs hovering over like little black clouds.  One circular tube of fluorescent lighting flickered and buzzed in the middle of the ceiling, and tiny silhouettes of bug carcasses filled the bulb.  From the rush of icy air that surged in through each broken window, torn cream curtains ruffled and fluttered like long menacing spirits. The sight of the room crippled me with a mixture fear and disgust.

How long have I been here?

Keeping myself as close as I could with my back to the wall, the room spread out in front of me. I made my way towards the closest window.  The frigid draft sent chills across my skin, making me wrap my arms around my chest for warmth. 
How long would I be able to stay outside in this cold?  How long until the sunrise?

My eyes quickly scanned the room for anything I would be able to use.  A few dishes.  Mounds of papers.  No utensils or weapons. 

There was one long candle cradled awkwardly into a metal holder. 
That’s going to have to do for now
.  Look.  Keep fucking looking.  Grabbing it quickly, I shoved the metal candleholder in the waistband of the skirt, scraping my hip as I did so. 
Keep looking.
 My eyes scanned through everything. My hands held tightly to my chest, not wanting to touch one single piece of filth.  Climbing over the piles of papers and
fuck I don’t even know what,
I tried my hand at wrestling with a rusty old latch of a piece of furniture.  After a few strong tugs, the drawer came open and a puff of dust and debris exited.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to scream and mother fucking OCD clean.  I felt like…I felt like things were crawling across my skin.  I moved my eyes faster around the room. There had to be something there to use as a weapon, anything. 
Come on
.

My eyes dropped to the ground, where a small box of matches lay open, matchsticks scattered across the rotting floorboards. 

Matches
.

Matches?

I’m going to burn this motherfucker down. 

Someone will come to put it out. 
That’s my way home
.

Crawling across the floor, I began picking up every matchstick I found, praying the box they had come in was bone-dry.  My knees sank into the soft decaying wooden planks of the floor. They crumbled and snapped under the pressure.  Yeah, this place was going to light up real quick.  Maybe I could find some gasoline or other flammable substances to help it along.  My gaze fluttered around the room, quickly taking an inventory of everything as fast as I could.  Then my eyes froze on the closed door to the room I was held prisoner in.

Son-of-a-SUBMISSIVE-BITCH!
 Aurora was still out cold in there, wasn’t she? 

There was a tiny, miniscule part of me that wanted not to care.  Leave her there.  After all, she helped David with whatever he had planned. 

Clenching my eyes shut tight, which hurt like hell, I inhaled deeply and sighed.  That wasn’t the person I was, though.  I wasn’t the type of person to leave someone to die in a burning building, no matter what she ever did.  Maybe you could.  Maybe the majority of the people in the world could, but I would never be able to look at my reflection in a mirror again and live with myself, knowing that I could have saved her and didn’t even try.  I mean, come on, even with the limited knowledge that you hold about the way my brain works, you know I could never leave her.  I was a trauma surgeon.  I couldn’t leave her and start a fire where I knew she would die.  I just couldn’t.  That’s not what I’m made of.  That’s not how I was created.  I was put here to fucking heal people, to save them, and I refuse to give up who I am for anything.  And…I’m not going to lie.  It’s the thought of seeing her in a bright orange jumpsuit, behind bars, being someone’s little bitch that made me want to save her even more.  Yeah, major critical visual stimulation for me.  I wanted to be visiting her in prison, smiling in front of the thick bulletproof glass, and eating Twinkies in front of her. 

Still on my hands and knees, I shoved all the matches into the little front pocket of my new shirt, and crept across the floor back to the room.  All I could think about were the plethora of fungal infections that lived on everything I touched.  I needed to do this quickly.

Silently opening the door, I slithered in and crouched down next to her almost bare body. 
Damnit!
  I forgot I stole her clothes.  Screw it. The gigantic campfire I was about to unleash, would have to keep her warm.

Hooking my elbows under her arms, I dragged her unconscious body slowly across the floor and out the door.  I was so weak from whatever drug David had given me, by the time I hauled her to the window, I had the cold sweats and labored breathing.  I might have vomited once on Aurora’s leg, but let’s be blatantly honest here,
she deserved it
.

Hefting her body up and out of the window just about killed me, yet I did it, and she flopped out and onto a decomposing porch with a loud thwack.  Again,
she deserved it
. 

With trembling limbs, I lunged back to the piles of newspapers and set to work on lighting them up.  Quickly starting in one corner, I moved around the room, striking a match to light and holding it against the stacks of paper, until I watched them curl up in flames.  Damn, adrenaline rushed through me. I felt the heated burst of it across my chest and scalp, and immediately, I was high. Great, somewhere hidden in the depths of me is a closet pyromaniac. 
I couldn’t wait to tell Kade
. Over a dozen little fires raged, rapidly growing into tall scorching flames that licked black rings of smoke along the ceiling.  Within a few moments, the place was an inferno.

Climbing out of the window, with the heat of the flames biting at my back, I threw my weight up and over.  My body landed on Aurora’s.  Once again,
she deserved it
.

Grabbing her by the ankles, I yanked her body as far as I could from the burning cabin and carefully scanned my surroundings.  I had no idea where I was, or even
when
it was.  The night was dark, moonless, and tall evergreen trees blocked out most of the view.  One narrow pathway, just barely visible and wide enough for a car, stretched out just in front of the cabin. The ground was covered with a light dusting of snow and ice.  That wasn’t helpful at all to me, because I didn’t want to leave any tracks behind for David to follow. 

Okay, maybe I did
.  Leaving Aurora’s body up against the nearest tree, I ran towards the pathway, making sure to leave a clear set of footprints behind me.  I did this for a few minutes, then jumped into the surrounding forest and doubled back the way I came.  Halfway back, I climbed up the thickest covered tree I could find and watched the cabin blaze with fire from above.

I stayed there. I didn’t run.  I waited.  I hid and I watched, because now,
I was motherfucking
hunting.  Someone had to see that fire, right?  Someone had to be alerted and people had to come, right?  I knew David would, but I was counting on others.  If I ran out into the dense woods, I would freeze, and I’d most likely be lost for days.  I had to trust my gut instinct.  Stay close to the enemy and watch him.

My body started to numb with the cold.  I tried swaying back and forth on the branch of the tree to get my blood flowing, but that just made my ears ache with my accelerated movements.  I climbed to a higher branch with better pine needle covering from the wind, when I heard the low motor of an engine.  Just through the darkness of the dirt road, bright headlights crawled toward the cabin. 
David
.  He completely runs over my tracks and doesn’t notice his lump of submissive mistress leaning limply against the tree.

The car slowly pulled up next to the front door of the cabin and its door swings open with a metallic hollow creak.  David climbed out.  Long elegant trench coat, slicked back hair.  I wanted to throw a rock at his head.  Slamming the door closed, he walked around the old boat of a car and unlocked the truck with a key. 
Who does that anymore?
 Bending over the rim of the trunk, he seemed to be looking for something.  When he stands up, he’s got a huge bag in one hand and a huge roll of rope in the other. 

WHAT the hell was that rope for?

My head spun, and the icy air started biting into my skin savagely.  The bark of the tree was so cold that I felt aching in my bones.  My fingers and toes turned numb, and my ears pang with sharp stabbing pains that shot across my jaw.

The rope dropped out of his hands the instant he saw the bright flames escaping, reaching, and clawing their way out of the windows.  His voice screamed out in anger with some unintelligible words and I watched as he opened the front door to a roaring inferno. 

“Samantha!” he screamed, as he backed away and ran around the cabin.

Nothing but the swoosh and crackle of the fire answered him back, as the roof of the cabin burst into brilliant sparks of fire.  Dark leaves of the smallest tree closest to the cabin started bursting into flames, creating a domino effect.  It spread quickly across the top of the tree, which caused a larger tree to catch fire.  Along the far side of the cabin, a half dozen old cars lined the perimeter, all instantly lighting up and three large dark red barrels that were positioned next to the cars, exploded in succession, rocking the ground.   The tree vibrated and trembled and I wrapped my arms around it, so I wouldn’t fall.  My luck, I’d fall right at his damn feet.

Shit.  Shit. Shit
.

“Samantha!” David taunted from below, laughing.  “What do you think will come out of this, pet?  Do you think you’ll get to walk away from me?”  With the bright blaze of the burning fire, the forest was eerily lit up, and the shadows of flames danced before him.  He held his arms outstretched and slowly twirled in a circle.  He looked bronzed and utterly evil in the harsh glow of the fire.  “Do you think I’d let you get away, my love?  Buy yourself a new life with all the money you stole from me?  Give it to your new little boy toy?  Think he’s with you because he loves you?  No one can love you, pet.  You’re just a slut.  A dirty whole to warm a dick for a few moments, not a particularly pleasurable one, either.  A useless little fuckhole.”