FOREVER MINE (33 page)

They ask a few more questions and leave the store.  They are no closer to finding Charlie than they were before.  Even with the name from O’Rourke.  They are waiting for a search warrant for the old mill, but so far no word.  Doing everything by the book sucks sometimes. 

Charlie comes out of the bathroom, she sees Michael sitting on the bed and all the anger she has stuffed down to the deepest darkest parts of her soul, resurface with a vengeance, swift and unrestrained.  It physically hurts.  She runs at an unsuspecting Michael and round house kicks him in the face.

Blood explodes from his nose.  He cries out in pain and shock.  When he lands on the floor on his hands and knees, she kicks him again in the face.  The force causes his head to whip back.  He falls on his side and screams, “You stupid whore!”

Charlie takes a defensive stance, like she was taught, and waits for him uncover some part of himself she can strike.  Blood is pouring from his nose, his lip is cut open, and his gums are bleeding.  He spits on the floor and stands up.  Charlie, taking advantage of his disorientation punches him and grabs his hair bringing her knee up to meet his face. 

Michael is ready this time though; he grabs her knee and then the other.  He is holding both her legs while she pulls his hair.  He drives her backward towards the bed and pins her under him.  She is fighting like a wild animal.  He twists her legs so she is on her back, drags her to the end of the bed and forces himself roughly into her.  No warning, no preparation, just dry and deep.  She screams in pain, which only makes him go faster harder.  He wraps his hands around her neck and squeezes.

Charlie stops moving, stops fighting, it hurts so bad.  She can hardly breathe.  She lies still, letting herself cry and going somewhere else in her head.  She has no idea how long he is behind her, and she doesn’t care anymore.  She just wants it over.  She has one last card to play and if that doesn’t work she knows she’s dead.

Michael’s blood is all over her.  She can feel it drying on her back where he rubbed his face.  She hopes Brody is proud of her for fighting him off for as long as she could.  She hopes he doesn’t watch anymore.  She thinks about Brody’s beautiful eyes; the always changing blue, a sea of mixing hues to get lost in, always the same but also always different.  She misses his eyes.  She misses him.  She looks up at the camera and mouths “I love you, Brody.”

Charlie can feel herself being ripped apart by Michael’s thrusts.  Physically, it feels like skin is being removed with every movement; mentally, she feels a part of her close off.  Her brain shuts down; a door closes forever, as she lays there not moving silent tears fall from her eyes as she cries for the woman she will never be again.  This time Michael wins.  She is beyond broken.  

She feels him tense and slow as he gets close to finishing, she uses this moment to scramble away out of his grasp.  Lurching for the side of the bed she pulls out the razor and slashes Michael.  He screams as the razor connects with his cheek.  Charlie doesn’t stop there she swings it again and again, slashing his hands his arm, anything that she can get. 

She throws all her weight against him tumbling to the floor with him.  They land with her straddling his hips.  She presses the blade to his throat.  He freezes.  She can feel his erect penis pushing against her and is revolted that he is still turned on.  Michael must have seen the emotions play across her face; because he picks that moment to push against her.

“Do that again, and I will cut you.”

“Charlie, you can’t kill me with that razor.  The worst you can do is
make
me bleed.  It isn’t sharp enough to go deep.”  Then he punches her in the face she flies backward and smashes her head on the metal of the bed.

I open my eyes to a blinding pain in the back of my head.  It’s so bad I either want to pass back out or throw up.  The light is like shards of glass being stuck into my eyeballs.  I squint trying to reorient myself to my surroundings.  I am in a different room.  It looks like a factory space of some kind. 

There are a lot of windows, but they are dirty or painted over, I can’t tell which, so no one can see in.  They let in very little light as well.  I am still naked, and my hands are suspended above my head on long chains attached to a high metal beam that runs the length of the ceiling, supporting the roof.  If I had any strength, I could use the length of the chain to my advantage by swinging on them to kick Michael in his face again.

There is also a drain in the floor between my legs.  I guess for easy clean up.  There is a rope around my neck, hanging loosely, I know the more I wrestle the tighter it will get, eventually killing me.  I hope it’s quick, but I know it won’t be.  Michael likes to watch the suffering; he craves the feeling of power when taking the life of another person.

I knew when I used the razor this would be my fate.  However, anything is better than being raped again.  I will gladly die not to be touched by him again.  I don’t understand why he isn’t here with me.  This is the moment he has been waiting for; why not
be
here to witness the moment I realize what my fate is?

Then, more terrifying than anything that has happened so far, I know why he isn’t here. 
Brody.
  He has always wanted to get to him.  Michael has found a way to get Brody here by himself.  He isn’t going to kill me.  He is going to kill Brody, while I watch.  The tears that fall down my face are uncontrollable. 

I start to scream, “Michael!”  I struggle trying to get the rope off my neck.  It’s so loose if I could just bend my knees and turn my head the right way I could get it off.  As I fight I realize that it’s getting tighter and now there is no way it will fit over my head.  I give up and wait for my fate.

                **********

Brody is driving to the address that was given to him.  He is speeding and running red lights.  All he can think about is Charlie.  He needs to get to her before anything else happens.

He can’t get the image out of his head of Michael touching her.  The way his hands groped her and grabbed her, makes him sick.  He will do whatever he has to, to keep Charlie from living through that again.  He hopes nothing else is happening to her now.  He hates that he had to see what he did, but it is better than not knowing what she is dealing with.

He is about 10 minutes away from his destination, when his phone rings.  He grabs it and answers without looking at who it is; expecting it to be Michael since he is so close. 
“Yeah?”

“Thank God, Brody.  Where have you been?”

“Pat, sorry.  I haven’t been able to call you I have been at Charlie’s apartment.  I left a note with her neighbor explaining everything.  Michael has her.  He set up a computer in her apartment so I could watch her.  He raped her again, Pat.”  I can’t keep the anguish out of my voice.  “I couldn’t watch while he did that to her.  I closed the laptop, but I saw enough.  I’m going there now.  He gave me an address.”

“Whoa, slow down Brody.  You can’t go in there alone.”  I could hear him wrestling with the phone and crinkle some paper, “ok, give me the address.  I will meet you there with the rest of the team.”

“No time.  I am almost there.  It will take you an hour to get here, plus you have to get everyone ready before you leave.”

“You let us worry about that.  Just give me the address.”

“15231 Old Mill Road.”

“That’s one of the addresses we are looking into.  Apparently, he bought it using a fake Id from O’Rourke.  He used the name Roger Warren.”

“His mom’s boyfriend was a Warren; I bet that is why he picked the name.”  I see the mill out my window.  “I have to go Pat, I’m here.”

“Alright, Brody, be careful, I will be there as soon as I can.  I won’t wait around here if it starts taking too long.”

“Thanks, I think it’s already too late.  Take care of yourself and thank you for everything you’ve done.”  I hang up the phone before he can say more.  I park the truck at the end of an over grown path, about half a mile away.  He probably has cameras watching everywhere but I can sneak in on foot.  If I drive, camera or not, he knows I’m coming.  At least if I walk; I still have the element of surprise.  I get out of the truck and start to walk.

I am so close to seeing her.  My heart is racing, my palms are sweating, and I am starting to shake.  The fear of being too late is clawing its way up my neck and nestling deep into my bones.  I can’t shake it off, I can’t clear my head, and this is no way to go into a situation that requires all of my mental abilities. 

I stop walking; take a cleansing breath, check the gun in the waist of my pants.  I focus on why I’m here and what I need to do.  I start to walk again; my mind is a little clearer.  I set one goal to help me focus, kill Michael.  The rest will be left up to fate.

“MICHAEL!!”  I scream his name again.  It feels like I have been here forever.  I can no longer feel my arms, I try to lift up on the chain to take so pressure off of them but I’m just not strong enough.  I haven’t had a decent meal in a week and it is starting to show.  I look down at my emaciated body.

My hip bones stick out from the top of my legs.  My stomach is concave; my skinny legs look like they belong to a child not a thirty year old woman.  My hands are too big for the wrists and arms attached to them.  I can count every rib from my collar bone down.

The sight of my body disgusts me.  I have black and blue bruises on my arms.  There are finger marks on my wrists, forearms, and inner thighs.  Every part of me has Michael’s mark on it.  That makes me sicker than anything else.  When I look at myself I relive everything he has done to me; every touch.  I need to focus on something, anything, else.

An over head light comes on somewhere near me; illuminating the area a little better then the outside light coming in the dirty windows.  The room is big there are flowers in every corner.  Purple, red, yellow, varieties I have seen but don’t know the name of.  There are yellow roses in one section that look just like the ones delivered to me at work.  Michael must be growing his own flowers.  Off to my left, there is row after row of dark burgundy roses, mixing in with them are black roses.

“
Ahh
, I see you found my garden.”  Michael is standing in front of me.  I was so engrossed in the secret garden Michael is growing I never heard him enter the room.

“Michael.  Get me down from here.  You don’t want to hurt me.  You made your point.”

“My point?
  Charlie, I have only begun to make a point with you.”  He places a rolled up mat on the table next to me and walks over to where I am suspended from the ceiling.  He walks behind me and I hear a strange dragging noise.  Then I feel something cold around my feet.  I can’t move my head; so going by touch alone, Michael has shackled my feet.  I try to kick my feet but they only move about 6 inches before they stop.

“You said you loved me, why are you doing this?”  

“I do love you, but I know you don’t love me.  There is only one way I can have you forever.”  He moves back to the table and unrolls the mat he set down earlier.  I gasp at the macabre scene set before me.  There are razor-sharp knives and surgical instruments positioned from shortest to longest.

“What are those for?”  I know what they’re for, but maybe if I can keep him talking I will think of something to save myself.

“Charlie, I almost forgot, I brought you something.  I’ll be back.”  He practically skips from the room.