Hope Restrained (Estate Series) (22 page)

Looking between Jason and Aaron, she let out a deep breath
and nodded her head. Jason approached her and kneeled down beside her. He
looked her in the eye when he promised, “I won’t hurt her.”

Hope appeared hesitant even though she’d already agreed. Breathing
out another breath, she opened her arms and allowed Jason to lift Honor’s body.
Once he’d moved away, Xander reached out and helped Hope to her feet. Honor’s
eyes flicked open again and she looked up at Jason.

“My angel …” A small smile crept over her face and she was
lost to sleep once again. Jason pulled her closer to his chest, looking down on
her with caution and concern.

“Who’s her angel?” Aaron’s menacing voice growled.

Hope sneered, “Patrick, I assume. Is there any possible way
he was able to escape this house?”

“Not alive.” Aaron responded. “I have men posted at every
exit.”

Leaning against Xander for support, she nodded, “Well, then
he has to be around here somewhere, hiding like a fucking coward.”

“Have you checked all the rooms in the basement?” Her
thoughts instantly went to Erica. “There’s another woman trapped here that we
need to find.”

Aaron’s expression fell. “I’ve found the women. None of them
survived.”

Hope shook her head. “All the rooms? You’ve checked all of
them?”

They left the side room to walk into the main space of the
basement. Aaron motioned towards the cages. “No. I’ve haven’t checked them all;
but, from what I see here …”

“They were dead when we got here,” she interrupted.

Hope moved quickly towards a side door, Xander following
closely behind her. Both limped heavily, their bodies wearing down now that the
adrenaline from the fight was slowly dissipating from their veins. He tried to
hold Hope up, tried to remain the strength she needed to finally end this.

They reached a door to what Xander believed was only a small
closet. However, when Hope opened the door and reached over to turn on the
lights, a much larger space opened up before them. One body remained shackled
to a wall, eyes that had gone gray with death staring out. Hope rushed through
the room, completely distraught at her inability to find what she sought. Xander
approached her, noticing the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

“She has to be somewhere!” Hope tried to break away from
him, but he held on tighter.

“Who?”

“Erica; the woman who let me in the mansion. They have her
because of me. I promised her, I’d get her out.”

A muffled scream sounded from within the room, and Hope’s
body spun in the direction from which it had come. A bookshelf stood empty and
Hope rushed over, grabbing the side of to knock it over, but finding that it
swiveled out, revealing another doorway. Hope pulled at the door to find that
it was locked.

She looked back at Aaron and Xander. “Break this fucking door
down, please.”

Xander chuckled as Hope stepped away. He looked at Aaron and
motioned towards the door. “Be my guest.”

Grinning, Aaron responded, “Fine. But only because I don’t
think there’s an inch of your body not already injured.”

Aaron approached the door and kicked out at the handle. The
wood splintered almost immediately and the hinges squeaked as it slowly opened
into the hidden room. Hope ran in front of it and stopped in her tracks.

Xander stepped up behind her to look in over her shoulder. He
smiled when he saw who was hiding inside.

He sat against the wall of the tiny room, Erica held in
front of him, a knife held to her jugular. Hope eyes met with Erica’s and her
heart caught in her throat. Erica’s eyes were barely open, rolling back closed
and open again as she held on desperately to consciousness. Blood seeped from
where the tip of Patrick’s blade dug in at the skin. He sat completely
motionless, his eyes locked to Hope’s face.

“Take one more fucking step, and I kill this bitch.”

Hope hesitated and felt Aaron and Xander position themselves
at her back. “I’ll kill you, Patrick.” Hope spoke slowly — purposefully. “I
will fucking flay you when I get my hands on you.”

He let out a humorless laugh. “And kill your little friend here?
He motioned his head up towards the ceiling. Hope turned to look and saw the
camera. When she looked back he smiled.

“I saw what you did for her — when the guard came for
her. I also heard the little promise you made her. You’ll get her out of here alive?
That’s highly improbable.” Another sick chuckle.

Hope’s eyes flicked to his hand, noticed how the blade shook
in his grasp. Looking back at his mismatched eyes, she teased, “Don’t piss
yourself, Patrick. You look nervous.”

He pressed the knife against Erica’s throat, her face not
reacting to the pain. Hope looked down, noticed a crimson trail along the
ground where Erica had been dragged, it puddled beneath her body where Patrick
held her. Hope watched her arms and legs, noticing the trembling as her body
grew cold from blood loss. When Erica’s eyes opened, they were hazy and
unfocused.

Oh, God … no …

Tears burned at Hope’s eyes, and she shook her head in
denial. “What did you sick bastards do to her?” Her voice cracked, rage
returning and creeping along her spine as she watched an innocent woman become
lost to the evil and vehemence of Hope’s world.

“WHAT DID YOU SICK BASTARDS DO TO HER?” Hope screamed, the
sound tearing at her already shredded throat. She felt Aaron and Xander tense
at her back, felt Xander’s hand touch her back in an attempt to calm her.

Erica’s eyes flicked open in response to the scream and
moved over the room, finally settling on Hope’s face. She gasped for air, her
body shivering violently in Patrick’s arms. Her jaw moved and, at first, Hope
had thought it involuntary. Erica coughed, a thin trail of blood slipping down
from her mouth, bright red against the pallor of her skin.

“Do … ” She coughed again, the tip of Patrick’s knife
drawing more blood from the movement of her head. “Do me a favor.”

Hope blinked, the room seemingly slowing down. Reality
altering so that every minute movement or noise was more pronounced with
meaning. Hope nodded, unable to speak over the agony in her heart.

“Kill him.”

Patrick held the tip closer, the crimson trail dripping
stronger down her neck. “Shut up, bitch!”

Erica jumped at the sound of his voice, but locked her eyes
to Hope’s once more and her voice found strength and courage one last time. “And
when you do …” She coughed, fighting to say what she needed to say. “When you
do — make it slow.”

The slow motion in the room, the stillness, the anxiety and
tension — it was gone, replaced instantly with dizzying speed. It was
unexpected and Hope couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t react quick enough to
do anything about it.

Closing her eyes, Erica threw her head forward, forcing
Patrick’s blade into her neck, finishing off what he and his men had started.

Hope fell to her knees, her eyes wide with shock, her jaw
opened wide on a silent scream. Her eyes remained locked to Erica’s face, Aaron
and Xander running past her to grab Patrick; but, Hope couldn’t look away. They
pulled Patrick up between them and Hope crawled forward, reached out to grab
Erica’s hand, staying with her until the light had been extinguished from her
eyes.

The anger that had simmered inside her just moments before,
exploded into pure hatred and wrath. She placed Erica’s hand down and turned,
pushing up on her feet in one fluid motion and locking her gaze with the mismatched
eyes of a dead man. Patrick stared back, his arms bound at his sides by Aaron
and Xander.

Hope sunk when she looked at him, falling into a darkness that
floated her away from all feeling, where a numb madness drove her. She was a
machine, one intent on destroying the man that was held in front of her.

“Take him upstairs; to the room where I was held.” Her voice
was mechanical and cold.

Xander smiled and Aaron eyes narrowed; but, they didn’t ask
questions, simply turning to drag Patrick out of the room and up the flights of
stairs. Hope walked behind them, her feet falling heavily up the stairs, like a
clock ticking down the minutes Patrick had left to live.

His feet slammed against the stairs from being dragged, his
bones crunching against the edges, his face grimacing with each step. Hope
smirked.

When the entered the room, she instructed, “Put him on the
table. Hold his arms out to the sides, I’ll lock his ankles down. Xander eye’s
widened and his brow furrowed in concern.

“Hope?”

She raised her hand up, stopping him in his thought. Her
bottom lip quivered and images flashed through her head: her sister as a child,
the bright smile and barrettes morphing into the woman at the end of Patrick’s
chain and the woman with a chain in her hand, whipping Hope because she her
mind had been lost to the madness Patrick had created within her.

“My angel …”

He’d broken Honor, made her worship him despite the abuse,
and he made her mind fracture because of it. And for what? The look that he’d
described to Xander? Or to simply break someone so thoroughly that he could
feel powerful for having done it?

She snapped. Her body shook from the hatred and anger inside
her and she saw red. All she wanted was to give back to him the pain he’d
delivered to the people she cared about and all the other helpless victims he’d
tortured and killed.

Her voice was eerily calm when she said, “It’s your turn,
Patrick. Now, you get to scream for me.” She grinned.

Hope knelt down to secure Patrick’s ankles before moving to a
side table to select a blade. She was suddenly thankful for the level of
Patrick’s depravity –happy that it’d left her with a wide selection from
which to choose. She grabbed a small, thin blade, one that would slice the
skin, but not damage the muscle beneath. Her eyes fell on another blade;
serrated and thick, it was designed for intimate torture, and she reached out
relishing the feel of its handle on her palm. Turning back, she saw the concern
on Xander’s face. She looked away, not able to handle any emotion or to witness
the disappointment in Xander’s face at what she was about to do.

When she looked to Aaron, she was surprised. He smiled
— his approval of her actions written clearly in his expression; a
darkness in his own eyes that mirrored her own. He would enjoy this, and he wasn’t
ashamed of it like her. She stared at him and he nodded at her before she
looked down at Patrick and stalked towards him, the knife spinning over her
palm as she approached. Patrick started to scream and Xander reached for a rag
on the table beside him and shoved it into Patrick’s mouth to silence him.

Hope shook her head. “No. Let him scream. I want to hear him
scream.”

Xander removed the cloth, replacing on the side table
slowly, eyeing Hope as he did so.

She broke his stare, hatred festering inside her, she kept
the images of the women he’d killed in her mind.

Reaching for his pants first, she used the blade to cut away
the fabric, exposing him, limp and flaccid now that he was the victim on the
table. “Not hard now, are you Patrick?” She placed the knife at the base of his
genitals. “This … is for Erica.” She pulled the knife up, sawing through the
skin with the serrated edge of the knife she used. Slowly, the skin split and
tore over the steel, blood rushing over her hands and she kept her progress
painfully slow until the flesh had been torn completely from his body.

The sound that came out of him was inhuman and unholy. She
could hear the tissue in his throat being shredded from the horrifying volume
of his scream. It was unnerving, but Hope breathed slowly, kept her mind
focused on the task.

Aaron smiled and Xander grimaced from pain when Patrick
struggled against them.

Hope wasn’t finished.

She looked around the room for anything she could use to
turn this bastard into the
angel
he’d
demanded to be with Honor. Spotting some rope, she moved to grab it, throwing
it over her shoulder before moving to his side. Bringing her face down so that
the tip of her nose touched his, she whispered, “You want to be a fucking
angel? Let me help you with that.

Patrick’s eyes rolled in his head from pain, but he still
managed a whispered response. “I’m not her fucking angel.”

Hope didn’t believe him. “This … is for my sister.”

She cut into the skin of his chest, flaying him open so that
the flaps could be pulled aside. “Scream for me Patrick. Every angel needs his
wings!”

Patrick screamed again, his voice so loud, it gave out and
his body went into shock. Hope reached up, tapping him on the cheek. “Don’t go
to sleep on me yet, it’s not over until I say it’s over.” Pulling the skin out
at his sides, she used two smaller knives to pin the skin to his arms, the
muscles, bones and organs of his chest and abdomen left open and exposed.

Moving quickly to unlock the shackles from his ankles, she
looked up at Aaron, not able to look at Xander and see the concern she knew he
was feeling for her. She needed to stay numb — to feel nothing — so
she could finish this.

She wasn’t surprised to find approval in Aaron’s expression
when she met his eyes.

“Carry him out of the room and to the railing.” There was no
emotion in her voice and she didn’t wait to see if they’d follow her
instruction. She knew they would — knew that they could no longer be
surprised at the horrors hidden within a killer.

When they reached the banister, Hope tied the rope to the
thick wood rail. She fashioned a noose from the other side and slipped it over
Patrick’s neck pulling it tight. He continued to struggle feebly against Aaron
and Xander, but his body was losing blood quickly and shutting down.

Looking into the eyes that were losing life, she smiled. “This
Patrick — is for me.”

Shoving out with her palms, she struck his shoulders and
knocked him over the banister. The railing cracked, but held his weight and she
looked over and watched as his body convulsed at the base of the rope. Only
when he stopped shaking, and only when it grew so quiet she could hear the
creaking of the rope as it swung back and forth, did she breathe out the
remaining anger that she held. It was over. She’d paid the bastard back for the
cruelties he’d committed. She left him swinging; a macabre, carved monster,
hanged and displayed over the death and carnage of his men beneath.

Her eyes closed when she felt a hand fall on her shoulder. Opening
them again, she looked up and she was surprised to see approval in Xander’s
eyes, something she feared she’d lose the minute he witnessed the true monster
inside her.

He stared at her for a few minutes before he leaned close,
his lips brushing her ear when he confessed, “We all have darkness inside us
and, sometimes, it’s necessary to release our demons. You are no different and
he deserved what you gave him.”

He pulled back, but she reached up, her heart pounding
against her ribs, and she kissed him — slow and deep. She felt his body
jerk, his pain obvious and she hated to have to let him go, but she did, not
wanting to damage him any more than he already was. He straightened, but looked
down at her and smiled.

Aaron disturbed the silence when he mused, “I think that
just turned me on.”

Xander’s eyes shot over to Aaron. “What?” Every muscle in his
body tensed despite his injuries. Hope turned around to find Aaron looking over
the railing at Patrick’s body.

“That was an impressive kill.”

Xander sighed in frustration. “Aaron, if you ever say anything
Hope does again
turns you on
, I’ll
kill you for it.”

Aaron smiled.

Hope eyed him. “Actually, if you ever say I’ve turned you on
again, I’ll kill you for it — on behalf of Maddy.”

Aaron smiled brighter and nodded his agreement.

Refocusing on the rebellion, he looked up at Xander and
asked, “Were you able to discover how many units are involved in this?”

“Patrick said there were three total, that
his partner
was working on more.”

Hope’s mind flashed back to the silent man who’d raped her. “Did
you find out the identity of his partner?”

“No. All he told me is that their reach is farther than we think,
as if there was someone feeding him information from the inside. He knew I wasn’t
actually on your list of executions.”

“It could be a number of people — any man on my
personal guard knew about our plans, especially once I had to organize the
attack. We checked the warehouse, but when it was discovered to be empty except
for a few cages, I came here. I hoped the bastard would be stupid enough to
bring you back to his house. Jason scouted before we arrived and confirmed what
I’d hoped.” He paused. “Jason was able to identify three units based on the
guards who were here. They will all be eliminated.”

Xander breathed out heavily. “Let’s go.”

 
They made their way
from the house and approached Jason who was standing guard over Honor’s
sleeping body. Hope moved to her side and reached out to hold her hand.

“Jason, place Hope’s sister in my car. Xander, I want you to
drive Hope, her sister and yourself back to the mansion and go to Maddy
immediately. I want all of your wounds cleaned, disinfected and the bones set. Maddy
might also know what can be done about Hope’s sister. If we have to call in
doctors, we will.”