The Fight for Us (44 page)

Are you coming?

He turned to Steph. “She’s just running late.”

Steph nodded, and as the buzzer sounded, they stood and started clapping. The crowd was cheering, and when he looked at Harper and Nat, they were standing next to one another clapping too. But Harper’s focus shifted to him as she stood on her tiptoes peering around the people that were standing near him, trying to find her mother.

Isaiah shook his head, and she shrugged, and when his cell phone vibrated again, he muttered, “Damn it,” under his breath.

Oh, I will be soon enough.

He shook his head for a moment. “Come on, Joss.” He was muttering, and as he sat down, his phone vibrated again.

But I doubt Joss will.

His guts clenched as he stared at the screen, and cold dread whooshed through his blood stream like a torrent of icy water. He bolted to his feet, leaving his coat where it lay, and as he darted into the aisle, he looked back at Steph. “Call Jeffries, give him the address of her last appointment. Text it to me when you’re done. Todd’s got her.” He bolted down the risers as people stared, and as he neared the floor, Harper looked up at him and a ball that had been bumped to her bounced to the floor at her feet. “Stay with Steph.” He yelled at her.

He shoved through the side gymnasium door that exited directly into the parking lot, and as he ran to his car, he started dialing her number. There was no answer, and when he redialed, it went straight to voice mail. “Fuck.” He yelled to no one at all. It had started to snow, and the snow was just barely starting to stick to the windshields of the cars in the parking lot. He flipped his windshield wipers on as he pulled out, and he slid around the corner as he pulled into the city street.

He was speeding, and it was a maddening, calculated decision to force himself to slow down. He could do Joss little good if he ended up stuck in a ditch. There wasn’t even much snow on the roads, just a skim that was leaving them slick. When his phone vibrated, he glanced to the screen. It was the address. He was mere blocks from his house and his gun. He needed his fucking gun, and as he pulled up to a stop sign, he sat for a moment, cursing. The address was left, his gun was straight.

He could get home, grab his gun, and be right here in less than five minutes, and if Todd was stupid enough to be this bold, then he’d truly fucking lost his mind. He was a loose fucking canon, and Isaiah needed something that could take that canon out. He drove straight, still cussing as he put his foot on the gas. It was nearly impossible to steer himself home when she was the other direction.

When he pulled in to his driveway, he was still speeding, but as he neared the garage, he slammed on the brakes. There were tire tracks. It hadn’t been snowing when he’d left, and while they were faint with only a dusting of snow on the ground, they were there. He flipped his headlights off, pulling up to the garage, and when he climbed out of his SUV, he didn’t bother shutting the door. He pocketed his keys and darted toward the side of the house.

If they were there, Isaiah wasn’t going to be announcing his presence. He crept slowly around toward the back. It was frigid fucking cold, and he was without his coat, but he was almost glad for the temperature. It made it easy to focus on something other the absolute dread of the situation. He couldn’t survive losing anyone else he loved. The threat alone made him nearly homicidal, and he had visions of smashing his fist through Todd’s face and leaving it a bloody, archaic shell of brains. He was going to take down this man if it was the last thing he ever did.

When he reached the side of his house and his four-season room came into view, he watched for a moment. The deck was dark, and his bedroom was too, but there was light coming from the living room window. He darted around the four-season room, moving fast and feeling the deep snow that had been building up for weeks packing into his shoes around his ankles. The cold nearly burned his skin as he ran, and he let it. He used it much like the frigid air around him to focus his mind on something other than the utter fear he was feeling.

As he neared the side deck steps, he heard a thunk and a shriek, and he clasped his hand over his mouth as he listened to Joss scream out in pain. He whimpered and groaned quietly. The sound had most definitely come from the living room, but he needed his weapon, and he cried silently as he forced his feet to maintain their course toward the four deck steps that would take him to the expansive deck and the door of the four-season room. The deck would take him to the living room slider too if he chose, and it was one of the most painful things he’d experienced in his entire life, knowing she was hurt and scared and forcing himself to ignore it and opting for the door of the four-season room.

When he hopped up the four steps to the deck, he slipped on the icy wood and nearly fell, but he clutched at the railing. He moved swiftly to the door off his bedroom, and as he fumbled with his keys in his pocket, he heard it again. This time was even worse.

“No…no…no please, Todd. No!” She was shrieking out her pleas, and Isaiah clutched at his stomach and panted as he forced himself to stay his course.

He slipped the key in the lock and silently turned it, pushing the door open quickly, stepping inside and closing it behind him. Suddenly her sobbing was echoing through his home, and as he heard the desperation, he nearly threw up on the floor. Her sobbing turned to a choking gargling sound as he listened, and he knew without seeing that she was being choked. He took a deep breath through his nose, and he blocked out the nearly blinding need to run toward her.

He moved swiftly and quickly to his dresser. He pulled the drawer silently out, cringing as it scraped quietly. He froze in place for a moment, but when he heard Todd’s voice he pulled it the rest of the way out, reaching in the back to grab his handgun.

“You destroyed my fucking life, you bitch!” And then he heard the slap. What he didn’t hear was her yelping or screeching. Instead it was more gurgling choking noises, and as he panicked, he forced his feet to move quietly and quickly to the door. “Look at you, you nasty fucking bitch. Pissing all over the place.” And another slap.

Isaiah moved as he typed a quick text message to the chief.

My house.

And he hit send as his feet took him closer and closer to her. He flipped the safety off on his handgun as he moved. His gun was at his side, and as he rounded into the living room, he nearly fainted. Joss was tied to a dining room chair in the middle of the floor. Her neck was in a slipknot, and that noose was pulled tight and back over of the back of the chair, anchored into place on the lowest rung of the chair back. Her eyes were staring straight up at the ceiling as her head was held firmly in place, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t breathe, and her face was already dark red as she ran out of breath.

“Untie her now, or I will kill you.” Isaiah seethed as he walked steadily forward.

“I’m thrilled you made it in time to watch her die. It would have lost something—” Todd’s voice stopped abruptly in his throat as he took in the gun Isaiah had trained on him. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man now, would you?” His eyes were wide and deranged as he spoke.

“Untie her.”

But rather than listen, Todd stepped back from the chair. His brows shot up as he lifted his hands, refusing. The fucker even shrugged his shoulders. Isaiah’s heart was pounding loudly in his ears, drowning out everything else, and Isaiah lunged toward Joss whose face was darkening more by the second. He frantically started pulling on the ropes. Todd had used a slip knot around her neck, and it was the knot that held the rope in place on the chair back rung that was keeping her from breathing.

Isaiah couldn’t hold the gun on Todd and work on the knots, and when he glanced at Todd, it was only for a moment before he wedged his gun between his thighs and abandoned his need to kill Todd in order to free her.

“Hang on, baby,” he spoke to her. His fingers were trembling as they slipped against the rope. He’d not felt this level of desperation since he’d found Nat on his bathroom floor comatose after she’d emptied his medicine cabinet into her stomach. He fumbled and he clawed at the knot, and the painstaking slow process was enough to drive him mad.

He glanced to Todd who was inching closer and closer to the sliding door that led outside, and when at last Isaiah managed to loosen the knot enough, he slipped his finger through the opening. He pulled and finally released the tension in the knot with one hand as he grabbed his gun in the other, whipping it back up to Todd. Todd growled as Joss’s head finally pulled forward, and Joss started sucking in air. When Isaiah stood, he stormed toward Todd, and Todd’s hands flew up. Isaiah cocked his hand back, and Todd’s eyes popped open. Isaiah swung, connecting directly with his jaw with the butt of the gun. Todd’s head snapped to the side as he staggered for a moment before collapsing to the floor.

It wouldn’t keep him down forever, but it was enough for Isaiah to return his attention to Joss. She was trying to suck in air, and her eyes were wide and terrified as she tried to breathe. Her hands were tied to the arms of the dining room chair, and they were fighting the restraints as she panicked. He dropped to his knees in front of her, pulling at the rope around her neck, helping to loosen it further.

She started coughing, and her eyes filled with tears, and as Isaiah quickly tucked his handgun into the waistband of his jeans, he knelt up and clasped her cheeks. “You’re okay. Slow down. Just breathe, baby.” He let his forehead drop to hers, and he didn’t let go of her cheeks, studying her eyes as she fought to rein in her panic.

But when Isaiah was hit from the side as Todd pummeled into him, his hands were ripped from her face, and he was thrown to the ground. He was pinned to the floor with Todd on top of him, and when Todd cocked his hand back, Isaiah used his hips and thighs to buck him over his head and into the coffee table. Isaiah rolled to his stomach, pushing himself up quickly, and as he made it to his feet, he pulled his gun and trained it on Todd who was righting his position with his lips pulled back and blood dripping from his mouth.

“Not another fucking step. You’ve just added attempted murder to your charges. You really wanna make this worse for yourself?”

The bloody snarling expression on Todd’s face said he was long past reason at this point, and when Isaiah cocked his head to the side in warning, Todd smirked as his eyebrows shot up. “What’s it like knowing I fucked your girlfriend, huh? I bet you think about it constantly, don’t you?” He taunted with a smile on his face. The man had lost his fucking mind.

When Joss whimpered, Isaiah ignored it. There wasn’t a chance he was going to take his eyes off Todd again—however much he knew this was going to torture Joss.

“You’re going to think about me every time you fuck her, you know that, right? Every. Fucking. Time. It must drive you crazy wondering how I did her.”

“Shut the fuck up.” He seethed. He could hear the sirens in the distance, and he needed them to get there now. He wasn’t at all sure he could handle this man’s mouth.

“I hate you.” Joss whimpered out the words as she cried.

“Quiet, Joss.” Isaiah kept his voice calm and low when he spoke to her. He knew this was going to be hard on her. But he couldn’t kill an unarmed man and keep his life intact—not with his background in law enforcement. But fuck, all he wanted to do was kill this man.

“Poor baby,” Todd crooned as he wiped the blood from his mouth and spit on the floor. “You’ll always be my slut. You know that? Who’d want you now though, sittin’ in your own fucking piss? You’ll spend the rest of your life hating yourself as much as me, you worthless—”

Isaiah transferred the gun from his right hand to his left, and his free hand struck with little conscious thought behind it. He felt Todd’s nose crunching under his fist as he made contact, and then Todd dropped to the floor. The sirens were getting closer and closer. While Todd writhed on the floor, Isaiah knelt beside Joss, using only one hand to loosen the ropes around her wrist as he watched Todd. When her hand was free, she used it to free her other as he walked to Todd and yanked him up by his shirt collar.

Todd groaned as he was hoisted onto his feet. “Fuck, Joss! You’re new fuck toy can’t seem to stop beating the shit out of me,” Todd spat the words out. “What is it with this man?”

Isaiah sucker punched him in the gut as the breath was forced from his lungs, and he tried to double over. It was pointless, of course, with Isaiah holding him up by the collar, but Isaiah could hear the cops now. There was yelling, and they wouldn’t be alone for much longer.

When Isaiah leaned toward Todd, he let his fingers grip and squeeze Todd’s throat. The gun he put to Todd’s head kept Todd’s body from fighting back. Isaiah brought his face right up to Todd’s as his fingers squeezed tighter and tighter, constricting his airway and inflicting on him just a taste of what Joss had endured.

“I assure you, you’ll be the furthest thing from my mind when I’m inside her body—a place you’ll never touch again. I will, however, think of how much fun you’re having in prison being pile driven to death by the good ol’ boys.” Isaiah pulled back, taking in the red face and panicked expression as Todd’s hands started clawing at Isaiah’s grip on his neck.

Todd’s teeth were gritted, and his lips pulled back in agony. Much longer, and Isaiah might actually suffocate the man to death, but rather than do that, Isaiah smirked and brought his knee up hard into Todd’s groin—so hard in fact he might have ruptured a testicle. Todd collapsed to the ground, and Isaiah let him that time.

The cops were pounding on the door, and as he glanced to Joss, she stared with her terrified and wide blue eyes as she finished releasing her ankles. “You better let those cops into the house before they break the door down, baby.” He smiled gently at her, and she nodded, finally standing and leaving toward the entryway. It was completely unnecessary for Isaiah to kick the man in the balls at this point, but that didn’t stop him from doing it. And by the time Chief Jeffries was rushing into the living room with an officer on his heels, Todd was nearly comatose and in the fetal position.