Secrets and Scars: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (Fatal Hearts Series Book 3) (10 page)

His eyes shifted between me and Owen. “Sorry to disturb. I just came to wish you a good night, and to let you know that we didn’t find him. I think you should be safe if you decide to leave in the morning. As I promised, I’ll escort you to the yacht, to make sure you’re safe.”

Chapter Twenty-One

In the early morning, a gunshot jolted me awake. At first I thought it was a dream. My heavy eyes drifted closed again, only to fly open at the sound of another gunshot, one that sounded closer. Then another.

Adrenaline surged from my head to my toes.

Run.

Owen and I both sat up and looked at each other. Bitter cold fear stabbed me in the gut.

Heavy footfalls hit the ground. More gunshots, a woman screaming, a child crying. Doors slamming. Then deafening silence.

“Oh my God, he found us,” I breathed, my hands going to my throat.

Owen placed a hand on my back, saying nothing. 

“Let the fuckers out,” Alvin’s thundering voice ordered, growing closer, louder, angrier. “I know they’re hiding out here.”

“Owen, he’s going to kill them. We’re dead.” I pulled my knees to my chest, pushed my head between them. “I can’t… I can’t breathe.” I searched within me for the energy to run, but I didn’t find it.

“Shhh… Stay here,” Owen said finally. “Don’t come out unless I come for you.” His words were firm, edged with ice. “I’ll be right back.” He rose from the mattress and stepped to the door. Before he could open it, it crashed against him, knocking him back with such force he hit the ground, along with the oil lamp. When he tried to get up, Alvin bludgeoned him in the head with the butt of his gun. He crumpled back down, eyes closed.

A scream poured out of me, even as I tried to hold it back by placing my hand over my mouth. The sound slipped right between my fingers. I wanted to go to Owen, to see if he was okay, but Alvin stood before me. His eyes held me in place.

“Time’s up. You’ve fucked with me way too many times.”

“Alvin, no, please.” I bent down on all fours and attempted to crawl away from him. The hut was too small for me to get far. One of his hands caught my shoulder in a vice, and the other pointed the gun to my head, pressing it into my temple.

“Fuck you, little bitch. You thought you could outrun me? You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

I wanted to speak, to say something, anything to stop him from hurting me, but I couldn’t. I doubted words would work on him anyway.

“You’re coming with me.” He yanked me off the ground.

On our way out the door, his boot landed on Owen’s head. I kept my scream tucked inside my throat. If I let it out, he might decide to repay me by shooting Owen.

Outside, before I got a chance to see the damage Alvin had done, he planted a hand between my shoulder blades and shoved me forward. My face crashed into the ground. Pain split my head. The metallic tang on my tongue was unmistakable. I breathed in dust as I lifted my head a few inches, looking for some way, any way, to escape.

Around me, people ran. I craned my head to the side and wished I hadn’t. The hut that Jeordi, Ingrid, and Anna used as their bedroom burst into flames before my eyes.

The sob inside my throat ached as though it were a rock I had been forced to swallow.

When I caught sight of a man sprawled face down on the ground next to the dying fire, I couldn’t hold back my tears. I could not see his face, but it didn’t matter who he was. I had caused yet another death. I was poisonous to be around.

I pulled myself up on my hands and knees again and crawled away blindly. Alvin’s boot landed in the middle of my back. The ground beneath my chest knocked the wind from my lungs. Before I could refill them and recover from the pain in my head and chest, he wrapped my braided hair around his hand and hauled me behind him.

Yesterday evening, when I’d had a moment to breathe, to hear myself think, to hope a little, Ingrid had helped me wash my hair. She’d worked part-time as a hair stylist in Germany.

The feeling of warm water on my scalp; the gentle, refreshing sting of peppermint shampoo; and the soft touch of Ingrid’s fingers had felt so good. Afterward she had pulled my hair into a thick braid. I had enjoyed every second of being pampered. But like every good moment in my life since Alvin had revealed himself, it had come and gone too soon, like a whisper, a breath. Like many others before it, it had been fragile, unreliable, soon forgotten.

Now Alvin held onto my braid as though it were a rope that connected us. The good feelings from the memory were gone.

He hauled me past the fire, past the person on the ground.

Anguish rocked my body. We had promised not to bring Jeordi and his family trouble. We’d brought them more than that. We’d brought them death.

Someone shouted, but while my mind tried to determine who the voice belonged to, a gunshot cut it off. Did Alvin kill the person yelling? Maybe the best thing for me to do was quit fighting and allow myself to be taken away before I caused anyone more pain. Alvin was determined to walk away with his prize, and would kill anyone who dared stand in the way.

In the early morning, the sky was fully awake, its brightness mocking me, the foolish woman who thought she was fast enough to run from a man as angry, as determined, as sick as Alvin Jones. A man with nothing to lose.

The ground beneath me was bumpy like a turtle’s shell. The friction between it and my body tore, broke, and ripped open wounds that were finally on the verge of healing. The person who had inflicted them had returned to ensure the pain remained. Like everything else, it seemed, the ground was yet another of Alvin’s weapons. Just like my hair.

The movement of my body on the ground disturbed clouds of dust that rose and fell in slow motion, drifting into my mouth and nose, turning my screams into coughs and sneezing fits.

A sharp, naked rock sliced through the thin fabric of my wrap dress and tore into the flesh on my back, hurting me as Alvin wanted it to, a committed soldier of the angel of death. The sudden pain was white-hot and mind-numbing. I could not see the blood oozing out of the cut, but I imagined it leaving my body and marking the soil on Jeordi’s land, an eternal reminder of the bad decisions I’d made that led to my painful death.

He squeezed my braid and picked up pace. I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming again. All my screams so far had fallen on deaf ears.

Quit
, my little voice said.
It’s over. You won’t survive this.

It was right. I was better off dead than alive.

Chapter Twenty-Two

We reached the trail between the cannabis plants, the one Owen and I had traveled with Jeordi.

Alvin was talking, his words floating on the wind and then falling to the ground, where they were swallowed by the thud of his footfalls.

I caught some of the words before they fell, the ones I was meant to hear—the ones his tongue had sharpened so they sliced through my heart with ease.

“Fuckin’ slut… stupid bitch… fool… pay with blood…”

Sentences didn’t matter. The intended message reached me loud and clear. I’d heard enough. Squeezing my eyes shut, I listened to the pounding of my heart instead, the rush of fear in my ears, the distant sounds of voices, the sea, birds singing. Until I heard louder voices—too loud to ignore.

Two voices. One belonged to Alvin—harsh, cold, and venomous. The other… God, the other belonged to Miles.

An argument ensued.

“You’ve hurt her enough,” Miles demanded. “You’ve done enough damage. It has to stop.”

My heart swelled and tears flooded my eyes and throat. Miles had come to save me.

“Fuck off, you good-for-nothing scum.”

“I’d be glad to, if you let her go. I swear, I won’t let you hurt her.”

As the argument simmered, my body was yanked from side to side. I felt like a piece of rope in a tug of war.

“What do you think I am? A coward, like you? Hurting her is just the beginning. I’ll carry out my plan. I’ll pound her ass one last time, kill her, and cut her body to pieces.”

Visions of my body being decapitated flashed through my mind. Something flickered, then burst to life inside my gut. Fire.

I couldn’t let him do that to me.

I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live long enough to see the sunset. I wanted to see Owen again. My desire to live was an adrenaline rush to every nerve in my body. It afforded me the strength to kick harder, scream louder, grab at his hands on my hair, and dig my nails into his flesh. I picked up rocks and broken sticks to slice his skin with.

I fought him until he let go, dropped me to the ground, and slammed his boot into my head with a loud grunt. The world turned from a mix of blue, green, and brown to black. To nothing.

We were still on Jeordi’s farm when I came to, fuzzy and confused, my head feeling like a construction site, the hammer-like blows still throbbing in my temples. I couldn’t have been out for long.

A soft groan rose up my throat when I blinked, but I swallowed it. He couldn’t know I was awake.

I needed to manage the pain and nausea before I could endure any more torture.

While I focused on being still, gazing up at the sky with blurry eyes, something bunched up under me as it was dragged along with my body. I made sure not to make any drastic movements as I slid my hand under my lower back and pulled at the rough fabric.

It was the burlap sack Owen had dropped after Jeordi had surprised us.

I formed a fist around it, pretending that holding on to something familiar would keep me sane. The sack reminded me of Owen as I drifted further and further away from him.

Please let him be okay. Don’t let him die.

Chapter Twenty-Three

We had left Jeordi’s farm and were back on Alvin’s land, his territory, the scene of the crime. The place he had meant to be my final destination in the first place.

He had no idea I was no longer unconscious. Even though my scalp felt as though it were being peeled from my skull, I did my best to stay still. When he glanced down at me, my eyes were closed. Being still, pretending he had the power, helped me preserve my safety. Sooner or later he would find out, and the result would be devastating.

For now, I needed to gather my energy, or whatever was left of it. He no longer spoke—not to me, and not to Miles.

I opened my eyes and gazed up at the sky. It no longer looked as ominous as it had before.

This time, as I watched the few fluffy clouds floating across it, I thought of the people who loved me. My mother and the few friends I had. They all looked up at the same sky, wondering where I was, whether I was okay. They were thinking of me, praying for my return, loving me from a distance, giving me strength. I tried to draw comfort from that, fooling myself into believing I was not alone.

I needed their strength, whether to fight Alvin later, or to face death.

I closed my eyes again, ignoring the numbness in my back, and thought of my younger self. I watched her eyes: afraid, desperate, and anxious. The pain from the past returned—the pain of rejection, the need to belong. I remembered the days she had woken up dreading to go to school, because she didn’t want to be
that
girl, the one everybody overlooked.

The good always came with a price. My price had been too high, and had only served to double my feelings from back then. They came in so many different forms, but the worst, the deepest cut, was of betrayal.

The sound of something ripping pulled me out of my thoughts. I opened my eyes in time to see my wrap dress floating off with the wind, giving up on me. I wore nothing now but a pair of Ingrid’s cotton panties, brown with a cream trim. With one hand, I held on to the piece of fragile fabric, hanging on to what was left of my dignity.

A sad smile formed on my lips as I imagined seeing myself from the outside, the way the world would see me in a couple of hours. I saw myself on the covers of magazines and newspapers. In my mind’s eye, I read the articles.

Chloe Parker, owner of the magazine
Sage
, has found a tragic end. Her naked body was discovered in the jungles of Jamaica, where she had apparently been tortured, raped, and then murdered by Miles Durant, the man she had recently married.

Why did I even care what people would think? I would be dead. But those closest to me would get the heat. My mother would be devastated, and my friends would be ashamed to hear about the terrible decisions that had derailed my life. Maybe they would pretend they didn’t know me, turn their backs on the memories we’d shared.

My foot hit something hard and sharp. Another wound inflicted. My pain was white and red. White like my wedding dress, a stark reminder of what I had lost, a promise of the forever that had expired.

But there would be no roses, no throwing of the bouquet, no champagne. Only red. The red of my approaching death—dark, frightening, and final.

Red and white, two sides of the same coin of life. Two sides of the same fence. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness. Darkness and light. That was all I had left. I could focus on the light and turn my back on everything else. But that would be a dangerous game to play; once shattered, it could have devastating consequences. Perhaps it was best to turn my back to the light, to welcome the darkness that called for me. That way, I would be ready for the agony that would mark the end of my life.