Strapped Down (28 page)

Authors: Nina G. Jones

Tags: #Erotica

BOOK: Strapped Down

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“You wanted me gone too. You’re just upset that I won.” I want to scream at Taylor for saying something so reckless.

“Well, now I’m gonna win!” Eric says, shoving the gun onto my temple. I think I wail or something, because Taylor’s focus breaks for a moment. Eric whispers into my ear.
I’m not going to hurt you.

“Easy Eric. You know she has nothing to do with this. She’s just as innocent as Em.”

“No, fuck this. Shyla is important to you, isn’t she?” Taylor remains silent. “We can call it even right now.” I clench my fists, trying to contain the horror. It’s so strong that I wish for death at the moment to make the all-consuming fear end.

“Eric, what do you want from me?”

“I want you.”

“No!” I scream, falling to my knees.

“Shyla, look at me, it’s going to be fine. Look at me.” I look at Taylor’s eyes, but I can’t, I won’t give him permission to trade himself for me. I’ll never see him again. “It’s going to be okay Shyla. Remember when we first met?”

He’s not talking about the coffee shop, he’s talking far beyond that. I nod, even though I don’t. “It’s what I do for you. It’s always been my purpose.”

“No, no, no,” I wail. Eric pulls me back up onto my feet.

“How do I know you won’t hurt her? She knows your identity.”

“Taylor, if you trade with her, we’ll both watch her walk away. By the time she gets to anyone, we’ll be gone without a trace. I left the keys in her car for her to go.” Taylor nods. “You know I didn’t rape Shyla. You know that.” Taylor doesn’t move an inch, he doesn’t even blink. I think he doesn’t want to irritate him any further by disagreeing.

“Please Eric. Let’s just go our separate ways,” I beg, trying to appeal to the side of Eric that cried into my stomach last night.

“Shyla, someone has to pay. My fiancé and child and birthright are gone and it’s all because of him. I have nothing but vengeance left. He is evil. I have to do this for them. They can’t have died for nothing.”

“Let’s do it,” Taylor says.

“No. No. I won’t let you,” I scream, almost throwing a tantrum.

“Shut up, Shy,” he orders. He gives me that look, that knowing look.
Don’t fuck with this Shyla. I make the rules. I am the person people fear.
I go quiet, like he is my snake charmer, lulling me to submit from 15 feet away. I close my mouth and try to contain the panic, but my short, choppy breaths fill my ears. “Let her go, and when she is out of sight, I’ll walk over.” He raises his hands in the air.

Eric hesitates, as if it was too easy. I feel the same way.
Taylor, don’t go with Eric. Don’t leave me.
“Okay, okay…” I feel him nodding behind me. “Alright, Shyla. Go.” But I can’t move. I know if I step away, Taylor is dead. There is no other outcome. “Go!” Again, I don’t. I look at Taylor and he nods just slightly, to tell me it’s okay, but it’s not. “Dammit Shyla,” Eric says. Then he says
fuck it
. Not to me, not loud enough for Taylor, but to himself.
Fuck it.
I know that means something finite, it’s a resolution, but before I can turn, scream, slap him, or do anything, he whispers in my ear.
I’m sorry Shyla.

I open my mouth, just to scream no particular word, but I hope my scream will shift the course of events. That it’ll bring Taylor and me back home, me watching him from the breakfast bar all smiles as he makes me French toast. But the scream never emerges, because I am shoved so hard that I am lifted off of my feet and as my eyes see the dewey, green grass come closer and closer, I hear it:
Pop pop pop pop.

I am lost forever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Remember what I wondered when I couldn’t go to sleep next to Eric in the hotel room, about whether time would move choppy and fast or in slow motion? The answer is both. As I was falling to the ground and I heard the gunshots, it was like one of those nightmares where you fall endlessly. I needed to reach the ground, so I could turn and see what was happening behind me. I knew the answer, but I had to see if I would have a chance to say goodbye. I had no doubt it wasn’t me, I believed Eric when he said he wouldn’t hurt me. Eric wasn’t sorry that he was going to shoot me, he was sorry that he was about to devastate my world in the way that Em had devastated his when she drove off the bridge. Slowly, so slowly I fall to the ground and then BOOM.

Everything speeds up again.

I roll over and Taylor is standing over Eric, his gun pointed over Eric’s lifeless body.
Pop
. Eric looks at me, a trail of blood trickling out of his mouth. “No!” I scream sensing Taylor is about to shoot again. Taylor looks at me, watching me as I crawl over to Eric. There is still light in his eyes, he is still alive. His eyes are pale like his mother’s but they are not cold like hers. And then, the light is gone, his pupils, visible from feet away against the clarity of his eyes shrink to a pinpoint.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Taylor killed him.

I come to my knees and stay there in shock, my mouth open, but unable to make a sound or produce any tears. Watching someone die kills you for a moment as well. I motion to touch him instinctively, this tragic man dying alone in a lonely field.

“Don’t touch him,” Taylor blocks me.

He pulls me up on my feet. “Taylor…” I say, burying my face into his chest. “He’s dead. He’s dead. Oh my god.”

“Shyla.”

“He’s dead. He’s dead.”

“Shyla.”

“Eric…oh my god.”

“Shyla!” Taylor shakes me so hard my neck whips back. It works.

“What did you do? You killed him! You killed your brother!”

“Just because we have the same father does not mean he is my brother.”

A wave of nausea hits me, but I hold it in. Taylor’s voice is distant again. “Shyla, listen to me. You’re in shock. You need to listen carefully. I am going to walk you to Harrison and he is going to take you home. You are going to wait there for me and speak to no one, not a soul, not even Harrison. Not a fucking word.”

“Bu…but. The police. We are going to go to jail.”

“Shyla. You need to be strong here. No one knows Eric is in the country. This is Evan Sumner. Evan sold his business and packed his bags a year ago and no one has seen him since. No one is looking for Evan and Eric will be on the run forever. You are in shock, but you are going to be fine. We are going to be fine.” His eyes have no warmth, he is only giving me orders. This is no time for a grand reunion. “Wait a second, I have to make a quick call.” He grabs a flip phone which is definitely some sort of throw away. “Yes. Done. Disposal.”
When people are an inconvenience to Taylor, he discards them.
Eric’s voice haunts me.

“Taylor, you had this planned all along?”

“Shyla, I made a promise that if I ever saw him again, if he ever laid a hand on you again, it would be the last time.”

“What happened? I didn’t see.”

“He pushed you and he raised his gun to shoot you. I had a gun, hidden, in the back of my waistband.”
I can’t believe it. No, not Eric. I believed him.

“But what if he didn’t do that? Were you going to go with him?”

“I was going to do whatever it took, but I was going to come back to you.”

Then I start to drift again, my body and mind unable to stay focused for long amidst dizzying series of the events. The man I shared french fries with yesterday died right in front of my eyes. My boyfriend, his brother, the killer. “We have to go. You need to get back to the house, and wait for me. I have to take care of business.”

“No, I don’t want to leave you again.”

“Shyla, it’s over. You are safe now for good.”

He walks me to the other side of the field from where he emerged, then guides me through a path to get back to Harrison. They share a few words privately and then we drive off. No kisses, no warm hugs. He has to take care of
business.

***

There is a crumb on the kitchen counter. I stare at it wondering how it got there.
Is that a toast crumb? Maybe crackers? Taylor wouldn’t have crackers for breakfast. Maybe he does when I’m not around the way I heat up frozen veggie burgers when he’s not around.
Eventually, I plan to move from this spot, take a shower or something, but I don’t want to make any real decisions right now. I want to get to the bottom of out how this fucking crumb got here.

Taylor said to go home and wait and so that is what I am doing.

Between crumb contemplations, I run the scene over and over again wondering how we could have done something else, but the truth is someone had to die. All three of us were not walking out of that field as a result of some grand compromise. Eric said all he had left was vengeance; he had no family, no fiancé, no child. He was a fugitive. Maybe this was really a suicide by Taylor. I’ll never know because I was too busy falling infinitely into the grass when it happened. I shouldn’t feel badly.
Should I?
This man terrorized me and raped me.
Right?
He was just trying to turn me against Taylor with his denials and stories. He kidnapped me for fuck’s sake. But he made me laugh, and he was the nicest kidnapper ever. Seeing the life escape his eyes, I will have nightmares about those icy blues forever. Call me crazy, but killing just doesn’t sit as well with me as it seems to do with Taylor.

I stink.
I want a shower so bad, but I won’t move from this spot, it’s too safe.

The front door opens and slams shut. I stand at attention, ready to see a remorseful Taylor, overwhelmed by what he has done, the adrenaline worn off from his earlier encounter. But his footsteps are fast, they are not dragging like that of a downtrodden man.

“Shyla! Shy—“ He comes upon me at the kitchen. “Come here,” he’s manic, in an almost jovial way. “We have to get you out of these clothes and dispose of them,” he says, unbuttoning my shirt frantically. “You have no idea Shyla. When he answered the phone.” he kisses me for the first time since Eric kidnapped me. All over my face, my neck. He pulls off my shirt.
I stink.
“I missed your smell,” as if on cue.

“Taylor, what’s going on? Where’s Eric?”

“He’s gone,” he says, picking me up by my behind and sitting me on the counter. “We’re free.”
Oh my god, he’s… happy
.

“Gone? Taylor…”
You killed your brother, your parents will never have the chance to see him again, and all you can say is we’re free?

He pulls off my stained and worn jeans. “Shyla, when he told me he had you, when I saw you standing there with the gun to your head, the life we would never have together, the
children
we would never have, it all hit me so hard.” He is saying all the right things, the things I would want to hear and I lap it up like a sweet nectar, the juices dripping down my cheeks and onto my collarbone. “I’m going to take some time off, and we’re going to travel the world. We are going to make a life together,” he says in one breath. He pulls off his shirt and I wrap my legs around his bare waist. He carries me to the bedroom, then to the shower in the master bath. It rains over us, and I can feel the filth of today run off of my body. I stare emptily at the swirls of dirty water disappearing into the drain.

“Shyla, when you told me about Lyla, I thought if that was the last time we saw each other I would regret it for the rest of my life.” He kisses a trail down my stomach, and then rolls his tongue inside of my labia. I roll my eyes up in pleasure, but it feels so wrong, morally.
Taylor, your brother is dead. You took a life today, and you’re turned on?

He pauses and stands in front of me, his wet lips kissing mine. “Shyla, you did the right thing. We did the right thing. Eric was going to be a dark cloud over us forever even if we all somehow survived. He lost his way a long time ago.” He pulls me close to him, and he’s really fucking hard.
He’s so bad, he’s such bad fucking news.
“It’s you and me Shyla. It’s always been. He pushes me up against the cold shower tile, kissing my neck and we both let out a gasp as he enters me. “I did this because I love you. It’s more than love though, it’s something else because I don’t think this is what people talk about when they talk about love. I want to give you everything. I will do anything for you.” The image of a beautiful dark-haired baby having the childhood we never did flashes in my mind’s eye.

“I know what you mean,” I say as he smoothly thrusts in and out of
m
e.

He is infected.