The Only Shark In The Sea (The Date Shark Series Book 3) (28 page)

Chapter 30

The Knife

The last thing Natalie remembered was something being pressed against her face. She’d been getting into the car…and then nothing. Her head throbbed as she tried and failed to lift it. Unsure of what had happened, she tried to look around, but opening her eyes was difficult and her whole body ached. Had there been a car accident? Was Vance okay?

Imagining Vance injured gave her a shot of strength and she pushed herself up to her elbows. Opening her eyes took a second longer, but when they finally opened, she wished they hadn’t. Gasping in a lungful of dirt-laden air, she scrambled backward until hitting a stone wall and collapsing in on herself in despair.

The basement was dank and disgusting, a dirt floor littered with mouse droppings and refuse. It was one of her father’s favorite places to send her for punishment. She heaved in breath after breath of rotting air until her head spun and she was on the verge of losing consciousness. Only the fear that her father would come while she was out gave her the strength to stave it off. Even though she knew the man she had grown up with, she had no idea what he was capable of after seven years of searching and blaming her for his problems.

When she finally got her breathing under control, tears began pouring down her dirty face with abandon. She couldn’t stop them no matter how hard she tried. This was the end. There was no doubting it in her mind. Everything she had worked so hard to escape and overcome had all been for nothing. He had found her and dragged her back to the place she feared most. He had brought her home.

Maybe she should have expected it. Thomas’s interest had seemed like such a miracle as a teenager, one shining moment of happiness in a life filled with recrimination and rejection. Natalie had dared to hope it was an omen of better things to come, but that hope had been stomped on viciously by her father. Any time she’d ever had a moment of pleasure in her life he had killed it.

Why had she thought Vance would be any different? It hurt so much more to think of losing Vance than to contemplate being locked in that horrible place for eternity. Even worse than that, it broke her heart to think of what it would do to him. Fresh tears burst from her eyes as she imagined the pain he must have been going through in that moment. There was no way he could know where she was. Even though she had told him about her past, she had never once mentioned Spring Hills, Michigan.

The squeak of a mouse startled her into pulling her knees to her chest. Natalie squeezed her eyes shut praying it would stay away from her. The almost absolute darkness wouldn’t let her see anything more than faint outlines. She could only assume it was night or early morning.

How long had she been missing?

How long would she be held captive?

Only the darkness answered her silent pleas. Just like last time. Crippling depression and fear bit at her from the edges of her mind, threatening to take her under as they had once before. Only thoughts of Vance gave her the strength to hold it off. Even if she died here, she didn’t want it to be like that. Her father had nearly broken her once. Vance had helped mend so many of her broken pieces and it was so much more frightening to think of letting it fall to pieces again than to face what she knew was coming for her.

Harsh, flaring light seared through the room. It could only come from one source. Huddling against the half-rotted wood behind her, she pleaded the light was all that would assault her. Slow creaking seemed to echo through the basement like the thunderous steps of a giant. Natalie couldn’t stop the scream that erupted from her throat as the basement door swung open and crashed back against the wall. Curling into a ball, she begged for the darkness and emptiness she had tried so hard to avoid only moments before.

“Don’t you hide from me!” her father’s voice boomed as he descended the stairs one thumping step at a time.

Natalie pressed her hand against her mouth to stifle the terrified scream his presence elicited. All thoughts of bravery, every ounce of strength, it all abandoned her at the sound of his voice.

His boots kicked up a small cloud of dust with each step as he reached the bottom. “You thought you could run from me and never be found? You thought you could turn your back on your family and not pay for what you’ve done?” He stomped across the dirt floor to glare down at her in disgust. “When have you ever escaped punishment for your misbehavior? Never!” he screamed. “And you never will. You will pay for your disobedience.”

Old habits of complacence and submission crept up on her and the words that would turn her into a groveling, pitiful creature formed on her lips. They stuck there, caught on something planted deeper than her wounds. Vance’s words echoed in her mind that none of what had happened to her was her fault. The compassion in his eyes when she told him the truth welled up in her thoughts and heart. Natalie had never deserved her father’s punishments before and she didn’t deserve them now. “I didn’t do anything,” Natalie whispered.

His laugh was sickening and twisted. “You didn’t do anything? You didn’t
do
anything?” He rushed her, grabbing her chin before she could react and yanking it up next to his. “Say that to my face, you deceitful little whore.”

“I. Didn’t. Do. Anything,” she said with more force, though it was still barely more than a whisper. Strength built in her with every word. Fierce desire to see Vance again, to make him proud, wrapped around her like a cocoon. Words she had always wanted to say to him but had never had the courage to think let alone utter formed on her tongue. “You’re the one who should have been tied to a porch and left there to rot. I had sex. That’s it. Whether it was immoral or not, I didn’t deserve what you did to me. You’re the one who deserves to be punished. Not me.”

Tossing her back against the wall so hard lights flashed in front of her eyes when her head hit the stones, he scowled at her. “You think this is all about your slutty teenage ways?”

The scorn in his voice was all too familiar, but Natalie didn’t understand what he meant. If he hadn’t come after her for that, then why had he spent so much time tracking her down?

“I spent five years in prison because of you!” he screamed.

Too shocked to respond, she just stared at him. She couldn’t imagine how that had happened since she’d run away and certainly hadn’t come back to file charges or testify in any trial. He was furious and dangerous and she was terrified out of her mind, but a smug smile spread across Natalie’s lips. “Good,” she snapped.

She thought he was going to backhand her, but he screamed instead and yanked her up from the floor. “That boy’s family never would have had the nerve to press charges against me for giving him the punishment he deserved if you had been here. When you left, they knew there was no way I could convince anyone he raped you and they got bold. They told the police who hurt their son because you ran away and abandoned your family!”

Tearing herself out of his grip in a sudden burst of shock and strength, she stared at him. Prison? It explained why he hadn’t found her earlier, but the thought of him locked up and powerless made her unexpectedly brave. He wasn’t untouchable after all. He wasn’t the king of this town and he couldn’t control her anymore. “I never would have told people Thomas raped me even if I
had
stayed.”

“You would have if I made you!”

She shook her head so hard it made the throbbing intensify, but she didn’t back down. Thomas had hurt her by not standing up for her, but she knew better than anyone how terrifying her father was and couldn’t blame a scared young boy for buckling in the face of his rage. Thomas made a mistake that she was sure he regretted. Her father had no such excuse. “I’m glad they told the police. I should have done the same, told everyone all the horrible things you did to me, but I was too scared.”

Lunging forward, he grabbed a chunk of her hair and twisted. She crumpled under the pain. “And you aren’t scared now?” he seethed.

“No,” she sobbed.

“Then why are you crying? Why are you cowering in your slutty dress? Do you think your boyfriend is going to come save you? Because you’re wrong if you do.”

“He doesn’t even know where we are,” Natalie said through her tears, “but I’m still not scared of you.”

He didn’t believe her, and would never understand how Vance’s love and understanding had given her so much strength. She wasn’t going to waste her breath trying to explain it. If he was going to kill her, she would face it as Natalie Price—the woman she had
chosen
to be and the woman Vance loved—not the cowering and frightened Clara Townsend he still expected her to be.

Wrenching her hair again, her father forced her to stand. She flinched in fear when she saw the knife in his hand, but she didn’t cry out. She was done letting this man rule her life. Even if she never escaped him again, she had known something different, something better, and he couldn’t take that away from her.

“You will never see that man again,” her father spat, “never wear these disgusting clothes and shame yourself by sharing your bed.”

He wedged the knife between her skin and the fabric of the dress and sliced downward. Removing the dress proved more difficult than he expected, but Natalie refused to give him any sort of reaction. When he finally tore the fabric away, he shoved her back down into the dirt.

“Are you just going to leave me here to die?” she asked, her voice stronger than either of them expected.

“What, like your mother?”

Pulling back in confusion, Natalie became even more wary. “What?” Had he really killed her? She hadn’t thought him capable despite his obvious instability.

“It’s your fault, what she did. Couldn’t handle the shame of her only child running away and her husband hauled off to prison,” he said as he played with the knife in his hands. “It’s your fault she killed herself.”

Stunned, but not fully able to process what he was saying, Natalie didn’t know how to respond. “She’s dead?”

“Her blood is on your hands,” her father growled. “All the hurt you’ve caused this family is on your head and now it’s time to pay for what you’ve done.”

The knife twisted in his hands. The harsh contrast between light and darkness in the basement made it difficult to see much of anything clearly, but as he stalked toward her, there was no mistaking the murderous glint in his eyes. Whoever he had once been and whatever limits he had once put on himself, they were gone. In their place was a man intent on repaying what he believed he had suffered, and there was nothing that was going to stop him from exacting the punishments he believed were due. He had never struck her as a child, but she knew in that moment that he was going to kill her.

He lunged forward, never even expecting Natalie to fight back. She wasn’t Natalie to him, though. She was Clara, the girl who had suffered his abuse for eighteen years without a word of dissent. She hadn’t been that girl for a long time, and when she grabbed for the knife and tried to twist it out of his grip, he didn’t react quickly enough to stop her.

Natalie had expected him to lose his grip and drop the knife, allowing her to run for the stairs and escape the basement. She hadn’t realized how fast he was moving and how little time she’d have to complete the move. When her hands came away covered in blood, a cold numbness spread over her body. She fell back against the wall and stared at the scarlet stain on her bare stomach.

The crash of the basement door barely registered with her. Shouting and running sounded dull in the stone room. Something told her to look toward the noise, but instead, her eyes drifted to her father. Lying at her feet, she stared at the knife in his chest, then back at her hands. Coated in blood, they pressed against her middle, expecting some kind of wound but finding only smooth skin.

“I killed him,” she whispered in disbelief.

A warm body all but crashed into her, scooping her up from the ground and cradling her against a strong chest. “Natalie,” a voice begged. “Look at me, please. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

The sound of his voice penetrated her shock and she looked up to find Vance’s wild eyes staring down at her. “I killed him,” she said again.

“I know. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” His hands were all over her, brushing hair from her face, inspecting her body for wounds. Paramedics rushed up, skipping over her father to crowd around her. They too began poking and prodding. She didn’t even pull away or care. They kept commenting and asking questions she couldn’t answer. For some reason, Michael Moniteau was standing nearby as well, but she thought she must have been imagining that.

“She’s in shock,” one of them said. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

“I’m going with her,” Vance said, finding no argument from anyone.

Vance stood with her still in his arms and began carrying her away from her father’s body. It wasn’t until he made it all the way up to the main floor, crossed through the house, and stepped off the front porch that it truly hit her. Not that her father was dead and she had killed him, but that it was all over. It was finally
all
over.

Tears began cascading down her face as her body went into convulsions from the depth of her sobbing. Vance panicked and called for the paramedics, but she just kept crying. It was all over. She would never have to set foot in that house again. Never look over her shoulder in fear that her father might find her. Never worry that a decision she made would expose her. Never have to be Clara Townsend again. She had faced her worst fear, faced a homicidal lunatic, and she had survived. She had been strong enough, brave enough, loved enough. She had survived the most horrible thing she could have imagined, and she was finally free.