The Unrepentant, page 22
She’s going to try to save Mace and Dory by herself.
And she has no idea how.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Will wonders how stoned Frank is.
He figures he can walk across the room, take the remote from Frank, and change the channel from college volleyball to something else, anything else. Frank’s staring hard at the television, but Will’s almost positive he has no idea what’s happening.
Will doesn’t want to watch any more volleyball, but he also doesn’t want to leave the living room and risk running into Barnes. And no matter what room he picks, Barnes will be there, with his unkempt eyebrows, bushy beard. Dark glaring eyes.
The front door bursts open. Mace steps in.
Will yelps. Frank blinks, reaches into the couch and whips out the remote control. He points it at Mace and presses a button. The channel changes.
A hand pushes Mace forward. He takes a couple of steps and the new guy, Jake, walks in after him.
Barnes is somehow already in the room. Will has no idea where he came from.
“Where’s Charlotte?” the big man growls.
Jake closes the door behind himself. Shakes his head. “No idea. Rob got nabbed.”
Barnes squints. “What do you mean, nabbed?”
“Charlotte and Rob got in a stand-off. I loaded this guy in the car. When I drove back she was gone and Rob was getting arrested. That was the last I saw of her.”
Barnes looks at the ceiling for a long moment. Will watches Mace. Notices his hand is shaking.
“Where’s Dave?”
Jake shrugs. “Saw him standing by that old police station, then we went looking for him—” Jake slaps Mace in the back of the head, Mace flinches, “—and never saw Dave again.”
Barnes pulls out his phone, makes a call. No answer.
He looks at Mace.
“What was the plan tonight?”
“Where’s Dory?” Mace asks, instead. The two words sound uncertain, as if his voice is teetering on a ledge.
Barnes steps forward and smacks Mace. The sound echoes in Will’s ears. He looks over at Frank again. Frank is leaning forward, trying to pick a potato chip up off the floor.
“Buried.”
Will sees the shock pass over Mace’s face, like a shadow.
“You killed her?”
“What was your plan?”
“I don’t—”
Barnes smacks him again, so hard that Mace crashes into the door. Barnes grabs him, lifts him up, slams him to the floor.
Mace isn’t a small guy.
Will had never realized how strong Barnes is.
Barnes puts his knee on Mace’s chest, pulls Mace’s right hand up. He grabs Mace’s pinkie.
“What was the plan?”
“I don’t—”
Barnes twists the pinkie, breaks it.
Mace’s scream is so loud, and Barnes’s motion so violent, that everybody has a reaction. Jake exclaims, “Shit!” Frank falls off the couch. Will hurries to a corner of the room.
Only Barnes stays still, perched over Mace.
He grabs his ring finger.
Will watches Mace’s feet kick.
“She was going to kill you.” Mace’s voice is hoarse, as if the scream ripped his throat raw.
“Dave was there. The cop. Did she kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
Barnes breaks his ring finger.
Another scream. Mace’s next two words are said in a sob: “I don’t.”
Will’s worried that Barnes is going to do more, but he stands and stares down at Mace.
“Chain him to the bed downstairs.”
“Why?” Jake asks.
“I got at least eight more questions.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Charlotte parks a block away from the sedan and searches Mace’s truck for a weapon. She settles on a tire jack.
She doesn’t remember anything about this neighborhood, has no idea if this is even where she was held. The houses here are spread far apart, but they’re not wealthy. Most are ramblers, except for the one the sedan is parked in front of. That house is two stories with a forgotten yard and dark windows.
Charlotte walks around the side, cautiously, worried about making a sound. She looks through a window, sees an unlit kitchen.
The backyard is fenced but the fence isn’t high. Charlotte climbs it, the tire jack tucked under one arm. She slips a leg over the top and lowers herself down to the other side. The backyard is all concrete, with a couple of aged lawn chairs and a rusty grill. The glass sliding doors leading inside the house are dark, and there’s a low narrow window on the far end of the house. Charlotte crouches down and peers inside.
She sees the basement.
And remembers it.
Charlotte can’t feel her hands on the coarse ground, the bend in her knees.
She couldn’t hear the men upstairs during those long weeks, except for when they’d get drunk and their voices would rise to shouts. She’d grow terrified the louder and rougher their voices grew. The chains bit into her wrists, especially when that door opened, and she’d hear one of the men clumsily stomping downstairs.
At first, she tried not to listen to whatever they were saying, tried to block everything about the experience out of her mind, put herself into a black box none of them could open.
But those men gave her nowhere to hide.
She remembers feeling their skin, the stench from their armpits. The way their fingers pressed into her, the soreness all over her body when they were done and left her on the bed, her wrists chained.
Her body is so tense it could snap in half.
Charlotte breathes deeply, then peers through the window again. She tries it. It’s locked. She looks up, sees a couple of windows too high to reach.
The patio door slides open.
A man stumbles out. He walks over to one of the lawn chairs and collapses in it without looking in her direction.
Charlotte can’t see him very well, can’t tell who he is. He’s not tall, which means he’s not Barnes. And he’s not Seth. If Seth’s still alive, then there’s no way he’s walking this easily. Not with a body covered in burns. It could be Jake, but Jake had a muscular, bulky build. This man is thinner, slight.
Charlotte figures him for one of the brothers, then smells pot. She realizes which brother it is.
Frank.
After Frank was done, he’d lie next to her and smoke a joint.
She imagines herself standing behind him as he sits in the chair, holding the tire jack high, bringing it crashing down on his skull.
But she can’t. Not yet. She has to find Mace first, make sure he’s safe. She can’t risk getting into a fight out here and alerting the house.
All she can do is get Mace, free him and escape with him. Then regroup and figure out what to do next.
Frank is slouched in the chair, staring into the sky. It wouldn’t take much for him to glance back and see her crouched in the shadows.
Charlotte inches to the door and peers inside. The kitchen is still dark. She takes a step in, hears him getting up behind her.
She slips into the dark kitchen and makes out a long island, fridge at one end, table with chairs at the other. She hurries around the island, ducks down as Frank comes in from the patio and walks over to the fridge.
He opens the door. A square of light lands next to her.
She forgot the tire jack on the patio.
He takes something from the fridge, lets the door smack shut. Walks back outside. She listens to the patio door close and breathes deep. Touches her chest. Her heart’s shivering.
Charlotte rises, but not completely. She heads to the counter, where something flashed in her eyes when she rushed past.
A long, rusty screwdriver.
Chapter Ninety
At least, Mace figures, the pain from the ball-gag pressing into his mouth distracts him from the burning ache in his hand. It’s hard for him to breathe, hard for him to swallow. Saliva trickles down his throat.
But at least it distracts him from the pain.
He turns his head to look up at his handcuffs, one end of the cuffs tight around his wrist, the other end attached to a hook on the wall. Each of his wrists is cuffed in the same fashion, his arms spread to either side.
As scared and hurt as he is, it crushes Mace to think about Dory.
And to think that this is how Charlotte was held.
He doesn’t hold out any hope for rescue. Charlotte may have freed herself of Rob, but she’d never be able to find him here. And even if she does, he’ll be dead before she arrives.
After all, they didn’t keep Dory alive for long.
It makes him happy—somewhere distantly inside him, like a star flickering far away—that he didn’t give up everything he knew. He wanted to, especially when Barnes broke his index finger, and the world had turned into a red and white swirl of pain.
He’d passed out. But he hadn’t told Barnes the most important thing: his best guess about Charlotte.
Mace assumes she’ll somehow end up with Eve.
That’s his hope, although it doesn’t seem possible. Mace doesn’t know if Charlotte ever learned Eve’s last name, where she lives, or how to find her. But he hopes Charlotte ends up back with Eve, and Eve will help Charlotte find her freedom.
As for him, these men will kill him. No reason to keep him alive.
He just hopes it’s quick.
He doesn’t want to be in more pain.
Chapter Ninety-One
Charlotte can hear the men from where she’s hiding in the hall.
They’re in a room to her right. A staircase on her left leads up to the second floor, and a door next to it leads down to the basement.
Charlotte slips halfway up the dark stairs and hides in the shadows with the screwdriver.
Frank wanders toward the living room, a beer bottle dangling from his fingers.
He stops, leans against the doorway.
“We figure out what we’re doing?” he asks.
Charlotte hears a “Nope.”
Frank heads into the living room.
“She’s still in Baltimore,” Jake says. “We should be back there, trying to find her. And getting Rob out of jail.”
“We’re not going to find her driving around the city.” Charlotte recognizes this voice. It belongs to Frank’s brother, the nervous guy who brought her food, took her to the bathroom, walked her around the basement. He never did anything to her, but he never helped her either.
Will.
“We’re just supposed to sit here? That’s my partner!”
“Yeah,” Frank puts in, “and Dave was our friend. And he’s…we’re just…” His voice drifts away.
“Look,” Will says, “Barnes is downstairs with that Mace guy. He’ll have answers for us soon.”
Charlotte stops breathing.
She’d been listening for Barnes, wondering if he was just sitting silently among them. She hadn’t thought he was with Mace.
As if he heard his name, the door to the basement opens and Barnes walks through. Charlotte watches him as he heads into the living room.
She’s holding the screwdriver tightly; her hand nearly cramps. She forces herself to relax her grip.
“Good news is, he told me everything he knows.”
“What’s the bad news?” Jake asks.
“He doesn’t know much. Has no idea where Charlotte went.”
The room is silent for a few moments.
“What’d you do to him?”
“Broke another finger.”
Charlotte squeezes her eyes shut.
A chair moves.
“He talked, then went lights out.”
Frank stumbles out of the room with his beer and sits ten steps beneath her, on the bottom of the stairs. Shakes his head. Drinks.
Above him, Charlotte tries to calm herself.
She needs to get Mace out of here.
Frank finishes his beer, stands, and walks down the hall.
Charlotte guesses where Frank’s going and, when she hears the bathroom door open, she hurries down the stairs and softly opens the door to the basement. She slips inside and closes it behind her.
Chapter Ninety-Two
“Mace?”
He feels her hands in the dark as she removes the ball gag.
“Are you okay?” Charlotte whispers.
Mace wants to answer but his throat is raw. He turns and buries his face into the side of her neck.
He weeps.
He and Charlotte need to leave, but Mace thinks about Charlotte in this basement and everything inside him seems to collapse. He hates this world, this world that celebrates madness and violence; a world of stupid men who proudly defend their savagery; a world only populated by abusers and their abused; a world where every foot sinks into blood-soaked land.
“Dory’s dead,” he whispers.
Charlotte exhales. “She is?”
“They killed her.”
There’s a flicker inside Charlotte, not grief or sadness. Anger. She tries to push it aside. “We have to go. Did they leave the key in here?”
The door leading upstairs opens. The stairwell light turns on.
“Shit.” Charlotte hurries to the bedroom door.
The light to the outer room flickers on.
Footsteps come closer.
Will walks into the room, doesn’t see Charlotte hiding by the door.
Charlotte kicks his leg out from underneath him and wraps her arm around his neck.
Will stumbles and cries out, but Charlotte’s arm is wrapped so tight that his cry is gurgled. His fingers reach up, trying to create space between her arm and his neck.
He can’t.
Mace watches his feet kick, listens to him try and speak, but Will can only make a wet nasal sound.
Charlotte loosens her arm. “Do you have the key?”
“No,” Will whispers hoarsely. “But I can get it. I’ll help you escape.”
“Like you helped me before? Or Dory?”
“That was different. Now I…”
“Hey!”
Charlotte looks over her shoulder at Barnes.
He’s holding a gun.
Charlotte pushes Will to the side and rushes Barnes. Mace flinches, expecting him to shoot, but Barnes raises the weapon and smashes the handle butt into Charlotte’s head. She goes down.
“You okay?” Barnes asks Will.
Will stands, still coughing. Nods.
Barnes grabs Will, puts one giant hand over his mouth, breaks his neck.
Mace struggles, pulling the chains tight.
“The lesson, kids?” Barnes lets Will’s body drop to the floor. “Be quiet when you’re talking about helping someone escape.”
He looks down at Charlotte.
Chapter Ninety-Three
“Sorry about your brother,” Barnes tells Frank.
Frank wants to be upstairs with Will’s body. Instead he’s in this small room, watching Jake and Barnes finish tying Mace to a chair next to the bed. Charlotte’s handcuffed to the chains in the wall. Both are gagged.
After Mace is secured to the chair, Jake and Barnes rise and stand next to Frank, each on either side of him.
“I’m sorry too,” Jake tells him.
Frank nods.
“He’s the last one of us she’ll kill.” Barnes touches Frank’s shoulder. “What do you want to do with them?”
“I want them dead. But you should do it.”
“Why?”
“They’re your prisoners.” He looks at Jake. “Let’s go.”
Jake follows Frank out.
They start heading up the stairs, but Frank stops at the bottom step. “I don’t want to be up there with his body,” Frank lies. “I’m going to wait down here.”
Jake heads up and closes the door behind him. Frank walks back toward the small bedroom and sits against the door leading into it.
Frank’s face is still wet with tears, his nose helplessly running, his breaths coming hard. He keeps hoping that if he goes upstairs, there’s a chance Will might be alive.
But he won’t.
And soon enough, Frank will be gone too.
Frank’s felt this way ever since Dave first told them about Barnes and the plan to hold this woman. Felt that way when Will looked at him for reassurance, because he knew it was beyond what they wanted to do.
When he dies, people are going to think of him the same way a part of him feels.
That he got what he deserved.
Frank closes his eyes in the darkness, leans the back of his head against the door. Hears a murmur. The gags must have been taken off Mace and Charlotte.
Barnes is speaking.
“…and then, after you killed Sofia, I figured I was doing you a favor. You were a wildcat, knew you couldn’t be tamed. Gave you a choice—go somewhere in Russia or stay here and die.”
He pauses. Neither Mace or Charlotte says anything. Or anything Frank can hear.
“You two think I’m the devil. But all I do is fill men’s appetites. I’m not the devil. I’m Charon.”
Silence again.
“You know who that is? Old Charon took souls across the river Styx, brought them to Hades. Those men who want you, those men who fuck you, they’re the passengers. All I do is take them where they’re going, a salesman. Those men can always refuse, decide not to step in the boat. Let me tell you, I’ve served thousands of customers. Maybe tens of thousands. Probably that many. All across America. Ran operations from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco to Miami. Let me tell you, none of those men ever once said no.”
Another pause.
“If they had, I’d have given them their money back. Better believe I would have. Because that’s what being a businessman is about. And, yeah, maybe I take a little of my own product, break the girls in, but better they’re broken in with me instead of someone else. Everything I do, I do with honor.”
