Unreal 2 Cold Illusion - Winter's Chill: (Adult Suspense Thriller) Page 16

  It had been their little joke, but in this moment, he looked old and weary. Something horrible had happened to him, and he had never forced her to do anything against her will.

  But had he done something else?

  “Your honor,” Leo Barber said. “This is highly prejudicial.”

  But Vivian Porter kept going.

  “I don’t know ladies and gentleman,” Vivian said. “Just seems suspicious. Maybe Miss Edwards here is living out a fantasy.”

  She stood at Carter’s side and stroked his shoulders.

  “Maybe it was all her fantasy, supposedly kidnapped. Maybe raped and look at her now.”

  Vivian Porter stepped away from the defendant and shoved her finger in Julie’s face.

  “She’s playing house with her so-called savior. Guess that was all part of the plan.”

  “Objection!” Leo screamed. “Your honor, she has no right----”

  “But I have the facts, Mr. Barber. She’s living with Ethan Graff. And he could have told her that Kim wasn’t most sincerely dead.”

  What was she saying? Was Kim alive? Had he left her behind, and was everything that had passed between them nothing more than a lie?

  “Ethan?”

  As soon as she spoke his name, Ethan shot to attention. He looked at her, and she saw his lips curl into a silent whisper.

  I’m sorry, Juliet.

  Sorry? He was sorry? Why hadn’t he saved Kim? Why hadn’t he told her the whole truth? She saw Morales reaching for his hand as he stepped towards her. Ethan was almost at her side when Amanda Beyer rushed forward and pushed Ethan to the ground.

  “Where is she?” Amanda screamed. “Where’s my baby?”

  Ethan tried to stand and shield his body from the blows, but he wasn’t fast enough. Julie’s head spun at the sight of what was happening. Amanda moved to hit him, and Julie couldn’t help but fall to his side and try to keep him safe. She had questions, questions that he would have to answer, but still she didn’t want him hurt.

  “No!” Julie screamed. “Leave him alone.”

  A scuffle ensued, and Morales was there. She tried to pull Amanda Beyer from Ethan, but the woman would not budge. She rained tiny blows about his head, and when Julie could take no more, she pressed Ethan’s battered body behind hers and pleaded for this to just stop.

  “Mrs. Beyer,” Julie said. “Please don’t---”

  The courtroom filled with excited whispers, but everything stopped when Amanda returned to her feet and glared down at Julie.

  “Where is Kim?” Amanda asked.

  She should know. She had been closer to no one. But as Julie shook her head, Amanda Beyer cried out in anguish and forced the victim, the witness, to her unsteady legs. She started to explain, when Amanda’s words crashed into her ears.

  “This is all because of you!” Amanda screamed.

  Julie blinked as a set of sharp nails flashed before her face, and as she tried to turn away, Julie felt Amanda’s long nails scraping against her cheek, and she tasted her own blood as it dribbled to her tongue. As she tried to catch her breath, she felt the weight of Amanda Beyer leaving her body, and when she glanced up through the strands of her fallen hair, she barely caught sight of the woman even as her pleas for the truth filled the courtroom.

  Softer hands took hold of hers, an as soon as Julie was back on her feet, she found herself back in Ethan’s hold. He was sweating and shaking, and Julie tried to focus on all the ways in which she loved him.

  Because he saved me. Because he has never once lied to me.

  “Ethan, tell them. Tell them what you saw.”

  Her pleas led to more tears, and Ethan’s arms grew strong as he started to pull her from the courtroom.

  “She has not been dismissed.”

  Shuddering, Julie kept close to Ethan as Vivian Porter pointed back to the witness box. And as much as she wanted to just leave and hide with Ethan, she had to see this through. It was the only way to ever trust him again.

  “Juliet! Wait!”

  Looking over her shoulder, she saw Ethan with his arms outstretched. But Julie returned to the chair and settled before the court. Then Vivian Porter pounced.

  “Did you know that Peter Bowen didn’t see a body?” Vivian asked. “And that’s what these good men are on trial for.”

  Julie laughed at the lawyer’s words and stood her ground.

  “They are not good men,” Julie said. “They…”

  Her gaze shifted back to Carter McCord with his hands innocently pressed to his lap.

  “Suck me.”

  Julie whimpered as grazed the tip of his cock to her lips. She didn’t want to taste him, and Julie pressed her lips tightly together as the gamey scent of his piece surrounded her.

  “Open wide, cunt,” Carter said. Julie kept shaking her head as she quietly resolved to do anything to escape the feel of his meat in her mouth. Even as she struggled, she was afraid of blows about her body. Given the chance, he would beat her into submission, but she would take the force of his fists. She would not grant him even a second of pleasure.

  “Why you gotta make me do this, bitch?” Carter asked.

  He grabbed her nose, depriving her weakened body of precious air, and even as Julie tried to keep her lips close together, the need to breathe superseded her disgust. As her mouth opened, he shoved his cock down her throat, and Julie gagged as his throbbing flesh invaded her. Impossible as it seemed, this was worse than the feel of him tearing into her soft folds apart, her rear. Because this attack required her to play along, and Julie’s lips moved round his cock in search of the tip. She needed air, but Carter moaned as her helpless tongue moved down the length of his cock. When she started to gasp, he seized hold of her hair and slammed her tear stained face back to the point where she couldn’t help but taste all of his vile lust. Carter used her captive mouth like a magnet that had no hope of escaping his pull. Choking, sobbing, Julie cried new tears around his skin. The force of his assault resulted in a hot stream of terror pouring down her throat. She wanted to spit it out, but Carter held her close to his crotch, and the muscles of her throat contracted as she swallowed his horrid gift. When the salty sensation was buried deep in her belly, Julie tried to leave his cock, but Carter’s hand stayed in her hair, and she could do nothing but kneel and cry and wait as his piece softened around her lips. Her jaw strained at the effort of staying wide, and when he eased her eyes to his, she could barely make him out through the stream of her tears.

  “Look like you need a nap,” Carter said.

  With his cock still in her mouth, Julie nodded. She prayed for release as he pressed her back to the mattress, and as she tried to pull away from worst part of him still in her mouth, Carter clasped his thighs around her shoulders and touched her hair.

  “We’re sleeping like this,” he said. “And you better be ready to go again when I wake up.”

  And with that, like it wasn’t horrible at all, he fell asleep with his arms about her body. Julie, her hands still bound behind her back, tried to detach her trembling lips from his cock. The force of his palm at the back of her head was too much, and she could do nothing but suck in every little bit of air that she could grab.

  Let me go. Please…

  Leaving the memory, Julie stared hard at Vivian Porter.

  “They’re the villains,” Julie said in a quavering voice.

  Vivian Porter turned her gaze to her clients and smiled sadly before she looked back to the jury.

  “But there’s no way to know if they are responsible for whatever happened to poor Kimberly Beyer.”

  15

  She was numb. And there was only way to reply to Vivian Porter’s statement.

  “But… but something happened to her. Where is she?”

  Julie had Ethan’s version of events. There was blood. The rapists and her captors had to get rid of the body. And at the thought that Julie could easily go the same way, Ethan had liberated her from hell. Despite her fear, Julie had been gratefu
l for his hand in hers as he dragged her through the forest. When Kim never returned, she had pictured her friend in an unmarked grave or in heaven. It made sense. Had she endured another night with Carter McCord, it could have been Julie in the ground or on an entirely different plane.

  But she was still here, alive and broken.

  “Let’s say the witness was liberated,” Vivian said. “Isn’t this just a new kind of captivity? I ask you to consider that, ladies and gentlemen”

  As Julie watched the jury, they shook their collective heads and clicked their tongues as they gave the distraught witness sad stares. Vivian Porter’s theatrics had obviously turned their opinion towards the defense, and when Julie looked to Ethan for some shred of hope, his eyes stayed on the ground as Morales steadied him where he sat.

  Was she in on this, too?

  Julie fell back into the idea that everyone was working together to return her to hell. And the thought that Ethan might be in league with the monsters was too much to bear.

  Morales had seen Ethan out while the kindly old bailiff turned his attention to Julie. She buried her face in the man’s dark blue shirt and tried not look as Vivian Porter conferred with her clients. The lawyer had all of Geoffrey Troxel’s eyes, and the older man nodded thoughtfully as his wife massaged his shoulders and his daughter held his hand. Carter McCord wore a smirk just for her as he pressed his fingers under his chin. Glancing down at the bailiff’s waist, Julie caught sight of the man’s gun. In a fleeting moment of madness guided by self-preservation, she nearly seized hold of the firearm, wanting nothing more than to blast a hole through her rapist’s smug face. She could almost feel the cold steel in her hands and envisioned the shredded flesh between his eyes, the dark blood pouring out of his mouth. It would be so easy to take him out, but as the bailiff hustled her towards the door, the chance was gone, and her terror loomed larger than ever.

  “I got you, Miss Edwards,” the bailiff said they turned the corner and started down a staircase. Julie had to hold his arm to keep from falling, and her stomach was a mass of somersaults as she caught sight of a restroom.

  “I… I think I need…”

  Breaking away from the old man, Julie charged through the bathroom door and stumbled towards one of the abandoned stalls. She gagged at the sight of a bowl clogged with shit and an overabundance of toilet paper. Wheeling way from the disgusting sight, she lurched towards the next stall. Thankfully, it was clean, but even if it hadn’t been, there was no way that she would have been able to wait. Falling to her knees, she choked out the meager contents of her stomach in stringy lines dotted with the one piece of toast that she had been able to take in the way of breakfast. The sight of the masticated, undigested bread floating in the bowl prompted a new wave of nausea, and she was sick all over again. Blinking back tears, she retched until she had nothing left to bring up, and she fell back, her head slamming against the door that she had failed to close. Crying out in pain, she heard footsteps approaching, and she looked up like a cornered animal about to be torn apart by a larger, stealthier predator. She relaxed some when she saw that it was still just the bailiff, and without waiting for her to ask, the man helped her to her feet and guided her to the sink.

  “You’re okay,” he said. “It’s all okay.”

  He eased her hands under the automatic faucet, and when the stream started to flow, Julie cupped the water in her hands and started splashing in across her face. Taking comfort in the coolness, she managed to grab a few drinks, and she spit out what remained of the foulness in her mouth. Raising her eyes to the mirror, she took note of the bailiff flushing her vomit away. But it wouldn’t be as easy to rid her mind of the suspicions suddenly swirling around her soul.

  “You need another minute, Miss Edwards?” the bailiff asked.

  She needed hours, days, possibly a lifetime to understand what she had just heard. But hiding wouldn’t bring her back to Ethan. And she needed to hear his voice even as she knew that she had to be wary in light of whatever he might say.

  “I’m fine,” Julie whispered. The bailiff cocked his head, seemingly unsure of her quiet response. But then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders again and led her back to the hallway.

  “This way then Miss Edwards.”

  They turned another corner past an elevator bank, but instead of heading down, the man moved her forward until she found herself in a Spartan, dimly lit office. As soon as she entered the room, Julie was struck by the sight of Ethan turning away from a window. The second he saw her, his eyes brimmed with concern, and he started to move towards her. But the bailiff stepped forward and blocked his path.

  “What are you doing here?” the man asked.

  Ethan kept his gaze on Julie as he spoke.

  “I… Detective Morales brought me here,” he started. “She… she told me to wait.”

  Where was Morales now?

  The bailiff snorted and looked down at Julie.

  “I can stay if you like,” he said. “Or… or perhaps you’d like to go somewhere else?”

  For the first time since the cabin and those initial moments in the woods, Julie felt uneasy in his presence, and she was about to take the bailiff up on his offer of anywhere else when Ethan raised his hands in the air and stared at her sadly.

  “Juliet, can we just talk for a minute? Please.”

  Somehow she nodded and told the bailiff that she would be fine. The man barely seemed convinced, and even as he agreed to go, he shot Ethan a quick glare.

  “I’ll be right outside if you need anything, Miss Edwards,” he said.

  The door lightly closed behind him, and Julie was left alone with Ethan.

  “Do you want to sit?” he asked as he gestured to the chairs before the small desk. Grateful for the chance to get off her trembling legs, she drew close to one of the seats, and Ethan moved to steady her with one hand on her back. But Julie shied away from his touch. With a quick look, she saw him crushed and could not help but loathe the idea that she was causing him pain. Yet, after all that had passed between them, too much was left unsaid, and she couldn’t help but wonder what else he might be hiding.

  They sat in silence for several long moments. Julie unbuttoned her collar in a desperate bid to take in more air, and she clutched the arms of her chair as her mind turned to Kim. Was she still out there? It didn’t seem possible, but before her capture, Julie could not have imagined a world where men would use her body like a receptacle, vomiting their perverse desires into every orifice until her the confines of her flesh became its own sort of prison. There were times during that brutal summer when Julie wished that her body would close in on itself so that her soul, the essence of herself could escape the pain. But though unwilling, always unwilling, her body remained available until it didn’t even feel like hers anymore. She had stopped being a person and became an object.

  “Kimmy…,” Julie whispered. “What if she’s still being hurt?”

  Ethan furiously shook his head but stopped short of taking her hand.

  “No, Juliet,” he said. “I’m sure that’s not---”

  “Is… was she still alive when you came for me?” Julie asked.

  “Juliet, I…”

  She grasped to the hope that he would make this right, that he would bring the world back into focus and assure her that this was just a trick of the defense meant to confuse the jury and get the animals off.

  Please, Ethan. Please let me believe in you.

  “I… I’m not sure anymore,” he said.

  And with those words, everything that she had hung onto was ripped away from her heart and felt as if she was being sucked into the loneliest abyss from which there was no chance of escape.

  “You’re not sure now?” Julie asked. “Were you… were you sure that night? Did you… did you just leave her…?”

  If Kim was still breathing, did she think that Julie was dead? Or was she silently screaming after being abandoned by her best friend?

  “Oh, God! Oh, God no!”


  Julie was on her feet and started towards the door when Ethan followed and tried to take her into his arms.

  “I don’t know, Juliet,” he said. “I just had to get you out. I was only thinking about you. I---”

  “You bastard!”

  She smacked his face and watched as he struggled to keep from falling to the ground as Ethan rubbed his cheek, the bailiff reappeared with angry eyes.

  “Problem here?” he asked as he grimaced at Ethan’s injured form. Instinctively, she still wanted to hold him, to touch him, but she was no longer sure of him, of what he was. Had Vivian Porter been onto something? Was this all part of his plan?”

  “Can you please find Detective Morales?” Julie begged the bailiff. The man seemed reluctant to leave his station just beyond the door, but when she quietly implored with moist eyes and a quivering jaw, the bailiff started to back away.

  “I’ll leave the door open, Miss Edwards,” he said as he started to leave. “Holler if you need anything.”

  At the start of this day, Julie couldn’t have conceived of any situation where she would feel fear in his presence. But here it was. Ethan Graff had been a stranger when they first met, and at this moment, he seemed more mysterious than ever.

  As their eyes met again, Julie tensed, and she backed away as he took her hand.

  “Juliet,” he said. “Don’t do this. It… it has to be a lie. She… Kim---”

  “Don’t you say her name!”

  Charging forward, Julie started to beat his back even as her mind filled with all the ways in which the space of his arms had felt like deliverance from death. Everything had felt right with him. But why had he lied about Kim? Why he had he made her best friend dead?

  “Answer me, Ethan!”

  Weary and heartsick, Julie collapsed back into the chair, and her body bristled as his head fell to her knees. She tried to shift away as he rubbed his temples and sighed heavily into her skirt.

  “Juliet,” he said as he moved to take her hand. Again she flinched at the approach of his touch and pressed her hands to the arms of her chair. If it was true, she could never sink into his arms again. Yet she still listened.