Unreal Part 3 - FREE AND DISGUISED: (THRILLER ROMANCE AND MYSTERY) Page 6

  Moving away from Kim, she saw the nail and held it to her wrist. Ready to drive deep and let the blood wash over her legs, Colleen wrestled the implement away from her and swiftly shook her head.

  “Listen to me, you,” Colleen said.

  Kim kept the nail pressed between her fingers, but she was still as Colleen spoke.

  “You don’t die here,” she said. “Not you. Never you.”

  The crying girls all around them seemed to tell a very different story, but Kim calmed when Colleen pressed her fingers under her chin.

  “One day you’ll get out,” Colleen continued. “And you’ll come back to finish the job and make every last one of them pay.”

  She should have pictured Geoffrey Troxel and Carter McCord disemboweled and begging for mercy. And she did. Kim wanted them in a world of pain, her world of pain. But still her thoughts drifted to Julie. She should be Colleen, sharing her torment. But wherever she was, she was safe. Maybe even happy. And Kim---

  “I’m not finished with you!”

  Pulling her away from Colleen’s embrace, Kim felt her body being hoisted high into the air, and she uselessly scratched and kicked as he slammed her body into the wall. Instead of the scissors, he pulled out a razor. And when Kim spied the blade, she trembled wildly and begged for mercy, Colleen’s voice echoing in her ears.

  “Leave her alone, Boone!” Colleen screamed. “Leave her---”

  “I do what I want with my bitches!”

  Boone spit on her scalp and started to move the blade across her head. With each slice, Kim felt the last pieces of her being stripped away. She was already a prisoner; now she would look like one. Every few strokes, Boone lost control of the blade. At least that was how he played it. But Kim could hear him laughing as drops of her blood dripped towards the floor, and when she met Colleen’s eyes again, Kim’s new friend was on her knees, tense, but she reached for Kim with sorrowful hands.

  “You want her?” Boone growled.

  With a final tug, more blood mingling with her tears as Kim wretched on her own vomit, Boone finally released Kim into Colleen’s arms. Falling into her with a crash, Kim welcomed Colleen’s arms, and together they glared at Boone as he wiped the bloody razor against the sides of his jeans.

  “No one else will,” he said. “Not until she’s up to speed again. And that better happen pretty fucking fast, or I’ll cut off a lot more than her hair.”

  Kim shuddered in Colleen’s arms, and they only relaxed when Boone stomped up the stairs and disappeared.

  “Kim, I---”

  “What did he do to me?” she wailed. “What am I now?”

  Colleen pressed her fingers under her chin, and she smiled into her eyes.

  “You’re still Kim,” she promised. “Here. Let me show you.”

  Together they crawled toward a bucket of grimy water, and Colleen fished a filthy rag from the pail.

  “This might---”

  She didn’t have to say sting. The cloth burned as it passed over her bruised scalp, but Kim relaxed when Colleen stroked her arms and kissed her shoulders.

  “Easy, Kim,” she crooned. “Easy.”

  It got simpler when Colleen rewet the rag and washed the blood away. As the wounds started to scab over, Colleen picked up a piece of dusty sheet and dried her head, her shoulders, her back. Settling her into the ratty mattress, Colleen curled close to her on and cradled Kim in her arms.

  “I need you to do something for me,” Colleen started.

  When Kim stated silent, Colleen gently pushed her fingers into the other girl’s sides.

  “Can you hear me or what?” Colleen asked.

  Kim gave her a weak nod, and Colleen pressed her lips to her ear.

  “If you ever get out of here,” Colleen started. “You come back.”

  The words startled Kim, and she began to protest.

  “I won’t leave you here,” Kim said. “I thought that---”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  Kim strained forward and searched Colleen’s eyes for what she was really getting at. With a laugh, Colleen caressed her face.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Colleen started. “But when you come back---”

  “I don’t want to! I---”

  “You be damn sure to let your little friend see what it’s like.”

  She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. Julie was to blame for so many things. But to bring her here? Where she could only know pain and never wake to a bright new day? No. Kim couldn’t do that to her. It was still Jules, and she shivered when a boy so much as looked her the wrong way. She’d be more than a mess in a place like this; she would drive the nail to the point of no return and never look back. She---

  “Colleen!”

  Boone thundered back down the stairs with a cruel snap of his fingers.

  “Customers,” he said. Unlatching her chains, he dragged her away from Kim’s desperate side, but Kim tried to keep her close. Colleen’s body lolled from side to side at the foot of the stairs, and right before Boone could push her back into another realm of hell, Kim crawled forward with a bruised scalp and somehow confident lips.

  “Colleen!” she screamed “I promise! I swear! I’ll do whatever I have to do! But don’ t leave me! Don’t leave---”

  Summoning a hidden strength, Colleen pushed Boone back and seized Kim’s hands.

  “Just do what I’m asking,” she said. “Can you manage that?”

  Kim nodded, and Boone snatched her away. Left alone with the horde of crying girls, Kim found the courage to crawl up the step. Moving painfully, ever mindful of the small traces of blood that hit her eyelashes, Kim kept moving, and she nearly cried out in triumph when the door easily pushed open.

  I’m coming, Colleen. I’m…

  Kim’s heart caught in her throat when she saw her friend. Colleen was strung up by her wrists, and an army of at least a dozen men were licking her down. Their tongues washed her long limbs, darted close to her cunt, and when the flapping pink flesh started to invade he body, Kim felt as if a blanket of ice, hard and barely cracking, enveloped her. She could do nothing but watch her friend’s humiliation, and as Colleen’s ankles were held down, Kim had no choice but to release the cry buried in her gut.

  “Stop hurting her!”

  Wheeling around, Boone chuckled at her attempted escape, and he started to beat her body raw with his belt.

  “Who said you were fit to taste?” Boone said.

  Someone obviously did. Before she knew what was happening, Kim’s body was pried away from Boone’s savage hold, and she was pressed down to the rug. Her legs were kicked wide, and despite her shorn head, Kim felt a cock invading her flesh, tearing her apart even as she cried for mercy.

  If she ever got out… if she ever saw Julie again. She couldn’t bring her here. Julie could never stand it. But then, Julie had been saved once before. Maybe the mystery man would rescue her again. But Kim wasn’t sure that she wanted that as Colleen’s screams filled her ears. Should Julie suffer, too? She already knew what it was to be raped. But what if she found herself back in some special circle of hell when she finally thought that she was safe? With no white knight riding to her rescue? Was that what Julie deserved? Was…?

  “Give her a rest, Boone!” Colleen pleaded. “She’s had enough for tonight. She---”

  Boone laughed when Colleen crawled toward her bloodied and bruised friend. Her narrow limbs were nothing for the burly brute that pushed himself into Kim with excessive force. But still Colleen tried, and when she dug what was left of her nails into the man’s sweating shoulders, the monster released Kim. For a second, she was simply relieved that the attack had come to a halt even though her thighs felt as if they had been swabbed with sandpaper. But as she moaned and painfully pulled her body to the corner, everything slowed down, including the sound of her own voice.

  “No! Colleen!”

  Her recent rapist drew a long knife from his boot, and Kim saw the blade glimmer in the faint
bulb hanging overhead. The room fell silent; Colleen barely gasped, didn’t move. Catching a quick glimpse of Boone’s face, her captor sprang to attention.

  “Don’t mess with the merchandise---!”

  But the john either didn’t hear or just didn’t care. Burying the tip of the blade in Colleen’s chest, a crimson river poured from her flesh, and she uselessly tried to stop her fall, grabbing desperately at the man that had sliced her. He absorbed some of her sinking body, but then Boone grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and slammed him into the opposing wall.

  “You know what that’s going to cost me!” he challenged. “She’s one of my best.”

  As Boone unleashed his rage, Kim rushed to Colleen’s side. Cradling her head under one arm, she tried desperately to stop the bleeding with the force of her trembling palm.

  “Colleen?” she whispered. “Please….”

  But the blood just kept coursing through Kim’s fingers. Colleen sputtered and shook, and Kim looked to the other men, their cocks suddenly limp between their collective legs.

  “Someone has to help her!” she screamed. “Please!”

  All of their abhorrent energy disappeared; they could fuck these girls senseless, but not one of them was man enough to lift a finger as one of their toys lay bleeding at their feet, the color swiftly leaving her face as she gasped for air.

  “Boone!”

  The last thing that she wanted was to ask the man who had sliced into her scalp for aid, but what other choice did she have?

  “Boone! She needs help! She needs---”

  Felling the other man with a sharp blow to his side, Boone kicked him a few times for good measure and stomped towards Kim and the bloody mess in her arms.

  “God fucking---”

  “She needs a doctor!” Kim screamed. “She… no!”

  Pulling her from the floor by her shredded scalp, Boone’s filthy fingers grinding into her head, he stared at her hard. Despite the anger bulging through his eyes, Kim thought that caught a faint trace of fear.

  “Are you that fucking stupid!” he bellowed. “Bring 911 to here! No way. No fucking---”

  Colleen groaned for help, and the adrenaline in Kim’s veins gave her the courage to push him back and hold her once again.

  “I’m here, Colleen,” she whispered. “I’m right here.”

  “Clear out!” Boone bellowed as he swung his belt in the direction of all the johns. “And take that fucking piece of shit with you.”

  Not one man hesitated, and they dragged the other man away as Boone finally knelt at her side.

  “Now this is going to be a problem,” he muttered.

  Now who sounded like an idiot?

  “She’s losing too much blood,” Kim said. “She won’t---”

  “Here.”

  Tearing off a hunk of his filthy flannel shirt, he tied the faded print around Colleen’s waist. Kim could still see the blood seeping through, and she screamed out, reached after him, as Boone hauled her body off the ground.

  “Where are you---?”

  “Make yourself useful or shut the fuck up, cunt!”

  Biting down on her tongue, Kim forgot her own pain, and she followed Boone to another room. There was one mattress, and the floor was littered with fast food wrappers and cigarette ash. Dumping Colleen’s body to the makeshift bed, Kim grew gold enough to crawl to her side and take her hand.

  “Uh uh,” Boone said. “Someone’s gotta clean up the mess.”

  “I’m not leaving her,” Kim whispered.

  “You talking back to me, bitch?”

  Kim cowered for a second as Boone raised his arm, ready to backhand her in an instant. But Kim could be stronger than this son of a bitch knew.

  “Go ahead!” she spat. “What are you gonna do, stud? Be out two girls?”

  When money talked, Boone listened. Something in Kim’s eyes made him pause mid-strike, and he pounded his fist into his thigh with a grumble.

  “You’ll pay for that later,” he threatened. “But guess I can always unhook one of the others.”

  Walking out on heavy, booted feet, Kim’s flesh crawled. What else would he do to her? Flay her flesh from her body while her heart still beat? Or tie her down and order her to service every man that entered the room in a marathon of depravity that would make her wish that the blade had sliced into her---?

  “Kim?”

  Colleen’s weak whisper turned her away from her fears, and Kim clutched her hand tighter as she brushed the damp locks from her pale face.

  “Right here,” she promised.

  “I’m… I’m glad.”

  From the other room, Kim heard squeals of horror as one of the other girls was dragged up the stairs.

  “What happened?” she screamed. “What’s going on?”

  The girl’s voice was silenced by the sound of a hand smacking against her face, and she heard fresh sobs as water ran and metal hit the ground.

  “Now scrub it the fuck up, or you’re going to lose a lot more blood than that!”

  Kim suddenly heard nothing but light whimpers, sloshing water, and the stroke of what had to be a sponge against the stained surface. Boone would make this prisoner work all night if he had to. Maybe even to the next morning. But he would demand that the room be cleaned before the boys came back and wanted another taste of---

  But Colleen wouldn’t be around to see it.

  “Colleen?”

  Through her pallor, she managed a small smile.

  “Don’t be sad,” she said. “I’m getting out. It’s a good thing.”

  “But not like this,” Kim said. “You’ll never get to go home. Don’t you want to---?”

  “I just want this over.”

  How could she fight that? Sometimes Kim thought of death more often than freedom. And a tiny part of her was jealous that Colleen was getting the chance to go. On something of her own terms.

  “I should come with you,” she said. “I’ll cut my wrists open with the nail. I’ll bleed out and follow you.”

  Weak as she was, Colleen gripped her arm, and she slowly shook her head.

  “No,” she whispered. “Get out the other way. And make someone pay… make them…”

  A ragged gasp passed through her lips, and she bolted up right before she sank back to the mattress, her body suddenly stiff and cold. Kim blinked fast and tried to shake her out of her final dream. But when Colleen’s chest stayed still, she knew that she was gone, and she buried her face in her hair, weeping wildly and holding her tight until Boone bounded back into the room.

  “She gone?” he asked in a flat voice.

  Unable to look at him, Kim barely nodded her head, and Boone was fast to pull her from her friend’s side.

  “No, don’t!”

  “Oh give it the fuck up!” he said as he pressed Colleen’s body over his shoulder. Her arms lolled against his back, her bloody hair caressing the tips of her unmoving fingers. He would dig a shallow hole and cover her body with rocks and leaves. No one would ever find her; even Colleen would never know where to lay any flowers that might find their way into her hands. Colleen should have flowers. If anyone should.

  “I’m locking you in until I get back,” he said. “Then we get you ready for tomorrow night. You look like shit, but you’re going to make up the difference.”

  Pressing her face to the glass, she watched until he was out of sight, taking Colleen with him, and when they were gone, when she was gone, Kim held her bloodied head in her hands and cried until she drifted into a tormented sleep.

  “What do you want, Kim?” Boone teased. “Missed the fun? Tired of this limp dick?”

  Brian bristled at the insult, but Kim held him back and narrowed her eyes.

  “Hardly,” Kim hissed. “But it hardly seems right that you’re two girls down. Am I right?”

  Lifting his eyebrows, Boone stroked his chin and considered her carefully.

  “Don’t think I’m cutting you in,” he started. “I got new meat rolling in al
l the time.”

  “Not like this. Not like what I’m offering.”

  Stretching closer to him, Kim could hear Brian’s heart pounding as she pressed her hand to the other man’s chest. Just touching him should make her cringe. In many ways it did. But Colleen had only died because she tried to help her and not by his hand. No way to find the real murderer. But she could soothe the pain from her heart. Because only had to watch the blonde die because…

  “I’m going to bring you someone that will get your boys off like nobody’s business.”

  Intrigued, Boone asked her to go on. But first…

  “Take me to Colleen’s grave.”

  His eyes darkened as his stare came to rest on Brian’s stunned face, but Kim snapped her fingers and brought him back to her gaze.

  “Don’t worry about him,” she said. “He’s on my side, and I can be on yours if you do this one thing for me.”

  Still he hesitated, but Kim held her ground until he snatched a flashlight and led the way.

  “Kim,” Brian whispered as he took her hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Setting things right,” she said in a flat voice. “Just trust me.”

  He fell silent as the trio passed under the trees, the branches just starting to sprout, and Boone finally stopped before a single black rock resting near a small stream.

  “Here she is,” Boone said. “You gonna say a prayer or some shit?”

  No prayers. No flowers. Kim just wanted to see it, and as she knelt down and touched the stone, she made her promise.

  Someone is going to pay.

  “Come on, bitch,” Boone groaned. “What more do you need to---?”

  Brian started to charge towards him, but Kim was faster. Curling her hands around his neck, she drove him to the ground with a sharp push.

  “I could kill you right now,” Kim said. “Bury you right here next to Colleen. No one would ever know.”

  The sound of Brian about to get sick did not help her argument, but as soon as she saw Boone’s smirk, she backhanded him in the same way that he had done to her so many times. As sweet as it would have been to see him cry, to hear him beg for mercy, Kim settled for his cold eyes, and she was all about his bottom line.