Page 17 of Defending Van

“I'd rather you were all dead.” She once again gave an honest answer. “And I don’t even care if that makes me a bad person. I know I'll be able to recover better if I know you're no longer breathing the same air I am.”

“Why would that make you a bad person?”

“Because I don’t want to wish death on anyone, even evil people.”

“Did you wish death on the people who hurt you when you were a child?”

“Sometimes.” More often, though, she’d just wanted to get away from them. All she’d ever wanted was to be free to be in control of her own life. It had been hard building that life as an eighteen-year-old girl with no family to fall back on. But she’d done it. She had a life she loved, and she wasn't going to let this man steal it away from her.

“And now you're going to kill me.” The words were spoken with that same steady calmness, and there was still no fear in his voice.

Maybe he was plotting something?

Even if she had a knife to his neck, there was still a chance he could overpower her. It would be risky, because even though he was bigger and stronger than her, any movement would cause the blade to slice through the delicate skin over his carotid artery. If it even felt like he was making a move to try anything, Makayla wouldn't hesitate to dig that knife into his neck. Surviving demanded that she eliminate any and all threats.

“I’d rather you had been in the other room, watching your movies. I was hoping to sneak out without anyone seeing me, call for help, and get the cops here before you all even knew that I was missing,” she told him.

In fact, her heart had dropped when she’d seen him and realized she wouldn't be able to get past him. The knife in her hand was her only choice. Those seconds it had taken her to creep along the hall, for once grateful that she’d been stripped naked because her bare feet didn't make a sound, she’d barely been able to breathe, so sure he was going to turn at any second and spot her.

By some miracle, he seemed to have been too caught up in setting up cameras, engrossed in his task to the point where he hadn't noticed her until she was right behind him, holding her knife to his neck and ordering him not to move.

“Even though I tortured you, you’d rather not kill me if given a chance?” Van asked, and she caught a tiny hint of curiosity in his words. This man was a puzzle she would have liked to figure out under different circumstances.

“I don’t ever want to kill anyone, Van,” she told him. “I will slit your throat if I have to, but it won't be something I enjoy. I might heal better knowing you can't ever come after me again, but I don’t want to be the one to end your life. That won't bring me any joy, not even for what you’ve done to me, or what you're planning to do to me.”

Maybe she could get out of here without killing him?

The other women were scared, but if she called out to them to tell them that it was only her and one of the men out here, and she had him under control, they could come and together they could all overpower him. All they had to do was manhandle him into the same chair he’d kept her bound to for hours, use the leather straps to keep him in place, and then they could all escape.

That’s how she would rather have done things anyway. She’d been afraid that once they knew she was gone, they’d just kill the other women or throw them in a vehicle and move them somewhere else, and by the time the cops arrived it would be too late. As much as she knew that if they’d all been out here there was no way she could have gotten to Van unheard and unseen, having the others with her now would be helpful. Six of them to his one gave them enough of an advantage to get him out of the way so they could all escape.

“If you do as I tell you, then I won't kill you,” she informed him. “The chair you put me in, I want you to walk to it and let me put the leather straps on.”

A small chuckle rumbled through the chest of the large man she was holding at knifepoint. “And how do you suggest you make me do that, Makayla? I’m a foot taller than you. If I straighten up, you can no longer hold the knife to my throat. Without it there, you have nothing to ensure my compliance.”

That was true, unfortunately.

If Van hadn't been crouched over, installing a camera down near the floor by the door, there was no way she would have been able to use the knife to subdue him. It probably would have been better to just sneak up behind him and stab him. Not a death blow, just something that would incapacitate him enough that she and the others could get out, because there didn't seem to be any of the other men nearby.

“As I see it, Makayla, you only have the two options,” Van continued while she hesitated, trying to figure out what her best move was. As badly as she wanted out, she really wasn't sure she had what it took to kill a man in what would really be cold blood. “You can slit my neck and leave me to bleed out while you escape, or you can admit that while ingenious, your plan has many flaws, most notably that you don’t have what it takes to follow through on it.”

Okay, maybe he was right on that one.

“Or there’s an option three,” she told him. “I yell out to the others, they know the code too, and then they all come, and together we can get you into that chair without having to kill you.”

Drawing air into her lungs in preparation for screaming out to Cecilia and the others, before she could make a sound, Van sprang into action. Turning the tables on her as he wrapped a hand around her wrist and his other around her neck and slammed her into the wall.

August 27th

6:19 A.M.

Beneath his palm, she felt so delicate.

So easily broken.

Despite her pulse fluttering wildly, both in the hollow of her neck and her wrist, it wasn't fear he saw in those clear blue eyes of hers, it was disappointment, regret. She wished she’d killed him when she had the chance.

Well, maybe she didn't wish she’d killed him, because Van absolutely believed that she didn't want to kill anyone, not even him, who had done horrendous things to her. If he hadn't been out here, and she could have slipped away, she would have done it.