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He would find her. He would save her.
There was no other option.
BELL
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to cut you just yet.” The girl sat down on the folding chair.
Just yet. Talk about a barely reassuring statement. I watched her reach back into the bag and tensed, wondering what she’d pull out next. The Taser? A gun? Maybe another needle. Truth be told, the idea of being pricked and sleeping for the next few hours wasn’t a bad option. I thought of Dario’s treatment of John and Johnny, his castration of them, and felt the urge to vomit.
Maybe we deserved this. Ruining his marriage. Exacting revenge. Maybe everything had led to this moment.
The blonde pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.
My heartbeat slowed slightly, and I allowed myself a full inhalation of air.
She flipped the knife over, sticking it butt-first into her back pocket. Moving closer, she tugged at a key that hung around her neck, pulling it over her head. She looked down at me. “Are you left or right-handed?”
A simple question, yet my mind stalled. Left or right-handed? Seconds passed. Her expression hardened and I forced myself to speak.
“Right-handed.”
She dropped the paper and pen on the floor next to me and crouched down until her butt rested on her heels. Working the key into the cuff on my right hand, she popped the mechanism, the restraint springing open. I cautiously rolled the wrist, flexing my hand as she stepped away and brought the knife back out.
She nodded to the items beside me. “Pick up the pen and paper. I want you to write a letter.”
I didn’t move toward the paper. “A letter to who?”
She smiled, and it was the sort of grin that fit better on a Halloween mask than a face.
THE BOSS
As Bell wrote, Claudia began to pace. It was a useless activity, a waste of energy, and she stopped short, forcing herself to step back, her hands clasped before her, her restlessness under control. If Robert was here, he’d have given her a nod of approval, the sort that caused her heart to swell and her efforts to double. He wasn’t cruel. She had seen it early, had understood the difference between punishment and sadism. He’d always had a purpose behind his actions, a plan in place, a lesson to be learned. A lesson that went right over the heads of almost every woman in this place. He should have just killed them all, but that wasn’t his style. Instead, he had an almost dogged determination to break through to them. To give them opportunities, again and again, over and over again. Punishments and lessons. Reward opportunities and tests.
Most had failed completely. Others, like the ones in this building, had succeeded often enough to stay alive. Claudia was the only one who had truly understood Hawk’s methods, and it certainly made sense why. She was special, and not just because of her lineage. Gwen had Robert Hawk’s blood in her, and she would have failed. Claudia knew that, the instinct reinforced by the stories Robert had told her. Stories of a baby Gwen, bullied at school. Gwen, in Mexico, needing rescue. Gwen, marrying a man and letting him take control of her life.
The brunette was being slow, the slanted writing only covering half of the page.
She sighed. “You’ve got two more minutes, then you’re done. So write it quickly or don’t say it at all.”
Bell’s pen scratched more quickly across the surface. It was cute, all of the thought she was putting into this. Cute, the dogged concentration on her face, the intent desire to flood all of her feelings onto the page. Robert Hawk hadn’t had that luxury, hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to anyone. Which was one reason out of a hundred that solidified her decision to use this letter like a knife. She’d present it to Dario, wave the emotional tidbit in front of him, and then snatch it away before he had a chance to read it. Light his love’s final words on fire and watch him drop to his knees in tears. Then, she’d bring out the video, and let him watch every excruciating minute of Bell Hartley’s final day.
It’d be a good day. A long day. One of those Robert Hawk specials. Maybe she’d bring in a prop. Borrow one of the other prisoners and let Bell Hartley watch everything that she was about to do to her. After all, she’d been trained by the best—a walking encyclopedia of torture.
What she hadn’t decided yet, was whether to finish the girl’s kill on videotape, or wait for that final finale until she had Dario here. Decisions, decisions. Decisions that she should have made hours ago, but was still waffling over.
She leaned over and snatched the page from Bell’s hand, the last word not fully formed. No biggie. He wouldn’t be reading it anyway.
