AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Each time he tried to soothe her and told her that it was okay. It wasn't too late. She could still let him go. He wouldn't go to the cops. He wasn't the guy. He wouldn't hurt her. All lies. She wanted to believe every single one of those lies so badly.
But Claire knew if she let him inside her head—if she caved—he'd kill her the second he got free. And then he would win. He'd already won. She felt more broken now than when she'd first escaped him.
She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her former captor on the screen. His back was to the camera, the latest evidence of all her pain splashed in angry lashes across his skin. Even though he was turned away from her, she could see his jaws working as he chewed the drugged beef stew. It was the last can, and she wouldn't be buying more. Her hands shook in her lap as she watched him, dreading what was about to come even as she knew she had to do it.
She had to kill him. Today was the day. She had to do this. In spite of all he'd done to her when he'd kept her in that basement, she was beginning to feel pity for him. Her resolve had started to weaken. She'd burned through most of her rage too fast, bright, and hot, and now there was a mere dying ember left. The ember wasn't enough to keep going. She wouldn't be able to stomach doing this much longer.
It didn't matter that he was a monster. Claire was a monster too, now. She hadn't realized how empty she would feel when she reached the end of this. How much more lonely and isolated and disconnected she'd be. How much more broken. How completely alien from other people in the world—the people of her parents' shiny, happy, shallow world of stock speculation and spa retreats. She'd never be able to live in that world again.
But she couldn't let him go. Not just because of all he'd done to her and the people he'd killed or because of the personal threat he posed to her safety, but because even if he didn't kill her, she'd go to prison. And she wasn't going to prison for this piece of shit.
The large kitchen knife sat beside her on the bed. She ran through it all in her head. The plan. She just had to do the things on the list in her head. She had to get through it. Then she would scrub everything down and go back to her own apartment. She'd resume her life. She'd be free.
But she was anything but free. The weight of this dark sickness was too heavy, too suffocating. She couldn't breathe.
She stared at the knife, trying to stop her hands from shaking. And she took another long, slow breath. It had to be the knife. She'd already decided. She'd thought about just giving him too much of the drugs and letting him die from an overdose, but she needed to look him in the eyes. She needed him to know, to see it coming and to make peace with the death she was about to deliver.
She needed to watch the life leave him so she could be sure this was truly done. The worst part was this hadn't fixed anything. It hadn't healed her. It hadn't freed her. And she didn't know how she would ever live a normal life after this—if she could even live at all.
The list Claire... just go through the list.She would go in there and chain him up. Then she'd come back out here and wait for the drugs to wear off. When he was awake, Claire would take the knife and she would go kill him. But first, she'd cover herself from head-to-toe in a makeshift Hazmat suit she'd put together. And she'd put the tape on his mouth first because she couldn't deal with him talking when she needed to focus.
When it was finished, she'd use the chainsaw to make everything small enough and put him into trash bags. She still hadn't worked out where she'd dump the body.
Her mind was stuck on the dismembering part. Bile rose in her throat at the idea of doing that to any human being.He's not human. He's not a person.
But there were so many times he'd looked at her and had seemed like a person. With their positions reversed for weeks it was so easy to forget which one of them had started this.
She looked at the screen and saw him lie down on the ground. It was time to end it.
Ari layin the cell perfectly still, his breath evening out into the rhythm of sleep. If he'd judged the pattern wrong, he was fucked. He might not get the chance to outsmart her again. Minutes passed. The door creaked open, and a small smile curved his lips. He'd chosen the right meal.
His body was turned away from her so he knew she couldn't see it, but he schooled his features as she approached.
Her light footsteps moved quickly over the concrete. She took one of his wrists to secure it. His eyes snapped open as he grabbed her wrist with his free hand, wrenching her off him.
The shock in her eyes was quickly followed by panic as she struggled and fought. She must know she didn't have the ability to take him down without all these safeguards she'd put in place—safeguards that had finally failed her.
Her gaze darted to the spot behind where Ari had been lying to see all the food he'd pretended to eat with his back to the camera.
Frantically, she used her free hand to dig into her pocket for something. Ari felt a surge of adrenaline when he saw the syringe. She'd somehow gotten the cap off the needle as they struggled. She fought him like a wildcat. He couldn't let her stick him with that thing. She might not be physically strong but she was fast and kept jerking and twisting and flailing so much that it was hard to hold her in place.
He was determined this small woman was not going to best him. She wouldn't break him. She wouldn't kill him. They were not going to continue this way. He shoved her back. She seemed surprised by this sudden turn in events as if she couldn't process why he'd pushed her away instead of continuing to try to overpower her. As her back hit the wall, the syringe flew from her hand and skidded across the floor.
Her eyes widened, then they both lunged for it. He was faster. She tried to run from him, but he grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her down, flipping her, and straddling her small body beneath him. He breathed hard as he looked down at her. Goddammit, she was so beautiful.
It was so fucked-up that he still wanted her in spite of everything.
Her eyes filled with a look of absolute terror, tears streaming down her face as she looked at the syringe he held poised over the muscle in her arm.
“Please, please,” she whimpered. “That's too much. It'll kill me.”
“Good,” Ari bit out. But he knew it was too much, and he didn't want her dead. Death was too good for her now. He was careful to only give her half the contents in the syringe. Enough to knock her out. Not enough to kill her.
She noticed he'd adjusted the dose, but suddenly the realization that he wasn't killing her and what that meant, kicked in. Her eyes widened. “Oh god, please no, not again.” And then her eyes drifted closed, and she slumped helpless in his arms.
The thrill of pure adrenaline pumped through him as he took in his prize. The prize for surviving and thwarting her plan.
Ari carried her to the door and pressed her thumb against the biometric panel. The heavy steel slid easily open. He let out a long, shuddering breath as he stepped out into freedom. He found his clothes and shoes in a trash bag shoved into a corner of the main living area and put them back on. His jeans were loose. She'd sometimes forgotten to feed him. And even when he'd gotten three squares a day, it hadn't been enough to sustain his body weight.
