Page 46 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

I pull the front door shut as he pulls me through it over to his bike and helps me mount. Then he slides on in front of me and twists to put his helmet on my head.

“Where are we going?” I ask, giddily squirming on the seat.

“I bought a boat. We’re goin’ out on the lake.”

My thoughts are ripped from that perfect memory when the sliding door creaks, then groans and slides open. I still. Oh, god.

Houdini.

No. It can’t be.It can’t. It can’t. It can’t.But apparently, itcan.

“Miss me?” he asks. Bile rises from my stomach to burn the back of my throat. My eyes water partly from the bile, but partly because I know I’m not getting out alive this time.

“No,” I whisper. Not to his question, but to his mere presence. Though he mistakes my response and snickers. I feel woozy and my heart begins to beat like a racehorse running the Preakness in my chest.

“Well, I missedyou.” There’s an evil, mad glint in the stare he aims at me, his face marred by angry, red welts where the wasps had stung him. It’s a small consolation considering that more than knowing I’m not getting out alive, I know whatever comes next is going to hurt. “Now, sit tight. I’ll deal with you in a second.”

He takes to meticulously setting up a tripod made for a smartphone already connected to the tripod base and aimed in my direction, and taps an app to bring up the phone’s video. Attention back on me, he bends forward to grab my arm tight enough to leave a bruise and hauls me over to the horseshoe welded to the floor. At the sight of the shackles he pulls from the bag by his feet to clip my wrists, I gasp and begin the pointless struggle to get away.

A cuff to my right cheek shuts me down. He pulls a second pair of shackles for my ankles and then a thick leather collar, which he fastens around my neck. A thicker chain attached one end to the collar, he secures the second end to the horseshoe.

Then he bends down to pull something else from the bag. My body begins to shake uncontrollably because in his hand he holds a long rod with a thick, heavy, plastic handle and a head with two brass contact prongs. That’s no Taser. I’d seen pictures of that thing online before. A cattle prod. He flicks the switch on… to acattle prod. I hear the electricity coursing through it in the small room. Smell it.

His eyes gleam, alighted by some psychopathic joy. His smile looks manic.

“Please, no,” I beg him meekly.

“Yes,” he says to me as he leans forward to pressrecordon the phone. Then he faces the camera. “You brought this on yourselves.” He touches the prong end of the prod to my thigh. Unimaginable pain shoots throughout my entire body, my muscles constrict, shrinking me into a ball. There’s a heart-wrenching scream filling the room and I realize it comes from me, though I feel disconnected from the noise.

When he pulls the prongs away, he looks back at the camera. “Even trade. A whore for a whore.” Before I can recover, he touches the prongs to my thigh again. This time, I vomit all over myself and the floor. As he pulls the prod away again, he tells the camera, “I want the Hollister whore and her bastard.”

He hits the button to end the recording. “Now, wasn’t that fun?”

I don’t respond because I can’t respond. The tears continue to leak from the corners of my eyes while low, keening whimpers leak from the corners of my mouth.

“I figured you’d puke,” he says, tossing a clean T-shirt over to me before he unbuckles the collar and uses a key to unshackle my wrists and ankles. He knows I won’t try to fight back. I still can’t move my muscles. They twitch in little spasms from the shock. “They always puke,” he finishes.

He disconnects his phone from the tripod and shoves it in the pocket of the black hoodie he’s wearing, then folds down the legs of the tripod to stuff it back inside the bag he’d brought. “Use the water from the bucket to clean yourself up. Careful, that’s your drinkin’ water too.” He winks at me, then. Bastard.

At last he throws a wrapped granola bar at me. It hits my head. I can’t even flinch. He laughs, but thankfully, he leaves.

There’s no way for me to know how long I stay lying in my own vomit. Not that it matters in the scheme of my life or where it’s descended. When finally the spasms ease and my muscles get their strength back, weak, but enough to hold me, I push up from the floor to peel the nasty shirt off. The puke stench fills the car. Whether I clean it off me or not, escaping the smell is impossible.

Careful not to get the vomit in the clean water bucket, I clean myself and dress, if you can call it dressing, in the teehe’dleft. Michael hadn’t given me a bra or panties after the bath. As if a pair of panties could perform magic to keep a psycho from having his way with me if the urge arises.

Eventually, the hunger gets to me, my stomach nervous but not roiling. I tear open the wrapper on the granola bar, making sure to keep the bites small in case my wayward stomach decides to revolt.

The thought of Gage out there worried for me, it hurts my heart. The thought thathewants Elise and Gun absolutely terrifies me. Elise, my sister from another mister. Why can’t he just leave us alone?

God, what had I been thinking leaving the compound? I’d been safe there, safe with Gage.You don’t go off alone; I’ll keep you safe, he’d said to me. And what do I do at every turn? Go off alone. I left him and the compound, and then I justhadto go back to work. The whole reason I’m in this mess is because I wouldn’t listen to the one man I should have been listening to this whole time.

If I’m honest, the whole reason I’d gotten on Houdini’s radar in the first place, the whole reason I’d lost my virginity to a man I didn’t love, was my fault. All my fault.

“I’m not going to wait forever,” I say, folding my arms in a ‘getting ready to argue’ stance. He tucks the tips of his fingers in each pocket, his thumbs resting against his hips, tipping his head to look at the ceiling of his bedroom as if asking the lord for patience. His mom is at work, where she always is now that his father is across the country in Seattle. They’re trying to save up enough money for Mrs. St. James to join her husband, but moving costs money. They want Gage to come too, but he’d never leave Raif… or me. At least I used to think me.

“We’re not waiting forever, Liv. I plan to talk to him; we just have to go in easy. Raif’s my best friend and Ripper, you’re his daughter. It’s a respect thing with the club; I got to get his permission. And they prefer you not have entanglements when—”

“When what? It sounds like he’s grooming you to—you aren’t planning to prospect?” Utter shock, sadness and anger all hit me at once.Betrayal. He knows,knowsI don’t want this life. I won’t be Misti or worse,my mother.

---