Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

A woman came into the room. At first Lucy thought she was going to help her, but Lucy quickly dismissed that thought. The woman’s cruel eyes held nothing but contempt for her.

The woman was short and skinny, and wore her mousy brown hair tucked behind her ears. She’d been pretty at one time, but not today, and probably not yesterday. She strode over to Lucy, took out a knife, and before Lucy could say anything, cut the ropes.

“Can I go?” Lucy’s voice was small, lost in her ears. She swallowed, her body shaking.

The woman laughed.

“Get up,” she said, her voice surprisingly soft. As if she had laryngitis without the hoarseness. The tone was almost as scary as her piercing pale eyes, so pale blue they looked virtually colorless.

Look for an out.

She didn’t care if she was naked, she would run. Go anywhere.

You’re on an island. Where do you think you’d go?

She was a championship swimmer. She could handle the water. Ocean, lakes, whatever. She didn’t care how cold the water was, she’d rather trust her own swimming ability than leave her fate in the hands of the horrible men who’d hurt her.

The humiliation of the rape rushed over her again, like a hot wave, but one that left her cold and shaking.

Forget it! Dammit, Lucy, cry about it later. You have to find a way out.

The woman kicked her in the kidney and Lucy couldn’t suppress the gasp of pain.

“I said get up .” That unnaturally low voice got under Lucy’s skin, bringing forth goose bumps.

She rose slowly, her legs stiff. She tried to pull up her jeans, but the woman slapped her hand away. “Drop them, or you won’t get a shower.”

“I couldn’t care less about a shower. Just let me go .”

“You’ll shower, you’ll clean yourself, and you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do.”

With a sudden movement, the woman stepped forward, grabbed Lucy’s hair, and pulled her head back. The knife that had slashed her bindings now touched her neck. “You don’t know how much I want to kill you,” the woman spat out. “You think you own the world, so pretty, so perfect with your perky breasts and your virtue . How does it feel to have your precious virginity ripped from your body? Taken with force? No man will want you after this. No one will want to touch you. You’ll beg to die before this is over. And I will be happy to-”

“Denise!”

The command was sharp. The woman released Lucy and pocketed the knife.

“She wasn’t complying.”

Trevor Conrad stood in the doorway, his blond hair damp from a recent shower or swim. His billowing shirt was reminiscent of a pirate, his tan slacks pressed and creased. He looked more like the handsome CEO of a major corporation, or a movie star, than a sadist.

He smiled.

Lucy would not be tricked by his appearance like she’d been tricked by his online words.

“Come, Lucy. You probably want a shower after the show.”

“It wasn’t a show,” she said, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that she thought for certain he could see it beating through her skin. “He raped me.” As she said it she remembered that she was naked. She heated from embarrassment, wanting to cover herself. She didn’t want to show her fear, her humiliation, to the man in front of her.

But she couldn’t stop shaking.

Trevor smiled. “The first time is always the most difficult.” He held out his hand. “Come.”

Lucy didn’t know what his game was. He’d been cruel on the boat, now he was nice? Was this some mind game to get her to comply? To brainwash her? She’d been such a fool to believe everything he’d told her online. That he was a student at Georgetown. That they liked the same music, that they both loved romantic comedies-what guy her age likes romantic comedies? Her boyfriends only wanted to go see action movies. She had thought she’d been so smart, so safe, but she’d been stupid.

Lucy started toward Trevor, but didn’t take his hand. For an instant, anger flashed in his face, a cold hardness that hadn’t been there when he’d stood in the doorway. She wasn’t going to give in to his game.

He let her pass him in the doorway. She froze. Four men sat in a large room. They stared at her and whistled. One of the men was Roger, the man who had raped her.

She turned and walked straight into Trevor’s hard chest.

“They’ve already seen everything. No sense being modest now,” he said, his light tone further humiliating her.

Tears sprang from her eyes. She didn’t want to cry in front of these men, didn’t want to cry at all, but she couldn’t stop the tears from pouring out. Head high, she walked through the room at Trevor’s direction. Tall windows showed only pine trees beyond. No water, no people. They were on an island in the middle of nowhere.

Trevor opened a door on the far side of the room. A large bathroom with a skylight in the roof but no windows. A stack of fluffy towels sat on the counter. A cheery photograph of a whale hung on the wall, reflected in the cabinet mirror.

“There’s shampoo and soap in the shower,” Trevor said. He snapped his fingers and Denise was at his side holding clothing that wasn’t Lucy’s. She thrust the garment into Lucy’s hands. Lucy let it fall to the floor.

Trevor scowled. “Put those on when you’re done. You have twenty minutes. Use them wisely. You don’t want to see me when I get angry.”

He shut and locked the door.

Lucy picked up the clothing. It was a white filmy layered dress with a wide belt with studs and hoops. There were no underclothes, just the dress and belt.

She turned on the water, almost in a daze. Maybe there was something she could use as a weapon-against five men? Hardly. Her self-defense skills hadn’t even done damage to one.

Still, she looked through the cabinets.

They were empty. Not even a bobby pin. Not only empty, but unused. Not a stain of toothpaste or perfume in the drawers, not even a strand of hair.

The shower beckoned. It wasn’t only her legs that were sore. She now saw the blood on her stomach, the blood on her thighs, the dried semen. She looked in the mirror and saw the spot on her neck where Roger’s knife had cut her, the deeper cut on her breast.

She climbed into the shower, sat on the tile floor, and cried as she scrubbed herself, ridding herself of the scent of violence, trying to reclaim her dignity.

And failing.

JACK AND HIS TEAM had driven them to the base of the mountain in two hours; then two more were spent trekking up the mountain to the observatory at the top. The morning had started cool, but as the sun rose so did the heat. The dust from the dirt roads coated Dillon, and he drank heavily from his water bottle.

“I made some inquiries after your call,” Jack had told Dillon. “Learned that an old man up here, Professor Fox, has had some female company for the last couple of years. No one knows who she is, but she’s treated the locals well so they haven’t bothered her.”

Dillon absorbed the information. “You could have gone for her yourself,” he said. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

Jack shrugged. “I promised I’d meet you.” He stared Dillon in the eye. For the first time in many years, Dillon saw a real complexity to Jack. He couldn’t say if it was good or bad, but Jack was a man of his word.

Without comment, Jack motioned to his team. They’d already circumvented one group of rebels who’d been camping at the base of the mountain. They faced another up ahead.

Dillon was completely out of his element. Both Patrick and Connor were armed and taking orders from an older brother they barely knew. As cops, they were used to a command structure. Jack’s team of soldiers acted as a unit with a mere hand signal. Dillon had no weapon to protect himself or anyone else. Being physically fit and able to keep up with the others was a small consolation. He was being protected, he sensed it even though Jack didn’t say it.