Kristen Ashley - The Gamble

Then my whole body jolted as I heard the sharp crack of a gunshot and I stood stock-still when I saw the blurred, hideous spurt of blood spray from Damon’s chest before he fell down to both knees.

Stunned to immobility, I stared as Damon’s body dropped face first to the grass, gravel and mud beside the road then slowly my head turned and I saw Harry moving toward me, a peculiar look on his face, a gun smoking in his right hand and he was shifting it to his left.

“Harry,” I whispered, my voice trembling, my tone a mixture of horror and shock, “he hurt me but you didn’t have to –”

I stopped talking when the look on Harry’s face penetrated and his right hand lifted.

He no longer had the gun in that hand. He now held a syringe.

Too late I took a step back but he caught me at the waist, yanked me to him and I felt the needle plunge in my neck.

Then his face was all I saw.

“Just like Max told me to do, I’m mannin’ up, Nina. This is me mannin’ the fuck up.”

My lids lowered against my will, I forced them open as I felt my body lifted in Harry’s arms and we started moving toward his truck.

Then they lowered again and I was gone.

***

My eyes opened and I was confused because I was certain my eyes were opened but all I could see was dark.

I started to move and it was then I realized both my arms were over my head. I thought this was strange until I tried to move them and it was then I realized they weren’t only over my head, there was something cold biting into my wrists and it hit me my arms were secured over my head to something.

I went still and my mind raced. Then I remembered Damon. Then thinking Harry was there to save the day. Then watching Harry shoot Damon. Then Harry taking me.

Oh my God. Oh my God!

I sucked in breath and that was when I felt the gag. There was something in my mouth and something tied around my head to hold it in place. I fought back the panic that surged through me and tried to take stock.

I was on something soft, a mattress. It was cold, not bitter but not comfortable. My limbs were stiff from inactivity and lying in the chill. My arms were not only secured to something over my head but my ankles were also tied together. My head hurt like hell and I was still fuzzy from whatever Harry injected me with.

And I was in the dark. Lying gagged and tied up in a foreign location in the dark. Just like the heroine in a horror movie but real.

I kept fighting back the panic by turning my mind to trying to figure out where I might be. I was either someplace dark, like a room with no windows or I was someplace secluded and it was dark outside, someplace the moon couldn’t light.

Either way, I was in trouble.

Cautiously, I tested my wrists against whatever they were secured to and it made a clinking noise so I stopped.

“Nina?” I heard a woman call and stilled.

Bitsy. Oh no, that was Bitsy’s voice.

The mattress under me moved and I felt a hand light on me. “Nina, it’s me. Bitsy.”

I rolled to my back, turned my head in her direction and tried to see through the dark.

“Oh honey,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Oh God, Nina. Oh God. God. God. God. What have I done?”

I tried to say something from under the gag, she heard it, her hand left me and I felt the gag being pulled from my mouth. When it was free, I spit out the material and then swallowed against the dryness coating the inside of my mouth.

“Are you okay?” Bitsy asked.

No. No, I very much wasn’t okay.

“Harry’s turned,” I whispered back, my voice slurred. “I think, Bitsy, I think I watched him murder Damon.”

The mattress moved again, I heard her dragging her body closer to me and I knew she was lying on it with me but apparently she wasn’t shackled to the bed. Then again, Bitsy didn’t need to be tied down. Bitsy couldn’t go anywhere.

Her hand curled on my neck and I felt her face close.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered.

“Bitsy –” I started to tell her she had to find a way to get me lose so I could get out of wherever we were, get away from this true, real life horror movie and get us some help but she interrupted me.

“It is, it’s all my fault.”

“Don’t, sweetheart, we have to –”

I stopped this time because I heard the noise of a door opening and then light flooded the room, blinding me. Bitsy’s body jerked away from mine and we both twisted as best we could. I blinked against the light and saw Harry walking in, the lower half of a woman over his shoulder.

Oh God, what now?

Then I saw him dump the woman on the floor, her long, straight ebony hair flying as he did it and he did it unceremoniously, not like she was a human being but like she was a sack of sawdust. Her head cracked against the planks just as her body thudded against them. I watched in horror as her body settled, her hair slightly obscuring her beautiful face.

Shauna.

By the looks of her, clothes dirty and in disarray, hair greasy, she hadn’t seen the inside of a shower for awhile and I knew instinctively this was because Shauna Fontaine didn’t take off with her mantoy. Shauna Fontaine, like me, had been kidnapped by a mountain man gone bad.

The mattress moved again and I tore my eyes from Shauna, unconscious, or worse, dead on the floor to see Bitsy pushing up on her arms.

“Harry –”

“It’s okay, Bits, it’s all gonna be all right,” Harry cut her off. “I got it all figured out.”

“No you don’t, Harry. You don’t,” Bitsy told him urgently. “Listen to me…”

She trailed off when Harry moved to her side of the bed and sat on it. He twisted his torso to her, his hand coming up to cradle her face, he leaned in close.

“I did, honey, I listened to you. I listened,” he whispered.

“You didn’t. This is out of hand. This is wrong. Shauna? Nina? Why –?”

“He took away your legs,” Harry explained.

“Yes, he did. Curt did. But Nina’s Max’s and –” Bitsy started.

“He took away your legs,” Harry repeated. “He killed Anna. Your best friend. He fucked Shauna in your bed. ” His thumb lovingly swept her cheek. “I listened, Bits, I listened to every word you said from that day I saw you in the hospital after he crippled you. I listened and I was with you all the way. He had to pay. You said it. You said it again and again and again as he fucked you and fucked you and fucked you. You didn’t want him to do that to our town, you didn’t want that big house up on the hill, you didn’t want to be queen of Gnaw Bone to his king but he didn’t care what you wanted. He never cared what you wanted. He only cared about one thing. Curt. Curt was all Curt cared about. Wakin’ up next to you and tellin’ you he loved you and then goin’ off and bangin’ Shauna, givin’ her money, makin’ you the fool as you wheeled your way through life. I listened, honey, I listened to every word you said. You were right, he had to pay.”

“ He had to pay. Curt did!” Bitsy hissed, yanking her face from his hand which stayed suspended in air for a second before he tried to touch her again but she dragged herself back so his hand dropped.

“Bitsy, baby –”

“No!” Bitsy snapped. “We had a plan. You take care of Curt and we play it cool. The money was untraceable. We’d been putting it aside for years , Harry, years. No one would ever know. No one.”

Shock made every centimeter of my body lock. There it was but I couldn’t believe my ears as I lay there and stared at the hideous scene playing out in front of me.

Harry and Bitsy had had Curt killed.

Bitsy.