“I don’t give a damn what you feel about me, just as long as you scream when I get my pleasure,” he growled.
Maybe she shouldn’t have been taunting him, because his rage was reaching new levels, but it was distracting him, and she needed that.
Her pants ripped under the intensity of his grip. The sound excited him, and he pulled harder, drawing her backward, now fully within his grasp.
He scrambled up her body, and slammed his fist against the side of her head, making her see stars. Jesse had one hell of a punch; he’d knocked her out more than once in the past. It took everything in her not to black out right then. If that happened, she’d lose all chance of escape.
So, okay, one chance, she told herself, and when he flipped her over onto her back and hovered over her, spittle dripping from his mouth and landing on her chest, she thrust the knife upward and twisted, not aiming, no strategy in mind except to wound him, to push him away.
“What the fu –?”
His sentence ended in a pained grunt when the blade sank deep into his stomach, and he began to collapse on her. With the last remaining ounce of strength left in her, Misty shoved against him, and he rolled onto his side, giving her just enough room to drag herself away.
He screamed as he twisted and flopped over onto his back, then reached down and pulled the blade free, making blood spew from the wound.
Misty thought it was all over for her. She had only wounded him, not stopped him. Now he was probably going to carve her up and then do unimaginable things to her as she lay there dying, unable to fight back.
Tears sprang to her eyes when she leapt to her feet, but she ignored the pain in her left ankle as she stumbled from the living room and searched for the front door. There had to be a way out.
Jesse started to rise, then collapsed to the floor, groaning, while blood oozed from the deep wound. Maybe she’d done enough; maybe she’d make it out of this hell.
“You’ll pay…” he cried, but he fell again as he tried to get to his feet.
It was now or never. If she didn’t get out of this house, he was going to do whatever it took to kill her. This wasn’t a game to him anymore. This wasn’t about violating her body. This was now revenge because she’d managed to hurt him — and no woman was allowed to hurt Jesse, not to his way of thinking.
Limping down a hall, she finally found the door to the outside, freed the locks, and managed to wrench it open despite the blackness threatening to overpower her.
“Help, please,” she called out, trying to scream just in case anyone was within hearing distance, but her voice came out as little more than a squeak. Stumbling off the rickety porch, she made it only about twenty feet from the house before she fell to the ground.
She should have gone back for her phone, but it was too late now. There was no way she’d go back inside. Her frustration mounted as she moved away from the porch light and the eerie darkness swallowed her.
She — and Jesse — were indeed in the middle of nowhere. Crawling on her hands and knees, she found a woodshed and struggled around it, then collapsed.
Her will to live was great — but the pain was unbearable. Her only hope was that Jesse wouldn’t get back up, and that her call had gone through. Bryson would be her last thought before unconsciousness pulled her under.
She wondered what it would be like if, despite everything, the two of them could live happily ever after, if they could forget about the case, about the fight, about everything but each other.
If Jesse got back to his feet and found her, she’d never know…
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bryson’s phone rang and he glanced down, then felt his heart stop momentarily. He hit the button and was about to shout into the microphone. That’s when he heard Jesse’s voice in the background, a voice that would haunt him the rest of his life. He’d spent hour upon hour watching the scumbag on video surveillance, and in the interrogation room when they’d brought him in, and he knew that ugly voice intimately.
Though he’d already known that the bastard had her, it hadn’t fully sunk in until the sound of that man’s voice came through the phone. He knew better than to say anything, knew she’d most likely hidden the phone, knew he mustn’t give away the fact that she had a phone on her, but it still took everything inside him not to shout, not to order Jesse to leave her alone.
Hitting mute so that no sound would transmit through her line, he tore into a gas station, nearly wiping out the fuel dock in his hurry. Leaving the SUV running, he dashed inside.
“Give me your phone now!” he shouted to the terrified young man attending the register.
“I’m not allowed to,” he stuttered.
“I don’t have time for this,” Bryson snapped. He leapt over the counter, pushed the kid aside, and reached below the counter, dialing the number he had memorized.
“I need a cell phone tracked right now,” Bryson said as soon as the call was picked up.
“Yes, sir.” It took only minutes, but those precious minutes felt like hours. Once he had the address, he called in every favor he had owing to him.
“Get them there now!”
With that, he hung up and rushed from the store. Entering the address on his navigation system seemed to take forever, and he realized his fingers were shaking.
Bryson paused and took a breath, then held out his hand. Okay, he was calm. She would take care of herself and he would get there in time.
He was about twenty minutes away according to his navigation system. Slamming the gearshift into drive, he tore out of the gas station and rushed through traffic, pulling around speeding cars as if they were standing still.
His mind whirled as he whipped around corners, and he took the turn onto the gravel road at nearly seventy miles an hour, sending the SUV into a spin. Not smart. Working with the gas and wheel, he managed to straighten the vehicle out, but he let up a little on the gas. He couldn’t get to her if he crashed, and if he blocked the road with an overturned vehicle, the other responders wouldn’t get to her either.
Feeling as if he were crawling, he made his way down the winding road, five miles to go, three, two, one… When he was a quarter mile away, he pulled off the gravel and cut the engine, unwilling to give Jesse any warning that he was there.
He moved swiftly through the dark night, his flashlight guiding him, and he didn’t hesitate as he approached the abandoned hillside house. A light shone from the porch, and he saw the door open and Jesse stumble out, a blood-soaked shirt covering his upper half.
He hadn’t spotted Bryson, who was just outside the glow that the porch light was casting.
“Where are you, bitch? I’m going to slit you from your neck to your…” Jesse started coughing and couldn’t complete his threat, but Bryson had no doubt what the slug had intended to say.
Jesse tripped over his own feet, and flew off the porch, and then Bryson heard a groan at the same time Jesse did. It came from behind the shed. Jesse turned his head, and Bryson, watching the scene unfold before him, stepped from the shadows as Jesse held up a gun and staggered to his feet.
“Stop now, or I’ll shoot,” Bryson called out. He’d never wanted to just fire his weapon so badly, but he knew he had to give a warning, or he was just as bad as the scum he’d be firing upon.
Jesse turned slowly in Bryson’s direction, and was close enough now that Bryson could see the wild look in the man’s eyes. Instead of dropping the gun, Jesse pointed it. With no hesitation, Bryson aimed and fired.
Jesse screamed and fell back flat on the ground, his kneecap shattered. Unbelievably, his hand rose and he attempted to catch Bryson in the gun’s sight.
Bryson aimed again, and this time the bullet putting a hole straight through Jesse’s hand, and his gun flew ten feet away. The man started whimpering and sobbing. “Please don’t kill me. I give up. I give up!”
Bryson stepped over to his gun first, kicking it farther away from Jesse, then he approached the man cautiously, not taking it for granted that Jesse didn’t have another weapon on him.
“You have the right to remain silent…” Bryson began, while twisting the man’s arms behind his back and cuffing him. “I would love it if you just did us all a favor and bled out right here,” he added in a voice of deadly calm at the end of his recital of Miranda Rights. Then he searched his clothes and found another gun in the back of his pants. Bryson tossed it toward the other gun after emptying the chamber.
“You have to get me help. That little bitch stabbed me,” Jesse whimpered as snot ran from his nose.
“Yeah, you tell all your buddies how that petite woman got the drop on you, Jesse. You know, they really love cops in prison. They like to make you their little bitch. You won’t have to worry about rough sex anymore, ’cause you’re going to get plenty of it.”
That swine would never lay a finger on Misty again. Walking carefully over to the shed, Bryson announced his approach. “It’s me, Misty — Bryson,” he called out as he circled around the dark building, pulling out his flashlight and shining it on the ground.
When he found her in a heap against the outside wall of the shed, he rushed to her side, terror almost making his muscles seize up. “Misty?” he called softly, dropping to his knees and feeling for a pulse. It was strong. Her eyes fluttered as he checked for injuries. When she didn’t complain as he touched her neck and back, he carefully lifted her onto his lap. “I’m right here, baby. I’m so sorry I let him get to you. I broke my promise,” he told her, his throat choking with emotion.