Chapter 26
Pastime
Having woken up from womanly instinct, Seraphina glanced at Nathan, sound asleep beside her. Not wanting to wake him up, she slowly slid out of bed, threw on his discarded shirt, and then grabbed a pair of overly large sweats.
Her period had just started, and she needed to make her way into the main house and up to her room with her attached bathroom. When she stepped out of the bedroom, however, she heard the soft sounds of the television on in the main room. Creeping down the hall, she peered into the room and saw Jason sitting on the couch, joined by two other men.
At twenty-one, Jason was a Navy Corpsman, stationed on the East Coast. The fact that he was here was a surprise, considering she hadn’t heard any news of it and because his parents were currently on a hiking trip in Yellowstone.
“Pst,” she whispered. “Pst, Jason.”
He turned around and smiled at her. “Hey, little one.”
“What are you doing here?” she continued to whisper, looking at the time on the kitchen microwave and seeing it was four in the morning.
“Surprise,” he whisper-shouted back, getting up and making his way to her.
His two friends watched from behind him, both lounging on couches and sipping on beers. One looked Swedish, with his blond hair and blue eyes, while the other looked Irish. His hair was shaved, but she could still see a red tint that wasn’t easily missed.
She gave Jason a hug, and he practically dropped all his weight on her, which had her struggling to hold him up while giggling. Jason was always goofing off.
“I have to go to the bathroom. When I get back, I want to hear all about whatever you’ve been up to,” she told him, pushing him off her and still giggling.
He straightened up and gave her a charming smile. “Yeah, and you need to show me your newest pieces. I hear you started a patriotic campaign.”
Seraphina beamed at him, happy to talk about art. Her newest photography had been centered around veterans, inspired by Jason’s choice to enlist. She was so proud of him.
“You bet.” She gave his friends a wave as she walked out of the pool house.
She made her way to the back of the main house and inside, padding through the kitchen, then up the back stairs to her room.
In her room, she went right to the bathroom and flipped on the light before turning to her nightstand where she always kept a glass of water. Filling it in the bathroom sink, she then gulped thirstily, alcohol dehydration making her mouth feel so dry, her body craving the cool liquid to replenish her.
After filling the glass a second time and gulping down more water, she set it down then made her way to her dresser and grabbed some clean clothes and underwear. She needed to take a shower to clean up. Besides her monthly, she could still feel sand all over her. It was an uncomfortable combination.
Carrying her clothes into the bathroom, she was stalled when someone grabbed her arm from behind. Startled, she dropped her clothes and spun around, finding one of Jason’s buddies in her room.
“What …? What are you doing here?” Her heart thrashed in her chest, adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream. Fight or flight instincts kicked in. There was no reason for this man to be in her room. Nothing good anyway.
The man’s grip on her arm tightened as he stepped closer to her. She stepped back. He followed until he had her cornered against the bathroom closet door.
The man lifted his hand to her face, caressing the back of his fingers down her cheek. “You’re so pretty.” He stepped in closer, pinning her with his body, his grip on her arm bruising. “We were here earlier when you and the kid stumbled in. We heard you all fucking. You don’t want his parents to know, do you?”
Seraphina’s eyes widened. She and Nathan had been keeping their relationship a secret from his parents. She was practically their adopted daughter. If they found out, she didn’t know what they would do with her, and she refused to be parted with Nathan. They only had to hold out for two more years, which was such an insignificant number yet felt so far away in her teenage eyes. Now, here was this man, holding it over her head.
Tears sprang to Seraphina’s eyes and immediately flowed down her cheeks, out of both anger and fear. “Wh-why are you doing this?” She knew what he planned to do. The same womanly instinct that had woken her up told her that. “Don’t … Don’t do this to me. Don’t h-hurt me.” She started to sob now, trying to wiggle her arm free of his grip.
The man’s face took on a tenderness as he wrapped his other arm around her. “Shh … Don’t cry, little girl. It’s all going to be over before you know it.”
With that, he pulled her down to the floor, forcing his body on top of hers.
“No! Stop! No, no, no!” Seraphina began to cry in earnest, her voice rising. She thrashed around, trying to buck him off her, using her knees to push him off.
He placed one hand over her mouth to muffle her screams while working his pants with his other hand.
She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. She hoped and prayed Jason would wonder where his friend had gone and come to investigate.
She bit on his hand, making him yank it away, pissed. She then started to scream again, still thrashing under him until he hit her upside the head with something. Dizzy, she choked on her scream. Then she choked on her own air when he started to strangle her with the cord of her blow drier that he must have hit her with.
She continued to fight until her arms and legs grew weak. Until her brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long. He continued to choke her until her eyes rolled back. Then he would release her long enough for her to fill her lungs with air before choking her again. Meanwhile, he started to abuse her until bruises marked the insides of her thighs from his force, and her hips, her bottom, her neck where he gripped her, and her chest and cheeks from where he bit her.
Still, she prayed and prayed for Jason or Nathan, for someone, anyone to save her.
Her eyes glassed over, staring into nothingness. She looked dead, except for the small rise and fall of her chest.
She didn’t even respond when the man was thrown off her harshly, crashing into the bathroom cabinet headfirst. She didn’t respond as Jason started to pound his face, screaming at him, calling him every name in the book.
“That’s my fucking kid sister, you sick son of a bitch! How could you!”
The man laughed. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”
Jason didn’t respond. There was something he could do about it. He would kill the motherfucker.
He repeatedly kicked the sick fuck in the stomach, his disgust at finding the man hurting Seraphina in such a way fueling his desire to kill the rapist bastard. His shame in not knowing who Cruz really was, giving him access to hurt and defile his little sister fueled the instinct to protect.
“Lieutenant Sharpe,” Cruz grunted out between kicks.
That gave Jason pause, huffing as he held on to the counter, Cruz between it and him, still on the ground, curled in on himself.
Cruz looked up from between his arms that were protecting his head, meeting Jason’s eyes, triumph beaming from his own. “It would be a shame if our squadron found out you two have been fucking. Court martial. Stripped from your ranks. Both your careers ruined.”
By this point, Jason’s other friend, Laurens, who had followed him up, was covering Seraphina with the comforter from her bed. He just kept shaking his head, unable to even look at the abuse Cruz had done to her body.
“I don’t fucking care who you tell!” Jason yelled at Cruz, starting to kick him again. “You raped my fucking sister!” Jason then picked Cruz up by his collar and pounded his face a few more times.
Cruz laughed as Laurens pulled Jason away from him.
“How about that party we went to last year?”
Both Jason and Laurens looked at Cruz in horror.
“I have pictures,” he taunted.
Both men then paled.
“I’d hate to see them leaked.”
Not responding, Jason looked at Seraphina. She looked so broken, so small. Bruises already marred her neck. Red bite marks were all over her face. Blood was pooling from underneath her body. It seemed like only a matter of time before she bled out.
“Fuck!” he screamed at the top of lungs.
Jason didn’t know what to do. She looked close to death, yet if he helped her, his entire life was over. And his fate would be worse than death. His entire family would be ruined if his secrets got out. However, they would be devastated if Seraphina died. If she were to disappear, though, then they could always hold on to hope. He just needed time to come up with a plan that would get them both out of this.
Knowing he won, Cruz formulated a plan of his own.
They were going to wrap her in plastic, throw her in the trunk, and then drive down to Florida where Cruz was from. He knew of an abandoned warehouse where they could dump her body. Then they would drive back to North Carolina, and no one would know they had even come to California. If anyone asked, they had spent their leave in Florida, which had been the original intention—another mark on Jason’s record if anyone found out.
Seraphina had already checked out. It was Tristana who heard all this with a sense of detachment. Like them, she didn’t think she would live much longer either. She could feel her life spilling from her body. Therefore, she didn’t even budge when they carelessly picked her up and slipped torn, black garbage bags under her. She didn’t blink an eye when they tied them around her. She didn’t make a peep when they carried her out of the house and threw her into the trunk. Finally, that was when she mercifully blacked out.
She woke up intermittently throughout the cross-country trip, feeling the road pass quickly underneath her. She didn’t think they had ever stopped once.
The three men were taking turns driving, though Cruz hardly ever slept, too wary that the other two men would do something that warranted investigation of the vehicle.
Never was Tristana fully awake to know exactly what was going on, or to do anything to help herself. When she had first woken up, she had found a scarf tied around her head, covering her mouth, and her arms and legs were bound, something Cruz must have done when they had realized she wasn’t going to die soon enough.
When the trunk was opened suddenly, Tristana didn’t know how much time had passed. What she did know was that it meant the end of her life.
Three men looked down at her, their faces all haggard with fatigue.
“Help me get her out,” Cruz said, bending down to pick something up. “Then you guys take off. I’ll meet you at my house.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with her again,” Jason spewed vehemently. He needed to take Cruz out. That was the only way he could protect them all. He had thought long and hard about it. The man was blackmailing them, threatening them. He had already raped and almost killed Seraphina. If he killed him now, he could say it was self-defense. He and Laurens would come up with something. Everything would work itself out. It had to. He just needed to figure out how to kill the fucker.
Cruz shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Before Jason could react, Cruz hit him over the head with a metal pipe.
Jason dropped to the ground, out cold.
“What the fuck?” Laurens exclaimed, stepping away from Cruz in case he tried to take him out next.
Not letting go of the pipe, Cruz told him, “Get him in the back seat while I get her out. Then I want you to get him away from here.”
“What are you going to do?”
Cruz narrowed his cold, blues eyes at him. “What needs to be done to protect us. Don’t forget, Laurens; you are now an accomplice. If I fall, I’m bringing you all down with me.”
Raising his hands in surrender, Laurens then hefted Jason up from under his arms, dragging him to the back passenger door. Meanwhile, Cruz lifted Tristana out of the trunk and set her down on the cold concrete of a dilapidated building.
She looked up at Cruz imploringly as Laurens shoved Jason into the car. Then she watched Laurens drive off, seeing him stop when the car had cleared the bay doors. Another car was parked outside that she guessed was Cruz’s. Laurens got out the car and walked back over to the bay door, shaking his head at Cruz before sliding it down.
As soon as the slam of it meeting concrete echoed throughout the room, Cruz walked away from her, slipping his shirt off.
Tristana started to lose hope that he would just leave her here. That hope slipped further away when he pulled a switchblade out of his front pocket before slipping a hat out of his back pocket and onto his head. Then he removed his pants, socks, and shoes, keeping his boxers on.
Her eyes widened when he made his way back over to her. She started to squirm, trying to scoot away from him, but the bags tied around her prevented any movement. She just slipped in place, completely helpless as Cruz kneeled beside her and used the knife to cut away at the bags, exposing her body.
“Oh, little girl, that doesn’t look pretty.”
She could only imagine. She could feel all the dried blood that had pooled under her. It was in the crack of her bottom, down her thighs, and had even smeared up her back during the trip.
Naked and vulnerable on the freezing concrete, Tristana shivered, shock setting in. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She saw his hardened cock tent his boxers. She saw the lust that flashed in his eyes.
Shaking her head, she kept repeating no behind the bind in her mouth. She couldn’t go through it again. He would surely kill her.
It didn’t kill her.
But what should have was the knife he shoved into her side.