Chapter Seventeen
We’ve been driving for nearly two hours now in complete silence. No radio, no nothing. We have crossed the Alabama state line and are headed west toward Mississippi. Trent said we have a long way to go. That could mean our destination is anywhere from Mississippi to California. I really don’t know. All I know right now is I have a crook in my neck, my legs are killing me, I have to pee, and I am starving, but I refuse to ask this man for a damn thing.
It’s obvious we were able to lose those two cops back at the gas station. I sure as hell feel sorry for them both right now as I know my brother has gone ballistic on them for losing me. My mind is churning with worry thinking about my dad, and Melody, and all of our friends. My father will come unglued at this news. My heart feels heavy and it suddenly feels too hot. I can hardly breathe, thinking of the pain my family is going through. Zack is a detective, for God’s sake. He’s going to think this is all his fault.
I close my eyes, imagining the look of sheer terror written across his face as he enters my house and sees everything all over the place. He loves me too much to try and pursue this case in a professional manner; it’s personal now, and I feel sorry for anyone who tries to get in his way.
I flinch when I suddenly feel Trent’s strong grip on my wrist.
“Are you all right over there? Jesus Christ, what are you mumbling under your breath about?”
Did I say all of that out loud? I yank my wrist out of his grip and turn my head away from him. I will not talk unless I absolutely have to.
“Don’t act like a bitch, my love. Like I said, we have a few days and nights together, so when I ask you a question, you’d better fucking answer me. Now what the hell are you carrying on about over there?”
Shifting my body in my seat, I scrutinize his every feature, every move he makes as he drives. Even though you really can’t tell them apart on the outside, there are so many differences between these two.
Oh, he did a mighty fine job disguising himself as Turner. For those few days until my brother discovered the truth, he had me fooled. Who knows how long I would have continued thinking Turner was cheating on me if my brother hadn’t followed up on his gut instinct about this fucker’s strange behavior?
That is what makes me feel guiltiest of all . . . that Zack sensed it and I didn’t. How could I have been so blind? I knew the minute he touched me there was something different about my ‘husband,’ but I was too caught up in my arousal to think about it, turned on by the roughness of the way he took me.
I’m mortified and disgusted that I let my libido overrule my common sense. Even though it would have been nearly impossible to prove without the physical evidence of the fingerprints my brother ran, I still feel as if I somehow should have known as soon as I met him at the airport that this man was not my husband.
Trent senses my gaze on him and turns to smirk at me. Self-righteous bastard.
“I don’t even have to ask if you like what you see when you look at me. I already know you do. I look just like him, don’t I? Or should I say, he looks just like me, since I am actually five minutes older.”
“Wipe that stupid grin off your face. You may look exactly like him, but you are nothing like him at all! You’re nothing more than a sick, fucked up animal. You take advantage of people, and you use people, and you hurt people for no good reason. You make me fucking sick.”
I pause to take a deep breath as this . . . this man gets under my skin.
“Ah, Clove. You are such a dramatic, uppity bitch with a mouth that I happen to like. If the circumstances were different I would be fucking that sassy ass mouth as much as I possibly could. As a matter of fact, I seem to recall you loving it when you took my cock in your mouth and I fucked your sweet pussy until you came all over me. Didn’t think I was sick and fucked up then, now did you?”
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye with a sly smile.
“You can sit there and pretend all you want, but you knew it was me doing all of those delicious things to your body and not my brother, and you loved it anyway. You and I both know it. You have my scent all over you, baby doll. I marked you, and that will be something you will never be able to forget.”
At that, he starts to laugh malevolently like the crazy motherfucker he is. I reach across and slap him as hard as I can. The truck swerves slightly but he gets it back under control at once. He growls and lunges for me with his free arm. I have nowhere to go when he grabs my arm and twists it until I scream in pain.
“You’re fucking crazy, woman! You must have a death wish or something you foolish slut.”
He twists even harder and I swear I hear something snap in my upper arm as my eyes well up in tears. I am speechless as he jerks me toward him and the seatbelt digs into my skin, causing it to burn across my chest.
“Let me tell you something. You will die when I say you will die, and not one second before. Now just for that stupid as fuck move you just made, I am done making threats. You are going to pay dearly for that. It’s time you learn who is in control here, babe, and it sure as fuck ain’t you. I am done having you test my patience and even more done with you thinking you can hit me. No one hits me. And I mean ever.”
He shoves me away and my first instinct is to reach up and rub my arm. God it hurts, but I refuse to let the unwanted tears fall and for him to see both the physical and emotional pain he is inflicting on me. He is so much different from his brother in every way possible.
For one thing, no matter how mad Turner has ever gotten, he has never laid a finger on me and he never would. Turner would never call me names, either. Sure, we fight just like any other couple does, and our life is far from perfect, but it’s ours and I want it back.
The possibility that I never will, has me wanting to land on death’s doorstep as soon as I possibly can. I am not going to stop pushing Trent. I am going to push him until he snaps, and I know he will. I may be shortening my own life, but I don’t give a shit.
“You don’t scare me, you know?”
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“You need me for something, something you couldn’t find at my house. You’re shit out of luck there, Trent. You can’t inflict any more pain on me than what you already have, so you can fuck off if you think I am going to help you get your hands on any of that money.”
He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he picks up the speed on the truck and pulls off onto the nearest exit. My heart starts to race. I am afraid that I have pushed him past his limit with my words.
He comes to a stop, and after looking both ways, he turns right and then makes a quick left into a carpool parking area. There are several cars parked but I see no one around as he pulls into the rear of the lot and slams the truck into park.
His whole demeanor changes as he reaches over and snaps open the glove box. When I see the long, shiny blade of a knife, I start to shake. He pulls it out and flicks the glove box closed, and without speaking opens his door and walks around the back of the truck. I jump in my seat as I see him heading toward my door.
Fuck, what is he going to do? I can see the expressway from here but it’s too far away for anyone to see what is going on in the parking lot. Behind us stretches a deep patch of woods. Shit. Shit. Shit!
I try to stay calm as he swings open my door and then reaches across and unhooks my seat belt. He still hasn’t said a word, which scares me even more. He stands there for several drawn out moments breathing way too heavily for my liking.
“Get the fuck out of the truck. Now!” he bellows and raises the knife to within an inch of my face.
I do as I am told. He drops the hand holding the knife to his side and grabs me around the waist, pulling me flush against his body. I flinch and try to wiggle free, but he’s too strong. He takes my hands and holds them behind my back, and then walks us backwards until my body is up against the truck. I am shaking uncontrollably as I have no clue what is going through his mind or what he has planned.
“I told you to shut your fucking mouth and you didn’t listen. Now you have pushed me just a little too far. This is not how I wanted things to go down between us, but you need to be taught a lesson. This is not a fucking joke!”
Oh, God. He has me cornered here like a small animal, and he is the predator. Is he going to kill me before I get the chance to see Turner? I do the only thing I can think of in a moment like this. I scream, and when I do, I instantly know that doing so was a huge mistake. In a blur of motion, Trent pulls back his fist and punches me in the stomach.
All the air is knocked out of me, and I feel vomit rising up in my mouth. He grabs me by the throat and walks us to the back of the truck. I can’t move to protect myself . . . I can barely stand as my stomach twists and turns. The pain is almost more than I can bear. Opening the tailgate of the truck, he hoists me up and pushes me flat on my back.
“Who has the control here?” He grabs my face and wrenches it so I am staring into his face.
“WHO. HAS. CONTROL?” He raises his voice slightly.
I am sobbing uncontrollably at this point. I can’t tune my mind out, it is spinning out of control as I gasp and wheeze as he towers over me.
“Oh, so now you have nothing to say, huh? No words, Clove? Am I scaring you? You should be scared, my darling. It didn’t have to come to this, but you leave me no choice.”
I am trying to shut him out of my consciousness, to close myself off from the fact that he is about to do God knows what, but I can’t. All I see is him and the feral way he is looking at me.
“Please,” I sniffle through my tears.
For the briefest of moments, I think he is going to relent. But then, he sits the knife down on the ground and reaches for something behind me. My eyes grow wide as I see his hand reappear in my vision holding a twisted braid of rope.
Immediately I start to thrash about and struggle to get away from him, but he won’t have it. He pulls my hands over my head and climbs on top of me as he weaves the rope around my hands to secure them together.
I continue to kick and scream at him to get off of me until he slaps me in the face, extinguishing whatever will I may have had left in me to try and fight. I hurt everywhere. My stomach is clenching and a griping pain courses throughout my lower abdomen. My face is on fire and I can tell it is starting to swell. My arms ache as they are stretched tight above my head. I think the one he grabbed earlier is sprained.
“H-help,” I croak weakly, but my throat is raw from screaming and the words don’t make any sound.
“There isn’t anyone here to help you, sweetheart.”
Trent grinds his pelvis into mine and I feel how hard he is. Having me bound like this is turning him on. I feel my world tilt and slip from underneath me as I fully realize what is about to happen to me. My body convulses in fear.
“Oh, God! Trent, you don’t want to do this! I beg you, don’t. I know you’re above this. I’m your brother’s wife, for God’s sake. Please!” I beg.
He looks into my tear stained face and he doesn’t seem to care. This cannot be happening to me! Where is everyone? The way he has the truck parked, no one can see us without driving right by this spot.
As if he senses the direction of my thoughts, he shoves me even further back into the truck bed and climbs in, slamming the door behind himself. He gets on his knees at the other end and pulls out a roll of tape.
“God, don’t do this, Trent. Don’t!”
“I told you to shut your damn mouth, and now you will.”
He rips off a piece of tape and places it across my mouth. I am defenseless and there is nothing I can do. I close my eyes as I feel him shift around.
“Open your fucking eyes and watch.”
I open them wide and I see him hovering over me with the knife in his hand.
“On second thought, I don’t think I need to use this since you can’t move or talk.”
Tilting his head to the side, he studies my features. I know he sees the fear in my eyes. How could he not? It’s written all over my body.
He pushes the hem of my shirt up and licks his lips as he stares down at my exposed breasts, my chest heaving up and down.
“Fuck me. You have the best tits in the world. So ripe and pink and fucking ready for me to suck and fuck.”
He firmly takes them in his hands and kneads them. When I cringe from his touch, he pinches my nipples so hard tears form in my eyes again. He’s enjoying torturing me like this. All of a sudden, he grabs hold of the cups of my bra and rips them down, dropping his head to suck one of my nipples into his mouth. The pressure is so intense that I cry out through the tape in pain and start to shake.
Trent is in his own deranged world. He continues his onslaught until it seems as if he has gotten his fill. When he lifts his head and looks at me with hunger I know what’s coming next. He unzips his pants and pulls his erection free. I can’t look. I can’t look. I turn my head away but he reaches up and yanks it back.
“Do not take your eyes off of me or I will fuck you up. You got it?”
I nod yes in shock and then I hear my panties being ripped off. Before I even know what is happening, he is on top of me.
I try to take my mind and body to the only happy place I have ever known . . . my husband’s arms. But when I stare up into the eyes of my attacker my security is ripped away, because no matter how hard I try to think of Turner, all I can see is the man who is raping me.
He thrusts and thrusts, taking by force what is mine to give. His expression is contorted; his eyes have turned from green to black as if he is a man possessed. He is pounding into me so deeply I feel as if he is ripping me apart.
I feel him shudder with the force of his release as he comes inside me. I crawl into my own shell and scream from the agony of the pain being inflicted on my heart and body. My eyes are now clenched shut and he’s not moving. I need him off of me. God, please get him off me!
“Clove? Jesus Christ, what have I done? Not to you. Oh, fuck me! No, no, no, not to you! I would never do anything to hurt you. Oh, fuck!”
He pulls himself off of me and I pull my legs in, curling myself into a ball at the other end in an attempt to get as far away from him as I possibly can. I cannot stop shaking as I sit there half-naked in the middle of a damn parking lot.
What do I do now? Me and my big mouth brought this whole thing upon myself. I watch him through my blurred vision as he straightens himself out and reaches down on the floor. I pray like hell he brings up his knife and kills me, but he doesn’t. I am already dead, so he may as well take that knife and plunge it straight through my heart and finish me off.
Instead, he has a rag of some sorts in his hand, and he leans down and wipes himself off with it. He pulls his pants the rest of the way up and then climbs back into the truck, closing the door behind him.
I feel more caged in with him now than I did before as he slides over and presses the rag between my legs as if he is trying to clean me up. What a joke. I will never be clean again. The smell of sex in the air has me gagging and choking beneath the tape.
Maybe he notices, because he drops the rag and removes the tape tenderly. I gasp and suck in as much air as I can. I don’t want to look at him and suffer the humiliation any longer, so I turn my head as he finishes wiping me clean and adjusting my clothes back into position.
I risk a look up at him. In my clouded mental state I can’t quite figure out the expression spreading across his face. Remorse? Or possibly guilt as he realizes exactly what he has done.
He tries to speak . . . maybe he does say something, I don’t know. The last thing I see before I let myself fall into darkness is the look of hatred on his face as he was slamming his body into mine.