CHAPTER TWENTY
Danny
“Choose well.
Your choice is brief,
And yet endless.”
-Goethe
I try to call out to Sam, but Todd wedges the knife tighter to my throat, transforming my words into a guttural cry.
He’s going to kill me.
I knew it the moment he stepped up behind me at the edge of the pit and pressed the knife into my back hard enough to rip a hole through my shirt and break the skin. I’m not leaving Costa Rica alive, but Sam still can, if I can just get the words out. I have to tell her to run, to get to the car and drive away as fast as she can.
I chose this. I knew there were risks, but I made this choice anyway. I hope she won’t blame herself or doubt that I love her as much as I ever did.
Because I do. So much.
Even after I’m gone.
I can handle dying as long as I know she’s okay. But I can’t go out knowing she’s alone in the jungle with Todd, that I’ve failed to protect her, and he’s going to hurt her all over again.
“Put the bat down, doll,” he says. “Or I start cutting off pieces of your boyfriend.”
“I’m not your doll.” Sam’s breath rushes out, but she doesn’t drop the bat. She takes a step closer to the stump where Todd has me seated in front of him, with my body shielding his and his knife pressed to my throat.
Even if he let me go, there’s no way I could run. My legs are bound and my arms tied in front of me from wrists to elbows with my own rope. I had just finished tying J.D. and Jeremy’s arms together and rolled them into the pit when Todd came out of nowhere. I didn’t hear a car engine or footsteps or anything. He just materialized out of thin air, like an evil genie, come to prevent wishes from coming true.
“Do it now,” Todd says again, still in that calm voice that makes it clear he knows he’s won. “You know I don’t bluff. You take one more step with that bat and he loses an ear. I saw the dents in Jeremy’s head. I don’t need a matching set.”
Sam stops, swaying on her feet for a moment before she crouches down, laying the bat in the dirt. “There. It’s down. Now let him go.”
Todd chuckles. “Take five steps to your right and sit down against that tree.”
Sam’s eyes meet mine and I shake my head. The movement ends in a groan as Todd’s knife slices the skin at my throat, but it will be worth it if Sam will run.
Please, Sam, I beg with my eyes. Please, run. Run!
“Stop,” she says, voice breaking. “Don’t hurt him. I’m going.”
“Run,” I gasp. “Run!”
Todd silences me by wrapping his free hand around my neck and squeezing until the world goes black around the edges. I buck against his hold, but in this position I can’t get any leverage. All I can do is arch my back, flex the muscles in my throat, and fight to keep him from crushing my windpipe. I fight back as best I can, but by the time he releases me, I’m dizzy and weak, with black spots dancing in front of my eyes and blood thudding heavily in my ears.
“Next time you talk, you die,” he whispers into my ear, his lips moving against the sweat-slicked skin of my cheek, making me shudder.
His whisper is more convincing than a scream.
He isn’t making a threat to scare Sam. Sam probably couldn’t even hear him. He was making me a promise, one I know he’ll keep if I open my mouth again.
Swallowing hard, I look up to find Sam seated against the tree, her legs drawn to her chest. She’s in an upright fetal position, arms clenched tight around her legs, but I can still see her shaking. Her entire body seems to vibrate, making the curls that have escaped her bun dance around her head. Her eyes are wide and she looks terrified, but I know her better than that.
Sam doesn’t shake like that when she’s scared.
She only shakes that hard when she’s angry.
I try to take comfort in the fact that she’s going to fight back, but I’m too damned sick to my stomach. I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want her to be forced to watch. And I sure as hell don’t want her to die.
I want to marry her on a beach in Thailand. I want to take her home to Croatia and celebrate with my family. I want to watch her hair grow out to its old beautiful brown with the red streaks in it and the joy return to her eyes. I want the happiness and the time and the love and the children and the life that this monster and his friends have done their best to ruin.
I don’t want evil to win another round and steal all of it away before our second chance has even gotten started.
“So what happens next?” Sam asks, her voice rough with emotion. “What do you want?”
“I want to show you what happens to people who fuck with me and my friends,” Todd says, then adds with a laugh, “I’m kidding. I don’t give a shit about Scott ending up in jail or J.D. and Jeremy being buried alive. Or whatever it was you had planned back there with that hole in the ground. People stupid enough to drop their guard deserve what they get.
“But I know I would have been next, Sammy, and that isn’t okay.” He pauses, teasing the knife up and down my throat. “How did you plan to do it? Strangle me in my bed after you were finished filling in that hole?”
“Poison,” Sam says flatly. “We were going to bribe a maid to bring you a nightcap, then break into your room and watch you die.”
Todd makes a considering noise. “Not a bad plan, but poison is kind of a girly choice, don’t you think? Weak, especially for a big guy like you, Daniel Cooney.”
He reaches around, hitting me in the stomach hard enough to make me groan and leaving his fist pressed tight to my gut, making it hurt to breathe. “I thought you looked familiar that day at the pool, but when I saw you the second time everything clicked. That’s when I knew I had to start watching my back, and the other idiots, too. I figured you were responsible for poor, dumb Scott and that the rest of us must be on your hit list.”
The fist he’s digging into my mid-section relaxes, his fingers uncurling until his palm rests lightly on my abdomen.
But his touch is no less terrifying in its gentleness.
If anything, the brief break in the cruelty is worse, the knowledge that the reprieve won’t last for long making my aching stomach feel like it’s turning inside out.
“When I saw Jeremy and J.D. heading for the parking lot with that hot little thing in the red dress, I knew Danny had something to do with it.” His hand moves in a circle, caressing my gurgling belly, making me shudder. “They don’t have the creativity to convince a girl to fuck them both at the same time, no matter how much they’ve been wanting an excuse to get their cocks out in the same room again. So I followed them and then I followed you, Danny. I didn’t realize you were here too, Sam, until you came out of the house, but I’m not surprised. You two have done everything together, haven’t you? Since you were kids?”
Sam doesn’t offer an answer, but Todd obviously doesn’t need one. He’s perfectly happy listening to the sound of his own voice.
He turns to me and sighs, the feel of his breath hot on my neck sending a fresh wave of dread shivering across my skin. “And now here we all are, ready to learn some important lessons from each other. I am going to learn never to leave someone alive who should be dead, and you are going to learn how stupid you were to fuck with someone meaner and smarter than you are.”
Sam claps her hands together, slowly and deliberately, drawing Todd’s attention back to her. “That’s a real hero story, Todd. So you’re the big winner. What are you going to do now, go rape some girls in Disney World?”
The knife leaves my neck, but Todd’s hand replaces it, squeezing tight. “No, Sam. I was thinking, since you and Danny love to share experiences so much, that I’d fuck his ass while you watch. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”
I have time to see Sam’s face go white and then Todd’s palm hits hard between my shoulder blades.
With my arms and legs bound, I can’t keep my balance. I fall forward, my face in the dirt and my ass in the air.
Bile pushing up my throat, I try to crawl away, but Todd is already behind me, cutting through the waistband of my jeans. There is an ugly ripping sound as the fabric gives beneath his jerking hands and then my boxers are down around my thighs and Todd’s knife is pressing into my stomach.
“Don’t take a step away from that tree,” Todd barks. “You do and his intestines will be on the ground before you can take another one.”
“Please don’t,” Sam begs. “Please don’t hurt him. Please!”
“But hurting’s the fun part.”
I feel him tugging at his clothes behind me and then his erection bobs free, falling heavy and thick against my ass cheek, and it feels so wrong I can’t control my response.
I lurch forward, instinctively trying to escape, but he tilts the blade, jabbing it into the thin skin below my navel, piercing the skin, summoning a stream of blood that rushes down my thigh.
White-hot pain follows a second later, making me scream.
The pain is bad enough to stop me cold and suddenly I am aware of a hundred things all at once.
I’m aware of the breeze stirring my hair, of the heavy leaves slapping against the trunk of the tree, of Sam’s tortured cry as Todd adjusts himself behind me, and the moans coming from the pit as J.D. and Jeremy begin to wake up. I’m aware of the blood coursing through my veins and the terror screaming in my head and a softer voice deep inside that insists I can survive this.
I can survive and when it’s over, Todd’s guard will be down.
Not even a monster can fight back in the middle of coming his brains out.
I grit my teeth and plan what happens next. I imagine the way I’m going to wait until he reaches the end and then hurl my body backward, pushing with my legs until he’s pinned to the dirt with the air knocked out of him. Maybe the knife will fly out of his hand. But even if he keeps it, that moment of surprise will be enough for Sam to turn the tables on him. By the time I roll away, she’ll have the baseball bat in her hands, beating the shit out of him.
I know it will happen. I can see it as clearly as I can see anything.
It’s as clear as my memories of making love to Sam last night under the stars, of the way she looks running out of the ocean with her hair slicked back and her cheeks pink from the sun, of the way she smiled at me the day I told her I loved her for the first time. I was only a kid, but I knew then that I would do anything for her.
I would do anything.
Anything.
As Todd spreads my cheeks and puts the head of his cock against me, I know it’s going to hurt, but the worst part is knowing that Sam is watching, and hearing her sob like her heart is breaking. I know if I let myself, I could cry with her. I could break down and sob like I haven’t sobbed since I was twelve years old, wondering if my sister was going to be killed by the man who had abducted her.
But I’m not going to cry. I can’t.
Not if I want to be ready.
And I’m going to be ready. He’s not going to get away with this. He’s not going to walk away this time.
He begins to push forward and I fight my own instincts, forcing myself to relax, knowing it will hurt so much more if I fight, knowing that I can’t afford to be hurt that bad if I’m going to make him pay. But just before he breaches the tight ring of my ass, thunder booms through the clearing and his knife falls away from my stomach.
A second later, the pressure of his cock is gone and I hear a heavy thud as his body tumbles to the ground behind me.
Before I can fully comprehend that it’s over or that the sound I heard wasn’t thunder, but a gunshot, Sam is by my side, helping me up and pulling me into her arms. As I lean into her, I look down at the ground to see Todd’s lifeless eyes staring up at the sky, a bullet hole through the center of his forehead.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Sam chants, her hands running over my body as if she can banish all the ugliness with her touch.
And she can. She will.
“Don’t be sorry,” I say, trying not to shake as I lift my arms between us. “Just untie me. And we’ll finish this.”
“I’m sorry,” she says again, sobbing as she tugs at the knots holding my hands together. “I had to wait until he wasn’t looking at me. I had to be sure I could get the shot in before he cut you again.”
“It’s okay.” I roll my wrists, bringing sensation back into my fingers before reaching back to tug my boxers back up around my hips. But the movement makes Sam sob again and I wish I’d waited.
“I’m fine,” I insist, shifting until I can sit and take her hands in mine. I wait until she looks up at me, tears spilling from her big blue eyes. The lantern light isn’t that bright, but I can see how much she’s hurting, how much she blames herself, and I refuse to let that happen.
“Please don’t hate me,” she whispers.
I don’t say a word. I cup her face in my hands, pull her close, and take away her pain.
I consume her tears, kissing them away with my lips and tongue, taking all of her sadness into myself because I can handle it. I can handle it because she saved me from the nightmare she lived through. She saved me and there is no reason for her to cry for something that didn’t happen.
Finally, her tears stop and my lips find hers and we kiss. And it is sweet and intense and filled with gratitude. It is all I wanted in those moments when I thought I was going to die. By the time we pull apart, tears are rolling down my cheeks, but they aren’t sad tears.
I’m just so damned grateful.
“Don’t be sad,” I say, blinking fast, determined to pull myself together. “I love you. I don’t blame you. Even if it had happened, I wouldn’t have blamed you. You are mine and I could never hate you. No matter what.”
“I love you,” she says, brushing the tears from my cheeks with tender hands. “I don’t ever want to see you in danger again. Promise me, never again.”
“I can’t promise that,” I say. “Because the world is a shitty place full of terrible people, but I promise I’ll always have your back. And I’ll know I’m a lucky bastard that you have mine.”
She leans in, hugging me tight for a long moment before she kisses my cheek and reaches down to untie the ropes binding my calves together. “Let’s get out of here.”
“The sooner, the better.” Once I’m free, we grab Todd’s knife from where it fell to the ground and hurry back to the cars, circling around the pit where either Jeremy or J.D. is moaning. We start our car, breathing twin sighs of relief when it turns over easily, the battery not drained by the time spent with the lights on.
Pulling out my pack, I shove my ruined jeans inside and grab a pair of shorts, tugging them on before taking the gun from Sam and wiping it down, getting all her prints off, while she takes a bleach rag to the bat and the knife. After, I wrap the gun and the bat together in the plastic from the trunk.
While she wipes down J.D.’s rental car, I take one of the lanterns and follow the trail back into the jungle to the second hole we dug the day we spent sweating in the sun with our shovels. I bury the weapons quickly and then cover the freshly turned earth with leaves.
If the police have dogs, there’s a chance everything will be found, but there will be no prints and no way to track the illegally purchased firearm, Todd’s knife, or a bat purchased with cash to either Sam or me. This is just a precaution, but one I’m glad we thought to take. After nearly dying, I have no interest in ending up in prison facing a death penalty.
I grab the wicker basket containing the snakes I bought from the weird dude down the road from the compound, chilled by the sudden squirming inside, and hurry down the trail.
Back at the clearing, I find Sam standing in between the headlights, chewing on her thumb as she stares down at the pit.
“You ready?” I ask, setting the wicker basket carefully down in front of her.
“What about the blood?” she whispers. “Todd might have your blood on his hands. And I know there’s blood on the ground. I saw it drip from your stomach while he was…while he was getting ready to do it.”
I put my arm around her shoulder and pull her in for a hug, holding her close while I think.
“Well,” I finally say, keeping my voice low in case J.D. or Jeremy is alert enough to be listening. “We can go clean it up the best we can, but I’ve never been arrested or enlisted in the military. My DNA shouldn’t be on record. As long as I keep it that way it should be fine.”
“That’s not good enough. I need to know you’re safe.” She pulls away, looking up at me. “Do you still have your lighter in your pack?”
I nod. “You want to burn him?”
“We can use the basket to get it going,” she says. “It’s so dry, it should burn well enough. And we don’t need the body destroyed, just for the fire to burn the skin with the blood on it away.”
“And I can dig up the place where I bled on the dirt and throw it farther out in the woods.” I grab my lighter from my pack and press it into Sam’s hands before reaching for the basket handles. “I’ll empty this in the pit and meet you by the body.”
She touches my wrists. “No. I… I don’t want to. Not anymore. Just let the snakes loose in the woods.”
“You sure?” I say. “You’re not going to regret it later?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m not. We’ll leave those two in there with their hands tied and let them figure their own way out. They will, sooner or later, and eventually they’ll learn what happened to Todd. I think altogether that’s a strong enough message.”
“Then I’ll let these guys out and meet you there.”
By the time I dump the snakes in a gulley and make it back to the place where I almost died, Sam’s got Todd propped up against the tree stump and a bundle of sticks wedged into the crevices beneath his back and under his legs.
“I already threw the dirt with your blood on it out into the woods,” she says. “We just need to get him ready.”
We tear the basket apart and stuff the pieces around the body, not speaking until the moment comes to light it up. Then, we stand side by side, staring down into the flat, empty eyes of a dead monster.
I don’t know about Sam, but when I look at him, I feel nothing.
Not hate, not fear, nothing but exhausted by what we’ve been through and sickened by the gore beginning to drip from the hole in his forehead.
He isn’t a monster now; he’s just dead tissue.
Whatever it was that made Todd the nightmare he was—his mind or his soul—is gone. I don’t know where it’s gone, but I don’t feel any guilt about my part in its destruction. And if there is a hell, I know he’s on his way there, to rot and roast with the rest of the wicked things.
“To the end of it,” Sam whispers, flicking the lighter on.
“To the end of it.”
She lights the wicker pieces and they go up fast, flaming hot long enough to catch the sticks and Todd’s clothes on fire. We stay until he is engulfed in flames and the smell of human skin catching begins to overcome the smell of burning sticks and cotton and then we turn and walk away.
One of the men is calling out from the pit as we get into the car, but we don’t answer his cries for help.
We get in, buckle up, and drive away, and we don’t look back not even when we’re safely strapped in on a plane taking us far, far away.