Chapter 26

Darcy

We’re tired and dirty, but also exhilarated when we arrive back at the station, knowing while it had been hard, we’d successfully fought the Snake Fire, and had come out on top. Eyeing the rest of the crew, I can see we all seem to have fared the same. Exhaustion and tiredness is written all over the faces in front of me and must be reflected in my own. I’m completely drained, no energy to do anything other than strip off my firefighter’s apparel then run through the shower. After wrapping a towel around me, I lean against the wall. The last few days have been tough, but strangely, enjoyable.

I can’t give any of this up, the camaraderie of working as part of the team, skirting the edge of danger. Be the little woman who cowers and lets men take on the battle on her behalf? That won’t be me. Ever. And Slade had dangled that prospect of promotion in front of me. Even through my tiredness, the thought quickens my heart. I know I could do it. Could become a captain, maybe progress event further. Bat Chief Cavanaugh has a nice ring to it.

At least the warm water washed away some of the stench, though the smell of smoke still seems etched into my pores. Deciding I want nothing more than to get home to my bed, I pull on my street clothes, drag my hair into a ponytail, leaving my hair to air dry, and, having worked out when I’m next due on shift, take my leave of my colleagues and friends.

“Drive carefully,” Truck warns me as I walk past him to go to my car.

“You too.” We’re all beat, getting home safe the only thing on our minds.

I take the keys out of my purse and bounce them in my hands as I walk to my car. Not a vehicle I have much love for, but a mode of transport to get me from A to B. As long as it’s reliable, that’s all that matters. The reason I’m focusing on the vehicle in front of me is to try to keep Peg and my guilt from my mind. As I walked past him without saying a word, I hadn’t missed how his eyes had glazed over with pain. I’m doing the right thing. Just maybe not the right way.

Now I’m headed home to sleep in the bed Peg had bought. The thought slams into my head, filling me with guilt and regret for the cowardly way that I’d left him. He deserved more than that.

I could have held back, my crew would have waited for a bit. But the few short moments they’d have been happy to be kept hanging around wouldn’t have been long enough to explain my feelings to Peg. It had been far easier to walk on toward the engine that would be driving us back to the city without even acknowledging that he was there. Sending him a message as clear as day. We’re over.

That I hadn’t given him a reason is bugging me now. I’d been so unfair to the man who wanted me as his old lady. Should I talk to him and explain my reasons? Or, if he doesn’t contact me, leave it how it is and make it a clean break?

I miss him already.

Opening the car door, I slide into the driver’s seat, the thoughts in my head still racing. What if I’ve made a dreadful mistake? My career and future prospects put ahead of the man I’ve been searching for all of my life.

Tears start to leak from my eyes as I pause before starting the engine, going back over why I acted as I did. Two reasons, and each would stand on their own. First to end it before outside forces would surely push us apart—I won’t be giving up my job as a firefighter, and daren’t put it at risk because of a whirlwind relationship. The second, even more powerful, I won’t be sidelined like the other women, and that’s what Peg would want to do. Peg would want to keep me safe and out of danger, while my natural inclination is to rush straight in, fighting alongside the men.

At last I start the car and put it into drive. When I exit the parking lot I see Truck’s big truck closing in behind me, his indicator flashing the same way as mine. It seems like once again he intends to follow me home. I give a small smile, in the dark of the night it feels good to have company, even if it’s only headlights in my rearview.

I drive on automatic pilot, trying to focus my mind on anything but the man I just left, not wanting to continually double think my decision. Instead I think of Marcia and the delivery of her babies, mentally listing insignificant things like taking some flowers to her and finding out how she is. The I dismiss even that notion. What if Peg was visiting at the same time?

It wouldn’t take much for me to weaken, and now that my mind’s made up, I need to keep to my resolve. One man isn’t worth the loss of myself—my identity and what I’ve worked so hard for. Seeing him again might be too great a temptation.

That bed he bought is going to remind me. Maybe I should spend the night on the couch? But even that holds memories. Peg’s presence in my house is going to be hard to eradicate, and while his ghost roams my home, he’ll still be haunting my head.

The headlights behind me are flashing, then they flash again more urgently. Shit. Have I got a light out or something? Why didn’t Truck call me? It’s then I realise, my phone, neglected while I was fighting the wildfire, is probably dead.

I’m coming up to a vacant lot where there’s some kind of construction work going on, so signal my intention and pull to the side of the road. Truck parks up behind me but doesn’t turn his headlights off. I get out, blinded by the glaring light and go to check the back of my car. I hear a door open, but intent on trying to see what’s wrong, don’t turn around, and just call out.

“Truck? Why did you want me to stop? Are my brake lights not working?” The rear lights seem fine.

It’s all I get out before there’s a blast of pain in the back of my head.

I regain consciousness to find my hands tied tightly behind my back, rope biting into my wrists, a pounding in my head from where I was hit, my t-shirt rucked up, and my skin stinging where I was presumably dragged across the rough ground. What’s worse, someone is taking my pants off and starting to drag my underwear down.

No. Such actions mean whoever it is only has one intention. I move fast. With my jeans bunched around my ankles, effectively immobilising my legs, I’ve only one weapon in my armoury. I throw my body forward and crack my head against his.

“Fucking bitch,” he yells out, and I get a back hander around my face. I freeze as I recognise the voice, my heart beating fast, my fear overcoming the triple sources of pain in my head.

“Pete, what the fuck are you doing?” My words sound shaky, even to myself. How is he even here? I thought the police were going to arrest him and, this time, keep in him jail. “Pete, let me go and we won’t say anything about this.” My eyes flick wildly around, but he’s dragged me to the rear of the construction site, and there’s nobody around. As I speak I’m desperately kicking at my jeans. I can’t loosen the rope binding, me and without the use of my hands, I can’t pull them back up, so my best option is to get them off my feet, so I can try to escape. Using one foot, I push my shoe off the other.

“You’ve made my life hell,” he screams at me. “Took a few days for the lawyer to work his magic and set me free. You ever been held in a cell?” He pauses, but I don’t respond, too busy concentrating on getting free. For some reason he sits back on his haunches and watches me.

One shoe gone, now for the other. Then just one last kick and I’ll be able to run.

“You mucked up all my plans, Darcy. My father’s mad at me. You owe me for all the fucking shit you pulled.” Suddenly he leans forward, and I can smell his rancid breath. It’s as if he’s gone feral. “You know what those biker scum did to me? Half-killed me is what. And to top it off, you got me arrested again.”

“Pete…” I try to reason with him, keeping him focused on my words and not what I’m doing with my feet. “You hit me, hurt me. Broke in and tried to rape me. What did you expect me to do?”

“You upset all my plans, Darcy. You were meant to fall for me. I’m a good-looking man, you shouldn’t have been able to resist. You asked me to move in, thought I had it sorted then. But then you just flirted with me, tempted me, but never gave in.”

“I helped you out when you were homeless after that fire burned your house.”

He laughs. “Set that up well, didn’t I? Set fire to the house, and all I needed to do was come staggering out covered in soot and coughing. Was an easy in with you.”

What? “What an earth did you want an in with me for?” I’ve enough self-confidence to know I wouldn’t crack a mirror if I looked into it, but I’d be kidding myself to think I’ve got the face or figure of a model.

“Plan was, we’d start fucking. Then you’d take me to meet your folks…”

“Whoa. Stop right there. That would never have happened. And why the hell would you want to meet my parents?”

“It’s your father, of course.”

Good luck trying to speak to him. But despite the negative reaction I know he’d get, I can’t understand what he means.

Play him along. “Ok, Pete. Let me up, I’ll drive home and get cleaned up. Come around tomorrow, and I’ll take you to see my father.”

He seems to be having an internal battle with himself. He rocks back and forth, his hand going to his face, and suddenly his eyes blaze with the look of a madman. “You’re trying to fool me again. If I let you go, you’ll set the bikers and the police on me again.”

“I won’t, Pete. Look, if it’s so important you meet my father…” But something in his expression tells me I’m losing him.

His next words prove I’m right. “You ruined my plans,” he tells me again. “And never let me into your bed. Caused me a fuckload of trouble. You should have been grateful that someone like me even looked twice at you.”

Someone like him?

I’d come around half naked. He can only intend one thing, and I’m not going to let him have his way. He’s still talking, rationalising his behaviour, but I’m not listening. Whatever reasons he had for what he did aren’t important now. Escape, however, is. I lurch to my feet and start running, quickly realising it’s harder with my hands trapped behind me, in bare feet over uneven ground. As I hear him coming after me, I put on an extra spurt, seeing the outline of a warehouse, knowing he’ll easily outrun me, wanting to find somewhere to hide and hopefully outwit him.

The place is under construction, the doorway wide open, and I rush inside, quickly trying to see by the moonlight something I can hide behind, ignoring my feet cut raw by the hard ground. There’s a dry wall partition—that will have to do for now.

Racing behind it, I find the skeleton of offices, and stub my toe hard on a metal tool box presumably left behind for workers to return to the next day. The shock makes me gasp.

“I know you’re here. There’s no escape.” He’s using a sing-song voice, which makes me think again that he’s probably high on something. Wondering why I hadn’t noticed when he’d lived with me, knowing now it explains why one minute he was quite normal and even pleasant company, and the next violent and mean.

He knows where I am. Somehow, I’ve got to get back behind him, go in the direction that he doesn’t expect. Self-conscious I’m running around half-naked, I wriggle, trying to shrug my tee down as far as it will go, and then, keeping my back pressed against the wall, start to inch my way to the other end of the newly built room. He comes into sight, looking in front of him, not to the side, but what I see in his hand makes me go cold. He’s got a gun.

Is he going to shoot me? If I don’t have much chance of outrunning him, it’s impossible to outrun a bullet.

“Come out. You know what I want. Stop trying to fight me, and I’ll make it good for you.”

Give in? Never. Hardly daring to breathe, I wait for him to move on, but he’s slow, cautious, obviously listening out for the faintest of sounds. I focus on the weapon he’s holding, and momentarily the thought being dead might be preferable than being in his hands pops into my head.

I don’t know what gives me away, maybe my heart is beating too loudly in my chest, but suddenly he’s spinning and looking straight at me. Instinct kicks in, and I turn and prepare to run.

“Stop! I’ll shoot.” His command and promise make me falter. “Don’t think you can outrun a bullet, precious. But I’m game if you want to give it a try.” He shrugs. “You don’t need both feet working to fuck.”

What? What’s he talking about? Can he follow through? It’s dark, I could weave back and forth. How good a shot is he? Can he hit a moving target?

I don’t ask it aloud, but it seems he’s able to read my mind. “Pop taught me to shoot when I was a boy. Used to take me hunting. I can hit anything, moving or not. Now,” his hand goes to his crotch and my eyes follow his movement, “seeing you again is making me hard.” He rubs himself through the material. “Ain’t no one going to be saving you this time. No bikers charging to your rescue. It’s just you and me tonight. I don’t really much mind either way, and I promise you, I’d enjoy the hunt. But if you don’t want to make things worse for yourself, you’ll come to me now.”

He’s going to rape me. I can’t physically fight him, not with my hands fastened behind my back and that gun in his. The only weapons I have to use are words.

“You won’t get away with this. They’ll know it’s you.” If he touches me, they’ll be some transfer at least.

“I’ll take my chances. A girl on her own in the middle of the night. It will only be your word against mine. And what’s to say it wouldn’t be worth it?”

He’s mad. Totally mad.

“Of course my old man will help me out.”

This is the second time he’s mentioned his father. Just who is he? As he’d never spoken about his family before, I’d assumed he hadn’t got any. Who did I get myself involved with? Is he going to kill me? I vow to fight him, to scratch him with my fingernails somehow, even if it will be hard with my hands tied behind my back. If he leaves me alive he’ll know I’ll be talking. If I’m dead, I want clues to be left to show what he’s done.

Goosebumps come up all over my skin, and my palms feel sweaty. I’ve never been this scared, even when facing with the worst of the fires I’ve seen. But I tackle them on my terms. This situation is beyond my control.

Run. That’s all I can do. Wondering if I’ve distracted him enough, I set off.

He laughs. “I’ll even give you a head start.”

Again, without the use of my hands I’m unbalanced, almost bouncing off walls left and right in the newly constructed corridor, trying to ignore the splinters and rough ground under my feet. It’s only seconds before I hear the sound of heavy footsteps behind me. I’m fit. I can do this. I see stars above as I emerge into the light, and now on open ground speed up, guessing the direction where my car might be. I might not be able to get in and drive, but if I can make my way around to the entrance I can run out onto the road…

I hear a muffled pop and go down heavily on my knees, rolling in agony as blazing pain shoots up my right leg. He’s shot me in the calf. As the moon comes out from behind a cloud, I watch him walk up. I shuffle back, crab-like, trying to ignore the agonizing wound in my leg. He doesn’t even bother to run, each pace of his bringing him closer, however fast I try to drag myself away.

I watch as his hands go to his fly and starts to undo the zip.

“Pete. You don’t want to do this. You said you don’t want to go back to jail. Just let me go and I’ll say the gun went off by accident.”

He grins that evil grin again, and I wonder what I saw in him to even let him enter my house. There’s certainly nothing that would persuade me to now. “My father’s got connections. I won’t be going to jail.”

Oh yes you will. If I make it the last thing I do. Even if it’s only evidence on my body they’ll find.

Trying to keep the shaking out of my voice, I try to reason with him. “You’re just compounding your crime, even being here. I took a restraining order out…”

“Yes, you did. Think a piece of paper was going to keep me away?”

Well, it obviously didn’t. I try again. “Pete, what do you want? What are you hoping to get out of this? You said you wanted to meet my father…” Then my brow creases. He’d said he and his father had it all planned. “What is this all about, Pete?”

“You played into my hands, giving me a room when I told you I needed it. In time we would have progressed to a relationship if that fucking biker hadn’t interfered.” I’m shaking my head, but he hasn’t finished. “It was no hardship, I was quite happy to think of getting into your cunt, such a sweet, tempting place. I started to crave it, and not just for business. And now it’s not for you to decide. You can’t keep me away from what I want.”

My eyes open wide as certain words hit chords with me. Again I shake my head as I don’t understand. “What do you mean, not just for business? What the hell are you talking about? What do you want from me?” Thinking quickly, I ask, “What was your plan? Maybe I can still help?”

“Too late for that, sweetheart. Now I’m just going to be taking what I should have had all along if you weren’t so tight-assed. You’re a cold-hearted bitch.”

He’s still advancing, and my brain goes from trying to work out what all of this means to trying to evade his unwanted attention. The moonlight casting him in silhouette makes him look evil, and that look of hunger in his eyes….

“Please don’t rape me.”

“Begging?” He drops to his knees. “Oh, I do like to hear a woman beg.”

Just give in and let him. Close my eyes and pretend it’s Peg. Peg, who’s taught me what should happen between the sheets. But there’s no sheets tonight, not even a bed, just the cold, hard ground of the construction site.

Could I let him take me? Maybe that’s all he wants, and he’ll let me live. I can’t fight with my hands behind my back, can’t run with an injured leg. What choice have I got? Could I pretend? Flirt with him. Encourage him. Lead him on. Even as I think it, I know I can’t. It’s not even that I’m remaining loyal to the man who at this moment probably hates me, it’s that I can’t bear the thought of Pete’s hands touching my skin, moving over the parts which, even now, still belong to another man.

Bile rises in my throat. I swallow it back down, then wonder if puking might put him off. But I doubt it. If he’s willing to fuck me when I’m bleeding and in pain, a little vomit would probably do nothing to save me.

He’s taken out his cock, smoothing his hands up and down it. It’s going to happen. How can I stop it? Make him shoot me again. The sound of the gun shot might get someone to call the police. But while I’m no expert, the pop that it made when he fired at my leg shows it’s fitted with a silencer. If he shoots me a second time, I could be saying goodbye to my life, and certainly to my job if I end up disabled.

Why the fuck is being a firefighter so important?

Suddenly I realise it’s not. Especially if I’m going to die tonight.

I lunge to my feet, trying my right leg, which just bears my weight, and try to run again. He was right. He’s fast. A muffled shot and my left foot feels like it’s blown to pieces. As my legs shoot out from under me, I crash heavily to the floor in unbelievable pain.

As I lie in agony, he starts to do a strip tease. We’re out in the open on a building site, and as he takes off his clothes and carefully folds them, “Don’t want blood on me, do I?” he says conversationally. When he removes his jeans, his cock bounces up as though happy to see an unwilling target. The ground feels sticky beneath me, and the metallic smell of blood seems to be turning him on, his breathing quickening as he tugs at his dick.

He makes a move toward me, then stalls and picks up his jeans, taking something out of the pocket. I watch in horror as he opens it up and pulls on a condom.

“Pete. No. Don’t.” I don’t even recognise my own voice. “Don’t do this. Please. Look, perhaps I was hasty. Let me up and we’ll talk. I’m sorry I mucked up your plan. Tell me what it is, maybe I can help you…” Words are spilling out of my mouth without me knowing what I’m saying. I’ll say, do, anything to get him to stop. I tug uselessly at the ropes encircling my wrists, ignoring that they’re cutting my skin, and try to get my useless legs to move, but all I can do is to roll like a slug. “You want to meet my father, I’ll introduce you.”

But he doesn’t pause, doesn’t stop, and doesn’t make conversation. He kneels then crawls toward me, pulling me onto my back and wrenching my legs open. “You know,” he starts, “you’ve been spreading your legs for a biker. Don’t think I don’t know. Now I’m taking what should have been mine.” Without a care for my wounds, he pulls my knees up to give himself easy access. Then he starts.

Tears flow down my cheeks, my humiliation complete. All the reasons I bailed on Peg now seem invalid. Instead of being raped out in the open, I could have been in his safe arms had I not put so much importance on my job and been so adamant I didn’t need a man to protect me.

Pete’s come armed with three condoms. With periods of rest while he seems content to sit watching me bleeding, yanking on his dick to get himself hard again, I lose track of the time. I don’t know how long it takes, but he uses them all.

He’s rough. He’s hurt me.

At last sated, he puts back on his clothes, and I watch in disbelief as he’s almost business like in the way he ties the condoms and pockets them. When he points the gun at me I close my eyes and wait for the end.

“Your cunt’s one of the best I’ve ever had, precious. Shame we won’t be doing this again.” He places the barrel of the gun to my forehead, and I close my eyes and wait, wondering if I’ll hear the final shot, whether there’ll be any pain. Then he laughs, a humourless manic sound, and the gun moves away.

I open my eyes. Has he had second thoughts? But he’s not going to be merciful today. He takes another step back and gives me a wink before taking aim. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a chance. If you survive, I’ll be back for you again. If not,” he shrugs, “there’s a certain irony in leaving you here.”

The bullet tears through my stomach, the shock making me pass out. Sometime later I come round, wishing he’d shot me in the head after all. At least I wouldn’t be feeling such incredible agony. My stomach feels like someone’s probing it with a red-hot poker, and I’m lying on the ground made sticky by my own blood.

I’m too weak and woozy, unable to move to try to get help. Turning my head, I look at the sky. Dawn is breaking. How long until the construction workers turn up? Are they even working here today? One thing’s for certain, no one’s going to bother looking for me. I’m not due back on shift for at least thirty-six hours.