Callum chose a few stacks in the back and I, to keep my distance, stayed to the stacks near the tables in the archives. After a few minutes, I finished most of the shelves there and moved further from him, to the stacks on the opposite side of our floor. We rarely worked like that but I wanted to be alone and, much to my dismay, he looked like he wanted the same. I stopped working for a moment to peer across the glass, over the lobby, and into the other side to watch for him. I noticed he’d sat on his haunches, scrubbing his face, before turning back to his own work.
My stomach constricted for him. I was tired. Very. I wanted Callum more than I’d ever wanted anything in my entire life because he was better than anyone I’d ever met. He genuinely cared for me. He would have given his life for me, I knew it, and my jaw clenched knowing that he just couldn’t give me his heart. It was such a strange sensation knowing that someone loved you enough to die for you but not enough to fall in love with you. I shook my head at that, wondering what was so bad about me and went back to work.
After a few minutes, I could hear him approach me from behind but I was too heartbroken to turn his direction, my arms and legs too heavy to even bother. He tapped me on the shoulder and I didn’t have a choice but to acknowledge him. I pulled my buds from my ears, letting them fall to the floor. I stared at the shelf in front of me, readying to see his beautiful face.
“Hello Harper,” I heard, making me freeze. Tiny, electric bugs crawled up my back at the recognition of that voice. John Bell’s voice. My hands begun to shake as he continued. “It’s been such a long time, sweetheart.”
I slowly stood up, hoping to everything Holy that Callum wouldn’t glance my way. I was a goner, I knew that, but at least I could save him as long as I didn’t bring him to John’s attention. I turned around, ready to comply to any of his demands as long as it saved Callum. Look who’s getting ready to die for someone now, Harper, I thought depressingly.
I studied John. He looked the same to me, frighteningly scary, obsessive eyes, perfectly straight white teeth in his perfectly formed face. He was an enigma. A beautiful, horrible face on a handsome, threatening body. Tears formed at the corners of my eyes.
“John,” my trembling lips whispered.
He wrapped his arms around me, warm and inviting, and squeezed me to his chest. His tenderness contradicting the murderous look in his eyes. The smell of the pine cologne he’d worn even in high school swum in my nose as he pressed me into him. “Shh,” he said, guiding his hands gently down my hair, “I’m here.” My body shook in anticipation, waiting for it to hit me. He held me tighter and tighter and tighter until I could barely breath. Finally, his fingers bit into my shoulders and I braced myself. He slid his cheek across my own and dipped his lips to my ears. “You’ve really disappointed me, Harper.” He shoved me against the stacks hard, knocking the breath from my lungs, making me gasp for air. There was a bent piece of the shelf near my neck and it pierced my flesh. I could feel something warm trickle down the side and into the collar of my shirt.
He shoved me harder into the shelf and I whimpered, earning me a sick grin from John. He stared at me, holding me too tight to his chest before grabbing my chin, his fingers pressing deep into my cheeks, and forced me to look at him. He stuck his nose in my hair and inhaled deeply, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, making me want to vomit. When he opened them, his pupils were dilated, and he smiled wickedly. My lips trembled, giving me away.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” he said, bending slightly and bringing his face dangerously close to mine. I sunk into the shelf as far as I could go but he just moved with me. He bent further and ran his tongue up the side of my neck, making me shudder in fear. “I can taste your fear, you know?” He said. My body recoiled from him but he grabbed and brought me even closer. “And you should be afraid.” Tears spilled down my cheeks.
“I loved you,” he whispered against my face, almost choking on his own words, my hair feathering back slightly from his breath, “and you screwed me over so badly, Harper. I just can’t believe you’ve done me like this.” His jaw clenched tightly. “You screwed me!” He yelled, hitting the shelf loudly and I involuntarily glanced Callum’s direction to make sure he didn’t see us.
That was my first mistake. John smiled at me, clenching a meaty hand over my throat as he stared through the glass windows over to Callum’s side. He noticed Callum working and his grip tightened around my throat, cutting off my breath. I clawed at his hand with both of mine, drawing blood. I felt the blood vessels in my eyes begin to pop and black spots dot my vision.
Suddenly, John let go and I sucked in a burning breath. My throat was on fire and I doubled over, dry heaving. I felt sick to my stomach that I was forced to lean on him for support.
And John had seen Callum.
I tried to scramble away from him, to run to the windows. My plan was to warn him but John tossed me onto my back, straddling my legs. He pinned my arms above my head and brought his face in close. He kissed me hard, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth and bit down hard, drawing blood. I cried out in pain.
“Do you think your husband might enjoy watching this?” He asked, sitting up. When I didn’t answer, he slapped me hard across the face, making me wince. “Answer, you stupid, selfish bitch!” He yanked at my left hand and brought it up to him, pinching my thumb between his own and his forefinger before walking his fingers over the tips of my index and middle finger, stopping at my ring finger. “I’m gonna’ cut this ring from your finger, whore.” I softly began to cry. He was going to torture me before my death and he was going to thoroughly enjoy it.
John stood up and dragged me by my hair toward the window facing the lobby. “Come on, Harper.”
I grappled at his hands as a monster headache began to split through my temple. John brought me up to his level, my feet dangling over the ground, before slamming my face into the glass, my head pounded harshly. Callum still had his ear buds in, thank God, and he didn’t hear us. I prayed that John would give up but knew that was unlikely. He reached behind him and removed the pistol he’d been hiding in the waistband of his jeans. He lifted the gun and placed the barrel against the glass, pulling the trigger and shattering it into a million pieces, making me scream and finally catching Callum’s attention.
Callum sprung up from his position, throwing his iPod down, and ran to the glass on his side of the fourth floor. I shook my head at him as he pounded against the glass, screaming my name. ‘Please’, I mouthed to him. He began to run our direction but I screamed for him to run away. Callum’s hands pressed against the glass and he walked them across the panes towards the door that lead to the open walkways, as if that could get him any closer to us.
Callum threw open the door, slamming his fists into the Plexiglas of the walkway directly across from us. “Let her go!” He yelled, his request echoing across the marble lobby flooring and bouncing all around us. His voice soothed me, each word caressed my skin, giving me a peace I didn’t think could possibly come in that moment.
John dragged me across the glass on the floor, over the metal divider that once held the thick glass window pane, and slammed me against the Plexiglas. “You!” John screamed, silencing Callum’s demands. He brought the gun up and pointed it directly at Callum. Calmly, he said, “You’re going to pay for taking her. Simply put, she belonged to me and you had no right. Granted, she should have told you as much, and trust me, she will pay for her dishonesty, but so will you. If you want to be mad at anyone, it should be this untrustworthy slut!” He said, his words growing in heat until he was spitting the last. He slammed my head against the Plexiglas on the word slut.
“If you kill Harper,” Callum gritted through his teeth, slamming his fists into the walkway cover loudly, making me flinch at the unusual aggression, “so help me God, I will hunt you down like the dog that you are. I will string you up by your feet and flay your skin from your body!” He bellowed in a fit of rage, the veins in his neck growing thick with the exertion. “Get.Away.From.Harper! Let her go and we can finish this man to man!”
“Temper, temper, mister Tate. Remember yourself, sir. Remember that I have her. I have the gun. You have nothing. And nothing’s what you’ll leave this world with, I’ll make sure of that.”
Callum’s chest pumped three times with heavy breaths, his loaded stare icing even me over, before he began to run, skidding along the floor, when John aimed his gun and shattered the Plexiglas wall nearest him, causing me to scream his name. He ran out of sight, visibly making John nervous.
“Walk ahead of me,” John said, pushing me the direction Callum had been running.
We walked the length of the walkway before entering back into the library, circling around the front, heading towards the room we saw Callum disappear into. As we walked past the elevators, I breathed an inward sigh of relief that I could hear the thrum of the cables and John didn’t. We walked straight into the book sorting room, John slamming the door behind us and locking it. The room was pitch black so John pulled me to the floor with him, dragging me behind him as he searched each dark crevice. I wasn’t frightened, I knew Callum wasn’t here, that is until John pulled me up with him as he stood against the wall.
He covered my body with his, pressing his front to mine as close and as hard as he could. John pushed his nose to my throat and inhaled me again, making me want to vomit. I held back the acid though as he kissed up my neck and trailed his lips along my jaw line.
“At first,” he whispered, startling me, “I’ll be soft and drive any idea of that a*shole out of your mind. I’ll make it so good, you won’t remember him.” I pinched my eyes closed and swallowed hard in disgust. Then he kissed me, slowly, taking his time, running his hot tongue over me and I could feel the bile rise in my throat. I almost wished I’d vomit in his mouth but I knew he’d make me pay dearly if I did. “Kiss me back,” he begged, breathless, like this intimate moment was totally normal. I clenched my teeth together and dug the back of my head deeper into the wall. He slammed my body hard against the wall. “Kiss me back!” He yelled, striking me hard in the face.
“N-no,” I trembled.
He pushed his face close to mine, nose to nose. I could feel his breath fan across my face. “Kiss me back or I’ll take you right here on the floor, slut.” I tremulously inched closer to his face and pressed my closed mouth to his, squeezing my eyes closed as if that could make me forget. “Open your mouth, Harper,” he said, but I just couldn’t voluntarily do it. I knew it would anger him but I couldn’t make myself do it.
He yanked me to the floor hard, bruising my hip. “No!” I cried. “Please, please!”
“Shut up!” He screamed in my face, making me sink away from him, turning my head into the floor. “God, you don’t get it, do you? You make me do these things to you, Harper. I never wanted it to be this way.” He started unbuttoning my coat and I fought with what little nails I had left. He grabbed hold of my wrists and pinned my hands beneath a leg strait-jacket while he went back to work, undoing each button like he had all the time in the world. I was openly crying now, wondering where Callum was and hoping he got away to call the authorities. When they showed up, I knew it’d be too late. I’d either be raped, dead, or both. It looked like both. “If you had only obeyed me, Harper, all those years ago we’d probably be happily married ourselves and those girls would never have had to suffer.”