“I trust you.”
Unaware that I had spoken aloud, I jolted when Terry spat, “What the fuck? You’ve gone crazy. It didn’t take long to break her. Such a tight little cunt, that one. But then again, it was much tighter when she was nine.”
Chains shook as Anderson’s unique snarl filled my ears. “You sick fuck.”
“She was always quite something.” Terry’s voice was starting to sink into the marrow of my bones, my body trembling with fear, with hatred, with the overwhelming need to kill. “A much better child than you ever were. You never stopped fucking whining over this and that. Such a fucking coward. Just like your mother!”
“You’re going to burn in hell,” Anderson grunted. “And then, when I finally join you, I’m going to tear each piece of charred flesh from your rotten corpse and bury you in the dead and decaying horror you came from.”
“Mmm.” Terry laughed. “You still think you can keep your promise of killing me?”
This time it was Anderson who laughed. “Oh, I’m definitely going to break my promise.”
Terry hesitated, the hitch in his breath telling me he was as confused with Anderson’s defeat as much as I was.
“So, you finally accept that you’re not going to kill me?”
“Oh, I accepted it a long time ago. It won’t be my job to take your last breath…”
There was a pregnant silence. I tilted my head, wondering if my hearing had gone the same way as my sight. Then so many sounds. So many things for my frayed senses to concentrate on at once.
The creak of the door.
A shuffle.
Heavy panting.
Chains rattling.
None of it made any sense in my head.
Until my body fell into strong arms when the cuffs around my wrists snapped open. And Anderson finished his sentence in two little words….
“Kloe will.”
HER SCREAMS HURT MY EARS and my soul. She was frantic, her hands slapping at anything that came within her personal space.
Her mind was broken. It had finally given in to the crazy that haunted her every damn day.
“Kloe, please,” Dr Mike Varney coaxed gently as he attempted to catch her flaying hands. “You’re safe now.”
Every part of her shook as she lashed out.
Mike glanced at me questioningly and I nodded. “Do it.”
Taking the already prepared syringe, Caroline, one of his nurses, did her best to hold Kloe down as he quickly but efficiently slid the needle into Kloe’s vein.
Within seconds her body sagged and her screams silenced. Her mind began its rest and allowed her body chance to heal.
Mike blew out a breath. “She really needs to be in hospital, Anderson.”
“No. She stays here. You’re more than capable of caring for her.”
He rubbed his face with his hands. “Other than tending to her physical wounds, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for her mental state. She needs professional psychiatric help.”
My gaze moved to Kloe as she finally slept. “She’s strong.”
He shrugged, looking with concern over his patient before turning back to me. “Are you in any pain? Caroline can give you some pain relief.”
I shook my head. A knife wound to my gut was nothing compared to what Kloe was going through, and it seemed like a small piece of justice that I took a fraction of pain.
I should have known the cunt would do this. I thought he would bide his time, that he would wait just as I was. I had been so wrong about his feelings towards Kloe.
None of it made sense.
Mike and I walked out of the room, leaving Caroline to wash Kloe.
“I’ll be back in the morning to check on her. But, please, you must rest yourself. Your wound will get infected if you don’t.”
I nodded. I had no intentions of heeding to his request. But he didn’t need to know that.
Rob smiled at me as I took a place next to him on the sofa. It was a troubled smile, one full of worry.
And I knew why.
“How’s she doing?”
Biting into my bottom lip, I shook my head. “I… not good.”
“Anderson…”
“I have no idea what the bastard did to her, Rob,” I stated, cutting him off. “But from what Mike tells me, it’s going to take a damn fucking miracle for her to come through this.”
He was silent, watching the flickering flames in the fire. His sigh was loud as he drained the rest of his whisky.
“You shouldn’t be drinking that while taking antibiotics!”
I blinked, jerking when his glass sailed across the room and shattered on the wall. “Don’t fucking ignore this, Anderson.” He was furious, his eyes wild on me.
I understood him. I did. But it was too late. “I did what was necessary, Rob. I couldn’t get her out of there on my own.”
He scoffed bitterly. “So you went against everything!”
Now it was my turn to be angry. I shot up and bent into his face, my fists scrunching into the sofa cushion either side of him. “And what was the alternative? It’s my fault this happened to Kloe. You think I should have just left her there? Left him to do whatever sick fucking things he wanted to her?”