Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

Bennet

“Where is she?”

My sister wheels around and gives me wide, scared eyes.

“She went in for her purse and never came out. I thought I heard shouting or something and went to try to get in but…the fucking door is locked or something. I couldn’t get in, Ben!”

“It’s alright, sis.” I can hear the fear and worry for Rory in her voice, and it’s only amplified in my own chest. But my panicking isn’t going to help anything. I fall back on my training and experience. “Go with Tanner and get back so I don’t have to worry about you being alright. I’ll go get her. I promise.”

I watch as Tanner takes my sister by the arm and leads her over to where my captain is standing with other officers. I take the time I use looking for an easy way in to finish fastening my bulletproof vest. When I start to smell the distinct odor of gas, all thoughts of taking a silent, easy way fly out of my head and I only worry about getting to my princess.

I check for wires before I break the fucking window and go in with gun drawn. The house is silent but there’s noise coming from under my feet. They’re in the basement. I stalk for the door before halting to listen again.

“You think you’re the first! You think you’ll be special! No! You’re just another idiot who bought this cursed fucked up house. They don’t even remember the names of anyone but the first couple…the first murder/suicide. Good old gramps and gran. Oh, you didn’t realize…that’s because my father worked his whole life to make sure the taint of that one fucking night never reached his family. But he wasn’t successful.”

I silently pray the guy keeps talking and giving me a point of focus.

“Every time there was a new family, every time there was an accident, reporters and stupid internet ghost hunters would dredge all of it back up causing my dad to spiral yet again. The last time he took his life…and my mom’s and sister’s as well. Too bad he didn’t do it before he put us through years of beatings and abuse!”

The guy moves in the circle of light bending down in front of Rory.

“Oh, does that make you sad? Well, it should. I made it my personal goal to make sure this house never sees another owner. Never sees life in it again! This house…it haunts people. It sinks into their minds and does things to them. It made my whole family murderers!”

“If anything, I’m saving you. I’m making it so you don’t have to worry about someone you love killing you violently one night when you least expect it! It’s better this way.”

She mumbles something but can’t be understood because she has a strip of cloth shoved in her mouth and tied.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you and the cop flirting with one another! I mean, come on! A fucking cop! That’s like asking for a bullet in your brain as you sleep!”

She starts getting louder and louder and moving the chair she’s strapped to in her need to make him understand and release her.

I see him walk to a small bag and come back with several lighters and boxes of matches.

“Snodgrass! Stop! Put the matches and lighter down!”

The man wheels around with a startled look on his face. “Who…who’s there?”

He's looking into the dark but can't see me. Something ricochets through my mind, and I run with it. “Snodgrass, my boy, don’t you recognize your grandfather’s voice?”

“Gramps?” The man practically falls to his knees and looks into the inky blackness as if he is seeing the ghost of his Grandfather.

“Why are you doing this, son? Why are you trying to set our house on fire?”

“Why did you kill my grandmother and leave my father? Why did YOU start all of this? Why Gramps? Why?”

Instead of answering him, I move so I am at his and Rory’s back. I chance him seeing me to get Rory out of the house. When I come up to her, she whips her head around and I bring my finger to my lips in a silent request for her to be as quiet as possible. The look in her eyes when she realizes it is me is everything. She literally looks like I’m a fucking knight here to rescue her.

Her face is streaked with tears and there’s a scuffed place under her eye that looks like she might have been smacked. I breathe through the hate and anger I have roiling inside of me and focus instead on getting her out of her. I cut her legs free and then work on her wrists.

“Gramps? Gramps, are you still with us? Gramps? Where the hell did you go, old man?”

I can tell by the edge of fury in the man’s voice that I am running out of time.

“You’ll never say another word, you cancerous old buffoon!”

He turns and sees me working to release Rory and his face blanches. “No!!”

He takes out the lighter and drops it before I can go for my gun or think of another way to stop him.

“I won’t be stopped!”

The trail of gas ignites, and a circle of flames erupts around us. Rory screams through her gag and brings her eyes to mine. I finally work the bands off her wrists and start unknotting the rope around her middle he used to tie her to the chair. As soon as there is enough slack, she pushes it over her head and ducks underneath, pulling the gag from her mouth.

Her arms come up to warp around my neck before I take her mouth in a rushed kiss full of promise and urgency. “We have to get out of here, baby.”

She gives me a nod before I lift her in my arms and walk us through the fire quickly. Once on the other side of the ring of fire, we rush to the basement stairs. The flames are quick and are racing to every corner of the basement. We barely make it to the stairs before the fire does and rush up them and through the door. My only goal is to get the woman I love out of this fucking pit of hell. Once we reach the first floor we run right into the psycho.

Behind me, Rory coughs and has smudges on her face and clothes because of the fire. Now, we have to put up with this asshole.

“I can’t let you two leave. I can’t let this house -and any part of it- survive! I’m doing this for the greater good!”

I would just mow past him if he didn’t have a gun in his hand. I make damn sure to put my body in front of Rory’s. If this guy shoots, he’s going to have to go through me and my vest to get to her.

The floor starts creaking under our feet and the sense of urgency rises. If I don’t get us out of here…we’re going to be back in the basement surrounded by flames. The window next to the guy shatters and I take the opportunity to pull my gun and shoot. The guy goes down and the fall knocks the gun from his hand. My partner sticks his head in the broken window.

“Come on, man! The house is smoking!”

No shit, Tanner!

I shove Rory through the window and watch as Tanner helps her out, then I throw my leg over the sill just in time to spot the man who started the fire finally reach his fallen gun…just as the floor gives under us. I lean on the leg out of the window as Tanner, who also sees what is happening, pulls me the rest of the way out and all three of us jump from the porch.

I scoop Rory up and carry her to the waiting ambulance to make sure she is alright. She doesn’t let me go once I sit her down, tugging on my sleeve and pointing at the glass. For just a second the roar of flames heightens and what appears to be faces form in the burning glass in the upstairs window.

“What the fuck?”

The EMT apparently sees it too.

“Is…is it…?”

Once the first floor fell it didn’t take long for the whole house to go up in flames. More and more people start noticing the faces in the window on the second floor. My sister, my captain, and several officers all look as the house burns and the faces in the window become a singed image on the glass.

The EMT says what all of us are thinking, “What the fuck is happening?”