Chapter 28

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

K andie

Dripping water and the smell of dank earth, moss and decay is what I wake up to. I'm on a mattress that has to be as old as me. Head swimming, I sit up and immediately retch. Only nothing comes up. Pain slices through me when my knees hit the crumb-like dirt. It bites into my knees, imbedding little particles.

The dress I had on at Marlene's funeral is gone. My bra is gone. Even if I wore panties, I think he would have taken them off. I don't feel any aches and pains in my kittykat, but I know that doesn't mean anything.

My nose crinkles. I stink. He must have kept drugging me. It's too dark to see and the side of my neck is sore. He may have been dosing me regularly. The way hunger is eating my insides up and the awful stench coming from my body. He could have had me here for days. My arm is sore too, but it's too dark to know if he set an I.V.

Rage bursts through me. I'm going to kill this motherfucker. Pretending to be my friend. Searching the surrounding space, I feel for anything coming up with nothing. He's going for complete deprivation. Placing my hand on the hard mattress, I ease my sore aching body up to sit on the edge of the bed. If he's been coming every day to keep me dosed something must have kept him away from getting here before it wore off this time.

Sitting there, I realize there are more and more injuries on my body. I feel like I've been taking abuse for days. My wrists are sore. Worse than when Deputy Davies put the zip ties too tight when he arrested me.

There is a click and a whirl. A green light comes on. A camera makes a whirling sound. Light fills the room so bright I have to cover my eyes.

I look around the room. Beyond the cot I can see I am in a small cell. My head swivels so fast as I take in everything before me. I know this place or one similar. This is the basement of the youth house that was fixed up. It looks like it's had a crude upgrade. There are still cells, but the rest of the room is almost clinical, as if it was the lair of a mad scientist.

There is a black bedlike contraption with straps dangling where the legs, arms, head, neck, and torso are supposed to be. On the wall there are all types of what look like torture devices. Many of them are sexual in nature. My tummy drops.

The whole room is set up for sexual torture. How does Pastor Nathan know about it? Is he one of those copycat serial killers or something? He didn't think to tie me up. His first mistake. I don't need anything to fight him. I can use myself. He was lucky I was sick, and he snuck up on me. I almost had him. Pain is pain and everybody can bleed. He's going to regret ever putting his fucking hands on me.

Standing up, I sway. My throat is tight and my mouth tastes like I chewed dust. There is a pressure low in my abdomen.

There is a toilet in the rear corner. Hurrying over, I hover and use it, thankful there is even a small roll of tissue.

Bending down, I reach for it and freeze. There is a small camera trained right on the area where I used the toilet.

"Sick fuck." Reaching into the crevice it's sitting in, I try to pry it out.

I'm so busy trying to dig at the thing I don't hear the door open.

"Aht, aht, aht. That just sent ten grand into the coffers, Kandie." My head whips around to see Nathaniel's smug, triumphant expression trained on me. How I ever thought he was handsome is lost on me. All the kindness is stripped away, leaving only a dark evil that permeates his entire being.

Evil. Such a short word, but it's in his very essence.

"What are you doing, Nathan?" Turning toward him, I don't bother covering my body. What's the point? He's seen everything, anyway. I know he wants me to cower. I'll be damned if I give him the satisfaction. I'm going to fight him every step of the way. I learned a long time ago you have to let them think they've won.

"Taking back what rightfully belongs to me — what you and your bitch sister took from me." I watch the evil smile spread across his face as everything clicks into place. I take in the dank walls and the cell with new eyes. Impossible.

"Yeah, nah. It wasn't completely destroyed. The basement level was fortified. Other than the part that caved in on the sheriff, your whore sister, and those deputies, the rest were largely left intact. The whole thing was a tornado shelter. It would take winds up to five hundred miles an hour as mandated by the government and over ten tons of pressure."

"I don't understand?—"

"Of course you don't. I know you can't read." He frowns when his cruel jest doesn't have the impact he hopes. I heard all the dyslexia jokes my entire life. I can read and comprehend. It just takes more concentration and focus.

"Nice, pastor." Giving him a saccharine smile, I keep the smile planted even as he charges me. Standing my ground, I watch his hand descend, lashing my cheek, sending me to the floor.

Quelling my instinct to lounge at him, I remind myself that I haven't eaten or had anything to drink in days.

"Get up, slut." Heaving with his feet planted, his fists curl into tight knots. "I want you to see something."

With slow deliberation, I pull myself to my feet. As soon as I'm standing before him, he grips me under my armpits in a punishing hold, dragging me to the bars. "They're electrified. I'd hope you touch them and get a little shock." He chuckles, pushing me through the doors.

We approach the examination like table. "Not yet. You're not worthy." He shoves me into a steel enforced door. Holding me with heavy pressure by the back of my neck, he deliberately pushes the bruised side into the door. "Stay."

A cold metallic smell fills my nostrils. Inhaling, I give a small prayer that I'm alive and mostly unmolested.

There's a tumbling of a lock and a hiss and the door clicks open. All this lets me know is there is no way I'm getting out of here unless I do some major damage to him.

The passage we enter is cool, dank, and the floor is cold concrete. It looks to have been swept with gravel pushed into the corner.

We go down a couple of doors and I hear the whistle of wind outside.

"There's a storm coming, but that didn't stop good ol' Ulysses from manning the search for you." We walk into a room and he has a whole CCTV set up in the church fellowship hall. There are three long rows of banquette tables set up with a lot of my family, including a heavily pregnant Ezekiel-Jane, Mama and Pa-Pete, Krie, Thad, Maxim, and Ember-Jane answering calls. "It's a shame it's all for nothing. I'm going to make sure they never find your body. I promised Ulysses already I'd send him body parts, though."

Rage strengthens my voice. "All this because I won't date you?" I bite off the ‘pathetic' I was on the cusp of saying, knowing he has no problem hitting women and is probably counting on me to provoke him so he can have a reason.

"I was never interested in you. Well, maybe a little. But you wanted to be a stuck-up uppity bitch until the sheriff crooked his finger at you. The way you spread for him." I keep my gaze forward, watching my family, but I don't miss the shaking of his head from the periphery of my vision.

"Dad was saving you for me. I was supposed to pop your cherry and your stupid ass sister's too. Dad thought twins were a good reward. He was taking his time with you two brats. And what thanks did he get? Your sister killed him." He rounds on me, his eyes bulging out of his face, the green of his eyes scarcely bright against his pale skin.

His hand closes around my throat, squeezing as he seethes. "You're so lucky the bids are coming in fast and furiously for you or you'd already be dead, bitch." Leaning in, he licks the trickle of a tear his cutting off my air causes.

He releases me, making me gasp for air in deep pulls. "The bishop —"

"Was my father? Yes." He switches the camera, and it shines on more darkened rooms. Inside them are small figures. Kids. "Thanks to you, I've had to curtail my other enterprises. This was my last shipment from Rudy formerly of the El Diablos, presently mulch, if I heard correctly thanks to Angel. You've caused so many problems, Kandie. Now I finally get my revenge, breaking the sheriff in the process." He sounds so fucking smug.

"Hey, look. Your 88mm is bringing in seven figures. I teased them up with a few videos of Ulysses fucking you."

Glancing up, I see numbers rolling in. The top bid is over eight million dollars.

"You are going to garner me the biggest payday yet. People are really invested in your demise. Baker, supposed town whore, turned lonely gal waiting for her long-lost beau. It was a fun thing to watch. I have to thank you for making me a millionaire."

Screwing my face up at him, I tilt my head to the side. "You're welcome."

"Come, let's get you fed, now that you're awake." As he takes me back to the room, I try to take note of everything on the way. Try to remember after years of forcing myself to forget this torture chamber. I'm not the one who knew every inch of this place. Kerania is the one who was given free rein as I was locked away. I wish more than ever that we had some type of twin telepathy. Now I can't remember the way out of here and what path would be deeper into the labyrinth of corridors that will take me deeper into his depraved dungeon.

"Be good." He shoves me so hard that I skin my knees when I hit the floor, causing him to chuckle. Quick as I can, I come to my feet, turning on him. "Uh-uh." He presses something in his pocket and I hear a hum. "Wouldn't want a nasty shock. We had to get these because some of these kids are too smart for their own good." He tsks like them trying to be free was a character flaw. Sick asshole.

"I'm going to kill you," I promise, staring at him until his smile falters. Good.

"Oh look who's calling." He flashes his phone to me with the words SHERIFF emblazoned across the screen. "Sheriff, how can I help?" he asks with all sincerity as he pulls the steel enforced door behind him.

Minutes later, food is shoved through a passage. I eye the Lunchables and juice box with suspicion, but the growling of my tummy and tightening muscles has me tearing into the turkey sandwich.

It's devoured in seconds. The juice box sucked cleaned. Tiredness settles on me and I think for a moment he's drugged me, but it's just my body working overtime to digest the food.

It's when I slump back on the cot that I hear a spring pop. I sense more than know that he's watching my every mood. Soon the lights that I assume are on a timer click off. I lie back, pretending to sleep, getting in the position I often do, willing my body to calm the fuck down.

Reaching under the bed, I feel around for what feels like a decade until I find the broken spring. Then another eon working it free. Thanking God for my big titties, I tuck the sharp metal under my boob and wait.

He may as well have drugged me because I sleep like I'm dead and don't even realize he's back until he's rousing me awake.

"Hey sleepyhead, time to get up." I turn, but he's not in the room. "Put your trash back through the door and use the facilities." I sit for a long moment getting my bearings, hoping the spring doesn't fall free.

"Get up, Kandice."

With turtle like deliberation, I get off the bed, gathering the trash, pushing it through the opening it came out of. Facing away from him, I hear him chuckle when I use the toilet backwards. No peep shows and it gives me a chance to tuck the spring deep into the fold of my breast.

When I finish, I stand in front of the bed waiting, not wanting to sit for fear of jostling the spring.

Moments later, he enters with a white wash rag and a bar of soap.

"You get to bathe. I want you to take your time. You have a couple thousand paid subscribers who paid ten-k each to watch you. Now that you are awake, word is out and we have new people joining daily."

I swallow back the vomit rising hot and fast in my throat, drawing on my rage instead.

"Patience." I can almost hear Kerania whisper to me only she's not a kid anymore, but a grown woman. My guardian angel guiding me. She looks more like my mom than me, always has in my opinion, though we are twins. Even across the spiritual plane, I can feel her presence. Their presence — those of my ancestors giving me the strength they always have to press on to keep going. This man will not kill me. My body is my own, no matter what he tries to do with it. They can never take my spirit. My soul is mine. I won't let the destroyer claim me. There are too many good spirits in this place that sacrificed their lives to save those kids all those years ago for me to perish now. I was allowed to come here now — like this to bear witness and free all these kids. I am Kandie, the freedom giver. Just like my ancestors before me, I will find a way to freedom for me and the kids locked into these cells.

"You're being so sweet," he says, reminding me of the phrase we were often told when we were forced to live here as little girls. "Keep being sweet," he says as he leads me down the corridor.

"S-Shock," I stutter on purpose. "I'm hungry." Both are true, but I have plans for him at the first opportunity.

He eyes me, a little smirk spreading on his once kind face. A face that was handsome now screwed in the most evil mask. "You were always the more docile of the two."

Yeah, stay locked in the past, perv. I say nothing, just stare at him like the idiot he is.

His mouth presses into a hard line. "I'll make you a deal. If you do as I instruct, you'll get to eat and not have the cattle prods put to you until tomorrow."

Involuntarily, I step back before I think better of it. He grabs me, pressing his lips against my ear. "Ohhh, I forgot to tell you that your torture is raising as much money as your death."

The cruelty is the point. He does an excellent job of driving the point home.

Hand tight on my upper arm, he propels me forward. I don't miss the smell of blood intermingling with the cold, dank smell of stagnant water.

The pipes have been so out of use they are corroding. This place was never up to standard, and he probably doesn't have the skill set to do everything necessary. This place could flood, then all these kids would be trapped in an underwater grave.

I notice that in this part of the hall there are more doors with cells. I can hear the sobbing and weeping from within.

"Ah, seems like some of my wards are hungry, just like you. Don't worry, I'll get around to feeding them — eventually." He seems to relish the power he has over these helpless kids.

He's so much like his father. I don't know how I missed it. Bishop Smith had dirty blond hair with a receding hairline. I've spent so many years trying to block out his creepy, salivating face that I completely bypassed the similarities in his son.

I didn't even know what happened to the son. I just assumed, like everyone else, that he died in the fire and the subsequent building collapse. If only that had been true.

Now, I've come face to face with my worst nightmare aside from the night of losing my family. This is the singular source of all my night terrors. This underground prison where I listened to other kids being tortured, and I had to endure it. Every day I fought to stay sane and not give in, knowing that any moment I would. I was so tired of being strong. I'm tired now, but I know I have to be resilient just one more time. I have to gin up the strength I need to beat this bastard.

"Here we are." He shoves me into the room that is lined with showerheads and tiled floors. "Keep being sweet and go bathe. Take your time. The viewers are watching."

Keeping my gait unsteady, I make my way over to the wall line of showers. I can feel his eyes on me, already formulating a plan.

Stepping up to the shower, I turn the water spigot to hot. The pressure is heavy and despite the fact that this is probably the least ideal of situations; it feels good when the heavy pressure hits my sore aching muscles. I lean in, making sure the spring that is now biting into the underside of my breast is secure.

"Too much. You're fogging up the lens," he barks from where he's positioned just near the entrance.

Working the knob, I turn it so that a little less water comes out, but not enough to make a difference.

"More." Frustration is obvious in his voice. Out of the corner of my eye, I see he's reading the feedback from the stream as it rolls live from his phone.

Pretending I'm being obedient, I put my hand on the knob again, but I don't turn it.

"More," hissing, he steps down toward a darkened area, taking something long off the wall.

My heart drops when I see that it's a prod. He must know he'll surely kill me if he hits me with that thing while I'm wet.

"I told you to keep being sweet, Kandie." Taking a menacing step toward me, he brandishes the cattle prod, making sure I get it.

"I-I did what you said. The knob it just rusty." Quickly turning, I make a big show of trying to get the knob to turn.

"Figures." Muttering, he leans the cattle prod against the wall, kicking his shoes off, then pulling off his socks, he heads over to me.

Thanking the God of the universe that he's not as tall as Ulysses or my cousins, I say a little prayer of strength and vengeance as he comes behind me.

"I don't mind getting wet for you, love of my life. I may even let you wash me like you did that behemoth idiot, Ulysses. You know he was near tears earlier today when they were telling him all hope is lost and it was now a recovery operation instead of a rescue? It was beautiful to see. I even gave him a little hug and squeeze." His low chuckle is cut off when I whirl around and jam him in the throat with the sharp end of the spring. Blood sprays out of the wound as I snatch the spring back and forth, trying my best to make the gash forming deep as possible. He grabs my throat, taking me down to the slippery slick tiles, but I've got the spring in good.

"You sick motherfucker," I scream, not knowing if it's water wetting my face or tears. His hold tightens, almost making me see stars before he gradually lessens and falls away. I rip out the spring and lose myself in burying it in his neck and face so many times that he's unrecognizable. His face and neck are a bloody mass of goo when I finally collapse beside him.

The water sprays all over me, and the dead body beside me eventually turns cold. Shifting, I look down at my handiwork. Heaving like my body wants to throw up, I fold over my legs beside him, but nothing comes up. My body used the little food I was given yesterday for fuel. I have nothing else to give.

Fishing through his pocket, I take out a set of keys and his phone. It still working but there is no signal.

Looking at it, I see the feed. It's going crazy. So many comments. Then I see a chilling post.

Calm down, the situation is under control. We will be back up within twenty-four hours. All bets are still good.

The time stamp was more than thirty minutes ago. Whoever he is working with will be here — could already be here.

Scrambling to my feet, I rush out the door, grabbing the cattle prod with me.

Two hours later, by the time on the phone, I stand naked at the closed door of El Diablo clubhouse.

My body feels like it's shutting down. I'm shivering. I'm standing at the threshold of enemy territory. So many of them still hate me because of what went down between Easy and Angel.

Let's face it. It was all my fault. Despite the fact that in my eyes I was trying to rescue kids from a terrible fate, I made a mistake that caused Angel to miss Easy's pregnancy and nearly the birth of his son. Saban hasn't been seen since and, like the streets tell it, Snake is still punishing her for her part in the whole debacle.

Still, I know I have no choice as I pull the heavy door open, stepping inside and gripping the cattle prod like it's my only connection to this life.

"What in the holy fuck?" Rocco yells from where he's standing by the bar. "Kandie?" His voice sounding hollow resounds loud in the silence that follows. That's when I realize this is not the regular nightly hang with music, flowing beer and spirits. They were having a meeting.

So much happens in the short moments that follow. Stepping forward using the cattle prod as a staff, I train my eyes on him, then Snake as he comes into view, looking like an avenging demon.

"There are kids underground in cells at the old Shelby County kid's home."

"Kandie?" Snake all but yells as my body chooses that moment to give out.

His worried eyes are the last thing I see.