Chapter 11

ELEVEN

ELLIS

Arthur is waiting out front as we roll up. He gives me a huge smile, like he’s excited to see me as the guy who beat the shit out of me stands to the side.

“Wow, do you look like shit,” he says, like he was under the impression I’d slipped out to get my hair done.

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I respond sarcastically.

“Did you guys shoot Tavish?”

“Not yet. This guy proved to be a bit more… irritating than we anticipated,” Danielle says as Arthur gets a good look at the guy she’d sprayed in the face.

“He got you good, didn’t he, Terry?” Arthur asks.

“Yeah, yeah he did,” Danielle says, talking over Terry who sure sounds like he’s trying to explain that it wasn’t me who did it. “I practically had to save Terry’s life.”

Arthur has me dragged back into the house and returns me to his torture room where he sits on the couch and looks bored as I get smacked around some more. I really wouldn’t recommend it.

“I’m getting tired of this,” Arthur says as he yawns.

“How do you think I feel?” I ask. I’m starting to question if I made the wrong decision running off alone as pain wraps around my body and blood drips from my face.

“Just give me something, anything, and we can be done.”

“Can you give me a hint about what you want to know?” I ask. “Maybe that’ll spark something? But I really want it very clear that I don’t know anything.”

“My hint is that if you don’t tell me something about your father or where he is, I’m going to make you wish you were dead.”

“That’s a really shitty hint,” I mutter.

There’s a knock on the door and a “Sir?”

“What?”

“I need you for a minute,” a man says. Since he’s behind me, I don’t get a look at him before he disappears. Arthur sighs but gets up to his feet and follows him out, leaving me alone with the smaller guy, Miller, who punches far too hard, as well as the guy I stole the phone from.

“Hey, hey you,” the guy whispers, and when I look over, I realize he’s talking to me.

“Me?”

“Eugene, don’t talk to him,” Miller says. “And stop talking to my mom.”

“I’ve never talked to your mom.”

“I know you fucking talked to her,” Miller growls.

“Oh shit, it’s your mom he’s fucking? He was telling me some real nasty and kinky stuff he was doing with her,” I say. “Like graphic stuff.”

Miller turns on the other guy, who holds his hands up. I kind of feel guilty and don’t like that they’re going to fight because of me, but at the same time I’m just happy I have a moment of reprieve. “Dude, I did not. He’s lying. It was a different lovely woman.”

“What’s her name, then?”

“Uh… Bea…leigh.”

“Bealeigh?”

“Yeah?”

Miller punches him right in the face, which is all I need to flash his phone at him and unlock the screen. I scurry over behind the couch as I quickly type the number from Tavish’s phone into this one and send a text to the number. I don’t have long, so I simply write “HELP” before the toe licker is flung over the back of the couch I’d been hiding behind. He crashes into me, and I nearly drop the phone before cramming both back into my underwear, too afraid I’ll lose them.

“What the fuck is happening?” Arthur growls as he rushes into the room.

“Eugene fucked my mother, so now I’m going to cut his dick off,” Miller says as he comes around the corner, knife in hand.

“Knock it the fuck off. Remind our guest how dreadful it is to be with us and then throw him in a room he can’t get out of this time.”

“Got it,” Miller says as he grabs me and drags me out of the room. Once he finds one he deems acceptable, he punches me right in the stomach. “It’d be best to just answer his questions.”

“I… don’t… know the answers!” I whisper as I try to cover my stomach and back away.

He nails me right in the face and I drop down onto the ground and decide I’m just going to cover my head and play dead. He won’t punch a dead guy, right?

No, he doesn’t punch me, he just kicks me before stepping out.

I roll onto my side as I hold my aching stomach while blood runs from my nose. I can taste it from where my teeth cut into my lip. And I feel like I’d have wallowed around on the floor in misery some more if my balls didn’t start vibrating. Quickly, I dig down into my underwear and snatch up the phone and answer it.

“Hello?”

“Huh. I thought this was Tavish the Terrible,” a voice says. The voice is familiar enough that I think it might be the Cassel guy who’d been outside the trunk.

“It’s not Tavish. My name is Ellis, and he said you guys could help and please call the police and we’re on this fucking Murder Island and they’re going to kill me, and I don’t know how to get off.”

“That was a lot to unpack spoken very quickly. But first… aren’t you the serial killer?”

“No! I’m not a serial killer. They tricked Tavish into bringing me here by telling him that I was a serial killer, but I’ve never killed anyone. I shot someone’s pinky off and it was the worst thing I’d ever done. And there was so much blood. And then the way his pinky just like exploded off his hand?—”

“Hey, Leland, the serial killer wants to talk to you,” Cassel calls.

“I’m not a serial killer!”

“Hey, Serial Killer,” Leland says. “What’s up?”

“What’s up is that I’m not a serial killer. I was abducted and brought to some fucking Murder Island, and now Tavish is out there and they’re trying to hunt him down and I’m just really not ready to die.”

“How’s the weather? I’m trying to decide whether I should pack a Speedo or nothing for Jackson.”

“What?” I whisper. Clearly, this guy doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. “Please, Tavish seemed to believe that you guys could help, but maybe he gave me the wrong number.”

“Wow, Tavish was speaking highly of us? What else did he say? Did he say I was pretty? Oh! Did he tell you how Jackson and I met?”

I need to get this man back on track. “Leland, please. You know me… kind of. Like you’ve been coming to the office I work at for years. Please just… like… help me out here.”

“Settle down, settle down. Cassel is trying to get a read on your location, so just stay on the line. You’ve tantalized me with the words ‘Murder Island.’”

“You believe me? That I’m not a serial killer?”

“No, you’re definitely a serial killer, but I don’t want Tavish to die. Not because I like him but because I want to terrorize him for the rest of his miserable life.”

“Who are you people?” I ask.

“Your motherfucking badass guardian angels.”

“I really think I should have just called the police. You sound horribly incompetent.”

“I once killed a man with a pair of earbuds by flicking them so hard they ricocheted off another man’s glasses and went right between the eyes of the guy trying to kill me.”

“Can I talk to the other guy?”

“Were you… were you not just impressed?” he asks, like his ludicrous story could have actually happened.

“Maybe there’s like… someone else? Maybe?”

“Oh hell, no. I’m here for you. Leland will be there lickety-split. Just you hold on to your panties,” he says as the door is jerked open.

“How the fuck did you get a phone?” Arthur demands as he yanks it from me and snaps the phone in half as Eugene, the guy I’d stolen it from, gawks at it. “If I find out whose phone this is, I’m going to make them fucking eat it. Now let’s go. I have a new and improved idea. I have come across some information about your mother and sister.”

My stomach sinks as this information settles. “Please, I don’t know anything, and neither do they. Why do you think my father would have told us anything?”

“I’m just thinking that it was foolish to only take you. But if we have all three of you, surely one of you will talk once we start torturing you. And honestly, it’d be a bit of a waste of time heading over, grabbing them, and hauling them back when we could just take you and have a nice family reunion. How fun!”

“This doesn’t sound fun at all,” I mumble.

“Not for you, maybe. Miller, take our guest. When you land, you will watch him while Terry and Danielle grab the mother and sister. I’ll meet you this evening,” he says before he gives me a little wave, like we’ve just had the best experience together.

“You’re a… monster,” I whisper.

“I know,” he says.

Miller grabs me and starts dragging me. When I jerk back, planning on digging my heels into the ground, he simply pulls out a gun and aims it at me. “Start walking.”

Fear makes me step forward, but if I go with him, aren’t I putting my mom’s and sister’s lives in danger? What if they hurt them or kill them? I don’t know how I could live with myself if something happened to either of them.

I stop where I stand, wishing I could convince them to look away from my family. But what the hell can I even do about it? Even if they shoot me dead, they’ll just go grab my family and torture them. I have to stop them from ever reaching my mom or Sienna.

Terry comes in looking a little red-eyed but is still strong enough to pick me up and start carrying me off. I thrash and struggle, but I’m at a complete loss about what to do. I mean, here’s a chance for me to get off the island, but at what cost?

Honestly, I’m given very little choice as I’m stuffed into a vehicle that he drives over to a smaller airplane than the one we’d come in on. This one doesn’t have any fancy seats or board games or a hostess. I’m tossed down in a basic seat and strapped down, likely not for my own safety but to keep me there so they can watch.

Not that I would accomplish much if I did escape from the seat. I mean… where the hell am I going to go inside a plane?

I look through the large open door, out at the island as I realize that I’m finally getting off Murder Island… but not the way I’d hoped. Tavish is still out there somewhere. Maybe he’ll get off… maybe his weird friends will actually come and save him.

Or maybe we’re all fucked.