Beyond Ransom (The Ransom Series) (8 page)

Message

I stare at the piece of paper in front
me, the blank page as confusing to me as why I’m sitting at one of the tables
with three of Mark’s men instead of in the hot seat at the front of the room.

It’s strange to be in this room again. 
It’s the first time I’ve been back here since
my throat was
almost cut completely open.  It’s also strange to not be bound to a
chair or writhing on the floor in pain.  Some of the men have been eyeing me up,
but other than that
,
I’m being treated like any one of
them, even allowed to eat a meal with them here instead of in my cell.

When Mark finally enters the room
,
anxiety creeps into me.  I haven’t seen him since his visit the
prior evening.

He gives me a knowing smile, and my
cheeks immediately redden.  “So nice to see you, Morgan.”

I nod and smile, maybe a little more
than I should be given my situation.  This doesn’t go by Mark unnoticed.

He bends down close to my ear. 
“Someone’s looking smug today.  Tell me what’s causing that smile on your
face.”

He’s not going to ruin my little
victory.  I’m going to bask in it a bit, enjoy it while I can.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I bite
back.

“I could beat it out of that pretty
little face of yours, you know.”

He’s right, and I should be scared
shitless by his threat, but I find he’s only bolstering the tough facade I’m
putting forward.  A tiny portion of me is screaming to cut the attitude and go
back to
being
obedient and submissive, but I tuck the
voice away.

“You won’t touch me.”

The room suddenly goes quiet, and I
know I’ve crossed a line.  I’m playing with fire here, letting it dance around
within inches of me, tempting it to engulf me.

In one swift movement, Mark slams my
head cheek-down to the table at the same time he twists my arm back as far as
it can go.  He holds me there, on the edge of pain, exerting his power and
force over me, and he is strong.  I hold my breath, trying to keep this
position he has me in from becoming more painful.

“You forget your place, little girl,”
Mark says through gritted teeth.  I feel him barely maintaining control in the
slight shake of his hold on my head and arm.

The moment he loses it
,
I feel every bit of his fury.  He yanks my arm back unnaturally,
and with a slight click in my shoulder
,
a sharp,
intense pain explodes from me.  I scream out at first, as loud as I can
possibly scream because my body can’t do anything else.  In my natural reaction
to try to move my arm back to its normal position
,
the
pain only increases and Mark’s grip on me tightens.

I don’t know if this pain is beyond tears
or if I’ve actually become stronger in the last week, but I don’t cry.  I’m
stuck under his grasp and at his mercy, my tiny period of power having slipped
from my fingers, but no tears run down my face.  Mark’s back in control, a
message he’s made loud and clear.

By the time he lets go of me, I’m
gasping for breath, trying desperately to work through the stabbing sensation
in my shoulder.  I try to move my arm again, achieving some success but no
longer able to bring my arm back to a normal position.

He fucking dislocated my shoulder.

I look up at Mark circling the table
with
a pocket knife in his hand that he keeps opening and
closing over and over, taunting me.  “You’ve just made what’s coming next a lot
harder on yourself, dear.”

I don’t say anything.  I can’t.  I’m
afraid that if I open my mouth I might spit out something I’ll regret, and I
really don’t feel like giving Mark a reason to make me scream again.

Mark slams the pocket knife blade-first
into the table in front of me, just inches from the blank sheet of paper that
rests forgotten there.

“It’s time to write a message,” Mark
says, motioning to the knife.

I stare at him blankly.  “I don’t
understand.”

“You’re writing a letter home, to good
old
mom
and
pop
.  They’ll
love to hear from you.”

I look
over
the table then glance at the floor around us.  There are no writing utensils in
sight.  Only a knife.

And my blood is the ink.

The door opens behind us
,
and I’m relieved to see Leo enter.  He’s trying to act casual, but
I can tell behind his slicked
-
back dark hair and cloudy
blue eyes that he’s
frantic
right now.  I’m sure he
heard the cry of pain that I just sent soaring through the entire building.

I reach for the knife, and it’s as if I
just took the pin out of a grenade.  Mark pulls me back, pain tearing at my
shoulder in the movement, as every man at the table stands up and the closest
one grabs the handle of the knife.  The entire room is up and ready to move to
action.

“I want to do it,” I say quickly. 
“I’ll do it myself, just give me the knife.”

Mark throws me forward into the table in
his release of me.  “You really think I’m that stupid, girl?”

“You really think I can stab someone
within feet of this audience?”  I motion around the room with my non-injured
arm.

Mark’s circling the table again,
considering what I’ve offered.  At the same time I’m wondering what the hell I’m
thinking.  I’d like to think I asked to do this because I can be more gentle
harming my own body than if I let Mark or one of his men do it.  The reality I
know to be true is
that
I’m trying to maintain some
form of the power I’ve felt since last night.  I want that control in any way I
can get it.

Mark nudges the man holding the knife. 
“Give it to her.”

The man looks up at his boss in shock. 
He clearly disagrees with the decision that’s been made.

This is working out even better than I
thought.  I’m causing discord among Mark’s own ranks.

“Give her the fucking knife, Willis, or
do I need to test its sharpness on you first?”

That’s all the encouragement the man
needs.  He extends the knife to me
hesitantly
, and I
cautiously
accept it.

It’s a small blade, but its precise
edge tells me it’s plenty sharp.  It takes me a moment to figure out how to do
this.  Mark was right when he said my shoulder issue would make this harder.

Holding the knife on my injured side, I
slowly bring my other hand close to it.  There’s a shakiness in the movement
that I can’t control, as if some part of me is fighting back against my actions
from the inside.  I will past it, though, and touch the blade to my skin.

It’s a sharp, almost burning pain
across the tip of my forefinger.  Crimson blood instantly pools out of it and
begins to drip down my finger toward my palm.  I quickly turn my finger
downward toward the paper to write my message.

In all the commotion
,
I didn’t even consider what I’d write.  This is my chance to
communicate
with
my parents, and for a moment I’m clueless what to say.

There are so many things I would be
expected to say–that I love them and miss them, that I’m okay and holding on
for them to save me–but I quickly find that there is only one thing to say to
them.

In the time it’s taken for me to come
up with my message
,
a few drops of blood have already
fallen onto the page.  I feel like I’m involved in some fucked
-
up art project as I slowly draw my bleeding finger over the paper.

Even though the message is short, it
takes a second fresh cut to pull enough wet blood to write it.

I’m so sorry.

– M

When I’m finished
,
I ball my hand into a fist to help stop the residual bleeding.  In
the metallic scent around me and the red liquid spread over the page in front
of me
,
I suddenly feel surrounded by blood, and for a
moment I panic at what I just did and the message I’ve just written.

Mark grabs the paper from the table and
inspects it, the psycho teacher reviewing his student’s work.  His mouth turns
into the widest grin.
 
“Well done.  I think your
family will love it.”  He pats me on my injured shoulder, causing me to wince. 
“Now to take care of this little problem.  It’s your lucky day, though.  Leo is
an expert at resetting dislocated shoulders.”

Leo stands up before Mark even finishes
talking.  He looks pissed off, more than ready to get me out of this room.  He
grabs me by the other arm to pull me up to standing.

“Oh, and Leo,” Mark says as we’re about
to reach the door.  “Take the girl to the showers.  I don’t need her stinking
up the place.”

My eyes go wide as the whole room
groans loudly in disappointment.  Leo apparently just won the
damn
lottery.

He nods back at Mark before pushing me
out the door.

Protocol

“What the fuck were you thinking?”  Leo
is angry with me as we’re walking down the hallway, and I can’t deny that it
scares me to see this side of him.  “I didn’t even have to be in the room to
know you did something to provoke Mark into knocking your shoulder out of its
socket.”

I stop in my tracks behind Leo,
becoming increasingly angry that he’s upset with me for pushing back a little,
for standing up to Mark and not giving in to his every fucking wish.

Leo comes to a halt and turns around,
approaching me with his hand extended like he’s going to grab my arm and drag
me, but I pull away before he reaches me.

My temper snaps, and I can’t control
it.  “You do realize my entire life has been one endless succession of people
ordering me around?  I’m not sure I’ve ever made a significant decision that
was completely my own in all my life.”  I think on this statement for a moment
and correct myself.  “Well, until last night, that is.”

It takes a moment, but some of the
anger finally leaves Leo’s face.  He looks behind him and then to the hallway past
me, checking for onlookers before closing the distance between us.  His hand is
on my good shoulder with the slightest touch, and I can almost feel the warmth
of his body radiating into me.

“I’m trying to protect you, but I can’t
protect you from yourself,” he says in frustration.

I take the opportunity to grab Leo’s
free hand with my own and squeeze it gently.  It’s not clear to me why I feel
like he needs support more than I do in this moment, but I want to give it to
him.  For a moment the cement walls and stale conditions of the prison around
us seem to melt away and it’s just the two of us standing there, perhaps both
trapped and lost.  I wonder if together we can be free.  Maybe we can both be
found.

“I’m not being self-destructive just
for the hell of it,” I explain.  “I’m learning
not
to
be afraid, and I guess that has consequences.”

“You should be afraid.”  Leo’s face and
tone are serious.  He pulls me by our connected hands to encourage me to move
again.

“Why do you keep saying that?  Mark’s a
bad guy.  I get it.  I’ve seen it.  Why do you feel like you need to engrain
this in my brain?”

Leo glances back to me as we make a
turn at the end of the hallway.  “Because one of these days he’s going to break
you, and I won’t be able to stop him.”

I’m about to press him further when we
come to what appears to be an empty locker room.  Half of the space is filled
with bathroom stalls and sinks, and the other half features an open tiled space
with showerheads and temperature knobs on the wall.  I’ve never been happier to
see a shower in my life.

Leo directs me to a long counter under
a metal mirror that covers the wall.  “We need to fix your shoulder.”

I have no idea what he needs me to do,
but it doesn’t matter because he takes care of everything for me.  He scoops me
up in his strong arms and lies me down on the counter with my injured shoulder
hanging off the side.

The way I’m lying here looking up at
him reminds me so much of last night, and I can see the same feeling reflected
in his hungry eyes.  For a moment our heavy breathing is the only sound between
us, but the moment quickly fades away.

Leo seems to snap out of it as he
adjusts his position around me, grabbing my
wrist
with
one hand and putting pressure
against my armpit
with
the other hand.  “This is going to hurt like hell,” he warns, “but the pain
will go away afterward.”

I take two deep breaths, though I’m not
sure they really do anything to prepare me for what he’s about to do.  “Ready.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and
with
slow and steady force, he pulls
my arm while countering with
pressure
at
my shoulder.  I scream out involuntarily
and squeeze my eyes shut.  It is the most excruciating thing I have ever felt
in my life, but
when my
shoulder clicks back into place there is instant relief.

Leo holds me there a moment until I
brave an attempt at movement of my arm.  It’s still tender, but I have free
range of motion of the joint again.  Leo put me back together.

“Thank God,” I say, utterly relieved.

“You don’t have to call me God,” Leo
says with a smirk.

I’m so grateful for the little bouts of
humor he sometimes injects into our interactions.  Despite it all, he can still
say things to make me smile.

I sit up and try to hop off the counter
,
but Leo abruptly stops me.  We’re having one of those moments
again, those connections that start from something so insignificant as a glance
or touch but cause the most intense feelings and desires to boil up within us. 
I can see it written all over his face and feel it in the heat that takes over
my body.

“I’m supposed to let you shower now,”
Leo says, his voice low and sultry.  He tips his head down and leans forward
just enough so that our foreheads are touching, our faces aligning perfectly
with each other.

“Mm-hmm,” I mumble.  My body reacts
naturally to his advance, nuzzling my face against his until his hands are at
my waist.  His fingers move quickly up to my neck before he flips them over and
trails them slowly down my skin to the top of my breasts.

“Your skin is so soft,” he breathes
out.  He moves his head back just enough to allow space for our lips to meet. 
“There are no words to describe…” his voice trails off as his tongue finds
mine.  He’s given up speech at this point, continuing our conversation with
movements instead of words.

He pulls away from me mid-kiss, barely
able to squeeze out one word before I pull him by his neck and shoulder back to
my lips.  “Protocol,” he mutters.

“What about protocol?” I quickly ask
between kisses, ready to move on from this talking business.

He pulls away completely this time and
steps back out of my reach.  “I’m not supposed to touch you like this.  There
are rules I need to follow.”

I think for a moment, though it’s hard
to concentrate when my mind is in collusion with my body to get this man to
touch me anywhere and everywhere again.  It suddenly comes to me.  “What does
protocol say about me touching you?”

Leo stands there a bit bewildered.  I
give him two whole seconds to come up with a reason why I shouldn’t strip him
down right now.

He says nothing.

I hop off the counter and stumble the
few feet forward against Leo’s solid chest.  My open palms run up and down the
defined lines of his muscles one time before taking his shirt up with me the second
time.  With his height over me, I’m barely tall enough to get the shirt over
his head.

When his shirt is off I take him in,
every curve of his abs and the slight sheen of sweat on his darker shade of skin. 
I’m overwhelmed by the canvas of tattoos that is his chest, my fingers running
over them as if to learn their stories and meaning through my touch.

I quickly realize that there are other
markings on his skin, the kind that he didn’t put there himself.  Raised white
scars are scattered throughout him: some in lines, others in circles, some with
jagged edges, others perfectly straight.  They likely tell a much different
story than the tattoos.  I want to learn all of them, but not right now.

Right now I’m too busy unbuttoning his
jeans and working them down his hips.  My hands immediately go to the arousal
in his black boxers.  I stroke him gently with my touch at first, and his body
shivers in response.

I need to give Leo more, taking my hand
away from him to pull down his remaining clothes.  It seems so natural to seem
him standing there naked in front of me and just as natural for my hand to
grasp hi
m
fully. He is gorgeous, a perfect specimen,
and more man than I have ever seen in my entire life.

My lips reengage his, kissing him more
fervently now as my hand works him up and down.  I can feel his control
slipping away even before he makes a move for the bottom of my shirt and breaks
our kiss to get it over my head.

“What about protocol?” I ask as he unclasps
my bra from behind my back.

“Fuck protocol.”

He’s desperate now, kissing at my neck
and biting gently at my skin there.  When the air touches the areas he’s kissed
,
I feel a cool tingling sensation on my skin that somehow only
increases the heat burning inside me.

The kisses follow to my shoulder and
then down my chest to my breasts.  I’m still holding on
to him, squeezing him and stroking him as
he expertly unbuttons my shorts and pulls them down with my underwear.

We’re both naked and desperate, lost in
each other for this moment that is solely ours and feels so right.  I’ve never
felt this level of attraction with someone.  I know this is wrong, that this
man is just as guilty in my capture and torture as Mark, but I want this.  I
know I shouldn’t like it, but I do, so I continue letting Leo caress my breasts
and neck and lips with endless kisses while I feel him and pleasure him and
bask in this experience with him.

After one last particularly passionate
exploration of my mouth with his tongue, Leo forces himself away from my lips
and my touch.

“Shower,” he pants, pulling me with him
next to one of the showerheads on the wall.

He takes only a moment to turn the knob
before he returns to kissing me, wrapping his arms around my back so that my
breasts press up against his solid chest.

I can feel the icy temperature of the
water splashing from the stream as it meets the tile
d
floor until warmth finally works its way into the water droplets that hit us. 
Leo pulls back slightly, his shoulders entering the water first until he pulls
us both into the warm stream.

My lower body trembles as Leo’s fingers
find my clit, rubbing me and caressing me there
. 
I break
our kiss and clutch his shoulder in my body’s natural response to what he’s
doing to me.  It only makes me grasp on to his cock harder and pleasure him
faster.  He seems to harden even more
within my hand
.

Knowing that he’s close and
that
I’m the one who’s causing this reaction in his body is enough
to push me orgasm, my hips
rocking
against his touch as
I cling desperately to him for support from the high and the shakiness it
causes in my entire body.  It only takes a few quiet gasps and moans of
pleasure from my lips to bring him to release, and he grips me back just as
tightly during his orgasm.

We don’t say anything as the water
rinses us down and washes away the remnants of our intimate exchange.  Leo
holds me, and I hold him back.  I wish we could stay connected like this
forever.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.  I can feel
him shaking his head over my shoulder in our embrace.

Even though he can’t see me do it, I
smile.  “I’m not.”  I pull back to look up at him, his eyes laden with concern
and guilt.  My hands move up to his face, trying to work away the worry there. 
“I don’t know what it is about you, Leo.  Being here with you, being in this
whole situation… it’s done crazy things to me.  I’m not the same girl you
originally threw in this place.”

“I know, and I’m sorry we’ve taken that
from you.”  He turns away.  He can’t even look at me.

“What I’m trying to tell you,” I
continue, “is that I’m fine not being that girl anymore.  In some really
strange and fucked
-
up way, I like who I am here.  I’m
not as afraid anymore.  I make my own decisions, or try to anyway, even if
there are consequences.  I fight for what I want.  I’ve never lived like that
before.”

“Then you’ve never truly lived.”  Leo’s
face is sad as he says it, almost with too much understanding.  Perhaps he
knows where I’m coming from.

“No more sadness,” I say, grasping both
sides of his face to force him to look at me.  “No more worry.  I’m in this. 
It’s happening whether I like it or not, so I’m going to make the best of it. 
I’m going to live, Leo, even if it’s only for a short amount of time before
Mark puts me in the ground.”

I can’t help the constriction in my
throat at saying these words.  It’s the first time I’ve really acknowledged to
myself that there is a true possibility I will not survive this.  It’s the first
sign that in some ways I’ve given up hope of rescue completely.

All I have left is Leo.

My hands slide down his shoulders and
arms to sneak around his torso, pulling us together as tightly as possible as
his gentle touch encircles my back.  His breathing is deep and steady.  He’s
strong, not just in his bulging muscles
,
but in the
resolve with which he seems to take each breath.  I want to embrace that
strength, t
o take
a part of it with me when we leave
this room and let it bolster me and help keep me in one piece so that I may
continue to live.

Leo sighs deeply.  “I just want to
protect you in the way that I was never protected.”