Callum & Harper (32 page)

“
I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” he said, bending slightly and bringing his face dangerously close to mine. I sunk into the shelf as far as I could go but he just moved with me. He bent further and ran his tongue up the side of my neck, making me shudder in fear. “I can taste your fear, you know?” He said. My body recoiled from him but he grabbed and brought me even closer. “And you should be afraid.” Tears spilled down my cheeks.

“
I loved you,” he whispered against my face, almost choking on his own words, my hair feathering back slightly from his breath, “and you screwed me over so badly, Harper. I just can’t believe you’ve done me like this.” His jaw clenched tightly. “You screwed me!” He yelled, hitting the shelf loudly and I involuntarily glanced Callum’s direction to make sure he didn’t see us.

That was my first mistake. John smiled at me, clenching a meaty hand over my throat as he stared through the glass windows over to Callum’s side. He noticed Callum working and his grip tightened around my throat, cutting off my breath. I clawed at his hand with both of mine, drawing blood. I felt the blood vessels in my eyes begin to pop and black spots dot my vision.

Suddenly, John let go and I sucked in a burning breath. My throat was on fire and I doubled over, dry heaving. I felt sick to my stomach that I was forced to lean on him for support.

And John had seen Callum.

I tried to scramble away from him, to run to the windows. My plan was to warn him but John tossed me onto my back, straddling my legs. He pinned my arms above my head and brought his face in close. He kissed me hard, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth and bit down hard, drawing blood. I cried out in pain.

    “
Do you think your husband might enjoy watching this?” He asked, sitting up. When I didn’t answer, he slapped me hard across the face, making me wince. “Answer, you stupid, selfish bitch!” He yanked at my left hand and brought it up to him, pinching my thumb between his own and his forefinger before walking his fingers over the tips of my index and middle finger, stopping at my ring finger. “I’m gonna’ cut this ring from your finger, whore.” I softly began to cry. He was going to torture me before my death and he was going to thoroughly enjoy it.
    John stood up and dragged me by my hair toward the window facing the lobby. “Come on, Harper.”

I grappled at his hands as a monster headache began to split through my temple. John brought me up to his level, my feet dangling over the ground, before slamming my face into the glass, my head pounded harshly. Callum still had his ear buds in, thank God, and he didn’t hear us. I prayed that John would give up but knew that was unlikely. He reached behind him and removed the pistol he’d been hiding in the waistband of his jeans. He lifted the gun and placed the barrel against the glass, pulling the trigger and shattering it into a million pieces, making me scream and finally catching Callum’s attention.

Callum sprung up from his position, throwing his iPod down, and ran to the glass on his side of the fourth floor. I shook my head at him as he pounded against the glass, screaming my name. ‘Please’, I mouthed to him. He began to run our direction but I screamed for him to run away. Callum’s hands pressed against the glass and he walked them across the panes towards the door that lead to the open walkways, as if that could get him any closer to us.

Callum threw open the door, slamming his fists into the Plexiglas of the walkway directly across from us. “Let her go!” He yelled, his request echoing across the marble lobby flooring and bouncing all around us. His voice soothed me, each word caressed my skin, giving me a peace I didn’t think could possibly come in that moment.

John dragged me across the glass on the floor, over the metal divider that once held the thick glass window pane, and slammed me against the Plexiglas. “You!” John screamed, silencing Callum’s demands. He brought the gun up and pointed it directly at Callum. Calmly, he said, “You’re going to pay for taking her. Simply put, she belonged to me and you had no right. Granted, she should have told you as much, and trust me, she will pay for her dishonesty, but so will you. If you want to be mad at anyone, it should be this untrustworthy slut!” He said, his words growing in heat until he was spitting the last. He slammed my head against the Plexiglas on the word slut.

“
If you kill Harper,” Callum gritted through his teeth, slamming his fists into the walkway cover loudly, making me flinch at the unusual aggression, “so help me God, I will hunt you down like the dog that you are. I will string you up by your feet and flay your skin from your body!” He bellowed in a fit of rage, the veins in his neck growing thick with the exertion. “Get.Away.From.Harper! Let her go and we can finish this man to man!”

“
Temper, temper, mister Tate. Remember yourself, sir. Remember that
I
have her.
I
have the gun. You have
nothing
. And nothing’s what you’ll leave this world with, I’ll make sure of that.”

Callum’s chest pumped three times with heavy breaths, his loaded stare icing even me over, before he began to run, skidding along the floor, when John aimed his gun and shattered the Plexiglas wall nearest him, causing me to scream his name. He ran out of sight, visibly making John nervous.

“
Walk ahead of me,” John said, pushing me the direction Callum had been running.

We walked the length of the walkway before entering back into the library, circling around the front, heading towards the room we saw Callum disappear into. As we walked past the elevators, I breathed an inward sigh of relief that I could hear the thrum of the cables and John didn’t. We walked straight into the book sorting room, John slamming the door behind us and locking it. The room was pitch black so John pulled me to the floor with him, dragging me behind him as he searched each dark crevice. I wasn’t frightened, I knew Callum wasn’t here, that is until John pulled me up with him as he stood against the wall.

He covered my body with his, pressing his front to mine as close and as hard as he could. John pushed his nose to my throat and inhaled me again, making me want to vomit. I held back the acid though as he kissed up my neck and trailed his lips along my jaw line.

“
At first,” he whispered, startling me, “I’ll be soft and drive any idea of that asshole out of your mind. I’ll make it so good, you won’t remember him.” I pinched my eyes closed and swallowed hard in disgust. Then he kissed me, slowly, taking his time, running his hot tongue over me and I could feel the bile rise in my throat. I almost wished I’d vomit in his mouth but I knew he’d make me pay dearly if I did. “Kiss me back,” he begged, breathless, like this intimate moment was totally normal. I clenched my teeth together and dug the back of my head deeper into the wall. He slammed my body hard against the wall. “Kiss me back!” He yelled, striking me hard in the face.

“
N-no,” I trembled.

He pushed his face close to mine, nose to nose. I could feel his breath fan across my face. “Kiss me back or I’ll take you right here on the floor, slut.” I tremulously inched closer to his face and pressed my closed mouth to his, squeezing my eyes closed as if that could make me forget. “Open your mouth, Harper,” he said, but I just couldn’t voluntarily do it. I knew it would anger him but I couldn’t make myself do it.

He yanked me to the floor hard,  bruising my hip. “No!” I cried. “Please, please!”

“
Shut up!” He screamed in my face, making me sink away from him, turning my head into the floor. “God, you don’t get it, do you? You make me do these things to you, Harper. I never wanted it to be this way.” He started unbuttoning my coat and I fought with what little nails I had left. He grabbed hold of my wrists and pinned my hands beneath a leg strait-jacket while he went back to work, undoing each button like he had all the time in the world. I was openly crying now, wondering where Callum was and hoping he got away to call the authorities. When they showed up, I knew it’d be too late. I’d either be raped, dead, or both. It looked like both. “If you had only obeyed me, Harper, all those years ago we’d probably be happily married ourselves and those girls would never have had to suffer.”

“
No!” I screamed, thinking of what he must have done to those innocent women.

He slapped me across the face again to shut me up and kept working. When he edged the jacket off my shoulders, he kept it there for extra restraint and began unbuttoning my plaid shirt, exposing my white tank top. He sighed loudly, grotesquely happy at his progress and the sight before him. His fingers were unusually warm as he lifted the hem of my tank. As it edged up my torso, he pressed delicate kisses to my stomach, stopping at my belly button, sinking his tongue inside. I turned my head and vomited all over the floor next to me.

He sat up abruptly. “Do I disgust you, Harper?” He asked, the hurt evident in his voice. “
Do I
!?” He roared. “Get up,” he said. “Can’t have you tasting like vomit.” He threw me out the door and I stumbled onto the carpet. He gripped my upper left arm hard as he pulled me up and walked me toward the restrooms on the opposite side of our floor. He pushed me inside over to the nearest sink. “Wash your mouth out,” he ordered.

I obeyed him, rinsing out my mouth but when I raised my gaze into the mirror above the sink, I barely recognized myself. My face was bruised and bleeding. My bottom lip was swollen as well as my right eye from each back hand I’d received. I was surprised to see that the blood vessels in my eyes hadn’t actually burst, that it had been my imagination.

John stood behind me, caressing my hair, straightening out the strays from our scuffles. I shuddered in revulsion. He bent over me and pulled several paper towels from the dispenser at my left. He ran them through warm water, never taking his eyes from my reflection. He squeezed out the excess water and began cleaning up the dried blood around my mouth that I had yet to clean as well as the blood from around my busted brow and neck.

“
There,” he said, kissing my temple, “now let’s get out of here before your asshole husband returns with the police.”

I gripped the sides of the sink. “Are-are you going to kill me?” I asked point blank.

“
Eventually, yes.”

Dream is Collapsing

Callum

   
I’d called the police, briefly spoken with the detective handling our case, and been advised to leave the building. Sure. Now that they were on
their
way, I was on
my
way to beat the living shit out of the murderer who had my Harper on the fourth floor. I tipped over one of the reading tables on the third floor not caring if he heard me or not and unscrewed one of the heavy legs to use as a makeshift bat. I knew if he’d touched her, touched a single hair on her head, that I was going to smash that bat in his disgusting face.
    I spun open the door, studying the floor I hoped they were still on. I edged up the crosswalk stairs but stopped at the top. I knew I’d have to make a sprint for the door as there was no hiding from all the glass windows but I wanted to know exactly where they were before I did that, knowing John could just shoot through the glass the second he saw me. I desperately tried to see but it was of no use. That’s when I heard the most blood curdling scream come from behind the glass door. Forgetting the risk, I raced through to the door, practically tearing it off the hinges but they weren’t visible. I ducked behind a stack and quieted myself, listening.
    “It’s on the bottom floor,” Harper said, terror laced in her voice.
    “Where?” John asked softly.

I followed the sound of his voice until I came upon them stuck between two stacks. He had her pressed against the shelves, his hand studying her face like they were lovers. Harper looked beyond frightened and John looked like he loved it all the more because of that.
Sick bastard.
I bit my heels into the floor when he kissed her neck intimately, making Harper’s bottom lip tremble. He acted like he had all the time in the world which made me wonder if he didn’t care if he was caught. And there was only one reason he wouldn’t care about being caught and that terrified me.

“
Walk,” John ordered her toward the elevator, walking right past me. I burrowed deeper into the shadows.

As they walked to elevator, John leaned over Harper and pressed the button. I stalked closer, trying desperately to stay as quiet as possible. The wait for the doors to open was agonizing. Finally, they opened and I made my move. Heaving the bulky table leg over my head, I swung on John and it smacked him square in the back. Unfortunately, the brute was so large, it barely made an impact. I shoved Harper in the elevator and pressed the first floor button, turning back to John as quickly as possible and swinging the table leg toward his head but missed, just as the doors began to close, I jumped in with Harper. The doors closed completely and Harper startled when John began to beat at the doors.

“
Harper!” Bang. “Harper!” Bang. “I’m going to kill him for that! And you’re going to watch, you stupid bitch!” John screamed, making Harper tense beside me.

We began our descent but it didn’t last long. John was pressing the button and the elevator began its ascent once more. Harper wisely pulled the stop switch as well as the alarm bell. I didn’t have time to tell her that was useless, that I’d already called the police, because we heard John bellowing out Harper’s name. She sidled up to me and I wrapped my arms around her. Three clear shots rang out, making us both tense.