Conviction (23 page)

Chapter 31 – James

“How did you fucking expect me to stop her?” Xander growled at James as he hoisted another broken girl up through the small window.

“You could have at least tried!” James whispered back.

Xander watched as the bruised and battered Asian girl was pulled through the window. Only three left. Then they could go after Kelly.

“She snuck out when I wasn’t watching and locked the door, James. I’m sorry, but we need to get these girls out first. They are our priority now.”

“Don’t even get me started on what our priorities are! I fucking know, okay?”

The small window closed and James crouched in front of the tiny woman waiting to be rescued. She was shaking and James wished they had the foresight to bring blankets with them.
Yeah, good one idiot, and how were you going to carry those with you?
Shaking his head he stood and picked up the small girl, hoisting her onto his back.

“Wrap your legs around my waist and hold on around my neck, keep your head down and stay quiet. This will be faster if I carry you this way.”

Asia, as he’d dubbed her, simply nodded into his shoulders and he could feel the dampness of her tears through his shirt.

He took off into the open area his legs already screaming at him to stop. No amount of training had prepared him to carry this many women over two hundred metres one after the other. He hoped that the ones that had made it over the fence had made it to safety. He ignored the pain in his legs and pushed harder, as he ran he felt Asia’s grip on him tighten and the tears continued to flow.

“Nearly there, girl, nearly there,” he puffed out quietly. As he reached the wall Claudette lay on her stomach with her arms out stretched ready to pull the next girl up and over the wall to safety. James swung Asia around and boosted her up by placing his hands under her feet and getting her to jump up.

“Gotcha,” Claudette groaned as she pulled her up in the monkey grip James had showed her. She cried out as Asia grabbed onto her broken bones and James could see the pain had become too much.

“Claudette, it’s time.”

Asia pulled herself up and turned to face Claudette. Without a word, she enveloped the taller girl into a hug, her head sitting just above the other girl’s breasts. Claudette stood stock still as tears poured down her face.

“I’m not done yet. I just…” Straightening her back, Claudette pulled away from the tiny Asian girl that had just given her, her strength back in a simple hug. “We’ll do it together. The next two won’t be able to pull themselves up.”

James felt the edges of his mouth tip up at her sassiness. She will get through her nightmares and her recovery with a determination and strength most women would take for granted. Turning he ran back into the trees without a word, his own determination spurred on by the battered woman standing proud behind him.

When he reached the darkness of the compound window, Xander was waiting for him.

"There's only one left, but she's unconscious. I've tried to wake her...but I think it's too late for her. We can't get her out this way. She'll have to wait until the cavalry arrive."

"You know she won't survive that long, Xander." James said quietly as they stood over the small frame of the unconscious girl. She only looked to be around seventeen, but James knew that in the darkness of the cell she could have been much older or even younger.

"Gentlemen."

Both men whirled at the voice that came from the darkness.

"Anna?"

"I think you might be needing these." Anna paused before reaching out her hand and passing the men the key card that Kelly had given her to hold with strict instructions only to give it to James or Xander when everyone who could be rescued had been.

"How the hell did we miss you?" Xander said as he eyed the shaking women in front of him.

"The shadows are pretty forgiving here, it's easy to disappear when you don't want to be seen. I'm staying with her," Anna knelt down beside the unknown girl and held her hand. "I don't want her staying here alone."

"We can't protect you here, Anna. You need to leave. James will take you to the wall where the other's went over." Xander reached for Anna's arm and was surprised by her ability to not flinch at his touch.

"You cannot tell me what to do. From the moment that you starting rescuing these girls I was free to make my own decisions. I. Am. Staying."

James sighed and Xander ran his hands through his damp hair. Sweat had made his clothes stick to his body and only now that he was standing still did he notice the chill that had crept into his body.

"Let's move Xander, Kelly could be dead by now." James was already at the gates to the cell and swiped the card. "I can do this by myself if you want to stay."

Xander looked back at the two women, one who had lost her life only hours before being rescued and another who stood strongly for the both of them, refusing to give in.

Pulling the blue prints from his pants, they made note of where Devlin's office was knowing that Kelly would head straight for the man who had taken everything from her.

"I'll follow your lead." Xander said as he walked through the open cell door following his best friend.

They had a woman to save.

Chapter 32 – Kelly

Kelly turned into the room where the noise was coming from, her gun aimed and her breath held. The noises she had been following were coming from a small black and white monitor, the image grainy and dark, but Kelly knew exactly what was on it.

The dungeon.

She could see Xander bent over and murmuring to one of the girls on the cell floor, trying to wake her up.

Only one left. The worse of them all, Kelly wondered if she wasn’t already dead. She couldn’t tell from the poor quality if she was breathing.

“Nice of you to join me, whore.” Devlin’s fist hit her like a sledgehammer, just behind her left ear, intended to obliterate her balance so she could be subdued. Kelly had been too distracted by the monitor to notice anyone else in the room. But what Devlin hadn’t countered was the adrenalin that Kelly's body was running on. Kelly spun connecting the butt of the gun with Devlin’s cheek bone and smiling when she heard the satisfying crunch of shattering bone.

“You’ll pay for that, you fucking bitch.” Devlin spat blood onto the floor, blood and teeth. Their tiny clatter sounding like bombs being dropped as the tension in the room rose with anger leaching from Devlin’s every pore.

Kelly held the gun steady, pointing it directly at his head.

“You don’t have the balls to pull the trigger, whore.” Devlin spat at her, the venom in his voice mixed with the blood that still pooled in his mouth making him sound like the pathetic scum of human life he was. He stepped forward towards her, covering the distance in an easy stride.

Kelly ducked and kicked out her legs connecting with Devlin's knees and sending him crashing to the floor. In an instant she was on top of him pinning him down with her knees and angling her body weight to impair his breathing. Her gun was pointed right between his eyes.

"You little..." Devlin spat as he struggled to regain control of the situation. Bucking upwards, he caught Kelly off balance and she rolled into the side of the desk. Devlin kicked out at her with his good leg and connected with her battered ribs.

Kelly screamed and pointed the gun in the direction of Devlin and squeezed the trigger. The boom echoed in her ears, her eyes filled with smoke from the barrel. Kelly's scream continued as bones pierced through her chest and blood started to pour from the wounds. Her ribs had finally had enough.

In the next second all hell broke loose in the large office.

The windows imploded, glass flew into the room and cut into Kelly’s face and hands. She was glad she was wearing the shirt and pants. Two small thumps landed near her and tear gas quickly filled the air and Kelly screamed as the pain in her eyes made her head want to explode. Men wearing black combat gear stormed through the window attached to ropes. Screaming at her to lay on the floor. Kelly dropped to her knees before laying down on the floor, only opening her eyes to see the dead eyes of Devlin King staring back at her. Noise surrounded her as the men quickly grabbed Devlin’s limp arms and cable tied his wrists together behind his back.

Two of the men took off their masks and she immediately recognised one of them.

“Chase? What…why are you here?” No wonder he had never asked her out. He’d been watching her. Kelly’s vision wavered and she smiled as she gave into the darkness that had clawed at the edges of her sanity since she had arrived at the compound. She was done. She knew she could give up knowing that she had succeeded. No more girls would suffer under the evil, twisted hands of Devlin Fucking King.

Chapter 33 – Kelly

Kelly listened to the incessant beeping of the equipment that surrounded her and willed her eyes to open, eventually succeeding as bright light filled her pupils and momentarily blinded her.

"Kelly?" A female's voice. Not familiar at all. Kelly struggled to free herself from the claws of drowsiness. "Kelly, it's okay. You're in the hospital. You're safe now."

"Dev..."Kelly couldn't finish the word, her throat too parched and her tongue feeling like a lead weight in her mouth.

"He's dead, Kelly. He can't hurt you again."

Sobs heaved from deep inside Kelly's chest, rushing to be set free from the confines of the years they had spent in her soul. Tears poured down her face and Kelly made no movement to wipe them away. Although, she wasn't even sure her body would cooperate with any major movements anyway. Her limbs felt like they were ten times their normal size, her head on the verge of exploding from the effort it was taking to allow her emotions to surface. Having spent so many years forced to hold them in, forced to avoid showing any form of weakness, Kelly was finally free to
feel
.

Unable to open one of her eyes, the other clouded with salty relief, Kelly cried deep ugly sobs, wailing into the quiet hospital room where a stranger sat next to her giving her the time she needed to be free.

Hours passed before the doctor was called and Kelly was sedated. She welcomed the relief of the drugs they pushed into her I.V., unable to stop the tidal wave of grief that poured from her soul.

*     *     *

Kelly struggled to sit up, cursing her broken ribs that sent shock waves of pain through her every time she breathed too deeply.

"I said no, Janice." Kelly said, refusing to look the woman who was staring her down from the foot of her hospital bed. "I don't want any visitors, I don't care who they are, unless it's medically necessary nobody gets in this room."

"Kelly, you've been here for two weeks. You've had multiple surgeries, not to mention counselling sessions with me. I think it's time you let someone else in." Janice took a softer approach, which was unlike her. Kelly had found the woman to be nothing but brutally honest and had pushed Kelly to face her emotional demons whilst she physically recovered in the hospital.

"I don't care!" Kelly raised her voice despite her intentions to refuse quietly, but Janice had been pushing to allow Xander and James to visit her. Every day since Kelly had been air lifted from Devlin's compound, at
least
once a day, both of them would ask to see her. Every time she had refused. She was unsure of what her reaction might be. She had cried for three solid days when she had first arrived at the hospital. In between surgeries and the drugs that she had been given for pain she had cried.

At first she wasn't even sure why she was crying. It was easier to figure out why she
wasn't
crying then why she was. The last six years of her life had been a living hell. The only thing that had kept her going was the thought of rescuing her daughter.

Kelly had cried without speaking to a soul, allowing the nursing staff to move and medicate her, but never answering questions or entering conversations. Kelly cried for the pain that she had experienced, for the pain that she was still in. She cried for her a daughter that never existed. A son that never stood a chance. A niece that experienced a short life full of the world's most vile and evil acts. Her parents that died because they believed she was dead, unable to accept that she was never coming back. For love that she couldn't experience, couldn't open her heart enough to accept or bestow on another person.

*     *     *

"I don't give a flying
fuck
what she
says
she wants. If you don't let me in that room right now you might has well let her rot!"

The door slammed open, hitting the stopper on the inside wall. Kelly stared at the man whose bulky frame filled the doorway, his shoulders heaving in anger as he tried to catch his breath. Obviously managing to get around the security that had almost been employed solely to watch Kelly's door.

"Go away, Sarge." Kelly growled, she didn't feel ready to face the world, let alone Sarge.

"Now you listen to me young lady," Sarge said as he stalked to the side of her bed. "I've been waiting out there for two fucking weeks watching those boys of yours come and go. I threatened James that if he didn't go home and shower that I would shower him myself. Now you
know
that would have pleased me to no end. I have sat here and watched staff walk out of here with faces that made me think you had died. You are depressing the nursing staff and I won't fucking stand for it." Sarge was getting so worked up his face was turning various mottled shades of red and purple. A large vein in his forehead had popped out and had started throbbing and pulsing.

"You think you're the only one in pain here? You think I enjoyed watching you being wheeled in here with so many machines attached to you I could barely see you? You think I am
coping
with the fact that I wasn't there when you needed me, Scraps? You think...you..." Sarge broke down in tears, his shoulders slumping and he sat heavily in the rigid hospital chair behind him.

Kelly reached out to Sarge whose hands gripped the side rails of her bed almost as tightly as he had squeezed his eyes shut. Enclosing her small fingers around his large ones, Kelly realised that she had been selfish for far too long. Sarge had been worried about her and she had shut him out.

"Sarge...I'm so sorry," Kelly choked out before they both cried together.

Their hands still entwined, Kelly fell asleep for the first time since she had been admitted without needed to be sedated.