Faint of Heart (17 page)

Stephen walked out of the main room, through a doorway. Alan wiggled his eyebrows at Rebecca and kissed the blade of his knife.

"Is the gag off yet?" Alan asked.

"Not yet."

"Hurry up."

"I'll pick the pace, asshole. Okay, now it's off."

"
Rebecca!
"

It was Gary! His voice was strained, as if he had laryngitis, but he was alive!

"Gary! I love you so much!"

"Are you okay? Did they hurt--?"

There was a loud thump, and Gary went silent.

"No talking!" shouted Stephen from the other room. "You can scream but you can't talk. The first person to use an actual word loses an eye."

"Go on," Alan urged. "Use a word. Say something. Let's empty that socket."

"Are you ready, Alan?" asked Stephen.

"Oh, hell yeah."

"Then let's make the first cut."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Alan pushed the sleeve of Rebecca's sweater up over her elbow. Then he touched the tip of the knife against the back of her arm.

"Does that hurt?" he asked.

Rebecca didn't answer.

"Can't get you to use a word that easily, huh? No problem. That eyeball is coming out one way or another. But for now..."

Very slowly, he pulled the knife down her arm, parting the skin, leaving a red trail down to the back of her wrist.

In the other room, Gary grunted with pain.

"Sounds like Stephen is going deeper than I am," said Alan. "We'll fix that with the next one."

"You done?" Stephen asked.

"Yep. Let's do the other arm."

Alan pushed up her sleeve then held his index finger in front of his lips in an exaggerated "Shhh!" gesture. "Don't tell anybody," he whispered, "but I'm going to cheat a bit."

He placed his hand over her hook-torn hand, winked, and then squeezed his fingers tightly closed. Rebecca cried out.

"Damn, Alan! What are you doing out there?" Stephen asked.

"Nothing, nothing." He then proceeded to cut Rebecca's arm the same way he had the other one, except that he did indeed cut deeper this time. Rebecca sucked in a deep breath through her gritted teeth but didn't scream.

She could get through this. It was just physical pain. Probably not as bad as the pain of having a baby, which they would do for goddamn sure if they survived this ordeal.

"Both arms are leaking bad," Alan announced.

"Time for the neck, then."

"Oooooh, the neck." Alan placed the tip of his blade just under Rebecca's ear. "I'm going to cut you ear to ear. I hope not to sever any important veins or arteries, but a lot of that will depend on you. Be very, very still. Do not move. We're not equipped to help you if blood starts gushing out of your jugular, so be a statue. Understand?"

She stared straight ahead, focusing on a pinpoint spot in the center of Alan's chest, as he slowly drew the blade across her throat. He wasn't cutting deep, probably nothing more than a superficial wound, though she could feel at least two trickles of blood running down her neck.

Don't move...don't move...

Her ears were ringing and she wanted to throw back her head and just shriek like an animal, but she didn't. She remained frozen.

Alan stopped right in the center of her neck. "Does it hurt?"

Still frozen.

He resumed cutting.

Rebecca's mind was in a state of absolute panic, and she wasn't breathing, not even through her nose, but she didn't give in to the terror. Alan slid the blade all the way up to her other ear then held it up to her, showing her the bloody edge.

"She's still alive," he said to Stephen.

"No corpse here, either. I'll bring him out."

There was a loud screech, and then a few moments later Stephen dragged Gary, duct-taped to his own chair, out of the other room.

Lines of blood ran down his neck and his arms, and the side of his face was bruised so badly that he was barely recognizable, but he was still alive. She'd get to hold him again. Share a bed with him again. She knew it. They were going to get out of this.

"The eyeball gouging threat is lifted for one minute," said Stephen, looking down at his wristwatch. "Say what you need to say."

"God, Rebecca, I'm so sorry!" said Gary. "I'm so sorry you got pulled into this!"

"It's not your fault! I love you!"

"I love you too!"

"I promise you, we're going to live," said Rebecca. "We can endure whatever they try to put us through! Just stay strong! We can't come this far only to die, so just promise me you'll stay strong!"

"Has it been a fucking minute yet?" asked Alan.

Gary was sobbing. "I can't believe you did this for me. I love you."

Alan pretended to jam a finger down his throat. "Come on, Stephen, I don't want to hear this bullshit."

Stephen kept his eye on his watch. "They still have time."

Rebecca had nothing else to say. Not in front of these two. She'd save it for when they were together, alone. She mouthed
I love you
and went silent.

"That's it?" Stephen asked. "All right, you two lovebirds. I'm glad you got your final words out of the way. They say that love is blind, and we're going to find out if that is true, because now, we are indeed going to stab out your eyes. Both of them."

Alan chuckled. "And then we're going to cut out your tongues. Not many people get the opportunity to french kiss from across the room."

"They sure don't," said Stephen. "Now trade me."

"What?"

"Trade me."

"Fuck that. She's mine."

"No. She is not."

Alan looked as if he were going to argue then shrugged. "Fine. I can stab out a man's eyes as well as a woman's, I guess. When we get to nipples, we're trading back."

They switched places. Stephen stood in front of Rebecca and clenched his own knife tightly in his fist.

"You're not going to let us live, are you?" she asked.

Stephen shook his head. "Nope. But do you know why I wanted to trade?"

"No."

"Because though my friend is a torture-happy fiend, I am not. I'm all talk. So Gary is going to suffer, but I'm going to put you out of your misery. Do you want to tell him you love him one more time?"

"Not in front of you."

"That's totally understandable." He leaned down close to her, his face inches away from hers. "I'd like to let you two die together, but I'm not a fan of romantic endings. This isn't tragedy. This is horror. Gary is going to be screaming for a long time after you're gone. Good night."

He slammed the knife into her chest.

She barely felt it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It seemed like a sweet mercy to be detached from all sensation, as when she'd watched Todd go into the fire, but it would be leaving Gary behind.

She couldn't leave Gary behind until she was dead.

She wasn't dead yet.

Right now, she was alive, with a knife jutting out of her chest, and Stephen's head only inches away from her own.

She slammed her forehead into his face as hard as she could, not caring if she shattered her skull and sent pieces of her brain flying across the room. She might not be able to get out of this alive, but she could sure as hell make him regret ever kidnapping her.

Stephen let out a howl--an actual howl--and stumbled away as blood jettisoned from his nostrils. He'd pulled the knife most of the way out, though the blade remained lodged a couple of inches deep into her chest.

"God
damn
it!" he screamed, hands over his nose.

Alan seemed to think that was absolutely hysterical. He let out a long, loud laugh. "Oh, man, she really messed you up. Need a towel?"

"No, I don't need a fucking towel!" Stephen used both hands to wipe blood from his face onto his shirt. "I think she broke it."

"Not a bad guess from all the blood."

Rebecca's hands and feet were taped, but her torso wasn't, so she thrust it back and forth several times. The knife dropped out of her chest and onto her lap. Her chest was bleeding, but not nearly as bad as Stephen's nose.

Gary saw that she'd freed the knife, and began to slam back against his chair, trying to topple it over. She knew exactly what he was trying to do: create another distraction.

"What the hell are you doing?" Alan asked, stepping behind him and smacking Gary on the back of the head.

Rebecca couldn't lift her knees much, but it was enough. She grabbed the knife by the blade, twisted it around in her fingers, and went to work cutting through the duct tape that bound her wrist. It was a good, sharp knife.

Gary jerked himself to the side, toppling over his chair. The chair didn't break apart and Gary wasn't in a much better position than before, but Alan was looking at him instead of Rebecca.

She cut through most of the tape then yanked her hand free.

Stephen was still staggering around the room, hands pressed tightly against his face, bellowing in agony. If only a bone fragment had shot into his brain.

"You think you're gonna get away from me like that?" asked Alan, kicking Gary in the chest. "Is that what you think? You think you're gonna get a less painful death?"

Rebecca slashed through the duct tape binding her swollen, bloody hand, cutting through the skin in the process, and then went to work on her feet.

Alan kicked Gary so hard that Rebecca thought she heard his ribs crack, and then he realized what Rebecca was doing with the knife. She freed her left foot.

Alan strode across the room toward her, holding his own knife in front of him. As he passed Stephen, he smacked him hard on the shoulder. "Snap out of it! It's just a broken nose, for fuck's sake!"

Rebecca's hand was trembling so badly that she could almost feel the bones rattle, but she cut through the last piece of tape.

She leapt out of the chair like a wild animal. She didn't care that Alan had a knife--she had one, too. If she hesitated, if she was the least bit squeamish or frightened, she'd be dead. So would Gary. Her husband was lying right there on the other side of the room, and God damn it she was going to get him back.

She lunged at him with her knife at the exact moment that he swung his toward her face.