HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) (2 page)

              “What do we have here?” asked Grizzly in a gravely tone that made Hunter’s skin crawl.

              He leaned down towards Hunter, who recoiled, chin to chest, wincing. Her father hooked his thick finger under the neckline of her shirt, scooping up the chain that hung beneath.

              Grizzly drew the chain up, pulling the entire length of it out from under her shirt until the bullet pendant emerged.

              “You kept it,” he said. The statement implied so much more than the words. The fact that she still wore the bullet necklace he had given her was giving Grizzly all kinds of new and twisted thoughts.

              The rise of excitement in his voice told Hunter that Grizzly was hoping she missed the farm, hoping perhaps that she didn’t want to let it go, as though keeping and wearing the necklace was evidence of all that.

              “I’ll never forget where I came from,” she said in a low tone, brassy with resentment. “It doesn’t mean I’d ever go back there.”

              “It means you miss something about it,” he countered. “You used to kill all on your own,” he continued, causing Hunter to grimace in self-disgust. “Do you miss that?”

              Hunter pressed her lips together in a hard line, refusing to answer, and diverted her glaring gaze.

              Grizzly began to laugh in a deep booming tone intended to mock and degrade Hunter. What he had referred to captured the worst part of Hunter’s past, choices she had made that she deeply regretted. Nothing hurt like the truth, but he was wrong about one thing. She didn’t miss it.

              “I bet you miss a lot about life on the farm,” he said, his words twisting with darkness, stabbing into her most raw wounds, wounds that would never heal, wounds he had given her. “Remember when I gave you that bullet? Do you remember what you had to do to get it?”

              Hunter said nothing, did nothing to give away the disgust that was creeping up her throat. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

              “Ash, here, has the same one,” he went on. “I have a feeling you already knew that, but do you know how he earned his?”

              Hunter’s ears perked up, though she remained determined not to let her poker face falter. The fact of the matter was that Ash had not explained to her he also had a bullet. His was on a key chain and he had dangled it in front of her face only the day before in order to calm her and get her back on his side, to trust him again. But when she had demanded he explain how he had gotten a bullet, his explanation meandered down a confusing path that created more questions than it had answered. Ash had implied he had gotten the bullet key chain when he had been hired by her father to find her, but that didn’t ring true. The New Hampshire men didn’t have bullets, only the girls did. It had never made sense that Ash would have one. It had led Hunter to believe his connection to her past, the farmhouse, and the atrocities of the barn was much closer, much more entangled in darkness than she could have ever imagined.

              “Tell her, Ash,” he said, while Hunter and the girls continued to wait for the van, succumbing to the inevitability that they would all return to the farmhouse and be submerged, once again, into the sick sexual games her father liked to play.

              Ash backed away, tucking himself behind Hunter, out of her line of sight. He couldn’t bear for her to see him. He couldn’t bear the eyes on him, large brown, eyes he loved, to turn dark with hatred from hearing the truth.

              “Go on,” Grizzly barked. “Tell her.”

              “I killed a girl,” said Ash, lowly under his breath.

              “Not just any girl,” said Grizzly.

              Something in Grizzly’s tone indicated the corners of his cracked mouth were curling upwards, smiling at Ash’s history, or so Hunter thought. She didn’t know for sure. She still refused to look at him.

              “No, not just any girl,” agreed Ash in a whisper. After a long moment, the air grew thick with remorse, and Ash finally said, “I killed my sister.”

              His voice was nothing more than a thread of regret.              

              “His own sister,” echoed Grizzly, before kneeling down in front of Hunter, catching her gaze, looking her dead in the eye. “That’s the kind of soldier I need.”

              Hunter’s mouth twisted downward into a frown as she began to cry. The tears stung as they welled up in her eyes. They felt hot, full of rage and fury as they streamed down her cheeks. She would die before she allowed herself to become one of her father’s soldiers.

              The worst part about Grizzly was that he had a way of planting sick ideas in her head, tormenting her to the brink of madness, so that when she finally did commit some unthinkable, horrifying crime, she would actually believe it was her fault, when in fact it had been his idea all along. He had manipulated her. His mind was the playing ground of pure evil.

              “It wasn’t your fault, Ash,” said Hunter through her tears. She had to get Ash on her side. She could tell he was being manipulated. She knew now that there was no way Ash had chosen this.

              “It was,” he responded quietly.

              “It wasn’t your fault. I’m telling you, Ash. Listen to me. You’re a good person,” she said with determination, though she was too afraid to look anywhere but at the hardwood floor.

              “Shut up,” said Grizzly, but Ash was already in the midst of speaking.

              “I’m not a good person, Hunter,” said Ash. “I killed her before I met any of you, before your father found me. I killed her to get out of my own fucked up past, to get out of my house and away from my horrible father.”

              Hunter could hear his voice crack, splitting with the pain that was overcoming him.

              “I don’t care about any of that,” she whispered. “I know who you are. This isn’t you.”

              “But what if it is?”

              “Quiet!” Shouted her father.

              Hunter jumped, startled.

              Grizzly extracted something from his back pocket, a black object. One side of it glared with a metal edge. He unfolded the metal, and Hunter realized that it was a knife.

              Grizzly held the knife firmly in his enormous hand.

              The girls began to whimper at the sight. They clenched each other tighter as best they could, fighting against the plastic ties that restrained them.

              Intense panic coursed through Hunter. Her heart raced, pounding hard in her chest. She couldn’t seem to steady her breath. Grizzly leaned further down towards her, slowly savoring every inch he gained. She watched his hands, their white-knuckle grip around the handle as Grizzly pointed the knife tip millimeters from her neck. She was certain this would be it. He could kill her so easily, slit her throat, or her wrists, letting her gradually bleed out. She couldn’t believe her father would do this, or that any father would be capable of such a thing, but the relation they shared was only by blood. Grizzly was a monster. The idea that he was her
father
was a joke.

              Abruptly, Grizzly grabbed her face, squeezing her cheeks between his massive fingers, holding her in place. Hunter let out a low, miserable moan, terror stricken for what might come next.

              “Killing you would be a waste, Hunter,” he said. His sour breath seeped from his mouth, causing Hunter’s stomach to wretch with nausea. “I’d rather play a game.”

              Hunter glared at him through her tears, her jaw clenching, her teeth gritting with disgust.

              “I think you’re a soldier, Hunter. I think that’s why you’ve strung that bullet around your neck. It’s your trophy. I can’t kill a soldier I need. But you’re going to have to prove yourself. Prove that you’ll be of value.”

              Hunter couldn’t help shake her head in disgust, though imperceptibly, at her father’s twisted mentality. He was a madman, a psychopath, but unless she wanted to be killed right here and now, she would have to listen. She would have to play along.

              “I’m going to let you make the choice, Hunter,” he went on. “You can either come home, come back to the farmhouse and submit to me, join me like you belong. Or you can return to the farmhouse to stop me. Whichever you choose, I’m giving you until the end of the week to come back. That’s three days, Hunter. Three days to return and join me, or return and stop me.”

              She didn’t want to have to ask. She didn’t want to play into all this, but she had no choice.

              “Stop you from doing what exactly?” she said finally.

              He smiled wide. This was entertaining him. He was sick.

              “Your little sister’s getting too old for the barn. I’m thinking about making a little film, nothing special, just a short video. I’d like to record her passing. She is, after all, my daughter.”

              “Oh my God,” Hunter said under her breath. She couldn’t fight the shock that was seizing her. She had done everything within her power to block Blair from her memory. It was too painful to remember that she had a little sister. It was too excruciating to know that Hunter had left her behind to save herself.

              Grizzly seemed to be eating up Hunter’s horrified reaction. His eyes were glued to her, wide and unblinking, as though he didn’t want to miss a thing.

              “Snuff films,” he whispered. “It’s going to be a new direction. It’s the best way to end the girls. Most of them are too old, you know? They’re no good for the other videos at their age.”

              The huddle of girls began to cry. They knew he was referring to them as well as all the girls up at the farmhouse that had gotten too old.

              Grizzly rose to his feet.

              “Like I said,” he continued. “Come back and join me or come back and stop me, but Hunter... We both know you’re coming back.”

              Not a moment after he stood, the front door of her apartment opened and three large men stepped through, stomping across the room. Without a word of instruction, they each grabbed one girl at a time, roughly lifting them to their feet, and dragged them out.

              In an instant Andy, Devon, Margot, and Jenna were gone. They would be locked in the van in no time. They would be back in New Hampshire, at the farmhouse, returned to a life of torture in just nine hours. It would only be a matter of time before each would be murdered on video as Grizzly had promised.

              Suddenly the apartment was dead silent.

              Only Hunter, Ash, and Grizzly were left. Hunter didn’t know what to expect next. Grizzly could leave her here with two dead bodies, her hands tied behind her back, and an ever-growing fear that she and her sister were doomed as the minutes ticked by, but he didn’t. Not at first.

              Grizzly did something she could have never expected.

              He grabbed Ash and slammed him against the wall. His head hit first, disorienting him terribly. Suddenly Grizzly held the knife at Ash’s throat, forcing him to the ground. In an instant, Grizzly secured Ash to the radiator. Not with plastic ties, instead Grizzly clamped cuffs around Ash’s wrists, chaining him against the metal rungs. 

              “You’ve done your job, Ash,” said Grizzly. “I don’t need you anymore.”

              Ash didn’t say a word.

              “I know you miss killing, sweetheart,” Grizzly said, turning to Hunter, looking her straight in the eye. “Consider this a gift.”

              Grizzly dropped the knife to the ground. It bounced then spun to a stop on its side. Once it had, Grizzly kicked it, sliding it across the floor to Hunter.

              She stared at it for a long moment. It lay directly in front of her knees. If she twisted her body, she could grasp it with her hands.

              It crossed her mind to grab it. Could she slip her hand through the tie, freeing herself of the loose plastic, and charge towards her father? She could kill him right here and now, but she was petrified, paralyzed with fear.

              Grizzly wanted her to kill Ash. He thought she would appreciate the opportunity.

              Maybe she would. On some level, Ash had betrayed her, and he deserved to die. But Hunter also knew deep down that Ash was only a pawn in her father’s game. She was torn.

              She could feel Grizzly’s eyes on her, lingering, enjoying the dilemma she was being presented with. It sickened her. She wasn’t prepared to deal with the darkness that was being stirred up inside her. She wasn’t equipped to handle the possibility that she may want Ash dead. She may need him dead in order to regain enough strength to face the farmhouse and the evils that lay in wait for her there.

              Finally, her father turned to leave. He walked across her studio apartment until he disappeared around the corner. Not a moment later, Hunter heard her front door open and shut. Grizzly was gone.

              But the nightmare was just beginning.

              Hunter found herself trembling, as a wave of immense relief washed over her. She lowered her head into her knees for a moment and allowed her body to shake off the deep tension that had gripped her. Being in her father’s presence had been beyond terrifying. It had brought up a wealth of memories, memories she had done everything within her power to forget.