Page 94 of The Torment of Two

He disappears again. Then her shrieks are silenced as he does as promised. Her sobs are my undoing, breaking my heart shard by shard. I’m useless to help her—to help us.

I want my dads.

I want me and Gemma to wake up and this have all been a stupid nightmare.

“Yes, where were we?” Owen asks as he walks back over to me. “Ahh, I remember. I was explaining my kill method.” He laughs as though this shit is funny. “A knife would be too messy. Again, I’ve contemplated this a lot. Exactly how I’d end your short life.”

Groaning and grunting, I struggle against my bindings, wondering if I can swing my leg up to kick him in his face. He must sense my plan because he sidesteps me and walks up the stairs and out of the cellar without another word. Minutes later, he returns with a shovel.

“This, Mr. Sheridan,” Owen says, thrusting the shovel toward me, “is how it ends. Not messy but still destructive.” He cocks his head to the side. “I wonder how many bones I can break before you succumb to internal bleeding.”

Gemma’s sobbing grows hysterical and I ache to see her. Life is shitty. I go my entire life hurting over this girl, tormented by her existence, only to fall in love with her. Not like or smitten or whatever the fuck kids these days say. No, I love her. Deeply. I had plans for us. Long-term plans. Kids, house, dog, the whole nine yards.

Now it’s being stolen from me.

Owen rests his chin on the top of the shovel, watching me with narrowed eyes. A chill skitters through me. His eyes are vacant and I sense no trepidation whatsoever. He’ll kill me without a second thought.

Then what?

Then he’ll spend hours, days, months, years torturing my beautiful girl. He’ll rape her in captivity until she’s a husk of her vibrant, beautiful self. Then he’ll get bored. Probably kill her too. Maybe find a new obsession and repeat the process all over again because he never got caught.

This can’t happen.

I have to stop it.

“For your sake,” Owen says, straightening his spine. “I hope this goes fast for you. I can’t imagine, even with the drugs still in your system, that it’ll feel too good.”

His features twist into something malevolent and vile—straight from a horror movie. He swings the shovel up in the air, the metal blade cracking against the ceiling before he drives it down toward me. All I can do is tense as the flat side of the shovel smacks against my ribs.

Pain explodes in my abdomen as I howl through my gag. The world in front of me blurs with my tears. Owen grunts as he swings the shovel back up above his head. This time, I manage to block with my foot. Another blast of pain assaults me, this time in my ankle. I black out, only to be awoken from another whack right smack in the gut. It knocks the breath out of me and I gasp desperately for oxygen. My bladder, unable to hold any longer through all the pain, releases.

I’m going to die on this cold floor in excruciating pain and soaked in my own piss.

I’ll never see Gemma or my dads or Dax again.

This is it.

I hope I go quickly.

Owen stops, his entire body trembling, and uses the bottom of his T-shirt to swipe the sweat off his brow. He releases it and then swings the shovel up again. I brace for impact, waiting for the final, deadly blow.

Pop!

The shovel clatters to the cement, but I don’t hear it because my ears are now ringing. Owen staggers away back toward Gemma, out of my line of sight. I hear her shrieking over the ringing in my ears, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Darkness clouds my vision and I fixate on a droplet of blood on the ground. My blood? His?

It’s then I see a man, squatting in front of me. Not Owen. Someone else. He’s speaking to me, but I can’t seem to make out the words.

“Tristan Sheridan?” the man says as he fumbles with his belt. “Stay with me, buddy. I’m going to uncuff you and free your hands. Eyes on me. I’m Officer Holt. You’re safe now.”

I blink at him in confusion. Officer? The cops are here?

“Sit rep,” a familiar female voice barks out. “Holt, how are we doing over there?”

“Vic is alive,” he says back as he shoves the key into the handcuffs. “Contusions around his wrists and his ankle’s sitting a funny kind of way, Detective.”

More police officers flood into the cellar, guns drawn, searching for threats.

---