Page 14 of The Last Straw

They ate in silence now, but the tension was gone.

Charlie felt the prickly energy of the wall she kept between them, and Wyrick knew he wasn’t going to let this go, which was fine with her, because neither was she.

Barrett Taylor had taken a risk after being booked into jail by using his one phone call on Jeremiah Raver, the leader of the church.

To say Raver was angry was putting it mildly.

“I trusted you to do a simple job, and your incompetence is only going to bring negative attention to us,” Raver shouted.

But Barrett was pissed at Raver for not telling him the whole story about that woman.

“That’s just it. It wasn’t a simple job. You said she was an unnatural abomination. You said she had powers that belonged only to God, but you neglected to mention she was psychic. You didn’t tell me she was six fucking feet tall. She knew everything about my presence without touching me. What was I supposed to be? The fatted calf? The lure? Did you just decide to sacrifice me for her?”

Raver blinked. Rebellion within The Righteous was unheard of. And the fact that Barrett had figured this out made him uncomfortable.

“It wasn’t like that,” Raver said.

“Then get me a lawyer and get me the fuck out of here,” Barrett said. “I’m not sacrificing myself for anyone.”

Raver didn’t like what he was hearing.

“Are you threatening me?”

Barrett lowered his voice. “You hung me out to dry, Raver. You figure it out.” He hung up. But once the link was broken between him and Raver, his defiance faded. This was going to be a learning experience, for sure.

The game was on with Rachel Dean, and it was all Sonny could think about on the way home. He stopped off at a fast-food drive-through, ordered chicken nuggets and fries and a bottle of water and then drove away.

Rachel was exactly what he’d been needing—a little after-work entertainment was always good for releasing unspent energy and relieving stress.

The weatherman was predicting a light frost tonight. Maybe he’d take her a blanket along with her food. He didn’t want her to get sick before he was done with her. That had happened to him once before. When that one had died in her sleep, he was disappointed to have been cheated out of being the one to deliver the death blow. It was always the delicious denouement to the game.

Rachel had paced and screamed for help, and pounded on the door off and on for hours. She finally fell asleep from exhaustion, only to be awakened sometime later by a hard slap across her face.

She woke up with a scream. There was a man on his hands and knees above her, tearing at her clothing—and she knew him!

“You!” she cried, and tried to push him off, kicking and slapping at him in desperation.

Even as she was hammering at his shoulders, and trying to claw his face, he was laughing. Then he drew back his fist and hit her on the jaw, knocking her unconscious.

When she came to again, she was naked, and he was on top of her and in her, holding a knife against her throat.

“Move, and you’ll cut your own throat,” Sonny said, and then leaned down and whispered against her ear. “I don’t mind fucking a dead woman. I’ve done it before.”

She saw the expression on his face, and then her own reflection in his eyes, and froze.

The next few minutes were an eternity of pain and despair, and when he finally collapsed on top of her, the knife slid lightly across her throat, bringing blood.

He leaned down, licked it slowly, then kissed her viciously, biting her mouth before he got up.

“Dinner is served,” he said, pointing to a sack on the floor by the sink, and then he was gone.

Rachel staggered to her feet, picked up the clothing he’d ripped off her and went to the sink. Using her underwear for a rag, she began washing. At first, the rag was red with blood, but the cut on her throat finally stopped bleeding, and then she washed every inch of her body, desperate to get the feel of him off her skin.

She noticed he’d left her a blanket with the food, but she was without soap. Without clean clothes. Without hope. And yet, she knew if she ever got a chance to escape, she needed to be strong enough to do it. After she dressed she picked up the sack of food he’d brought, carried it to the far corner of the room, away from the mattress, and dug out cold chicken nuggets and fries. She gagged on the first couple of bites, but then took a small sip from the bottle of water he’d included, and waited until the nausea passed. After that she ate with solemn determination, tasting nothing but revenge.

It took Millie forever to get home. She got stuck in traffic due to a wreck up ahead, and then as traffic finally started moving, they were all detoured into an older part of the city, and then just when she thought she was in the clear, her car began losing speed. She pulled over to the first access road, and called her car service.

After being towed to a repair shop, they told her the alternator had gone out, and so she sat for two hours, waiting for them to run down the part on the other side of Tulsa.

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