“Okay, these look good but try to keep these bandages dry.” The nurse drones on, but I’m only half listening.
I let her hook me up to the IV once more before settling back against the pillows and gazing out the window. I ignore everyone else in the room, shutting them out as effectively as if I’d slammed a door on them all. I just need a moment to regroup before the accusations start.
When someone steps in front of me, the person blocks my view of the gray concrete world outside my window and snaps me out of my head.
I look up and see Rebel looking down at me strangely. I turn and see the other two hovering nearby, but the nurse is gone.
“Ava,” I look back at Rebel when he calls my name softly.
“What do you want me to say, Rebel? That I was a coward? That, after a year in captivity, I finally tried to take the only escape available to me?” I snap as he sits on the bed beside me, gently lifting one of my hands and turning it over before linking his fingers with mine.
“You are many things, Ava. Beautiful, brave, and smart at the top of that list, but what you are not is a coward. Talk to me. I swear to you, I’m a good listener, and you’ll get zero judgment from me.”
“From any of us,” Lucky adds, moving to sit on the other side of the bed as Diesel stands beside him and reaches out to run his hand over my hair.
I sigh, not sure I even know how to explain it in a way they will understand.
“I didn’t do it because I wanted to die. If someone gave me the option to end it all now, I wouldn’t take it. It was never about dying. Only ever escape,” I whisper, staring at my hand in Rebel’s.
“I didn’t know if anyone was coming for me,” I admit, swallowing hard. “In the beginning, I thought Saint might try, but when so much time passed, and still no one came, I thought maybe you guys had decided that I was dead.”
“We never stopped looking, Ava, and we never would. We would have kept on searching for you, whether that took us one year or ten,” Lucky answers emphatically.
“But I didn’t know that. All I knew was the dark cage I was kept in, and while the world carried on turning outside that cage, I was oblivious to it all. All I had was pain and darkness and...” I drift off, pulling my hand free from Rebel’s so I can wrap my arm around myself
“And what. Ava?” Diesel prompts softly.
“I was so lonely. It got to the point where it was almost a relief when he came to feed me in the mornings. Once that happened, I realized he was winning. I didn't just need him physically to survive, I was beginning to need him emotionally too, and that terrified me more than anything else he might have done.”
I suck in a deep breath, relaxing into Diesel's touch a little as he continues to stroke my hair.
“I spent months working a spring loose from the bottom of the bed. When I first started trying to pull it free, I planned to attack him with it, but when it finally broke, I realized it wasn’t going to be enough. It was small and relatively blunt. The only place I might have been able to hurt him would have been his eye, but it was such a small target, and he is so much bigger than me. If I failed, he would make me pay in ways you wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Turns out, I was right about the bluntness of the damn spring. It hurt like a motherfucker, and I bled a lot, but when the doctor checked it, he said it wasn’t as deep as it looked.”
I shrug, pulling my sleeves down over the bandages.
“How did you end up here?” Rebel asks me.
“I heard him come back, so I took my chance. He came down, saw the blood, and freaked. I thought he would finish me off, but instead, he picked me up and carried me out of the cell during the day for the first time in over 300 days.
“I was kept in some kind of windowless basement while I was there, so I tried to take in my surroundings, but I passed out before I could see anything that might help. The next time I woke up, I was here. The doc said they found me in the parking lot, propped up against one of the cars, completely naked and mumbling incoherently about being held prisoner.”
The guys all look at each other, having some kind of silent conversation they clearly don't want me to be a part of, and that's fine by me; I’m too exhausted to argue.
When the door opens, we all look up and see an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, at a guess, dressed in a tight black pencil skirt and a pale blue blouse, her light brown hair twisted into an elegant chignon.
She approaches the bed with a professional smile on her face as Lucky stands from the bed with his arms crossed.
“Ava King?” She ignores the men in the room and focuses on me, making me warm to her a touch.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Ava, my name is Dr. Avery. I’d like to talk to you a little about what happened,” she says softly.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to talk about it,” I tell her.
“I understand you might feel afraid and overwhelmed, but I just want to get you the help you need. Is there a history of mental illness at all in the family?” she asks, and I can’t help it. I laugh.
I laugh so loud and so long that I’m left gasping for breath. Eventually, the laughter turns to sobs, and I find myself tucked into Rebel's chest as Diesel tries to explain.
“Lady, I don’t know what you think you know, but you have shit wrong,” Diesel warns her, anger evident in his voice.
It's funny, but I get the weird sense that Diesel really doesn’t like my tears.
“When a patient tries to kill themselves, it can be very trying for everyone but with the right care—” she continues before Lucky butts in this time.
“She’s not suicidal, Doc. I know what you've been told, but you’re missing a huge chunk of the story.”
I turn to look at him just as he looks back at me and asks for permission to tell her. I nod, relieved to let him take control for a moment.
“Ava was kidnapped and held in a cell for almost a year by a serial killer. Yes, she cut her wrists, but only because she couldn’t foresee another way out. Not because she wants to die.”
“The Killer Captain. Are you familiar with the name?” Rebel asks, his voice echoing as I press my head against his chest.
The Killer Captain? The press couldn’t come up with anything better than that? Jesus.
“Yes, of course,” She stops talking, her eyes widening for a second before she connects the dots.
“You were with him this whole time?” she asks, horrified.
I nod and swallow.
“I… I’m sorry. I guess the sexual assault kit would have been superfluous—there’s enough evidence against that guy to convict him hundreds of times over. Please know I’m not trying to sound callous when I say this, but he doesn’t usually keep his victims alive. What was different about you? I swear I’m only asking in the hope it might help to apprehend him.” She adds the last part quickly when the guys’ expressions go from tense to downright hostile.
“I’m his daughter.”
Chapter Seven
Diesel
If the answer wasn’t so horrifying, I would have laughed at the look of shock on the doctor’s face.
“I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head and smooths down her suit, composing herself a little before continuing. “I’d like to admit you for a little while at least. The mind is a fragile thing and after what you’ve endured—”