Home > Wild Beauty (Soul Sister #2)(2)

Wild Beauty (Soul Sister #2)(2)
Author: Audrey Carlan

Blessing gripped my elbow tight and led me to the black Escalade and driver she’d hired to shuttle us to and from the job.

“What did he do to you?”

“Are you going back to work after such a trying experience?”

“Were you tortured?”

I was tugged from behind by an unknown hand and I cried out in sheer terror. Stars blinked in my peripheral vision as a cold sweat hit my temples and at my nape.

Blessing spun around and shoved the reporter back so hard he tripped on his cameraman and fell backward into a fellow paparazzi member who caught him. “Don’t you lay a finger on my sister!” She hollered at the top of her lungs. “All of you should be ashamed of yourselves. Following me and my family around. One of the members of our family died! Many women and a couple men lost their lives to that bastard. Leave us alone. Let us have some peace! We have enough to deal with.” She looped her arm around my shoulders and the driver pushed his way through the growing crowd and helped usher us into the car.

“Shit. Next time I’m hiring bodyguards,” she huffed and fluffed her ’fro. “You okay?”

I trembled for a moment but got my bearings the farther away we made it down the road and away from the crowd and their intrusive line of questioning. “Yeah, I’ll be all right.”

Blessing took my hand and interlaced our fingers, then set both of them on her thigh. “I’m going to take care of you, Addy. No one is gonna hurt my sister on my watch. That you can bank on.”

I smiled and chuckled, then squeezed her fingers. “My Big Badass Sister has my back.”

“That’s right. And I always will.”

I leaned against her side and laid my head on her shoulder. “What would I do without you?”

“The good news is, we aren’t ever gonna find out,” Blessing touted as though it were fact. And to her, it was. Though I knew better.

Evil always found a way to taint the good in the world. That evil had already claimed the life of our foster sister Tabby. Anything could happen to any one of us and there was nothing we could do about it.


* * *

Click. The camera flashed and I was back there.

In that chair.

That dark, freezing cold basement, with rats and other vermin scurrying around my feet.

My chest was tied with thick, uncompromising ropes. My arms zip-tied, forearms facing up so he could continue with his torture against the inner flesh of my arms.

I glanced down at the blistered, ravaged tissue of my inner arms with a detached, vacant assessment. Seeing the torn, bleeding, black wounds on my arms in the only way I could—as if they weren’t mine. The scent of burnt flesh seared my nostrils. I desperately held back my need to vomit as my mouth watered around the cloth gag. It was tied so tight it dug into the edges of my mouth, abrading the sensitive tissue every time I attempted to free myself.

Another camera flash.

“Addison…” A somewhat familiar voice reverberated in the cavernous space around me. I blinked rapidly as my mind swirled while I tried to focus on that tone. It was kind. Compassionate. Connected to someone I loved.

Blessing.

Click.

I shuddered at the sound and shook where I stood, skyrocketing back into that dreaded chair.

The masked attacker was coming back.

He would continue hurting me.

He was going to kill me just like all those other women.

My only hope was they’d find him before they got to my sister Simone. If she were spared, my soul would be free. I could die knowing she was safe.

I had no idea when I got off that plane and met the driver in front of the airport holding a sign with my name on it that I was willingly walking straight into my own personal Hell. He looked the part. Wore all black. Had a Town Car. Knew my name, when I was to arrive. Everything.

Smart girls knew better.

And I was a smart girl. Mama Kerri made sure all of her foster daughters got the appropriate education and graduated high school with good grades. I had a dream and worked toward making that dream a reality. She told us there was no mountain too high when it came to our lives and career goals. I believed her. Took everything she said as gospel and worked my ass off…literally.

I was one of the most coveted plus-size models in the industry. I had millions in the bank. But there was no amount of money in the world that could save me from the Backseat Strangler.

“Addison, honey, you’re scaring me!” Blessing’s voice broke me out of a cold sweat and catapulted me back to the present. I shook like a leaf where I stood under the unnaturally hot lights of the backdrop for the photoshoot.

“Where am I?” I trembled in her arms.

Blessing put her hands to the sides of my neck. They were cool and steady. I shivered in her arms. She placed her face directly in front of mine, her dark eyes fixated on me. I looked into those familiar, loving eyes like they were my talisman. The only connection I had to my safe place.

“Addy, you are in the middle of a photoshoot,” she said calmly.

I shook my head. “He’s here…” I choked out on a guttural whisper.

She shook her head, her black curls bouncing along with her. “Boo, he’s not. He’s dead. You’re in the middle of a shoot in downtown Chicago. Behind me are your clients and the photographer.”

I looked over her shoulder at the myriad of bodies standing around and staring at us. I clenched my jaw realizing I’d had another moment. That’s what we were calling them. “Moments.” Which was essentially a really kind way of describing my mini-freak-outs. I lost all time, space, or any sense of where I actually was and found myself stuck back in that basement with a serial killer. The place where both Simone and I watched our sister Tabitha sacrifice herself in order to save us.

Tears filled my eyes and started to fall.

“Okay, that’s a wrap. Bring me her robe.” Blessing snapped her fingers at the young fashion design student that she had mentoring under her.

The girl brought my robe and Blessing helped me put it on over the delicate pink bra and panty set I wore.

I wrapped my frozen form and allowed the soft chenille fabric to remind me there were soft and beautiful things I could count on to bring me back to the here and now. Something sizzled in the air, an electricity I could feel that forced me to look up.

Click.

The photographer on the job took a random, candid shot. He was positioned at the lens, his face hidden behind his equipment. I hadn’t been concerned with who was behind the camera, only that this was my first job back after the incident. Now I needed to see the individual or I might go back to when “he” was taking pictures and filming me.

All I was able to see was the man’s long, sandy brownish-blond hair falling around his shoulders. He moved his face and his brown-eyed gaze met mine.

It was as if in that second he saw right through my eyes to the empty, broken, frightened woman beneath the perfect hair and makeup.

Click.

I twitched as gooseflesh rose on my skin, but as long as I looked into those earthy, tranquil brown eyes, I felt grounded. No longer floating aimlessly across an endless expanse of deep, pitch-black waters with no hope for shore. In his eyes, I found my footing. I curled my toes against the cool floor, cementing where I was in that moment.

This man, the photographer with his soulful eyes, trimmed beard, and mustache, held me centered to the here and now with a single look. No longer was I wading back into the dark memory of that night when my entire life changed.

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