MERCILESS: An Option Zero Novel Read online

  This was different, though. She was twenty-one years old, had just graduated from college, and would soon use her degree in art history to work at one of the top museums in the state. No, it wasn’t a high paying job, but as she had tried to explain, starting at the bottom was one of the best ways to learn. Art, in its many forms and fashions, was a field that both fascinated and inspired her. Her dad thought it was impractical and frivolous.

  This was the first problem they had not been able to talk through. He was an attorney, and his fondest wish was for her to go to law school and join him in his practice. It was his dream, but it had never been hers.

  She had tried, she really had. She’d even taken several pre-law courses and had done well in them, but neither her heart nor her imagination had been engaged. Being a lawyer was not what she wanted.

  The dinner tonight was to have been a celebration of her graduation, but it had turned into a shouting match by the end of the meal. Oh, how she wanted to snatch back those words she’d spouted off to him. The restaurant had been full of diners, and she had embarrassed her parents by not only shouting at them, but also by storming out of the restaurant. They had raised her better, expected more from her. She expected more from herself. It didn’t matter that her dad had started the argument, she should have controlled her temper.

  Now she needed to figure out how to apologize but still make him understand that she could not do what he wanted. She had to live her own life.

  She wished Rob had been there with her. Even though he also disagreed with her decision, he would have smoothed things over with her dad. They’d been dating for almost a year, and both her parents approved. Which was no surprise. Rob was in law school and in his own words, loving every moment. That was Rob’s dream and she was happy for him. But again, it wasn’t hers.

  Resolved, Lucy opened the car door and stepped out onto the driveway. Either way, she had to talk to her dad tonight, to at least apologize. She wouldn’t be able to sleep until she did, even if it was just a quick I’m sorry. She could wait to have a more open discussion tomorrow, after they’d both had a good night’s sleep. But she had to apologize tonight.

  She turned the key in the lock and pushed the front door open. For the first time, she noticed that though the porch light was on, all the lights inside the house were off. That was unusual. Her parents were night owls and often went to bed long after she’d turned in for the night. It was only a little after eleven. Maybe they were in their bedroom. The master bedroom faced the back of the house and couldn’t be seen from the front.

  She set the security alarm and headed upstairs. As she trudged up the stairway, she continued to work on the words that would help her dad understand without causing more hard feelings. Hurting him was the last thing she wanted.

  She stopped at her parents’ bedroom and knocked on the door. When she didn’t hear an answer, she frowned, noting that no light shone under the door. Surely they were home. The garage door had been closed, and she hadn’t thought to check to see if her dad’s SUV was parked inside.

  She turned the doorknob and opened the door. The stench of something raw and wild hit her like a violent wave. Breath catching in her lungs, she took a step back. What the—?

  Reaching for the wall light switch, she flipped it on and faced a nightmare of horrors. Blood everywhere. Everywhere! The walls, the ceiling.

  Barely able to comprehend the scene, she took in the morass in the center of the room. The people on the bed were unrecognizable. Her mind refused to accept that they were her parents. They couldn’t be. This. Could. Not. Be. Happening! She felt a scream inside her, boiling to get out, but she couldn’t make a sound. She was frozen, not breathing. Unable to think.

  How long she stood there she would never know. She didn’t hear him behind her. It hadn’t registered that anyone else was in the house. Something hard started to wrap around her waist. Lucy looked down to see a long arm, hairy and saturated in blood, slowly snaking around her body. She was pulled back into a hard chest, and a man with fetid breath whispered hotly into her ear, “Hello, Lucy. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Run!

  Her body screamed at her to move, her sluggish mind urged her to get up. This was her chance…maybe her last chance. He was asleep. She could hear him snoring in the next room. And he was drunk. If she was lucky, he’d be unconscious for several more hours.

  Lucky? She swallowed a bitter laugh. There was no such thing. For her, there was only survival.

  She gazed down at her hands, barely comprehending that they were her own. They were bloody, nails ripped to the quick, wrists bruised and scratched. She had fought him—at least she’d had that. She had fought and she had lost.

  Hopelessness overwhelmed her. Closing her eyes, she sank deeper into her corner. Maybe it was better this way. She had no one—she was nothing. He had taken everything from her. What was the point in going on? Maybe he would just kill her. Maybe she would let him. She wouldn’t keep fighting him. When his big hands wrapped around her neck again, she would let him do what he wanted. She almost hadn’t come back the last time. Maybe she wouldn’t next time.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been here. Weeks. Maybe months. Time had become an endless nightmare of pain and degradation. Everything she had loved, everyone she had loved, was gone. If she closed her eyes and concentrated hard, she could still see her mom’s sweet smile, see her dad’s face light up with laughter. Those memories were fading though. Lately those images were superimposed with the brutal, vile memories of her parents’ lying in rivers of blood.

  Her heart cried out at the injustice, at the cruelty. They had never hurt anyone, had been the best, most loving parents in the world. Why had this happened to them? It wasn’t fair!

  How she missed them…oh sweet Lord, how she missed them. She would never get the chance again to tell them how much she loved them. How grateful she was for them. Or how very sorry she was for behaving so selfishly at the restaurant. If only she had one more chance. But she didn’t. All her chances had disintegrated.

  Oblivion beckoned. Death held out its arms, offering a comforting embrace. A sweet release from the pain. From the heartache. She closed her eyes…sinking, sinking…

  Lucy jerked awake with a gasp. Her eyes darted around the room. What was that? Was he awake? Was he coming for her? How long had she been unconscious? Why hadn’t she run when she’d had the chance? She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live. She wanted to make this bastard pay. The only way to do that was to run, get help. They would find him, and they would punish him for what he’d done. To her parents. To her.

  The small, dark room gave her no answers. Stinking of mildew and rotted food, the room had been her only scenery since he’d brought her here. The lone window across from her was a small one that had been boarded up years ago. The wood was old and rotting but had held firm against her pitiful efforts to remove it. She had spent hours trying to pry even one board loose, with no results other than splinters and bloody fingers.

  She hadn’t heard any outside sounds, but the room was solidly built. Maybe even soundproof. She had no idea if she was in the middle of a city or in a forest, miles from civilization. She’d heard no noises. Even if she got out, would anyone be around to help her?

  One thing was for sure: If she didn’t get out, she wouldn’t survive. And she wanted to live. She would live and make this monster pay for everything he’d taken from her, everything he’d done.

  Going to her knees, she summoned the strength she would need. Every part of her body cried out for her to stop. It hurt too much! Cuts, barely healed, popped open, warm blood oozed down her torso, her legs. When she grimaced with pain, the cuts on her cheek tore open. Would she bleed to death before she found help? Was there any point in even trying to escape?

  She shut down the doubts. She couldn’t…she wouldn’t stop. She had to get out of here. If it was the last thing she did, she had to at least try.

  Dragging herself to her feet
, she leaned against the wall to catch her breath. Minimal food and water had left her depleted, incredibly weak. The blood loss hadn’t helped. None of those things mattered…she couldn’t let any of that stop her.

  Her hands unsteady, she carefully slid her wrists from the cuffs. Not only had he grown lax, sure that she could never escape him, she had discovered that she’d lost so much weight, the cuffs were much looser. With an enormous amount of tugging and pulling, plus the slickness of blood from her raw skin, she had been able to slide out of them. When he’d come in to check on her earlier, she’d hurriedly put them on again.

  Now, she laid them on the floor, taking care to not let them clank together. She straightened to stand, and a wave of dizziness swept through her. Clutching at the wall, she held on until the room righted itself. Breath gasped out of her lungs, and she realized that part of her dizziness had been from holding her breath.

  Shivering, she looked down at the thin, white T-shirt she was wearing. He’d thrown it at her a few days ago when she’d told him she was cold. It hadn’t been clean then and was now even worse. Stained with blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids she didn’t want to think about, it stank, as did she. That couldn’t be helped. She couldn’t take the time to look for anything warmer or fresher. She had to get out of here.

  Speed and stealth were of equal importance. He could wake at any moment. Just because he was drunk didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt her. Some of her most vicious beatings had come during his drunken episodes.

  How had she never known people like him existed? Her parents had been both amazing and lovingly protective. She had read about monsters like this bastard in news stories, but they had been about other people. She had lived a charmed life, never really acknowledging that true evil existed or that it could touch her.

  Feeling as awkward as an infant learning to walk, Lucy wobbled her way to the door. He had come in to check on her earlier and had forgotten to turn the lock when he left. When she hadn’t heard that familiar click, she had known this was her chance. Her first one in weeks. She couldn’t mess this up. She might never get another one.

  Holding her breath again, she put her ear to the door. Yes, he was still sleeping. Deeply this time. The snoring had softened, and his breathing was shallow. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t wake at the slightest noise. She’d learned, to her detriment, that he was a light sleeper even when he drank himself into a stupor.

  She eased the door open. He was on the sofa. Though it was all the way across the room and she could see only the sofa’s back from this angle, a limp, booted foot hung over the armrest.

  The door to the outside was the sweetest sight ever, and it was only a few feet away. The small window at the top indicated it was night. She told herself that was good. She would be harder to find in the dark. Freedom could be hers.

  She took three steps toward the door and then stopped. The knife he’d used to cut her clothes off that first day lay on the counter. He had used it several times since then to terrorize her, and on several occasions he had cut her. She could turn the tables. She could grab the knife, and before he knew it, she could stab him through his cold, rotten heart. He would never hurt her or anyone again. His death would never make up for what he’d done, but it would be a good start.

  Her hand shaking with both excitement and fear, she grabbed the knife and turned to the couch. She stood above him. How could someone so evil look so ordinary? He was only in his mid-twenties, with pale, thinning hair and a small scar on the bridge of his nose. He looked like someone you’d pass on the street and not consider the least bit dangerous. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If he opened his eyes, the illusion of normality, of sanity, would disappear, and the darkness in his soul would gleam bright.

  The knife gripped in her hand, hatred and revulsion boiled through her veins. She raised the knife high. Getting the blade through his chest wall might take more strength than she had, but she remembered enough from her biology classes to know where to stab for maximum damage.

  The knife arced down. It was a quarter inch from his thick neck when she stopped. Could she do this? Could she actually kill? Take a life, rotten though it was?

  She wanted this monster to suffer. Wanted to see him behind bars, writhing in agony. For what he had done, he would be on death row, and one day full justice would come to him. Killing him now would be too easy for him.

  Still hanging on to the knife, Lucy backed away. Doing an about-face, she headed to the door.

  Run, run, run. That’s all she needed to concentrate on. She got to the door and heard a groan. He was waking up!

  Giving up on stealth, she yanked the door open and ran.

  About a hundred yards away, she ventured a look back. She saw no movement, no activity. Maybe he hadn’t heard her leave after all.

  For the first time, she got a look at her torture house. Though dawn had yet to break, it was light enough to see the derelict old cabin. The porch was sagging, and broken shutters hung drunkenly from dirty windows. Tall weeds and sparse grass surrounded the structure. It reeked of evil and was the perfect residence for the devil who lived within its walls.

  The creaking of the front door jerked her out of her trance. She’d just been standing here, staring at the house as if she wasn’t running from a demon. She kicked her brain back into gear and started running again.

  Seconds later, an ungodly squeal of rage echoed through the woods. He’d discovered she had escaped! If he found her, she knew without a doubt he would kill her this time.

  Telling her weak legs and malnourished body to move, she picked up her pace and ran like the devil himself was chasing her. Because he was.

  For what felt like an hour, she ran as fast and as hard as she could. Her bare feet were bleeding and numb from the cold, her limbs felt like rubber, and her side ached as if it would rip open if she took one more step. She had no choice but to stop. Leaning against a tree, she bent forward. Ragged breath whistled out of her aching lungs like a sick locomotive. If a herd of stampeding horses had been following her, she wouldn’t have heard them.

  As she fought to breathe, she raised her head to judge her surroundings. She was deep in the woods. It was now early morning, and the rising sun mesmerized her with its piercing light, its welcoming heat. It was the most beautiful sight she’d ever witnessed. How long had it been since she’d been outdoors? The fresh air was intoxicating, the sun a warming solace to her battered soul.

  Something that felt like optimism soared through her. Yes, she could do this. She had escaped the bastard. He had no idea which direction she’d headed. There was no way he could find her now. All she had to do was get to a phone or find someone who could call for help.

  Energy flowed through her body. She straightened, drew in another shaky breath. She had no idea where she was going or even if there was help ahead. All she knew was the sun was so beautiful and so bright, and it called to her unlike anything ever had before. Something told her if she followed the sun, it would take her exactly where she needed to go.

  Lucy took a step and then another, her eyes never leaving the bright beacon of hope. How far she walked she would never know. What seemed like hours later, sounds of civilization caught her attention. Noise, like large machinery, drew her toward one area. One foot in front of the other became her only focus. When she saw a construction site and a group of men standing around looking at something in the ground, she opened her mouth to say something, and nothing emerged. She tried again. Still nothing.

  Doing the only thing she knew to do, she continued to put one foot in front of the other and shuffled forward. She heard someone shout. A few more shouts joined in.

  Lucy felt herself falling, and then strong arms caught her. She closed her eyes on a sobbing sigh. She was safe. She had escaped her nightmare. The monster could never hurt her again.

  If only she had known how wrong she was.

  Chapter Three

  Twelve years later

  Memphis,
Tennessee

  It was a good night to catch a killer.

  Flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder, Jules Stone took a practiced, casual glance around the stylish bar. The dark, shiny tables and high ceilings gave off the ambience of wealth and class. George’s Place was just one of a new crop of meeting places for the young and single in the city. Trendy food, medium-to high-priced liquor, and a good sound system made George’s Place one of the most popular.

  The bar was filling up and soon would be too crowded to give her the view she needed. It made sense that Thursday night would bring in more people than earlier in the week. The weekend was coming, and people wanted to get their celebration on early. That didn’t bode well for her, though. Too many people meant she could get lost in the crowd. She didn’t want to get lost. She wanted to be noticed, to be seen.

  Perhaps she should have dressed more provocatively. She’d opted for casual but feminine, but maybe she should have stepped it up a notch and gone for sexy and seductive. The lightweight turquoise sweater was snug and molded to her shape nicely but didn’t show even a hint of cleavage. Her jeans hugged her long legs but would probably have looked sexier paired with something besides running shoes. She had decided on them for two reasons. First, heels made her taller, and while five foot eight wasn’t all that tall, she wanted to appear as petite as possible. Second, she needed to be able to move fast. Wearing heels would slow her down and could get her killed.

  Deciding there was nothing she could do about her clothing choice, she took a long swallow of her drink and then gasped, trying not to choke. She’d ordered a virgin screwdriver—okay yes, basically orange juice—but she had wanted it to look like the actual cocktail. Apparently the bartender had missed the virgin part of her order. She wasn’t a teetotaler, but a glass of wine once or twice a month was her limit. Anything that obscured or deadened her senses was something she avoided at all costs.