Josh was getting worse by the hour. He never raised his voice to Natalie, he always kept a soft tone, but that was almost worse then yelling. He made her talk to him casually, as if they were friends just meeting getting to know each other instead of a psychopath and his victim. Every so often he would come up to Natalie with a look in his eye that rivaled Jack the Ripper. He would touch her face or her leg and whisper things like, "You're beautiful," or "I can hardly wait until you come around."
"I have to pee," Natalie said, still tied to the chair.
Josh contemplated the thought for a second, and then hopped off of the sofa he had been watching her from and walked into the kitchen. He came back with a pot and a knife. He set the pot in front of her and cut the ropes holding her hands to the chair, but quickly tied her hands together. "You can stand up and aim," he said as he stood next to her. She looked at him. "Sorry, that's the best I can do."
"It's kind of hard to aim when you have nothing to aim with," she said. Hejust stood there. "You can stand outside the door while I use the bathroom, but if you don't let me go now you'll have piss all over your floor."
He sighed and cut the ropes. He grabbed her hands and held them together behind her back as he pushed her towards the bathroom.
He pushed her in so forcefully that she hit the wall with a thud. He looked her up and down and said, "You're filthy." Natalie wasn't sure what he meant until she looked in the mirror. Her blue hair was greasy and her face streaked with mascara and tears. Her eyes were red from crying and bloodshot from lack of sleep.
"Did you just point that out to be an ass or do you want me to take a shower?" she asked.
"Take a shower and I'll have clothes ready for you when you get out." He shut the door and locked it from the outside.
Natalie's mind started to work in overdrive with a million thoughts flying in every direction. Okay, Natalie, calm down. There's a window above the shower and it's just big enough for you to slip through. Once her plan was fully formed, she turned the shower full blast and opened the window.
She prayed that the shower had made enough noise to cover her escape. Once out of the bathroom she started to run. Her plan was just to keep running until she came to a rest stop or some sort of civilization. It wasn't the most well thought out or efficient plan, but she had to put as much distance between her and Josh as possible.
Her mind betrayed her as the thought 'What will he do to me if he finds me?' slipped into her consciousness. She was filled with dread, but kept on running. She had to try to get away. She had to.
Lisa wouldn't speak to Jackson the rest of the day. She would see him coming into a room, and she would go out the back, or wait until he sat down and left the room. She went to bed in a huffy pissiness that rivaled a three year old. She wasn't even sure that why she was mad at him. Of course, he told a lie about Tom and they had gotten into an argument about the looming fact that Jackson was going to kill her. But in the day she spent with him, they had gotten into that fight at least five times and had gotten over it quickly. She was half hoping that he would crawl into her bed that night and make it up to her.
But it was a pipe dream, and she knew it. She got dressed in the nightgown she had came in and climbed into bed. She didn't have too much trouble falling asleep, but was awoken abruptly by a whisper in her ear, "Lisa," someone called.
She rolled over thinking, I knew he would come. But was surprised when she saw Tom in the bed next to her instead of Jackson. "Tom," she asked. "What are you doing?"
He looked at her with sad puppy dog eyes. "I'm really sad."
She put on a motherly tone and asked, "Why? What's the matter?"
He sighed and hung his head. "Remembering how Matt died brought up a lot of painful memories. I don't want to be alone tonight."
Lisa's 'Oh fuck Jackson was right' sensors were on the highest level of sensitivity. Well, maybe he doesn't want sex. Maybe he really is morning the loss of his friend. she thought. "Well, you can sleep in here if you want to," she offered, although her conscience was telling her to tell him to get the fuck out.
His eyes lightened and he said, "Thank you, Lisa. Thank you so much." He leaned in to kiss her but she warded it off with her hand and said,
"Just go to sleep Tom," and she rolled on her side, her back to him.
She felt a rough hand on her shoulder push her on her back and before she could react, Tom kissed her roughly. She fought to get out from under him but he crawled on top of her. She kicked and fought and tried to scream, but he had his hand over her mouth so hard she could barely breathe. "You want to do this the hard way, huh?" he whispered furiously.
She bit his hand and with the precious moment she had to scream, she cried, "JACKSON HELP!"
Tom backhanded her and she tasted blood. "Bitch!" He pinned her knees down with his feet as he straddled her pelvis. He had a hand on her throat and a knife to her eye. Stills of the day in parking lot appeared before her like a badly done flash back in a crappy soap opera. The only thing running through her mind was No no, no, NO not again, not again! "You scream one more time and not only will I rape you, I'll shred your pretty little body to pieces!" he said in a low, murderous tone. He let go of her throat and she screamed. "You little fucker!" he screeched. He slashed her wrists horizontally like a cutter would.
Lisa jumped when she heard a gun shot and a scream from Tom's mouth. He bent over, clutching his shoulder to reveal Jackson in the doorframe, gun in firing position. He calmly walked over to Tom and pistol whipped him in the back of his head. Lisa looked at Jackson with wide, terrified eyes. She was so mindset on making sure there wasn't a replay of the parking lot incident, she didn't realize that tears were running out of her eyes. Jackson pushed Tom off of her and took her shoulders. "Lisa," he said as he looked her in the eye. "I know you're freaked out right now,"
"That's a little bit of an understatement!" she said in a shrill, trebling voice.
"I know, I'm sorry. But Tom was a popular guy and that gun shot will have woken this entire neighborhood," he was being more serious then she had ever seen him. "When they find out what I did, they'll come after me. So I need you to be strong for right now, just until I can get us to a safer place, okay?" She looked deep into his eyes and he looked genuinely frightened. She nodded and he pulled her out of the bed.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the house to the bedroom on the other side. He kicked a rug away and opened a hatch the rug had been covering. "Grab as many guns as you can, Lisa." She obeyed and started to pile the guns into her arms as Jackson ran out of the room. He came back with a gym bag and said, "Dump them in here," she did as she was told. They got as many as half the guns and all of the spare bullets in the bag. Jackson didn't even take the time to zip it up. He slung it over his shoulder and grabbed her hand . He pulled her though the house again and stopped only to grab the car keys on the kitchen table before they were out the door.
So, all three of the characters are on the run! This will be interesting, me thinks! Thanks for reading and reviewing! I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Love,
Celia
