Heart of Stone
by
A.K. Hunter
Chapter Sixteen
"Take me to the other side, 'cause my hands are as cold as ice." —Broods, "Medicine"
"Hello cailín álainn," Sloane grinned, taking in her distended belly. "What a pleasant surprise." He moved toward her, and Alexis stumbled back, dropping the cell phone on the carpet.
"Alexis?" her father's voice called through the phone. "Are you there? Say something!"
Fear pounded in her veins, and she broke into a run, Sloane's gleeful laugh only spurring her on faster. She slammed the bedroom door, locking it behind her, and backed away. She couldn't leave the apartment; she still didn't know the code to the elevator. Her safe haven had become a noose around her throat.
Another Braxton Hicks contraction ripped through her, and she groaned, hunching forward. Where was Kevin? Why wasn't he there to protect her? The bedroom door shuddered then swung open as Sloane kicked it in. She made a move for the terrace, but Sloane was faster. His fingers sank into her hair, yanking her backward against him as she screamed. His hand slapped over her mouth.
"Now, now," he soothed. "You don't want to wake the neighbors."
Alexis bit his hand in response, almost feral in her need to get away. Fight or flight. She heard him hiss in pain, and then she was flying forward onto the mattress. Pain shot up her arms and her back screamed as she caught herself. Bent over the side of the mattress, barely keeping the weight of her body off the baby, Alexis whimpered as the cramping in her abdomen increased. Before she could right herself, Sloane was right behind her, holding her in place by his unforgiving grip on her hair.
"Don't test me," he growled into her ear. "I won't spare you just because he was stupid enough to knock you up." His free hand slid up the back of her thigh, his fingers digging into her hipbone underneath her nightgown. "In fact, I'm still quite taken with you. Especially in this position."
Panic slipped down her spine. "K-Kevin will be back any minute," she tried, tears slipping down her face.
Sloane laughed, then nipped at the back of her neck. His breath was hot in her ear. "No, darling, he won't." His tongue traced the shell of her ear. "He's dead."
"No," she whispered.
"Afraid so. Last time I saw him he had more blood outside him than inside."
"I don't believe you."
He pulled her upright by her hair and shoved his cell phone in her face. "See for yourself."
Kevin—her Kevin—still clad in his sweats, was sprawled out on his back in a puddle of blood, a dark, gaping hole in his chest. His blue eyes were open, staring off at some point that she couldn't see. Lifeless.
"Kevin…"
Tiny fractures pressed in on her mind, her heart, her soul, shattering as grief and horror rushed in. Alexis screamed, fighting against Sloane's hold, hysterical sobs ripping her chest in two.
He was gone.
Kevin was dead.
There wasn't enough air in the world to fill her grief-stricken lungs. Distantly, Alexis heard someone wailing, shrieking. A crack echoed through the room and the cries stopped. Her face burned, though she wasn't sure why. Sloane stood in front of her huddled form, his palm red. Had he hit her?
He brandished a needle in his other hand, and animal instinct broke through the smothering grief. Alexis backed away, clawing, biting, screaming, thrashing against the man's hold on her. Sloane's hands wrapped around her neck, and Alexis pulled at his grip as spots began to burst behind her eyes, each second an eternity of hypoxic torture. Something sharp pricked at her neck, and a familiar heaviness slid through her.
"No," she mumbled, grasping to stay conscious. She felt Sloane lift her limp body into his arms.
"Save your strength, baby. Your new life has just begun."
"Alexis?!" Rick cried into the phone. "Alexis!"
The line went dead. His panicked heart slipped into overdrive. "God dammit!" he cursed, slamming his fist down onto his desk. Kate was there in a heartbeat, taking his phone so he wouldn't destroy it and resting a warm hand on his shoulder.
"Castle, what did she say? Did she give any indication about her location?"
"She's gone," he whispered, tears filling his eyes. "My baby's gone. We had her. I heard her voice. She was on the line, Kate. She was there." He knew he was babbling, but he couldn't seem to make himself stop. For nearly seven months he'd fought every natural instinct that told him to panic, to mourn, to burn the entire world down—if only so she'd be easier to find. For the most part, he'd kept it together. For Kate and Johanna and his mother. For Alexis. How many days and nights and hours and seconds had he prayed, desperately, to have some indication, one shred of indisputable proof, that she was alive? But to hear her voice, to hold a fragile connection to her in his hands only to have it ripped away—it was too much.
"What do you mean she's gone?"
"The line went dead." He drew in a ragged breath. "She sounded so scared, Kate. So tired. So hopeless." His wife guided him into his chair, and he promptly collapsed into it, shaking. He was simultaneously frozen by grief and so angry, so overcome with the need to do something, that he couldn't think straight. Alexis had never sounded like that before. He wanted to scream, to tear down the walls, to find his daughter and absolutely destroy the people who had made her sound that way.
He glanced over at his wife, who was on her own phone with the FBI.
"How far can you narrow down the area?" she asked. A tiny, fragile spark of hope lit in Rick's chest. If they could get some clue to Alexis' whereabouts, he could find her. It didn't matter if he had to tear down every building in his way, brick by brick. He'd find her.
"Hold on," Kate said. "I've got to take this. Espo, what is it? Alexis called Castle and we're in the middle—" Her face paled, and her jaw dropped. After a beat, she collected herself. The sharp, borderline obsessive, tone in her voice made goosebumps rise on his skin. "Get CSU at the scene and Lanie, too. They can't miss a single piece of evidence. Find out everything you can from the paramedics and unis at the scene. We're on our way."
Rick's heart came to a full stop at the word "paramedic." Had they found Alexis? Was she hurt? Was she—
"What is it?" he demanded.
Kate shook her head, a sad and determined expression on her face. "They caught Ryan at the cemetery. He's been shot."
Whenever Kevin had considered how he might die, he'd imagined getting shot. It was a logical way for him to die, considering his line of work. Years before, he'd always imagined that he might get shot taking down a criminal. Much as he loved his blue kevlar vest, it didn't protect his head. One shot, and it'd be over. More recently, Kevin figured he'd end up murdered in a deal gone bad or in an act of revenge. He'd certainly made enemies on both sides of the line.
Kevin never expected to die sprawled out on his daughter's cold, marble headstone, with Devin Sloane of all people holding the smoking gun, grinning at him like the sick bastard he was. Kevin had never seen the man coming. Blood saturated his clothes, the inside of his lungs. Pain and shock rendered him helpless, barely able to blink, barely able to form a half-coherent thought for those precious seconds before he lost consciousness.
"Don't worry, friend. I'll take good care of your girl."
Numbness enveloped him, and the world went dark.
Death was a funny thing—nothing like how he imagined. Instead of light and peace and quiet, there was heavy darkness and all around him voices echoing so loudly that they tore through every thread of consciousness. Memories followed right behind.
"I want you. All of you."
"Dear Kevin..."
"You were gone for three years!"
"It would break their hearts to know what you've turned into."
"How could you?"
"Where have you been?
"I can't believe you're here."
"Kevin?"
"...I would have said yes."
If he had a body, if he was capable of releasing the cold, heavy, soul-gnawing grief inside him, he would have wept.
Frozen light burned through his nerve endings, and Kevin fell sideways into a new memory. He watched himself, dressed in sweats and shrouded by darkness, kneel in front of his daughter's grave. Frost kissed the grass around the headstone.
"You know what they say about walking around in a cemetery after dark." Sloane scuffed his boot over the headstone, and Kevin jerked backward like he'd felt the blow.
"What do you want?"
"Do you miss her?"
"Listen, I don't have time for your mind games so just say whatever you tracked me down to say."
"Nolan's dead. Lost a fight with a pillow." Sloane casually removed his gun from the holster on his back. "You know, you never answered my question."
A strange sense of finality settled over Kevin. "What?"
"Do you miss her?"
"Of course I miss her." He gulped, staring down the barrel of the gun, knowing in his heart that there was no way out. This was it. He'd never see Alexis—
"Give her my regards." Before Kevin could even blink, a crack echoed through his ears and blinding, smothering pain exploded in his chest. He was on the ground. When had he hit the ground? He felt nothing and everything all at once. He was so cold. So empty. Blood filled his mouth.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of your girl."
The memory faded, but the words echoed.
His girl.
Alexis.
That soft, almost melodic voice danced around him, laughing, smiling, teasing.
"Kevin?"
"I'd like the sound of that someday."
"I missed you."
"I would have said yes."
After everything they'd been through, after all he'd done to keep her safe. He'd failed. He'd failed her. He'd done nothing but hurt her, lie to her, leave her when she needed him the most. Alexis' life would have been so much better if he'd stayed away from the very beginning.
A shudder ripped through him, and a new image spilled across his consciousness.
Snow fell softly at his feet, coating the world around him. Amidst all of that perfect, untouched white was a shock of red. Two tiny snow boots crunched on the ground, and the tiny girl attached to them, dressed from head-to-toe in a pink snow suit, giggled as she fell backward into a mound that looked big enough to swallow her. Her high-pitched laughs chimed in the air.
"Rosie!"
Alexis, his Alexis, hurried past him with a smile, reaching down with gloved hands to pull their daughter to her feet. Rosie grinned at her mother, then made a big show of falling back into a fresh patch of snow, her small arms and legs fighting furiously against the four-inch snowpack.
"Mommy, look!" The child clumsily pulled herself to her feet, showing off her newest creation: a snow angel.
"It's beautiful, sweetheart," Alexis smiled, and lifted the little girl to rest on her hip. Rosie looked over Alexis' shoulder, and Kevin met her eyes. They looked just like Brigid's, just like his own. His daughter gave him a shy smile.
His consciousness was jerked backward, like cognitive whiplash, and the image disappeared. No! No! He wasn't done yet. He wasn't ready to leave them. He loved them. He loved them so much it hurt. So much he could still feel it in his cold, dead heart.
"I'll take care of your girl."
No. No, he couldn't die. He couldn't just give up. Not while Alexis needed him. Not while there was still an ounce of strength left somewhere inside him.
He had to keep going.
He had to live.
He wasn't done yet.
Light exploded around him, and Kevin jerked forward, coughing, wheezing, gagging against the metallic tang of blood and the plastic tube in his throat. Alexis. He had to get to her. He had to save her.
"Dope him."
Darkness slid into his veins, and Kevin fought to hold onto some semblance of conscious thought.
Alexis.
He had to save her.
He had to...
He—
Ice. The world around her was frozen as the blood in her veins.
The force of her shivering body pulled her into consciousness. Alexis blinked once, twice, then tried to sit up. Everything ached—her head, her back, her limbs. The world spun as she took in her surroundings.
She was laying on a cold cement floor, wearing her nightgown. Dim light shone through a small window near the ceiling. Was she in a basement? Besides the window, she was met with four walls and a door with no handle. It must only open from the outside. She sifted through her recent memories, unable to firmly grasp anything. The sensation was familiar somehow… She'd felt this way when Sloane—
Memories poured in faster than she could process them; her heart banged against her ribs, and she drew in ice-cold breaths, releasing small white puffs with each exhale. Over and over again she saw Kevin's lifeless eyes.
"No no no no no," she whimpered, drawing her arms around herself as tears cooled against her skin. "Kevin," she sobbed into her arms, curling ever tighter around herself as reality began to sink into her drug-hazed mind.
Their daughter would never meet her father. They would never get their happy ending. Everything they'd worked for over the last four and a half years, from that first Valentine's Day when he'd followed her home—it was all gone. Over. Kevin was gone. He'd been taken from her when they'd never been closer to having a future together.
She'd never told him she loved him.
Alexis cried harder, frozen air ripping in and out of her lungs as she keened like a wounded animal. How could she have withheld that from him? He'd given his life to protect her, and she'd never even said those three little words. She didn't want to imagine a future without him. She couldn't imagine a future without him. Without his kindness and patience and infinite love. He'd been there, sleeping beside her some hours earlier. Once again, she'd lost him. And once again, grief and regret filled all the empty spaces in her mind, her heart.
The door slid open, and Alexis' tearstained eyes locked on a monster holding a blanket and a bottle of water in his arms.
"You're finally awake," Sloane said with a smile.
"Where am I?" Alexis demanded, wiping the tears from her face. Anger gave her a sick kind of strength. This was the man who had taken her future. Twice. He didn't deserve to see her tears. "What the hell do you want from me?"
His eyes took on a predatory quality. "I think it would be easier to say what I don't want from you, Miss Harper. Your attitude tops the list."
She shuddered at his gaze, turning her body away, and with two large strides, Sloane yanked her to her feet. Her head spun at the change in position, and she momentarily slumped against him, making him chuckle. "You're an eager one."
"Get away from me!" she screamed, trying to yank her arms out of his grasp..
His smile grew as he pinned her hands above her head with one large hand. His other hand slipped up her side then pressed against her distended stomach as he continued, "Though I feel like there's something between us."
"Don't touch her!"
"Ah, so it's a she. That's good news. If it had been a boy, I would have had to kill you both."
Alexis' only response was to dig her fingernails into the hand that pinned her.
"Oh, we are going to have so much fun." His fingertips skimmed up the side of one breast.
She was going to be sick. The world spun again, from the drugs or her own revulsion, she wasn't sure. "Why are you doing this?" she asked weakly, traitorous tears slipping down her face.
"Because you belong to me." His fingertip pressed against the top of the scar on her chest, following its trail between her breasts. "Do you remember when I marked you?"
Fearful sobs shook her frame. She remembered it all too well.
"I never expected you to survive," he continued, his fingers stroking her skin and the raised scar tissue above her neckline. "But the woman you've turned into… Well, you're very tempting." His thumb dragged over her dry, cracked lips. "I've often wondered what that beautiful mouth would look like wrapped around me."
She visibly shuddered at the thought, tears slipping down her cheeks even faster. "Please."
"You don't like that? After I've been so generous?"
"How?" she asked, incredulous, seeking that familiar anger to ground herself.
"You get to keep your clothes."
Fear almost knocked the air out of her.
"I'm not unreasonable. We'll work our way up." He let go of her, and she slid down to the floor, her arms wrapped around herself.
"I've brought you some gifts," he said, holding up the blanket and the bottle of water. "And I only ask for one thing in return: ask nicely."
"What?"
"Manners, Miss Harper. Say 'Thank you, Devin. May I please have my gifts?'"
Alexis stared at him for a moment before shaking her head. "No. Never. You don't deserve gratitude or kindness."
"Come now, I know you're cold. I know you're dehydrated. That can't be good for the little one."
"I'm never going to beg you for anything!" she shrieked.
"Not even to keep your child warm?" he smiled. "Assuming she's still alive. I've never used that drug on a pregnant woman before."
A new kind of horror washed over her as his words settled in. Oh God. The baby hadn't moved once since Alexis had woken up.
"I'll let you think on that for a while. Enjoy your pride, Miss Harper, I hope it can keep you warm." Sloane closed the door, taking the water and blanket with him.
Alexis pressed against her abdomen until she was sure she felt a foot. The baby was just sleeping. She was just sleeping. She wasn't dead. She couldn't be—
"Baby," Alexis said, her voice cracking. "Wake up, baby. Wake up. Please wake up."
There was no response, and Alexis pressed harder, bruising her own skin. "Rosie!" she wailed. "Rosie! Wake up!"
Helpless sobs pressed over her, and Alexis curled up in the corner, running her hands back and forth over her stomach, tears and hiccups racking through her body as she whimpered out the mantra.
"Wake up. Please, wake up. Please, wake up..."
Author's Note: SO SORRY this took so long guys. Angst has a way of killing one's motivation. (Bet you never thought I'd say that, huh?) A million and a half thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and an extra special thanks to Loujohn and Rachel Beckett for the requests to update.
This is probably a no-brainer, but things are going to get pretty dark for the next couple chapters. Stick with me; there's light at the end of the tunnel, and I promise you won't have to wait as long for chapter seventeen.
Next time: The gang is back together, and Alexis must learn to survive her new captor.