Page 8 of Traces of Kara

She pulled away, the edges of the tape tearing thin slits into her wrists.

He turned his head in her direction. His straggly hair stuck to his mangled cheek. The angry scars on the right side of his face were etched into her memory. She breathed fast and hard, shaking her head from side to side, inching her butt along the cold concrete, as far away from him as she was able while tethered to the pole.

He ran his hand down his face, then rose to his feet. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was thick, formidable. He leaned down, reaching his hand toward her face.

Kara flinched, pulling away from him.

He ripped the tape from her mouth with one quick pull, tearing away pieces of her skin and leaving behind raw flesh, specked with blood.

She screamed. Her cheeks burned.

He slapped his large palm over her mouth, pushing her jaw closed. “Shut up. You keep making me hurt you. I don’t want to.” He reached for the roll of tape. “I gave you a chance, and now, you give me no choice but to shut you up again.”

Kara seized the opportunity, kicking her legs and screaming as loudly as she could. The concrete walls absorbed her piercing echoes. Her throat ached, swollen and sore.

He turned toward her. The roll of duct tape was inches from her face.

Kara swallowed her screams, hiccupping in gasps of air. “Please,” she begged, “I won’t scream. Please don’t,” she pleaded through her sobs.

He cast a cold gaze down at her, and ripped the tape between his teeth.

She whipped her head from side to side. “No, please!”

“Marissa, I have—”

“I’m not Marissa!” She turned away from him. “No! Please!”

He stretched the tape across her mouth.

Sobs emanated from deep within her chest. The tape clung to her torn, raw skin, piercing like needles through her cheeks.

He paced. “I have to think. I can’t think with you screaming. Damn it, Marissa. What did they do to you?” He crouched next to her.

Her body trembled.

“They must have brainwashed you. I know you want to be with me as much as I want to be with you.” He rubbed his hands together.

Kara’s eyes ran over the deep grooves and puffed, uneven valleys that made up the right side of his face. A thin red line of dried blood filled a fresh scratch.

He reached for her arm. “We’re family, Marissa. I’ll protect you.”

She closed her eyes, his heavy touch hot through her thin, cotton top. Too frightened to speak, her thoughts echoed in her head, I’m not her! I’m not Marissa!

“You’re scared, that’s all.” He put his hand on the pole above her and leaned his face close to her ear. The stench of sweat and coal surrounded him. “Scared,” he whispered, and he ran his finger along her hairline.

Oh God, help me please.

Chapter Eight

Roland paced the dark room, a lump in his throat, his heart thumping in a fast rhythm. He couldn’t take Marissa’s painful cries from behind the tape. He covered his ears, pacing, his head inches from the low ceiling. He hadn’t meant to tie her up, but she’d left him no choice. Why had she been afraid of him? He was so confused. He was way off schedule. It was late—early morning, more likely. He’d carried her into the deep womb of the plant. He’d found it months before, and had visited it several times in preparation. It had been so easy. Lazy employees. They made him sick, the way they disappeared into rooms together, shirking their responsibilities. All but that one. The nosey one. No one else was supposed to die but him and Marissa. His plan was all askew. Was there some sign in the mixed up plan that he wasn’t seeing clearly? Roland clenched his jaw as he mulled over the thought.

The maze of rooms leading to the cavity where they were to spend their final days together were sparse, with nothing in them but a few old generators and an old box of supplies where he’d found rope, tape, hammers, gloves, and rolls of wire. All useful.

He crouched behind Marissa, darkness settling upon his shoulders like a great weight. He withdrew the plastic containers from the burlap bag. He’d planned everything down to the last detail. He knew the exact dosage, having memorized it from his favorite episode of Law and Order. He’d even practiced it on that other woman. He’d had to. How else could he figure out the dosage for the remedy? Roland wiped sweat from his face. He recalled the woman’s face when she’d drank the potion he’d made. Stupid woman. She’d thought it was a mixture of juice and alcohol—Passion Punch—and gulped it down like it was Kool-Aid. The diarrhea had taken him by surprise, the way she’d writhed in pain until there was nothing left for her to expel. They hadn’t shown that on television. He’d watched as she’d vomited on the forest floor, then shit like water in the dark mud. He’d let her suffer for six hours as he looked on, researched, learned. As soon as she said she felt like her heart would explode, he’d given her the grain alcohol, held the bottle upside down to her lips, spilling it down her cheeks and neck as she fought in desperation, the cold liquid saturating her trembling bosom. Roland had been surprised at how quickly the alcohol had remedied the antifreeze. It was then he’d learned to think things through, to plan. The alcohol had worked. Within an hour she lay on the earth, exhausted, but no longer feeling the palpitations of her heart. She had threatened to go to the police, screamed, cried into the night. She’d called him ugly, a monster. He’d had to get rid of her. He’d had no other choice. She would have ruined everything, the whore. Served her right for getting into his car on that street corner. He’d needed a guinea pig, and he’d have let her go, too, if only she hadn’t reacted so poorly.

Roland set the blue bottle of antifreeze next to the bottles of whiskey. In front of them he set the rest of his supplies. He took the old-fashioned travel alarm clock he’d stolen from the locker at the trucking company, and held it in his palm. He ran a finger along the square metal edge. Twenty-four hours. From the moment they drank the antifreeze, they’d have up to twenty-four hours before death claimed them. Finally, no one would be able to come between them. He set the clock on the ground next to the cake.

Marissa had finally fallen asleep, or passed out, from all her crying, Roland wasn’t sure which. Either way, it was Roland’s opportunity to make sure she’d left nothing behind. He thought about his plan. In twenty-four hours they would be eternally bound. His heartbeat sped up. The thought tantalized him.