The Sister(182)

He grabbed the back of her top and ripped it from her.

‘No – please don’t!’ she said, her voice cracked, and no longer restrained. She cried openly.

Stella peered under the curtain and bit her lip. Long angry scars criss-crossed the woman’s back. A belt buckle dangled into view. Suspended, it turned slowly until it revealed the grotesque effigy emblazoned on the other side of it. A screaming skull wreathed by laurels. It created an air of menace almost as unbearable as the pain about to be inflicted. He paused, and seeming to consider which end to strike with.

She stood slowly, terrified he might hear. With one hand over her mouth, she stifled the sound of her ragged breathing. The silence, impossibly stretched, broke. The belt cut through the air. Swoosh – crack. The woman cried out.

Stella backed away; eyes squeezed shut. She knew she should do something. At least say something, but the fear she’d be next sapped her courage.

Swoosh – crack! Swoosh – crack! With every vicious strike against her bare flesh, the woman cried out and wailed in dread expectation of the next.

Stella had retreated, slid to her haunches against the wall. Knees drawn up, hands over ears, she prayed for the nightmare to end. A vision of her father came to mind. What would he have done in her situation?

Her eyes opened. She rose, approached the curtain and spoke loud, her voice filled with authority. ‘For God’s sake – leave her alone!’

For the second time in as many minutes, menacing silence reigned. Her bladder puckered with fear, threatening her resolve.

The curtain swished back, and Martin’s dead black eyes bored into hers, his face flushed and contorted with hatred. Defiant, she stared back. A droplet of urine moistened her pants. About to fall apart, she wrestled with the voices in her head and finding one strong enough, spat at him through the bars. ‘Well, what are you going to do – kill me?’

He moved with deliberate slowness to the cabinet that housed the key to her cell. Inserting it into the lock, he turned it.

‘Yes – but first I’m going to give you something to remember me by.’

He swung open the gate.





Stella had backed herself into a corner, if she could feint left and quickly go right, duck under his reach, she might just have a chance to escape. She prayed the lower door wasn’t locked.

He was almost on her. Time to make that choice, Stella. Look at his eyes, look the way you want him to think you’ll go and then go in the opposite direction.

With both avenues cut off by his direct approach, her only remaining chance was to dive beneath the spread of his arms. She took a deep breath.

Barely perceptible, a high squeak came from beyond the door. He heard it and stopped, listened with head tilted. Someone is on the stairs! He dashed for the cupboard door; the flayed woman grabbed at his ankle and he stumbled. She wrapped both hands around his shin and held on fast. He lashed out at her with his free leg.

‘Let go, Cath!’ he yelled.

Still she held on. He dispatched her with a grunt, rabbit punching her behind the ear. She exhaled and rolled over unconscious.

Without exiting the cupboard, he listened intently. No one was on the stairs, and the front door remained shut. Satisfied nothing was amiss, he returned to Stella. A snarl tightened the skin across his face, and the broken bones of his nose showed white beneath the skin, black eyes blazing with the only emotion that ever touched them. Rage.

‘Now you’re going to pay,’ he said, grabbing onto her arm so tightly she thought it would break. His grip stopped the circulation to her fingers, and they felt cold and numb. She fought back, tried to snatch away. He rewarded her with the same punch he’d dealt Cath. Stella tried not to let the lights go out, fought against losing consciousness and lost.





Stella opened her eyes. On her knees unable to move, he’d tied her arms by the wrists behind her back, secured them to her heels and left her half slumped against the sofa. She realised with horror he’d undressed her, and she tried to focus on how she felt down there. She couldn’t feel anything. He hasn’t raped me. Her elation lasted for the only briefest moment; it was a temporary reprieve. It was coming.

He re-entered the room holding a syringe; he tapped the air bubbles to the top, shooting them out. He knelt beside her. She thought about her father once more. That happy holiday. She smiled vaguely.

‘What did I tell you? You’ve been looking forward to this now, haven’t you?’

He pushed the needle into her. The drug rushed through her veins with a power that shut her down systematically. She knew instinctively he’d given her too much, but she no longer cared. She was resigned to her fate. No one was coming for her. She closed her eyes and prayed for sweet release, hoping she’d feel no pain. She smiled.

The half-smile was still on her lips when he tied the stocking gag tightly around her face.





Chapter 144



Miller suddenly realised what day it was – Friday the thirteenth. Although not normally superstitious, he felt wary. The sky darkened as he pulled into the car park beside the café, a single splat of water struck the windshield so hard it jarred him from his thoughts. The aqueous explosion was a mere precursor to what would come next. The wind rose up out of nowhere, whipping up a machine gun burst of similar sized drops that pounded the car and ricocheted off in all directions.