The Acceptance Read online

  He jumped to the floor, shushing the woman’s moans of confusion and fear.

  Gaby tipped her head at Oren’s veiled surprise. “Oh, Oren.” She shook her head, ignoring the rope that rasped the soft flesh of her throat. “I know you think yourself superior in a sick, perverted way, but the truth is, you’re so fucked up in your head, you put other psychopaths to shame.”

  Showing his teeth in a grimace, Oren bunched his shoulders. “I am not a psychopath.”

  “Ah, come on, Oren. You’re the definition.” If Oren snapped and started hurting anyone, Gaby wanted the anger directed at her—not Luther. She’d do whatever she could to ensure that end. “Personality disorder, manifested in aggression. Check. Amoral, antisocial, and depraved. Check.”

  She needed Oren closer to her. Very close. “Confused and alone?” Gaby snorted. “I’ve never seen anyone more confused. The mental ward would have a field day with a specimen like you.”

  Trembling with hatred, Oren stared at her. “You’re wrong.”

  The mockery cut deep, Gaby could see that. “And you know, Oren, that’s all you are, really—just one more pathetic, lamentable specimen among all the lame little mongrels of society. I see you for what you are—and to me, to the real world, you’re as insignificant as a gnat.”

  Ready to come unglued, Oren paced away—going closer to Luther. Gaby prepared herself, willing to break her own bones to escape the bonds if it proved necessary to protect Luther.

  But at the last moment, Oren paused. More composed, he turned back to her. He laid aside the clippers, and picked up Gaby’s knife.

  “Careful,” Gaby taunted him. “That’s a real weapon, for a real woman.”

  Oren’s head snapped up.

  “What? You’re surprised I know? I already told you, I see right through your masquerade.”

  “No.”

  “You thought you fooled people?” She laughed, further riling him. “Now put down that knife. It’s not meant for a fucked up mental case who can’t decide on her own sexuality.”

  That did it. Oren gave a banshee scream of rage and charged Gaby with the knife raised high in a clenched fist.

  Finally. Gaby flattened her feet, clenched her knees, and just as Oren reached her, she kicked up and caught the maniac in the jaw.

  Like the frail female she was, Oren pitched to the side and landed hard on the floor with a moan. Gaby’s knife clattered free, and skid a few feet away.

  Oren’s uncle started shouting for Oren to get up, but it wouldn’t happen. Not now.

  The aunt screamed and screamed.

  Gaby stood the best she could, walked over to Oren, and with all the strength in her body, she stomped her wrist. The blow was hard enough to break all the delicate bones.

  Oren cried out, tried to curl in on himself, and Gaby stomped the other arm, shattering an elbow.

  The shrieks escalated to a cacophony of human terror from multiple sources.

  It affected Gaby not a whit.

  But it did cause Luther to stir. He was the type of man that, even drugged, couldn’t be immune to the panicked cries of humanity.

  He twitched, mumbled quietly to himself.

  Well hell. Not yet, Gaby prayed. Rushing now, she pivoted and slammed the chair into the wall, nearly rattling her brain loose. The chair held so she did it again, then once more. The force of the repetitive impacts would leave her spine and limbs bruised, but that beat the alternative. At last, with one more crash to the wall, the wooden seat and arms detached, still tied to her, but no longer hindering her.

  Oh yeah. Gaby looked down at the wooden chair arms strapped to her from elbow to wrist. This would work. The wood served as the perfect blunt weapon.

  She looked up at the aunt and uncle—and could smell their fear.

  “No!”

  “Yes.” With the uncle trying his best to flee, Gaby clubbed him in the head. He buckled, and fell to the dirty floor, out cold.

  The aunt was too scared to move, and Gaby whacked her right across the forehead.

  They were now unconscious, but that didn’t suffice. Not by a long shot.

  None of them could leave here. Not ever. She wouldn’t trust the faulty judicial system to keep them away from gentler, more innocent society.

  Luther moaned, tried to lift his head but couldn’t. “Gaby . . .”

  Damn. He needed her, but she couldn’t go to him, not yet.

  Urgency propelled Gaby to the concrete wall of the basement. In furious haste, she slammed her back against it, further splintering the broken pieces of the chair. With the rope on her throat loosened, she cracked the wooden arms against the wall until the wood broke away.

  Please, Gaby prayed, let me finish this before Luther awakens. Please don’t make this one more wall between us. Knowing what had to be done, Gabe freed up the use of her hands. She needed to be able to flex her fingers.

  She had to pull a trigger.

  Groaning and grunting with pain, both arms broken and useless, Oren struggled into a sitting position. Blood oozed from his lip, and his jaw swelled enough that Gaby figured she’d broken it.

  He looked at Gaby’s knife lying on the floor a few feet away.

  “I don’t think so,” Gaby told him. Even knowing Oren couldn’t lift it, not with his smashed arms, she picked up the knife. It felt good in her hands—but she couldn’t use it. Not for this.

  In a pain-filled mumble, Oren said, “You are a demon.”

  “Yeah, I am. And you’re too stupid to accept that you’re a young lady, not a boy. What is it, Oren? A mean mommy? An abusive daddy? What happened to fuck you up so bad?”

  “I was meant to be a man, that’s all. Women are only useless whores. All of them.”

  Gaby shook her head. “You’re wrong, Oren.”

  “My mother was a whore,” he spat. “After she died, my father had whores over all the time. Mean whores.”

  “They were cruel to you?”

  “What do you care?”

  She cared. She hated to see society feasting on itself. Unfortunately, it happened all too often. The wicked begat more wickedness, and the cycle never ended.

  “I’m omnipotent,” Oren bragged, splaying blood her way. The outburst depleted him, and he swayed, eyes drooping. “I’m powerful. Powerful enough that I decided to be a male years ago, right after I killed my father. No one knew. No one even suspected me.” His laugh sounded pained. “I fooled everyone.”

  “You didn’t fool me.”

  “You’re still calling me Oren,” he pointed out, with absurd, giddy delight. “You’re calling me by my male name.”

  “Consider it a small concession to your insanity. I feel a little bit sorry for the criminally deranged.” Picking up Luther’s gun, Gaby took aim. “Unfortunately, you were too cruel to satisfy your sick yearnings with harmless fantasy, and that makes you too evil . . . to live.”

  Seeing that barrel pointed at his chest, Oren blinked hard and fast. “No wait.”

  But she couldn’t. Luther might awaken at any moment. “Sorry, time’s up.”

  “Please!” Panicked, Oren again tried to stand, but his crushed arms offered no leverage, and he fell back down. “Please, no.”

  Gaby drew in a breath. She took no pleasure in saying, “Told you that you’d beg.”

  Tears fell. Blood gurgled from his mouth. “Please.”

  With deadly accuracy, Gaby shot Oren in the heart.

  The force of the gunshot drove him to his back again. His mangled arms flailed wide. He whined, gargled . . . and died.

  The aunt and uncle hadn’t moved. Things needed to look authentic, believable, so Gaby walked back to the table. With one quick flick of the razor-sharp blade on her knife, she freed Luther’s hands from the restraints. The tight bindings had chafed his skin, leaving behind angry red welts—and destroying any regrets Gaby might have felt with her decision.

  After throwing his restraints toward the center of the room to mingle with her own, Gaby curved Luther’s left
hand around the knife hilt. She squeezed his fingers to imprint his identity. His natural reflexes kept the knife lax in his hold.

  Next she put his gun into his right hand. As testament to the core of Luther’s nature as a lawman, he grasped it on his own. Even unconscious, he was one with the weapon.

  Standing behind Luther, Gaby took aim, and from that distance, shot the aunt in the head, the uncle in the throat. By ensuring her and Luther’s safety, an instantaneous lifting of her rage-fueled intuition left her depleted. With the threat from evil ones obliterated, she’d completed her calling.

  Gaby knew that she’d done the right thing, moral or not, but that wouldn’t help her in a world of legality.

  Roused by the blasts of gunfire, Luther mumbled again, his voice stronger this time, and his gun hand flinched, lifted, dropped back to rest on the tabletop. To finish her chore, Gaby went to her knees beside him, put her head on his thigh, and rested.

  She’d protected Luther, but at what cost?

  Would he believe the setup? Or would this be the final straw in testing his gullibility?

  A short time later, Luther came to with alacrity. He lurched into defensive mode, and Gaby hoped he wouldn’t drop the knife and slice her throat by accident. She kept very still, ready to play her part.

  Ready to do whatever necessary to insulate Luther from the ugliness of her purpose in life.

  Chapter 16

  Throbbing pain jerked Luther from his drugged slumber. A subconscious urgency prodded him to open his eyes, but at first, he saw only a great blur. His gun hand raised and at the ready, he willed himself to full awareness.

  Little by little the fogginess cleared, showing him foreign surroundings.

  What the hell?

  He started to lift his other hand, felt a heavy knife falling, and found himself fumbling with two weapons, a knife and his gun.

  He had no recollection of drawing either one.

  “Jesus.” Shaking his head to clear it didn’t help much; he didn’t understand any of this.

  What had happened?

  The last thing he recalled was sitting on the grass in front of his house with Gaby. He’d wanted to make love to her, had planned to work around to exactly that.

  Now he sat in the shadowed, dank darkness of a basement, and a foul stench—the fetor of death—burned his nostrils on every breath.

  A scene of utter carnage surrounded him. Blood sprayed the walls. Brain matter, gore, covered an area of the floor.

  In the middle of it all . . . a dead boy? He wasn’t sure of the age or sex, only that, given the lifelessness of the body, whoever it was had expired. Farther away, an older couple lay in tangled, bloody demise.

  Luther looked at the gun in his hand. His head pounded as memories intruded, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  This was the room Bliss had described to him, but how had he gotten here? Manacles hung from the wall, nooses from the ceiling. Makeshift cages held restraints of all kinds; it didn’t take great intuitiveness to know that innocent people had suffered great and immeasurable pain here.

  Where was Gaby? What had happened to her? His chest hurt and his guts cramped. No, he wouldn’t think the worst.

  He wouldn’t. He had to figure this out, and fast.

  Hearing nothing and no one, but unsure of any other threats, Luther started to stand. A warm weight shifted against his leg. He glanced down—and found Gaby slumped beside him.

  “Oh my God.”

  When her head lolled to the side, his heart threatened to burst. More scared than he’d ever been, he put aside the weapons and cupped her shoulders. “Gaby?”

  She mumbled, but didn’t awaken.

  Luther shook her. “Gaby!”

  Sliding off the chair to his knees, he gently laid her onto the floor and checked her over for wounds. Her arms were badly bruised, and a nasty rope burn encircled her pale throat.

  His muscles coiled in fury. “Fuckers. I’ll kill them all.” Drawing a ragged breath, his hands trembling, he smoothed back her hair. “Honey, talk to me, please.”

  Her eyes opened.

  To Luther’s astute gaze, they appeared clear, bright with perspicacity. She frowned. “Luther?”

  He shoved aside his suspicions to help her into a sitting position. “Are you all right?”

  With sluggish inelegance, she put a hand to her head and looked around.

  Eyes narrowed, Luther watched her. She showed no signs of shock at the tableau of horror. No signs of shock.

  Eyes direct, voice unshaken, she turned to him and said, “My God, Luther.”

  He swallowed hard. “I know.”

  Her beautiful blues didn’t blink. “It’s amazing.”

  “It is?”

  “Well, yes. Look at what you did.”

  He drew back, uncertain, confused, no memory of doing . . . anything.

  Gaby wrapped her arms around him. “You killed them all, and you saved us. The city should give you a commendation or something.” Her warm breath touched his neck. “It’s over, Luther. Finally, it’s over.”

  After Luther made a call, it didn’t take long for authorities to arrive. They swarmed the place, filling the upscale community with flashing lights and a flood of officials. Affluent neighbors came out to their porches, disgruntled by the disturbance to their peaceful and prosperous lives.

  As more uniformed men shoved past her, Gaby asked, “Who the hell are all these people?”

  “Detectives, crime scene technicians, medical examiner, photographers . . .” Luther shrugged. “It takes a lot of people to lock down a crime scene and gather the evidence the right way.”

  “Seems like a lot of ballyhoo to me when it’s already clear what happened.”

  His gaze sharpened on her. “And that is?”

  Gaby shrugged. “Sick freaks grabbed us, you killed them all, you’re a hero—end of story.”

  Luther didn’t buy that. He ran a hand over his head, a little pained, a lot disgusted. Hands on his hips, he turned away from her to stare at the bodies. “You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “He’s not a boy.”

  “Well, duh.” Gaby shook her head. “He’s not even a he.”

  “How did you know?” Luther flexed his jaw in frustration. “You were so certain about it, when no one else knew. So how did you know?”

  Time to tread carefully. Gaby tried for a look of indifference. “He’s the same kid I saw in my area way back when, that’s how.”

  “Before Lucy was taken?”

  “Yeah. You remember. You asked me why I was chasing him, and I told you then that I didn’t know for sure.”

  “But you knew that he—strike that—she was suspect even then?”

  Gaby didn’t like where the questions were leading. “He/she looked too clean-cut and uppity to be hanging out in my neck of the woods, that’s all. I just sensed that something was off.”

  “And as always, you were right.”

  “Lucky me.” She, too, glanced at the body. “You know,” she said softly, “she prefers to be addressed as he.”

  “He is dead, so what does it matter what he prefers?”

  It didn’t, not really. But still . . . She glared at him for confusing her more. “Look, Luther, it was him and his two twisted relatives there—”

  “How do you know they’re relatives?”

  Good grief. Would he grab on to her every word trying to find plot holes?

  Trying for a patience she didn’t possess, Gaby inhaled. “Okay, here’s how it went down. Are you paying attention?”

  Luther stiffened. “Just spit it out.”

  “They—the warped relatives—stuck you with the drug before they got to me, so you probably don’t remember as much as I do. But before that, before they drugged me, I heard a lot. The lady who likes to impersonate a boy is called Oren, and the other two are his aunt and uncle.”

  “You actually have memory of all that?”

  “I guess you don’t, huh?”
Gaby patted his arm in bogus sympathy. Poor Luther, he hated the loss of details, his weak grasp on the happenings. “The uncle injected you first. You got in one good hit that knocked him down, but it was too late—the drug was already in you and doing its thing. While I was moving to help you, the loony aunt stuck me, not just once, but a bunch of times.”

  Luther paled. “Show me.”

  Why not? Gaby turned and lifted her shirt.

  “Jesus, Gaby.” Gentle fingertips smoothed over her skin. “She did a number on you.”

  “Yeah. But I clocked the bitch in the nose, which is how it got broken. I’d have done more, but then I passed out and the rest is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.” She lowered her shirt again.

  “You need to be checked.”

  “Forget that, cop. I’m fine.”

  Concern warmed his face. “It’s important that we both go—”

  “Ha.” Gaby shoved away his hands. “You might have to follow orders, but I don’t.” To keep him from getting pissed again, Gaby changed the subject. “Do you realize that this room is exactly as Bliss described it?”

  Sickened by it all, Luther nodded. “I imagine all dens of torture look similar. It’s a grisly sight.” His gaze locked on hers. “You don’t seem bothered by it though.”

  Gaby forced a shudder. “Yeah, it’s creepy.” She slugged him in the shoulder. “Thank God you played hero and took care of them, huh? If it wasn’t for you, we’d probably both be—”

  Luther squashed a finger over her lips. “No.” He lightened his touch, caressed her lips. “Save it, okay?”

  “Um . . . what does that mean?” Gaby prayed that he wouldn’t start doubting her rendition of things. She wasn’t up to full disclosure. Not yet.

  Probably not ever.

  “You’ll have to tell it again at the station. There’s no reason to go over it all now.”

  “Oh.”

  He looked tender, forbearing, and pained.

  How should she interpret all that?

  Luther put an arm around her shoulders. “There’s no reason for us to stay down here. Let’s go get some fresh air.”