Mike looked at the messed up covers, the needle on the bed and the one shoe on the rug.
“Fuck! He has her, Taylor. Peter took Marlena, right out from under our noses.”
“Fuck!” Danny kicked the dresser, making it rock and almost tip over.
“Get your gear and get out here. The dogs are picking up on the scent. They’ll find her. Bring out something she was wearing,” Taylor said and Jack grabbed her light sweater. He brought it to his nose, closed his eyes, and smelled her scent.
“We have to find her fast, Mike. He’ll kill her.”
“We will. I won’t let him take her from us. I won’t,” Mike said.
Danny picked up the shotgun he placed on the dresser and held it against him. “We’re not going to let him kill our woman. Let’s move.”
* * * *
Marlena felt her head pounding. She moaned and realized instantly that she was tied to something. Her eyes and nostrils burned. Was that gasoline she smelled?
She blinked her eyes open and saw Peter watching her. He’d doused the place in gasoline. She was going to burn to death.
She cried out and tried to pull her hands and legs from the confinement of the rope.
“Help me! Help!” she screamed and struggled.
He struck her with a backhand.
She screamed at him.
“I hate you! You sick son of a bitch. They’ll get you and when they do you’ll die a miserable painful death.”
He struck her again and again. Her vision blurred and he pulled back and spat at her.
“You’re nothing. They’re nothing. I’m going to watch you burn and then I’m going to watch the three men you’ve been screwing watch you die.”
“Fuck you!”
“You deserve to die. Screwing three men. I heard you with him in the fucking shower. You bitch.”
“That’s right. I was making love to him, just like I made love to his brothers.”
He straddled her waist and tore her T-shirt apart.
“You’re going to pay for that. You can’t fight me. You’re weak and this time you’re going to die. I can take anything, everything away from you, Marlena. I’ve told you that over and over again back home. You belong to me. I molded you into the woman I wanted you to be.”
“You didn’t mold shit. If I was the woman you wanted me to be, then why did you cheat on me?”
He smacked her again and she cried out in pain.
“I have needs, Marlena. I wanted you pure and perfect. But I see now, that you’re fucking three men like some whore, that I misread you. You weren’t worth my time. Then you tried to run from me. Like you could do that. Like you had control. Never. I’m the one that can give you life or death. I will always have control over you. Always.”
“You’re sick, and you’re evil. I’m my own person. You knew that. That’s why you cheated on me and tried to kill me. But you lost everything. You lost the slut you were screwing and you lost your control of me,” she said to him, feeling her lip drip blood and her cheek ache something terrible. Her eye was swelling closed and she was shocked when he gripped her by the throat and started choking her.
She kicked and struggled to get free. He leaned forward, hands on her throat still, and kissed her. He plunged his tongue in deep and she was desperate for breath, to live. She didn’t know what to do when she bit into his tongue.
He struck her, instantly releasing his hold on her neck. The strikes went everywhere as he battered and beat her until she couldn’t move.
She lost. He won. Her vision blurred, the tears flowed, the weakness was overpowering, and she lost her ability to see.
She heard a noise. She saw the flash of a lighter and Peter smiling.