TORTURE ME_ The Bandits MC(84)

Still, Gage was aware it was a long shot. There was no way of knowing that the killer hadn’t already disposed of his last captive, successfully finishing whatever perverted religious ritual he was performing. Gage’s only hope was that Tori’s disappearance might have knocked off the rhythm of the ritual. He got the sense, especially from Fiona’s analysis, that the killer was someone who followed strict rules, conducting himself according to stringent standards in order to please his deity. It was likely that he chose a specific number of girls to kill, and one of them had already gotten away, which meant that the killer would probably try to kidnap at least one other girl to complete the ritual, giving Gage some time to work with.



For about an hour and a half, Gage crept quietly through the woods behind the compound, searching for any sign of a multi-story building that the killer could be using. But so far, he had no luck. There was no sign of anyone in the area at all, actually. In fact, there weren’t even any animals that he could see. It was an incredibly lonely place, with tall, bare trees that provided very minimal cover for Gage as he walked from one area to the next, attempting to find a path without attracting any attention. He thought about the girls, trapped in the basement of the killer’s hideout. I bet they couldn’t even hear the sounds of any birds during the day or crickets at night over the sound of the highway behind the woods, Gage thought. He wondered if that was what it was like for Abby, if she even forgot that wild animals existed during her captivity. She used to love animals, preferring their company to being around other people. In the end, she had neither. She just had darkness. Just like Fiona.



Sometimes, he wondered if that was why he loved Fiona so much—because she was the only one who could understand what happened to Abby. But it was deeper than that, he knew. Some part of him, no matter how irrational, believed that Fiona was the only one who could heal him, the only one who could fix all his broken parts and put him back together again. It was absurd, Gage knew. Fiona was broken enough herself. She couldn’t even put herself back together, let alone another person. We were doomed from the start, Gage thought. Two damaged people acting like it was okay to be who we were. It was never going to work.



Crunch. The sound of a heavy foot pressing down on a pile of leaves tore Gage away from his inner monologue. His entire body stiffened with anxiety and anticipation as he quickly moved behind a thick, tall tree that was wide enough to hide his form from anybody walking from the other side of the woods. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Whoever was coming had accelerated their pace, coming straight towards him. Beads of sweat began to course down Gage’s neck, disappearing under the neckline of his shirt.



“You’re never going to get away with this, you know,” a low, feminine voice hissed.



“Shut the fuck up,” a male voice said. “Shut. Up.”



“Or what? You’ll kill me faster?” the woman whispered before laughing loudly, the sound of her bitter cackle ringing out in the empty spaces between the trees.



That sound was so familiar… Gage knew that noise. He’d had that laugh directed at him a thousand times before. It always felt like it was cutting him in two every time he heard it. It always meant that Fiona was mad at him…



Fiona!



Gage peeked around the edge of the tree to see Fiona being dragged across the woods in a man’s arms, a blindfold wrapped around her head and a large sharp knife pressed against her neck. The man’s face was turned away from Gage, but the shape of the man’s body was familiar, too. But it wasn’t until the man spoke again that it clicked.



“You’re going to taste so good. Bitches always taste the best,” the man growled into Fiona’s neck.



That’s when it hit him.



Cash Malone was the killer.





Chapter Twenty-Four




Fiona was well-aware that this whole mess was her fault. Confronting Cash was a bad idea by itself, but doing it alone was even worse. After she figured out that the killer had to be a chef, she’d cornered him in the kitchen of the Bandits’ compound, but before she could even get two words out, Cash turned a knife on her, covering her eyes with a blindfold then dragging her out to the woods. And now he was taking her into a cabin surrounded by trees, which she could just barely make out through the blindfold if she squinted as hard as she could.



So I’m going to die here, she thought, the words feeling distant and faded in her mind, like her thoughts had to fight through a layer of fog to be heard. She felt weirdly calm, like some part of her always knew that this was going to happen. She was always going to end up here, back in the darkness, back in a man’s arms, a sharp knife pressed against her throat.