Safe and Sound (Part Fourteen)
Prologue | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen and Epilogue
Chapter Fourteen
Feel like I could have helped you
Lois stood anxiously on the doorstep of Room 305. After a moment, she reached up and knocked again. She heard the shuffling of footsteps and a second later the door opened to reveal the pretty red-head she’d met earlier in the week. “How did you get my cell number?” she asked without waiting for an invitation to step inside, pushing past Sarah.
Sarah was silent for a moment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? So your name’s not Sarah Covington?” Lois turned to face her, hands on her hips.
The redhead didn’t meet her eyes.
“That’s what I thought.” She looked around the room, taking note of how bare it was. “Where’s your roommate?”
“I don’t have one,” Sarah said, shifting uncomfortably.
“Tell me everything you know about Marty Adams.”
“I..I don’t know much,” she stammered. “I’ve just…heard things.”
Lois wasn’t buying it. “My cousin is dating that jerk. So I need you to tell me everything you know, right now.”
“Please, I don’t wanna--”
“I know. You don’t wanna get involved, right?” When Sarah didn’t respond, Lois decided to change tactics. “Look, she’s the only family I’ve got. If you know something, you have to tell me so that I can help her. Please.”
Sarah stared at her for a long moment. Then she wrapped her arms around herself, looking down at the floor. “You might wanna sit down.”
* * *
Lois felt herself recoiling in horror as Sarah slowly told her the story of how she’d gotten involved with Marty. About how he’d been so sweet the first few weeks they’d been dating, how considerate.
It was chillingly familiar.
“He was always sending me flowers and giving me gifts. He even wrote me a poem. I was…” Sarah shook her head a little. “You have to understand, before I met him, I really hadn’t dated much. So when I met him and he paid all this attention to me and I was just…overwhelmed. And flattered,” she admitted. “I mean, here I was, this little nobody from Wichita and this gorgeous junior was in love with me. I liked the attention.”
Lois held her breath.
“But it didn’t last that long,” Sarah murmured. “He has a temper. A bad one. And by the time I realized just how bad, I was in way over my head.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Are you saying he…”
She didn’t meet Lois’s eyes. “We hadn’t been together six months when…I wound up in the hospital for a broken arm and a cracked skull.”
“He beat you.”
“He pushed me down a flight of stairs when I tried to leave.”
The color drained from Lois’s face.
Sarah looked at her, her eyes filled with tears. “He told me that if I ever told anyone, he’d kill me. And I believe him,” she whispered.
Lois rose to her feet. “I have to go over there and get Chloe.”
“Be careful, Lois. He’s dangerous.” Sarah slowly stood up, moving to get her bag.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving. Before he figures out I told you.” She grabbed her purse.
Lois gazed at her for a moment. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“Eventually.”
“He’s not gonna get away with this, Sarah,” Lois said firmly.
A bitter smile twisted her lips. “You don’t understand. His family is powerful. And wealthy. He’ll get away with it. He always does.” Without waiting for a response, Sarah headed out of the room.
* * *
Lois quickly unlocked the door to Lana’s dorm room. Her plan was to get the stun gun that she knew her friend had gotten as a gift from Chloe for her birthday that she kept hidden under her bed, and then to head over and get her cousin.
But when she opened the door, she was shocked to see Chloe already there, sitting on the edge of her old bed, arms wrapped tightly around herself. She was facing the window and Lois saw her tense when she shut the door. “Chloe?” she whispered.
When she didn’t respond, Lois felt her heart sink. Slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal, she moved so she could see her cousin’s face. All the air left her lungs as she saw the bruises around Chloe’s throat, the deep scratch across her forehead. “Oh, God. What did he do to you?”
Tears prickled Chloe’s eyes and she didn’t answer, simply hung her head and squeezed her eyes shut tightly.
“I’m calling the police.” Lois moved to get the phone, but Chloe reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“No!”
“Chloe, we can’t let him get away with this!”
“It’ll be my word against his.” Her voice was choked, raspy. Like it pained her to speak at all. “And I’m just a hack reporter from nowhere, Kansas.”
Lois felt a rush of anger, of hatred rise up within her. “All right, no cops.” She moved and went to Lana’s bed, reaching underneath and retrieving the stun gun.
“Lois, no,” she whispered, rising to her feet. Her knees were shaky and for the first time it dawned on Lois that her cousin’s shirt was ripped. “Please. Just stay here with me. I don’t wanna be alone right now.”
Conflicted by her own nearly overwhelming emotions, Lois headed for the phone once more. “I’m gonna call Clark.”
“No! No, don’t…don’t call Clark. Please.” Chloe’s voice was even more strained when she spoke his name. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”
Closing her eyes briefly, Lois tried to figure out what to do. “We should take you to the hospital.”
“I’m all right. I promise, I just…I wanna take a shower and try to get some sleep.”
Feeling ill and helpless, Lois slowly turned to look at the girl who was more like a sister to her than a cousin. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just…don’t leave. And don’t…call anyone. I just need some time.” Her eyes were red from crying.
“Of course I won’t leave,” she whispered. She moved to Chloe’s side, very carefully wrapping her arms around her. Chloe rested her head on Lois’s shoulder for a moment, and then she slowly pulled away, heading toward the bathroom.
Lois watched her go. Then she slowly sank down onto her cousin’s bed, buried her face in her hands, and began to cry.
* * *
When Chloe awoke from a dreamless, restless sleep the next morning, she lifted her head from the pillows and looked around, finding the dorm room empty. Despite her body’s achy protestations, she launched herself out of bed. “Lois!”
She spotted a hurriedly written note stuck on the door and she quickly read over it.
C~
Went for coffee and bagels. Back soon.
Love,
Lo
“Yeah right,” she whispered. There’s no way that’s where her cousin had gone this early in the morning. Dread creeping upon her, she quickly looked under Lana’s bed and found the stun gun missing. She’d gone after Marty. Alone.
Feeling sick, Chloe quickly threw on a pair of Lana’s jeans and a shirt and was out the door in two minutes flat. It didn’t even occur to her to call Clark. All she knew was that she had to get to her cousin, and fast. Because now Lois was in danger.
And it was all her fault.
* * *
Lois got back to the dorm room just after nine, carrying two Styrofoam cups filled with mocha lattes, and a bag of fresh bagels. She was startled to find that the room was unlocked. That doesn’t bode well, she thought, pushing the door open.
Sure enough, the room was empty.
“Okay, don’t panic. She’s probably in the bathroom.” She quickly set the food items down on Lana’s desk and headed down the hall to the restroom. “Chloe?” she called, poking her head inside.
There was no response. In fact, it was completely silent.
She quickly backtracked toward the room once more. This time she noted that the closet door was thrown up as if Chloe had been in a hurry to get dressed and leave.
“Where are you?” she whispered aloud and her first thought sickened her. She couldn’t have gone back there. She wouldn’t have.
Unless.
Unless she’d woken alone and thought Lois had gone after Marty. The color drained from her face, and she knew with absolute certainty that that’s exactly what had happened.
“Oh, God.” Not bothering to lock the door, Lois slammed it shut behind her and raced for the nearest exit.
* * *
Chloe was trembling as she paused outside of Marty’s apartment building, her heart racing. Before she could chicken out, she forced herself to go inside, and quickly ascend the steps to his apartment. Listening outside the door for a moment, she didn’t hear anything unusual, but she couldn’t risk that he’d already done something to her cousin.
Feeling sick, she quietly unlocked the door, careful not to rattle the keys as she pushed open the door.
Everything was silent.
“Lois?” she whispered. She bit down hard on her lip as her stomach rolled, threatening to expel what meager contents were inside it as the memory of what had happened here just a few hours before washed over her with vivid clarity.
She headed back toward the bedroom, picking up a kitchen knife from the counter and clutching it tightly in her hand. Peeking into the room, she saw that it was empty.
Lois wasn’t there. And neither was Marty.
Closing her eyes, she leaned heavily against the doorframe for a moment as the nausea subsided. Then she stepped farther into the room and pulled open the closet doors, setting the knife down on the dresser.
She began grabbing her clothes from the hangers, stuffing them hurriedly into her suitcase and zipping it shut. When she looked up, she caught sight of movement in the mirror and she quickly spun around.
Marty stood in the doorway, blocking the exit, his arms folded over his chest. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Swallowing hard, she spotted the knife and slowly inched toward it.
With surprising speed, Marty picked it up and tossed it away. “Running back to Clark?”
“Please,” she whispered, backing away from him.
Marty’s eyes were cold. Murderous. He slowly pulled a gun from the top drawer of the dresser and pointed it at her. “Well, you can forget it. Because if I can’t have you, no one can.”
* * *
Lois was halfway up the stairs of the apartment building when she heard the gunshot. Please God, don’t let me be too late, she prayed. Adrenaline surged through her veins and she raced to Marty’s apartment, dialing 911 on her cell phone. Her heart pounded as she gave them the location and hung up.
As she headed down the hall toward the bedroom, Marty suddenly appeared in front of her. “You shouldn’t have come here, bitch,” Marty growled. He had a gun in his hand and started to point it at her.
She didn’t hesitate, spinning and kicking it out of his hands with precise, quick movements that startled him. “You picked the wrong family to f*ck with, a**hole!” She pulled the stun gun from her purse and lunged at him again, shocking him directly in the groin.
Screaming, he fell to the floor.
She quickly picked up the gun and dodged into the bedroom, her heart stopping at the scene in front of her.
Her younger cousin was lying unconscious on the floor in a quickly spreading pool of her own blood.