Free Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) by Kimberly A. Bettes

funny.
    Then, he
saw Stephanie. With no more than a second’s worth of consideration, he walked
over to her and got on his knees. With her arms and legs still shackled to the
floor, spread wide, he had his way with her.
    As if it wasn’t
disturbing enough to watch him rape a dead woman, I listened as he said my name
over and over while doing it. With each thrust of his hips, he said, “Nicole.
Nicole. Nicole.” As he climaxed, he said my name again. This time, it was loud. A long, terrifying howl of my name, sure to haunt me in my
sleep.
    And that
wasn’t even the creepy part.
    Worse than
watching him rape a dead woman, worse than him repeatedly saying my name while raping
a dead woman, was the fact that he stared at me the whole time. His eyes never
left mine while he defiled the woman he’d murdered so violently.
    My skin
broke out in gooseflesh, my throat tightened, my stomach knotted, and my heart
pounded.
    He got up
from her and walked past me without saying anything. I watched him walk slowly
up the stairs. When he closed the door behind him, I released the breath I’d
been holding. I noticed I was crying, so I gave in and let it go, crying harder
than I’d ever cried before.
    The
severity of the situation was starting to sink in on me. All thoughts of
controlling the situation were gone now. All hopes of being let go were gone
along with them. I wasn’t capable of handling someone like him. I had no
training in dealing with people with mental problems. I don’t know if anyone
had the training it would take to deal with Ron. He scared me more than
anything I’d ever encountered, either in real life or in my nightmares.
    As I fell
asleep, I was grateful for the sweet release sleep brought to me. Even if my
dreams were nightmares, it’d be less frightening than my reality.
    I woke
some time later to the sounds of Ron beating Stephanie’s lifeless body, but
when I rolled over, I was alone in the basement. Well, alone with Stephanie’s
body. Ron wasn’t in the room. I must’ve been having a nightmare. The sad part
was the nightmare had been a reality just hours before.
    When I escaped,
I was going to have to get two jobs to pay for the therapy I was going to need
to deal with this trauma.
    The next
time I woke, it was to the loud clanging sound of what reminded me of metal
striking metal. I quickly sat up and scooted backward until I felt the cold wall
at my back. From there, I watched Ron work.
    He had an
axe high above his head. I watched as he brought it down hard, slicing through
Stephanie’s outstretched arm near where it connected to her shoulder. I gasped,
but if he heard me, he ignored me and kept on chopping. First
one arm, and then the other. Then, he moved to her legs, chopping each
of them off close to the hip.
    With each
strike of the axe came the sound of a snapping bone, followed by the clink of
the metal striking the concrete floor. Also with each strike of the axe, I
jumped and closed my eyes.
    After
decapitating the torso, he tossed the axe to the floor and wiped his forehead
with the back of his hand.
    He glanced
over at me and saw that I was watching him. “Dirty work,” he said.
    I could
only nod stiffly.
    After
unlocking the restraints of her wrists and ankles, he placed each of her limbs
in a separate black trash bag and tied it tightly. He did the same for her head
and torso, though the torso wasn’t as easy for him as the smaller pieces had
been.
    Two by
two, he carried the bags up the steps while I watched in silence.
    When all
the bags were gone from the basement, he returned. Exhausted, he sat on the
bottom step, facing me.
    “Are you
afraid, Nicole?”
    I wasn’t
sure what to say. Did he want me to be afraid? The wrong answer may be my
ticket to a trash bag, so I weighed my words carefully.
    “I’m
afraid that you’ll end up not liking me enough to put me in a trash bag like
you did her.”
    “Nonsense. I told
you, I didn’t like her from the beginning. She wasn’t