What He Executes (What He Wants, Book Twenty-Three) Read online

  WHAT HE EXECUTES (What He Wants, Book Twenty-Three)

  Hannah Ford

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  WHAT HE EXECUTES

  WHAT HE EXECUTES

  Copyright © 2017 by Hannah Ford

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  WHAT HE EXECUTES

  BY HANNAH FORD

  WHAT HE EXECUTES

  CHARLOTTE

  I screamed as loud as I could, the sound echoing off the concrete walls and reverberating around the cellar.

  “Oh, come on, Charlotte, don’t be scared,” Mikayla said, rolling her eyes. “Remember how brave you were that night at Force?” She still had her camera trained on me, taunting me.

  Before I could reply, the side door Lameuix had walked through opened again, and Bia came out, followed by Professor Worthington. He was thinner than I remembered --- probably from being on the run after escaping from prison – and dressed in a pair of raggedy cargo pants and a red and tan checked shirt that hung loose on his frame. When his eyes met mine, fear and loathing filled my body, so strong I was afraid I might have a panic attack.

  “Good job, Mikayla,” Bia said approvingly when she saw me sprawled on the floor. “Jesus, you must have gotten her down here right away.” She sighed. “I don’t know why Noah would be with such a do-gooder, but to each his own, I guess.”

  “Fuck you,” I spit.

  Bia grinned. “Feisty, I like that.”

  “Hello, baby,” Professor Worthington said, staring at me with affection. He was holding a gun, which was pointed toward me, but his face showed nothing but affection. The sight of him, here, underground, made bile rise in my throat. I remembered the feel of his hands on me that night at Force, and scenes from that night pulsed through my brain.

  Noah on the floor, bleeding out.

  The auction.

  The professor leading me up that back staircase toward the stage, Mikayla and I tied together.

  Mikayla.

  Jesus.

  She’d been in on this the whole time. I’d been running around New York, risking everything for her, and she’d been in on it the whole time, had been luring me here the same way Noah had been trying to lure the professor.

  A moment later, Noah appeared at the bottom of the staircase, his own gun drawn.

  “A gun,” Lameuix said, nodding in approval when he saw it. “Good thinking.” He was still wearing that crisp button-up and pressed khakis, and he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cigar. “Where’s my lighter, Bia?”

  She reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out the lighter, then lit his cigar for him.

  Noah pointed the gun at Lameuix and cocked the trigger.

  “You sick motherfucker,” he said, taking in the video equipment and the tiny camera that Lameuix held, putting together what was going on. “You’ve done some fucked up shit in your life, but filming murders really brings you to a whole other level of psychopath.” He smiled. “Impressive. I’m going to enjoy blowing your fucking head off.”

  “Noah,” I pleaded from the floor, not sure what, exactly, I was pleading for.

  He looked down at me, his jaw tightening. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” I reached behind me and rubbed my tailbone. It was bruised, but not broken. “I don’t think so.”

  “Stand up and get behind me, Charlotte. Do not move unless I tell you to.”

  “Noah, please.” I stood up and did as he said, but we needed to think this through. It was two of us and one gun against four of them and one gun – we were outnumbered, and needed a better plan Noah just declaring he was going to enjoy blowing Lameuix’s head off.

  “Don’t try to tell him what do to, Charlotte,” Lameuix chided. “You know Noah Cutler doesn’t listen to anyone but himself.” He took a long drag of his cigar and then set down the camera he was holding on a dusty wooden workbench. He smiled at me. “The camera’s a nice touch, but it’s really only for show, “ he explained. He gestured around the basement as if he were showing off the control room of a popular television show instead of a torture chamber he used to make films of rapes and murders. “We have cameras trained on you everywhere, every angle, catching every scream, every cut, every kill.”

  The sound of a gun cocking came through the air, but before I could realize it wasn’t Noah’s – his gun was already cocked -- I felt someone press a barrel of a gun to my temple.

  “Hello, Charlotte,” a familiar voice sing-songed against my ear. “We meet again.” Professor Worthington’s hand grasped my arm and I looked down and watched as his nails dug into me, breaking the skin. His nails were dirty, his breath stale. I caught sight of an open door behind him, and beyond that, a hallway lined with empty cages. He must have slipped back through the door he’d come through right before Noah got down here, and reemerged behind me. There must have been a network of secret passageways under the house.

  I whimpered as my legs went weak.

  Noah turned the gun on Professor Worthington. “Let her go.”

  The professor pushed his own gun harder against my temple, the metal warm, even though it should have been cold.

  I wondered if the gun had been fired lately, where he’d gotten it, if he’d brought it here with him or if Lameuix had given it to him.

  “Noah,” I moaned. “Please.”

  Noah’s eyes were steel and I watched as his index finger turned white. He was gripping the trigger as hard as he could without firing the gun. I knew I was the only thing keeping him from doing it – if he could have been sure of getting off a shot that wouldn’t hurt me, he would have killed the professor right then and there.

  “I’ll kill her,” Professor Worthington said. “Her brains will splatter and you can watch the whole thing.”

  It was a standoff, one that Mikayla was getting all on film, and that Bia and Lameuix were watching with interest as if it were a move. Which, I guess, it was.

  Finally, Noah dropped the gun.

  He threw it away from himself, and it skidded across the dirty cement floor before coming to rest near Bia’s feet. She picked it up and looked at it. “Nice,” she said approvingly, her eyes roaming over the gun. “Never would have taken you for a Remington guy, Noah, but I guess sticking to the basics is always good.”

  As soon as he realized that Noah didn’t have a gun anymore, Professor Worthington let me go. I fell to my knees, gasping for air. Noah rushed to me, his hands on my face. “Are you okay?” he said. “Did he hurt you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Get away from her,” Professor Worthington said, his voice calm and evil.

  Noah ignored him, gripping my chin and pulling my face up and forcing me to look at him. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he said. “Just do what I say and trust me, do you understand?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  Noah kissed me on the lips, which enraged the professor. He fired the gun into
the air, the sound shaking and rattling the walls as plaster from the ceiling flaked off. The muffled sounds of women screaming came from behind the door Professor Worthington had walked through, and the noise slid up my spine and rattled my brain.

  “Jesus Christ, Colin, fucking relax,” Noah said.

  “It’s finally time,” Professor Worthington said, sounding almost awed. “It’s finally time for me to do what I’ve always wanted to do to you.” He scratched his chin, where a rough dusting of whiskers had bloomed on his skin. “It won’t be soft, or slow. It will be long and drawn out. The audience likes a long, slow burn.”

  “Fuck you,” Noah said, his eyes blazing. His hands tightened into fists by his side and he began to move back toward me, to push me behind him again.

  “GET AWAY FROM HER!” the Professor screeched. “OR I’ll FUCKING KILL HER!” His eyes were wild, and he swung wildly, training the gun back on me. I saw Bia and Lameuix exchange a quick, worried glance.

  But a second later the professor moved back toward Noah, pressing the butt of the gun to Noah’s side. “I should give you a gut shot, watch your intestines pulse out of you,” he mumbled, almost to himself. “Or maybe I’ll make a tiny hole in your skull, and your brains will come dribbling out.”

  I buried my face in my hands and sobbed, and then, suddenly, more hands were on me.

  Bia.

  Pulling me to my feet, surprisingly strong as she hauled me over to the side of the room where she and Lameuix had been standing.

  Lameuix was still standing there smoking casually, as if he were a director letting his actors work on their craft without any input from him, as if we’d been allowed to adlib.

  Mikayla had found a stool in the corner, and she was sitting on it, still holding her camera, filming the action.

  My eyes met hers as Bia hustled me by.

  She stared at me blankly, a tiny smile pasted on her lips.

  Rage boiled inside of me, and I resisted the urge to punch her in the face.

  “Hey,” the professor said when he saw Bia with me. “What are you doing? Let her go, I want her with me.”

  Bia pulled my hands further behind my back, so far that I thought my arms might pull out of my sockets. “Watch it,” I spit. “You’re going to pull my arms out of their sockets.”

  “Oh, that would be fun,” Mikayla said, sounding delighted. “We could take turns popping them back in.”

  “Let her go,” Professor Worthington repeated to Bia. He moved away from Noah and back toward me, and now his gun was trained on Bia.

  Lameuix and Bia looked at each other, the same look they’d given each other a moment ago, only now they seemed more concerned.

  “Remember the plan, Colin,” Lameuix said through a cloud of cigar smoke. He ground out his cigar and turned toward the professor. “They’re both to be used in the film.”

  They’re both to be used in the film.

  Our torture film.

  My eyes welled with tears and I turned and dry heaved. I could feel my dinner in my stomach, turning and churning, and I was sure I was going to throw up. But nothing came up, leaving me with a horrible, severe feeling of nausea that was unbearable.

  Bia still had me by the arms, and she pulled me harder against her.

  This wasn’t like that night at Force, when Noah came rushing in to save me. That night, he’d been out there looking for me. We were in a nightclub that, while dangerous, was filled with people and was located in one of the biggest cities in the world.

  Now we were in the middle of nowhere, in a basement lair, outnumbered by insane people who also had weapons. And no one knew where we were.

  I looked back up after I was finished dry heaving, but my vision was starting to go blurry around the edges. I was going to faint, I was pretty sure. My knees buckled, and I could feel Bia trying to haul me to my feet, but wasn’t working.

  I could hear her trying to say something to me, to yell something at me, at the professor yelling at her, but I couldn’t focus on what anyone was saying.

  And then my eyes met his.

  Noah’s.

  Standing on the other side of the basement, back where the professor had pushed me to the ground. His gaze was fixed on mine, and I saw him mouth the words, “Stay with me.”

  It was like a electrical current. Everything came back into focus, my senses sharpening, the feeling of nausea starting to pass.

  “We talked about this,” Lameuix was saying. His tone before had been calm, like he was explaining something to a child, but now he sounded markedly more annoyed. “This is how it’s going to go.”

  “No, no, no!” Professor Worthington said. “Not Charlotte.”

  “Colin, we need both of them,” Bia insisted. “If we let one of them live, there’s no point.”

  “The point is that she stays with me,” Professor Worthington insisted, and my stomach turned again. I wasn’t sure what was worse -- ending up in one of their sick films where they tortured and killed me, or being sent off with Professor Worthington to be his prisoner. The former would be horrific, but it would probably only last a few hours. If I went with Professor Worthington, who knew how long I’d be with him? Days, months, years? Would he ever even be caught? He was smart and wily.

  I heard a whimper and didn’t realize it was coming from me until Bia slapped my face. “Shut up.”

  The slap snapped me back to reality, and my gaze fell back on Noah. He was staring at me intently, and I could tell her was trying to tell me something.

  His eyes moved back and forth between Bia and the professor -- the two people who had guns.

  And then I realized what he was trying to tell me.

  They were distracted.

  We needed to stay alert, because our only chance was that one of them would maybe let their guard down, would make a mistake or lose their way, giving us an opening to do something.

  “Don’t touch her,” Professor Worthington said. “Don’t slap her like that!”

  “Bentley, tell him,” Bia said to Lameuix. “Tell him Charlotte’s a part of this, too.”

  “This was the plan, Colin. You know that. We never would have told you to come here if we didn’t think you were on board.” Lameuix’s voice was tight and controlled, as if he were trying to convince the professor to go in on a business deal in which the terms were non-negotiable.

  Bia, on the other hand, was starting to get rattled.

  I could tell from the shrillness in her voice.

  And the professor was getting agitated. Not with Noah, but with Bia, especially after she hit me.

  And then I had an idea.

  I turned my head to the right and bit Bia’s shoulder as hard as I could.

  “You fucking bitch!” she screeched, and hit me on the shoulder with the butt of gun. Searing pain exploding through my shoulder, and the strength of the blow was enough to send me falling to the ground.

  As soon as I fell to my knees, I heard the sound of a gun going off.

  And then a drop of blood appeared on the floor next to me.

  I looked up to see Bia standing there, a bloodstain spreading on her chest, soaking her dress.

  “I warned you,” the professor said. “I fucking warned you not to touch her.” He was so worked up he was drooling, and when he reached up to wipe his mouth with the back of his sleeve, Noah pounced.

  He wrestled the professor to the ground, the two of them rolling around in a blur.

  Next to me, Bia had fallen to the ground, struggling to stay conscious. The gun was gone from her hand, and my eyes scanned the floor wildly, searching for it.

  “Awesome,” Mikayla murmured, turning her camera on Bia, whose eyes were wide and glassy as she began to bleed out, her blood forming a sticky halo around her body.

  A second later, I spotted the gun in the corner.

  Lameuix saw it at the same time, but I was able to get to it first, in part because I was closer, and in part because he was distracted about what was happening to Bia.
>
  I picked it up, my hands shaking.

  I’d never held a gun before, and it was heavier than I expected, the weight of it feeling serious and dangerous in my hand.

  I whirled it around the room, pointing and swinging wildly.

  “Jesus!” Lameuix said, holding his hands up.

  I rushed to Noah, my feet slipping in Bia’s blood. Noah was still on the floor with the professor, but he’d gotten the better of him. I watched, the gun pointed at them, as Noah wrestled the gun away from Professor Worthington. The professor scrambled up and scuttled across the floor to the hidden door that led, I presumed, back up to the house. He skittered through it.

  I pulled the trigger, aiming for him, but the bullet missed and hit the wall, lodging deep in the plaster.

  Noah rushed to me. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m okay.”

  His eyes and hands traveled my body. “You’re not hurt?”

  I followed his gaze to where a smear of blood darkened my forearm. The whole room smelled like blood know, the metallic smell permeating the air.

  “It’s not my blood,” I said, as Noah wiped at it with his sleeve. “It’s hers.”

  We looked back down on the floor to where Bia was. Noah knelt next to her, the knee of his pants becoming soaked with blood. Her eyes were wide open, like they’d been since she’d been shot, almost like her face had frozen into a permanent mask of surprise.

  But her chest was no longer rising.

  Noah picked up her wrist and checked her pulse.

  He shook his head. “She’s dead.”

  A strangled cry escaped my lips. She was dead. There was a dead body on the floor.

  “Badass,” Mikayla said from the stool. Her camera was trained on Bia’s dead body, and I could hear the sound of the lens zooming in.

  Mikayla was completely crazy. I wasn’t sure if she’d been that way at Force, or if whatever torture she’d endured while being in this underground prison had made her that way.