When Darkness Ends (Moments in Boston #3) - Marni Mann Page 0,58
head.
I was just in the middle of transferring the first few sections when a noise shot through the department.
One that was so fucking loud, so rattling, that it sounded like a crash of thunder had erupted through the ceiling, splitting the floor in half.
The pen dropped from my hand.
My fingers shook, my heart pounding inside my chest.
My stare lifted, looking across the unit to find the cause, but each face I came across had the same question as me.
An eerie silence took over—calls halting, all talking ceasing.
I gripped my desk, my stomach twisting into a fucking knot, as one call came through, and it went to the captain’s desk. A glass wall separated her office from the main space. I watched her pick up the phone, the expression on her face as she listened, her lips moving in response.
She set down the receiver and walked out to speak to us, every detective staring at her.
Waiting.
Her face ghostly white.
Not a single one of us shifted in our chairs or cleared our throats.
I was positive none of us were even breathing.
Because we knew.
Our training told us exactly what that noise had been.
It was just a matter of where it had come from.
The captain stilled, balancing on her heels, hands clenched in front of her. “There’s been a bombing …” She glanced around the space, swallowing before she delivered, “At Copley Square.”
That was the location of the finish line.
Where thousands of people from our city and from all over the world had congregated, watching the runners pass through.
Within a second, every detective was on their feet, hands on our guns, running for the stairwell.
Forty-Two
Kerry
I’d been such a good girl.
In my head, I told myself I would always be one.
That I would follow his demands.
That I wouldn’t fight back.
But even I could only take so much pain.
Until I broke.
And I was fucking shattered.
When his teeth gnawed into my shoulder, the bite so extreme that flashes of light shot through my eyes, and his nails gripped my thigh like cobra fangs, I screamed.
At the top of my lungs.
And then I shouted, “STOP!”
I pushed him away, hurling my body to the farthest cement wall.
His deathly eyes stared at me as my chest pounded, as the blood dripped down my arm. In the filmy, bile-colored light that hung from the ceiling, I could already see the bruises forming on my thigh.
Dark red drips fell off my hand onto the wide-strapped white dress.
I swore I saw steam coming from his mouth.
“You naughty fucking doll.”
I shook my head, swallowing. “I can’t,” I gasped. “I just can’t anymore.”
I needed someone to hug me.
To make him stop hurting me.
To take me out of this basement.
“You’re going to regret this.” He wiped his mouth with his arm, the curly hairs scraping across his facial scruff, making the most dreadful sound. “You just really fucked up.”
His belt rattled, echoing through the room. His breath came out in huffs.
“Have you ever been punished before, Kerry?”
“Isn’t that what this is? Day after day of nothing but punishments?”
I knew I should have kept my mouth shut, but I was already in trouble.
It couldn’t possibly get worse.
He laughed.
It was a cackle that dragged out, extending for several beats.
Like I was on a comedy stage, having delivered the funniest joke he’d ever heard.
The second he quieted, I used all the strength I had left to add, “Fuck you.”
The pain trumped my conscience.
I was done.
I couldn’t take another violation.
The isolation.
The abuse.
The threat that I’d be here for the rest of my life.
Hope was the sun rising each morning. But when you were in a basement with no windows, there was only darkness with no end.
If he wasn’t going to give me an end, then I was going to make one for myself.
“Kerry …” He pushed his glasses high on his nose. “Oh, fucking Kerry.” He rubbed his hands together, like he was washing them with soap. “You are one stupid doll.”
His size didn’t allow him to move fast, so each step added to the buildup.
I stared at his hands, waiting for what they were going to reach for first.
They came forward, and I tried to lean to the side, but there was nowhere to escape.
He grabbed me but not skin or muscle, like I’d anticipated. He gripped the wide straps of the white dress and pulled so hard that it ripped off me.
“You don’t deserve to be taken care of like a good doll.”