Chained (Caged Book 2) by D. H. Sidebottom Page B

looked dead. And as if linked to her I could slowly feel my soul crumble and die within me too.
    “She tastes delicious.” Terry’s cold voice filled the speakers but he didn’t appear in the video. “Her blood has such an exquisite aroma, don’t you think, Judd?”
    Blood filled my mouth and trickled down my chin when I bit into my lip.
    “We’re waiting for you, son. You know where to find us. And if you don’t… well, I don’t hold out much hope for our lady.”
    “She’s mine,” I growled as the video ended and it asked me if I wanted to play it again. “She was always mine, you fucking cunt.”
    “Anderson, do you have any idea where they are?” Rob asked cautiously, his own fear loud in his quiet voice.
    I laughed. “I’ve always known.”
    He looked puzzled. “What? But why have you waited?”
    Why had I waited? That was a question I’d asked myself time and time again.
    “It doesn’t matter. The wait is over.”

 
    M Y BABY WAS DEAD . A ND inside, so was I.
    Blood seemed to pour from every inch of me. My skin, my womb, my heart. Pain was no longer part of me. The nothing had taken over days ago.
    Anderson had told me that his father had loved me. How very wrong he had been. Just as I’d always told him. Yet now it was too late for him to see exactly what his father had thought of me.
    Hours had merged into days, and days into a week. I knew I wouldn’t get out of there alive, not now. Terry’s evil had morphed into something way beyond depraved. I had thought what he did to me as a child couldn’t ever be outdone. How fucking wrong I had been.
    Urine trickled down the inside of my leg and the sensation of the warm liquid between my legs was, for a short period, relaxing, washing away the grime and blood that caked my sore skin.
    I had been so hungry, but exhaustion now overruled anything else. I didn’t think my stomach could have sustained anything other than acid and bile now anyway.
    As usual, soft music played in the background. It had been a constant since I had woken in this dark and cold room many days ago. I prayed for silence, begged silently for my mind to hear something other than the stupid orchestral pieces that plagued my waking hours, and now my fraught sleeping ones.
    Terry occasionally removed my cuffs and allowed me a few hours’ rest on the hard concrete floor, my strung muscles screaming in both gratitude and agony. But today, once again, I hung limply from the chain, my body depleted of anything other than exhaustion.
    There was a pool of dried and fresh blood beneath me, a wide circle of red liquid that I craved to curl up in for warmth and the very slightest hint of softness. It looked so appealing against the harsh expanse of grey, the deep hue of my own life tempting beyond anything.
    The room was roughly twenty-foot square of nothing but bricks and cement. An old single iron bed sat in one corner and various sized chains hung against the flat of one wall. Thick loops of metal were secured into the wall and into the floor beneath, with a length of chain connected to each one, and a cuff connected to the end of each. Rickety wooden steps led to a door where, sporadically, Terry would enter. There was no routine to his visits, no regular sequence that I could build myself up for. He came when he wanted, and he only left when I was broken beyond the previous time he came to me.
    I knew exactly where I was. And why I was here.
    The Dawson’s farmhouse where Anderson had been held hostage for over twenty years was now the place where I would die. Somewhat ironic, really. As if haunted by some paranormal presence, I could feel the weeping soul of Judd Asher around me, as if the walls held the echoes of that boy’s cries and the floor was a sponge that had soaked up his many tears. My blood now mixed with his, and the infrequent beat of my heart played in perfect symmetry with a ghost’s.
     
    The music paused and I tensed in the shackles. His footsteps grew louder,