Chapter 27:

Re's hands begin to shake uncontrollably and she fears that she might drop the dagger on the floor before she gets to stab Marcus.

Marcus begins walking up to her slowly, smirking a little, as if he's certain that she's too scared to mean him any harm. Little does he know, that Re prepares to hold the dagger in the perfect position in her hand so she can strike when he's close enough. It takes him a while but eventually he gets there, standing right in front of Re, all tall and intimidating.

"How did you get out?" He questions threateningly, a tone of warning hidden behind the words as if he'd punish her no matter the answer.

Lexi looks up at the two of them who are stood right beside her, Re maybe only a few inches from Lexi and Marcus only a few inches in front of Re.

It's completely silent for a minute as Re contemplates her next move. Lexi is completely scared and Caleb seems to show no emotion, as always.

"This." Re says confidently whilst swinging her hand in front of her and attempting to jab him with the dagger.

And she actually manages to strike him once clean in the shoulder resulting in a stumble back from Marcus as he tries to comprehend what had just happened.

He's quick to recover though, and instead of letting the pain get to him, Marcus grabs Re by the hair and drags her across the room easily with one hand and holding onto the newly cut wound on his shoulder with the other. "Bitch."

His grip around the back of her head is strong, refusing to let go no matter how hard she struggles. "Re, run!" Lexi screams, encouraging her friend to get the hell out of there while she still has the chance.

Re wasn't weak, and she definitely knew how to defend herself, laying a few punches and kicks on Marcus as he drags her across the room. But his height and build advantage, diminishes all hope and his strength is vast as if he has had training of some sort.

Marcus attempts to hold Re against him as she continues to put up a fight, kicking, clawing and every scratching him with her long fingernails in attempts to harm him in some way. He harshly turns her to face away from him and holds her flush against his front with his left hand still grasping at the long hairs on the back of her head and the other arm around her waist tightly so she couldn't move.

Both her arms were held down and Marcus' immense strength was enough to still her completely. He doesn't hesitate to pull harshly on her hair once before snatching the dagger from her hand and stabbing her with it.

"No!" Lexi cries out as she watches the scene before her, tearing up immediately. It was a clean blow to the stomach, piercing through her thin sweater and the flesh of the skin by her abdomen. And then she stills.

One minute she's kicking and screaming, trapped in his arms and the next, she's frowning out in terrible pain from the stab wound and unable to keep herself up by her own two feet - her legs giving out.

If it wasn't for Marcus holding the weight of her body up, she would collapsed to the floor. Marcus throws the dagger aside and drags her by the hair to her chair.

Lexis scream can be heard behind them both and she begins to sob hysterically at what she had just witnessed.

Marcus handles the task of tying Re back to the chair after he's moved it from its place near the table of weapons. Lexi notices that Re has lost consciousness and her head drops causing Lexi to cry out even more so for her friend.

What if she's dead?!

"Quiet!" Marcus bellows at Lexi, making her jump as much as she could whilst tied to the chair. She momentarily stops crying aloud but it doesn't stop the stream of tears that falls down her cheek silently but harshly.

Marcus continues with his task, not bothering to be gentle when he tightly ties Re's legs together this time, so he's certain she won't be able to leave. He does the same to her wrists with new binds that he gets from the table of weapons and tightly does her wrists up too.

Taking extra precautions, he gets a roll of what looks like duct tape and places a strip on Re's mouth. "Lets see how you get out now." He says to an unconscious Re.

He gives her kick to shin, rattling her chair a little to see if she was really out of it, before walking over to Lexi. "Why are you doing this to us? P-pease, just let us go. We won't say a-anything. I promise." Lexi stutters a whisper when Marcus is in front of her.

She eyes his wound momentarily and notices that he doesn't even flinch at the pain. Maybe Re didn't stab him hard enough. She's distracted from his shoulder by the intensity in his eyes that bore into Lexi's. "He killed my daughter and my wife and that tortured me for years. So now I'm going to torture him until he dies, just so he knows what it feels like." Marcus explains wickedly, making Lexi feel disgusted. "You both just happened to get in the way."

Anger boils up within Lexi and it's now she realises that Caleb was indeed telling her the truth. She feels guilty for doubting him simply because he is ill. Being ill doesn't make him a liar.

"You killed your wife." Lexi seethes at him, attempting to get closer to Marcus as much as she could with the binds on. She feels a harsh pull at her wrist, Caleb's hands warning her to shut up. "And he was a child when your daughter died. It was an accident. You have no right to blame him for that." She continues to sob as she practically shouts the words in anger. She was going to die anyway, she might as well make Marcus feel as guilty as she possibly could.

Lexi starts to wonder is maybe there was something clinically wrong with Marcus to have done such things to Caleb and continues to do them. No sane person could ever live with themselves after what Marcus had done to Caleb. He seems so hell bent on trying to torture and kill Caleb and he feels no remorse.

Insanity must run in the family.

Marcus' facial expression changes from one of anger to one of confusion. "He told you?" Is all he simply asks.

Lexi doesn't confirm anything, instead defending Caleb more. "You're going to kill him because of something that happened maybe 18 years ago? That a long time to be enacting a revenge plot." She seethes now.

"Surely you're aware of the four other women he's killed." Marcus says. "You're defending a murderer. Why shouldn't I kill him? He did the same to innocent people."

"Because you messed him up as a child! Their blood is in your hands." Lexi screams. "What sort of person beats a seven year old boy without reason? What sort of person beats a child at all? The things you did to him..." Lexi trails off, closing her eyes in pain just thinking about Caleb's scars again. "...You're the one that deserves to die. Not him." She whispers.

"Argh." Lexi cries out when another harsh warning is given to her by Caleb, clamping down on her wrist binds so they hurt her. He doesn't say anything though. Maybe he was too scared to.

"You're the one who is mentally ill. Not Caleb." Were the last words she said to Marcus before he smirks wildly at her.

He opens the roll of duct tape and places it on her mouth so she's unable to speak, making sure to take extra time when smoothing the tape across her face with his fingers. He picks up the dagger that he carelessly threw away when he stabbed Re and held it up to Lexis face.

"I guess I am." He whispers, manically smirking and recutting the flesh of her cheek slightly. Lexi cries out in pain as the cold metal pierces through her skin, not too deep, but deep enough to draw an excessive amount of blood. The pain was unbearable to Lexi but her protesting screams come out muffled.

"Stop!" Caleb shouts when he could no longer take the screams of the girl he had grown to care for sat directly behind him. He holds her hand to comfort her and the pain slightly subsides from her cheek simply at the contact- like his hands were a magic of its own.

Marcus does indeed move the blade away from Lexi's now blood covered cheek and chuckles as he walks over to Caleb. "I always knew there was something between the two of you."

"I assigned her to you because she was the only one oblivious to how fucked up you were. I wanted to use her to get to you. See if you'd actually tell her about your past. See if you were actually crazy enough to tell her that we had been torturing you in there." He laughs again as if he found the wholes situation hilarious. "When she didn't run a mile, I figured that maybe something was going on. I mean...who would willingly want to be in the same room as you." He says in disgust.

"You grew to care for her didn't you?" He asks Caleb in a condescending tone as if he were speaking to a child. Lexi could only imagine that's how he used to speak to Caleb when he was a child. And the thought disturbs her even more so than she already is. "Well why else do you think I sat you both like this?" He questions Caleb to which he finds no response.

Caleb refuses to look up at the man he once called his father and instead fixates his gaze onto the battered wooden floor. "Who knew a psychotic bastard as yourself could be capable of feelings that were affectionate and not...murderous." He chuckles a little more manically.

Again he's met with no reply and Marcus grows impatient. He walks over to the table in order to fetch something that neither Lexi or Caleb could see. Walking back over to Caleb with a smirk, he pulls the item out so it's in his line of vision and his stomach churns when he see what it is. "Remember how much fun we used to have with these?" He asks Caleb.

Lexi couldn't see, but she could hear the click of what could only be a lighter and soon followed by the loud growls of pain from Caleb as Marcus burns the skin of his neck.

Re begins to sob hysterically again, only this time it's muffled by the tape that seals her mouth and her vision is almost completely blurred by tears. She starts breathing heavily again and she thinks she getting another panic attcak of some sort as she hears the distorted voice of Marcus saying something along the lines of "If any of you try to leave again, I'll kill you all."

It was with a warning he left the room again but Lexi's breathing doesn't get any less harsher. "Shh Alexa, calm down. I'll get us out of here." She hears Caleb grunt in pain behind her but still manages to calm her down. She wants to ask how but is unable to with the tape around her mouth.

He somehow gets it though when she turns her head to face him because he replies with an explanation. "Your friend over there cut through half of my binds. If I could just...use enough strength..." he says with his voice strained, obviously from the pain of the burn he had just encountered. "I can probably pull it off."

It baffles Lexi how he could tolerate such pain when she could badly handle the cut on her cheek. 

Caleb continues to force his wrists apart with as much strength that he could muster up and soon enough, the sound of a loud snap can be heard rippling through the empty room indicating that Caleb was free from his binds.

This calms Lexi down slightly from her harsh breathing but when she turns to face Re, she starts sobbing again. She just hopes that her friend is alive. She'll never forgive herself if Re died because of her.

Lexi is so caught up, bawling her eyes out, that she doesn't even notice that Caleb had gotten hold of the dagger on the floor beside him and cut Lexi's binds from behind her. She's too busy staring at Re with wide, guilty eyes as if she was in a shock state.

Lexi's arms simply fall limply beside her and she makes no movement in trying to get off the chair or taking the tape off her mouth. She just stares blankly.

Lexi doesn't even notice Caleb limping in front of her until he gently cups her face with both of his large hands, guiding her head up to face him instead. He gently peels the tape from around her mouth and just holds her shocked state in the comfort of his surprisingly soothing hands."Alexa."

She snaps out of it as her brown eyes meet his green ones and they both inwardly let out a breath they've been holding for god only knows how long.

She stares into his green eyes that look slightly different now. They look swollen and tired. She realises this is the first time she has seen his face since the torture chamber in the sanatorium when she called the police on him.

Their last encounter didn't count when he tried to kill them. He was too ill to be considered himself. So actually, she hadn't seen the real Caleb since that night. And oh how she longed to see that glint in his eyes that only shone when she was in his view.

Her eyes wonder over his face and her heart hurts when she notices the state of him. He had bruises everywhere, a black eye and a massive fresh burn mark on the side of his neck.

His eyes do the same and wonder over hers, pausing and frowning at the at the cut on her cheek And still he asks whether she's okay when she encountered next to no pain compared to him. "You good?" He croaks, the pain evidently laced through his voice.

Lexi doesn't reply, instead launching herself at him and sobbing into his shoulder. Tiptoeing, she tightly wraps her arms around his shoulders cries hysterically.

Caleb immediately freezes at the sudden movement, not because it makes him uncomfortable but because Lexi had carelessly launched herself into the side of his neck where Marcus had just burned him. So he winces in pain and guides Lexi's head to the other side of his neck with his hands and surprisingly hugging her back.

It was a weird feeling, hugging someone who isn't deemed normal or sane but to Lexi, it felt as if the hole in her heart had finally been restored. Again, she wondered if it was possible to describe Caleb as oxygen because every time she was with him, she felt like she could breathe again and in all honesty, she didn't want to let go. She simply couldn't.

Lexi clung to Caleb as much as he clung to her. He find himself surprised by his own actions, reciprocating the hug and though it shouldn't affect him, it does immensely. It's merely a hug. Not even one filled with love, just relief and yet he find himself not wanting to let go either. His arm is right around her waist and he doesn't even know why.

Their blissful moment ends though as reality comes crashing back down on them and it dawns on Caleb that they needed to get the hell out of there. So he's the first to pull back, but not without cupping Lexi's cheek and wiping the blood from around her wound first.

Lexi finds herself taken aback in awe as Caleb's affectionate actions cause her insides to swell. "We need to get out of here." He says, turning to get the gun from table and ready to walk out of the cabin.

Lexi snaps out of her slight daze and scowls at the back of his broad shoulders. "We cant leave Re!" She says, running over to her friend, hating herself for letting Caleb distract her without doing much at all.

As soon as she reaches her, Lexi feels for a pulse and lets out a relieved breath when she finds a faint beat at the side of her neck. "Oh thank god. She's alive." She says whilst looking around for the dagger that had been used to torment all three of them. She finds a different one on the table full of weapons and gasps at the equipment before ridding herself of thoughts of what might've happens if they were stuck here for longer or if they got caught trying to get away.

She starts cutting Re's binds whilst Caleb sighs in exasperation. "We don't have time for her." He simply says causing Re to look at him with wide eyes and annoyance.

"She's my friend."

Caleb scoffs, staying put in his place by the door and crossing his arms. "A friend you told all my secrets to."

Lexi feels guilty but continues to cut her binds. They snap off and Lexi takes the tape off from around Re's mouth. "I'm sorry." Is all she says. The only reason she told Re is because she hated Caleb for doing what he did to them. "You tried to kill us."

Now Caleb looks down, avoiding eye contact and shuffling on his feet, not noticing Lexi struggle to help Re up and guide her out of the cabin since she's completely unconscious. Lexi grunts a little, wobbling as she struggles to hold her weight. "A little help here." She says to Caleb who sighs again in announce whilst looking up at the ceiling.

He walks over to them and effortlessly picks Re up, bridal style as Lexi thanks him quietly. "Lets go." She says, leading the way, opening the door to the Cabin which is surprisingly unlocked.

They step out into the cold breezed air and Lexi shivers almost as soon as they're out, wearing nothing of warmth or comfort. Her legs feel like jelly from days of sitting down on the chair and her back hurts like hell but she's determined to make a successful attempt in escaping Marcus and looks around once to get an idea of where they might be.

Their surroundings are completely unfamiliar though and they're surrounded by a mass of Forrest and trees. It's pitch black outside indicating that it's night time and luckily no one is around to stop them from leaving.

"Wait here." Lexi says to Caleb as she walks back into the cabin to pick out a few weapons to defend themselves if they got in trouble and went back outside to joking Caleb and Re.

He raises an eyebrow at her as he eyes the knife in her left hand and she shrugs. "We need something to defend ourselves with." She says to which Caleb nods in agreement.

"Yeah but I'm willing to bet your strength is worse than your friend here. Take the gun, give me the knife." He says motioning the gun in his pocket.

They wouldn't want to run in to Marcus without having some sort of advantage against him. Lexi glares at him at the insult and starts walking a few paces ahead before looking back to him. "Do you have any idea where we are?" She asks Caleb.

"No." he says, looking around and frowning, clearly confused by the unfamiliar surroundings too.

"Will you be able to carry her?" Lexi asks, facing Caleb, determination clearly set in her eyes and he nods before she turn around and eyes the forrest ahead of them. "Lets go then." Is all she says before walking towards and into the unknown darkness ahead, praying for survival.

• • • • •

Word count: 3400

A/N: Ooooooh what do u think will happen?