Jaspierre's Last Chance (Jaspierre Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  Lucille shoved her hand over her mouth, terrified to be hit again. Jaspierre opened the front door. Peter still stood, terrified tears running down his face, the rifle limply pointed. "Don't take her!"

  Just as she started to step out of the house, a large, muscular man stepped up to her and hit her in the face. A solid punch before she even had a chance to react. "Daddy!" Lucille screamed as Jaspierre and her daughter crashed to the ground in a little bed of flowers. The man towered over Jaspierre, charging forward, his fists cracking at her ribs and face. Jaspierre hit him hard in the nuts. Her fist finally found his jaw, but he didn't even slow. Her ribs cracked and snapped under the quick punch, punch, punches. Lucille crawled away, trying to get out from the scuffle. There was a loud shot and everything grew quiet. The man's head exploded. Jaspierre's ears were ringing. Chance stuffed Lucille into the truck while she screamed.

  All she could remember was Lucas sitting next to her when his face exploded from the shot. His gorgeous blue eyes, and his soft voice when he asked her to marry him. When she agreed and his face exploded, his brains landing on her face. The moment all that time ago that still haunted her. When she still had little Lucille in her belly, she hadn't even known it yet. Lucas. Terror started to crawl through her body as the memory grew so strong it meshed with the reality. His face exploding. She shuddered with the pain, the fear, and held back her own terrified screams.

  Chance lifted the dead man off of Jaspierre. Jaspierre let out a scream as she saw Chance lifting the man and for a moment of old panic, she started to scramble away. He wiped the brains off her face tenderly while she let out a sobbing sound. He stared at her and reached out his hand. "Come on, baby, let's go." Jaspierre took his hand.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Four

  Peter frantically pounded on the passenger door before Chance drove off. "Let me come!" he screamed. "Don't make her go alone. Let me come."

  Jaspierre rolled down the window her breathing still shallow, and her mind lost in memory. "What?"

  "Let me come!" He had tears in his eyes. "Don't make her do this alone. Please."

  Jaspierre gathered herself and finally looked at the boy curiously. "Why?"

  "Please, I can be good. Please. Don't make her be alone. Please." He sounded desperate.

  Chance pressed the button to roll up the window and started to pull forward. Jaspierre saw Peter, in frantic desperation, try to climb into the bed of the truck. Chance surely saw too, gunning it suddenly, causing the teen to topple off the back. She watched him in the side mirror, sobbing on the pavement while they drove off.

  "Fuck, you are amazing," Chance said, sliding his hand up Jaspierre's dress. She pushed it away, but he pushed back. Finally, she gave up, staring out the window while he groped. She found tears welling up in her eyes. She kept trying to shake the memory of Lucas's beautiful face exploding. He would have been so mad that she slapped Lucille. Why had she done it! She was horrified. It had only been five minutes and already she was a terrible mother. Sirens were starting to whistle far behind them, but they'd be long gone soon.

  Her hands pressed to her eyelids, trying to forbid the tears. Lucille sobbed in the back. Chance kept going, driving and grabbing her. This wasn't how she wanted to meet her daughter. She didn't want to scare her and steal her, and hit her. That was what Mother would have done. She hit, kicked, beat. Jaspierre was supposed to do better than that. Perhaps she could console the girl sobbing in the back seat. Jaspierre wasn't bad. She wasn't like Mother, she wasn't like Chance. She was a good person. That was a crazy situation. Jaspierre didn't think she would have to fight the child and Peter and her father all at once. How could she have done better? They had to get out of there before the cops showed up.

  She pushed Chance's hand away and she could feel the heat of his stare. He wasn't even looking at the road, just staring her down with hate-filled eyes. "You owe me," he whispered in a harsh growl.

  "I will make good. Where are you taking us? You're heading the wrong way."

  "Home," he said. Jaspierre's stomach knotted up. She needed to go home, get her job back, raise her daughter, take care of her servals. Oh yes, and those damn people in the basement. She'd have to deal with them.

  And Dru. She didn't know what she'd do with Dru yet. Too many questions to get rid of him. Would she even have time to coax the answers out of him while she had a daughter? The hand slid towards her skirt again. "Not yet."

  "Dammit, Jaspierre!" His fist pounded into the dashboard. "I've been downright fucking nice to you, but my patience is gone." He grabbed her head and shoved it towards his crotch. "My patience! Is Mother. Fucking. Gone." And he thrusted his hips upwards on every word. "You owe me. You know you do. You fucking owe me!" He threw her head and it slammed into the steering wheel, beeping a startling honk.

  "Lucille is in the car. I'm not gonna blow you while she is sitting right there," Jaspierre said calmly, trying to sit back up. Her head was ringing, her ribs were screaming with pain. But his hand grabbed her hair again, and he let out a scream of frustration, thrashing in his seat, slamming her head back and forth against him and the steering wheel. The horn beeped several times and the pain started to build in her head. It was already turning purple from the beating she received earlier.

  "Goddammit, you fucking shit!" Jaspierre screamed back, her hands latching on to his throat. "I will pay you when I fucking want or, so help me, I will kill you." They heard honking as he swerved into the wrong lane. She released him and sat back in her seat. He drove angrily, speeding up, his eyes glued to the road furiously.

  This was it. This was what Jaspierre had been training for all these years in prison. She knew that if they made it back to Chance's place, whatever it was, that she'd have one hell of a time getting out. He'd tie her up and fuck her and kill her. She had to kill him this time. She owed him that.

  * * * * * * * * * * * *

  It was growing dark, and Edward pulled off the road to hit a McDonalds. He was hopelessly lost. What the fuck was he thinking? He crammed fries in his mouth, and his anger-fueled drive was starting to wane. He couldn't possibly find her like this. He pressed both his hands to his temples and screamed fuck into the empty car. Tears were starting to burn his eyes as he twisted the radio dial, desperate to catch another crumb. Another body, or a car wreck or something happening now, here, near him. Something to give him a hint that he was in the right place. That he was gonna find her.

  His knuckles crashed into the dash as he desperately tried to choke down the sad shit bubbling up inside him. A motherfucking monster had her. Jaspierre, this girl who grew up alone and lived alone and was locked in a cell alone. This person who needed love more than any other girl he had ever met. The woman whose fresh born baby he caught with his own two hands- and then was stolen from her. No wonder she was so fucked up.

  And she was gonna die at the hands of a motherfucking monster.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. Not on his watch. He was going to save her and Lucille. He was going to do it or die trying.

  He shoved the burger in his mouth and started the car back up. He was just about to turn onto the highway when the radio let out a crackling scream. Home invasion, two dead, daughter taken: four years old with blond curly hair.

  Tears did fall as he punched the roof of his car and squealed towards the house. He was gonna save them both.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Five

  "Why can't you love me back, dammit! You'll love anyone but me. What the fuck did I do wrong? I even kept your motherfucking bastard daughter safe for the last four years, and you won't even blow me as a thank you?" The car was starting to echo with his screams, but he didn't care. His own ears were ringing from the sounds of the blood rushing to his head, and the soundwaves bouncing between the windows.

  "Fuck you! I've spent all these fucking years trying to make you love me, and you just have to fucking ruin everything. All the time, you fucking ruin it. Do you think I want t
o build you a goddamn torture chamber? Do you think that's what I want for you?" His breath was growing fast and furious. He punched the horn repeatedly and he could feel the car growing quieter and quieter while he grew bigger and bigger. His sounds, his feelings were starting to inhale the truck. The whole thing would explode if he wasn't careful, he would grow and grow and the windows wouldn't be able to hold him anymore. The seat already felt too small. He slammed his fist into the dashboard, then into the horn again and, again, the honking held him back. Kept him in the car. His body slowly deflated back to normal size.

  But then he saw her and it grew again. "Do you think I want that for you!" His voice could no longer talk at a normal level, his sounds bulging as much as the truck must be. To hold him in, to hold in his strength, his fury, his terrible hate. And he did hate her; he hated her as much as he wanted to fuck her. She should fucking love him! Couldn't she see everything he did for her? He protected her from this violent, wretched world and yet she never saw it that way. She never would see it that way. She just saw him as a goddamn friend, not as a lover, not as a man.

  He could shove his hard, massive cock down her throat and still she wouldn't see he was a man. If he split her in half from charging it through her so hard, she still wouldn't see what he saw. They had to be together. She had to love him back. If he didn't have a choice, then she couldn't have a choice. What kind of foul-mouthed bitch was she? How could she disrespect him? "Did you think I built you that room for no fucking reason? I know you don't get it, you just fucking don't get it. We're together." The words dripped out of his mouth like venom off a snake. His gnarled, snarled, tattooed flesh pulled and tore as he strained it to its limits. Beyond its limits. He would go beyond all limits for her.

  "Fucking hell!" His fist went cracking against the horn and the car in front of them skated out of the way. His foot pressed onto the pedal, shoving it tightly against the floor. Just as tightly as he wanted her slit wrapped around his dick. Fucking fuck fuck. "What is wrong with you! Can't you get it!" he screamed into the windshield, refusing to turn his eyes to meet hers. If he saw her eyes right now, he'd pull them from her skull and have them for dinner. She owed him. It was like watching her say yes to fucking Lucas's proposal all over again. It was like watching her refuse to wear his necklace.

  Mine forever.

  He wrestled the steering wheel so hard the console cracked. He was bigger than the car now, almost bigger then the planet. Swallowing the universe in hate. He could have been Hitler. With his bare rage, he could decimate millions, maybe even billions. Did she not see how the bullet shattered that man's face? As he pummeled Jaspierre into the ground, Chance rode in like a motherfucking prince and shot that bastard to pieces. Was she even grateful?

  He let out a scream.

  She said nothing; she said nothing. She couldn't, she wouldn't even apologize for being the hate-filled cunt that she was. Her left hand touched his fist just as it slammed into the console again. The cracks were starring across it further.

  The warmth of her hand sucked him back in, back from the universe, back from the planet, back into the truck, sliding him normal-sized into the seat. She didn't recoil, holding him back in the truck, back from the space of time. He was the universe and yet, she could hold him with one touch.

  He was wrong. She loved him more than the sun loved the moon. She could hold the universe back with one finger if she wanted. He let his foot off the gas pedal and the truck slowly released its death race. Eventually, it fell into pace with the other cars. "We're going home now," he said with firm warmth. She said nothing, for her power was too great. If she could hold the universe with one finger, then he couldn't imagine what her tongue could do.

  But he couldn't wait to find out.

  * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Jaspierre watched him spinning and spiraling. She could feel him. But she found a calmness inside of her. She was back in control of herself. She'd never lose Lucille again. Now she would find a way to keep them safe. She couldn't save them if she thought about Mother, or the way her hand slapped at her pretty daughter. So she abandoned her thoughts and instead focused on keeping them alive.

  The only way to safety was to leave Chance before they got home. Before they got to the room he built especially to contain her. A room to subdue her. She knew what these kinds of rooms were like, having owned and placed many a person in that kind of room herself. She touched him and he grew quiet and calm. So she held his hand while building a plan. She stared out the window; it was all trees and snow. They were far north, and houses were stretching farther and farther apart.

  Would Lucille set to screaming when they ran? Or would she understand? Jaspierre was her mother, Chance was her monster. Not some other version of what was happening. Was Lucille the same as Chance and Mother? Had her soul been twisted while she was being born?

  Perhaps a good ironing would be all it would take. Jaspierre closed her eyes. If only it was that easy to be undone and remade. Despite her best effort to keep her emotions at bay, a tear trickled down her cheek.

  She glanced back at the child. At her child. Lucille. She was curled, unseat-belted, on the middle of the seat. Tears were still wet on her beautiful, perfect skin. She was sleeping. Jaspierre understood. Sleep was a way to cope. She tried not to remember sleeping in her closet with her baby serval when she was just a few years older than Lucille.

  "Do you think I should make her put on her seatbelt?" Jaspierre asked Chance, resuming her staring out the passenger window. He shifted his grip, holding her hand warmly and sweetly.

  "You're an amazing mother," he said dreamily. His words stung. If only.

  She considered the sleeping child a moment more, then decided to let her be. It seemed extremely unlikely that the three of them in a car together would be in a major accident more than once. "Do you want me to drive? It's pretty late. Maybe you'd like to rest a little."

  "I'm fine." He still had that dreamy look on his face.

  When had she lost the knife? She meandered backwards in her mind. It was when that man socked her eyeball. She flipped down the visor, despite it being dark, and opened the little mirror. Two tiny little lights glowed at her face. Her left eye was swollen, almost shut, and her cheek was purple and blue. She shifted slightly, and the ache in her ribs hit her sharply for a moment. They were probably broken.

  She thought being strong would have been enough to prepare her for this kind of shit. Wasn't that the whole damn point? She could be ready to fight Chance, yet somehow, she was utterly unprepared for that assault. This time, she wouldn't be holding Lucille while trying to fight hand to hand.

  In fact, fighting hand to hand wasn't in the plan at all. Chance had a gun, or five on him right now. She could guess there were one or two under his seat, in the glovebox; she imagined the locked trunk in the pickup bed was all explosives, guns, or grenades. Hell, he had a rocket launcher the last time she robbed him. No, hand to hand combat simply wouldn't do. You can't bring your fist to a gunfight.

  She'd already burned him alive, watched him be hit by a car, knifed him in the neck. What else would she have to do to kill him? What would she even do with herself once he was gone? He was right in that she gave him purpose. And he, in so many ways, had been a shadow on her entire life. Yes, she hated him, and he was dangerous and terrifying. But what would her life be like without him? It was hard to say.

  When you are followed by a shadow, it's hard to imagine the light.

  The houses had grown very far apart, being merely dots between large forests of trees. They were starting to climb up a mountain. The road was winding back and forth in tight, dangerous turns. Chance slowed down, and he was starting to look tired.

  "I'm happy to take a turn driving; you can rest." At the very least, she needed him to stop the car. He shook his head. "Would you pull over and let me pee? I don't want to wet my pants, okay?"

  He didn't even shake his head, just kept going.

  So finally, she said the only th
ing that would make him stop. The only thing that would work.

  She leaned in close, pressing her lips almost inside his ear. "Don't you understand, silly? I want to stop so I can blow you, but out of the car where Lucille can't hear." The car squealed to a stop moments later. There were three ways this could turn out. Jaspierre could win, kill him, steal the black truck and take her daughter home. Jaspierre could lose and end up covered in the semen of a man she hated. Or, worst of all, she could lose her life.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Six

  The gate to this community was wide open to allow the cops to freely drive in and out. Cop cars were everywhere when he arrived at the yellow house on the corner. They had covered the body on the front lawn with plastic. Edward stared at the mess and believed this was Chance. Jaspierre wouldn't, she couldn't murder these people who raised her daughter in cold blood. Peter was sitting on the porch steps. Edward recognized his face, older, but still the same boy that had been kidnapped years ago.

  He had to be careful. He needed to figure out where the three amigos were headed and get on the road. It was not good for him to stick around and talk. Chance and Jaspierre were already on the road. He needed to go look now while the trail was still hot with blood. He grabbed a cop that was standing around looking at the crowd slowly forming. "I'm Detective Edward Darbonne. I need you to answer one question for me."

  "I'm not answering questions." The cop didn't even lay eyes on Edward, scanning the crowd emotionlessly.

  "Look, I have a hunch, and I want to check it out..."

  Before he could continue, the cop cut him off. "You aren't able to come onto the crime scene, sir. Please back away."