Anatomy of a Nightmare - M J Marlow (i read a book .txt) 📗

down a pier to a waiting motorboat. “You’ll be feeling even better once you are through with processing.”
“No!” Lily whimpered as his words reminded her of her situation. She tried to get away and found herself over his shoulder again. He got her in the boat and held her in his lap as she struggled to get away from him. “Let me go!” she begged him.
“Why should I do that, pretty,” Quentin laughed, “when my friend Crawford asked for you specifically.” He kissed her and she shuddered in revulsion. “So sweet,” he said as he ran his hand over her breast. “I am going to enjoy you, Lily. I’ll teach you to enjoy all the nasty things your husband used to do to you.”
Lily struck him across the face with her fists and he slapped her. She looked at him in shock. He had no right to do this to her! He shoved her down on the deck and put his foot on the back of her neck, holding her down.
“It’s useless to fight me, Lily,” Quentin told her. “I am taking you to my own private island where my word is the law. No one there will lift a finger to help you and no outside authority can come in to take you from me.”
“You can’t!” Lily sobbed. “You have no right to do this to me!” She started screaming and Quentin yanked her up and slapped her across the face. “Go ahead and beat me! I am never going to submit to this!”
“Oh, Lily!” Quentin laughed as he opened a cabinet and pulled out a length of cloth. “I hope you still have this fire when we are through giving you the drug!” He put her in a headlock and used the cloth to gag her. He shoved her back down on the deck and then bound her ankles. “When Crawford is through with the tests he means to subject you to, I will delight in turning you into my own personal sex toy.” He cupped her chin in his hand and dug in his fingers until she whimpered. “You should never have interfered between your sister and me, Lily. You are going to have to pay for that with your body.”
Lily looked at him in shock and realized he meant it. If she kept fighting him, he would go that far and even further to get her to obey. He was just like Ambrose! The motorboat pulled up beside a hydroplane and she was lifted up inside and put in the cargo hatch. She heard the engines starting up and sobbed as she was taken away from everything she knew and loved. She lost all track of time and had no idea if it was day or night in the dark hole she was imprisoned inside.
She came awake as the plane landed and knew her nightmare was beginning for real. The hatch was opened and a strange man pulled her out. There was no sign of Quentin as he lifted her down to the pier where three other men and several women waited.
Lily was yanked to her feet and pushed along the trail where Quentin waited by a low white building inside of a walled fort deeper in the jungle. The building was hidden under a screen of vegetation and doors opened as he approached. They were inside a laboratory. A man was working at a computer and he looked up as they entered. Lily saw Ken Crawford’s cold smile.
“Hello, Lily,” he said as he got to his feet. “I’ve been waiting to pay you back for my losing my job at Talbot Pharmaceuticals.” He nodded the women towards a glass cylinder. “Put her in there, please.”
“She’s proving a bit unwilling, Ken,” Quentin said as he watched the women struggling to get Lily into the cylinder. “See what you can do about that.” The women cried out in alarm as Lily shoved them back and ran for the door.
“Oh no, baby,” Ken laughed as he caught her around the waist. She twisted and tried to slug him and he caught her arm. “You are not going anywhere!”
“Let me go!” Lily screamed as she tried to claw his face. He slugged her across the face and she collapsed long enough for him to hook the chain in the cuffs over a hook set in the lid of the cylinder and Ken pressed a button. The hook retracted back into the lid and she was held fast. “What are you doing?”
“Quentin was quite willing to buy you for me, Lily,” Ken smiled as he ran his hand along her arm. “I have been fantasizing about having you like this ever since that day. Now you are all mine.”
“He has been waiting for a chance to test the drug he stole from Talbot Pharmaceuticals on someone.” Quentin added from where he leaned against a desk. Lily shook her head and pulled on the cuffs. “It’s only fitting that his first lab rat is going to be the young woman who got him fired, don’t you think?”
“You don’t want to know what I think,” Lily snapped at him. She pulled on the cuffs again. “Let me out of here!”
“You have one chance to avoid this, Lily,” Ken said to her as he ran his hand over her breast. He felt her stiffen in shock. “As long as you please me, I will spare you this fate.” He cupped her chin in his hand and met her eyes. He saw her anger turn to something else entirely. “No?” he laughed as he released his hold on her. “What a pity. I was looking forward to bedding you while your mind was still intact.” Ken was practically salivating at the thought. “She should be awake again in the morning. Any last taunts while she’s still alert and aware of her surroundings?”
“Try not to damage her too much,” Quentin replied as he stepped away. “We need her lucid.”
“I’ll only need to remove the last sixteen months,” Ken replied as he started to hook Lily up to an IV line and other monitors. “She’ll wake up and believe me when I tell her she is my lab assistant and lover.”
“That will prove a challenge, I’m thinking,” Quentin laughed. He kissed Lily and laughed as she bit him. “You brought this on yourself, darling. Pity you won’t remember it.”
“Bastard!” Lily spat as he turned to go. He only laughed and continued on his way. She watched Ken go to his control board and type in what she assumed was a command. She heard a whirring noise and looked up to see a blue liquid coming down the IV line. “Ken, please don’t do this!”
“I’m doing you a favor, Lily,” Ken smiled as he set the program. “You won’t remember that bastard who forced you to marry him, your cousin’s murder, or the abuse you suffered. It will all be as if it never happened.”
“I don’t want to forget it,” Lily protested as she continued to struggle. “Please, Ken. My son needs me!”
“I’m certain your brother will take more than adequate care of the boy,” Ken shrugged. “Now feel free to tell me what you’re feeling, Lily,” Ken smiled as he started recording her vital signs. “You won’t remember this afterwards so any little thing you can tell me now is crucial.”
Lily whimpered as she saw the liquid enter her vein. She began to moan as it burned along her veins. The pain intensified as the drug was slowly introduced and she could not stop the screams as it became more than she could bear. She passed out and Ken smiled as he kept the recorders going. When the full dose had been given, he removed her from the cylinder, took the rings off of her finger, and the cuffs off her wrists, and dressed her in a plain cotton dress. He took her into a small studio space off of the lab and put her on the bed. Then he lay down next to her and fell asleep with her in his arms, a contented smile on his face.

“We have a problem, Father,” Geoffrey Talbot said as he walked into Gabriel’s office at the company. He was carrying a report in his hand. “I just finished the inventory in my lab and the drug Ken Crawford was working with me on is gone, along with all of my research notes.”
“What?”
“On top of that,” Gregory Talbot said as he followed behind, “Doctor Crawford is gone. His condo is on the market and all of his personal effects are in storage. My men questioned his neighbor, his associates, and all of his known acquaintances and no one could tell them where the man has gone.”
“He’s gone underground,” Gabriel frowned. “Someone is funding his continued research into that drug.” He shook his head. “I should have known he would pull something like this! Damn it! I should have had the bastard arrested.”
Geoffrey and Gregory saw him looking at the photograph of the Talbot family and Lily he had taken at the wedding and framed for his desk. They both knew their father felt personally responsible for the girl’s disappearance.
“Do you think Crawford had anything to do with Lily’s disappearance?” Gregory asked his father.
“I hope not,” Gabriel told him. “He blames her for the termination of his employment here. If he is looking to test the drug on human subjects, the idea of her being the first will be more than he can resist.” He looked at the younger son. “If Crawford is working with Caine, and Lily is with them, you need to get to her fast, Gregory.”
“What does this drug do, Geoff?” Gregory asked his brother.
“It affects the memory,” Geoffrey told them. “Depending on the dose, it can wipe anywhere from a few hours to a few years away from a person’s mind. If he uses it on Lily, and it works…”
“She won’t remember she was kidnapped,” Gregory finished. “Then he can tell her any little fiction he chooses and she has no memory of it being otherwise.” He whipped out his cell and hit the speed dial for Gregory. “Dave, it’s Gregory. I have additional information for you. Lily is in a whole lot more trouble than we originally assumed. Where are you?” He nodded. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
Gabriel went to the bar and poured himself a whiskey as Gregory took off. Geoffrey joined him and they sat together in silence as they pondered the problem that each man felt was his fault. Lily was in the hands of two men who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted from her. They had to find a way to get to her before too much damage was done.
Gregory got to the Federal Building in fifteen minutes and Dave was waiting for him in the lobby. They went to his office and the entire team was there to listen. Gregory filled them in on the drug Crawford had stolen and the possibility that Caine was funding the man’s research.
“There is a very real possibility,” Gregory said with regret, “that Lily was chosen to be his first test subject.” He saw Dave flinch. “He blames her for his loss of employment and he is just the kind of man who would have no problem hurting her like that.”
“I want us in the air in an hour,” Dave told his team. “We will set up a base on the island near Caine’s personal kingdom.”
“That’s international waters, Dave,” Gregory reminded him. “You have no jurisdiction there.”
“The FBI has no jurisdiction,” Dave corrected him, “but I resigned and became a private citizen as of an hour ago. I answer to no one but