Promising Danielle Ch. 08

Mountains of gratitude to honeywldcat for her editing of this entire series.

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I arrived at Danielle's house just as dusk was falling. It would have been a beautiful home if I didn't know how it was tainted. It did indeed look like the home of a professor. I saw the car pull from the driveway with three figures in it.

I fired up the laptop and configured the cell phone, connecting to my computer at home and starting to stream. Hanging the bag on a branch of a thick tree, I slipped down the side of the house. I pulled the ski mask over my head and searched for the back door. I needed to get in and get out as quickly as possible. They may have just left, but they could be back at any moment. Not only that, but my camera and other devices had a limited battery.

I found the back door unlocked. Strange, considering that they had a very big secret they wanted to hide and had proven that they were very smart. I was immediately on my guard, on the lookout for any dog or other human presence.

My heart pounded in my ears, praying that Danielle was still here and not taken somewhere in the car. I slunk up the stairs, each one seeming creak louder than any other stair in existence, save for the one immediately after it. My assent was painfully slow, making as sure as possible that I did my best not to be detected. The second I was found out, all bets would be off. But until then, I needed to be as quiet as possible, and that unfortunately meant moving slowly. I really wanted to tear around the house, shouting Danielle's name, but I knew that was unwise.

At long last, I arrived at the top of the stairs. I tiptoed down the hall, opening each door as I came to it, searching for people. I didn't consider Danielle in any mortal danger, so my first priority was to make sure I was alone, at least in my close proximity.

The first room I came to was small, and apparently unused as the guest room. It was empty. The second room was clearly her brother's. It was covered in sports posters, the floor covered in an undergrowth of dirty clothes and dishes. I would have liked nothing better than to destroy everything in that room, but the thought of Danielle somewhere in the house drove me to the next room.

This was Danielle's abode. I nearly lost my composure and broke down as her unique scent bombarded my olfactory senses. The pink walls and the large bed assaulted my eyes. My heart thundered anew as I thought of the atrocities that had taken place in that room. I forced myself to move on.

I reached the end of the hall, coming to her parent's room. It was a boring as the guest room. It too was vacant.

I made my way back downstairs, searching the kitchen and living room for any sign that Danielle had been there at all. In the downstairs office, nothing yielded any clues.

I lost all hope. I had searched every room in the house and didn't find her. I had to face facts: She wasn't here. I sighed heavily, the heaviest sigh I've had the displeasure of sighing. I made one last search of the house, ending my investigation with the closets. The front closet made me stop.

The back of the closet was a cleverly disguised door, the hinges and handle hidden by the arms of hanging coats. I opened the door and was greeted with a dark staircase. I could only imagine what was at the bottom of that rank set of steps.

I steeled myself before descending, all sorts of terrible ideas flooding my mind. What kind of extra perversion needed a secret door when they were perfectly happy to rape their family upstairs? Were there whips and chains? Some sort of bondage dungeon? Or was it somehow worse than that?

I reached the bottom of the stairs, a concrete floor exuding cold air. I stepped forward, running my face into a string with a weight on the end. I gave it a tug and the grim scene before me was bathed in harsh light.

At the far end of the room, there was a table, one end of which had stirrups to hold someone's legs open. Someone was meant to be strapped into the table, unable to move. That someone was Danielle.

My heart leapt up out of my throat. I charged down to her, hoping against hope that she was alright, ripping my mask off.

"Danielle." God dammit, now is not the time for my voice to quaver. This is the time that I need to be the strongest.

"Toby!" Tears poured from her eyes and down her cheeks. I bent down and kissed her over and over.

"I'm here to save you!" I turned my attention to the straps holding her naked body to the table. If my hands hadn't been trembling, I might have gotten them undone faster, but alas, adrenaline will do that.

The second she was free, I pulled her to me, holding her tighter than those straps had. I was going to hold her forever, letting her cry into my chest. The eminent danger of our position suddenly dawned on me.

"Honey, you need to get dressed so we can get out of here." I whispered. She nodded up at me. "Wait here." I was sure we were alone, so I had no qualms about making noise. I raced upstairs to her brother's room and grabbed the smallest pants I saw, a shirt, and some very old shoes and raced downstairs.

"Hurry, they could be back at any minute!" I quietly urged her. Understanding, she was quickly dressed. We sped back upstairs and crept back out of the back.

Night pressed in around us, the darkness providing us cover, and allowing everything to be a potential enemy. We crept down the length of the house. My heart thundered. We were nearly free!

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway brought my heart to a screeching halt. Her family was back.

"Will they come this way?" I whispered.

"No. They'll go in the front," she hissed.

We waited, pressed by the gate, hearing three doors shut. Three sets of footsteps made their way around the car. The sound of a key in a lock has never been clearer and the sound of it opening and quickly closing never more welcome.

"Run!" I hissed.

We took off, hand in hand down the dark drive way, snatching my bag out of the tree and charging down the street. As we rounded the corner, we heard the car screech out of the driveway we had just fled and race towards us.

Danielle pulled me sideways into a bush and rolled me into a crouching position.

"Wait here! He'll try our house and then come back." She explained breathlessly. Our house. What a wonderful thing to hear. We waited for twelve or so minutes before the car returned by us and turned back down the street.

"GO!"

We leapt from the bushes and charged down the dark street. The cold air coursed through the small gap between us, only intensifying my awareness of her warm hand in mine. She gripped me hard, and I held hers just as tight as we ran from her family.

We ran up the drive to the side door which I had conveniently left open. We bounded down the length of the room, intent on resting together on the bed.

In an act of acrobatic coordination worthy of Olympians, we leapt both onto the bed and into each other's arms simultaneously. We landed on ours sides and hugged each other as hard as we could.

"You really came and got me." She heaved. Up until now, nothing had been said between us, too busy with running.

"Of course I did. I love you." Is that such a hard thing to understand? The only reason I wasn't covered in your rapist blood is because they weren't there to stand between you and me.

"I want to change clothes. They smell like them." Her voice shook.

"Let's get you out of them and we can take a shower."

"What am I, three? I can't take one myself?" She joked.

"I saw you torn from my arms. Do you think that now I've got you back in them, that I'm ever going to let you out of them?" What kind of hopeless romantic pussy had I turned into? There was no way that I would ever say anything like that to a woman. Ever. Love is a scary powerful thing, folks. Remember that.

"I think I really need to be with you right now." She whispered, apparently moved by my words. She looked at me, tears beginning to shine in her eyes.

"Hold that thought." I said, wiping her tears. I pulled her with me up off the bed. I quickly stripped, watching her follow suit. I pulled her into the bathroom and turned on the shower. It was soon steaming warm.

I pulled her into the warm spray. My arms snaked around her to gently but firmly hold her against me. I felt her follow suit, clinging tightly to me. She pressed her cheek to my chest, a gentle ticking tolling me that she had closed her eyes. I rested my chin on her head, letting her know she was wanted where she was.

Slowly, she let go and began to cry. It was like watching a terrible boulder charge down a hill. Her cries built in intensity, wracking her weary body, shocking mine. I began to rub her back, cooing nonsensical sounds of comfort to her, anything to help her lance the poison from her soul.

I felt wholly inadequate right then. What could I possibly say to make her feel better? I had let her be taken from me. I had broken my promise to keep her with me. How could I convince her to trust me again? How can I trust myself with her well-being?

"Thank you." She managed to choke out at last, her sobs finally ebbing. "I love you."

"I'm sorry I broke my promise." I said kissing the top of her head. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop them."

"It's not your fault." She said, looking up at me. "You did everything you could short of killing those policemen, and I don't want you to do that." She stood on tip toe and kissed me. "If you promise to always find me and bring me back, I'll forgive you."

"I promise." I said. "But the next time they come around. I'll have little surprise for them."

"What?"

"Video of tonight," I said, relishing the look on her father's face when he would see it. "But that's for later. Right now, I just want to hold you."

"You do that." She returned her cheek to my chest. "I need to be held."

As I've no doubt said, I've never really been one for cuddling, but there was nothing I'd rather have been doing than holding Danielle close right then. Not a single thing. She could have offered to fulfill my deepest, darkest, twisted, most perverted fantasies, and I would have turned her down in favor of just standing there with her. Our nakedness wasn't lost on me, but it only seemed to impress upon me that there was literally nothing standing between us.

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More to come. Any feedback is welcome. If you have any questions, let me know with a way to respond to you, and I'll do my best to answer.