Saving Me (Finding You #3) by Amanda Mackey

my skull I was sure it would explode. My fingers clawed at the carpet, trying to get traction. The door was only another three feet away. Freedom was near. My mind screamed at me to move faster but my body was letting me down.
    “No, you don’t! You’re not getting away this time.” John seized both my legs and pulled me back. The carpet burned my skin from my breasts to my knees.
    “Let me go! I hate you!” Never before had I said that to his face for fear of his reaction but that didn’t matter now. I was going to unload the burden that had bound me in chains for years. “You’re mental, that’s what you are! You beat me! I was supposed to be your wife and you treated me like a punching bag. Not to mention the cigarette burns that have scarred me for life!” I was shouting now. The gate had opened, and if I was going to die on this floor, I wanted him to hear the truth. “What sort of a husband does that to his wife? You’re sick and so fucking pathetic! Real men don’t hit their wives, or anyone for that matter!”
    My whole body was twisting and turning, trying to pry free from his vise-like grip.
    “All you had to do was let me go and be happy, but no, that wasn’t enough for you. You had to nearly kill my father and then come over here to make my life miserable.”
    I was trying to suck in air. My energy levels were at rock bottom from the struggle. Tears fell, some red from my bloodied, swollen eye.
    John laughed like the lunatic he was, seemingly amused by my outburst. “You dishonored our wedding vows and you think I’m the bad guy? What happened to honor and obey till death do us part? Or were they just words to you, because I sure as hell took them seriously?”
    He turned me over again and punched me in the breast at least five times. My head rolled to the side, where I let out a strangled cough before slipping into oblivion.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Twelve
     
     
    Kyle
     
    Frantic was an understatement. It was now four o’clock in the afternoon and all I’d done since arriving back at the new house with Daniel was pace from room to room. Dad had arrived at the apartment as he’d promised but there was little he could do apart from offer comfort. After an hour or so of banging our heads together in an attempt to figure something out, we’d come up with nothing. My father returned home to see what Mike could do for us and I’d locked up the apartment for the final time.
    So, here I was. No better off. Nothing to go on. Sleep deprived and distraught. How could I keep this up until the police found anything? It could be too late by then. I needed to be doing something to help.
    Damn! It was frustrating. I had nothing to go on. No actual evidence apart from Dakota’s handbag, bracelet, and car. Those three things would hardly be called evidence as such, but they were enough in my mind to know something was terribly wrong. Where was she? Had John taken her?
    If so, he’d obviously been watching and waiting for the perfect time to strike. A time when she let her guard down and went out alone. If he had her, I knew she was in real trouble.
    John was obviously traveling under a false alias because there was no way the federal police would have let him leave Australia with a warrant for his arrest over the brutal attack on Dakota’s father.
    Even if he did show up on video footage from that morning, it was going to be impossible to find him if he was using a different name. Bastard!
    I strode downstairs into the large kitchen and pulled a can of Coke from the fridge, opening it, and taking a long swig. I moved to the living room to sink down into the soft cushions on the sofa, running a hand over my face.
    Moving day and I wasn’t even able to celebrate it with her. Today was supposed to be the beginning of our new life together, not the end. I didn’t want to remember the day we moved as the day I lost her. I knew what it was like to lose her once. I didn’t want to live