“I’m not hiding,” I say lowly and drop my gaze to the pizza. “Or maybe I am, but maybe it’s also because I have no choice.”
He wipes his hands clean before reaching across the way and lifting my head by the chin. He forces me to look deep in his eyes as he continues, “You have a choice. You always have a choice. Just remember that the next time you want to close up shop and tuck your emotions away.”
I force a smile and nod, sighing slightly under my breath. His fingers dance along my skin before he finally retreats and pushes himself back in his chair.
“And what about you?” I question softly. “Do you have those same choices?”
“I chose every minute to stay with you, to stay by your side and protect you.” He scratches at the back of his head and wets his lips. “I chose to come back to you even when you tried to push me away. Over and over again, I’ll choose to protect you—not because I have to or because I should—but because I want to.”
“Huh.” I try to make sense of the feelings swimming around in my heart. It’s like there’s a school of butterflies wreaking total and utter havoc on my innards. “I think that’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Romantic?” He grabs the glass of water in front of him and raises it to take a long gulp. When he tilts his head back, I can see more clearly day-old stubble encroaching on the square footage of his chin. He places the glass back onto the table and reaches for his slice of pizza. “If that’s being romantic, then I’m probably the most romantic man alive.”
“Because you’re protective?”
“Something like that.” He wrinkles his nose as he nods. “Now can we resume this conversation once I’ve devoured this pizza? I’d hate to be rude, but I’m absolutely starving.”
I look down at the odd pizza in front of me. I’ve never had such a thing in my entire life. Who in the hell was the first person to come up with the bright idea to turn chicken alfredo into pizza toppings. “I don’t know if I can eat this,” I muse out loud, my eyes searching back and forth over the pizza. “I love chicken alfredo, but—”
“But nothing,” he scoffs with a mouth full of food. He finishes chewing and pats his hand against his chest before offering me a bite of his pizza from across the table. “If you don’t like it, I’ll order something else.”
I take a long gulp before leaning over the span of the table and taking a small bite at first. It’s the perfect storm of mouth-watering delight. I lean in closer and take another much larger bite. He casts me a wicked grin before pointing to the pizza. “That’s enough of that. It’s time for you to get your own plate.”
# # #
Somehow we managed to eat the whole pizza. To be fair though, he had six slices and I was only able to manage two. Since this all began, I haven’t been eating much, certainly not enough. I’ve lost my appetite since this mysterious person began harassing me, so the fact that I ate two oversized slices of stuffed pizza makes me feel a little queasy to my stomach.
I lean back in my chair and brace a firm hand over my stomach, trying to calm my embattled innards, but it doesn’t seem to help much. Across the table, Luke clears the last remnants of the pizza with a napkin against his lips and then drops the balled-up napkin onto the empty pizza serving plate.
“Now, where did we leave off?” he questions with a grin, his head cocked sideways. “I think we were talking about your trust issues,” he points out with a chuckle.
I grab a spare napkin, ball it up, and throw it at his face. He manages to duck out of the way. “I think we both have trust issues.”
“Does that mean you think we’re a perfect match?”
“It means I’m considering it, but I haven’t decided yet.” I straighten myself out in my chair and drop my elbows on the table. It’s a relief not having to pretend to be the perfect high-society woman anymore, not with him anyways. “Are you afraid of me, Luke?”
“Afraid of you?” He jerks backwards. “Why would I be afraid of you? You’re five feet ten, can probably only lift seventy pounds, and you can’t shoot a gun to save your life.” He shakes his head with a wild grin. “So no, I’m not afraid of you.”
I glare at him with narrow eyes. “I meant does my past scare you?”
“Why would it scare me? You have a past,” he points out, both verbally and with his finger. “I have a past. Everyone has a past and there’s a reason we call it the past, because it’s supposed to stay behind us. I don’t care what you’ve done or what’s happened to you. All I care about is the woman sitting in front of me today and let me tell you something, I think she’s pretty damn special.”
“You really know how to make a girl blush.”
“That’s not my intention.”
“Well, it’s the result.”
“In that case,” he leans over the table and whispers to me, “I lied because that was my intention.”
“You know, when I first saw you, I had you pegged as a womanizer.”
“Remember what I said about having a past?” He furrows a brow. “Well, I used to be a womanizer.”
“And when did you stop?”
He tilts his head back and forth, contemplating. “Sometime around the day I met you.”
“Are you kidding me?” I wad up another napkin and launch it at his face. He doesn’t evade it this time. He doesn’t even try. “You just met me three days ago.”
“And yet it feels like a lifetime ago.” He shrugs, trying to hold back a grin with little success. “At this rate, I’ll be tired of you by tomorrow.”
“And we’ll have kids next week,” I join in on the fun. “And we’ll be divorced next month.”
“And we’ll be dead in three months,” he continues, but all of a sudden there’s a dark cloud hanging over the table. He clears his throat and frowns. “That was a terrible choice of words. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, it’s fine.” I force a smile and realize that this is the worst possible part of this conversation to excuse myself from the table, but a woman’s got to go when a woman’s got to go. “Please don’t think I’m upset, but I really need to go to the ladies’ room.”
His eyes sink low. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“No.” I assure him by reaching across the table and caressing his cheek with one hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not going to ditch you and make some kind of great escape and leave you alone to pay the bill.”
“That’s good,” he chuckles out loud, “because I’m not sure I’d be able to pay the bill, considering the fact that you’re not paying me.” He chuckles again, clearly proud of his joke-making abilities. When I don’t respond, his lips flatten. “That was a joke.”
“I know.” I pass my fingers over the rough stubble on his cheek once more before leaning in and kissing him softly. It’s just a quick peck, but it manages to light my soul on fire. I can only hope that I survive long enough to know if that feeling ever goes away. “I’ll be right back,” I whisper to him, my lips so close to his.
He takes the initiative to offer me one final kiss before I depart for the ladies’ room.
# # #
I drop my purse onto the long counter and then drop my phone into my purse. The lighting in the bar bathroom is atrocious, a gloomy pale yellow. In the tall mirror, I take particular notice of how pale I look contrasted against the fabric of my black dress.
I lean in closer to the mirror, trying to get a better look so I can adjust my hair. There are stray strands flying away at the sides, so I wet my fingers and try to slick them back into place. I dig into my purse to grab a nude-colored lipstick and apply it as quickly as I can without smudging it at the corners of my mouth. I pucker my lips and then smack them outwards.
As soon as I drop the lipstick back into my purse, the dingy room goes dark. It’s only when the lights are out that I catch a whiff of the foul odor of the bathroom. It’s musky and reeks of piss. Will someone please remind me why I agreed to come
to this place?
I sling my purse over my shoulder and make a break towards the door. Though it’s almost pitch black, I can see just enough to be able to grab the door handle. But when I try to pull it open, it doesn’t budge.
“Shit,” I groan under my breath. I try once again, but I’m met with the same result. It seems to be stuck on something. I angle myself against the door and pound it with my fist, hoping someone can hear me.
But when my phone vibrates in my purse, lighting up my face in the oversized mirrors, my blood runs cold. It’s like I can practically feel my veins curdling with fear. I’d almost forgotten that I’m being hounded by someone, but I can no longer remain forgetful. Not when I pick up the phone to see a message from the same damn number as before.
213-555-7373: Little Miss Ice Queen sitting on her throne. Little Miss Ice Queen all alone. Little Miss Ice Queen found her heart, and little Miss Ice Queen is about to know what it feels like to be torn apart.
My entire body trembles; my fingers, my hands, my lips… I stand frozen in place and just when I think about screaming, a hand covers my mouth and drags me backwards…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LUKE
I glance down at my watch to see that she’s been gone for a good ten minutes. I know girls can tend to get carried away when they go to the bathroom, especially if they go with other girls, but she went into that bathroom alone, and I’m starting to get worried.
I reach for my glass of water and take a long sip. It’s enough to quench my thirst, but my boots are tapping against the floor incessantly. I glance down at my watch again. It’s been another thirty seconds and I’m trying to stay calm, trying to convince myself that there’s nothing wrong, but I just can’t shake the feeling that she should be back by now.
I climb to my feet and retrieve my wallet from my back pocket, dig out a twenty-dollar bill, and slap it onto the table. My eyes search the span of the bar, looking for her as I make my way past a row of tables in front of the bathrooms. To the right is the men’s room. To the left is a long hallway that snakes around a corner that leads to the women’s bathroom. I make my way down that hall and knock once against the metal door.
There’s no response, so I knock a few times more, each time pounding my fist a little bit harder against the metal. I exhale a burst of hot air and bow my head against the door. I think about throwing it open and rushing inside. If she’s in there, or if someone else in there, I risk embarrassing myself, but at the end of the day, I’d rather be safe than sorry.
I grip my hand around the tall handle and pull the door open. It opens with ease though the door creaks loudly. It’s pitch black inside. My stomach sinks almost down to my feet. I reach to the side and flip on a light switch. The bathroom is dark and grimy, but it’s nowhere near as nasty as the men’s room just down the hall.
“Ella, are you in here?” I call out, but I already know she’s not. “Ella?”
I drop down onto my knees and crane my head to get a view under each of the stalls. There’s nobody here. I force myself back to my feet and twist to cut out of the bathroom just as a woman wearing a flowery blue dress passes me. I race back out into the bar and search furiously for her with my eyes. She’s nowhere to be seen.
One of two things have happened; she either cut out on our date even though she promised she’d return, or she was abducted. Even though it would suck like hell knowing she ducked out on me, that would certainly beat the alternative.
I throw open the front metal door of the bar and exit out onto the city street sidewalk. She’s not to be seen anywhere. Up ahead is a coagulated group of college co-eds stumbling drunkenly down the sidewalk. I push through the middle of them, ignoring their incessant cussing.
And then my heart drops in my chest when I see a man wearing a black helmet approach a street bike on the opposite side of the road. The bike is parked against the curb, and I know if I ever want to see Ella alive again, I need to stop that man before he has the chance to get away.
I race across the road, running right in front of traffic. A yellow taxicab honks his horn but manages to swerve into the opposite lane to avoid hitting me. Unfortunately, the honking of the horn alerts the biker ahead of me. He cocks his head over his shoulder and sees me before twisting and jumping onto his bike.
He twists the key in the ignition and prepares to take off, but I’m able to reach him just in time. I throw the full force of my body against him and his bike, forcing the bike to fall over onto its side and scrape against the cement. I get a quick good look at the bike and notice that it’s already scratched to hell and back.
If I didn’t know it before, I know it now. I know that this is the same man who showed up to the factory and sped away on his bike. I know that the texts I’ve been receiving, someway somehow relate back to the texts Ella’s been receiving and the letters that complement them. I’m one step closer to solving this mystery, and this son of a bitch is one step closer to waking up in a hospital.
He fidgets underneath the weight of the bike that has him pinned down and manages to slither out from underneath just in the knick of time before I can bring my fist down to meet his face. He cuts away from me and scrambles to his feet. It’s more important for me to remain in control of this situation than to do something stupid and risk losing him forever.
He readies his fists in front of him, but the slate black helmet attached to his head isn’t doing him any favors. He can’t seem to remain standing up without considerable effort. I use this to my advantage as I circle him; it’s as if I am circling my prey. I launch a jab at him with the intention of missing. He dodges out of the way, and that’s when I land the real blow, landing a solid jab against his ribcage. He buckles over and falters to his knees.
I take a measured step towards him and raise my knee to land a punt against his chin. He’s thrown backwards by the sheer force of my calculated blow. As he’s lying with his back on the ground, trying to recover, he reaches for his helmet and rips it off to reveal the face of a young man with bleach-blonde hair and a neck tattoo. I’ve never seen him before in my life, but it doesn’t matter, and even though he looks somewhat like a kid, I can’t bring myself to care.
I drop down onto my knees to straddle his chest and lift him by the collar of his shirt. “Where is she?” I seethe through gritted teeth. “You’re going to tell me where she is, or I’m going to kill you.”
He groans and shuffles his head upwards to laugh right in my face. He laughs so close to me that I can feel his spit landing against my cheeks. “You’re in so much danger, and you don’t even know it.” He drops his head backwards landing against the hard surface of the sidewalk all the while continuing to laugh. “Oh Jesus, you really are in over your head.”
I hold him still with one hand and arch my fist backwards, preparing myself to deliver a fatal blow. Anger seethes through the thin space that separates my lips, and my fist is shaking, my chest heaving. I could kill him right now if I wanted to and all he can do is laugh.
“What in the hell is so funny?”
He cocks his eyes directly at me. “You’ll see.”
I think I hear the crack against the back of my head before I feel the pain. All I know is that the darkness comes immediately after, and right before the side of my head lands against the concrete, I swear I can hear the man laugh once more…
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ELLA
I’m muffled in the back of a van and my hands are bound behind my back. It’s dark, but I can vaguely make out the dim city streetlights just outside the windows. The man who threw me in the back left as soon as he did so, and though I can’t discern when he’ll be coming back, I know that he will be coming back, so I resolve to try and free myself, no matter the cost, before he can return.
I push myself backwards against the metal walls of the van and begin to search through the dark space for something to help assist me in freeing myself from the ropes holding my hands behind my back.
For th
e most part, the back of the van seems to be void of any tools I could use to help me escape, but I don't let that stop me from trying. My hands search against the hard floor, searching in vain. And when I don’t find anything, I decide to use the van as my means to escape.
In the far corner, right beside the double doors in the back, I notice there’s a protruding dent in the wall of the van. I shuffle as quickly as I can across the floor and make my way to the protruding metal, and quarter myself so that I can rub the ropes against the sharp and jagged metal. I grit my teeth as I try to cut through the thick ropes, and though I can hear the metal seesawing through the binds, I don’t seem to be making much headway.
That is until the ropes snap unexpectedly, giving away.
I feel the relief of my hands being unbound, but I don’t take much time to celebrate my freedom. Because I know that I’m not free yet, not quite.
I won’t be free until this is over, so I resolve to end this once and for all. I put both hands against the back of the doors and try to push the door open, but it doesn't budge. It's either locked from the outside or something is jamming the door.
I creak my head over my shoulder and look at the front seats.
I lunge forward, throwing myself over and in between the two front seats. I scramble to the passenger door and pop it open. As soon as I do, my feet land against the asphalt and I am quickly take off running. I can feel the wind in my hair, blowing through the long black strands.
But then something catches my attention, something out of the corner of my eye. I come to an immediate halt and twist my head of my shoulder so I can see the scene behind me. There are two men, one with a black bike helmet held in his hand and the other man standing over an unconscious body.
And I immediately recognize it as being Luke, with his trademark jeans and T-shirt look. My heart begins to race and my mind races even faster, as I try and figure out how I can save him. The old me, Ella Stone, probably would have run away, but I’m not that same girl anymore.
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