by Devon Ashley
I let her slowly find her way back to reality, as awful as it was. She blinked a few times, taking me in, then a soft smile spread across her face. “So it wasn’t just a dream,” she pondered. “You did come back for me.”
I smiled back, combing her hair behind her ear so I could better see her beautiful face. “Mmm-hmm. It’s time to go home now.” I pressed my lips against her forehead for a few seconds, then angled my feet off the ottoman and pulled myself forward. She shifted along with me, still drowsy, but moving to stand beside me. She wrapped her arms around herself as if suddenly cold, looking toward the man who kept ruining her life.
“I’m going to go try to find something to wear.”
I nodded, my gaze following until she disappeared around the corner. I grabbed the gun off the corner of the bed and tucked it into the back of my jeans. Earlier I had found cable ties in the utility drawer in the kitchen. Before I ever let myself fall asleep, I had tightened one around his feet for extra protection. He wouldn’t have been able to reach either me or Megan, but still, the guy was a killer. I wanted him as limited as possible.
I left him tied there, sulking in pain that flattered my ego, and joined Megan in the master closet. After taking a peek at the dresses that were clearly meant for her, it was no wonder she was wearing one of the button-up shirts on the opposite side. It hung loose and long, covering her up to mid-thigh, and she was currently rolling the sleeves until they stopped at three-quarters.
“I have to walk down the lane and get the car.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Is it just sitting on the path?”
“It’s a little off road. I wanted to hide it as best I could in case he left the house for some reason. I came the rest of the way on foot.”
“Okay. Hopefully those guys didn’t follow up later out of curiosity. I don’t really know what the bottom of a car looks like, but we should check to see if there’s anything obvious that doesn’t belong. I don’t want to go to the trouble of trying to lose them if they have that way of tracking us.”
I nodded my head. That was actually a good idea. “I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes. Just stay out of that room. He’s tied up, but I don’t want him realizing I’ve left the house. In fact, why don’t you follow me and stay in the living room while I’m out?”
“Why don’t I just go with you?”
“Because you said they know what you look like. And because I’m not sure how accurate that tracker is. If they spot you outside and see your tracker hasn’t moved, what makes you think they won’t grab you right now?”
She nodded and reluctantly sighed. I took her hand and led her through the house. While he was dazed and weakened, I had forced our less than gracious host all the way to the back of the house and forced him to open the door to the garage. I had hit the button to leave it open indefinitely so it wouldn’t lock back up on us. Just in case.
“On second thought…” I said, realizing I’d have to leave this door open when I opened the garage. I passed the gun over. “Stay here and keep an eye out. I don’t want anyone sneaking in.” She unclicked the safety. “Do you think you’d be able to actually shoot one of them?”
She tipped her head with slight annoyance. “Trust me. I’ll shoot every bullet I have before I let anyone take me again.”
I grasped her chin and kissed her lips. “It’ll be okay. We’re almost home.”
Though where home would be now, I didn’t know. It sure wasn’t going to be where we lived now.
“And when we get someplace safe, you’re going to have to tell me everything that’s been going on. I haven’t bugged you about this Friggs guy because I didn’t want to discuss it in front of him. But I want to know everything, Megan.”
Her cheeks filled up like a puffer fish before letting her breath go, but she nodded her response.
I opened the garage door, retrieving the Glock Zander abandoned on the work table on the way in earlier, and scanned everything in view. It was dark now, so I really couldn’t tell if anyone was trying to hide themselves. I briskly hurried on the outskirts of the path, weaving in between trees to stay better hidden. I made it to the car, checking behind me as I opened the door this time, and drove back to the garage without incidence, parking just outside. There was no room to park inside, so we just had to hope no one was close enough to the house to see what we were doing.
I popped the trunk and shuffled through the contents. Nothing important, so I carried all its contents inside the garage, emptying the trunk.
Megan was leaning halfway into the driver’s side of the SUV when I finished. “We’re going to need to shut the house on our way out so it doesn’t look suspicious.” She climbed back out and handed me the garage door opener. I pocketed it and guided her back into the house. “Whose car is that?” she asked of the Corolla.
“Carlos’,” I answered quietly, and given her saddened expression, she didn’t want to discuss it any further either.
I snatched the last two syringes off the kitchen counter and passed them back as we walked through. “Hold these for me. And keep away from him while we do this. I don’t want you close enough to be grabbed.”
“Okay.”
She said it so firmly I smiled. I don’t know how she found the courage to be so brave all the time. I imagined most victims who went through similar circumstances would be curled up in a ball and completely unresponsive at the moment.
But not my Megan. She almost seemed different. Like her strength had actually increased through this nightmare instead of being pulverized, as she was insulted by one humiliating and violent act after another. The sad part was that this wasn’t over yet. Even if we made it out of here safely, she’d still have to deal with a trial and knowing he was still alive out there, most likely thinking of her on a daily basis. And it made me want to hold her closer than ever before.
I turned right there in the hallway, taking her so much by surprise that she stumbled right into me. Catching her face with my hands, her brown eyes lit up looking at me. “No matter how this plays out, I want you to know that I love you.”
“Nick,” she replied quietly, like she was weary I might be saying goodbye like she’d done to me.
Hell. Maybe I was, just in case.
Speaking softly, I said, “I love you. And I’ll do whatever I have to to get you out of here and back home where you belong.”
She grasped the front of my shirt and pulled me closer, the syringes fisted up in her left hand, the gun still dangling in her right down by her side. “I belong with you, so don’t you dare do anything stupid.”
“Okay,” I answered, but we both knew that was one promise I’d be willing to break in heartbeat if I had to.
I took my time massaging my lips against hers, absorbing every little ounce of affection I’d been missing for way too long. I didn’t want to let her go. She reached around my neck, trying to pull herself closer. My hands slid their way down her body, readying to lift her up and give her what she sought, but she hissed, and her face pulled back.
Disappointed, my forehead dropped to her head. I must’ve tried lifting too closely to her cut.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Did I hurt you?”
She sighed. I felt some of her weight collapse against me. “Nick, in the grand scheme of things, nothing you could do would be thrown in the hurt category. And I promise, when we get out of here, I’m going to prove that to you. I owe you that much.”
I kissed her forehead and pulled her into motion again. She owed me nothing, but saying that aloud would’ve only extended a discussion we didn’t have time to have right now. I needed to get her out of here, away from all these people who seemed under the sick delusion that they had a right to her.
I released her hand as we entered the room. I immediately went to cut the cable tie around his ankles, before he had the chance to really think about what I was doing. Then I undid the left binding around his wrist and swiftly backed away. “You can do the other yourself.”
/> He eyed me wearily with his one good eye as I pulled the gun, but eventually moved to unclasp himself.
“Up. Let’s go,” I ordered, pulling the gun and aiming it at him. Megan backed herself up behind me with room to spare, using me as her buffer even though she had a gun. “Back door, sunshine,” I mocked, using the same name he gave me when our roles were reversed. After the kicks I gave his groin, his pace was excruciatingly slow. He grimaced as he awkwardly advanced through the room and out the door. I poked him once directly in the back. “And hurry up.”
He slightly picked up speed, but it was clear he had no intention of hurrying along just to be handed over to the cops. All he did was mumble, “Seriously with the gun already.”
“There are plenty of places I can shoot you that won’t kill you. And after what you’ve done to Megan and me, I’m going to continue aiming low.”
He knew better than to chuckle at that, so he led us to the back of the house and through the garage without a snippy retort. Once we got to the car, I motioned with the gun for him to get into the trunk.
“Truly?”
“What? Did you think you’d get to sit in the front seat and wave as we made our way out of here? Look on the bright side. You’ll get one last chance to lie beside Megan. I thought you’d be thrilled.”
He lifted his eyebrows at her as he tried to climbed in. “You say that like there’s no way she’ll enjoy this herself.”
I didn’t bother to respond. The moment he turned his back I snatched one of the syringes from Megan, uncapped it and slammed it into his ass. I pushed him and he fell in clumsily, cursing a round of expletives not worth repeating. I slammed the trunk’s door down on him. He’d be asleep before we even made it to the main road, and I still had the second syringe should he need another dose.
“I thought I was getting in too.”
“Hell no I’m putting you in a trunk with that psycho.” I opened the back door and explored the seat. “You can lie down in the back. If I feel someone suspicious is getting too close, you can climb into the back then. Shithead’ll be asleep by then so he won’t be able to harass you.”
I found what I was looking for – the mechanism that popped the back seat so the trunk could be accessed. I showed it to her as she climbed in and crouched low. I grabbed a flashlight off the shelf in the garage and took a few moments to scan beneath the car. I didn’t see anything that stood out, so either they weren’t interested in wasting a tracker on this car or they didn’t notice it pulled off the road.
As I was getting in the front seat and closing the garage door, she asked, “Where’s my tracker?”
“In his bedroom. I wasn’t exactly sure how accurate those things could be, so I figured it was best to toss it between the sheets.” I began checking the interior for anything suspicious, too. “Do me a favor and feel around back there. Tell me if you find anything.”
“You’re incredibly level-headed about all this.”
I shook my head. Hell if I knew why. Guess my will to get her to safety trumped every other emotion trying to fight its way to the surface.
Not finding anything inside either, I started the engine, turned on the lights and began driving down the path. “Believe me, you wouldn’t think that if you had access to my head right now. I’m just as scared as you are, but it’s something we have to get through. Now let’s try to be quiet for a bit, okay? I didn’t like Zander’s remark about being able to hear inside cars easily.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “I love you.”
I angled my head toward the opening between the front seats, but I couldn’t see her in the darkness. She had cleverly chosen a black shirt to cover her skin with. “I love you, too.”
It took just a few minutes to navigate the dirt road back to the main lane. As I spotted the junction, I paused to glance both ways as I opened the gate. If there was someone out here, it was too dark to know where. There were plenty of places to pull off on the road and hide a car, so they could be close enough to be watching me right now. I pulled the car out, and though I desperately ached to just take off, I risked getting out a second time to close the gate behind us.
Megan stayed very quiet in the back seat. I wanted so badly to reach back and squeeze her hand, to tell her it was alright, but I didn’t dare move anything, especially my lips. These people could afford to put trackers in us. A pair of night vision goggles or something to amplify sound to hear what we were saying would hardly cause a dent in their petty cash flow.
I appeared nonchalant as I pulled onto the lane and drove south towards Highway 2. I drove for a good eight minutes and still never saw any headlights. It made me wonder if they weren’t bothering to follow me, or if night vision goggles could be used to drive at night undetectably.
I just kept going once I got to the highway, but I did turn on the radio. It sure helped me to relax. I could only hope it did the same for Megan. If we got through this, I was going to hold her and never let go. Hell, after what happened, I had the feeling I was going have a sleeping disorder, too. Going to bed one night and waking up chained in a rapist’s bedroom… No wonder she took so many No-Doze pills.
Thirty minutes later we came across a small town. First thing I did was pull into the parking lot of a fast food joint and parked where I could watch the road. Megan dared to sit up and lean between the front seats, but before she could ask what I was doing, I put my finger against my lips in a shushing fashion. She nodded and sat in silence with me for five minutes. A couple of cars continued down the highway, but only one actually pulled in. It was a mother and two kids under the age of five. Definitely not who I was waiting for.
Feeling it was probably safe to speak, I quietly said, “I thought we’d wait and see if anyone followed us in here to investigate.”
After a moment of silence, I asked, “So what do you want to do now?”
“I’ve been thinking about that actually. I don’t think we can risk getting him officially arrested before going after Friggs. The only reason I popped for Zander was because they added my name to his brother’s file and he had someone watching it. I can’t honestly say that anyone would notice if he was arrested, but I still don’t want to take that chance.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled in agreement. More cars were passing, but none were turning in, so my heartbeats were beginning to ease into their normal rhythm again. “So how do we go about keeping him out of the system? We can’t just tie him down for ten days. We need the cops to go after Friggs.
“Who you still haven’t told me about.”
She sighed miserably and filled me in with far fewer details than she probably had to give. Didn’t matter. What she said was enough, and I’d love to see those two assholes share a jail cell for the rest of their fucking lives. They could be fuck buddies. And I now understood why she wouldn’t let me put a bullet in that asshole’s head.
“We need to go by the house.”
My head whipped to look at her? “Our house? You want to risk leading these guys to our house? And who the hell knows where this guy is who works for Zander.”
“Sadly, since Friggs was the one who put the tracker in me after the first time Zander took me, he might already know where we live. We need to get in there and get back out again before he realizes I’m gone.”
“What the hell for?”
“You remember the woman who came in to interview me after that ass of a cop upset me? Courtney O’Neill? She gave me her card with her personal number on it. If anyone will understand why Zander needs to be kept off the books or entered into the system under a false name, it’s her. We’ll just have to keep him in the trunk until she can meet us.”
I scratched the back of my head. I didn’t like taking the risk of going to our home. It was secluded for a reason. But Megan was right; that detective was a better option than showing up at some random station with a bloodied and bound man in our trunk. It would take forever for them to confirm that we were the actual victims in this case.
&n
bsp; “Why don’t we call the precinct first? Ask for her by name. Then we could avoid going to the house.”
She shrugged. “Guess we could try. But you’ll have to do it. I’m not exactly dressed for it at the moment.”
I began digging through the crannies in search of coins, finally finding a stash in the ashtray. Grabbing a fistful, I locked Megan in the car and stepped inside the restaurant. It was an old establishment, so there actually was a phone booth in the back by the bathrooms. It was so greasy and disgusting I didn’t dare put it directly to my ear. I had to call information to get the number I needed, but when I asked for Detective O’Neill, I was told she was already off for the day. Surprise, surprise, the station wouldn’t give me another number for her, but kept insisting that I let another detective help me with my problem. I finally just hung up.
“House it is,” I mumbled, climbing back into the car. “And I’m the one going inside, not you.”
“Alright,” she replied without argument. “Her card is inside my wallet, which I hope is still in my bag on the barstool.
“Unless the cops came in and took it,” she mumbled.
“They did.”
She sighed. “Alright. I made a copy of it and left it in the desk drawer with all the pens. Just in case I lost my wallet.”
My smile was weak, but my lips surprised me by even curling that far given our current situation. That was my Megan. Always planning ahead, expecting the worst to happen. Sadly, she was usually right about the things that always went to shit.
We sat in silence for a moment longer, both of us watching the entrance, fearful to turn away as the minutes passed by. I could hear the faintness of her breaths behind me, extending longer and longer as we realized no one was following us into the parking lot. Didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone out there, but it lessened the likelihood enough to feel comfortable driving home.