by Jamie Canosa
Whack.
A strangled sound choked its way up my throat and I pressed my forehead against the wall as the room was starting to spin.
Whack. Whack.
I couldn’t feel my legs, my arms, the wall . . . anything holding me up. All I felt was the pain.
Whack.
I sagged, my shoulder bumping against the wall.
Whack.
My father grunted. Vomit crept up the back of my throat.
Whack.
My knees gave out, surrendering their battle with gravity, and the floor rushed up to meet me as everything faded to black.
*Present day*
I slowed until the only other car on the road passed me before pulling into the gas station off Route 9. The sound of the girl’s soft breathing filled the car. Frequent glances in the rearview assured me she hadn’t moved from where I laid her across the backseat as we made our detour. Loose gravel crunched beneath the tires and pinged the undercarriage.
The white stucco siding was cracked and the S and R of ‘Gas Mart’ were missing along with all of the pumps. A lone blue minivan looked out of place parked in the shadows. As I pulled up behind it the driver’s door swung open.
“You get her?” Frank cupped his hand against my window, pressing his face into the glass.
“I said I’d handle it, didn’t I?”
Something about the way he was leering at her while she was unconscious rubbed me the wrong way. I disengaged the power locks and tugged the handle, nearly hitting him in the face with the door. Frank took a step back to give me room, only now I was the one doing the leering. Dammit all to hell.
Fiery red curls fell in waves over her shoulder. Smokey eyelids twitched in restless sleep and I couldn’t help wondering what it was she dreamed about. If I’d already come to infect her nightmares.
She was lighter than she looked. Average size for a girl, but her weight felt almost insubstantial in my arms as I transferred her to the waiting vehicle. Frank rooted through an old duffle bag as I rearranged her limbs, tucking her arm beneath her head on the torn and faded bench seat.
“Move.” He elbowed me out of the way.
The headlights of my car were muted through the tinted windows, but they provided enough light for me to see the syringe in his hand. “What the hell is that for?”
“To make sure she doesn’t wake up on the way. Relax, we give it to the animals at the clinic all the time. She’ll be fine.”
A clear liquid sloshed beneath the plunger. “Are you sure you got the dosage right? You’re not a vet, Frank.”
“No, I’m a tech, the one who gives all the damn injections. There’s enough in here for a friggin’ poodle. I told you, relax. I know what I’m doing.”
Relax, my ass. “I hit her with the chloroform. We really don’t need to—”
Patience expired, Frank bent over me to stab the needle into the girl’s arm. A small, scared whimper squeezed past her pinched lips, but otherwise she didn’t stir.
“Dammit, Frank, I said we didn’t need that.”
“It’s done.” He dumped the used needle in a shopping bag and tossed it out the door. “We’d better get on the road. Stash your car and let’s go.”
The harsh clank of metal filled the humid night air as Frank pulled a pair of handcuffs from his seemingly requisite bag of crazy.
“Don’t you think that’s overkill? Where the hell did you even get this shit? The girl’s already drugged, in a moving vehicle, with both of us.”
“The wonders of online shopping. Can’t be too safe.”
He leaned in, but I snagged his wrist before he could reach her. “I think you can. Just leave her.”
His eyes narrowed, engaging me in a classic Frank-style stare down. It wasn’t often that I held my ground with him, but on this I did. The girl was going to wake up scared and confused, she didn’t need to be sore as well. Frank conceded with a huff and tossed the cuffs back in the bag.
Her dress was beginning to creep up her thighs, so I snagged my jacket from the front seat and draped it over her waist. Silky hair slid through my fingers as I combed it from her face.
“I am sorry you got dragged into this.” I didn’t know if she could hear me. I was certain she wouldn’t believe me even if she could. But I needed her to trust me. It was the only way any of us were making it through this.
After stashing my car in the back of the lot of a twenty-four-hour department store, I hopped into the passenger seat of the van, beside Frank, to find the girl exactly as I’d left her—lying across the bench seat with a seatbelt looped awkwardly around her waist to keep her from falling.
An hour-and-a-half into the drive I couldn’t take Frank’s skull-splitting, bass-heavy hard rock station anymore. I flipped through the presets until I found the one I’d confiscated. The soothing twang of old-school country guitar filled the vehicle and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Not this crap again,” Frank groaned.
“I like this crap.” Empty fields silhouetted by moonlight blurred by outside my window.
Frank really thought this through, I had to give him that much. This place was made for privacy. Old back roads with no streetlamps and no traffic. The kind of place I’d take my car and really open her up, see what she could do. But not tonight. Tonight we went exactly the speed limit. Every once in a while a house popped up on the flat landscape and I strained for a closer look. No cars, no lights, no toys in the yards or curtains in the windows. One had a ‘For Sale’ sign out front. The others looked like a strong wind could knock them over. The recession hit this area hard. Farms folded right-and-left. People were driven into the city in search of jobs. It was a ghost town.
The ground changed from smooth to rutted as we turned onto a long, winding dirt drive. The shitty shocks had me bouncing in the seat as I twisted to make sure the girl was staying put. Her hair had fallen into her face again, but otherwise she looked fine.
We jostled along the dirt road past a three-story yellow house with red shutters and trim. The paint was peeling in places, but it was in much better condition than the surrounding properties. Frank made sure of it.
About a quarter mile behind the house stood a long, single-story, wooden structure. Bits and pieces of fencing could still be seen through the overgrown, grassy fields surrounding it. It was remarkable how quickly nature could reclaim a place.
We rolled up outside the building and I studied the oversized, sliding door.
“The stables?” I didn’t have to ask why.
“A light in the house would be visible from the road.” That was not why. “Everything’s already inside.”
“Alright, man.” I looked over the girl again and was suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion. It had been a hell of a night. “I’ll get her inside. You go back for the car and make contact.”
“I know the plan. It’s my plan,” Frank grumbled.
“Just making sure we stick to it.” The ‘plan’ sucked as it was. I wasn’t prepared to handle any deviations. And Frank could be a bit . . . unpredictable.
Cradling the girl in my arms, I angled her out of the van, trying not to bang her against the door. Wind roamed freely over the flat landscape, tossing her hair and bringing out goosebumps up and down her arms. I cradled her closer.
“Here. Use these.” Frank dropped the cuffs onto her stomach. “I’m not fucking around. If the rich bitch—”
“I’ve got her.” I bit back the urge to tell him she wasn’t a bitch. Quite the opposite, in fact. She hadn’t even let me hit that douchebag back at the party. I almost wished she was. A spoiled brat would have been a lot easier to deal with than this wide-eyed, quiet little bird. “I’ll use your stupid cuffs, just go. Let’s get this shit over with.”
Frank didn’t argue. For once. He got in the van and left us standing in a cloud of dust.
“Shit.” Kicking open the stable door, I paused to let my eyes adjust. The sun would rise in a few hours, but for now we were blanketed in dar
kness. Only a pale glow at the far end of the alleyway guided my cautious steps.
The last stall on the left housed a single, doublewide cot, a couple piles of hay—haphazardly kicked together—and a blanket tossed on each. So glad Frank thought of everything. The cot’s ‘mattress’ was nothing more than a rigid stretch of nylon between four metal posts.
“Unbelievable.” I left one thing to him . . .
A quiet, frightened cry hit me like a punch to the gut as I laid her in the hay. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
Folding the thicker of the two blankets in half, I tucked it around the edges of the cot. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. Straw clung to her hair and dress when I placed her on top. A soft breath escaped her parted lips as I slid a few pieces free of her curls. Her brow scrunched, but she remained asleep. The cuffs lay discarded on the floor. I’d promised Frank I would use them, but I never said when.
As I stooped to retrieve them, I noticed a couple plastic bags stowed beneath the cot. The girl’s body heat warmed my back where I sat beside her to root through them, pulling out a bottle of water, a muffin, and a half eaten bagel that must have been Frank’s breakfast when he’d dropped this stuff off earlier. I shoved the bagel in my mouth and chewed on the stale onion flavor as I pulled out the second bag.
This one contained about a half-dozen more glass bottles of whatever the hell drug he’d shot her up with on the way here. No fucking way. That shit was for animals, for chrissakes. No way were we sticking her with any more needles. We didn’t know a goddamn thing about her medical history. Too much could go wrong.
Too much was already bound to go wrong.
Chapter 3
~Ophelia~
I woke to a herd of wild horses galloping through my skull. My first thought was, hangover from hell. I was so going to kill Lisa.
My throat felt raw, like I’d swallowed a sandbox, and my eyes were dry and itchy. I tried to rub some of the grit from them, but my hands caught behind my back.
What the—?
I tried again, but my hands refused to come free. What the hell was going on? I twisted my wrists and something cold and hard dug into them, keeping them in place. Restraints. I was restrained. And lying on my side on . . . seashells?
I blinked at the obnoxious print filling my somewhat blurry vision and willed my hazy brain to catch up. The smell of moist earth, mildew, and faint traces of . . . was that fertilizer? It smelled like my mother’s garden every spring after the landscapers were through with it. Dampness coated my skin, leaving a chill in my bones. I strained my ears, but it felt as though my head had been stuffed with cotton balls, muting all of my senses. All I could make out was the sound of my own breathing.
I tried to roll over, but it was useless. My elbow kept getting in the way. Dammit, if I could just—
The high-pitched squeal of rusty hinges brought with it a blinding light, silhouetting a pair of denim clad legs.
They strode toward me and I was afraid. I knew I was afraid. I should have been afraid. But my heart refused to acknowledge my fear, beating a slow steady rhythm. My lungs drew deep, even breaths. My skin remained dry. It was as though my body and mind were no longer connected.
Those legs dropped to their knees, bringing a plain brown t-shirt and two thick arms—one with a swirling design done in black ink—into my limited field of vision.
Who? Why couldn’t I remember? How drunk was I last night?
My neck was stiff, my own body working against me as I twisted for a better look. Slowly, my gaze inched upward—afraid of what it might discover—until it met with a pair of familiar green eyes.
Emerald?
“Emerald?” The corners of his mouth lifted in amusement.
Shit, did I say that out loud? “I didn’t know . . . Your eyes . . . they’re green . . . like emeralds.” And the stupid kept on coming. “What . . . what happened? Where am I?”
It was the first smart thing I’d said and he didn’t even bother to acknowledge it.
“How are you feeling?”
“Confused. What happened last night?” Slowly, images trickled through my mind. The party. Lisa. Anthony. The car. The cloth. “What the hell’s going on? What did you do to me? Where am I?”
Sharp pain tore at my wrists as I flailed, tugging at my bonds.
“Relax.” He set a hand on my shoulder and I cried out as though he’d burned me.
My mind was running laps, cycling through a million thoughts at once, one more terrifying than the next. Who? Where? When? The most frightening of all were what and why? Why was I here? What did he want from me? What would he do to me?
Still my body didn’t react properly. I’d known terror. I knew what it was supposed to feel like. My senses should’ve all been heightened, focused, not thick and sluggish. My head felt heavy. My limbs like wet noodles.
“What’s wrong with me?” I thought my words slurred, but it was hard to tell through the buzzing in my ears. My eyes burned and my vision grew blurrier.
“Don’t . . .” Emerald frowned and reached for my cheek before curing his fingers into his palm and withdrawing. “It’s just the drugs we gave you. To keep you unconscious until we got here. Don’t worry, they should wear off soon. There’re no lasting side-effects or anything.”
Drugs? Side-effects? Jesus. Where the hell was ‘here’?
I blinked hard, ridding myself of useless tears. Old wood boards made up the walls. Two were tall, going all the way up to a rusted tin ceiling. Pale light illuminated the spacing between the planks. The other two were shorter, dividing our room from a larger structure. A wide door made up most of one of those. I squinted into the light of an electric lantern hanging from a large metal hook in a beam near the door. The dampness that coated my skin was the kind you got from being in a tent, not truly protected from the elements. And the floor was coated with dust and . . . hay?
“You . . . you drugged me, tied me up, a-and brought me t-to a . . . a farm?”
Emerald nodded, but that was it. I got nothing else. It might have been obvious to him, but my brain was still struggling to compute all of this into something that resembled logic. I was desperately trying not to overreact, but I was beginning to wonder if that was even possible. What was the proper reaction to being kidnapped?
“And you’re telling me not to worry?”
“Alright.” He nodded again, this time moving to sit on the edge of the bed. “Valid point. But worrying isn’t going to help you.”
Why was that not comforting?
I didn’t like him looming over me. My breathing turned quick and shallow, and before I knew it I was gasping for air. He was serious about those drugs wearing off. My hands shook as I struggled to sit. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Emerald’s hand on my arm, guiding me into position.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?”
I did. I really did. But I needed answers more. Information. Something I could know. Something I could hang on to. I was clinging to a fast unraveling thread of control.
“What do you want? Why am I here? Please. Just tell me what you want.”
Emerald sighed. He looked tired. Almost . . . sad? “This isn’t about you, Sparrow.”
“S-sparrow?”
“You remind me of a little bird. Perched and ready to take flight. Trust me, that’s not a good idea here.” He shrugged. “Besides, it only seems fair if you’re going to be calling me Emerald. Now do you have to go or not?”
I bit my lip and nodded. Further information could wait a few more minutes. My bladder could not.
His hand slid out of sight behind my back and every last one of my muscles locked up tight. Even my lungs went on lockdown.
“I’m going to release your hands.” He talked to me like a frightened animal—soft and slow—and maybe that’s all I was. “I don’t like using the restraints or the drugs. Don’t make us and we won’t have to.”
I swallowed hard, but my throat was as dry as the Sahara.
“We?” He’d said it more than once, but I had yet to see anyone other than him.
Damn him and the nods. “Let’s go.”
With a firm grip that lacked the bruising force of Anthony’s from the party the night before, Emerald escorted me down a long corridor that ran the length of the stable. From the look of things, this place hadn’t been used in a while. Gritty dirt coated the soles of my feet, which I belatedly realized were bare. I had no clue where my shoes were, not that the three inch heels were going to do me a hell of a lot of good. Boards were warped or missing entirely in places along the walls. I slowed, trying to steal a glimpse of anything that might tell me where we were, but all I could see were endless overgrown fields in every direction.
My fingers trembled as I ran them along the reddened skin encircling my wrists. “Can you tell me one thing? Just one thing? Please?”
He frowned with impatience, so when he agreed to, “One thing,” it surprised all coherent thoughts from my head.
Of all the things I could have asked him—all the useful information I could have garnered that may have actually proved helpful in some way—what I uttered was, “What’s your name?”
A flash of surprise widened those emerald eyes. I assumed he wasn’t going to answer. I almost hoped he didn’t. After all, what kidnapper wants their victim to know who they are? It was dangerous information. Information that could get him into a lot of trouble. Information that could get me killed.
Then he sealed my fate with one little word, “Sawyer.”
Six stalls lined the corridor, three on each side with two small rooms at the far end. Tattered leather remnants of riding gear hung from pegs in the one on the right. The one on the left had a regular door and four real walls.
There was a toilet that looked as though it hadn’t been used in a decade with a roll of toilet paper sitting on top, and I was pathetically grateful when Sawyer chose to wait outside. Water ran clear and cold into a large white basin with a functional, no frills faucet. While I waited to see if it would warm, I made a quick check of my options.