You Are Mine

by Ricky Fry

  YOU

  ARE

  MINE

  RICKY FRY

  Copyright © 2020 Ricky Fry

  Kindle Edition ASIN: B08KNNQLV9

  This book is a work of fiction and is entirely a product of the author’s imagination. Any references to actual people, locations, organizations, incidents, and events are used fictitiously.

  For Mom, who is always the first to read my books.

  PROLOGUE

  Fourteen days. That’s how long I’ve been trapped in the basement of this monster’s cabin. I only know because I’ve been scratching lines into the moldy concrete walls of my cage with a metal bolt on the shackles around my wrists, watching as the sun rises and sets beyond a tiny window high in the wall. Sometimes, in the long, dark hours of my captivity, I imagine I’m small enough to crawl through that window, slither right between those rusty bars and disappear like some tiny creature into the forest.

  At least, I think there’s a forest. The truth is, I don’t even know which state I’m in. Maybe Utah, or Colorado, or Wyoming. When I close my eyes at night and listen carefully, I can hear the hooting of a nearby owl and sometimes the distant howling of a coyote.

  He thinks I’m starting to love him. That’s why he brought me here. He says he loves me, and if he keeps me here long enough, I’ll love him too. At first, I’d bite and claw and spit, but now I go along with it. Maybe if he thinks it’s true that I really do love him, he’ll take off the chains and let me out of his dungeon. Then I could run. It doesn’t even matter if I die. I just want to feel that one thing we all take for granted until we don’t have it. Freedom.

  Fourteen days. That’s how long I’ve been trapped in the basement of this monster’s cabin.

  My name is Spencer Madison. I’m twenty-three years old. This is my story.

  ONE

  I was tired. More than tired—exhausted. The kind of deep exhaustion that sinks into your bones and robs you of the will to live. I’d been driving for nearly two days straight, stopping only long enough for a few hours of sleep at a roadside rest stop.

  I was somewhere east of the Colorado Rockies, but where I was exactly, I couldn’t be sure. The road was a straight line extending out for miles over the empty horizon, hemmed in only by the hypnotic glow of lane markers reflecting in the car’s high-beam headlights.

  Keep driving. It was what I’d told myself over and over since I’d fled Portland in a panic. Keep driving. If only my eyelids weren’t so heavy.

  A rumble beneath the tires sent a shot of adrenaline pumping through my veins. My eyes snapped wide open just in time to jerk the wheel back to the left and avoid drifting off the road.

  That was close—too close.

  The surge of adrenaline had almost passed when the dark space of the car’s interior was flooded with the blue and red lights of a police cruiser.

  I worked to steady myself as I brought the car to a stop along the shoulder, hands shaking despite my tight grip on the wheel. Deep breath. That’s it. Now take another. They don’t know anything, not all the way out here.

  “Good evening, miss.” The officer touched the tip of his hat. “My name is Trooper Evans with the Kansas Highway Patrol. Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  I squinted in the bright beam of his flashlight. “I’m sorry, officer. I’m just a little sleepy. It’s been a long drive.”

  “You come all the way from Oregon?”

  My heart skipped a beat. How did he know where I was from? Then I remembered the Oregon license plates. They were hard to forget. Matt had waited a month for his custom vanity plates to arrive in the mail. I’d tried to convince him otherwise, but he’d insisted on his first choice: ISELL4U. Now, almost forty-eight hours into my escape, I wished he’d gone with something more subtle.

  I nodded.

  “That’s a long way to be traveling alone.” The trooper adjusted his shoulders the way all police officers do when they’re mulling something over. “Where you headed?”

  “St. Louis.”

  “You got family there?”

  “It’s my mom,” I said. “She’s sick—cancer.” It was only half a lie. My mom did have cancer. But she’d died almost ten years before. I hoped she’d forgive me for the lie, wherever she might be.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Listen, there’s another rest stop just a few miles up the road. Real nice. It’s got bright lights and a security patrol to keep the creeps away. Why don’t you pull over and get some sleep? I can follow behind, make sure you get there okay.”

  “Thank you, officer. It’s just—I’m in a real hurry to get to St. Louis.”

  “You’ll be no use to anyone, least of all to your mother, if you crash and wind up dead.”

  Dead. That’s exactly what I’d be if Matt caught up to me. Still, I thought it best to go along with what the trooper was saying. I didn’t want him asking any more questions—didn’t want him discovering what I was really doing so far from home. Besides, I told myself I could always leave the rest stop after he pulled away.

  “Yes,” I said, nodding again. “You’re right.”

  He lowered the flashlight and smiled. “Great. Just a quick check of your license and registration, and we’ll have you on your way.”

  Fuck. I swallowed hard and forced a thin smile across my face. “Registration?”

  “Standard procedure.”

  “Oh, of course.” I fumbled around in the glove box until I found the slip of paper with Matt’s name on it.

  The trooper frowned as he inspected it. “I don’t suppose you’re Matt?”

  “He’s my fiancé.” That part was true. He’d proposed on Valentine’s Day, exactly six months after we’d first started dating. It was a bit too cheesy for my taste, but Matt was like that. He’d always been a hopeless romantic. Always the perfect gentleman. Looking back on things, I couldn’t believe how easily I’d missed the warning signs. They were there all along—hidden in plain sight—insults disguised as compliments, jealous questions about where I’d been, and who I was with.

  “And this Matt, I’m going to assume he gave you permission to use his vehicle?”

  I nodded for the third time. Keep it simple. Stay calm. Don’t slip up.

  “Must be a real big shot.”

  It was the last part that caught me off guard. I forced another awkward smile as my mind raced to make sense of what he’d said. “Big shot?”

  “Hey, it’s none of my business, but if my fiancé was driving halfway across the country to visit her sick mother, I’d make time in my schedule to come along.”

  It’s those stupid license plates. Even Matt’s friends at the real estate agency had teased him about them—said they made him look like an asshole. They were right.

  “He’s flying out on Tuesday.” This wasn’t the first time I’d lied to a police officer. The tricky part was giving them just enough details to satisfy their stubborn curiosity without giving anything away. “I decided not to wait.”

  “Fair enough. Now, how about that driver’s license?”

  “Yes, just one second.” I made a small show of fumbling around in search of my license, though I already knew I’d left it behind in Portland. “I’m sorry, officer. I can’t seem to find it.”

  The trooper released a heavy sigh as he produced a small notepad from his shirt pocket. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll need you to spell your name for me. And your date of birth, I’m going to need that too.”

  “Felicity Hoffman. F—E—L—I—” I recited each letter carefully before moving on to the last name. The date of birth came just as easily. Felicity had been my best friend since high school, and we had a small tradition of celebrating her birthday with an annual weekend trip to the Pacific Coast.

  Felicity would forgive me for u
sing her name, especially after what had happened with Matt.

  “Wait here,” said the officer.

  I watched him saunter back to his cruiser and hoped the lie would hold up. I couldn’t risk using my real name, not with a previous conviction on my record.

  I fumbled with the radio as I waited. It was a welcome distraction, but the only two channels I could find were country music and a preacher going on about the sins of pornography. I hated country music almost as much as I hated preachers.

  Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty. I fidgeted in my seat. What was taking so long? I wondered if they had a photo of a smiling Felicity in their database. Had they discovered I wasn’t really who I’d claimed to be?

  I bit the inside of my lip and tasted blood. If only I hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave Portland, I might have remembered to bring the pills my doctor at the community health center had recently prescribed for anxiety.

  My spinning thoughts were interrupted by the bright headlights of another vehicle approaching from the opposite direction. I watched as it passed—a second police cruiser, shiny decals reflecting in the bouncing lights of the trooper’s car. It made a wide turn, tires grinding on the asphalt, and swung into place behind the first.

  One police officer was bad enough. Two was a complete disaster.

  Minutes before, my thoughts had been swimming, threatening to drown me, but now a single thought burned brightly in my mind. Run.

  The trooper’s voice was no longer friendly as it boomed from a loudspeaker. I could see him in the rear-view mirror, crouched down behind an open door with a microphone raised to his lips. “Shut off the ignition,” he said in a commanding tone. “Step out of the vehicle with your hands in the air.”

  It was the moment I’d feared since grabbing Matt’s keys and backing out of the driveway. There was only one thing I knew for certain. I could never go back to Portland, not unless I wanted to die.

  Screw it. I shifted the Audi into drive and slammed my foot down hard on the accelerator, a cloud of dust and gravel spitting up from the car’s tires as they spun and found their grip on the asphalt. Too late for second guesses.

  The speedometer climbed past ninety. Then one-hundred. And as I saw the trooper’s headlights fade away in the rear-view mirror, I felt more alive than I’d felt in all the months since I’d become engaged to Matt.

  I felt scared too, but for one brief second, I threw my head back and laughed. That’s when I saw the headlights reappear in the rear-view mirror, closing the distance as quickly as I’d put it between us.

  I remembered a movie I’d seen once, something about the police not crossing state lines. I couldn’t remember the name of the movie, but I knew it starred Burt Reynolds. My mom had always loved Burt Reynolds. In the movie, he’d played some kind of criminal on the run, who only had to cross the state line to get away clean. I wondered if it were really true, and if so, how close the nearest state line might be.

  The speedometer broke a hundred and ten. Then a hundred and twenty.

  I was too high on adrenaline and too busy watching the red and blue lights behind me to notice the deer bounding across the highway. The last thing I saw, before the windshield blew out with a violent crash, was the poor creature’s eyes glowing green in the dark as the hood of Matt’s Audi struck flesh.

  TWO

  Pain. Before I’d even opened my eyes, the only thing I felt was pain. Too much pain to know where I was or how I got there. Oh, right, the accident.

  For a moment, I thought I might be dead. No, there was too much pain to be dead.

  I managed a squint. A white room. White bed. I was in the hospital. At least it looked like a hospital. Light poured in from an open window and bore into my skull. I tried to raise my hand to shield my eyes and was surprised when it would move no more than a few inches. Stainless steel wrapped itself tightly around my wrist. I was handcuffed to the bed frame on both sides, and when I looked down, there were matching shackles around my ankles.

  Panic hit me hard. I’d always been afraid of confined spaces and the loss of movement. Once, Matt had suggested some light bondage to spice things up in the bedroom. Just the thought of it had sent my head spinning. Now, as I thrashed wildly on the bed, I was reminded of a recurring dream I’d had as a little girl. Night after night, I’d find myself buried alive in a tight wooden box, fingernails ripping from bloodied flesh as I fought to scratch and claw my way to freedom.

  “Take it easy,” said a young man in green hospital scrubs. He wore a friendly look on his face and flashed me a pearly smile. “You’re pretty banged up—don’t want to make it worse.”

  I’d been too busy struggling against the handcuffs to notice him entering the room. He couldn’t have been much older than I was, and something about his presence calmed my crackling nerves. “Where am I?”

  “The hospital,” he said.

  I released a long sigh and felt my muscles relaxing as I eased back into the mattress. “Yes, I know I’m in the hospital. But where am I?”

  His lips parted to reveal another smile. “You must’ve really taken a hit.” His arms widened, and gestured around the room. “Topeka. You’re in Topeka, Kansas, home of pentecostalism and Brown v. Board of Education.”

  Fucking Kansas. It was the last place a girl from Oregon expected to wind up shackled to a hospital bed.

  “Hey, you need anything? You’ve been asleep since they brought you in.”

  “You got a joint?” The words came out of my mouth without thought, and I was surprised to find my sense of humor hadn’t abandoned me.

  He laughed. “I did mention you’re in Kansas, right? How about some water? That’s still legal, at least it was the last time I checked.”

  The mere mention of water made me realize how dry and scratchy my throat was. It was like I hadn’t had anything to drink for days. “Thanks. Water’s great.”

  He ducked out of the room and returned a minute later, carrying a plastic serving tray with a small pitcher and a matching plastic cup. I thought he might sit on the bed beside me, but instead, he remained standing, close enough to raise the cup to my lips but far enough away to maintain a professional distance.

  I took a sip and read the name on the ID badge hanging from the pocket of his scrub shirt. “Alexander Martinez, RN. You’re a nurse?”

  He nodded. “You can call me Alex.”

  “Well, Alex, as much as I love the personal service, things would be a lot easier if you took off these handcuffs. I’m sure you have much more important things to do than babysit me.”

  There was the sound of metal clinking as I raised my hands a few inches and then lowered them back down to my sides.

  “No can do,” he said. “It’s a police matter.”

  I gave him my best smile, despite the throbbing pain still beating inside my head. “I promise I won’t cause any trouble.”

  “Look, it’s my job to help people. I don’t judge, and I’m sure you’re a nice person. But I couldn’t take those things off even if I wanted to. They don’t give me the keys.”

  Damn. With the handcuffs off, I might have been able to make a break for it, though I had no idea where the car was or if it was even still drivable. Alex was friendly, but he wasn’t as gullible as I might have hoped. And there was still the problem of the shackles around my ankles.

  “What if I have to pee?”

  He laughed again, a gentle chuckle that formed soft creases at the corners of his eyes. “Go right ahead. We inserted a catheter when they brought you in last night. I’ve already emptied it twice.”

  I tried not to imagine the bag of yellow liquid between my legs or the young man who was now serving me water coming back later to empty it. “What did they say?”

  “Huh?”

  “The police. What did they say when they brought me in?”

  As if on cue, the door swung open. A stiff man in uniform, the same one who’d first pulled me over, entered the room along with a middle-aged woman in a suit.
>
  The woman’s lips pulled back into a tight smile. “Good afternoon,” she said. “I’m Deputy District Attorney Collins. I believe you already know Trooper Evans.”

  I reverted back to nodding, waiting to see what they had to say before opening my mouth. The young nurse had been a welcome distraction, but now, with an officer in uniform hovering near the bed, I was reminded once again of the handcuffs secured tightly around my wrists.

  Collins continued. “Do you remember what happened last night?”

  I shook my head. “It’s all a bit foggy.” Another lie. I would never forget the frightened look in that poor creature’s eyes before it smashed headfirst into the windshield. “Am I under arrest?”

  It was the deputy district attorney’s turn to nod. “Yes, I’m afraid you’ve been charged with evading and resisting arrest, reckless driving, and a host of additional traffic violations.”

  The room spun, and I thought I might get sick. It’s okay. Hold steady. They still don’t know about Portland. About Matt. Maybe I’d get off with a ticket or some community service—anything to get me back on the road and far away from Oregon. I stared down at the chain between my ankles. A ticket might be hoping for too much.

  When I looked back up, the trooper was glaring at me through narrowed eyes, his hands fidgeting with the heavy buckle on his belt. “If I were you,” he said in a voice that reminded me of my dead father, “I’d consider myself lucky to be alive. Just last week, a family of four was killed in a similar crash, and they weren’t going nearly so fast.”

  Should I apologize? No, an apology was an admission of guilt. “What happens next?”

  Collins frowned as she removed a pair of reading glasses from her suit pocket and pushed them up her narrow nose. Then she opened a folder she’d been carrying in her left hand and studied the contents as if reading them for the first time. “Ordinarily, we’d prosecute vigorously and seek the maximum allowable punishment under Kansas law.”