Hunted in the Dark

by Stacia Stone

  “Shut up,” she growls.

  “Not such a good, little girl after all, are you?”

  “Why didn’t you just kill me?” she growls, but she sounds more resigned than anything else.

  Something has changed in the air between us. I’m not angry anymore and I don’t think she is either. She’s still turned away to face the door, but the blush has turned her shoulders pink. Even in the darkness, I can make out that the tip of her nose has turned the color of a cherry tomato. I feel like I owe her something.

  “Torture—” I hesitate, my voice catching ever so slightly on the word. “Doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  When I look back at her, she’s staring at me. It’s a penetrating gaze, but I can’t read her expression. The emotion swimming behind her eyes doesn’t even look like sympathy. It’s something more, almost like understanding.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shrug. “It’s in the past.”

  “If that were true, then I wouldn’t be here.” Her tone is pointed.

  “Maybe,” I allow. “But it doesn’t really matter at this point, either way.”

  “But my father isn’t the one who hurt you,” she insists. “He would never torture anyone.”

  “Agree to disagree.”

  “My father has never stepped foot inside a war zone.” Her tone is resolute. There isn’t anything in the world that will convince her that her father isn’t a perfect saint. “Whatever happened to you, he wasn’t there. At least admit that.”

  This girl is like a dog with a bone, refusing to just drop it.

  Maybe I should just tell her, I think. But no, I don’t want those memories between us. Let her think of me as a monster with no logical motive. The more that she tries to understand me, the harder it’s going to be to accept what has to happen at the end of all this.

  “Just because he didn’t get his own hands dirty, doesn’t mean he’s not responsible.”

  When I glance at her, she’s back to staring out the window. But she looks more pensive now. She’s thinking so hard that I can almost hear it like background chatter in my own mind. I turn my attention back to the road and resolve to ignore her.

  An overwhelming sense of fatigue rolls over me and I fight back a yawn. There’s no way I’m going to be able to drive all the way through. It’s been over twenty-four hours since I last slept. All I want is to find a flat surface and fall out.

  But what to do about her? There’s rope in the trunk, I could tie her up inside a motel room and get a few hours of shut eye. But that’s risky. I can’t trust her not to try to get away or signal for help.

  But I have to sleep sometime.

  It’s probably better that we hole up somewhere for the day. Driving at night means there’s less of a chance of someone recognizing that missing senator’s daughter and calling the police. It only makes sense to stop for a couple of hours.

  “How far is this storage place?”

  She casts me a suspicious glance. “Outside Memphis. I’m not telling you anything else until we get there.”

  Because you’ll kill me. The words hang unspoken in the air between us. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do yet, but she’s not wrong to be cautious. The only reason she’s made it this far is because I’m avoiding the inevitable. Maybe I should have let Savage take her out in the beginning and saved myself all this trouble.

  We’re near the northern tip of West Virginia now, so it’ll be at least another twelve hours to get to Memphis.

  “You tired?” I ask her, like I’m not the one who’s yawning with almost every breath.

  “Yeah,” she shifts to lean back against the seat. “Are we going to stop?”

  “I think so.”

  She tries to shift her position so her head will rest against the window, but the there’s not enough give in the handcuffs. Her forehead just barely touches the glass, but that forces her neck into an awkward angle.

  Still keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I slip the shirt that I’m wearing up and over my head. It’s too hot anyway and the warm air feels good blowing against the skin of my bare chest.

  I toss her the shirt. “Here. Use this for your head.”

  She slowly takes the offering, surprise twisting her features. “Um…thank you.”

  I feel her watching me as I turn back to the road. I can guess what she’s thinking.

  She still wants me to be redeemable. It’s an understandable reaction and I should have expected it. If I can be saved, then maybe so can she. Maybe this doesn’t all have to end in darkness.

  But just because it’s understandable, doesn’t mean she’s right.

  Neither of us is getting saved.

  Chapter 12

  I startle awake when the car comes to a sudden stop. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep but once the adrenaline wore off, my body just shut down. The balled-up shirt underneath my cheek smells like sweat, as well as something spicy and earthy like freshly turned soil. He’s probably been wearing it for days. I should be disgusted, but instead the scent is strangely alluring and all I want to do is burrow deeper. That, combined with the steady thrum of tires on pavement, is almost enough to lull me to sleep.

  “Hey!”

  Opening my eyes, I blink against the bright sunlight and realize he’s been talking to me. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  Sitting up, I push away from the door. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the brightness as I take in my surroundings. We’re parked in front of a seedy roadside motel. The lot is mostly empty: just a few semi-trucks and an expanse of gray asphalt with bits of grass and weeds growing out of the cracks in the pavement. The place looks like something out of a horror movie. The vacancy sign is lit but blows gently in the wind. It hangs from a single wire under a marquee that reads Lakeside Motel.

  I bet the nearest lake is at least a hundred miles away.

  “We’re staying here?”

  “Sorry the accommodations aren’t up to your exacting standards, your highness.” Hunt’s voice is scornful. “You can always sleep in the trunk.”

  I look away, unable to bear seeing his face in full and unbearable light. Why couldn’t he have been ugly? “I think I’ll manage.”

  He has a nice smile, even when it’s tilted in mockery. It sort of lights up his face and makes him seem younger, not that he seems that old to begin with. I can almost forget that he’s planning to kill me. Almost.

  “You see that kid in there?” Hunt nods to the little glass enclosure where I can just make out the shape of a person sitting behind the desk. He looks even younger than me, maybe eighteen or so.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to go get us a room. If you leave this car or try to signal for help, I’m shooting that kid there in the face. You don’t want that on your conscience, right?”

  And then he goes and says something like that. Fucking psycho.

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  I hand him his shirt when he holds out a hand.

  He gets out of the car and steps out into the deserted parking lot. The sound of the locks clicking shut in the doors comes when he’s only a few feet away, so he must have hit the button on the remote. Without air conditioning, heat presses into me from the enclosed metal and trapped air. It feels as if I’m locked in a sauna. Like I need another reason to be sweating bullets.

  Hunt’s walk is loping and long-legged as he strides toward the building. When he gets to the desk, I obviously can’t hear what he’s saying but the easy smile that crosses his face makes him look charming — like he doesn’t have a care in the world and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  So something that’s completely opposite from the truth.

  My mind is a mess, rapidly shifting from one ridiculous extreme to another. I’m terrified of him and I hate him. He came horrifically close to murdering me in cold blood. I shouldn’t feel anything for him besides disgust.

  But then I’ll catch him watching me when he doesn’t think I’m looking,
and my heart will do a little flutter in my chest. When his skin brushes against mine, heat jumps between us like a solar flare. For brief moments, I can almost convince myself we’re two people on a date, not a kidnapper and his victim.

  The kid behind the desk is looking at me in a curious way, probably wondering why I’m sitting in a parked car with the windows rolled up. Hunt follows his gaze with narrowed eyes. Remembering his threat, I stare down at my hands so my hair falls forward to hide my face. I attempt to look as little like the victim of a vicious kidnapping as possible. There’s no getting away at the moment with my hands still chained to the frame of the seat.

  Even if I could signal for help, give him some wide-eyed and terrified look to clue him into the fact that something’s wrong, I don’t want to involve someone else in this mess. That kid can’t help me, he’d just get hurt.

  Hunt comes back, twirling a key ring around his finger. His lips are pursed together like he’s whistling a jaunty tune.

  The door locks click open just before he opens the door and slips back into the driver’s seat. A blast of dry heat washes over me, but I break out into a cold sweat for other reasons.

  Make him want you.

  “Guy saw you and insisted on charging me by the hour. I get the feeling they serve a specific sort of clientele here.”

  With the parking lot empty and nothing of any interest for miles, he probably isn’t that far off.

  “I can’t say I’ve ever been confused for a prostitute before.” I try to infuse a teasing note in my voice, but it just comes out as sarcastic.

  “It’s been a couple of days of firsts for you, I think.” He doesn’t seem bothered by my tone. “The room is on the other side of the building. I’m going to drive us around.”

  I have the unlikely hope that maybe the attendant recognized me and was smart enough not to reveal it immediately. But when I spare a glance up as Hunt reverses the car, the kid has already returned his attention to the magazine laid out in front of him on the desk.

  My stomach falls a little. There’s no hope there. Even if he’s heard about my kidnapping, the average person never thinks they’re going to be the one to stumble upon a missing person.

  It’s up to me to save myself.

  Hunt drives around to the far side of the building. We’re on the other side from the road and facing a thick stand of trees that goes on for as far as I can see. I have a terrible sense of direction at the best of times, I’m not even sure which way is the highway.

  But if I can get my hands on the keys, I’ll figure it out.

  Small, rural towns have always been unnerving to me. Maybe it’s because I watched too many horror movies as a kid. My father never let stuff like that into the house because he didn’t want my impressionable mind falling to demonic influences. So the minute I got to my friends’ houses after school, the first thing I wanted to do was pop in a copy of Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes.

  It’s always the tiny broken-down town in the middle of nowhere where the scariest stuff goes down. I’ve always associated them with mayhem and murder.

  Maybe it’s the quiet and the isolation. If you’re going to murder someone in the bloodiest way possible, it makes sense to do it in a place where there’s no hope of getting help.

  The setting seems strangely appropriate to my situation.

  Hunt is staring at me. I must have been lost in thought for longer than I realized.

  “I’m going to take off your handcuffs so we can go inside.” His voice is full of warning. “You’re not going to give me any trouble, right?”

  Bide your time, I remind myself. Even if I managed to get away from him now where would I go? The teenaged attendant wouldn’t be able to help me, he’d just get himself killed if he tried.

  “I’ll be good.”

  For now, anyway.

  He leans across me to unlock the handcuffs. The tiny key just materializes in his hand which means he was hiding it somewhere on his body. I log that little nugget away for future use.

  I sigh in relief as the handcuffs fall away. I’d been ignoring my discomfort for the last few hours but now that I can see the reddened circles of skin, pain immediately flares. I don’t know what it is about seeing an injury that makes it hurt more. Just another way that your mind plays tricks on you.

  To my surprise, Hunt rubs the raw skin on my wrists with his thumbs. A shiver of pleasure runs through me at his touch, followed quickly by a wave of disgust at myself.

  Is this what Stockholm Syndrome does to you? Messing your mind up so much that you cling to whatever comfort is available even if it comes from the same source as the torment. It’s just an involuntary reaction to the desperate human desire to not be alone. Madness sets in quickly when you isolate an animal meant to socialize.

  I still remember how differently he treated me after we made that second recording, sitting down and talking to me like it mattered if he knew me or not. Maybe the madness cuts both ways. Maybe he’s been on the fringes of society for so long that the desperate need for comfort rages in him, too. Who knows how long it’s been since he got close to a woman?

  Maybe I could use that.

  He doesn’t really want to kill me, I’m nearly sure of that. But he also doesn’t have much choice. I can’t even promise not to go to the cops because they’ll come to me. The manhunt for a U.S. Senator’s kidnapped daughter is definitely international news at this point. There’s no way for me to survive this that keeps him out of prison.

  The storage unit is real, but he won’t find what he’s looking for there or anywhere else. Then what choice will he have? I’m not stupid enough to think I’ll have a chance to escape but I have to stay alive long enough for the authorities to track us down. It has to be just a matter of time.

  But whose clock is going to countdown first?

  If I can make him want to keep me around, at least for a little while, that might make him hesitate when the moment finally comes. And that hesitation might be enough to save my life.

  Even if it kills my soul.

  And I’m attracted to him. Actually, that’s not even the word for it. He turns me on. It’s like I didn’t know that I’d spent my entire life in darkness until someone came along and turned on the light. My body doesn’t care what my brain has to say about how dangerous and disgusting it is. He’s like a fever raging under my skin.

  It’s probably the worst thing that I’ve ever had to admit about myself, but there it is.

  And I hate both of us for it.

  “I’ve got a first aid kit in the trunk,” he murmurs. “There might be some antibiotic cream in it, or something.”

  I want to ask him why he cares, but bite my tongue. Play along, I remind myself. Men love women when they’re hurt and vulnerable. If there’s a single tender bone in his body, I’m going to take advantage of it.

  “It hurts a lot,” I say, my voice whisper soft. “Do you think it will get infected?”

  He cuts his eyes at me. “Probably not.”

  His hands slide away and he picks the handcuffs up off of the floor. “Get out of the car.”

  Maybe I overplayed my hand with the vulnerable thing. He’s not that stupid, apparently. I need to regroup and wait for a better moment.

  He watches as I slowly slide out of the car. I know the little bit of freedom is an illusion. Even if I were brave enough to make a run for it, he’d be on me before I could get more than a dozen steps. And there’s no one around to stop him.

  I wait by my door as he also gets out of the car. The hotel room key jangles in his hand and it seems extra loud in the silence of the empty parking lot. There are no other cars around and we’re not even in view of the attendant’s office.

  I glance at the row of dark windows with closed drapes. I bet all of them are empty.

  “Did you ask for a room away from everyone else?”

  “What do you think?”

  He grips my arm and propels me toward the end of the row of rooms.
With one hand, he unlocks the door and pushes me inside with the other.

  The room is about as rundown as I expected it to be, but thankfully not much worse. Water-stained walls, old furniture and a threadbare carpet don’t stand out as much as the sagging bed with its thin comforter and bent metal headboard.

  “Only one bed?” I try for conversational, but my voice breaks a little on the end.

  He barely spares me a glance as his gaze moves around the room. He’s probably looking for possible escape roots or something good to handcuff me to. “One bed makes us look like a couple. There’s nothing suspicious about a couple traveling together. Asking for two beds makes us look like something else, something you have to think a little harder about. I don’t want anybody thinking too hard about us.”

  Because he’s a kidnapper and probably a murderer, too. My brain keeps trying to slide past that very obvious fact. This situation is so surreal that I can’t quite wrap my mind around it. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism to protect my sanity, but none of this feels real to me.

  I walk into the center of the room and then stop, completely unsure of what to do next. There are no chairs in the room and I really don’t want to sit on the bed.

  “I’m going to get some stuff out of the car,” Hunt says, still watching me. If he notices my sudden discomfort, he doesn’t comment on it. “Stay here.”

  “Can I shower?” I ask.

  He casts me a suspicious look. I follow him as he goes into the bathroom. It’s in the same rundown but serviceable condition as the rest of the hotel room. There’s a chipped bathtub and rusty shower head with a thin plastic curtain on one side. A sink with discolored chrome fixtures is on the other side with a toilet tucked in between.

  And no window.

  “Fine,” he mutters. “Don’t take too long.”

  He closes the door behind him and I listen as the sound of his footsteps slowly fade across the carpet.

  I undress quickly. The tank top and shorts that I’ve been wearing for the last three days are so sweat-soaked and dirty that I practically have to be peel them off my body.