With my eyes straining, Noah passed the truck on the left.
The driver came into view.
“Thank Christ,” I exhaled.
“What?” Noah gasped.
“It’s him. I think.”
The windows on the truck weren’t tinted. And because of the bridge, which was especially well lit, I could clearly see the man driving the truck.
It was him. The suit, the hair—him.
“Motherfucking Quinton. Okay,” I said to Noah. “Slow down—slowly. Let’s follow behind. But not too close because he can’t know he’s being followed. We’ll wait until he gets to where he’s going and stops the truck. It’s not like I want to try to run him off the road with Juniper inside.”
“Good idea. Are you absolutely certain it’s him?”
“Yes.”
Noah did as I asked, easing up on the gas, letting his car fall behind Quinton’s truck. Then he signaled and switched lanes.
I took a breath and suddenly I had a renewed sense of hope. I had no idea what I’d do once the car in front of us stopped—fight Quinton to the death if I had to—but at least now I knew where Juniper was.
“Let’s just hope he needs gas before we need gas—I only have about an eighth of a tank.”
“Shit, Noah, really?” I snapped at him. “You’re tell me this now?”
“I didn’t want to worry you prematurely. But yeah.”
If he didn’t stop soon then maybe we would have to run him off the road.
CHAPTER 22:
JUNIPER
Zip ties. Motherfucking zip ties.
I knew Quinton was an asshole. But seriously? I was pregnant for crying out loud and he was treating me like this was the zombie apocalypse and I was some rabid beast in need of restraining. I’d already gotten into his car willingly. What more did he want? But no…he’d gone and bound my hands together. Then he tied each of my ankles to the seat. I couldn’t see past my stomach to see exactly where and how he’d tied them. But I was starting to sweat from working as hard as I was to keep my thighs semi-closed. The way he’d tied my ankles, each as far apart as they could go on opposite ends of the seat, had left me in a very vulnerable position. Especially since he kept touching me in little ways—little ways that kept growing bolder and bolder, and more and more unwelcome. Not that any of this was welcome.
The crazy part was—I actually knew how to break out of zip ties. It required tightening them as much as possible and one swift motion down against my stomach—a movement meant to break the mechanism that held the zip tie together. Only problem: my stomach. I couldn’t hit it with the force I needed while pregnant. Still—every time Quinton looked over his shoulder to change lanes, I used my teeth to further tighten the plastic. Because it had to be as tight as possible to break.
At this point, my fingers were tingling from lack of circulation. The sensation was so intense that I could almost block out all the cruel and nasty things Quinton had been saying since he started driving.
Almost, but not quite.
“I can’t wait to teach you a lesson, Juniper,” he murmured. “You have me so hard. You have no idea. I can’t wait for it. You’re going to love it more than ever. I know you’ve missed it. You know how I found you, sweetheart? A viral video of you singing. God—I never knew you could be so sexy.” He reached over, brushing a few strains of hair from my face. My 80’s shirt had one shoulder exposed and he traced his fingers over my bare skin. “So damn sexy.”
His touch made me want to disappear into a hole like one of Ben’s sand crabs. And how was I supposed to know a video of me singing had gone viral? I’d been so careful with everything, but I’d never even considered something like that being the cause of him finding me.
Quinton kept making lude comments, while I remained as still as possible. It seemed the more I fought and argued with him, the more it was turning him on. He kept talking about sex, too, about teaching me a lesson, and it was disgusting. Beyond disgusting. How could I have ever loved him?
I prayed for a way out. But it seemed this was my reality now.
“What are you going to do? Lock me up in some basement forever? I don’t love you anymore. It’s over. Can’t you understand that?” Tears slipped down my cheeks. I turned my head toward the window. I didn’t want Quinton to see me upset. I didn’t want him to think he still had any power over me.
“No. You’re going to be my wife—just like you promised on the day I asked you to marry me. Just like you promised. Dammit, Juniper, how could you? I thought something terrible had happened to you. You went to the grocery store and you never came home. How could you just leave me like that?” He sounded hurt as he spoke. Hell, maybe I had hurt him. But not half as bad as he used to enjoy hurting me.
“I left because I wanted something better. I left because you scare me. Just like you’re scaring me now.” I held up my tied hands as proof.
“Don’t be so dramatic. You know I hate that. You liked the way we would fuck,” he went on. “You wanted everything I did. I always made sex more and more intense for you. I always brought you to a higher place. Don’t even try to play innocent and deny it.”
“No,” I answered. “I never liked it.”
“Stop lying to me!” he snapped, raising his voice for the first time. “I’ll show you.” His big hand traced over more than just my shoulder this time. He shoved his fingers inside my shirt, cupping one of my breasts. Squeezing and tugging a little too roughly at my nipple, which was already way too sensitive from pregnancy. “See,” he breathed, his voice jagged and coarse. “You love it. Admit it. You've never wanted me more than you do right now.”
“Really…I’m just about as grossed out as I’ve ever been in my life.” I wasn’t exactly sure where, when, or how, but I’d lost my fear of this man. He only annoyed me now. And the way he was behaving was just plain pathetic.
“Keep talking dirty. I like this new side to you,” he said.
What?
I couldn’t remain passive anymore.
“Get off me,” I yelled, trying my best to swat him off me. “You don’t get to touch me anymore. Remember. Are you incapable of listening or just delusional?”
Quinton swerved the car, the tires hitting the rumble strip on the road, making the whole vehicle shake. “That is it!” he said. “I’m ending this argument right now. I’m showing you how good girls behave.”
He removed his touch from inside my shirt, taking the wheel with both his hands, and he pulled the car off the road. There was open grass, weeds, and space on the side of the highway. And he parked there.
As the car came to a complete stop, I knew that if I was going to try to fight him off I needed my hands. The younger ‘take-no-crap’ juvenile delinquent, former version of myself surfaced. She should have surfaced from the start with Quinton. I wasn’t exactly sure why she never had. But, in this moment, it boiled down to the fact that it wasn’t just me that needed protecting—the twins needed it too now.
With all my strength, I raised my restrained hands high in the air and brought my wrists down on my right knee. The force stung like hell, my wrists were probably going to be bruised, but somehow the one swift motion worked. The zip ties’ mechanism popped, and suddenly my hands were free. Not waiting for Quinton to make sense of the fact that I’d just freed myself, I attacked him. With the palm heels of both my hands, screaming like a banshee, I turned and stuck Quinton's eyeballs at full force.
I hit with speed, accuracy, and all my strength. Really, I had no clue what I was doing. But it was the only thing I could think to do.
Quinton screamed louder than me.
Instinctively he pulled away in his seat. And his hands protectively went to his eyes. “You bitch!” he yelled. “I can’t see!”
Good!
I grabbed the keys out of the truck’s ignition. I reached down between my legs and started using them to saw at the plastic. Easier than I expected, I freed one ankle and then the second. Then I pushed open my p
assenger door, stumbling from the truck, and took off running.
I ran—straight smack into a person.
As if I’d materialized him out of thin air, there Ben was. And I was suddenly in his arms. Noah was there too. Out of the corner of my eyes I could just make out his blond hair.
“How?” I breathed, staring wide-eyed up at Ben.
“We’ve been following you,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around me tight. “Thank God, you’re okay.”
“Where’s Quinton?” Noah demanded.
“In the truck,” I answered, staring up at Ben, letting him hold my full weight. The surge of energy and adrenaline that helped me escape moments ago changed into exhaustion. If he hadn’t been holding me, I’d be in the grass right now. “He has a gun. I poked him in the eyes. He had pictures of Rose. On his phone. He threatened her. He threatened everyone.” Short sentences were rolling out of me in bursts. My brain didn’t want to function properly. But Ben and Noah needed to know everything I knew.
“Let’s get in my car,” Noah decided for all us, ushering both me and Ben toward his Honda. “Hurry. If he has a gun then we don’t need to take any chances.”
Ben helped me into the backseat of Noah’s car, and he moved to sit in the back with me. Noah plopped down in the driver’s seat, slamming his door shut, locking the door. He started the car and we waited, all eyes staring straight ahead at Quinton's truck.
“The police are on their way,” Noah said. “They have his license plate number and they know the make/model of his truck if he tries to flee.”
“And I have his keys.” I jingled them in my sweaty palm. “So, he can’t leave.”
“Juniper!” came Quinton’s voice from outside.
I jumped a little in my seat.
Oh, God. I looked up and watched as Quinton stumbled, like a drunk man, from the trunk. He had both hands pressed over his eyes, and he kept repeatedly yelling my name. Maybe I’d blinded him. Maybe he only wanted us to think he was blinded.
Beside me, Ben breathed heavily in and out. His hand shook as they held my shoulders. “He’s not carrying his gun. I’m going to go out there.”
“What? No,” I pleaded, clinging to him tighter. “Please, Ben, don’t go.”
“I was ranked number one in hand-to-hand combat skills in my company during basic training for the Coast Guard. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. If it comes to it, I know how to fight.”
Of course, he’d been number one at that. Ben excelled at everything he did, but that didn’t mean I wanted him anywhere near Quinton. Not ever. “Please,” I tried again. “You can’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
I could practically feel the internal battle raging within him as he sat beside me. Stay with me—or go face Quinton. Just then I heard the sound of sirens in the distance. The police were on their way now. They could take care of Quinton. Ben needed to stay with me.
Meanwhile, Quinton still stumbled around in the grass like a fool.
“I want to speak with him before the police get here,” Ben said through gritted teeth. His eyes weren’t on me—they were on Quinton outside. “I want him to know he can never come near you again. He needs to know that.”
“Write him a letter once he’s safely away in jail,” I suggested.
Noah chuckled up in the front seat. “Let Ben go say what he needs to say,” he urged, siding against me. “I’ll go with him. It’ll be okay. We’ll be right back.”
I was outnumbered.
Ben and Noah left the car.
CHAPTER 23:
BEN
Really…I wanted to kill Quinton. I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck, taking a page out of his own playbook, and I wanted to squeeze the fucking life out of him. He’d kidnapped Juniper. He’d threatened my little sister. He didn’t deserve prison. Prison was too good for this man. There were red marks around Juniper wrists—like he’d bound her hands somehow. Her makeup was smeared down her cheeks—liked she’d been crying. Who knows what sort of awful things he’d been saying to her for the past thirty minutes? Who knows the things he would have done to her had she not escaped him?
So, I left the car, and I moved with swiftness and stealth. I didn’t wait for Noah to keep up. Instead I charged Quinton, like a linebacker on a football field, and sacked him to the ground. I had at least twenty pounds of muscle on the guy, so getting him on the ground wasn’t a hard feat. A second later I had his face pushed into the grass, my knee pressing hard into his back, and his arm twisted around behind his body.
Now that I had him subdued and on the ground, I didn’t know exactly what to say to him. Don’t come near us again. You piece of shit. If I ever see your face again, I will destroy you. I didn’t know. None of it felt like enough. Only a couple hours ago, I’d been completely sure in my ability to protect Juniper. Instead this man had taken her from me, right under my nose, so easily and that left me feeling like all my promises (or threats) might be hollow.
The sound of sirens grew closer and closer, and I remained silent.
Maybe there wasn’t anything I could say. The press of my knee in his back—maybe it said everything for me. When I still couldn’t come up with the right words for Quinton, it was Noah I spoke to instead.
He hovered, in his usual quiet, watchful way.
“Thanks, Noah,” I said to him. “And I’m sorry I judged you before I ever knew you.”
“Most people do initially,” he replied.
“Well, I respect the hell out of you now.”
“Thanks. It’s appreciated.”
“You two want a room?” Quinton mumbled sarcastically into the grass.
I dug my knee a little harder into his back. He yelped but said nothing else.
“You want to say something to him?” Noah nodded off in the direction of the sirens. “Now’s your last chance.”
“I have nothing to say. I got the girl. He didn’t.”
Quinton grunted below me but didn’t comment.
A minute later the cops arrived. They arrested Quinton. He’d likely be charged with abduction, something the officer said might result in a sentence of twenty years in prison. Which was a relief, to say the least. Our statements were taken, the rest of my family showed up on the scene, even my parents, and the night dragged on well past midnight.
Overall, Juniper didn’t seem too shaken up. Surprisingly. Even if she was feeling otherwise, on the outside she remained calm. Me, on the other hand—I felt jittery and agitated. I couldn’t shake off the adrenaline feeling. When it was all said and done, when we were finally safe in our home, I realized at least an hour had passed since I’d said a word to Juniper.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“Yes. Just exhausted,” she whispered before she slipped off her shoes. Not bothering to change out of her clothes, she crawled into our bed and snuggled under the covers.
I followed her lead, removing my own shoes and socks, followed by my layers of clothing. Once down to just my t-shirt and boxer briefs, I pulled back the covers and joined her.
She snuggled against my side.
“You okay?” I asked again.
“Yes,” she repeated, stressing the word.
“Juniper, really?”
“Ben, yes, really.”
I guess I didn't fully believe her. I was shaken up. Shouldn't she be, too? “Truce?” I asked. The whole ‘truce’ thing meant many different things for us. Sometimes it was an excuse to make out. Sometimes it was an ‘I love you.’ Right now, as I called it, it meant utter honesty.
“Ben—why are you with me?” she asked.
What. The. Fuck. Her question blindsided me. I swallowed hard and sat up. The light in the bedroom was still on, and from the look on her face I could tell she was dead serious.
“I'm pregnant—” she started.
“Yes, I'm fucking aware. We're back to this?” I didn't want to fight with her, not tonight. But how could she doubt me?
“Hear me out. Okay?” she pleaded. She sat up t
oo, swirling a strand of her hair through two of her fingers. “It's just, I saw you wrestle Quinton to the ground like he was nothing. You build furniture like you're Jesus the Carpenter. You have a family that loves you and would do anything for you. You're smart and handsome and young. You could go to college. You could start over. You could do anything with your life. That compass on your chest points west. Last I checked this isn't west.”
“Do you have a point here, Juniper, baby?” I groaned. “Because I don't like where this is heading at all.”
“You're too good for me.”
“That's bullshit.”
“You are. Who am I? The pregnant runaway with the psycho kidnapping ex, that's me. I don't want you to wake up in a year, or two, or three, and regret everything. Maybe right now it doesn't feel like it, but one day you might come to resent me. I know you. I know you always do the right thing. Is that what you're doing with me? The right thing.”
Wow, damn. Way to slice me right open. There was accuracy in some of her words. “When I was seventeen, I got Sonya pregnant,” I confessed. “I thought, at the time, that it was the worst thing in the world that could have happened to me. I was going to be my school's valedictorian. Assuming Katie Baker—this really brainy girl, who was second in the class, always waiting for me to screw up just one test, one grade, so she could pull ahead of me—assuming she didn't get it over me. I was going to play college football, hopefully at Luke University like I'd always planned. I was going to do big things with my life. I was king of my high school, and I had a world of possibilities in front of me. Not so unlike the version of me you're describing now. That baby growing inside Sonya was not going to hold me back.
“So, I pushed her toward having an abortion. She was on the fence about what to do. She needed me to step up and decide, and I easily made the decision to terminate the pregnancy. That same day she got the abortion, this feeling in the pit of my stomach settled. Regret. Anger. Loss. I couldn't shake it. I tried to tell myself I'd done the right thing, made the right decision for myself and my future, but I'd made the wrong decision. Once I realized that, everything that once mattered to me didn't anymore. My popularity, my friends, my grades—all fucking bullshit. I ended my own child's life because I wanted my world to stay the same and then suddenly I hated that very world I lived in. Sonya and I started fighting. When I no longer wanted to go to the same parties and hang out with the same people—she couldn't understand. She didn't feel the same loss as me, she didn't see how it was all bullshit the way I did, and so we broke up. Probably something that would have happened eventually either way.
Kill Devil Hills: A Complete Beach Romance Series (4-Book Box Set) Page 72
