by Mae Doyle
Slowly, my eyes locked on him, I open the car door and slide out. He does the same, running around the front of his car to meet me, the knife pointed right at my chest. When we pulled up, I’d seen that the lock was still on the ground in front of the door, but he must not have noticed it yet, or I’m sure that he’d say something.
“You know, Jeremy, I’m sure that we can figure something else out.” His eyes dart to mine and he licks his lower lip.
“Yeah? You gonna make a run for it before you let me in that storage locker?” I don’t answer, and he laughs. “No, I didn’t think so. But I do need your help, because I remember that you have a key, don’t you? So, go ahead and pull that baby out and let’s take care of this.”
Swallowing hard, I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. “I lost it.”
“Bullshit.” His eyes widen as he stares at me. “You’re fucking lying, Nora. I know that you had it in your pocket, so either take it out now and let us into the unit or I’m going to have to search you to find it myself.”
Fear courses through me. Jeremy’s not nearly as big as Teague, but he has a knife, and he’s got to be on something. He’s also pissed and completely convinced that he’s doing the right thing, which makes him even more dangerous. I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of this one.
“Seriously, Jeremy, look.” Patting my pockets, I smooth down the fabric so he can see that I don’t have anything in them. “I was hiking the other day and I accidentally lost it.” Lies, but he doesn’t see that. He’s too busy staring at my legs, trying to will the key into existence with his mind.
“Fuck.” Before I can respond, he reaches out and grabs me by the wrist, swinging me around and walking to the locker. “Fuck, Nora, fuck!” His voice is getting higher and higher and I glance around, wishing that there was someone else here to stop him.
To save me.
But nobody’s here, and nobody’s coming. I’m all alone, and I have to figure out how to get away from him by myself.
Before I can say anything to try to calm him down, however, his eyes land on the cut lock behind me. I was trying to stand and position my body to keep him from seeing it for as long as possible, but there just wasn’t any way to keep it out of his view forever.
“What the fuck is that.” Jeremy’s voice is low and angry, and I turn around, trying to pretend like this is the first that I’ve seen it. “Is that the lock?”
Without answering, I turn and take a few steps towards it and kick it, sending it scattering across the ground. I don’t want to look back at Jeremy and let him see my face, because then he may realize that I already knew about the lock. That’s why I don’t care that I lost the key.
Jeremy shoves me as he walks past me and I slam into the storage unit door, my wrists both aching with the impact. Turning, I watch as he bends down and picks up the lock, then throws it as hard as he can, a terrible scream ripped from his throat. “Fuck! The fucking lock!”
He turns back to me, his eyes bright and filled with rage. “Did you know about this, Nora?” My breathing is shallow and fast, and he stalks towards me, making me panic.
I should run for it, but I already know how that is going to go. There’s no way that I can outrun him, and he knows it. He knows that I won’t move. The knife he’s holding up catches the sun as he turns it in the air, pointing it now at my face instead of my chest.
“You knew, didn’t you, Nora?”
Swallowing hard, I slide to the side, looking for a way out, but he sidesteps, blocking any escape that I thought I might have.
“We should still check inside.” My voice sounds foreign to me, like it’s someone else speaking, and his eyes change a little as he focuses on me. “Who knows what happened here?”
Jeremy growls, a throaty noise that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. What I wouldn’t give for Teague to pull up right now in that stupid truck of his. He’d handle Jeremy and make sure that I didn’t get hurt.
I can’t believe that I’m wishing Teague were here, but I’ll worry about how I’m handling those emotions later. Right now, I just need to figure out what I’m going to do to save myself.
“You think that someone opened the storage unit and then didn’t take what was in there?” Jeremy’s voice is low and full of danger and I get goosebumps. “You’re dumber than I thought, Nora. But, you know what? Why don’t we check? You and I will get a good look in there together, okay? If the stuff is gone then I’m sure there’s something else we can find that will be almost as good.”
His gaze travels down my body and I freeze when I realize what he wants from me.
He wants me to fuck him in the storage locker.
I open my mouth to argue, but he waves the knife in my face. “Open it, Nora. Let’s look.”
Even though the last thing that I want to do is turn my back on him and bend over, I do what he says, grabbing the handle of the door and then throwing it up so that the entire thing rolls open. Without waiting for him to tell me to, I reach in and turn on the light. The single bulb flicks on, showing an empty space.
Just like I knew would happen.
Just like he knew would happen.
“Well, I guess that’s that, then, isn’t it, Nora?” Jeremy jabs me in the back with the knife, forcing me to walk into the unit, then turns and pulls the door down behind us. “I came here to find treasure, and although I’m not getting exactly what I want, it looks like I can still have a little fun, don’t you think?”
He’s leering at me and I step back, my skin crawling. Now my back is against the wall of the unit, but the space is so small, it’s not like I have a lot of room to move anyway. “Please, Jeremy,” I begin, but he interrupts me.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Nora! You walk around Kennedy Academy like you’re better than everyone just because you keep your pussy locked up. Well, guess what, sweetheart? I’m tired of you acting like your shit doesn’t stink. Strip. Now.”
When I don’t move, he waves the knife in my face and steps forward, pinning me against the wall. I’m sure that he can feel my heart pounding through my shirt, but he doesn’t seem to care that I’m terrified.
“Nora…,” he warns, his voice low and throaty, but I interrupt him.
“I’ll show you the new storage unit!” The words burst out of me before I have time to consider what I’m saying. Jeremy blinks a few times, obviously trying to process what I’ve said.
“You know where it is?” He sounds a little excited, and hope pours through me. I just have to get out of this storage unit. Nobody knows that I’m here with him and I don’t think that he’s going to be…gentle. Kind.
I’m terrified.
“I do. I’ll show you. Just…let me go.” It’s too close to begging, but I don’t care. I have to get out of here, and my words seem to be getting through to him. Hopefully, this is the one thing that I can say that will stop him in his tracks and convince him to let me go. If not…then I don’t know what I’m going to do.
He takes a step back but keeps the knife in my face. “Take me there. If you’re lying, I will kill you and then enjoy that sweet pussy, do you understand?”
My mouth is dry, but I nod. I have no doubt that Jeremy’s being very serious. I just have to get him out into the open. If I can lead him away from here then I may have a chance. And there may be a chance that someone sees us and I can get the help I need.
I can’t help but hope that it will be Teague who finds us. Even though I know that he’ll be pissed, I want nothing more than for him to be here to help keep me safe.
It’s fucked up, but I’ll deal with that later.
“Get in the car.” Jeremy bends down and opens the storage unit door, prodding me in the back with the knife when I hesitate at the opening. Doing as he says, I walk to the car and get in, biting my lower lip as I watch him walk around the front of the vehicle and climb into the driver’s seat.
This is good, right? Getting away from the Safe and Secure is probably the bes
t thing that I can do to keep myself from getting raped. Or killed. Or both.
Nevermind that I have no idea where the storage unit is.
Teague
It’s a fucking miracle that I don’t run my truck off of the road. Nora and Jeremy. Where the fuck could they be? Bethany wasn’t any help on that front, but I have a fairly good idea. If Jeremy has even an inkling of what was in the storage unit, then he’s going to make her let him in.
He knows that she has a key. Well, he knows that she had a key. It’s long gone, but there’s no way that he’ll know that until he gest here there and she can’t open the door. The thought of what he may do to her when he realizes that she’s no help to him makes me press down harder on the gas, urging my truck through curves at faster speeds than usual.
He knows that I have important things stashed inside it that could undermine his family. It makes perfect sense for him to want her to let him in there.
I tear up the road, really flying now, and pray that no cop comes up behind me. If they do, I’m totally fucked, because there’s no way that I can talk my way out of this one. When I turn into the parking lot, I hit the gravel so fast that my wheels spin and bits of rock fly up and slam into the undercarriage.
Ignoring the possible damage to my truck, I circle the parking lot, looking for Jeremy’s car. It’s not here, but what I do see makes my blood run cold. Parking the truck, I hop out and run up to my storage unit. The light is on inside and the door is up.
So, I was right. Jeremy brought her here to try to break into my storage unit, only to find out that we already took everything. Halfway across the parking lot I see the broken lock, and my heart sinks. Jeremy is going to be pissed, and I don’t want Nora to be in danger just because she stole the key to my unit and knew what was inside.
Thank goodness I never told her where I took everything. After she helped me load the boxes up and get them into my truck, I dropped her off at home and took them all to a private storage unit outside of Blacksburg, but she has no way of knowing that.
Which means that Jeremy has no way of knowing that.
So where the hell did they go?
Thinking fast, I decide that Nora will probably try to stall him for as long as possible and will likely try to convince him that she doesn’t know where everything is. The best possible scenario is that they’ll drive around for a while before he gets bored with her and he dumps her somewhere.
The worst case scenario…well, that’s one that I don’t want to entertain.
I climb back into my truck and drum my fingers on the wheel. There’s no way that I can find the two of them in Blacksburg without some help. The best thing for me to try to do is figure out where she would lead him and then try to cut them off.
It’s that or just wait and hope that she shows back up, but that idea gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.
No, I’m not going to just wait. But where to go?
My home? Not a chance. She may be a pain in the ass, but she’s not stupid enough to think that bringing him to my house is a good idea. She’d be cornered there, without any place to run.
No, she’s going to have to try to convince him that the stuff is at a storage unit. That means that I have a few options to choose from and I have to hope that I pick the right place. I throw the truck into drive and pull out of the parking lot, scattering gravel as I go.
Nora probably doesn’t know where all of the storage units in town are, but there’s one that she’ll have noticed before. She and I have driven past it every single day on the way to and from school. It’s the least obvious place for me to want to put my belongings, but hopefully Jeremy doesn’t know that.
And hopefully Nora is thinking the same way that I am. If she’s not, then I might as well go home and turn on the news to wait for reports of a body. I tried my best to make her understand just how dangerous the entire Gibbons family is, but I’m not entirely sure that she understood.
If she didn’t, she’s about to.
I just have to get there before the shit really hits the fan.
Never in my life did I think that I’d play the role of a hero, but right now, tearing down the road in my truck to go find Nora, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
***
As soon as I see the entrance to the Stash ‘n Go, I slow down. The last thing I want is for Jeremy to be tipped off that I’m here because I pull into the parking lot like a damn maniac. Knowing him, he probably has a knife, or a gun, so I need to be careful.
Slowly, I inch into the parking lot, turning the nose of my truck into an empty space along the back wall. The parking lot is mostly empty, but up closer to the building I spot the same car that Jeremy drove the night he picked up Nora.
They’re here.
There’s a rush of calm throughout my body as I realize that I’m not going to have to try to track them down all over Blacksburg. I found them, easier than I thought possible, but now I have the difficult task of getting Nora away from Jeremy without her getting hurt.
I quietly shut the door of my truck and duck down behind it so I can look for the two of them. The Stash ‘n Go has indoor access to the storage units, which means that I’m going to have to go in the building to track them down.
Running in a crouch, I dart across the parking lot and pause by the front door. It’s full glass from top to bottom, and I lean over to peek in.
“Fuck,” I whisper. I had no idea that the corridor inside would be so dimly lit or that there would be so many additional halls coming off from the main entrance. Finding the two of them in here without Jeremy spotting me first is going to be damn near impossible.
But it’s now or never, so after wiping my hands on my jeans, I pull the door open. I’m immediately hit in the face with a blast of AC, and I slide inside, making sure to hold the door so that it doesn’t slam shut behind me. Once it’s closed, I start working my way down the main corridor, staying close to the wall the entire time. I have my ears pricked as I listen for their voices.
Halfway down the hall and I still haven’t heard anything. If I make it to the end and don’t run into them, then I’m not sure what I’ll do. I would have sworn that they would be in here, but there is always the chance that they ditched the car and he took her somewhere else.
Like where?
The woods.
The answer to my question makes me shiver, and I start moving faster, still bent over in a crouch, heedless of the sound that I’m making. I’m almost to the end of the main corridor when I hear something.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember which unit it is!” The voice is clearly Nora’s, and without thinking about the repercussions, I stand up and start running towards it. There’s no way that they don’t hear my feet on the floor, but I don’t care. I just need to get there as fast as possible to stop Jeremy from...doing whatever he’s planning.
“You’re a lying cunt!” Jeremy’s voice cuts through the air as I turn the corner to their hall. They’re about halfway down it, and he has Nora standing with her back against the wall. Even from here I can see that she looks terrified, her arms held out in front of her, a wild look in her eye.
As I run towards them, she starts crying, but neither of them turn to look at me. “I swear, I don’t remember! Please, don’t hurt me!” She’s choked up and her voice sounds thick.
I run faster, and that’s when I see that he has a knife in his hand. He’s holding it out to Nora, waving it in her face, but before I can launch myself at him, he turns to me, his eyes wide.
“Fuck!” His scream reverberates around the building, and I feel my feet leave the floor as I jump to tackle him, but I’m too slow.
He steps forward, grabbing Nora by the waist and throwing her in front of him to stand between us, the knife at her throat. My body hits the floor with a thud and I slide a few inches on the slick tile before I’m able to recover and get back on my feet.
By the time I turn around, Jeremy is slowly backing down the hall, holding Nora capt
ive.
She mouths my name, but no sound comes out.
“Stay there, Teague,” Jeremy warns when I take a step towards him. “I’d hate to see something happen to sweet little Nora, wouldn’t you? She has something that she promised me, and I don’t want you to ruin it.”
My eyes flick over to Nora’s face. Her mascara is streaming down her cheeks, and she’s biting her lower lip. Before I can let myself feel something for her - compassion will only slow me down - I look back to Jeremy.
“You fucked up, Jeremy. The best option for you right now is to just let her go.” There’s no way that he’s going to do as I ask, and I know it, but his laugh is still jarring.
“Not a chance.” His voice comes out in a snarl, and Nora closes her eyes, trying to move away from him, but he digs the point of his knife into her neck and she squeaks, standing still. “You need to fuck off, Teague. Nora’s mine. She couldn’t deliver on what you had in your storage unit, so now she has to deliver something else.”
The grin on his face makes it obvious to me what he means, and I clench my fists. There’s no way that I’m going to sit back and watch while he hurts Nora. While he fucks Nora.
“Please, Jeremy,” Nora begins, “just let me go. I know that Teague will give you whatever you want.”
Jeremy looks at me, expectant, and I nod. Nora and I both know that there’s no way I can give him what was in the storage building, but he doesn’t know that. I hope.
“Riiiiight,” he says, drawing out the word as long as he can while still backing up. “I’m sure that Teague would love to give me everything he has that could tear down my family. That’s your little insurance policy, isn’t it, Teague? Daddy trying to keep you as safe as possible?”
My face feels hot, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’s getting to me. If I want to make it out of here with Nora, and without her turning into a pincushion, I have to be careful. Smart.
