by Skye Warren
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks.
“The other side.”
He shakes his head. “We’re walking the stream.”
“I can’t,” I say.
He pulls me closer; he still seems obsessed with the gash on my face, which maybe should be a good sign. I force my focus onto the trees in the distance, anything but the rise and fall of his hard, mud-streaked chest. It’s around dinnertime; I can tell by the slant of the sun. Up close he smells like sweat. Not pine, not cologne, not musk, just man sweat.
“Bend over.”
“What?” I try to yank my wrist from his hand, but he fists my hair and pushes my face nearly into the water. He splashes water onto my cheek. I close my eyes against the cold spray of it, spitting it out of my nose and mouth, trying to twist from his grip.
“God!” I say as he lets me up. I sniff and wipe my eyes.
He inspects my cut and grunts his approval, as if infection is this huge threat right now. He pulls my hand. “Come on.”
“I can’t even feel my feet!”
He frowns, furrowing his dark brows. “Fine.” He bends over and loops my arm around his neck and just hoists me up.
I pull my arm back and struggle against his hold. “Put me down!”
“You want to walk? Or I still have that .357. I could put a few holes in you, and you could float. Is that what you want?”
I loop my arm around his neck, feeling weird, like I’m participating in my own captivity. But it seems better than the alternatives. Don’t struggle. Wait for your chance.
A ways down he steps onto the bank and puts me on the mossy ground. I feel unsteady on my feet. He gets up on the rocky shore next to me, water streaming from his big black boots, chest shining with sweat. “Take off your panties.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. Maybe he really is crazy behind those dark and beautiful eyes. Underneath all that rough skin and powerful muscle. He’s a loony bin wrapped up in the sexiest package I’ve ever seen.
I’m praying that he’s just toying with me.
He smiles like it’s pretty hilarious. “Do it, or I’ll do it for you.” He picks up a rock, rubs it in his armpit, then tosses it deep into the woods. He does the same thing again, with another rock, and then another. “Two seconds,” he says. “I’m not fucking around.” He raises his brows, waiting. “Am I doing it for you? You know I will.”
My stomach lurches, but I don’t have a choice. My hands are shivering as they reach under my skirt and push down the fabric of my panties. I place them in his outstretched palm.
“Thank you, Ms. Winslow.” Like I just handed him a pencil to complete his assignment.
He tosses them into the underbrush. Then he picks me up and carries me through the stream again, heading back where we came from. My heart sinks as I realize what he’s just done—pointed the search dogs the wrong way.
“You have such dirty ideas, Ms. Winslow,” he says, trudging through the water.
Soon we pass the place we started from maybe ten minutes ago. Making good time, I think grudgingly.
“I try to be practical,” he continues, “and where the fuck does your mind go?”
I hate that he can read me. I wish I could read him. “Stop calling me Ms. Winslow.”
“What do you want me to call you?” He lowers his voice, and his dark eyes meet mine. “Abigail?”
My belly does a flip-flop to hear my name on his lips, and I look away. It’s like an invasion of my privacy or something, him saying Abigail, but Ms. Winslow, the way he says it, is just too dirty.
“I don’t want you to call me anything,” I snap.
He snorts, carrying me down the stream the way a groom would carry a bride over the threshold. It feels almost tender. I have to remind myself that he’s a cold-blooded murderer.
So why hasn’t he killed me yet?
Save your energy, wait for your chance, he told the cop. I wonder if my chance is coming up—surely his feet are too numb by now to run fast. And though he doesn’t show it, he has to be tired from carrying me; his biceps bulge and strain under my weight. The tendons in his warm, sweat-slickened neck pop with every step he takes. Can I wear him out this way? I wish I weighed three times as much. Anything to sap his strength.
His nostrils flare minutely as he goes. He has a simple nose, a friendly, no-nonsense nose that contrasts with the sharp beauty of his eyes. And he knows how to harden those features to make himself scary. His perfect cheeks are getting just a shadow of stubble. It occurs to me that he must have shaved for his escape. Wanting to look clean-cut, I suppose.
Sometime later, he veers out of the stream and puts me down.
“Ride’s over,” he says, pointing through the bramble. He wants me to go first, so I go.
We walk for what feels like hours. My feet ache from my boot heels. My shins have been whipped by a thousand tiny branches. We head up the side of a plowed field, and then another, but no farmer is in sight and no cops, either.
Well, they’re searching in another direction if they’re searching at all. I’m coming to realize I can’t count on the authorities. They couldn’t keep me safe at the prison. Why should I expect them to save me now?
I’ll have to rescue myself.
Grayson seems to know where he’s going. As we trudge along, I get the sense he’s listening—to the wind, distant noises. This is where he excels: a type of battle. Not fought between countries, but soldiers. Between sides.
We go over a hill, and I see a road up ahead. My blood races.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, leading me down the bumpy, weedy terrain to a roadside strewn with litter. We begin to walk, just beyond the shoulder. “You want to flag somebody down? Go ahead, it’s their funeral.” He picks up a whiskey bottle and swings it in his right hand as he walks, takes my hand with his left. “One way to get a car, I guess.”
I hear a car approaching from behind, and I stop breathing.
“Don’t even think about looking,” he says just when I’m about to look.
The car continues on by—a lone driver in a silver compact. And then there’s silence. He makes me pick up a glass soda bottle. It’s full of ants. A ways down he finds a shred of rubber that came off a tire, probably a truck tire, and he picks that up too. He points to a fallen tree, just off the shoulder of the road. The shadows have gone long. It’ll be dark out soon. “Sit.”
I sit, trying to think what to do. If I flag someone down or wave my arms wildly for help, will he really just shoot them? A truck approaches. “Eyes on the ground,” he growls. “Act natural.”
Act “naturally.” It’s called an adverb, asshole, I think, but I don’t say it. He seems to get perverse pleasure when I correct his grammar. I wonder how much he does it on purpose, just to get a rise out of me.
He sits next to me and starts breaking the bottles we collected as the truck approaches. I sneak a look. The driver’s on his phone.
Help me, I mouth.
Grayson immediately starts smiling at the truck. Almost like he’s laughing. As if I’d made a joke. The driver locks eyes with Grayson as he rolls past, chatting away on his phone. My hope slowly withers.
Then he grabs my wrist in an iron grip. My blood runs cold. He speaks through gritted teeth. “You don’t do things like that.” He jerks my arm. “You understand? You can’t.” He seems almost alarmed, as if I’d darted out into traffic instead of going for help.
I stare at him defiantly, trying to keep my cool composure in spite of my racing heart.
“I’m in charge, and you’re not,” he says. “The sooner you get used to that, the better things will go for you.”
I keep up my stare.
He looks almost sad then. “Give me your glasses.”
My stomach gets tight. “No.”
“Now,” he growls.
“I can’t,” I say with a sick feeling, though I know it’s true—sometimes playing along and getting used to things is how you survive. But
I need my glasses to read. To make out faces. To shield me, hide me. I need them.
He’s waiting.
Instinctively, I put up my free hand to touch them. “Please.” He grabs my wrists. I twist my arms, straining to get away from him. “No!”
“I’m sorry.” Calm as granite, he reaches up to take my glasses with the other hand.
“Not my glasses,” I beg as he pulls them off my face.
“You think they protect you, but they don’t,” he says. “You think somebody out there might rescue you, but they won’t. They will never help you. People out there can’t protect you.” He set the glasses in the dirt and picks up a large rock.
“No!” I gasp as he brings the rock down, smashing the frame and lenses. “I can’t see.”
“I can,” he says. “I’m the one who protects you now.”
I sob as he picks out the shards of lens from the frame and sticks them into the rubber strip. It looks like a snake studded with shark fins. I watch through bleary eyes as he goes out and lays it in the road.
He comes back and pulls me into the shade under a tree. Unlikely a driver would see us unless they were really looking. “We just need a vehicle now,” he says as if we’re a team on some caper together. I maintain stony silence. We will never be a team.
A shiny blue pickup truck heads our way. There’s one person inside, but I can’t make out much without my glasses.
“Hello,” Grayson mutters under his breath as the truck goes over his trap. There’s a pop as the tire blows out, and the driver steers to the side of the road. Grayson takes my hand and pulls me along. “You say one fucking word, you try anything, and somebody dies. Got it?”
He doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer, so I don’t give him one. I feel naked with no glasses and no panties. He wants me helpless. He’s doing a pretty good job of it, I suppose. But he doesn’t know me. And I will never get used to this.
We reach the guy on the side of the road quickly. I can see him better now—I can see middle distance, just not far and near. And I can see that the front tire is completely flat, but the rest of them look fine. “Need any help?” Grayson asks.
The man takes one look at Grayson and straightens up, squinting. Grayson’s handsome face and charming, cocksure smile don’t fool him. “No thanks.” He holds his ball cap in his hand; with his big, puffy build and graying flattop he looks like an aging football player, and he knows Grayson’s trouble.
“You got a spare and a jack?” Grayson asks.
“Yep,” the man says. “I’m good.”
“Excellent.” Grayson pulls out his gun—the cop’s gun. It’s giant and scary. The man stills. His eyes dart to me, but I don’t have any answers. “Let’s have the phone. Easy.”
“I don’t want any trouble,” the guy says as he pulls his phone from his pocket.
“That’s the right attitude.” Grayson plucks the phone from the guy’s hand and tosses it in my direction.
My hands come up by reflex—a decades-old reflex that kept me from getting hit with dishes or books or whatever my mother decided to throw at me.
I catch it. The phone is still warm from the guy’s body, and my stomach turns over. It feels like I’m complicit in this, like I’m an accomplice instead of a victim.
But Grayson still has the gun.
My eyes plead my case to the guy, but he’s all apprehension. His gaze darts back and forth. He’s trying to figure us out. Bonnie and Clyde, that’s the conclusion he comes to. He thinks I’m part of this. No, no! I want to yell.
Grayson gestures with the gun. “Now take off the shirt and toss it to my woman.”
My woman. Disbelief rolls through me.
The man unbuttons his blue plaid shirt, eyeing me fearfully, and tosses it to me.
I catch it, shaking my head, short and fierce. I’m not his woman. Get help.
He looks confused, scared. Maybe angry.
“Where’s your jack?” Grayson barks. The man mumbles that it’s in the back, and again Grayson gestures with the gun. “Go get it. We got some work to do.”
The man has some work to do, as it turns out. Grayson, ever the enterprising criminal, forces him to change the tire for us, which the man does with incredible efficiency, jacking up the truck and switching out the tires. He has all the right tools. He’s that kind of guy.
I feel like an idiot for not doing anything, but every idea I come up with seems more likely to make things worse than better. Only one car passes by in the time he’s working on the tire. It slows, maybe thinking about stopping, but Grayson just grins at them like everything is just fine, and they speed back up. It’s a dream. Or a nightmare.
It’s dark by the time the man finishes, bare chest dripping with sweat. Grayson makes a big show of testing the tightness of the bolts. Then he nods. “Get out of here.”
The man looks at him with disbelief.
“Go,” he says. “There’s a gas station a few miles down. Can’t say it’ll be open by the time you reach it, but…”
The guy takes three rapid steps backward, covering more ground than should be possible. I don’t want him to go, to leave me alone with Grayson again.
The man turns and runs. He was definitely a football player, maybe twenty years ago. That’s how he runs, like he’s going to tackle something. Not like the truth, which is that he’s scared.
Anyone would be scared. A big tough guy is terrified of Grayson.
Horror and frustration bubble up inside me.
He winks. “The FBI won’t know which way is up. Were you helping me all along, Ms. Winslow? Are you secretly my lover?”
I throw the phone at him, which he catches, of course. One-handed. “I will never touch you,” I say.
He turns to me. “Yes, you will.” There’s no triumph in it. He says it like a statement of fact. He takes a step forward.
I back up until the truck stops me. I’m sweating, but the hot metal is almost a relief. Warmer and more human than the flesh-and-blood beast that looms in front of me.
But I have something to say too. Something true. And I want him to listen. “You might hurt me. You might touch me. But I will never, ever touch you. Not of my own free will.”
I’m shaking by the time I’m finished talking. Tears are threatening again, but I don’t care about them. They don’t make me weak. I know what real weakness is. I saw it inject itself with drugs and hook up with abusive men just to get its fix. I watched it die. That will never be me. Never.
He reaches up to cup my cheek—the side without the scrape. On purpose? I don’t know. He trails his thumb over my eyebrow and down my temple. Places he couldn’t touch when I had my glasses. Like he’s learning me, mapping my face. The inside of my chest feels bright and quivery, but I keep my frown.
“So I can touch you?” he asks gently. “But you won’t touch me back?”
My voice trembles. “I didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t you?” His hand trails lower, down my neck. Goose bumps rise all across my chest and over my arms despite the heat.
He caresses my skin right where my collarbone is, softly, with the back of his knuckles. I clench my fists at my sides, dreading what comes next. He’s going to keep moving lower, until he’s touching my breasts. And then what will I do? Cry? Scream? There’s no one to hear me. The guy from the truck has disappeared over the ridge.
I let my eyes close. “Stop.”
“You don’t want this.” His tone is conversational.
“I hate you.”
“What do you want, then?”
“I want you to die. I want to hurt you. I want you to let me go.”
He laughs softly, a puff of breath against my forehead. “In that order?”
My teeth clench together. “Take your pick.”
“You know what I think, Abby? I can call you that, right? It’s cute. Like you.” His hand curves to the side, feathering light touches along the cashmere of my sweater. He grips my hip as if we’re dancing. And we are da
ncing. It’s a sick song he plays.
“I think you want to fix me. That’s what you were doing at the prison. That’s what you’re doing now. But the thing is, Abby, it’s not going to work. You can’t fix people. Not with bullshit writing assignments, not with anything.”
“They’re not bullshit,” I spit out, angry suddenly because, yeah, he can take my freedom, but he can’t take the things that I know. Or the things that Esther taught me. “Some of the guys in there, it meant something to them to tell their stories, and for their stories to be heard. Telling our stories is what heals us and makes us whole,” I add, parroting Esther’s words.
His beautiful lips twist in a sardonic smile. “That’s really what you think?”
“Yeah,” I say.
His voice flattens out. “Some people can never be fixed,” he says to me. “Some wounds can never be healed. Not ever.”
Eighteen
~Grayson~
She’s slumped against the opposite door. Her hair fell down from its bun. Dirt and blood are smudged on her face. She took off her fancy sweater to use as a pillow when we started moving, and her nice blouse is torn and soaked with sweat. But she looks beautiful anyway. And tragic. It’s hard to keep my eyes on the road; I want to stop the truck and just stare at her, drink in the sight so I’ll never forget.
That might not be a problem. Even when I close my eyes for a second, stopped at a stop sign, I can see her face. She’s etched in my mind, her fragile body, her prim features. And underneath, a core of fire.
What made her so adaptable, so brave in the face of threats and violence? There’s something. I don’t know what it is, but something made her this way.
“You got a boyfriend?”
She gives me a dark look. “Yes.”
My blood boils, although I don’t know why I’d be jealous of some half-baked accountant who goes to church on Sunday. That’s the only kind of man I can see her with.
Liar.
I can see her with me. Under me. Over me with those firm little breasts moving as she rides me. But that’s just sex, and I figured out a long time ago not to trust my own body. Stimulation. Physical reaction. It can be anyone rubbing me, fucking me, and as long as they do it the right way, I’ll orgasm. That doesn’t mean I won’t kill them.
