After a moment, Galia stood, made the bed, then walked to the door. Switching the light off, she exited the room and closed the door firmly behind her, leaving it unlocked. Perhaps Integrity had just ventured out for a moment and would return shortly. Anyone entering the room would have no hint that it was occupied unless they opened the drawers or closet. “I'll have to find Ben,” she muttered to herself as she set off down the hallway, back the way she had come.
Đ
Shortly after 11:00 that night, according to the dashboard clock in the car, Ben pulled to a stop in front of a nondescript hotel in an even more nondescript town. After putting the car into park, he turned slightly toward Integrity. “I'll just run in and get a room. I'll be right back.” He smiled at her, the faintly red light from the vacancy sign showing the planes of his face in sharp relief.
“Okay.” Integrity watched him walk around the front of the car and into the hotel's office, where he moved out of her line of sight. She scooted deeper into the bucket seat, grateful for the nearing respite. Riding for hours in a car was not her idea of fun, or, for that matter, comfort. She didn't know for sure how long they had driven, hundreds of miles easily, nor their general location. She'd seen signs announcing towns that sounded vaguely familiar, and she assumed they had crossed a state border at some point, but she must have missed the sign. It was disconcerting to realize that things she had taken for granted, like knowing what state she was in, were no longer assured.
Ben returned shortly, a small envelope with a green plastic room key peeking from the top. He slid into his seat, closed the door, then eased the car into gear. “Here we go.”
The room was on the second floor, toward the back of the small motel. Integrity was thankful that she was too tired to really care how nice the room was—it had always bothered her to sleep on sheets other people had used, even if they had been washed. Even the dim lighting of the room made her close her eyes reflexively. She was relieved to see that there were two beds. One issue taken care of, she thought.
Ben dropped the plastic bag with her things, plus another bag filled with his clothing, onto the floor near the bathroom doorway. “Well, it's not much, but it'll do.” He stretched his arms above his head, his shirt lifting to reveal a small strip of tanned skin above his belt. Integrity looked away automatically, then felt stupid. Who cared if she saw part of his stomach? Oh, no, someone call the police. Slut on the loose! she mocked herself.
She was embarrassed again when she used the bathroom that night, terrified that he might hear something. Quit being so stupid! Everyone pees! When she came back out, he was stretched out on the bed closest to the door, his head propped up against the headboard. He flipped aimlessly through the channels on TV before offering her the remote. “You wanna try? There's not much on this time of night.”
Integrity yawned, shaking her head. “Right now, all I want to do is sleep.”
“I hear that.” Ben kicked his shoes off, using his opposite foot as leverage, letting the shoes fall where they may. He slipped underneath his blankets before smiling and saying, “See you in the morning.”
Integrity smiled back as she climbed into her own bed, then rolled over to turn off the lamp that sat on the table between them.
She'd forgotten just how hard it was to sleep in a hotel. The bed didn't feel right, the temperature was never right, and the walls were so thin. She could hear every car that drove by, though they were few and far between. Every time Ben shifted or rolled over, she tensed automatically. Her eyes felt bone dry and were prickling with pain, but she couldn't seem to keep them closed. Every noise she heard, or thought she heard, made them snap open and she'd peer intently into the inky blackness.
She didn't know how much time had passed before Ben climbed out of bed. At first she thought he was making a pit stop, but then she vaguely saw his form bending over, putting on his shoes, she assumed. She forced herself to lay still—Ben couldn't know she was so paranoid that she hadn't fallen asleep this whole time. When he moved the door and quietly slid the deadbolt back, she sat straight up in bed. “Where are you going?” she hissed, wondering why she felt like she had to be quiet.
Ben stopped and turned toward her. “I thought you were asleep. Did I wake you up?”
“No, I was awake.”
Ben walked back through the dark room, then sat on the edge of his bed, facing her. “Did I scare you?”
“No, no, I'm fine. I guess I'm just being nosy.” Integrity gave a nervous laugh, then immediately wanted to pull it back. Why am I acting like such an idiot?
“Have you gotten any sleep at all?”
Hearing the concern in his voice, Integrity quickly lied. “Yeah, here and there. I don't know why I woke up just now.”
“It probably was me. I'm sorry, I just got hungry and thought I'd run out and try to find somewhere that's open this time of night. I didn't want to bother you. You've had a really long day.”
“Oh.” Integrity felt more stupid than ever. Since when did she become so dependent on him that he couldn't even leave the room without her throat seizing up, restricting her air flow?
“Will you be okay if I go?”
“Yeah, I'll be fine.” No, I won't. I might have a heart attack.
He stood and walked toward the doorway once more. “Can I bring you anything back?”
“No, I'm good.” Don't leave me. Don't leave me.
“Okay. I don't know how long I'll be; who knows how far I'll have to go. Try to get some sleep, huh?”
Integrity forced herself to lay back down, the whole time her body aching to spring back up. Stop it! You can't invite yourself along. Pull on your big girl panties and knock it off! You'll be fine. Ben walked out of the door and closed it firmly behind him. She heard his footsteps fade as he walked to the nearby cement stairs. Shortly she heard a car starting, reversing, then accelerating as it pulled away.
The next thing she knew, it was morning and Ben was laying in the bed across from her, watching her silently. Please don't let me be drooling. He gave her a comfortable smile. “Morning.”
“How long have you been awake?” she asked, sitting up. “What time is it?”
He laughed. “Chill. It's all good. I'm glad you were able to get some sleep.”
Making an effort to smooth her hair down, Integrity relaxed a bit. “Me, too. I don't even remember falling asleep.”
“Do you ever?”
Integrity grinned sheepishly. “I guess not.”
Ben sat up and she caught a glimpse of skin. She ducked her head immediately and headed for the bathroom. “I'll just get ready.”
After showering, she came back out and Ben had his shirt back on. He was watching a news broadcast, but he snapped it off when she came out. Springing from bed, he grabbed his bag and headed for the bathroom. “My turn?”
She gestured toward the open bathroom door. “It's all yours.”
After putting her toothbrush and the like back in her bag, she looked around the room. Now what? She could hear the shower running in the bathroom. Out of sheer nervous energy, she decided to make the beds. That completed, she had just put her bag on top of the coverlet when Ben emerged from the bathroom. His short hair was still damp. Seeing the beds, he laughed again. “Who are you? Becky Home-Ecky?” Integrity just shrugged, not knowing what to say. “Are you ready to go?” She nodded, picked up her bag, and the pair left the room. After a brief stop to check out, they were on the road once more.
After stopping at a fast-food place for breakfast, Integrity asked Ben, “So, where exactly are we going?”
Ben shrugged one shoulder, taking a sip of his orange juice. “I really don't know. Right now all I can think is to get as far away from Westmarch as we can.”
Integrity nodded. “That makes sense. If we need to make tracks, why don't we take turns driving? Then we won't waste time in hotels.”
“That's sweet of you to offer, but no.” He smiled apologetically. “I know where we're likely to run into people
from Westmarch, what places to avoid. Although, I admit, we're going to have to start avoiding hotels.”
“Why? So we don't leave a trail?”
Ben glanced over his shoulder before signaling and changing lanes. “Partly.” He glanced at her, grinning sheepishly. “Mostly it's that I didn't bring much money. Better to sleep in the car and have money for food than have a hotel room and be hungry.”
Integrity felt uncomfortable, guilty. “You know, if you take me to my parents, you can leave me there and they'll reimburse you for everything you've spent.”
Ben adjusted the rear view mirror unnecessarily. “Do you miss them?”
“Sure, of course I do. It's been a long time since I've seen them.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I wish I could take you there, Integrity, but I can't. It would just put them in danger. Can't you see that?” His brow was furrowed.
“You mean they'd be that desperate to get me back that they'd hurt my parents?” Her appetite suddenly ebbing, she set her food down in her lap.
Ben sat quietly for a few minutes, obviously thinking. Finally, just when Integrity thought she'd burst, he sighed. “I wish I could shelter you from all of this, that I could tell you everything would be fine, but that's not fair to you.”
Panic began to build up in her chest. “But I'm just me! I'm not anybody important. Why would they want me back so badly? What could I possibly offer them?”
“These people are nuts. They are extremely protective of their little cult. It's not so much that you're you that's the problem, it's that you left. They'll want both of us back, at any cost.” He looked over at her for a few seconds before returning his attention to the road. “The only thing we can do right now is try to find somewhere to stay where they don't have any contacts and just lay low. Hopefully they'll loose interest.”
Thoughts tumbled incoherently through Integrity's head. It had never occurred to her that she might be endangering her family by her escape. I thought they'd make a cursory search, out of duty, then let things be. What if they go after my family? “Isn't there some way I can warn them?”
Ben ran his hand over his hair a few times. “I don't know. I'll try to come up with something, but everything I can think of can be traced. If they find out that you are in contact with your parents, that will put them in even more danger. If they don't think you've talked to your mom and dad, they might just hang back and wait. Your parents might not be in any real danger at all.”
She wanted to kick something, but was acutely aware of how stupid she would look if she did. The last thing she wanted was for Ben to think she was throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler. What am I supposed to do? If I tell my parents to watch out, they could get hurt. If I don't, they could still get hurt. I'm only 17! I'm not supposed to have to deal with this crap!
Đ
Ben and Integrity had been on the road for roughly a week, by her calculations, when he'd unexpectedly stopped at a park and had announced that they needed to have some fun. The idea seemed so foreign, so out of place in her current situation that Integrity was cautious at first, not sure it was acceptable to have fun. The hard black rubber of the swing seat pushing against her sides as she grew increasingly dizzy from the movement made things seem oddly right. Watching Ben fly from his moving swing, arms and legs flailing comically as he arced through the air, brought laughter bursting to the surface. Doubled over, trying desperately to not fall from her perch, Integrity laughed until she thought she would be sick, which made her laugh all the more. Feeling her swing gently halted in its progress, she straightened up and looked into Ben's eyes. She found it hard to breathe, until he told her he'd race her to the slide. It was while Ben was stuck inside of the tube, the couple laughing convulsively, that several men appeared silently around either side of the slide. Integrity only uttered Ben's name once before her arms were pinned behind her back and she felt herself being propelled toward an SUV with tinted windows. She tried to scream and the pain in her shoulders increased exponentially.
Chapter Four
Integrity found herself riding in the SUV, barricaded in the third row of seats. A man wearing dark sunglasses drove the vehicle, silently, while a man in the passenger seat constantly scanned their surroundings. No one sat in the middle row of seats. A third man sat on the opposite end of the seat from her, slouched comfortably in his seat, seemingly unconcerned with the world around him.
As her heart rate slowed, her thinking quickened. She could only assume these people were from Westmarch, but, unlike Glegnar, they had been surprisingly gentle. Granted, she'd probably have bruises on her upper arm where one man had gripped her, and the muscles in her shoulders still ached, but compared to what the slave master had dished out on a regular basis that was like having someone stick their tongue out at you.
Uncomfortable, she fastened her seatbelt out of habit. The man across from her, without even looking out of the corner of his eye, let a smirk slip across his face. Obviously her action had amused him. She thought briefly about taking the seatbelt back off, but decided that would just amuse him even more, knowing that she was aware of what he was thinking.
Her constant appraisal of the car revealed no means of escape. Even if she dared bail from the vehicle while it was traveling at freeway speeds, which she doubted, getting to the door would be nigh impossible. Not only would she have to unbuckle and climb over the back of the seats in front of her, with three men in the car she stood little chance of even touching the door handle.
While the thought of returning to her prison was unpleasant, it seemed distant enough to not concern her more than passingly. At the moment she was more concerned with who these people were, what they were going to do to her, and where Ben was. As she'd been dragged from the park she had heard sounds of a scuffle behind her and the sound of Ben saying something protestingly. They had still been snapping the seats back into place when the SUV had pulled away from the curb. She hadn't dared to turn and look behind them at the park, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ben.
Occasionally the men in the front would say short phrases, usually sentence fragments, that made no sense to Integrity. The only information she could glean was that the driver, who looked to be nearly 40-years-old, was named Bowman. The man in the passenger seat had extremely short blond hair and occasionally made short remarks containing numbers and letters jumbled together nonsensically.
At least Integrity could look at them while pretending to study the road. The man to her side was a challenge. She felt like an idiot and couldn't openly stare at him, but glancing from the corner of her eye was becoming painful. Plus, she was pretty sure he had caught her looking a couple of times. His demeanor was extremely unsettling to her. Why would the two men in the front be so tense and focused while he acted as though he were on a long car ride through the most boring landscape ever? All three men were dressed in suits, although the man next to her was wearing neither jacket or tie.
At some point the girl must have fallen asleep; she was awoken by a less-than-gentle prod. Dismay crossed her face to see that she had returned to Westmarch so quickly. She wondered briefly why she was able to relax enough to sleep in the car with her captors when she hadn't been able to do so in the hotel room with Ben. She chalked it up to exhaustion as she stumbled from the SUV.
The two men who had sat in the front of the vehicle led her through a small door secreted in the walls of the castle while the third followed closely behind her. She walked up a number of stairs, though she lost count on which story she was on. The only thing she knew was that the room they led her to was on at least the third or fourth floor.
After walking through the doorway into her new quarters, before she even had a chance to look around, one of the men spoke. “Guard from the interior.” By the time she had turned around to see who had spoken, the man who had sat in the back of the car with her was leaving, and one of the other two men, Bowman, was closing the door after him. Both of the remaining men turned to face her, silent.
Creeped out, her skin crawling, Integrity forced herself to turn around, hopefully looking nonchalant. The room before her made her last residence look like a one-star motel. The small entry in which she stood held the recessed door, and the two men. She walked forward to better view her surroundings. The bed, looking extremely cushy, was off to her left. Directly across from the door was a decorative seating arrangement made of low tables and three armchairs. To her right was a large paned window with a door on either side. With a nervous glance over her shoulder to make sure that neither man had moved, she stepped out of their line of view and opened the first door, which concealed an empty walk-in closet. She shut the door as quietly as she could, trailing her fingers across the antique knob. The second door led to a bathroom the likes of which she had never seen. Translucent windows bordered the ceiling while crystal chandeliers and sconces offered soft light. This bathroom's bigger than my room at home is, she thought in amazement. It seemed like there were comfortable places to sit everywhere. Separate shower and bath took up some of the remaining space, but what seemed to be acres of tile stretched between each item. She snapped the lights off and walked back out into the room. Now what?
She walked to the window and looked out. She felt slightly dizzy to be at the height she was. There were very few trees in the adjacent forest that were tall enough to be eye level. They stretched on as far as she could see. The sun appeared to be setting somewhere off to the left. Escaping to the forest? Not the best idea.
She paced aimlessly until she caught a glimpse of the men out of the corner of her eye. They were so utterly silent she had completely forgotten they were there. She hurriedly sat down, feeling like an idiot.
Integrity: Book One of the Destine Series Page 5
