by Naomi West
He looked back over his shoulder again at me, smirking. “Don't normally see pretty girls eating potato chips,” he told me.
I smiled and daintily wiped some crumbs from my chin as we stepped outside. I glanced around one more time, looked around the lot for signs of Asa's muscle car. Sure, I'd left him exhausted and well-fucked back in the hotel room, but I knew your problems always had a way of catching up to you.
Together this new stranger and I headed out to the parking lot. He'd parked nearer to the back, on the edges of one of the intermittent pools of light. It was an older minivan, maybe a Dodge. The interior of the van wasn't lit very well, but I could see that the passenger side seat was laid back into a reclining position.
“Car broke down, you said?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Engine went bust on me when I got to town.”
“Well that sucks. Ain't got anyone to call that could help you out?”
I frowned as a range of emotions rattled me. Even though my car wasn't actually broken down, and all I was doing was telling lies to help fabricate some fictional story, the question hit home. I didn't have anyone to call. My mother was dead. My father was psycho and had men hunting me down. My only friends were Al, Antonio, and the guys at the truck stop, and I'd had to leave them behind when I fled the motel, just like I'd had to flee all my other friends in all the other small towns and truck stops I'd lived in for the last five years. Even so, could I actually call them friends? Could you call someone who didn't even know your real name a friend?
“No,” I said simply, flatly, trying to hide the unexpected turmoil inside me.
“Oh,” he said, his voice seemingly a little more upbeat. “Well, guess you just gotta depend on the kindness of strangers, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said as we got to the van. I peered in through the heavily tinted windows but couldn't see anyone else in front or in back.
“Sorry. Mom's riding up front, so you'll have to ride in back with Justine,” he said as he led me around the back of the van to the other side with the sliding door. “Hope that's fine.”
I shrugged, my eyes still straining to see inside. Something about this whole thing seemed off. Had I been more awake and less fucked, maybe my instincts would have alerted me to the danger.
He pulled open the sliding door without triggering the dome light and ushered me in with one arm. The smell of grain alcohol rushed out of the car, filling the air. Old bags of beef jerky, fast food wrappers, and empty liquor and beer bottles were strewn all over the back.
“Run a still in there or something?” I asked, wincing at the stench as I backed up a step.
He laughed, a little nervously, I thought, then put his hand on my lower back and tried to nudge me closer to the van. “Don't mind the smell. That's just my mom.”
I stopped at the edge of the van and didn't climb into it. I looked down, saw a drunk guy in his mid-20s, unshaven, occupying the laid-back passenger seat. Realizing that definitely wasn't his mom, I scanned the backseats for Justine.
“Come on,” he said, his voice losing the soft bit of kindness, and gaining a hard edge of anger and frustration. “We've got to go soon!”
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't believe I’d fallen for this. Clearly, nothing good was going to come from me staying here. What did he think I was? Some kind of runaway, someone no one would come looking for if I disappeared? A girl the cops would have trouble identifying, or listening to when I told them I was raped?
I turned and went to run, but he was ready for me. His hand cracked across my face with a hard, open-handed slap that whipped my head to the side. Stars exploding behind my eyes and a hot, stinging pain on my cheek I stumbled back, the gravel crunching beneath my shoes, and hit the back of my legs against the van.
“I said,” he growled as he made a grab for my wrist, “get in the goddamn van!”
I panicked, swung the bag of chips in my hand at his face, tearing open the bag. Salty, greasy, deep-fried potato slices filled the air like snack-fetti, flying everywhere. We both stopped and looked at the aftermath of the explosion on the concrete and inside the van.
It didn't slow him down, of course. He just shook his head and chuckled in disbelief as the sound of a roaring engine filled the air and tires crunched on gravel. He didn't pay the approaching car any mind, just came at me, pulling me into his grip and tried more forcefully to get me in the van. I threw up my hands, trying to defend myself, but he just grabbed hold of one of them and slapped around my other hand, knocking my head to the side. “Get in the fucking van, bitch! Stop fighting it!”
Dazed from the second slap, I reeled around. Even though I was confused and feeling the effects, I leaped at him, the fingers of my free hand curled into claws.
Clearly surprised by the sudden attack, he flailed and tried to get my striking hand. My hand slipped through and he screamed as I raked my nails down his face, over his left eye and down his cheek.
“Hey!” a man bellowed from behind my attacker. “Get the fuck off her!”
My attacker, blood seeping out from between the fingers of the hand covering his mauled face, turned to see who was coming at him. “Fuck you!” he growled like a dog, dropping my wrist from his grip and balling his hand into a fist.
I got up and ran from the van as the two men collided, headed back to the Camry I'd ditched earlier. I didn't care if the troopers picked me up in it, at this point, I just wanted away from this place, from this nightmarish parking lot.
Chapter Eight
Asa
The only two things I hated more than Dalton Saylor were men who beat women and rapists. And this stupid motherfucker was both.
He threw a sloppy right cross at me that he telegraphed loud and clear with his shoulders. I saw it coming from a mile away and just wrapped my left arm around his and twisted it up into my armpit, hooking my arm around it as I let loose three quick jabs with my right fist into his jaw and the side of his head. His head whipped back and forth, his eyes wide in surprise. They went even wider in surprise, when I brought my arm up, using the leverage to snap his humerus.
The rapist fuck-face screamed like a little girl, so loud and high I was surprised he didn't shatter the windows of the van. His knees buckled and I let him drop to the gravel-covered parking lot. “My arm!” he screamed. “My fucking arm!”
“What the fuck?” his buddy mumbled, clamoring up from his spot in the passenger seat.
Before he could even climb from the seat I'd laid into him. His head rebounded back off the headrest, my fist splattering his nose. His eyes shut again and he was out like a light.
In the maelstrom Lauren had taken off, lit out like a jackrabbit across the parking lot, heading for the stolen Camry. I was after her in a flash, my arms pumping, my legs launching me across the blacktop like a freight train. Lauren had long legs, and was keeping a good lead on me but I was still closing it with each stride.
Adrenaline flooded my veins. I was so close. Just a little bit farther and I'd have her. Then we'd be headed back to the Fortress and I could get work on bringing down Dalton Saylor. She slammed into the side of the stolen car, pure anger on her face as she looked back at me. She turned back to the driver door, slamming her elbow into the window, trying to shatter it.
I tackled her to the concrete before she could get going again. I wrapped her in a bear hug, twisting her body around so it was on top of mine as we slammed against the parking lot together. I took the brunt of the impact, but I didn't get care. Gravel dug into my arm, into my shoulders and back, but I barely felt it. All I knew was that her warm, kicking, yelling, biting body was in my arms again, and she was going to stay there till I got through her daddy's front gates.
“Let me go!” she screamed, slamming her head back into mine.
I twisted my face away, and her head cracked into my forehead.
Enraged at the sudden pain to the back of her head, she yelled for help as she continued the fight to break free.
I struggled to my feet, dragged with me till we were both standing. I picked her up around the waist, leaving her legs flailing and kicking in the air, and started to carry her back to the car. I had cuffs in my back pocket, but I knew trying to get to them now would just cause more problems. I needed her at the car before I tried something like that.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”
No one came, though. We were in a podunk parking lot in the middle of the desert. Nobody gave a shit about anyone out here. After what seemed like ages, I managed to get her back to the Camaro. I dropped her to her feet and promptly grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back as I slammed her as gently as I could into the steel Detroit body like I was auditioning for a 70s cop show. I grabbed the cuffs from my back pocket.
She oofed in surprise, the wind knocked from her. All she could do was groan in muted pain as I slapped the restraints on first one wrist, then grabbed the other and finished the job.
She struggled again, but I grabbed hold of her hair and yanked hard, producing a stunned yelp. “Listen,” I growled as I threw the passenger side door open, “I saved you from getting raped just now. Least you could do is show me some goddamn gratitude.”
“I don't want to go back to that madman,” she replied through clenched teeth. “You don't understand, Asa. I can't go home to him.”
“Doesn't matter if you think you can or can't,” I growled as I shoved her into the passenger seat and bent down to strap her in with the seat belt. “Because you don't get a fucking choice in the matter. Got it?”
She growled at me in frustration as she tried to struggle against her cuffs. I straightened up, dusted some of the dust and gravel from my clothes. Lauren's eyes locked with mine in a death stare as she looked up at me from the passenger seat. “I'm going to get away, Asa. I promise you I'll get away,” she promised. “Just like I have with all the other assholes he sent after me.”
A flash of Richie passed through my mind. My best friend who had ended up sacrificing everything to try and take her home to her daddy. He hadn't deserved what he got, and I don't think she even knew what had happened to him when he got there empty handed. I wondered briefly if she cared.
Right now, I didn't need to talk to her. Instead, I needed to get back on the road. We had more than twenty hours on the road still to go, and the night wasn't getting any younger. I just looked at her, my face transformed into a grimace. She flinched back as I slammed the door shut. I went around to the driver side and got in, started up the car.
“Please, Asa,” she nearly whispered as I went to pull out of the parking lot, “you can't take me back to him. I'll do anything.”
I just laughed. “I got business with your old man, Lauren, which means I need you. So, either you can ride up here with me in your cuffs, or you can ride in the trunk with your cuffs.”
She groaned and sat back in the seat, twisted her arms and shoulders to try and get a little more comfortable. She turned and stared out the window as we pulled out of the parking lot, watched as the men in the minivan started to move and tend to their wounds.
“Thanks,” she whispered after the grocery store was just a memory in my rear-view mirror. “For, you know, saving me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You're welcome. Figured you didn't deserve to get hurt like that.”
She just chuckled and went to looking out the window again. “Irony, much?”
I just shook my head and turned on the radio, trying to find something to keep the silence at bay. We needed to find a place to sleep for the night, and the nearest motels were out of the question after the stunt she pulled tonight. Meant we'd be lucky to find a place in less than a few hours.
We had a long drive ahead of us.
Chapter Nine
Lauren
We drove through a chunk of the night and finally ended up at another shitty motel just like the one I'd been living at for the past few months. Only difference was that this one was about a hundred miles farther West.
He stopped and leaned in through the driver’s side, jabbing his finger at me as he spoke. “Just remember, you get the cops called on me, they're gonna find out about you and that car. Gonna be as bad for me as it is for you.”
“Pretty sure kidnapping's worse,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at him.
“Maybe so, but I think I can pull down a couple years. You, girlie, you'd end up stuck, and your daddy would end up knowing exactly where you are. Just remember that.” He slammed the door shut and left me alone in the car as he went into check us into a room.
With him gone, I mentally went through what I could do to get away. I had my bobby pins in my hair still. When he'd yanked me back by the hair in the parking lot, he'd sprung a couple loose, but most of them had stayed put. I could use those, I figured, to get out of the cuffs. Provided, of course, that I could see them. But that meant I had to have my arms in front of me.
Unfortunately, I'd lost my run-bag when he captured me in the parking lot. All that money, all those credit cards, gone. Poof, up in my smoke. Some bag boy was going to be in for quite the surprise when he swept the lot tomorrow morning. What I needed to do, now, was to get his trust. And keep it. I knew one surefire way to get him to lower his guard, too. Only way I'd get it to work, would be if I didn't pull the same scam on him a third time.
He came back out from the little office, motel key dangling from his hands. He climbed back in the car, started it up, and pulled around to our room for the night. He climbed out of the driver seat, grabbed a bag from the back, then came around and got me.
“I'm going to unlock these cuffs,” he told me as he pulled me up from the passenger seat. “You get any ideas, and you make me chase you down, or you do anything else that's all fucky and bullshitty, I'm gonna make you sleep with your hands behind your back, alright?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied as he unlocked my cuffs. Absently, I rubbed my newly freed wrists, with angry red memories of where the bracelets had been tight against my skin. “Don't worry, Asa, I won't try anything. Like you said, I'm screwed if the cops find me. And where am I going to go this far out in the middle of nowhere.”
He chuckled as he stuffed his cuffs back in his rear pocket and grabbed my arm. “You know, I lied about going to Cali to become an actor earlier, but should be you going out there. You can act like nobody else, you know that?”
I flashed him a sweet smile as he led me from the Camaro to the motel room. He pulled the key from his pocket and thrust it into my hand. “You do it,” he ordered.
Just another order from another asshole who was trying to control my life. I made a face as I took the keys from him and unlocked the door. It swung open and I turned on the light, revealing a small, tidy motel room with a queen-sized bed and headboard, and an older flat screen TV. Sure, the place wasn't fancy or new, but it was at least clean. Honestly, it kind of reminded me of home. My most recent one, of course.
“Mind if I use the restroom?” I asked as he shoved me inside and shut the door behind us.
“Nothing fucky, Lauren. Remember what I told you?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I remember. So, you mind if I take a piss, or what?”
He waved his hand. “Nah, go ahead. But I swear to God, if you come at me with a plunger or some shit, I'm gonna make you sleep in the fucking bathtub.”
I put both hands to my cheeks and made a surprised face. “Oh, Asa,” I said in a false falsetto, “I can't believe you've figured out my clever escape plan already!”
“Just go piss,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed and groaned in exhaustion.
I knew the feeling. I went into the bathroom, pulled down my jeans and panties, and had a seat on the toilet. I'd been holding it since sometime around the time we passed Al's diner, and it was a relief to be able to finally go. I wiped and flushed, then got up and washed my hands.
He was pulling off his boots and placing them to the side as I walked out. “You take the bed,” he said groggily. “I'll sl
eep in the chair.”
I laughed. “Asa,” I said, “I've fucked you twice today. I think we're past the sleeping apart phase.”
The look he gave me was one part glare, one part search for truth.
I just shook my head and sat down on the bed next to him, began pulling my shoes off. “Seriously. I couldn't seduce you tonight if I tried. I'm fucking wiped, and I'm sore as all hell.”
“Sore?” he chuckled. “From what?”
I blushed crimson, suddenly embarrassed that he called me out on that. “You know exactly what I'm sore from,” I said.
He chuckled again. “Fair enough. I'd probably turn you down, anyways. Not sure if I could go that many times in one day, even if I was a Viagra salesman.”
