Prisoner

by Annika Martin

She does give me advice, though. “They’ll be watching you. Not just the media, but the cops. The Feds. Wherever you go, whoever you call. You understand?”

  Maybe that’s why they let me go—to see if I lead them to the guys.

  There’s a part of me hoping for that. Maybe Grayson will decide to forgive me for trying to stop him from killing the governor. Maybe, now that he’s had his revenge, he’ll want to be with me. But I don’t get any calls. I think about finding him myself, just to see. To state my case or maybe beg him to take me back. It sounds kind of desperate, but that’s how I feel. Even if he turns me away, I want to try. Except I can’t go back to the Bradford Hotel if the Feds might be watching me.

  I had worried he’d feel broken once he killed the governor, but I’m the one who broke.

  My lawyer stands next to me at the press conference, which she suggested to quell the media attention. There’s a book offer that I refuse, much to my lawyer’s disappointment, but Esther understands.

  We celebrate afterward. We go to a restaurant before returning to the motel, but I feel like I’m in a world where I don’t belong—everything is fake, like living inside plastic wrap.

  I want to run to Grayson, to tell him I’m sorry and that I’m still with him, that I haven’t told anybody anything. But I’m being followed. I won’t be the weak link.

  You said you were strong enough. Even if I couldn’t be strong before, I’ll be strong for him now. So I act normal and happy when all I want to do is curl up back in Grayson’s shabby room and feel his stubble on my skin.

  Sometimes when I see light fixtures I think, That would be nice in the Bradford Hotel. But I can’t go back there, and I understand now that he won’t come for me. There was a time when it seemed as sure as the sunrise that he’d come for me, but I guess even the sunrise has to stop sometime.

  Chapter Forty

  ~Grayson~

  Anytime I’m out, my eyes are scanning faces, searching for her, and I know that’s how it will always be, because she changed me. Made me into something new. Made me hers.

  It’s national news. The trumped-up BS that the small-town cop said to her, about her being an accessory, was thrown out the window. They’ve figured out she’s the victim, which is true. They’re saying my guys and I killed the governor. They’re calling him a hero. Flags fly at half-mast. I want to rip every last one of them down off the poles.

  But even more than that, I want to let her know it wasn’t me, that I understood what she said to me. But Stone’s right—for all the beating I did on the man, I may as well have killed him in front of her.

  She’s better off without me. Better off free.

  Sometimes I follow her, just to make sure she seems okay. Out to eat with that lawyer. Going to the corner market by her motel. Walking at the park with her friend, the blind woman. She never even told me about her, which just shows I was deluded to think we had something. She’s being followed by Feds, but I don’t know if she knows that. I thought about getting a message to her, to tell her to be careful, but what does it matter? Abby doesn’t do anything illegal. She doesn’t need to be careful around the Feds.

  She had a shitty childhood and turned out good. I went the other direction.

  She hasn’t said anything about us, but just to be safe, we’ve temporarily moved out of the Bradford into the old mill where we sometimes stay.

  But if she went to the Bradford, I’d know she was looking for me. She never does.

  Hey, I’m happy for her. She’s going to be okay. Soon she’ll move back to her home near the Kingman, and I’ll never see her again. Back with her kind.

  She even looks happy. Why not? She’s not my prisoner anymore. Not getting shoved around by some lowlife who can’t keep his hands off her, whose idea of protection is terrifying her and drugging her and fucking her. Sometimes I wonder how much of what she said in the library was real, and how much was just Stockholm Syndrome. Temporary insanity. And that bit in the governor’s bedroom—I haven’t forgotten that, of course. I am strong enough. Strong enough to tell you no. Strong enough to know you’re better than this. Strong enough to motherfucking love you.

  Did she mean it? Or was she just trying to keep me from killing the man? I guess it worked.

  I’ll be honest: I think about taking her captive again. All the time.

  I think about the way she felt, struggling under my power out in the woods that day, and the way she collapsed underneath me in pleasure. I think about her in the library, the way she looked at me, rattling off those library terms. I think I could make her warm up to me again, just like she warmed up to me the first time, but I wouldn’t do it to her.

  She had that press conference where she said she was frightened for her life the whole time. Maybe she was.

  Either way, Stone was right. She was dangerous, because right now, I’m worse off than dead, and it’s all because of her—I miss her so much it makes me want to die. Stone promises I’ll feel better, but he doesn’t get it. There’s a hole in me, and wishing I could see her and touch her is all I have left to fill it.

  Rescuing those boys who are still captive out there, held by the ring that held us, is driving everything with us now, and it takes my mind off her sometimes. Because every day is about planning how to find them, working connections. We’re all freaking out that there are more boys. We know better than anyone what they’re going through. We have to get to them.

  I shadow her to a bookstore during a free afternoon—I’m wearing this stupid hat and glasses, but I’m a fugitive, and the disguise works. I browse right on the other side of the shelves from her. I’m so close I can hear her breathe, I can smell her honeysuckle scent, and my chest aches. The urge to shove through to the other side and grab her and take her away with me is so strong, I’m shaking.

  She buys a book of memoirs. Some painter from fifty years ago, and then she goes out and gets into a rental car and drives away. Passing the time. She’s stuck here for the duration of the trial. She can’t even return to college because of me.

  I go back into the store and get the same book. Stone asks about it when I get back to the mill. I shrug and say it looked interesting. I don’t tell him how the book connects me to her. It’s a little psycho; let’s face it. Maybe deep down I still have this hope she’ll come back, and poof, we’ll have something to talk about.

  But that won’t happen.

  It makes more and more sense that she was terrified the whole time. Maybe every time she looked at me like she wanted me, like she got hot for me, like she motherfucking loved me, it was coming from the fear.

  And so I do the only thing for her I can: I force myself to stop following her. I do what I promised I never would: I let her go.

  Chapter Forty-One

  ~Abigail~

  Two weeks later, plainclothes Feds show up at my motel room door.

  They bring me to a different jail, a federal holding center, for questioning. It’s not as nice, and I don’t get to make any calls for forty-eight hours—not even to my lawyer. They grill me—hard. I’m an accessory to the murder of the governor. They say they’ve got a witness whose identity is sealed. I need to tell what I know.

  I stick to my story. Finally I get to have my lawyer. She says the interrogation is bullshit, but she can’t make it go away. I can see in her eyes that she suspects I know more than I’m telling. I guess everybody thinks so. Maybe it was too much to expect them to believe Grayson dragged me across the nation and all over without my consent.

  I’ll never tell. I can’t stop thinking about young eyes staring out from the back of a milk carton, and nobody ever came for them, and nobody ever saved them.

  “You’ll do time,” my lawyer says. “Accessory to murder.”

  I don’t feel any pain, though. Just cold. I am an accessory to murder, just not the murder they think. In a way, it feels right to finally pay for letting my stepdad die. Killing him, really. I’m tired of carrying around the guilt of it. I deserve this. My lawyer pr
omises to get me out, but I’m not scared of prison. I’ve seen what it’s like inside. There are worse things.

  Worse prisons.

  “They’re trying to use this as leverage. So you’ll tell them what you know.” My lawyer pauses. “Can you give them something?”

  You said you were strong enough.

  I am strong enough. Strong enough to motherfucking love you.

  “No,” I tell her because I do love him. And I’m strong enough for this. “Nothing.”

  The days drag on.

  Esther begs me to reconsider, but I have to do this. A trial would only increase the chance of Grayson getting found out. So I take a plea bargain. A week later it’s settled: three years with good behavior.

  I’m almost relieved when they tell me the transport to the federal penitentiary will be arriving the next night. It’s been four weeks since I’ve seen Grayson, but it seems like four years. I’d give anything to talk with him again.

  To touch him.

  But I know that’s what the Feds want—for me to contact Grayson and lead them to him. They can rot in hell waiting.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  ~Grayson~

  In the days that pass, my guys and I plan and carry out a massive robbery in the northern suburbs—a gold bug hoarding gold. One of these end-of-worlders. It goes great, and gold is easy as shit to sell. Just melt it down and no one can tell the difference. We’re going after that judge, and those boys, but we need more money, equipment, time for planning smart. The gold will help, but I just can’t feel happy.

  I break down one day and go by her motel. The lights in her room are off. I go to the office and ask to rent the room. He hands me the key, and I go inside, even knowing what I’ll find of her. Nothing.

  I lie down on the bed she slept in, trying to feel her. How pathetic is that? Rent her old motel room just to…what?

  She’s moved back home, and that’s probably for the best.

  I return to my cave-like room, one of the offices at the old mill. I pour the Macallan down my throat at night trying to blot out the images of her.

  There’s a calendar from June of 1971 that’s still on the wall. I feel like that calendar, except my world stopped the last time I saw her.

  I hear a sound—the guys are back, way earlier than planned. They’d been celebrating after the recent heist. I should be worried, I guess, because that usually means somebody got into a fight or something, but I don’t have a lot of energy for emotion. They’ll tell me if they need me to help crack some skulls.

  “Hey.”

  I look up. Stone’s standing in the doorway. He has two sawed-off shotguns, one over each shoulder. He puts them down and comes in and takes the bottle from my hand. It’s a nightly ritual, him taking the bottle from me. It’s even kind of comforting.

  I flop on my back. “What’s up?”

  “We can’t come by for our little brother?”

  I roll my eyes. Little brother. I can see the worry in his eyes.

  “How fucked up are you right now?” he asks.

  I know what the question means. It means they need me for action. They’ve pulled together some last-minute caper. “I can shoot straight,” I tell him. “Run faster than you.”

  He gets this strange look.

  I sit up. “What?”

  He goes over to the crate in the corner and grabs my holster with my nine and tosses it to me. “We’re grabbing her up.”

  “Who?”

  “Abby. Is there another her you know?”

  Shock bolts me upright. “What?”

  “We’re grabbing her.”

  “What? No. She’s gone. We can’t.”

  He sighs. “She’s in a transport tonight. She’s been inside, Grayson. Inside a federal holding facility.”

  I stiffen. “What the fuck are you talking about? They didn’t press charges. I saw that with my own eyes.”

  “They didn’t press charges for the breakout,” Stone clarifies. “But they brought her up on accessory. For Dorman.”

  “What the hell? How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  And then I realize. He’s been keeping tabs on her. I made myself stop, but he’d kept going. “How long have they had her?”

  He sighs. “Two weeks.”

  Fury slices through me, along with pain. “She’s been inside two weeks, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I wanted to be sure,” he says. “See what she was made of.”

  He wanted to see if she’d rat us out. My heart pounds. She’s inside because of what I did. Abby, locked up. “Fuck.”

  “There’s more,” he says. “The night at the governor’s mansion…”

  I stand, not liking the sound of that.

  He sucks in a breath. “She didn’t want to leave that night. She wanted to come back with us, but I told her you didn’t want to see her again.”

  I’m on him in a flash, grabbing his collar. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “I let her think you killed him, and that you don’t want her anymore.”

  My fist connects with his face, and suddenly I’m on top of him, hitting him.

  “I’m sorry, man,” he gasps out, trying to shield himself. He can’t—I’m too full of rage and pain. And he won’t hit back. He knows he’s done wrong. It’s Calder who pulls me off and pins me to the wall.

  “He’s sorry!” Calder says.

  “You’re my fucking brother!” I say as Stone pulls himself up, spitting blood.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s all I’ve got.” He wipes his mouth with his arm. “That, and a truly badass plan to take down a transport.”

  “Fuck.” I pull on my holster and grab a sawed-off. “She doesn’t like closed spaces. She’ll be scared. She’ll hate to be locked up. What’s the time?”

  “Transport leaves in thirty,” Calder says.

  I get up nose to nose with Stone. I want to smash his face in some more, and I want to kiss him for pulling the gang into this. Getting us on board. He probably orchestrated it all with the guys. “Nobody touches her except me.”

  Stone nods.

  I get down to the main floor, and the guys are there, six of us, suited up—all except Nate; he’s back at his farm. “Could be a trick,” Calder says. “Wanting to smoke us out.”

  “Probably is a trick,” Stone says.

  “We’ll make them sorry they played it,” I say.

  Calder laughs. Then a couple of the other guys laugh. Yeah, it probably is a trick.

  * * *

  The highway is dark and not hugely busy. The transport is a modified van. Black. Tinted windows up front, none in back. They chose an eight p.m. transport, hoping to avoid rush hour. I sit in the passenger seat next to Stone, who drives the stolen Jeep Cherokee with determination. We’re in four vehicles.

  The wind through the open windows whips my hair. Can she feel me out here? Does she know I’m coming for her?

  Compared to taking down an armored car, taking down a prison transport is a piece of cake. We get a stolen car in front of them with a scrambler to block their radio. It’s a big fucking machine in the trunk and it only works at a range of twenty feet, but it blots out all communication.

  We spot the unmarked cars right away, and the guys go to work.

  A few shots. A few tires out. They drop back.

  After that, the transport is a sitting duck, there to be picked off, but we have to be fast to avoid a chase.

  Stone forces it off the road. The key is to get the vehicle disabled right away. He and Cruz jump out and run around to the sides, shooting wild for shock value, pulling the guards out and roughing them up. But all I can think about is Abby, frightened, not knowing what’s going on.

  Once the drivers are handled, Stone torches the rear door and I sledgehammer it open. And there she is. Alone. Hands cuffed. Prison orange.

  I get in. “Baby.”

  She stands. “Grayson,” she says, a sob in her voice. “You came.”

&nbs
p; “Of course I came.” I grab her face and kiss her wild, like the starving man that I am. “I didn’t know you were here. I thought you were home.”

  “No time,” Stone says.

  “Abby,” I say. “Do you want this? Do you want to come with me?”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Look where I am.”

  “No, I don’t want to be a better choice than prison. We can find a way to get you out, baby—I’ll go down for Dorman before I let you serve. What I’m asking is, do you want to come with me? Be with me? Like we were.”

  “Yes,” she says, sounding happy, almost laughing. “Yes!”

  Sirens in the distance. Cruz jingles a fistful of keys. I pull her into my arms and jump down. Stone has the door open. I carry her into the backseat and belt us in, with her on my lap still, because I’m not letting her go. Stone’s driving, and Cruz’s riding shotgun.

  “Shit’s gonna get rough,” I say.

  She looks into my eyes. She trusts me to protect her, and I will. She clings to my shirt with her cuffed hands as Stone peels out, fast as fuck.

  “Three minutes,” Cruz says. “We might be good.” Meaning, we might have avoided a chase.

  “That’s called motherfucking planning, brother,” Stone says.

  Abby’s not listening. “I couldn’t call you,” she says. She’s babbling, crying.

  “I know, baby.” I brush aside her hair.

  “They were tapping my phone, following me. But I knew you didn’t do it.”

  I set my forehead against hers, feeling like shit for not trusting her. “I gotcha now,” I say.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ~Abigail~

  I’m sitting in the turret room. Grayson pulled down the boards and put in a screen window so that the summer breeze can blow through.

  From here, I can see blocks and blocks of boarded-up ruins across the neighborhood, some looking decayed, others like an angry god smashed a fist through them. Greenery pokes out in unexpected places, nature trying to reclaim this space but turning it into something else instead. The beauty here is wild and dark. And it’s ours.