Diners, Dives & Dead Ends

by Terri L. Austin

  When I felt steadier, I drove to the college. In the IT office, Eric was in his usual spot and Steve occupied the corner, deeply engrossed in some crazy code bouncing across his screen. But Axton’s seat was empty. My heart sank to my stomach.

  “Where is he?” I heard the panicked edge to my voice.

  “Hey, Rose,” Eric said. “He’s in the restroom.” He stood from his chair and moved toward me. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to faint.” He placed a hand on my arm and gently moved me toward an empty chair.

  Steve hovered behind him with a water bottle in his hand. “Here, drink this.”

  I gave him a grateful smile and twisted off the lid, taking a long drink.

  “Just breathe.” Eric patted my back.

  Axton came through the door, his gaze taking in the scene. “What’s wrong? Rose, you okay?” He bent down in front of me, placing a hand on my knee.

  I burst into tears. Axton pulled me into a hug and I clung to him. I buried my face in his neck and sobbed. I couldn’t quit. The tears kept coming, along with little hiccups.

  Axton soothed me. “It’s okay, Rose. It’s okay.”

  Finally, the tears tapered off. Eric squatted next to me and handed me a tissue. Steve held the water bottle I must have dropped at some point and rubbed my back.

  I dabbed at my eyes with the tissue and tried to delicately blow my nose. Poor Axton’s T-shirt was drenched. “Sorry,” I said.

  “No worries.” He flashed his goofy grin. “What’s a little snot between friends?”

  I laughed a little. “I really missed you.”

  “I missed you, too. You’re my hero, Rose.” He kissed my forehead.

  “Stop.”

  “No touchy feely stuff. We’ll set her off again,” Eric said.

  Steve offered me the water bottle. I took it and drained it.

  “All better?” Eric smiled.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I looked back at Ax. “So, you’re not fired?”

  “Took my urine test this morning.”

  “Good. And by the way, I think it’s all settled. This Sullivan thing.”

  Eric frowned. “Did he contact you?”

  “I went to see him. At his house.”

  Gasps all around.

  “Rose, what did you do that for?” Axton ran a hand through his swirly, shaggy hair, making it stand on end. “And why didn’t you tell us you were going?”

  “I didn’t want anyone to stop me.”

  “That was a really dumb thing to do, Rose,” Steve said.

  “I returned his files and told him it would all go public if he didn’t leave me and mine alone.”

  Eric smiled. “You and yours, huh?”

  I blushed. “You know what I mean. My friends and family are off limits if he wants all that stuff to stay buried.”

  “Did he believe you?” Eric asked.

  “I hope so.”

  Axton looked at me, his eyes wide. “You aren’t just a hero, Rosie. You’re like She-Ra and Wonder Woman all rolled into one. I love you.”

  I stared into those blue eyes I’d missed so much. “I love you, too.”

  Steve cleared his throat. “I’m glad it’s over. For your sake, Rose. You’ll never have to see Sullivan again.”

  I glanced up at him and shrugged, thinking about Sullivan’s parting shot. “I guess we’ll see. I think I need to go home and get some sleep.” I stood up and hoisted my purse on my shoulder.

  “Sure you don’t want to go celebrate, Rose? Let’s go to The Carp,” Axton said, “and I’ll ply you with margaritas.”

  “How about Friday?”

  “You are so on,” he said.

  Chapter 34

  If I could bottle the dull personality that is Assistant Professor Carter and sell him to insomniacs, I’d be a millionaire. And perhaps win some kind of medical award. Sadly, I couldn’t do that, so instead I doodled in my notebook during accounting class, in an effort not to die of boredom.

  During the break, Janelle filled me in on her kids, Asshat, and his skanky new girlfriend, Flat Ass. Chicken Licker was history.

  Same shit, different day. And I loved every normal, routine, ordinary minute of it.

  I drove home feeling lighter than I had in days, maybe even months. With Axton, Pack, and Sullivan out of the way, I could concentrate on what I’d been avoiding. My own future.

  The last two weeks proved to me how much I can accomplish when I’m proactive. I’d been sleepwalking through the last few years of my life. A big part of it was a screw you to my parents, but it was time to grow up and move on. Time to pick a major and go for it. Get a degree, maybe even a job with a nice perk package, although I didn’t want to think about leaving Ma and Roxy. But a bigger apartment with a separate bed and sofa would be nice.

  I pulled into my parking lot and automatically scanned for any wayward underlings. All clear on that front. It might be weeks before I dropped that habit.

  As I approached the entrance, a man stepped out of the shadows. “Hey, Rose.”

  I froze for a second, then breathed a sigh of relief. “Steve, what are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.” He pushed at his glasses, the parking lot lights reflecting off the lenses. “I thought you might like to grab a cup of coffee.” He walked toward me with a crooked smile.

  “It’s really late.”

  Disappointment and anger clouded his features. “You’ll never have time for me, will you? Not like Axton or that lawyer or Sullivan. What more do I need to do to get your attention?”

  Awareness hit me and in a flash I knew. God, had I been stupid. Steve broke my car window. Steve trashed my apartment. “It was you,” I said.

  The look on his face scared the crap out of me.

  I turned to run, but he jerked me back by my ponytail. “Why not me?” He rubbed his cheek against mine.

  I screamed and he slapped a hand over my mouth. “Shhh, be still,” he whispered. He let go of my ponytail and snaked his arm around my still bruised ribs and squeezed. He began pulling me away from the building.

  I kicked at him with my heels, tried to pry his hand off my mouth, tried to bite his palm. It didn’t matter. He was much stronger than he looked. He carried me to his car as if I was no more than a toddler throwing a tantrum. He’d parked around the back of the building where the dumpsters were.

  His arm still around my waist, he released my mouth and I screamed. When he slapped his hand over my mouth this time, he wasn’t as gentle. “Shut up, Rose,” he said, calmly. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

  Steve-freaking-Gunderson was kidnapping me.

  He removed his hand and opened the trunk to grab a bungee cord lying on the floor of the cargo area.

  I screamed again.

  Then I lost consciousness.

  The left side of my face throbbed. I’d never felt pain like that before, and if I had my way, I never would again. He clocked me so hard, I was afraid my jaw was broken.

  I slowly opened my eyes. I was bound in a fetal position on a concrete floor. A basement, maybe. My hands, tied tight in front of me, were tingling. My feet were also tied together.

  I tried to pry my wrists apart, but the knots held firm.

  I struggled to sit up and the pain was blinding. Bile rose up, but I choked it back, trying not to pass out. Gray concrete walls and floor surrounded me. There was a cheap wooden door on the wall in front of me and a bare half window to my left. A furnace and hot water tank sat in one corner. The only light in the room came from a single old fashioned bulb dangling above my head. The basement was completely bare of furniture, appliances, boxes, or tools.

  I didn’t see my bag anywhere, either. So no pepper spray or stun gun to subdue Steve.

  The floorboards above me squeaked. A minute later the door in front of me opened and Steve stepped into the room with a plastic container in his hands. He walked gingerly, so as not to upset whatever was in the bowl.

  He squatted before me, setting the
bowl down next to him. It contained water and a washcloth. He squeezed water out of the rag and brought it toward my face.

  I flinched and backed away. Then I steeled myself, vowing I wouldn’t show my fear again.

  “I just want to put this on your jaw, Rose. I’m so sorry I had to hit you.” He applied the cool cloth to my face.

  “You didn’t have to,” I said. My jaw ached with every word.

  “You didn’t leave me any choice. I couldn’t let you scream, now could I?” He sounded so calm and reasonable. He wasn’t hiding anger the way Sullivan had. Steve was perfectly pleasant — it wasn’t an act. Chills crept up my spine.

  “Why am I here, Steve?” I had nothing to fight him with, not even my body at this point. The only thing I could do was keep reminding him that I was Rose, a person, someone he knew and kind of liked.

  “Because this is the only way I can get your attention. With Axton back, I knew I wouldn’t see you anymore.” He wet the rag, wrung it out, and reapplied it to my bruised, swollen skin.

  “You could have gotten it another way, Steve.”

  He pulled the rag away and gave me a cold look. “Don’t pull that bullshit, Rose. I asked you out and you kept turning me down.”

  “So you kidnapped me instead?”

  He brought the cloth back to my jaw. “I tried to get your attention other ways. But you always ignored me.” He used a little more force when he said the words, causing me to groan and pull back.

  “Sorry.” He immediately regulated the pressure.

  “What ways?”

  “I saw Sullivan come out of your apartment. Be honest, Rose, you had more of a relationship with him than you let on. And that lawyer was up in your apartment for a long time. That’s the night I broke your car window. I didn’t want to, but knowing he’d touched you made me so angry.”

  “We just talked. And I’ve never had a relationship with Sullivan.”

  “I won’t tolerate lying. Be honest with me.”

  “I’m serious, Steve. I never even kissed Sullivan.”

  He continued to stare at me before smiling once again. “Okay then, but you let the lawyer fuck you, right?” He dipped the rag and brought it back to my jaw.

  Oh my dear Lord, I was dealing with a psycho. How could I have not seen that he was crazy pants? He’d seemed like a perfectly nice guy.

  “Rose,” he said in a conversational tone, “did you fuck him?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Good.” He dropped the rag back into the bowl with a plop. Water splashed over my knee and onto the floor. “What about that guy from the band, the one with the holes in his ears? I saw him outside your apartment, along with the lawyer the other night. Were you doing both of them at the same time?”

  “No.”

  He reached out and stroked my hair. “You’re so beautiful. Every man wants you, Rose. Even Eric.”

  “Steve,” I said, phrasing my words carefully. “Eric is just my friend.”

  His hand left my hair and strayed to my neck, which was still bruised from the other night’s fiasco. “I know. But he wants to be so much more.” He brushed his thumb over my collar bone. “I drove by and saw you at his house. I looked through the window and watched the two of you hug and kiss.”

  “I don’t remember—”

  “That was the night I broke into your apartment. I was so upset you let him hold you like that. I regret my lack of self-control.”

  I suddenly felt very cold. Kidnapping me, hitting me, tying me up in his basement — that wasn’t a lack of self-control?

  “I forgive you. Maybe if you untie me, we can talk like two people. Like Rose and Steve,” I said, as casually as I could manage.

  “Right. I went to all this trouble to get you here and I’m just going to untie you?” He pushed his face toward mine, his eyes hard behind his lenses, his lips compressed. “Do not treat me like a fool.”

  Panic started to rise and I thought I might start hyperventilating. I inhaled as slowly as I could, then exhaled. “I won’t. But why am I here, Steve?”

  He ran a finger along my bruised jaw. “I want to give you the chance to get to know me. You never gave me a chance. There are things I want you to know. Things I want to say to you.”

  “I want to get to know you,” I said as sincerely as I could muster.

  He smiled. “Good. We’ll have lots of time together.”

  It hit me then that he didn’t intend for me to ever leave. He would never let me go. He’d either kill me or keep me a prisoner in this basement forever. I felt tears sting my eyes and blinked rapidly to keep them from falling.

  I wanted to keep him talking. Knowledge was power, I reminded myself. “You can say anything to me, Steve.”

  He sat back on his heels and regarded me with steady eyes. “No,” he said after several minutes, “I don’t think you’re ready to listen yet.” He picked up his bowl and left. I heard a lock slam into place.

  Hours passed. The pain in my face dulled to throbbing ache. When he came back it was still dark out. This time he brought a bottle of water, a handful of tissues, and an empty bowl. “I figured you might need to go to the little girl’s room,” he said, setting the bowl on the floor.

  I held out my hands for him to untie me. My stomach clenched. How was I going to subdue him and get out of here with my feet bound? I didn’t know, but this might be my chance to get free.

  “No.” He smiled. “I’ll help you.”

  I didn’t want him touching me, let alone see me with my pants down. But I had to pee, so I decided to suck it up. Since he’d last left, I had resolved to do whatever it took to stay alive. I knew it would get much worse than this. My only goal was survival.

  I focused on a crack in the wall as he unfastened my jeans and yanked them down. Although he seemed clinical and detached from the whole process, having him touch me like that was the most humiliating moment of my life.

  When it was over, he unscrewed the water bottle and held it to my mouth. I eagerly drank a third of the bottle, dribbling a little on my chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. Then he left, taking the bottle and the pee bowl with him.

  I managed to doze off and on, but awoke every time my chin dipped toward my chest.

  I kept an eye on the window. It was too small to crawl through, and we were too far below ground to actually see anything but tall grass, but I could tell it wasn’t as dark now, and slowly, light crept into the room.

  Steve came down again with the bottle of water in one hand and a small white pill in the other. “This is a sleeping pill. Open up.”

  I clamped my mouth shut, my jaw screaming at me the entire time.

  “If you don’t take this I’m going to have to knock you out again.”

  I quickly thought about another knock to my jaw and decided to take the pill. I opened my mouth and he gently placed it on my tongue. Then he gave me a sip of water and pinched my nose. I held the water in my mouth until I ran out of breath. I swallowed, then sputtered and coughed.

  “I’m going to leave the bottle here with the cap off,” he said, setting it down next to me. “Do you need to use the restroom before I leave?”

  I hastily shook my head. “Where are you going?”

  “To work, of course.”

  He left and slid the lock into place.

  Fifteen minutes. That’s about all I had before the pill would hit me. I scooted my butt backwards until my back hit the wall next to the door.

  Sharp needles dug into my hands and feet. Ignoring the pain, I pressed my back against the wall, and using my feet, pushed myself to a standing position. Then I began bending my legs, shaking my bootie, straightening my bound hands over my head. Anything to keep the pill from working. I did this until my muscles ached. A thin film of perspiration covered me, sweat pooling around my bound wrists. I felt the drug making me sluggish, sleepy.

  I needed to keep my body moving.

  Out of breath, I slid back to the floor, sitting
in the butterfly position, with my bound feet pulled as close to my butt as I could manage, my knees slightly spread. I began trying to work the knot at my ankles. Whenever I felt myself drifting off, I hit my face. Hard. The pain helped keep me focused.

  I drifted between a groggy state of exhaustion and a jittery state of panic. The shadows moved over the floor and I knew it must be afternoon. I didn’t know how much more time I had left, but I had to get these damn knots undone before Steve came back.

  I needed to break the glass in the window and use a shard to cut through the cords, but I had nothing to stand on. The light bulb, however, wasn’t that far above my head. If I jumped, I could reach it. Maybe bat it with my hands. Whack hard enough, maybe I could smash it against the ceiling.

  I shimmied my way up the wall again and took a second to let my legs and feet get past the pain and prickling sensations. Then with all the concentration I could muster — which was not much, because, dear Lord, I was so tired — I hopped to the middle of the room and jumped as high as I could, my arms over my head swinging at the light bulb piñata.

  It took four tries, but I got it swaying back and forth. Like playing tether ball in grade school, I had to jump and swat at just the right time.

  It was so close to hitting the ceiling, but missed by just a hair. I kept at it. Jump, hit, jump, hit. Over and over.

  I didn’t break it against the ceiling. It finally broke by banging into the metal hook on the bungee cord. Sparks flew, and so did little shards of glass. Turning my head, I covered my face with my upraised arms to avoid getting cut.

  Yes, I had done it! Now I just had to saw the cord off my wrists. I sank back to the floor and found a shard that was about an inch and a half long. Sitting in the butterfly position again, I wedged the shard in between the coils around my ankles. I cut my hand in the process, but didn’t care.

  I tried to saw through the cord at my wrists quickly, but broke the delicate glass. Muttering a string of swear words, I picked up another shard, and pulled the bungee cord against it more slowly this time. I checked my progress. The cord was slightly frayed. It took patience, but eventually, I made it halfway through the cord.