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REESE
“Heh. He looks like a dead fish,” a second voice says. Two pairs of feet come around into my immediate vision. Because I can’t move, the only thing I can do is stare ahead and barely angle my eyes upward. I can’t even get a good look at these two goons’ faces.
“Dunno what Holly sees in him, but I guess for the amount of money we’re about to get out of him, it’ll be worth it, eh?”
“Better be. Come on. Let’s lug this fucker into the truck. Don’t need some busboy coming to take out the trash finding this shit. Holly said she didn’t want a scene unless there had to be.”
The other lets out a grunt of affirmation. After some maneuvering, a sack of some sort is shoved over my head, plunging me into darkness. They have to work together to haul me up from the ground but they manage to do it.
I try to absorb every detail. The click of a van door sliding open. The smell of old cigarettes burned into the upholstery.
Nothing else about my surroundings tells me a goddamn thing about these people. In the dark, I can’t take in anything other than what I can see and hear and smell. And that’s not a whole hell of a lot.
The two fucks get into the vehicle, slamming their doors and cranking up the engine not long after. If they have a conversation, I don’t know about it. They turn up the music, filling the truck with the blaring thud of heavy metal.
We drive for hours. At least, it feels that way. I roll to one side and then the other, and any hope I had of tracking the turns is extinguished almost immediately. All I can do is try not to vomit. If shit comes up my throat while I’m paralyzed by whatever the hell they stuck me with, I’ll die in the back of this godforsaken truck.
I’m starting to get the feeling back in the tips of my fingers when we come to a screeching halt. My face slams against the console between the front seats. My eyes sting and the familiar thudding pain of a broken nose pulses through me.
The music cuts suddenly and the two men get out of the car. Their feet crunch over what sounds like gravel. A door rips open. Cold air on my skin.
I’m jerked out of the vehicle, each one of them taking an arm. Something creaks, like a rusty door on hinges that don’t want to move. The night breeze cuts. I think we’re inside, but I couldn’t guess where or what we’re doing. All I hear is echoes.
I’m vaguely aware of being shoved into a chair and tied in place. A thick rope is drawn across my chest and knotted around the back.
“Yeah, make it tight. Don’t need the stuff wearing off and this fucker getting away. Come on. Let’s set up while we wait for Holly. He’ll be about ready to start moving by the time she gets here.”
I decide to bide my time. It’s not like I can do anything else for now until this shit wears off. They haven’t even taken the sack on my head off yet. It’s too thick to see through, so everything is still dark except for the small amount of light that creeps in from under the hood.
In frustration, I manage to let out a soft growl. The first sign that I’m gaining control over my own body.
“Hey! Shut up over there or we’ll hit you with something you really ain’t gonna like.”
Oh, fuck off. It’s easy to make demands and give orders when the person you’re doing it to can’t even move.
I sit and wait, listening to them shuffle around together doing God knows what. As they’re finishing up, my palms start to feel fuzzy, like when you lie for too long on one of your limbs and suddenly let the blood begin to flow again. I’m able to flex my fingers and, when I try, I can move my mouth too.
“Mm…”
“Ah, I see you’re coming to. Good.”
The clicking of heels grows closer and closer to me before a hand slides across my shoulders. I tense—another sign that my control of my body is coming back to me. A feminine chuckle tickles my ears and I make a slow, sluggish movement away from the very obvious press of a woman behind me.
“Now, now, dear. Don’t be so stiff with me. I am the mother of our child, after all.”
Suddenly, light fills my vision as the sack is tugged off my head. The flood of fluorescents sends a stabbing pain through my eyeballs.
It takes a long few blinks to get my vision oriented. When I do, I see someone I never wanted to see again.
Holly is dressed like some femme fatale. Skintight black dress and her legs leading down to shiny red pumps. If this is what she presented to me when we met, I can see why I went for her.
I’m also hating that I did. My past self was a fucking simpleton and the only good thing to come out of it is the fact that Violet is my daughter.
I glare at her. Good—facial expressions are back in town. “You fucking bitch.” Speech works, too.
Holly smirks at me. A clawed hand reaches out and grips my face. Her nails dig into my cheeks. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to your wife.”
I jerk my head from her grip. “You’re not my fucking wife.”
