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I wonder how much longer the traffic light will be red. It’s a strange place, this.
A car pulls into the gas station on the other side of the pumps. It’s old and the back door is dented. Something that fits here, but would stand out anywhere else. Both driver and passenger glance our way and even through the closed windows, I smell the cigarette smoke. When he kills the engine, the music abruptly stops.
Our light turns green, but we don’t move. I notice my driver’s eyes in the mirror. See him stiffen, reach into his jacket. I wonder if he’s armed. He must be.
It’s just when I’m thinking this that a car pulls up, speeds up, slams into ours. I’m wearing my seatbelt but I’m jolted. My heart is racing. Alarm bells go off in my head. We need to drive, but I don’t think we can.
It’s a black sedan with heavily tinted windows. I’m thinking how it stands out here when three doors open, the passenger side and the two back doors, and men exit the sedan. One is wearing a black suit. He’s the one who catches my eye. The others are more casually dressed and before I can think, before I register what’s happening, the one in the suit is pulling my door open and his hand is wrapped around my arm like a vice. He drags me out of the car and my purse falls off my lap, the contents spilling onto the floor.
My driver is scooting across the front seat, reaching for the passenger door because the driver’s side door is jammed. He’s got blood on his face. He must have slammed it against the steering wheel when the car hit us.
I scream and try to grab onto the back of the driver’s seat, but I’m out of the car, falling to the ground. Pavement scrapes the skin of my knees open. Tires screech as a car speeds away. It’s the old vehicle with the couple inside. They’re hauling ass out of here, the gas tank still open, the hose ripping away, the scent of gasoline all I can smell.
The trunk pops open on the car that slammed into ours as the man in the suit drags me toward it. I’m fighting, one of my shoes is off my foot as I try to get a hold of something, anything, to stop him from taking me. The last thing I see before he hauls me up and drops me into the trunk is my driver finally stepping out, drawing a gun. But the others, they’re ready for him, and one of them raises his weapon. He takes aim. Fires.
I scream again, watch as my driver hits the ground.
The man in the suit shoves me back down when I sit up and when I try to fight him off, he slaps me so hard, my head hits the edge of the trunk. I’m dazed, something warm slides over my temple, down my cheek. It takes a minute for him to come back into focus and when he does, he’s grinning, and raising his fist and this time when he hits me, I don’t open my eyes. I don’t feel anything after the crushing pain on the side of my head. And all I smell is gasoline as he slams the trunk closed and I feel the car begin to move before I lose consciousness.21NatalieMy head is throbbing and my eyes feel like they’re glued shut. I can’t move right away and I’m not sure where I am. I’m lying on my side, I know that because I feel a rough fabric on my cheek. It stinks and I want to vomit, I feel like I might. And maybe I already have. Maybe that’s one of the scents I’m smelling. That and unclean bodies. Sex. The stench of it, of cigarettes and sweat and sex.
I turn my head, moan with the pain over my eye. Try to reach to touch it, but I can’t. Something cold circles my wrists and they’re bound up over my head. I force my eyes open and for a moment, the room spins. The threadbare blanket I’m lying on is a 1970’s orange/brown combination. The walls are yellow but I think they used to be white. On top of a beat-up desk is an old-fashioned box TV and there’s a jacket hanging over the back of the chair. It’s the only nice thing in here. There’s a can of Coke beside the TV and an ashtray full of cigarette butts. I roll onto my back and look up at the blobs of stains on the ceiling, then toward the large window with its curtains drawn shut. They match the blanket I’m lying on.
Footsteps outside, heavy ones, have me turning toward the door. My head throbs with the effort. It opens and a man I don’t recognize comes inside. He’s talking into a cell phone.
