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"Yeah," I agreed, not bothering to mention all the heinous, awful things that could happen to anyone, especially a woman in the span of forty minutes. Paine didn't need that; he already knew and it wouldn't help either of our moods to bring it up.
It was strange for me to feel the endless pit of fear and worry inside. I was never that guy. I was the guy who, as Breaker would put it, was "incapable of taking serious shit seriously". I didn't get worked up. I certainly never got practically crippled by it. Even among the chaos of shit I had been involved in personally and professionally, I always managed to stay calm, keep my wits, go in cool.
All of that was ripped away with the endless loop of a flailing, screaming, terrified Amelia being torn away from the place she thought was a safe haven playing through my head. I never should have left her alone, not even for five minutes. What the fuck had I been thinking being too busy playing house with her to remember she was in fucking danger? She was paying the price because I didn't have my fucking head in the game. If anything happened to her... anything... I would never forgive myself for it.
Then a thought crossed my mind that had a strange, unfamiliar tightening feeling squeezing in my chest: she was right to think she didn't belong. She was a good girl; I lived in a bad world. I called people friends who had connections in street gangs, who beat people for a living, who could assemble a small, lawless army within minutes of a call. She wasn't ever going to be as safe with me as she would be with another man, someone with a vanilla job, someone who didn't need to carry a gun on their body at all times.
When I got her free, when I fixed her situation, I had to let her go. It was selfish to keep her when I knew I was no good for her.
That tightening thing in my chest intensified and I gritted my teeth, realizing that it was a feeling I was going to be intimately acquainted with once all was said and done.
Fuck.EighteenAmeliaI wasn't hooded. Heck, there wasn't even tinting on the windows of the car I had been shoved into. I guess what did it matter to them if I saw what we passed when I wasn't familiar with any of it anyway? I was wedged between Luis' two big goons in the backseat, their bodies touching me from shoulder to toes. I couldn't even wiggle, let alone fight. In the front, another one of Luis' men was driving; he himself was sitting passenger. There was a sad Spanish song on the radio and the man to my left was humming along. It was all so... normal. It was like they did this kind of thing every day; kidnapping unsuspecting women didn't seem to bother them in the least.
I had fought originally. Back in Johnnie's kitchen, I had flailed, kicked, hit, slapped, clawed, and bit. It wasn't that I actually knew what I was doing; I didn't. I was stalling. I was trying to give it a couple minutes for Johnnie to come home, to come in guns blazing, to save the day. I knew, I just knew he would do that. But then Luis got sick of my struggling and his two mountains of muscle came in, each grabbing me by an arm and dragging me out of the only place I had any hope of being safe in.
When we hit the street, I started fighting again, harder, screaming so loud that my throat felt like I was swallowing razorblades, trying to draw attention from people on the street. But we were only on that main drag for a few seconds before I was being pulled down a side street toward a waiting car.
That brought us up to right then, driving down a really seedy looking town, making me almost feel a little grateful that there were four big men around me. That was ridiculous, of course, seeing as I had no idea what Luis had in store for me. For all I knew, these men who made me feel momentarily safe from the dangerous streets were planning on raping, beating, and killing me. I didn't want to think Luis was capable of that. I had spent many hours across a table from him, discussing little things, being somewhat annoyed by his arrogance and his need to order for me, but otherwise not entirely unpleasant.
Then, one had to factor in that his interest in me wasn't actually about me at all. I was just a body double. I was the doppelganger of some girl who overdosed on heroin to get away from him. And that, well, that didn't exactly say good things about how Luis treated her, did it?
I let out a sigh that made Luis turn slightly in his seat. "What's wrong, darling?"
Augh. Gross.
"Things are a bit... tight back here," I said instead, trying and failing to free my shoulder from behind the big guy to my right.
"Yes, sorry about that Amelia. But it won't be for too much longer."
I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be comforting or not. I dropped my gaze to my lap because I was pretty sure if my eyes connected with any of theirs, they would see my very strong urge to skin them all alive... with a very dull knife. I'd never considered myself a violent person. I had never been in a fight. I had never fantasized about hauling off and hitting someone. I had certainly never felt the urge to flay someone before. But, then again, I had never been kidnapped and made an accomplice to a drug-related felony either. So, yeah, I was feeling a wee bit murderous.
That being said, I wasn't stupid enough to even think that was a possibility. I was out-manned by people who could probably break me like a twig if they needed to. So I had to settle for what little damage I had already inflicted. That included the claw marks at the guy on my left's cheek and a pretty nasty looking bite mark on the back of Luis' hand. It wasn't bad. At least I knew I got the better of them albeit for a very small amount of time. That was something to be proud of.
