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r /> The man says nothing but continues to stare at me for a long time.
“Get the fuck up,” he finally orders.
Dread courses through me. I can hear it too. It’s louder than my own heartbeat which is thudding in my ears like the heel of a hand beating out an unsteady rhythm on a drum.
I freeze.
“Get up, and take off your fucking clothes.”
My stomach rolls. My eyes widen. My pulse quickens and my fingers begin to twitch. “Please,” I beg. “No. No. Please no. Don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Get. Up.” This time, he repeats it through tightly clenched teeth.
He lifts me off the floor. His hands are large and rough as they wrap around my shoulders. I kick against him, but he subdues me easily, turning me around so my back is pressed tightly to his chest.
I’m trembling as he shoves his hand into a hole in my sweater and yanks. “No!” I yell as he tears what’s left of my school uniform from my body, the sound of ripping fabric slicing through my last shred of hope. I’d rather have him take my limbs then take my body by force. I’m weeping for the first time in my entire life.
The man moves to my skirt next, and it only takes a few tugs at the seam before it, too, is in shreds, and I’m standing before him in only my panties and sports bra.
I’m terrified, but I resist the urge to cover myself with my arms. I tell myself that when it comes to it, I’ll fight him off with all I’ve got, but if that doesn’t work, which given our size and strength difference seems likely, then I’ll try and think of a happier place and happier times. It doesn’t take me long to realize that won’t work either. I haven’t had a real happy time since…well, ever.
His fingers trace the thick strap of my sports bra. I suck in a strangled breath. The hair on the backs of my arms stands on end. He chuckles as he circles me.
“As I said,” he whispers, “so smart, yet so fucking stupid.”
“What…what are you going to do to me?” I manage to squeak out. The heat from his chest warms my back as he comes to stand behind me once more. “I’ll fight back. I won’t let you. Please. Please don’t…”
“Please don’t what?” he asks, coming to stand in front of me, crossing his big muscular arms over his chest. He’s looking down at me at me as if my very presence offends him.
“Please. Just… don’t.” I can’t find the right words, but I hope it’s enough. I close my eyes and drop my chin to my chest. I’m pushed backward. I land harshly onto a rickety wooden chair with legs almost as wobbly as mine. My tailbone screams out in pain but it’s nothing compared to the pain of not being able to do a damn thing to save myself. “Cut me or even kill me if you have to, just don’t do...that. Please.”
He looks me over like a spider assessing the fly caught in his web. Panic rises in my chest and gets stuck in my throat. I try, but I can’t swallow it down. I’m prepared for most things, but I’m not prepared for that. No one could be.
He comes closer. His knees bump against mine. I open my mouth to scream, but he covers it with his hand. “Have it your way, hellion.”
Suddenly, there’s a gun pressed to my forehead.
* * *
I go blank.I register nothing but white, then the man standing above me holding a gun to my head. The image is shifting in and out of focus.
“I’m not going to suddenly be able to deliver my father to you just because you have a gun to my head,” a much stronger version of myself says.
My heart is trembling in fear, but my soul wants to fight like a suicidal gladiator and I want to live because I have to live. I’ve spent several years fighting for the lives of others and if I die, they die.
I shut my eyes tightly, preparing for the end. I make silent apologies to all the people I’ve never met who don’t even know they’re counting on me.
I’m so sorry I failed you.
I’m wondering what it’s going to feel like, if anything at all, when the bullet sends bits of my brain splattering onto the wall behind me.
“I hope I make a big fucking mess, and you have to clean it up yourself.” I say, coming back into my body, and staring up into his dark evil pools. The corner of his eyes wrinkle like a smile that doesn’t reach his lips.
My heart is hammering in my chest when his phone buzzes, and he answers it on speaker without saying a word.
“Smoke,” the man on the other end greets.
“Griff,” Smoke replies, gruffly.
Smoke. My kidnapper’s name is Smoke. And Griff? Where have I heard that name before?
“The bitch talking, yet?”
“Not yet,” Smoke says, cocking the gun. He pushes the barrel harder into my skin until I’m pressing my head against the back of the chair as far as it will go. “I’m working on it.”
It’s not far enough.
“Send the pictures,” Griff demands, sounding as if he’s talking through a stuffy nose.
Smoke holds up the phone and snaps a few pictures of me with the gun to my head. He taps out a few keys then returns the phone to speaker. “Sent.”
“I’ll make sure they get sent to anyone who’s ever had contact with Frank Helburn. One way or another he’ll get them and more importantly he’ll get the message. Show your face or the bitch dies.” Griff says, sounding pleased with himself.
He can be pleased with himself all he wants. It’s not going to work.
“You’ve got your picture. Flush the fucker out,” Smoke says.
“We’ll wait a week. If it doesn’t work we’ll throw her off the Skyway Bridge and come up with another plan,” Griff says. “Better yet. Hang onto her for a week. Take out your pound of flesh as you see fit then bring the girl to me.”
“I can end things just fine on my own.”
“You owe me, Smoke. If he shows his face he’s yours. If he doesn’t, you have one week. Then the girl is mine.”
Smoke grunts in agreement then hangs up. The gun leaves my head. He throws the phone into the drywall where it makes a pizza-sized hole.
I exhale the longest held breath in history and drop my chin to my chest. I’m shivering from both fear and adrenaline.
I’m still trying to catch my breath when something soft connects with my head. Another something falls on top of my bare feet. I’m surprised to find it’s a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.
“Put those on,” Smoke orders, shoving things into his duffle bag.
When I don’t move right away, he gives my body a slow once-over. For a second, I think I see heat in his eyes, and my entire body tenses, remembering my earlier fear.
“You have two fucking seconds to put those on before I take them away and you spend the next week naked.”
I scramble as fast as I can to pull the jeans over my legs and the shirt over my head. The fabric of both is soft and stretchy, but still feels like sandpaper against my bruises and scabs. Regardless, I’m grateful to be covered again.
One week.
Just like that, my death sentence has been temporarily extended. I have seven days to figure out a plan. To escape. Whether I do it through bribery or by figuring out which god is the right one to pray to. Lucky for me, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, and I’ll use every single one of them if I have to.
I’m fully dressed, but I’m unsure of what to do next. Smoke comes over and pushes me back down into the chair and pulls my arm down, cuffing my wrist to one of the legs.
“I see that look in your eyes,” he says. “It’s best you put an end to that shit right now.”
“What look is that?” I ask.
“Hope. It ain’t gonna do you no fucking good. Not with me. It’s best you stick to fear. Hope may feel like the beginning, but it
