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A face covered in dirt, and skin soaked in urine and filth.
“Help me,” I whispered.
The effort to speak stretched the dry, tender skin of my lips. The copper penny taste of blood filled my mouth.
She awkwardly squatted on the ground next to me and removed her brown leather jacket and gently covered my upper half with it.
There was a chill in the air, and her blue dress was sleeveless. Goosebumps broke out all along her upper arms.
She pulled her phone out of her purse. A few moments later, she was barking orders at the 911 operator.
There was a giant black hole of time in my memory. Whatever the doctor had given me had rendered me unconscious for the entire drive from Valley of Hearts to Waco.
I didn’t even remember Juan picking me up.
I was glad I couldn’t remember the drive across the border. I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to endure being trapped again.
My wrists were unbound, but I didn’t have the strength to lift myself off the asphalt even though it was digging into my exposed flesh.
If I thought too much about it, I might’ve been embarrassed at my state of undress. But the old Linden, the modest Linden, the Linden who cared how she presented herself to the world, didn’t care about the fact that her breasts were on display.
Now I was raw, abandoned, left out in the sun like decomposing garbage.
The pavement scraped my bare skin.
Mia’s voice was strong and sure as she gave the operator the address to Shelly’s.
Of course, I thought. Why not dump me right in front of the place where I’d been kidnapped? It was Dante’s way of letting the club know he was in complete control and could do as he pleased, right under their noses. What a perfect, sinister message to send.
Mia hung up and reached out to stroke my head.
I recoiled instantly and she pulled her hand back like a feral animal had bitten her.
“Ambulance should be here soon,” she said, keeping her voice flat and devoid of emotion.
I didn’t bother trying to reply.
With her eyes trained on me, she pressed a button on her phone and then put it to her ear. “Colt.”
Her voice broke on his name, and then she bent her head. I wondered if it was to hide her tears. I closed my eyes and tuned out the sound of her anguish as she relayed the state she’d found me in.
Why didshehave anything to cry about?
She wasn’t the one who’d been tortured. Her life hadn’t gone up in smoke like mine had the moment Dante smashed my hand with a mallet.
I was the shallow husk of what I used to be, not her.
A kernel of anger blistered hot within me, but only for a moment. And then it died out, hissing, like water thrown onto a heated coal.
In the distance, I heard the wail of the ambulance siren.
Her eyes searched mine. “What the fuck happened to you?” she asked softly, her phone still clenched in her fist.
“You can’t figure it out?” I asked, my tone cold.
I was trapped in the prison of my mind, and even though my body was on the parking lot in front of Shelly’s, my psyche was still on the floor of that rat-infested shithole of a jail cell.
Mia fell silent and didn’t speak to me again.
