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“Scream and I’ll blow your fucking brains out.” He presses the gun harder against my head and I flinch. “Drive.” I inhale a shaky breath and gently press on the accelerator, my mind running through a dozen different scenarios of how to get out of this, but nothing seems possible with the gun pressed against my head. I drive straight past the school, my stomach churning with the thought of how Blake will feel when I’m not there to pick him up at three. A tear slides down my face and my hands shake as I steer the car the direction he tells me.
Once we are out in the country, Hank climbs over the middle console and sits himself in the passenger seat, keeping the gun trained on me.
“Did those cops really think they couldtrickme?” He asks, waving the gun around.
“I-I-I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
“Pretending to be a buyer in my chat room, thinking they could schedule a meet. How stupid do they think I am?” He punctuates his question with a slam of his fist on the dashboard and I jump, the wheel jerking with my movement, the car lurching into the other lane before I can correct it.
“They don’t think you’re stupid. They think what you’re doing is wrong.”
We’re about five miles out of town now and he directs me to pull into a clearing that is covered with thick brush and bushes on each side. I carefully pull through, branches scraping my windows. We bump along the dirt road and a small barn comes into view. There’s nothing around us for miles, no neighbors and nothing else around us. Panic starts to creep in as I slow to a stop in front of the large barn door. I put it in park and he orders me out of the car, grabbing my keys from the ignition and pocketing them. I scramble out and he rounds the hood to meet me, stepping into my space and slamming me up against the car.
“Knew when I got my hands on you last time I shoulda just fuckin’ killed you, bitch,” he says, wedging his knee between my legs and roughly gripping my hip. I can feel his erection straining against my hip and my stomach rolls. He abruptly steps back and my body sways in relief. “Walk.”
Hank points me towards the side of the barn where there’s a small door and he opens it, shoving me inside. I stumble over the threshold, righting myself and squinting my eyes as they try to adjust to the darkness. I gasp.
“Mama!” I cry out and race to where she is, wrists bound and tied to some contraption that’s hanging from the ceiling, body slumped over in the chair she’s in. I drop down on my knees in front of her, the rough gravel scraping at my bare skin. Her face is bruised and bloody and she looks far skinnier than she did before.
“Ave-Avery,” she whispers and her eyes flicker but don’t open.
“What have you done?!” I scream at Hank, but he just smiles.
“Your mama and I have been havin’ a lotta fun, ain’t that right Dana?” He saunters over, using the gun to tilt her chin up before letting her head flop back down. “Did you know your mama was my best workin’ girl?” He asks, walking around us in lazy circles. “She was a knockout. Men callin’ for her left and right. But the drugs,” he says, tsk tsking, “the drugs took a toll on her body. She could still pull her regulars, but not like she did before. I was just getting ready to fire her when she took off with my twelve g’s.” My gut churns with his words and the direction this is going. “So, I brought her out here and l let some of my best paying guys have a shot at her. But eventually, your ma got tired. And what good is she to these men if she ain’t performin’? And then I had myself an idea. Why not use you?” My entire body locks up and my blood turns to ice.
“No,” mama whimpers, barely conscious but aware of what's going on. I drop my head to her leg as my body shakes with sobs, knowing what’s to come.Knowingthat he’s going to use me to try and pay mama’s debt. Roughly yanked up onto my feet by my hair, I cry out and thrash around, trying to fight him. He drags me over to a chair, shoving me to sit in it. He uses rope to tie me to it, securing my feet to the legs of the chair and tying my hands behind my back.
“I’ll be back with some customers,” he says, grinning sickly at me and leaving through the door we came in moments ago. I wait until I hear a car door and an engine roar to life. I fight against the rope that he used to tie me up, mama still unconscious in her chair. Jaxson will find us, he has to.
Jaxson
“Callaway Accounting,” I answer my desk phone as I pack up my briefcase for the day. It’s just after three on a Friday, and I’ll be damned if I spend any more time in this office.
“Can I please speak to Avery Marks?”
“She’s off on Fridays. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Oh dear. Well, it’s a quarter after three and no one has been by to get Blake. I’m not sure who else to call,” my blood turns to ice inside my veins as the woman on the phone talks. Avery would never just not pick Blake up.
“I’ll be right there,” I hang up abruptly on the woman, not giving her a chance to reply, locking my office door behind me and hightailing it to my truck, my mind running a mile a minute. I dial her phone number, but it goes straight to voicemail. Peeling out of the parking lot and heading towards the school, I connect my Bluetooth to the truck and tell Siri to call Zander.
“Jax, hey,” he says when he answers but I cut him off.
“Avery didn’t show up to get Blake from school,” the words rushed out my mouth, tumbling one right after the other, my gut churning. I can’t lose her, not when I just got her back.
“Fuck,” he hisses, “are you sure she’s not just running late?”
“Her phone’s off.” Silence meets me on the other end and then Zander curses.
“Do you think it’s Weller?”
“Has to be,” I say, careening into the school's parking lot. “I’ve gotta get Blake and figure out what to do with him and then I’ll be there. Call the cops.” I disconnect and leave my truck running in front of the doors to the main entrance. Once I find the office and assure the secretary that I’m not some kidnapper trying to steal the kid, she lets me leave with him but only after taking a picture of my driver’s license.
“Where’s Avery?” Blake asks as I buckle him into his seat.
“She had something to do that was taking longer than she expected,” I lie as I pull away from the school.
“Tan I go play at Janine’s?” He asks, referring to my neighbor.
