Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Seth
Something jolts me from my sleep, and I bite back a curse. My head is killing me, and my stomach is threating to revolt. A steady hum has my mind drifting, and I’m close to falling back asleep when I get jolted again.
I swallow the sour bile that’s creeping up my throat as I try to peel my eyelids open. Are we having an earthquake? It’s not completely unheard of in Missouri, but this doesn’t feel like an earthquake.
Bright lights stab through my closed eyelids, and I flinch away, the pain in my head throbbing in time with my heart beat.
What did I do last night? I’m not a drinker, so it’s not like I drank enough to give myself this bad a hangover. My limbs feel like leaden weights, almost reminding me of the sleep meds, but I haven’t taken those in a while now.
My brain is muddled, and it takes way too much effort to string thoughts together. It doesn’t feel normal, more like I was drugged. My heart pounds faster at that realization, and I force myself to take stock of my body.
Besides the extreme lethargy and splitting headache, I don’t feel any other pain, but I’m still out of it enough that it takes my head lolling to the side to realize I’m sitting up.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
I immediately tense at the snide comment from beside me. I know that voice, and I’d hoped never to hear it again. My pulse skyrockets, but it takes so much effort for me to open my eyes. With a groan, I move my head just enough to peer blearily at the man beside me.
Jake.
The man who abused me and gaslit me for years. The man I ran half-way across the country to escape. Now, I’m currently strapped in the passenger seat of his car as he’s taking me to God knows where.
“You kid-kish-kid-mapped me,” I say, or try to. My tongue feels like it’s glued to the top of my mouth, and my lips don’t seem to want to work properly. It doesn’t seem to matter, though, he answers me.
“No. I’m taking you back to where you belong. You’re mine. I thought you figured that out the last time you tried to leave. I’m simply protecting you against yourself, is all. You’ll see. Got a new place and I’ll make sure you never get the notion to leave me again.”
I close my eyes, my stomach rolling at his words. I thought I had escaped. Even when he found me again, I was so caught up in Frankie. I was so stupid, thinking Jake would just back off.
Shit, Frankie! What is he thinking right now? Will he think I just left? He has to know that I would never do that.
Just after Frankie had stepped outside to take that call, Alexis, Oliver’s fiancée, had shown up. Instantly, it had felt suspicious. She had looked at me, shifty and spiteful, before dipping out the back.
After speaking to Meryl, I found out she comes in every week to meet with one of the tenants that rent an apartment upstairs. Which makes no sense because she’s engaged to my friend.
Why would she do that?
Curiosity got the better of me, and I soon followed after her —a decision I am seriously regretting.
She led me to Jake.
I blink at him silently, not really paying attention to whatever he’s saying. I knew he’s narcissistic. I knew he had some major control issues, but that’s nothing compared to the completely unhinged look in his eyes now. Even in the darkness of the car, I can see it.
Every time he takes his gaze away from the road to look at me, I have to suppress a shudder. Those gray eyes that I had done my best to forget are bright, like some fire is lighting them up from the inside.
I’m stuck in a car with my literally insane ex. And there’s no way for anyone to find me. Not with my enchanted keychain keeping Frankie from tracking me. Mattie could maybe track my phone like he did with Oliver’s cousin, but I don’t know if Frankie will even think of that.
I pull myself from my thoughts when Jake gives a happy hum.
My stomach drops, and a cold sweat erupts over my skin.
We turn off the paved road and onto a narrow dirt road barely wide enough for the car to pass through.
The darkness thickens even more as the trees block out what little light the moon gives, their dark trunks seeming to crowd around us as Jake slowly bounces us deeper into the woods.
Where the fuck are we?
The headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the dirt road. It’s not much better than an abandoned track through the trees; the pathway is partially washed out, and I’m starting to get whiplash from all the potholes.
My throat feels like a desert as I swallow, and it takes me a couple of tries before I’m able to get the words out. “Where are you taking me?”
“You’re mine, Seth. I don’t know why you keep running. Starting to believe the lies you’ve been telling everyone?” Jake’s confidence in his version of our relationship is astonishing. Does he actually believe we had some hallmark romance and that I just became paranoid?
“Not lies,” I grit out, my hands spasming against my legs.
“You’re a monster. A narcissistic liar. You can’t even smell the bullshit spewing out of your own mouth, can you?
” I need to stop talking. Pissing him off will just get me hurt, but I can’t seem to stop myself.
My mouth just keeps going. “Did the fact that you had to drug me not get through your thick skull? I want nothing to do with you.”
“Drug? I didn’t drug you, my sweet. You’re paranoid. I had to do something to keep you from fighting while I got you away from all the negative influence that’s kept us apart.”
I blink at him in shock, my mouth opening and closing, but I can’t even think of any words that would be sufficient for this. Even if I didn’t have drugs fucking with my brain, I don’t think I’d be able to formulate a response to him.
“Did you chloroform me?” I mumble, trying to push myself up from my seat as the forest pulls away from the dirt road and we come out into a large flat clearing.
Jake parks the vehicle, and I force my eyes to focus.
The clearing is an old parking area, cracked all to hell as weeds and saplings push through the crumbling pavement.
Overgrown grass is creeping across the edges of the lot, and further away, I can see what looks like a lake.
Jake snorts, and I don’t even have to look at him to know he’s rolling his eyes and giving me a disgusted look. That’s about the only look he gave me once he had charmed his way into my life.
“What part of me saying I didn’t drug you don’t you understand?
” he snaps. “I didn’t think you were this stupid when I first started fucking you.
If you must know, I’m not even human.” The pompous way he says that, as if by being human I’m beneath him, makes me roll my eyes, but all I can manage is to make myself go cross-eyed.
“Yeah, you’re a snake. Fits your personality,” I reply, not even caring what’s coming out of my mouth.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I barely have time to blink before his hand connects with my cheek. I’m so out of it that my entire body jolts to the side, my head smacking into the window.
“I said the fact you’re a snake fits your personality,” I hiss. My head is woozy, my cheek throbs painfully, and while I can feel the hot pinpricks of tears, I refuse to cry. I won’t give him that sort of satisfaction. With a grunt, I twist around to glare at him.
I’m aware I’m playing a stupid game, goading him like I am, but I’m tired of running.
I’m tired of looking over my shoulder for him.
I’m tired of being so stressed over him showing up that I resorted to sleeping pills.
Despite the fact that I left him five years ago, he’s still controlling and ruining my life.
But I don’t want to piss him off enough that he kills me. Not when I just found a man who treats me the way I always wanted to be treated. Not when I now know what it feels like to have a lover who actually cares for me.
That means I need to keep him talking.
“How did you even find me?” While I honestly want to know, I’m also well aware that this question will give a reason to gloat. And Jake loves to gloat. That should have been my first clue he was an ass, but I was too caught up in having a ridiculously hot boyfriend to really notice.
A grin spreads across his face, the manic light in his eyes giving him an insane look. Like Jack from The Shining, and I’m praying he didn’t bring an axe with us on this little reunion.
Jake doesn’t seem to mind the change in conversation. In fact, he doesn’t really answer me before he opens his door and gets out of the car. I track his path as he comes around the car and opens my door, catching my shoulder so that I don’t fall out.
Jake reaches over me to unbuckle the seatbelt, wrapping an arm around my waist as he pulls me from the car.
A shudder of revulsion runs down my body as I’m pulled against his, but my limbs aren’t quite under my control.
My head drops heavily onto his shoulder as he practically drags me beside him, his long legs crossing the overgrown parking lot quickly.
“Your mother told me,” he finally replies as he strides over the knee-high weeds.
“Bullshit. She didn’t even let you in the house,” I hiss out, stumbling through the grass as I force my legs to cooperate. I clench my fists over and over, relief rushing through me as my fingers get easier to move.
Jake’s fingers dig painfully into my side. “Is that a fact?” I flinch at the anger in his voice, but I refuse to take back what I said.
He pulls me out of the path of the headlights, and fear starts roiling in my gut as we head to a small grove of trees. I push against him, trying to force my legs to back-peddle, but he relentlessly hauls me forward, my feet not doing much except catching on weeds and rocks.