Chapter 12
Location Unknown
Sabrina had never known the sheer agony of thirst.
Sure, she’d been dehydrated. Parched even. But this…
This was something else entirely.
Her need for water had started out in the usual way. A thick tongue that stuck to the roof of her mouth. Dry lips that cracked and threatened to split. A throat that felt raw and hot, like it was sunburned from the inside.
But as the day had dragged on, and afternoon gave way to evening, her need for hydration had gone from discomfort to a clawing torment. She no longer knew if her head pounded from the drug or from her body’s slow breakdown as her cells shriveled up like dry sponges.
Despite the heat inside the old building, she was no longer sweating. Her body hoarded the last of its water reserves. Her heart fluttered as it worked to maintain her blood volume. And her brain had been hijacked, her attention narrowed to a single, unrelenting desire.
Water.
Cold Water.
Warm water.
Dirty water.
Any water.
She lifted her chin from her chest and stared out the broken windows to the east.
She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious after her wreck or where her captors had taken her. But if they’d brought her back to Chicago, Lake Michigan was somewhere out there. Lake Michigan, with its sixteen thousand miles of shoreline and millions of megaliters of cool, crisp water.
She could drink it all. Just open her mouth and swallow and swallow and swallow until the whole thing was empty and she was filled up.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Remnants of rainwater falling in through the sagging roof taunted her.
Glug. Glug. Glug.
The vile, violent-eyed Diesel seemed to know her need and took pleasure in tormenting her by drinking loudly from a bottle before pouring what was left of the life-sustaining liquid over the top of his head.
She nearly opened her mouth to beg for a sip. But what few synapses she still had that weren’t desiccated to dust reminded her it wasn’t time.
Not yet.
Her hands weren’t free.
She needed her hands free if she had any hope of following through on her plan to take one of these sonsofbitches out.
Dropping her chin back to her chest because she couldn’t stand the prurient gleam in Diesel’s eyes or the way Kurt wagged his tongue at her, she concentrated on her movements.
Slowly, slowly, she used the glass shard she’d secreted between her palms to saw at the thick, plastic zip tie binding her wrists.
It was awkward. The edges of the glass were hard to hold onto without slicing her own fingers off. The angle she had to use was far from ideal. And she needed to be ever-so-mindful of keeping her elbows and shoulders from moving too much lest she alert her captors to what she was up to.
She searched for a memory to distract herself from the tediousness of the task. Something absorbing. Something affecting. Something to make her forget where she was and what she was doing and the tearing misery of thirst.
North Avenue Beach, three months ago…
“Let’s walk down to the water,” Hew said after removing his helmet and raking a hand back through his thick, unruly hair.
His accent curled around the words, missing Rs and all, and had her smiling.
She mirrored his movements, shaking her hair free of the helmet and turning her face into the cool breeze wafting in off the lake.
Spring had sprung with a vengeance, thawing the ice flows in the water, turning the city parks emerald green, and reminding her that, despite everything, despite all she’d lost and mourned over the previous cold, bleak months, life did go on.
Snow melted. Flowers bloomed. Hearts and minds and bodies healed.
When Hew had suggested they take advantage of the beautiful weather, she’d jumped at the chance to climb onto the back of Freedom.
She’d spent months staring longingly at the rows of gleaming custom motorcycles. Marveling at the intricacy of their designs and the power of their V-twin motors. Longing for the day she might know what it was to ride one.
Er…ride on the back of one.
She didn’t have a motorcycle license. And the thought of getting one sent her into an anxiety spiral because…seriously? Why did each appendage have a different job?
When she’d expressed an interest in learning to ride, Hew had patiently explained how her right hand was responsible for the throttle and the front brake, her left hand took care of the clutch and sometimes the turn signals, her right foot operated the rear brake while her left foot was in charge of shifting gears.
“Wicked wild, right?” he’d said with a knowing smirk. “Like tryin’ to pat your head, rub your belly, and recite the alphabet backwards. All while doin’ sixty miles per hour. But don’t worry. Practice makes perfect, and muscle memory eventually takes over.”
Yeah. No, thank you, she had decided then and there. I’ll just be a passenger princess.
And honestly, now that she’d done it, she could say with certainty that being a passenger princess was where it was at.
She could enjoy the view. Feel the powerful machine roaring beneath her without worrying about controlling it. And hang on to the big, broad-shouldered man in front of her.
He pulled a blanket from the compartment on the back of the bike. After walking with her down to the beach, he spread it on the sand near where the water lapped lazily at the shore.
They lay on their backs, hands behind their heads, to watch white, fluffy clouds morph into familiar shapes against a postcard-worthy blue sky.
It was the perfect day.
She was free from the danger that had stalked her. Free from the worst of the crushing weight of her grief.
With Hew’s help, her emotional scales were no longer tipped constantly toward despair. She would miss Cooper each and every day, but missing him was no longer all she did. And piece by piece, the walls she’d built around herself after her assault were starting to come down.
She was starting to feel like herself again.
Freedom…
Such a simple word. Only two syllables. But it was packed with power.
Freedom…the name Hew had given to his motorcycle.
She looked at it now, parked just beyond the tree line. A crowd had gathered to gawk, and no wonder. With its blue-gray paint job, hand-tooled leather seat, and gleaming chrome pipes, the bike was a work of art.
Freedom...because that’s what it meant to him. Freedom from his past. Freedom to build something that was wholly, uniquely his. Freedom to take off whenever the open road called.
She turned back to him now, shading her eyes against the sun. He had the most beautiful profile. Sharp and masculine. A face hewn from granite.
“You’ve never said much about your folks,” she remarked quietly. “Do you know anything about them aside from how they died?”
The muscle in his jaw flexed beneath the cover of his well-trimmed beard. For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Thought she’d finally hit on the one subject he wouldn’t touch.
Then he said, “They were high school sweethearts. Supposed to get married after graduation, but they never got that far.”
“So young.” She shook her head. “Too young to be taken like that.”
He’d told her they’d been gunned down in a mass shooting at a music festival. But he hadn’t elaborated beyond that.
“Mom was eight and a half months pregnant with me when it happened. Accordin’ to the police reports I read after I was old enough to go lookin’, seems like she was one of the last ones shot.
Which I reckon is how I’m here with ya now.
When the paramedics arrived on the scene, my mom was gone, but they could still hear my heartbeat. ”
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t that.
Yes, she’d known he’d lost his teenage parents when he was very young. But she hadn’t realized he’d lost them while he was still in the womb!
Jesus!
Tentatively, she reached for his hand. When he squeezed her fingers, she bit her lip to keep from sobbing at all the tragedy he’d suffered before he’d ever breathed his first lungful of air.
“My father’s body was found over hers,” he said quietly. “Guess he tried to shield her. Didn’t work, though. She’d already been hit. Paramedics cut me out of her in the back of the ambulance.”
Sabrina’s breath caught, sharp and jagged. Horror bled into heartbreak until her chest ached with both of them.
She could see it all so clearly. The terrified girl. The dying boy shielding her and their unborn child. The carnage and the mud and the blood.
It took everything she had not to weep. For the young mother who never got to hold her child. For the brave father whose last act had been one of sacrifice and love. For the baby boy who’d entered the world already steeped in loss.
She should say something. But what?
It was all too cruel. Too much. Too awful for words.
“I’m so sorry, Hew,” she whispered, because it was all she had.
“Don’t be. You weren’t the one on a roof bangin’ on a long gun and takin’ out a bunch of kids just tryin’ to have some fun.”
“I’m sorry for the world,” she clarified, her voice trembling right along with her chin. “Sorry it lets monsters run loose. Sorry it treats orphaned kids like afterthoughts. Sorry for every hug you never got. Every Christmas you spent alone. Every birthday nobody remembered.”
“Even kids with parents go without,” he murmured, turning to bring his face within inches of hers. His breath smelled of spearmint and sunshine. “You did.”
She closed her eyes.
It was true. Her parents had been more interested in getting drunk and high with their other deadbeat friends than raising kids. But she’d had Cooper. And Diana at the diner. And various neighbors who had ensured she had hand-me-downs to wear to school and haircuts when her ponytails got too heavy.
He’d had no one.
“How did you do it?” she asked, gently pulling off his sunglasses to see his eyes.
His expressions tended toward stoicism. But there was always a world of feeling in his eyes.
“Do what?”