Chapter 37 #2
Every movement hurts. Every single one.
My body and brain are in full agreement that we should stop immediately and perhaps die quietly on the floor of this car instead.
Too bad.
I brace one shoulder against the backseat and shove upward. The world tilts hard enough that I almost fold right back down.
“Fuck,” I whisper. The word comes out wrecked and breathless and small in the wrecked car.
Drew doesn’t move.
Good. Stay down.
I get one knee under me. Then the other. My hands scrape across torn upholstery behind my back as I twist and shove myself awkwardly toward the rear passenger door.
The handle. Find the handle.
That’s all that matters right now.
Find it. Open it. Get out.
I can barely feel my fingers through the numbness in my wrists, but my shoulder catches the door panel and I turn just enough to fumble blindly behind me.
Nothing. Plastic. Seat edge. Door frame.
Not enough.
I shift again. Pain rips through my side and I nearly lose the breath to scream with it.
Keep moving.
My fingers finally brush metal.
There.
I close both hands around the handle as best I can with my wrists tied and yank. The door gives with a horrible metallic groan and swings outward.
Sunlight floods in like a weapon. I flinch so hard it feels like somebody drove a spike through the center of my skull.
Jesus Christ.
I squeeze my eyes shut against it and breathe through my teeth until the worst of the stabbing brightness eases enough to risk looking again.
Trees. Brush. Dirt. A cut through the woods I know only vaguely.
We didn’t make it far enough to disappear cleanly.
I blink against the light and drag myself out of the car. My knees hit dirt first. Then one shoulder. Then the rest of me in a graceless heap that would be humiliating if I weren’t too busy trying not to pass out face-first in Alabama clay.
The air outside is hot and wet and full of pine and gasoline and the faint chemical stink of deployed airbags.
I suck in one breath. Then another.
Get up. Now.
I roll awkwardly onto my side and look back at the car.
Drew still hasn’t moved.
I don’t trust that for a second. Not for one goddamn second. Because if he wakes up while I’m still on the ground, this whole thing resets and maybe ends worse.
So I get up. Not elegantly. Not all at once.
I shove one knee under me. Then a foot. Then the other. The world tilts violently. I sway hard enough I almost go back down.
No.
I plant my feet wider and wait for the spinning to settle enough to move.
Where am I?
That matters now.
The road is visible through a break in the trees maybe thirty yards away, and the angle of the sun and the line of the ditch and the shape of the tree cover all slam together in my head at once.
I know this stretch. Not exactly, but enough. We’re near the road that cuts toward the club. Not on it. Close enough.
A hysterical little burst of relief tries to break loose in my chest.
I don’t let it. Not yet. Run first. Feel later.
I turn toward the road and start moving.
The first step is a disaster.
My legs don’t want to work right. My balance is shot. My head screams so hard at the motion that black spots flash across my vision again.
Still. I move. One step. Then another. Then faster. Not full speed. Not yet. More like a half-fall I keep barely turning into forward momentum.
Branches catch at my shirt. Briars scrape my shins. The zip ties behind my back throw off my balance so badly I feel like a drunk trying to sprint uphill.
I do it anyway.
By the time I hit the edge of the road, I’m breathing like I’ve swallowed knives.
I look behind me.
Empty.
No Drew. No random truck. No brothers. No miracle.
Fine.
Then I run.
Straight toward the club.
Toward Jimmy. Toward safety. Toward the only place in this town that will turn into a war zone the second I stagger into view looking like this.
My feet pound over pavement I know like my own skin.
The club is this way. Then that curve. Then the long straight stretch. Then home.
I don’t know how fast I’m actually moving.
In my head, it feels like nothing. Like I’m trapped in a nightmare where the harder I run, the slower I get.
But the scenery shifts. The trees thin. The road opens.
I’m making distance.
My body hates me for it. My lungs are burning. My side feels like it’s splitting. My shoulder is half numb, half on fire. My head is a pulsing, nauseating mess of pain and dizziness.
And still, under all of it, there is something else too.
Something sharp. Alive. Mine.
Because he took me.
He planned. He stalked. He waited. He grabbed. He dragged. He threatened my mother and zip tied my wrists and told me I was his now, alive or dead.
And I still put his car into a tree and got the hell out.
That realization lands in my bloodstream like gasoline. Not enough to erase the fear. Enough to stand up beside it. Enough to remind me who the hell I am.
I’m not passive in my own story. I’m not some pretty thing to be carried off because a violent man decided he wanted to own what he couldn’t control.
I’m a Deathstalkers daughter. Torch and Tracie’s kid. Landon’s sister. The woman Jimmy Baker claimed in front of God and everybody.
And Drew made the mistake of thinking I’d go quietly.
He was wrong. So fucking wrong.
The clubhouse comes into view in pieces.
First the tree line breaking. Then the roof. Then the edge of the lot.
My chest caves in around the sight of it so hard it almost drops me where I stand.
Home.
I push harder.
My feet slap against the pavement. My breath tears in and out of me. My whole body is one giant, screaming protest.
Then I hit the gravel drive and start yelling.
Not words at first.
Just sound.
Raw. Hoarse. Desperate.
Then, finally, “Jimmy!”
The name rips out of me like prayer and panic and relief all at once.
And the second it leaves my mouth, the clubhouse erupts.