Chapter 9 Amelia
NINE
AMELIA
Amelia swung her arms in the dark. She found a wall and mapped it out until she reached a door. Faithful fingertips followed the wood grain down until a cold kiss of metal met her touch.
Through the door, she was out of the dark. Lamp light pooled on a desk covered in coffee-stained folders and tattered papers that rustled in a phantom breeze. Through a large window, gnarled trees swayed against a bedeviled sky where night yielded to crimson dawn.
A man stood in front of the window. Even with his back to her, Amelia recognized the weight of the world on his shoulders and the burden of duty heavy on his mind. She staggered toward her father, but her limbs moved like cinder blocks through water.
He turned around, but it wasn’t her father she found.
Emory flashed a sinister smile. Cavernous holes existed where his eyes should’ve been.
Blood bubbled from the floor vents and streaked the walls.
The dead weight in Amelia’s legs lifted.
She turned to run, but a shadow gathered her hands behind her back.
“Wake up, you fucking bitch!” the shadow screamed with piercing cruelty.
The ruby-hued darkness faded, and Amelia opened her eyes. Through groggy vision, she discerned the man from the gas station straddling her in the back seat of his Buick.
By the sweater clenched in his fists, he yanked Amelia up then slammed her down again. She groaned through the assault and struggled against him, but a thin rope bound her wrists and sliced into her skin.
“That’s enough, Damon.”
One of Emory’s men ripped Damon off her and dumped him outside the car.
Amelia’s consciousness ebbed and flowed like a black tide closing in, and her temples pulsed with every heartbeat.
One of Emory’s men pulled her from the backseat and expected her to stand, but her useless legs couldn’t hold her weight when he propped her against the car.
Amelia slid to the ground and squinted against the light.
A desolate two-lane road stretched in a straight shot toward both horizons. In the distance, a mountain range towered over the barren desert dotted with tufts of greasewood bushes and cactus scrub.
Where the night had been chilly and humid, the sun rode high and sweltered with suffocating heat. It had to be midday, but where exactly was she? The desert spilled into California from Nevada. If they drove through the morning, she could be burning alive in Death Valley.
Amelia tried to stand but instead slumped against the Buick roasting in the heat.
“Please. Just tell me what you want,” she pled, but Emory’s men ignored her.
An eternity passed beneath the angry sun. The men wiped sweat from their brows and scrutinized the road. West or east, Amelia couldn’t say. The twin horizons boasted the same shadowless features. Eventually, a black car emerged in the distance.
“It’s about goddamn time,” Damon said.
The car grew from a wavy mirage and kicked up plumes of dirt as it pulled off the road. Through heavily tinted glass, Amelia couldn’t see the occupant, but her stomach dropped when the driver climbed out. At Rich’s party, he’d sat next to Emory with amusement then dread filling his big blue eyes.
His blond hair was still greased back, but he wore all black—snake-skin cowboy boots, a plain t-shirt, and jeans with a handgun tucked in the waistband.
A wallet chain jangled with each step he took toward them.
On his arms, sleeve tattoos displayed colorful pin-up girls nestled amongst a patchwork of strange symbols and bolded letters.
“Well, I, for one, didn’t dress for this weather,” he laughed. “It’s hotter than Satan’s asshole out here.”
Amelia struggled against Damon, who dragged her to the driver and shoved her to the ground at his feet. Dirt and rock scraped her knees, and her dress shifted up her thighs. With bound wrists, she frantically pulled it back down again.
“I want my money, Jack. Ten grand cash. And I expect to be compensated for the trouble.”
Damon pointed to the gash on his cheek. The driver, Jack, strode to the Buick and poked his head in the backseat.
“Where’s the boy she was with?” he demanded to know from the other two men.
One shook his head regretfully, but not for the life taken. To them, Brian was just a messy little tidbit. Amelia seethed at the thought but kept her mouth shut.
“That’s just fucking great.” Jack slammed the backdoor shut and paced to Amelia but pointed at Damon. “And you have the stones to demand payment?”
Crouched in front of her, Jack brushed his fingertips beneath Amelia’s chin. She flinched at the contact and refused his stare.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. Just let me see.”
As Jack scrutinized her collection of injuries, Damon’s assault on Amelia turned verbal. He peppered it with slurs—slut, bitch, cunt, a few she’d never heard—and detailed the ways he could have violated her body but hadn’t.
Amelia’s stomach lurched. What was to say he hadn’t? She’d lost time, hours unaccounted for where he had full control.
Jack stood with his fists clenched at his side. “Where were you two when he did this?”
Once more, the question went to the other two men who couldn’t summon an answer, so they looked away.
“You get paid when she’s delivered,” Jack told Damon. “That was his agreement.”
Damon shifted on his feet, and his gaze darted between the three men before returning to Amelia. He hurried to the Buick and flung open the passenger door, but Jack hastened after and wrestled a pistol from Damon. With one arm coiled around his neck, Jack pressed the gun to Damon’s head.
“Wrong move. We’re going for a ride.”
Jack dragged Damon to the Mercedes, shoved him screaming into the backseat, and flung the door shut. He chucked Damon’s gun at the other two men.
“Get rid of it on your way back. Chief’s in a mood, so decide amongst yourselves who’s gonna take the lumps for this shit show.”
The men retreated—one to the Buick and the other to the car they came in—and rolled out in quick procession down the dusty road.
Amelia swung one leg out from underneath her and tried to stand.
With nothing to hold on to, she stumbled to the ground again and sucked in deep breaths that filled her lungs with dead heat.
Jack helped her up and regarded her with curious eyes.
While he didn’t leer, his gaze loitered all the same as he led her to the car.
Amelia wrested from his hold, but he snatched her by the elbow and pushed her against the car. She went limp until he loosened his grip then threw her weight in the other direction.
Jack corralled her again and shoved her harder the second time. He no longer regarded her with pity, only frustration that dangled on the precipice of anger.
“Listen, there are no two ways about it. You’re coming with me, okay? That’s it. That’s your option. You can make this harder by struggling, or you can get in. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you just get in the fucking car.”
Amelia swallowed hard despite a dry mouth.
She’d sooner burn alive in the desert than go with him.
She could bluff, tell him he would be in a world of trouble when her father found her—it’d surely be soon—but the road had remained empty the whole time, no other souls in sight.
She was alone, and Jack was right. There was no way out of it.
Amelia climbed in but garnered no relief from the cool leather seat against her skin or the blast of cold air from the vents. Next to her in the backseat, Damon mumbled to himself. Amelia cradled her arms to her chest and pressed her knees against the door.
Jack glanced at her through the rearview mirror but turned to Damon and said, “If you try anything, I will slit your throat and watch you bleed out.”
The warning went ignored. Damon chewed a fingernail and bobbed one knee with a nervous tick. When Jack started down the desert road, Damon’s rambles grew louder, and he clawed at his cheek that seeped blood anew. Jack cranked up the music until Johnny Cash’s baritone drowned Damon out.
The benefit before was drugs, whatever they’d given her that robbed her of time and ushered in the darkness. At least Amelia didn’t suffer in silent panic then. The pain returned too. The thin rope rubbed her wrists raw, and her limbs throbbed with a dull, relentless ache.
She closed her eyes and thought of home, silly little details to distract herself—just how many moving boxes crowded her room? In how many family photos did her dad wear that one sweater? And what was he doing? He must know something horrible happened, but a terrifying notion occurred to her.
What if he didn’t know? What if they sifted through the ashes of Rich’s party and told him she was dead?
The car shifted as Jack sped through turns. Amelia tried to memorize them, but inertia pushed and pulled, and she lost track of time. They must’ve driven for an hour before the sway of each turn became less forceful and Jack pulled into a garage. Light streamed into the car when he climbed out.
He spoke with two, perhaps three, other men. Amelia strained to listen, but something cold nicked her neck. Her eyes darted to Damon holding a knife to her throat. Every muscle tensed, and she fought the instinct to jerk away.
“I could kill you so easily,” Damon whispered against the shell of her ear. “Wouldn’t you like that?”
Amelia squeezed her eyes shut and huddled against the car door.
Do it then, she wanted to scream. It’d be better if it were quick, but the door swung open, and she tumbled out at Jack’s feet.
He helped her sit and pulled a folded buck knife from his pocket.
When he lifted her bound wrists, Amelia scooted away.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Give me your hands.”
Twice, he’d said that. He could say it all he wanted, but bound and taken against her will, he was insane to expect her trust. Bent over with his hands propped on his knees, Jack hung his head in tired resignation.
“You wanna be tied up all night? Not my thing, but to each their own.”
Laughter filled the garage from four other men. Amelia scanned the space and the other three vehicles parked beside Jack’s. Fluorescent lights hung on chrome chains, and the other end of the garage boasted a heavy steel door.
Amelia licked her bottom lip and tried to control how badly she shook. If she offered her hands, Jack might cut her open and laugh with the others as her blood bathed the floor.
He waited for her answer. That alone must’ve meant something. You can’t fight. Just do it.
Amelia offered her arms and held her breath as Jack sliced through the rope. The men observed with something between sympathy and concern. It was their concern that terrified her the most, as if they were privy to her fate.
Jack led her to the door at the back of the garage.
Two men followed, while the other two fetched Damon from the backseat.
He held open the steel door. It led to a dimly-lit corridor long enough that Amelia couldn’t see where it ended, the underworld perhaps.
She hesitated at the threshold, and her eyes darted to Jack.
“Come on. Emory’s waiting,” he said.
Amelia shook her head as if she had any say. “What does he want?”
The question momentarily stumped him, the answer perhaps complicated.
“You,” Jack replied with a sinister smile and nudged her into the hall.