Chapter 37
The zip ties bite almost immediately.
That’s the first thing I register once the back door slams and the car lurches hard enough to send my shoulder into the opposite seat.
Plastic. Tight.
Drew shoved my wrists behind my back so fast I barely had time to twist before he had the strip cinched down hard enough to make my hands go numb at the edges.
Then he threw me into the backseat like cargo. Not sitting up. Not belted in.
On the floor.
Half on my side, half on my stomach, cheek pressed against rough black carpet that smells like old fast food, motor oil, and stale heat.
The door slammed. The engine revved. And now we’re moving.
Fast.
My scalp still throbs where he dragged me. My side aches where the gun dug in. My shoulder is already going stiff from where he slammed me into the house. And God, my head. It pulses in time with my heartbeat, each throb bright enough to blur the edges of my vision if I move too fast.
I force myself not to panic.
That’s the only thing that matters right now. Not fear. Not the tears trying to burn behind my eyes. Not the image of my mother unconscious on the couch.
Stay useful. Stay awake. Stay thinking. Stay alive.
The floor vibrates under me with every shift of the tires, and I drag in one slow breath through my nose and test the ties first.
Tight. Not impossible. Just tight.
He was quick. Too quick. That thought lands a second later, and with it comes the first real sliver of hope I’ve had since he grabbed me in the living room.
Quick means sloppy. Sloppy means mistakes.
I move my ankles carefully. No resistance. No ties. No rope. No belt. Nothing.
He bound my hands and threw me in the back like that would be enough.
Good. That means I’ve got something. Maybe not much. Maybe not enough. But something.
I force myself still again and listen.
The engine. The road. The shift of the suspension under us.
Think, Allie.
I know these roads.
Better than Drew does. Better than most people in this damn town.
I grew up here. I learned to drive out here. I know every backroad and shortcut and dead-end stretch of Alabama road within thirty miles because when you grow up in the orbit of a motorcycle club, you learn the map of your own town like it’s another language.
And if Drew wants out of Bartsville fast, there are only so many ways he can do it.
That thought lands hard and useful enough to cut through some of the panic.
He can’t take the long way. Not if he wants distance before anyone starts looking. And they will be looking.
Jimmy will already know something’s wrong. Ryan will have circled back or called. My mom’s text will get checked. My dad will hear. Landon will hear. Logan will hear.
The whole club is going to come apart over this. But until they find me, I need to help myself.
I close my eyes and map it out.
My parents’ house. The back roads. The stretch past the old feed store. The two roads that branch toward county line. The narrow cut through the pines. The intersection that matters.
The one road he can’t avoid if he wants out of town without adding too much time. The one that cuts close enough to the club that if I can get out before he passes it, I have a real shot.
A real one.
My pulse kicks harder. Not fear this time. Purpose.
I listen harder. Count the turns. Feel the angles. Left. Then straight. Then the rough patch where the road dips near the drainage ditch. Then another right.
I know this route. Or close enough.
He’s heading for the road that intersects with the club. He has to be. Any other way takes him too far out, adds too much distance, too much time, too much chance of getting spotted before he clears town.
I open my eyes again and focus on the small strip of daylight visible beneath the front seats.
The car is moving fast enough that every bump jars through my ribs. Fast means less time. Fast also means less control. And Drew, for all his planning, is still one man driving one car with a kidnapped woman in the backseat who knows exactly where she is.
I inch my knees in carefully. Slow enough that the seat above me doesn’t creak. The zip ties grind into my skin.
Ignore it.
I pull my feet in closer beneath me a fraction at a time, testing what kind of space I’ve got. Not much. Maybe enough.
I need timing. I need an angle. I need him close enough to that intersection that if I get free or get him to stop, I can make a run for it before he recovers.
If I do it too early, I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere with him still armed and conscious.
If I do it too late, I’m farther from the club and farther from anyone who might hear me scream.
I count again.
Road texture. Turns. Time.
He takes another curve, and the pull of it shifts my body hard enough that I almost slide fully under the seat.
Close.
We’re getting close.
My breathing is too loud now. Too fast.
I force it down.
Not yet.
I inch forward. Slow. Deliberate. Like a worm dragging itself over hot pavement. My bound hands scrape uselessly behind me as I use my shoulders and knees and hips to push myself closer to the gap between the seats.
Every movement sends pain flashing through my skull.
My body is screaming at me to stop. To lie still. To survive this by not making it worse.
Too bad.
I’m not waiting for rescue tied up on the floor of a moving car while a man like Drew decides what “for better or worse” means today.
I slide one knee up. Then the other. The back of the center console digs into my shoulder.
The front seats block most of my view, but I can see enough now to catch the blur of sunlight across the dashboard and the line of Drew’s jaw in profile.
Focused on the road. One hand on the wheel. The other resting low near his thigh. No gun visible. That doesn’t mean it’s not there. Doesn’t matter.
This is still my best shot.
I flex my ankles once. Ready them. Again. The road hum changes. Smoother. Straighter.
My pulse spikes.
This is it.
Or close enough that waiting longer becomes its own kind of stupid.
I pull my knees in under me as much as I can and brace one shoulder against the back of the passenger seat. The angle is all wrong. The space is too tight. My head is pounding so hard I can barely think around it.
Do it anyway.
I drag in one breath. Then I launch both legs upward as hard as I can.
My heels crack into the side of Drew’s head with a sick, solid sound that echoes through the car. The impact is violent enough to jolt all the way up my spine.
His head snaps sideways and slams into the driver’s side window and then the steering wheel in one ugly sequence.
The car swerves instantly. Hard. And for one split second, there is a terrible, triumphant flash of yes! Followed immediately by the realization that I did not think this all the way through. Because the car is still moving.
Fast.
Too fast.
Drew curses, disoriented, one hand flying off the wheel on instinct, and suddenly we’re not on clean pavement anymore.
The tires hit rough ground. The entire car bucks. Off-road.
Oh God.
The terrain changes so violently it feels like the whole vehicle is trying to tear itself apart around us.
My body slams sideways into the backseat frame. Then the opposite door. Then forward again as the car fishtails over uneven ground.
Drew’s fighting the wheel. I can hear it. Hear him swearing. Hear gravel and dirt and brush whipping under the chassis.
Then…impact.
The front of the car slams into something solid with enough force to turn the world white.
The sound is enormous. Metal screaming. Glass cracking. Airbags detonating.
My body launches sideways and forward at the same time, my shoulder and head smashing into the back of the front seat before I’m flung hard into the opposite door.
Pain explodes through me.
Then nothing.
***
I come back in pieces.
Not all at once. First sound. A high, thin ringing that seems to live somewhere inside my skull.
Then pain.
Everywhere. All at once. Too much of it to sort cleanly.
Then breath.
Sharp. Shallow. Wrong.
I try to move and immediately regret it.
A bolt of pain tears from the base of my skull down into my neck and shoulders hard enough to make black spots dance across my vision.
For a second, I just lie there and try not to throw up.
Think.
The car. Drew. The crash.
My eyes open slowly.
Everything is wrong.
The car is tilted slightly to one side, nose crumpled into the trunk of a pine tree thick enough to have stopped us dead.
One airbag hangs limp and half-deflated from the steering wheel.
The windshield is spiderwebbed. Sunlight cuts through the cracked glass in violent white lines that stab straight into my brain.
I suck in a breath through my teeth and instantly wish I hadn’t.
My ribs hurt. My shoulder hurts. My head feels like somebody cracked it open and shoved a live wire inside.
I blink hard and force my eyes toward the front seat.
Drew is slumped over the wheel. Still. Too still. Blood streaks down from somewhere in his hairline and disappears into the side of his face. The airbag is collapsed against his chest. One hand hangs uselessly near the console.
My pulse kicks.
Not relief. Not yet. Opportunity.
I don’t know how long I was out. Could’ve been thirty seconds. Could’ve been five minutes. Too long either way.
Move.
My hands are still zip tied behind my back. That part almost makes me laugh. Of course they are. Of course I survive the kidnapping and the crash and still have to do this like a feral raccoon with a concussion.
I shift carefully.
Everything in my body protests. My head throbs harder immediately. My stomach rolls. My vision tilts.
Nope.
Don’t black out. Do not black out again.
I breathe through it.
One second. Then another.
Then I start working my way up.
Not gracefully. Nothing about this is graceful. I scoot my knees under me and drag myself forward inch by miserable inch, using the seats and the door and whatever leverage I can find while my bound hands pull uselessly behind me.