Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Kara felt sick. She was hungry, tired, sore, and scared out of her head that Nolan would suddenly appear behind a tree and drag her off once more.
Pulling the large piece of glass out of Arrow’s back wasn’t something she would’ve volunteered for, but she really hadn’t had a choice.
He couldn’t have gotten it out himself, and if he said it was better to remove it, then that’s what she had to do.
Thankfully for her peace of mind, he’d sat stoically while she worked, even though she had no doubt it had to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.
Strangely enough, even after everything she’d been through, she wasn’t really afraid of Arrow.
Yes, she’d backed away on instinct when he’d tried to touch her leg earlier.
And there was a moment when she first woke up when she’d thought she was in Nolan’s clutches.
But the smell of the mud and rain immediately helped her remember the night before.
Her escape from the house, the tree, being in the water and thinking she was going to drown, and then having Arrow show up as if out of nowhere.
The fact that he’d voluntarily jumped into the river to rescue her was mind-blowing. It was a stupid thing to do, but she couldn’t get over how brave and selfless he’d been. The man saved her life, of that she had no doubt. And had been hurt in the process.
She didn’t want to talk about what happened to her. Didn’t want him to look at her differently. With pity. As a victim. But she owed him some explanation. After all, he’d risked his own life to save hers.
“To explain how I ended up in that tree, I need to go back a bit,” she said quietly.
He nodded.
It was easier to talk without him looking at her. Kara kept her gaze locked on her hands, holding the folded short sleeve of his shirt against the wound in his back.
“I met Nolan Colins at a coffee shop across from where I used to work. I’m an accountant, and I’d gone there for lunch one afternoon.”
“I thought you were an author,” Arrow said, interrupting her.
“I am. I mean, I do that in my spare time, which isn’t much from January to April,” she said a little dryly.
“Right, okay, go on.”
“Anyway, Nolan was nice and funny, and he insisted on buying my sandwich and drink. We ate together, and he asked if I wanted to meet him there the next day. So I did. And we ended up dating. I liked him well enough, but as time went on, I realized we didn’t have any chemistry.
He’d try to kiss me at the end of our dates, and I kept finding excuses to put him off.
After two months, I decided it wasn’t fair to keep going out with him when I knew we wouldn’t have anything other than a friendship.
“So I told him one day, when we met for lunch. That I just wanted to be friends. He seemed okay with it. Not especially happy, but he agreed, we finished our meal, and I went back to work. That night, when I arrived at my apartment around seven after working late, he was in the parking lot. I wasn’t happy to see him, but I still smiled and greeted him when I got out of my car.
Before I could say anything, he punched me. Hard. In the face.”
Arrow tensed, then actually growled in anger on her behalf.
“Yeah. I’d never been hit before, and it hurt.
Way more than I thought it would. I was on the ground holding my face when he took out a stun gun.
The next thing I knew, I woke up in the trunk of a car.
He took me to a cabin, locked me in one of the rooms, and told me that I’d been bad and had to be punished.
It was such a massive shock. He’d never been anything but sweet before that.
“He kept me locked in the cabin while he completely dismantled my life. He had my phone and…and he strangled me until I told him the password. He texted my boss, pretending to be me, and told him I’d quit.
Texted my landlord and told him I’d moved out of state.
Gave away most of my stuff—furniture and things like that—and got his buddies to move everything else to the cabin.
He forced me to take sedatives before they came over, so I couldn’t call out to anyone. Couldn’t scream for help.
“He told me that he’d been following me for weeks, since the day we’d met.
He’d known my schedule, where I lived, what I drove…
knew that I didn’t have much of a life outside of work.
And he informed me that we weren’t broken up.
That he’d only taken things slow because the anticipation excited him.
But since I’d tried to break it off, he was done waiting.
“When he raped me the first time, he said if he couldn’t have me, no one ever would. But that he was going to have me. Own me. And there was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go that he wouldn’t find me. He said I belonged to him. I was his property.”
“Fuck.”
The low swear word, surprisingly, made Kara feel braver about telling Arrow her story. He was obviously upset. Mad. But he wasn’t losing control. Wasn’t saying anything trite to try to make her feel better.
“Yeah. He liked to put his hands around my throat when he was raping me. Cutting off my air until I thought I was going to die, then he’d let go just before I passed out.
He reveled in the power he had over me. He’s a total psychopath…
and he hid it so well. I have to wonder how many other women he’s done this to.
How many have already died at his hands.
Because I have zero doubt that he would’ve killed me eventually. ”
“Where is he now?”
“I have no idea. He wasn’t at the cabin when the hurricane hit. The water rose really fast and seeped inside. The only reason I was able to escape was because the water basically broke the doors. I was swept out the door right before the flood washed the entire cabin away.”
“I’d say that was good luck.”
Kara blinked. Then she giggled. Honest-to-God giggled.
She wasn’t a giggler. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
“Most people would think getting kidnapped, raped, and held hostage by a maniac was bad luck. Add on top of that being in the middle of a hurricane, getting washed away, stuck in a tree, and having said tree get uprooted and thrown back into the fury of a flash flood.”
“But it was good luck that you were able to get out of that house before it was swept away. Then lucky that you were able to get into that tree. A full-on miracle that I saw you from my chopper, that we were able to get to the shore, and that we’re here right now.
And, Kara…you managed to have the extreme good luck to be found by a man who has the resources to keep you safe.
To find the asshole who hurt you and make him pay. ”
Arrow had turned his head to look right at her when he said the last part, and Kara could see exactly how furious he was.
But he was controlling it. Probably because he didn’t want to scare her.
But the emotion in his eyes promised retribution for Nolan.
The anger wasn’t directed at her, but on her behalf. It was a heady feeling.
And shockingly, she couldn’t help but think he was right. She had been lucky. Very lucky to have survived what she did. What Nolan had done to her and the hurricane and the flash flood. If none of it had happened, she’d still be a captive in that cabin.
“I have nothing, Arrow. No clothes. No car. No money. He took everything. I don’t even have a pair of shoes.”
“But you’re alive. Everything else can be replaced.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“He’s out there,” she whispered, putting her greatest fears into words. “He won’t stop looking for me.”
“Let him,” Arrow growled. “He’ll discover you aren’t as alone as he thought.”
She bit her lip, not sure what to say.
“How does it look?” he asked gently. “My shoulder?”
Blinking, Kara focused on the cloth under her hands. She slowly lifted it to look at the gash in Arrow’s shoulder and saw that it wasn’t actively bleeding anymore. “I think the bleeding’s stopped.”
“Good. Help me get my flight suit back up?”
Kara wasn’t sure what happened. One second they were having an intense conversation about Nolan, and how he was probably out there somewhere looking for her, wanting her back.
And the next, she was helping Arrow pull his flight suit back over his shoulders, as if they’d simply been discussing the weather.
As soon as the material was zipped up, Arrow took his ruined shirt out of her hands and tossed it to the ground. Then he took her hands in his and stared at her scraped palms for a long moment. He lifted his head and looked her in the eyes.
“Come back to Virginia with me,” he said softly.
“I can help you deal with the police and press charges against that asshole. I can help find a place for you to stay, get you back on your feet. I know for certain my friends will become your friends. We’ll get you set with clothes and other necessities.
And most importantly, if the asshole who kidnapped you survived the hurricane and flood, he won’t know where you are. ”
Kara could only stare at him in surprise.
She instinctively wanted to accept. To say yes, but she wasn’t the same woman she’d been just two weeks ago. Wasn’t as na?ve. People didn’t offer to do such generous things like this man was without strings attached. And she wasn’t going to climb out of the frying pan into the fire again.
“Right. You need time to think about it. Fair enough. Just don’t say no right now.
When my team finds us, you can meet them, ask them whatever you want about me.
They’ll be completely honest. They aren’t going to say good shit about me just to butter you up.
They’re a little rough around the edges sometimes, but they’re all good men. ”
Arrow looked down again…and frowned. He lifted her hand and stared at the bruising around her wrist. “I’m sorry.”
Kara was confused. “About what?”
“I bruised you when I held on to your wrist.”
Looking at her hand, she saw that he was right. The pain from his grip had simply blurred into the countless other aches and pains. “It’s fine. If you hadn’t held on to me, I would’ve been washed away.”
“Doesn’t make me feel any better, knowing I put more marks on your body.”
“More?”
“Yeah. You’ve got two black eyes. And bruising here…” He brought his hand up slowly, so as not to startle her, and very lightly brushed his fingers along the side of her neck, exactly where her ex had put his hands around her throat.
Kara blinked, then brought her own hand up to her neck, as if to cover the marks she hadn’t even realized were there.
“Oh. I didn’t know…which is stupid, because of course I have bruises from where he…
But I guess I forgot about it, what with the flood and all.
Or didn’t realize they were so obvious or something. ”
She could hear the shame in her voice. And based on Arrow’s expression, he felt…maybe angry on her behalf again? Maybe a little guilty, thinking he’d caused that shame? Whatever he was thinking, his next words were an abrupt change of topic…which sounded like “distraction” to Kara.
“Come on. We need to get out in the open so my friends can find us.”
“How will they know where to look?” Kara asked, her mind still spinning with his offer to go to Virginia.
“They won’t. Not exactly. But they also won’t stop until they do. Doesn’t matter if they have to search the entire state. They won’t leave until they’ve found me. They’re going to be anxious to tell me what a boneheaded thing I did, jumping out of a perfectly good helicopter.”
Kara snorted at that. “It wasn’t exactly the smartest thing to do.”
Arrow didn’t crack a smile. “I’m thinking it was the best decision I’ve made in my entire life.” They walked about twenty feet before he stopped again. “Wait, stay here a sec.”
Kara watched as he walked back to pick up his discarded T-shirt.
He brought it over to where she was standing and knelt at her feet.
He ripped it into long strips, using the hole where the glass had gone through as a starting point and discarding the bloodiest portion of material.
He gestured to one of her feet. “May I?”
Kara frowned but nodded, having no idea what he was even asking.
It only dawned on her after he gently picked up her foot…and began wrapping one of the scraps of material around it.
She used her hand on his shoulder to steady herself and watched as he tied the material around her ankle. Then he did the same to her other foot.
It wasn’t a shoe, and it wouldn’t protect her against anything too sharp, but the difference between the cloth on the sole of her foot and the cold, hard ground was like night and day.
For some reason, despite everything else she’d been through, his thoughtful gesture almost had her breaking down.
But she blinked back the tears. She had a feeling once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
And she didn’t want to look weak in front of this man.
Not that he’d consider her tears a weakness.
How she knew that, Kara had no idea, but she still didn’t want to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of the woods.
She’d wait until she was somewhere a little safer. Cleaner. Drier. And hopefully private.
For now, she’d put one foot in front of the other. That’s all she could do. All she’d ever done in her life. She’d figure out what to do next once she was out of the woods.
But Arrow’s offer wouldn’t stop rattling around in her head.
She’d never been to Virginia, and she wasn’t sure she fully trusted the man walking next to her…
but what other choices did she have? She couldn’t stay here in Asheville.
Not with the threat of Nolan over her head.
And Arrow hadn’t done anything to make her think he’d hurt her.
But then again, neither had Nolan until he’d Tased her in her parking lot.
Sighing in frustration over the uncertainty of her future, and not knowing what to do, Kara decided to push it all to the back of her head for the moment.
Arrow wasn’t asking her to decide right now, so she wouldn’t.
And they had to hope for a rescue first, anyway.
She’d see what the day held and go from there.
What she did know was, the man leading them through the trees had saved her life. Had literally risked his own well-being and very life for her own. No one had ever done anything like that before. If she couldn’t trust him, well…she literally couldn’t trust anyone ever again.
That thought was depressing as hell, but she couldn’t seem to shake it. Time would tell if Arrow was authentic or somehow playing her. She hoped like hell he wasn’t another in a long line of people in her life who saw her as a means to an end.