3. Jade
Jade
Tyler’s hands are around my throat, and I can’t breathe.
I’m back in the clubhouse, back on that gravel parking lot, and his fingers are digging into my windpipe while Danny and the others watch and laugh.
I try to scream, but no sound comes out.
Try to fight, but my arms won’t move. He’s saying something about Mason, about insurance, about how I’ll never leave him.
His face shifts. Becomes the man from the gas station. The one with silver hair and steel-blue eyes who threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
“You’re mine now,” he says, and his hands tighten?—
I wake up gasping.
Pain slams into me immediately. Full-body, everywhere at once. My neck feels like someone tried to wring it out like a dishrag. My shoulders scream. My ribs protest with each ragged breath. My wrists burn with a sharp, focused ache that cuts through the general misery.
Wrong ceiling. Wrong room. Wrong everything.
Panic hits harder than the pain.
I try to sit up, and the world tilts sideways. My stomach lurches, and for a second I think I’m going to throw up. I force myself to breathe through it. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Slow. Steady.
When my vision clears, I take stock.
Small bedroom. Wood-paneled walls that look like they haven’t been updated since the seventies. Single window with faded curtains. Dresser that’s seen better days. Digital clock on the nightstand reading 4:07 AM in angry red numbers.
And my hands are zip-tied in front of me.
The plastic bites into my wrists, tight enough that the skin underneath is already red and angry. I pull against it experimentally and pain shoots up my arms. Not tight enough to cut off circulation completely, but close enough.
Memory crashes back in fragments. The clubhouse. Tyler fucking that blonde on the pool table. The drive through the storm. Getting sideswiped. The gas station. Men with guns and money and?—
Oh God.
The gun deal. The shooting. Being thrown over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The motorcycle ride through the rain, pressed against a stranger’s chest while the world blurred past at terrifying speed.
I force myself to focus. To think past the fear clawing at my chest.
Where am I? How long have I been here? What do these men want?
And most importantly, how do I get out?
I swing my legs off the bed, testing my weight.
Everything hurts but nothing feels broken.
Small mercies. I’m bruised and sore but functional.
Someone took off my boots—they’re sitting neatly by the door—but left the rest of my clothes.
Jeans, tank top, leather jacket. My pockets are empty, which means I have no way to contact anyone.
Mason’s face flashes through my mind and I have to bite down on my lip to keep from making a sound.
He’s with Linda. He’s safe. Linda would never let anything happen to him. She promised.
But I was supposed to pick him up last night. Supposed to grab him and disappear before Tyler could use him as leverage again.
Instead I’m zip-tied in a strange bedroom in the middle of nowhere with three men who kidnapped me.
Mason will wake up soon. He always wakes up early, around six, no matter what time he goes to bed.
He’ll pad into Linda’s room in his dinosaur pajamas—the blue ones with the T-Rex on the front that he insists on wearing even though they’re getting too small—clutching Spike, his stuffed dragon.
He’ll climb into her bed and ask where Mama is in that small, worried voice that breaks my heart.
What will Linda tell him?
I remember the last morning I had with him.
Three days ago. Wednesday. I made him chocolate chip pancakes—his favorite—and he got syrup all over his face and hands and somehow in his hair.
I laughed and wiped him down with a wet cloth while he told me about the dream he’d had where he rode a triceratops to preschool.
“And Ms. Sarah said I couldn’t park him in the playground,” he said very seriously, “so I had to tie him to a tree. But he ate all the leaves and Ms. Sarah got mad.”
“That’s quite a problem,” I told him, trying not to smile.
“Next time I’ll ride a pteranodon. They don’t eat leaves.”
“Much more practical.”
He grinned at me, syrup still sticky on his chin, and said, “You’re the best mama ever.”
I kissed the top of his head, breathing in the smell of his shampoo and maple syrup and little boy, and thought, I have to get us out. I have to get him away from Tyler before Tyler ruins him the way he’s ruined everything else.
And now I’m here. Trapped. Further from Mason than I’ve ever been.
I can’t think about that. Can’t let myself spiral into the thousand terrible scenarios playing out in my head. Mason is safe. Linda is safe. I need to focus on getting back to them.
I test the zip tie again, trying to find weak spots. It’s tight. Professional. Whoever did this knows what they’re doing. The plastic is thick, industrial-grade. Not the kind you buy at a hardware store.
These men have done this before.
Voices drift up from somewhere below me. Men talking, their words muffled by distance and floor and walls. I can’t make out what they’re saying but the tones are clear. One voice is sharp, angry. Another responds, calmer, trying to de-escalate. A third cuts in, darker, quieter.
They’re arguing.
About me? Probably. I’m an unexpected complication. A witness to whatever the hell that was last night. The smart move would be to eliminate the problem.
Eliminate me.
My stomach clenches but I force the fear down. Fear doesn’t help. Fear gets you killed. Right now I need to stay calm, stay smart, and find a way out.
I look around the room more carefully. The dresser drawers are empty when I check them, walking as quietly as possible on sock feet. No loose objects I can use as weapons. The lamp on the nightstand is bolted down. Even the hangers in the small closet are the kind that don’t come off the rod.
Someone thought this through. Someone prepared this room specifically to hold prisoners.
How many other people have been kept in this room?
The window. I shuffle over to it, hands still bound, and pull back the curtain. Forest stretches as far as I can see, trees dark against a sky that’s just starting to lighten from black to deep blue. No lights anywhere. No roads. No signs of civilization.
We’re in the middle of nowhere.
I try the window latch but it doesn’t budge. When I look closer, I see why. Nails. Someone drove nails through the window frame. Three on each side, driven in deep, their heads painted over to match the wood.
This window has been sealed shut on purpose.
A cold sweat breaks out across my back despite the chill in the room. These men are professionals. This isn’t some impulsive kidnapping. They have a place specifically set up for holding people against their will.
What else are they capable of?
The voices downstairs get louder. One of them is definitely angry now, words clipping short and harsh. Another voice cuts through, deeper, more authoritative. The one from last night, probably. The silver-haired man who grabbed me.
I press my ear against the door, trying to hear better, but the words are still too muffled to make out clearly.
I need more information. Need to understand what I’m dealing with before I can figure out how to escape.
My gaze lands on the digital clock. 4:13 AM. Linda won’t be awake yet. Mason will still be sleeping, safe in the guest bedroom, probably sprawled sideways across the bed with Spike tucked under his arm.
He does that. Sleeps like a starfish, taking up as much space as possible for such a small person.
The first time he slept in my bed after a nightmare, I woke up with his foot in my face and his hand somehow tangled in my hair.
I laughed and carefully extracted myself, tucking him back in properly.
He mumbled something in his sleep. Something that sounded like “Love you, Mama.”
God, I miss him so much it physically hurts.
Focus. I need to focus.
I move away from the door and head to the bathroom. There has to be a bathroom. The outline of a door is visible in the dim light from the hallway bleeding under my bedroom door.
I try the handle. It turns.
Small bathroom. Outdated but clean. Toilet, sink, shower with a curtain that’s seen better days. Mirror above the sink. And?—
A window.
Smaller than the bedroom window, maybe two feet square, frosted glass for privacy. But it’s there.
Hope sparks in my chest.
I close the bathroom door quietly behind me and flip on the light.
A fluorescent bulb flickers before catching, bathing everything in harsh white light.
I look like hell in the mirror. Mascara smudged under my eyes, hair tangled and wild, a bruise blooming purple-yellow on my forehead where I hit the steering wheel.
I look like a victim.
I hate it.
I splash cold water on my face with my bound hands, trying to wake up more, trying to think clearly. There’s a first aid kit under the sink, just like in someone’s normal house. Bandages, antiseptic, pain relievers. I dry my face on the hand towel hanging by the sink and consider my options.
The window.
I step up onto the toilet seat to get a better look. The window is old, the kind with a crank handle at the bottom. The handle is painted over but it moves when I test it. Just barely. Stiff from years of disuse and layers of paint.
If I can work it loose, if I can get it open?—
Then what? I’m in the middle of the woods with no shoes, no phone, no idea which direction leads to civilization. It’s maybe fifty degrees outside and I’m exhausted, bruised, and have been awake since yesterday morning.
I could freeze to death out there.
But staying here means trusting men who kidnapped me. Men who are arguing downstairs about what to do with me. Men who might decide I’m too much of a liability to keep alive.
At least in the woods, I have a chance.
I step down from the toilet and work the crank handle again, trying to loosen it without making noise. The paint cracks slightly. Progress.