27. Lorraine
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lorraine
N o, no, no!
How had they found me? I was supposed to be safe in the cabin, safe in the forest where magic created a barrier to hide me. That’s why I’d been there all this time instead of going home, so they couldn’t find me!
“Stop fucking fighting!” one of the men grunted when I clawed at his face. He had his arms wrapped around my waist, and I kicked and clawed and screamed.
It felt like my screams were muffled and didn’t travel very far. Something was messing with the way things should have worked. Then again, since I’d been taken the first time, nothing had been normal.
I may not have been heard when I screamed, but I refused to stop fighting.
“Help me out, will you?” my captor panted to the other guy.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Grab her legs!”
When the second guy grabbed my legs, I planted a foot in his jaw and kicked as hard as I could. He fell backward, cursing loudly.
“You deal with her yourself, you son of a bitch!” he growled, rubbing his jaw as he pulled himself up again.
“I can’t do it alone!” the first one shouted, his voice gravelly in my ear. “He said she wouldn’t be this much trouble the further we move away!”
He?
“Just keep fucking going,” the second one growled.
I let out another scream, which didn’t travel far at all, and kicked and fought as hard as I could. My captor tried to wrap an arm around my neck. I dipped my head, and the moment his arm touched my face, I sank my teeth into his flesh. He howled in pain, dropping me.
When I hit the ground, I scrambled away, pushed up, and ran.
“Not so fast!” the second guy shouted, grabbing my arm.
I swung around and punched him in the face. He cried out and cursed another string of powerful words. I spat at him for good measure. When I yanked free, it was my chance to get away. It was my chance to?—
Something hit me over the head so hard, I saw stars. I took another step forward, and another, trying to get away, but my balance was off and I couldn’t see anymore. My vision blurred, darkness crept in, and I felt the world tilt on its axis. I hit the ground, pain shooting into my left shoulder when I landed on it. My head continued to spin as the two men’s voices danced around me, somehow sounding further and further away even though I felt hands on my arms and my legs.
The darkness dragged me under, and then I didn’t know anything anymore.
The blackness lasted a long time. I came to, aware that I was moving. I kept my eyes closed in case I was being watched and tried to take stock of my surroundings.
The two men talked to each other, not too far away from me, but the gentle rumble of an engine beneath me drowned out their muted voices. I peeked through one eye to confirm that we were in a car, and the two men sat in the driver’s and passenger’s seats.
I lay on the back seat, my head throbbing like a bitch. Whatever I’d been hit with, it had been a hard blow.
I was getting sick and tired of being knocked over the head and taken away.
I tried to study my captors without them realizing I was awake. They looked vaguely familiar, and I was sure they were the same guys who’d taken me the first time. They were both burly. The one had a scar on his cheek that ran over his eye, giving him a perpetual frown. The other I couldn’t see, but I could hear him. He sounded like he was the one in charge.
I dubbed them Thing One and Thing Two.
Hadn’t they given up on finding me? What the hell made me so special that they’d kept looking for me until they found me again?
How had they found me at all?
Someone had told them where I was. It was the only thing that made sense.
Who could have ratted me out? Ash?
No way. Ash had gone out of his way to protect me. If he’d wanted to hand me over to these guys, he would have done it that first night. No, it had to have been someone else.
The only other male I knew was Rowan, Ash’s friend. He wouldn’t have done something like this, would he? I didn’t know him well enough to answer that, and I didn’t know what kind of friendship he and Ash had either.
Thinking so hard made my head hurt, and I gave up. Someone out there wanted me gone, and now I was captive again in a car.
Where were they taking me?
“Oscar will lose his shit if he finds out we found her and didn’t tell him,” Thing Two said.
“Oscar won’t find out if you don’t tell him,” Thing One grumbled.
“Why the fuck would I tell him?”
They stared at each other, and a moment of tension grew in the car.
“You know you can trust me,” Thing Two added, and the tension died down again.
Oscar didn’t know I was here. He didn’t know these guys were acting without him. What was Oscar’s arrangement with them? Had his debts been paid? He hadn’t done anything to Cat—a trip back to my old life had shown me she was still alive, and that meant everything to me.
Where the hell was Oscar now? Wherever it was, it wasn’t around Cat, and that was all that mattered.
Thing Two looked over his shoulder at me, and I closed my eyes quickly. Had he seen I was awake?
He didn’t say anything, and a moment later, the conversation resumed between them.
“So, what are we supposed to do now?”
“We’re going to the pickup point, and then we’ll know what’s next,” Thing One said. “I don’t give a shit which way this goes as long as I get my money.”
Where was the pickup point? Where would that take me? Who was involved… and why?
The questions made my head spin. I knew why I’d been taken—it had been to pay off Oscar’s debts. But that had been a long time ago. I had no idea what this was about now.
I must have fallen asleep again. When the back door was yanked open, I jerked awake. I didn’t have time to look around and figure out what was going on. Thing Two grabbed me and roughly yanked me out of the car.
“Get up, Sleeping Beauty,” he grumbled. “It’s time for a pee break.”
I blinked in the bright light and looked around. When Thing Two planted me on my legs, I wobbled, catching myself on the car. I was weak, barely able to keep myself up on my own two legs. My head felt light and airy, and the bright light hurt my eyes.
We were at a gas station with two pumps, one of which was out of order. Where were we? Was this still in the realm where Ash lived? Something told me it wasn’t.
“If you don’t go to the bathroom now, you can piss yourself,” Thing One said gruffly.
He put a hand on my back and shoved me toward the restroom. It took everything I had not to fall to the ground. What was going on? Why was I so weak? I felt like I hadn’t eaten in days.
“You don’t think she’ll make a break for it?” Thing Two asked.
“Too weak,” Thing One answered.
They knew I was weak. What had they done to me?
I took a careful step toward the restroom, then another, and another. It was hard work propelling myself forward. Every step was difficult, and by the time I reached the restroom door, I was out of breath. I had to throw my weight against the door to get it to open, and I stumbled into the restroom.
I walked to the mirror and looked at myself. My blond hair was a tangled mess, and I had dark circles under my eyes. Those hadn’t been there earlier. I looked worn out and thin. I lifted a trembling hand to my sallow cheeks and traced my cheekbone that protruded from a hollowed face.
The door opened, and another woman came in. She looked at me wearily before she hurried past and locked herself in a cubicle. I waited for her to come out and wash her hands next to me.
I opened my mouth to ask her for help, but no sound came out. I sawed my mouth open and shut, but produced no words. She avoided eye contact, dried her hands on her jeans, and left the restroom again in a hurry.
Tears stung my eyes. Was no one going to help me?
This was when I knew I should make a break for it—I should climb out of the back window. If I ran now, I could still get away. But I just didn’t have the strength to do it. It had taken me so long just to get to the restroom. There was nowhere for me to go but back out there, where the two brutes waited to take me… I didn’t know where they were planning on taking me. I didn’t know anything anymore. Since the night Oscar had sold me, my life hadn’t belonged to me anymore.
I wished Ash was here. I ached for him. I needed him to come save me. How long would it take before he realized I was gone?
I looked at myself in the mirror again. My cheeks were stained with tears I hadn’t realized had fallen. I scrubbed my cheeks and took a deep, shuddering breath.
I finished in the restroom and opened the door again. Thing Two waited for me.
“What took you so long?” he demanded, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed my wrist, and I winced in pain.
He dragged me toward the car, moving faster than I could move my legs to keep up. I stumbled twice, nearly falling. I should have been able to walk properly, but my legs just wouldn’t work with me.
Thing One opened the door, and Thing Two all but shoved me into the car.
I was relieved I could lie down again. Going to the restroom had taken every bit of energy I’d had left.
The two guys climbed into the front seats again and started the car. I lay down as I had before. Thing Two drove this time, and Thing One looked over his shoulder at me, offering a menacing grin.
“Just like he said,” he told Thing Two. “She’s getting weaker and weaker.”
What was happening to me?