Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Arizona
T he throbbing pain in my temple and the taste of blood in my mouth stirred my consciousness awake. I tried to fight through the brain fog, willing myself to move, but my eyelids were too heavy to open, and my limbs were numb.
Nothing made sense.
Darkness descended and took me to a place where my mind was void of understanding.
The next time I stirred awake was when a loud bang startled me from my drug-induced slumber. Faint glimmers of light crept into my sightline as my eyes threatened to roll back in my head. My head slumped to the side, too heavy for my neck to support its weight. Beneath me, dark, weathered floorboards transitioned to a rustic beige rug in an otherwise empty room.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed through the stillness, spiking my heart rate, and yet the looming threat of danger wasn’t enough to help me remain alert long enough to find out who had taken me and why, as the drug I’d been given won another round and pulled me under.
“Time to wake up, princess,” a man’s voice urged, pulling me from yet another nap.
My thoughts were swirling in a vortex of confusion and uncertainty, while anxiety consumed me to the point I wasn’t sure what was real or a figment of my imagination. The concept of time had entirely escaped me, yet one thing was evident: night had descended since the last time I was conscious.
“H—elp me.” My mouth was impossibly dry.
“That’s right, my love. I’m here; I’m going to make it all better.”
His voice didn’t sound right.
“Jame—son.” His name came out disjointed, as every breath I took required all my strength.
With no warning, my hair was gathered in a fist and nearly ripped from my scalp when he pulled my head backward. “Now, hearing you say his name hurts my feelings.” His breath ghosted over the shell of my ear. “Hate to break it to you, but even the cocky, pretty-boy firefighter can’t save you from me.”
“Who . . . are . . . you?” I managed to ask as I tried to shift my weight on the rickety old chair, recognizing I was starting to get some feeling back in my extremities.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Arizona, this isn’t the first time I’ve found myself disappointed in you.”
While he stepped out from the shadows and positioned himself between my legs, his movement was calculated, and his facial features remained obscured behind the flashlight he directed into my eyes, temporarily blinding me.
His fingertips swept gently across my forehead and glided down the left side of my face. His touch made my skin crawl and caused bile from my stomach to rise in my throat. I found myself utterly powerless in my determination to stay still when a shiver laced with fear coursed through my body, triggering an immediate shift to his demeanor.
He gripped my chin so forcefully that I was sure he had the power to break my jaw with one flick of the wrist.
“Do I disgust you, Arizona?”
His grip tightened, silencing my attempt to respond. However, I was pretty confident that anything I said wouldn’t be the correct answer. My silence, combined with the knowledge he had me at his complete mercy, left me in a very vulnerable spot without a lot of options at my disposal.
With each second that passed, the rage pulsating under his touch intensified, threatening to not only crush my windpipe as his hand shifted down my neck but also any hope I had of getting out of there alive.
All I could do was picture the two men who meant the world to me.
My dad, who embodied every quality that made him the best father a girl could ever wish for. Our life together was filled with incredible memories and times of immeasurable sorrow. Through it all, he was my rock, always ensuring I knew where I stood in his heart and how much I was loved.
Then there was Jameson; he represented the missing piece my soul craved for completeness. We had been so immersed in an idyllic bubble that I’d allowed myself to fall into a false sense of security, believing we had all the time in the world when I knew better than to think tomorrow was promised. Our time together was seemingly cut short. All I could do was trust he knew in his heart how much he’d come to mean to me.
The realization that I’d never get to tell him how I felt lingered at the edge of my thoughts before my captor turned the flashlight on himself. His eyes were furious, black, pitted orbs that haunted me to the core. The figure looming over me was the last person I expected to see, and at that moment, the magnitude of my past mistake hit me all at once, drowning me in an endless pool of shame.
There was no one to help and nowhere to run.
My world lost its color, and cold fear gripped me as everything around me blurred into nothingness.