Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
E mery
I’m so frustrated by the time I get back to my motel room that I’m vibrating with it. No, I’m well past frustration at this point. I’m full-on angry.
The deep breathing exercises I’ve learned to do over the years to manage my anger aren’t helping as I pace back and forth in front of my bed.
Classy, civilized women don’t get angry. My mother’s words repeat in my mind. I hold on to them to do my best to tamp down on the sensation roaring through me.
That son of a b…almost hit me . I recall, however. Not only was I almost hit in that run-down, good-for-nothing bar, but then I was unceremoniously thrown out.
How dare that owner and his staff do that to me. I wonder if that’s how Ashley was treated when she went to that place.
That thought makes my heart sink.
My pacing comes to a halt. Despair replaces my bout of anger. Not one person in that bar even hinted at seeing Ashley in the last week. I couldn’t tell if any of them were lying because most people didn’t even look at the photo of my sister.
And that owner…
He didn’t bother asking me for her name. When I pressed and threatened him with the police is when he became the angriest, almost striking me.
He would have if that other guy hadn’t stepped in.
The other guy…
I noticed him the moment I was dragged into that office. But he only gave me a cursory glance. It wasn’t until that wretched owner almost hit me that I got a closer look at him. He was tall, towering over me and the owner, bronzed skin and immaculate square jaw and beautiful, long dark hair that fell over his shoulders.
He stopped that owner from attacking me, but paid me no attention. I wondered if he worked there as well?
With a shake of my head, I say out loud, “It doesn’t matter.” He’s probably as terrible as the rest of the people in that bar.
I push thoughts of him out of my mind. I undo the blanket and sheets on the bed. Right before tucking myself in for the night, I set my alarm to get up early. First thing tomorrow morning, I plan to go directly to the police station. They may not have taken me seriously last time, but this time I will make them.
I turn over on my side and sigh heavily. Even though it was something I was reluctant to do, I may also have to tell my parents that Ashley is missing. As of now, they still think she’s on vacation with her friends. But telling them the truth may be what I need to do. Especially if the police don’t take me seriously this time around.
My parents have a lot of connections in New York and may still have some in Florida where they used to live. We might need those connections to help find my sister.
Serious, intense copper eyes linger on me. They trap me in their sights leaving me breathless. I don’t mind the loss of oxygen as those penetrating orbs drink me in. The attention from those eyes is truly all I need to survive.
I can’t see the face of the person those eyes belong to, though.
“Who are you?” I say out loud, but it comes out as a whisper.
There’s no answer. The eyes blink and then I’m enveloped in darkness again.
“No,” I yell, sitting straight up.
It takes a few seconds and a number of deep inhales to realize I’ve startled myself awake in my motel room. I kick myself free of the blanket and work to steady my breathing and slow my heart rate.
Before I can, however, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I’m not alone.
That one thought flashes across my mind before I see anything out of the ordinary. I reach for the light on the nightstand.
“Don’t,” a deep voice permeates the air, scaring the heck out of me.
I yelp, but then quickly clap my hands over my mouth. I turn toward the corner of the room and there he is. I can only make out the outlines of his long body as he quietly sits in the chair. He’s wedged it between the door and the desk.
My gaze starts at his feet. I can barely make out the dark jeans he’s tucked into his heavy boots or the black T-shirt. When I reach his midsection he sits forward in his chair, bringing his elbows to rest on his thighs. Long hair spills over his shoulders, almost obscuring the view of his face.
But it’s when I peer up farther to meet his stare that my breathing stops altogether. His eyes…they’re glowing?
This has to be part of my dream.
I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut. I count backward from ten all the way to one. I know once I reach one and open my eyes again, this dream will be over.
“One,” I say, slowly opening my eyes.
He’s still there.
But that glow I swore was present seconds before is gone. I knew my mind had to be making things up. Now if I just close my eyes and countdown again, once I reopen them, he’ll be gone.
I close my eyes. Even as I count, though, I can feel him silently watching me. Before I even make it to five, I open my lids and meet his stare head on.
“I-I don’t know who you are, but if you d-don’t get out right now, I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs.”
Though my voice shakes with fear, I hope it holds enough base for him to know I mean it.
His only response is a tilt of his head to the side.
“Get out right now!” I say forcefully before grabbing my cell phone off the nightstand. “I’m calling the police.”
I put in the code to unlock my phone, but before I press the “9” he says, “Put your phone down.”
My finger pauses, hovering over the “1.” Common sense tells me not to listen to him, but it’s as if my body responds to his command without my permission.
“Put it down.”
I hesitate again but then remind myself it’s the middle of the night and a strange man has somehow entered my motel room.
“Get out of my room!” I insist as I stumble to my feet.
He slowly, yet gracefully, rises to his as well. My breath catches. It’s the same man from the bar.
He’s huge.
At five-eight, I’m not exactly short, but he has at least an additional six inches over me. I hadn’t noticed how imposing his size was earlier. Probably because I was more focused on the owner, and I’d had heels on.
“Stay back.” I hold out my hand with my phone out in front of me as a method of keeping him away.
He takes another step closer.
“I’m warning you.”
I check my surroundings and grab the lamp from my nightstand, snatching it so fiercely that the plug yanks out of the outlet.
This makes him stop, standing fully erect.
“Get out of here right now.” I wield the lamp like a baseball bat. I try to push the thoughts out of my head that if he wanted to, this guy could do whatever he wanted to me. This lamp isn’t going to stop anything.
But I vow to kick, scream and do my best to gouge his eyes out if he comes any closer.
“I mean it.” I hold the lamp higher as he takes another step. “Get out.”
“No.” His voice is low but unbendable.
I part my lips ready to scream until the entire motel is awake and alarmed.
“Don’t do that,” he orders before the first squeak comes out.
I shouldn’t listen to him. He’s a stranger, he’s huge, and he broke into my room in the middle of the night.
He shakes his head. “I won’t hurt you.”
A mocking laugh comes out of my mouth. “How do I know that?”
He turns his head and stares out of the window. His chest rises and falls a few times and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was trying hard to restrain himself.
I suck in a gulp of air when he turns back to me, and again, that strange glow is in his eyes. I shake my head and blink a few times because I know I’m imagining things. Real people’s eyes don’t glow. He has to be playing some kind of trick or game.
“Because I came to save you,” he finally says.
“Save me…” I mumble to myself.
“You’ve made some enemies,” he replies.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His head snaps toward the window again as if he’s just heard or saw something. He quickly looks back at me. Whereas his movements were once slow, measured, he changes, moving before I can blink.
Before I can say “what the heck” he’s caught my arm in his strong hold. The lamp falls from my hands, landing on the bed.
“We don’t have time.” He pulls me from the side of the bed with one arm and grabs my suitcase that’s leaning against the wall with his other hand. “Pack your things.”
“What?” I try to shake free from his hold. This only makes him tighten the fist he has around my wrist. The hold isn’t painful, but it traps me to him, ensuring that I won’t be getting away from him anytime soon.
“Let go of me,” I insist even though I’m pretty certain he won’t.
Instead of listening, he takes it upon himself to start yanking the dresser drawers open and pulling out the clothes I’d neatly folded and placed inside.
“What are you doing?” I screech. He doesn’t bother to answer me. Nor does he pause. He doesn’t respond at all to my inquiry.
“Stop it!” I insist. Again, no response, but when I go to pull my clothes out of the suitcase, his free hand grips my wrist. Now both of my wrists are encircled in his.
“You’re in danger,” he says in a low voice.
“Yes, from you. A stranger who broke into my room and is now trying to kidnap me.”
He frowns, his face tightening. But he soon shakes his head and then goes back to putting my belongings into the suitcase.
“I’ve had enough of this,” I declare. Unfortunately, my phone fell from my hands and is now on the other side of the room. I can’t use it to call the police.
I open my mouth wide to scream, in the hopes that someone will hear me and come see what’s the matter. Or at the very least, call the police.
Yet, when I go to let out the first sound, a large, firm hand clamps over my mouth. All of the air leaves my lungs when I’m tugged backward into a wall.
No, not a wall. Him.
He’s pulled me against his very hard, muscular chest. Suddenly, I’m aware that I went to sleep in one of my silk negligees. The only sleepwear I have. Ever since I turned eighteen, my mother insisted that what I slept in was important.
A woman must look presentable at all times. Even when she’s asleep. She would tell me.
I wonder if she ever took into account that one of these days, I’d be pressed up against a huge, imposing stranger with his hand clamped over my mouth. All while my light-blue negligee that stops a few inches above my knees, rides up my thighs while he clasps me to him.
My body heats and I don’t know if it’s from fear, his body heat or something else.
Please.
The word doesn’t come out but I try again. To beg for my life. Nothing comes out of my lips because his hand is still there.
I feel him lower his head over my shoulder. Something brushes against my earlobe and I shiver.
“Shhh,” he hushes. “I won’t hurt you.”
My heartbeat is wild in my chest. The sound reaches my eardrums, almost drowning out his voice. But I hear it.
“You’re not safe here. I’ll keep you safe.” He doesn’t say the words but I swear I can hear the ‘I promise’ in his tone.
Something inside of me relaxes. The fear and hesitation don’t completely disappear, but the panic that started to well up a few minutes ago diminishes. I give him a slight nod.
When I do, the hand covering my mouth falls away. For a few beats neither of us move. It’s as if he’s testing to see whether or not I’m going to scream.
I don’t.
Despite common sense telling me this is dangerous and a smarter woman would scream for her life, I keep quiet.
“Okay,” he says in a voice so low I barely hear it. He takes a step back. All of a sudden, I’m cold. It has to be from the loss of his body heat coupled with the thin layer of the negligee.
I turn around to face him and immediately I still. His eyes are planted on me, scanning my body from head to toe. It’s silly, though, because I’m sure he can hardly see me.
I’ve always had excellent eyesight but now that we’re out of the light streaming in from the window, I can’t make out his features as well as I could. Yet he’s looking me up and down like he can identify every contour and shape of my body.
I cover the front side of my body with my arms, feeling exposed. This must snap him back to attention because his head lifts.
“Let’s go.” He grabs my arm again.
“Wait, where are we going? I’m not dressed to go anywhere.”
He doesn’t stop as he pulls us toward the door.
“I’m not wearing any shoes.”
Still, he continues. It’s not until I yank my hand, hard with enough force to get his attention, but apparently not enough to get him to release me, that he pauses.
“I can’t go outside in this,” I gesture with my free hand up and down the length of my body. “Oh gosh, and my hair.” I pat my head, realizing I’m still wearing the nighttime bonnet I sleep in to make sure my pressed hair remains untangled during the night.
The hold he has on my wrist loosens. “Do you need to change?” he asks, as if needing to ascertain if that’s why I’m detaining us.
“Yes, and for you to tell me where we’re going? Why am I in danger?”
He doesn’t answer. But he does open my suitcase and pulls out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I grab my suitcase from him.
“I can find something,” I insist, not wanting him to touch my undergarments.
“We don’t have much time.” His voice is calm and steady, but I swear I pick up on a note of worry in it. A million questions rush through my mind. But at the top of them is a question to myself: Why do I believe him?
It’s a question I don’t have an answer for. Not even as I stumble into the bathroom, close the door behind me and start changing out of the negligee into the clothes in my arms. I peer at myself in the mirror and blink in horror at how disheveled I look.
My skin is puffy and there are small bags under my eyes from a lack of sleep over the past week due to worrying about Ashley. I quickly remove the bonnet and pluck my comb and brush from the countertop. I style my hair into another bun for now.
I look over my array of facial cleansers, toner, and makeup trying to decide which I have time to apply.
“We have to go,” a deep voice sounds through the door at the same time he beats on it with his fist.
It startles me, and I grab what I can from the counter and toss them into my makeup bag. When I open the bathroom door, he’s right there. I don’t miss the way his eyes scan my face before he grabs my arm again.
“We need to—” He stops so abruptly that I bump up against his back. “They’re here.”
“Wait, I forgot my pills…” I start for the nightstand where I’ve left the iron pills I’ve taken for years but he grabs my arm, stopping me.
“No.”
A chill runs down my spine. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. A beat later, shadows pass over the motel window. A second after that, the door handle jiggles as if someone’s testing to see if it’s unlocked.
My body starts to tremble and I suck in a breath readying to scream, but the man in my room, holding my hand, turns to me. His finger covers his lips in a move telling me to keep quiet.
I bite back the scream.
He leans into me. “Stay behind me,” he instructs in a tone that’s so serious and hard that I can’t imagine not listening. “Once I open the door, take your suitcase and run to the parking lot. My truck is black and parked in spot twenty-three.”
He pulls back just as the sounds at the door get louder. Whoever’s on the other side is trying to break in. He doesn’t move though.
It’s then I realize he’s waiting for me to answer.
I nod. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
I follow him closely to the door, my body practically attached to his. There’s more jiggling at the door. Whispers come from the other side as well, but the man in front of me is as still as a statue. He doesn’t move for long seconds. Long enough that I start to become restless.
It’s not until the door lock pops open and the knob turns all the way, allowing whoever’s on the other side to come in that he moves.
He’s lightning fast. So fast, that I can’t keep up as he yanks someone by the arm and does a movement that I can’t make out. What I can make out though, is a loud cracking sound followed by a male scream.
If I didn’t know any better, I would guess to say that he just broke one of my intruder’s bones.
“Now,” he turns and growls.
It takes my brain and body time to get on one accord. But I soon realize, that was his signal for me to run. The doorway is clear. I nearly trip trying to grab my suitcase and run at the same time.
My makeup bag falls from my hand but I manage to hold on to my suitcase as I run out of the door.
“Twenty-three, twenty-three,” I repeat like a mantra, to remember the parking lot number he said his truck was parked in.
A part of me wants to look back over my shoulder. To make sure none of those guys follow me. To see if the man who broke into my motel room first is behind me. Did he get hurt?
Somehow, though, I think stopping to turn around would anger him. He’d want me to keep running. So, I do.
I make my way down the motel stairs to the ground level and into the parking lot. With my suitcase glued to my side, underneath one arm, I scan the numbers painted in each of the parking lot spots.
“Twenty-one,” I say as I run past. “Twenty-two…” I come to a stop because the lot ends at twenty-two. My heart pounds in my chest. I swivel my head to the opposite side of the parking lot and my eyes land on a black pickup truck.
“Twenty-three,” I say, relief filling me as I read the lot number.
I start for the truck, but someone comes up behind me. “Get away,” I say, taking a wild swing with my suitcase.
“It’s me,” his deep baritone says. My rescuer holds up his arms in a surrendering fashion.
I push out a breath in relief. “Oh,” I gasp.
“Let’s go.” He doesn’t waste time as he grabs my hand and my suitcase, taking both of us to his truck.
He unlocks the truck and then tosses my suitcase into the back. Even in his hurried movements, he comes around to open the door for me, slamming the door only once I’m inside with my seat belt clamped around me.
Seconds later, he’s behind the wheel and we’re peeling out of the parking lot. I peer behind me, through the back window to see if there’s anyone following us. I squint and take note of the strangest thing.
There aren’t any people but shadows of what appear to be two or three dogs emerge in the darkness of the parking lot. Except, they’re large, huge even. I don’t remember seeing any dogs while I was out in the parking lot. I didn’t even hear any barking.
I turn to face front, noting that I must be seeing things. My mind is playing tricks on me.
I close and open my eyes a couple of times. At the same time, I work to control my breathing. Then suddenly, it hits me all at once.
I’ve just escaped out of my motel room, in the middle of the night, from only God knows who, with a man.
A man who saved me.
Who’s now driving me somewhere.
And I don’t even know his name.