Page 30 of Reclaiming Adelaide

“I’m just going to sit for a second…alone,” I said, explaining myself to a man who clearly wasn’t very good at taking social cues.

He nodded, his finger jerking over the lighter, igniting it for a split second, then doing it again.

My hands shook as I brushed past him, my grip on my backpack cramping my palm. The cool night air hit my lungs with a hint of fresh rain in the distance and a momentary sense of freedom.

Even though I’d wept for everything and everyone I’d ever known, this was a new start for me, and nothing could stop me from starting over.

I sat down on the bench and pulled my new phone out of my backpack, and powered it up for the first time—the screen reflecting movement too late for me to respond.

A spice-tainted hand curled over my lips, sealing the breath inside my chest, and dragged me against him.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he urged before switching to a language I couldn’t understand. My sneakers scuffed on the uneven tarmac as he dragged me into the shadows behind the vacated buses.

My muffled screams caught in his hard, sweaty palm as he hauled me behind the furthest bus to a camouflaged car waiting in the distance. My fingers dug into his arms without deterring his efforts—my heart and mind running wild.

I slammed my heel down onto his toe. My scream broke free as his fingers slipped past my lips and into my mouth, his salty dew touching my tongue. I bit down on his finger, my teeth hitting solid bone.

He howled and slapped me over the head. As I continued twisting my heel into his toe, another man opened the trunk.

“She’s just a little girl, Berat. Put her ass in the trunk.”

Berat picked me up with a growl and dumped me over his shoulder, my bag falling to the ground.

“Help!” I beat against his solid back. “Someone help me!”

“Hey, this doesn’t concern you,” the other man said as Berat shoved me into the trunk and closed me in.

Suffocating darkness enclosed around me with a faint red gleam from the taillight and a yellow tab glowing on the trunk door.

A heavy thud hit the ground outside the car, a grunt, and a meaty slap followed by a crack like someone had broken a stalk of celery in my ear, causing a shudder to muddy my already sensitive gut.

The car rocked as a large object collided with it not once but twice until his groans echoed in my shadowy coffin.

What was happening? I covered my mouth as I held my breath, listening to the chaos ensuing all around me. My body jumped with another grunt and thud. A man cried out in agony as my shaking fingers looped around the glowing tab and pulled.

I flung my legs over the edge of the trunk and ran as two men grappled on the ground.

“Adelaide, wait.”

Jake?

Jake’s voice broke through the chaos as I ran, never looking back. How did he find me? Was it he who hired these men?

“Adelaide. Stop.”

My heart quivered in my chest—torn between what I should and shouldn’t do.

I wiped the confusion from my mind as something banged against metal as it did before, causing me to pause and turn around.

A man kneeled on the ground, his head bent back at an awkward angle as Jake stood above him.

“Berat?” I whispered, squinting into the darkness.

Jake held Berat’s other arm stretched out to the side and when he glanced in my direction, he plunged his knee into Berat’s elbow, causing him to shriek.

I stumbled backward as Jake turned and walked toward me.

Oh my God.

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