Page 4 of Under His Embrace

If I leave it on the highway, maybe that’ll deter them.

I got out and hurried across the grassy field toward the motel, knowing that I was also running on fumes.

Of course, they’ll guess that I’m at the motel.No other building stood around here on the outskirts of Beckson. As soon as those men turned around and got off at this exit, they’d come to the motel and hunt me down. The tree line to the west wasn’t promising, not with those branches bare of leaves and coverage.

This motel was my only hope. Without a look back at the A&J van, I barreled through the door, startling the front desk clerk.

Oh, my God.“Winonna?” I asked, stunned that the crotchety old woman who ran the motel ten years ago was still manning this front desk.

She raised her brows, expressing the same disbelief that I felt. “Is that you, Chloe Dawson?” With a nasty cackle, she cracked up. “Oh, Lordy. Talk about the garbage the cat draggedin. Look at you.” She laughed some more, taking glee in my soaked, disheveled appearance. Chills cut through me as I waited for her reaction to fizzle, but I’d be damned if she was waiting for an explanation.

“You bust outta town right after graduation, acting like you’re all superior and better than the rest of us. And now look at you! Running back with your tail between your legs, eh?”

I exhaled a shaky breath, too cold, too scared, and too annoyed to deal with her. Facing this sort of judgment was precisely why I never thought to return, but I was out of luck.

“I need a room.”

She laughed some more. “A room.” Slapping the counter, she shook her head and wiped her tears. “Here? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” Then she narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin. “Foryou, I’ll give you a special rate. Three hundred a night.”

My jaw dropped. That was insane. This one-start dump of a lodging wasn’t worth half that price. We both knew she was price-gouging, likely out of spite and nothing else, but I didn’t have time to haggle. I didn’t have the freedom to drive somewhere else.

“Take it or leave it.” She crossed her beefy arms and grinned.

You…I exhaled a sharp breath, wishing I could shout at her, but she was my only means of hiding. I had nowhere to hide outside. No other buildings were within walking distance, not with how quickly those men might come back. “Fine.” I dug out the cash from my first paycheck—all cash and under the table at A&J’s, not that I’d complain. After I crammed the remaining couple of bills back into my pocket, leaving me with two hundred dollars to live on for the rest of the night, I smacked the bills to the counter. “Quickly, please.”

She stared at me, suspicious and probably wondering how she could get the rest of my money. “Don’t you start nagging meto hurry, young lady.” Taking her time, she got off the tall stool she was seated on and grabbed a card key for room four.

I didn’t bother to ask for details about checking in or anything. As soon as I had the key, I’d bunker in for the night and pray that she wouldn’t give away my details should those men come back.

Regardless, once I was in the room, I closed and locked the door. Barricading it for extra security wouldn’t help. The small chair I pushed under the doorknob wouldn’t hold up to those tall, muscled men, but it was all I had. All I could do.

Using all the thin, threadbare towels, I dried myself off the best I could and paced. Thunder shook and boomed outside, rattling the junky motel walls with such force that I feared the whole place would collapse. Between the pounding rain and hail, it was so loud that I still couldn’t freak out or slow down to think at all. The soundtrack of the storm kept my senses heightened until I broke down due to sheer exhaustion.

As I fell asleep, I cried into the pillow, wondering how this could be my life. How I could never, ever win? I’d just moved to the city and started at A&J, hoping for a new start on life at twenty-seven. Now this. Killers chasing me down. My workplace shot up. The litany of woes and worries, the overwhelming sense of fear and dread, depleted my energy, and I fell asleep to the sounds of the storms.

The absence of the thunderous noise was my alarm clock all too soon. All night and into the morning, I woke at intervals throughout fitful sleep, but now, I was instantly alert.

They’re back.

“Maybe she’s in this one,” a man said outside the thin walls of my room. The motel was nothing but a one-story, long length of crappy rooms, probably all the same, with nasty carpet and moldy ceilings. And it sounded like the men who’d shot up thedeli were stomping right down the path, banging on all the doors.

“Open up,” one shouted. A meaty fist banged on the door. It sounded so close, it had to be the room next to mine, number three. “Open up!” he repeated.

“Housekeeping,” another man shouted, then laughed roughly at his joke.

“The whole fucking motel is empty,” the first man said, then pounded his fist again. “Ain’t no one in the office. No one in the rooms.”

“But that van’s out front,” the second man argued.

I held my breath, knowing this was it. If they burst in here, I’d be caught. Without a second door to exit through, not even a single window to break out of, I was trapped.

“Well, two room keys are missing,” the first man said. “If she’s here, we’ll find her.”

I tensed, curling into a tight ball and wishing feebly that I could be invisible under the covers. Suspended in terror, every second fell too quickly. Time was running out. My life would be over, and in stark clarity, I regretted each and every one of my mistakes.

I’d never have time to correct any of them. I would never have a chance to make anything right again.

Especially not withhim.

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