Page 85 of Stolen Love

“Uh-huh.” She bobbles her head as she changes the bag. “West taught me.”

“Do you think I could go to the bathroom?” I don’t need to, but perhaps if I can get outside the vehicle I can run from her. Not that there’s much outside that I can see. Nowhere to hide. And with my ankles bound—

“You already have.” She glances at my lap. “That’s why I covered you with a blanket I found in the trunk. I didn’t want you to get cold. But I don’t have spare clothes to dress you in.”

I groan. I peed myself? Just great. Unfortunately, that’s the least of my problems.

“Pill time,” she announces as she snatches them up. They rattle as she forces off the lid.

I turn my face away. “I don’t want it. Please, Dizzy.”

“I hate taking pills too.” She stuffs one between my lips and then pours water in my mouth until I swallow. The liquid gets everywhere, soaking into the blanket on my lap and the front of my dress. I start to shiver. She’s humming the entire time.

There’s that tune again. The one I keep hearing over and over in my head. I dreamed about Alec humming that tune as he hunted me. “How do you know that tune?”

“My mom loved it.” Her eyes fill with pain as she climbs off me and peels the wet blanket from my lap. “She used to sing it to me and West. She used to sing it all the time. She told us magical stories about a sweet prince and the girl he fell in love with. Beautiful stories that would make her smile.”

Her words make me tear up, and I don’t know why, other than the longing in her voice. An emotion that I understand too well. I miss my dad so much. There have been so many times I’ve wanted to turn to him for his advice. Tonight is no exception.

I miss Rogue too. Is he still running from the cops? Does he have any idea that Dizzy has me? Is he going out of his mind with worry?

I miss him so much I conjure him to my side. His cologne and that undertone of oatmeal that makes me want to nibble at his throat invades my senses as I’m transported to the back of the Range Rover.

His thighs are like tree trunks between mine, his palms hot on my hips. I can practically feel the scratchy stubble he loves to rub against my cheek because it makes me squeal.

I’m carried to a million different moments that make up our love. A love I was afraid of. That I ran from. A love that transformed my world. Changed me. Saved my life. Made me grow. A love that I can no longer have, though my soul and his have become so entwined there is no escaping us.

And I don’t know how I will ever move on from that. I only know that I have to. Even if I wasn’t currently being held by a psychopath, there is no hope for us.

I shake myself out of it… I have more pressing concerns to deal with. “I’m sorry, you must miss your mom terribly.”

“I do.” She presses her lips together and nods before she exits the vehicle to grab a fresh blanket from the trunk. “But it’s better this way. The pain she went through… she’s in a better place now.”

“What happened to her?” Did Dizzy do something to her? Or is her death the catalyst that shaped Dizzy into who she is?

Dizzy sniffles as she tucks the scratchy material around me. “You should have known her. Everything would have been so different.”

“What are you talking about?”

She climbs back into the front seat and turns the radio down. “Now let me see…”

“Where are you taking me?” I lift my feet and kick the back of the seat. “Dizzy, let me go.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “You know, sometimes you make it very difficult to love you. But I still do… because that’s what family does, right? We love and we forgive.”

“What are you talking about?”

“West says that,” she says as we get back on the road. “He says no matter how far I run he will always find me. He is my family now that Mom is gone. He is my home. And it doesn’t matter what I do he will always love me. He will forgive me.”

“Dizzy?” West is just as obsessed with her as he thinks she is with me. But perhaps I can use that to my advantage. She clearly cares about him. About what he thinks. “Could we call West?”

She shakes her head. “He won’t be happy. He wanted more time to be certain.”

“Certain of what?”

“I’m going to tell you a story.” She presses her foot down on the accelerator and the car jumps forward. “Now let’s see… there once was a girl with hair as blonde as the sun. She lived in a pretty pink doll house in a country where the sun shone year round. She went to school. And she hung out with her friend. He was a handsome boy. Charming and clever. But he lived in a house filled with evil. Bit by bit the evil started to change the boy and the girl couldn’t save him so she ran as fast and as far as she could.”

My head grows heavy so I rest it on the back of the seat, but I force myself to listen because this story seems important to Dizzy. It soothes her. And that has to mean something. It might even help me work out how to get her to let me go. “Where’d she run to?”

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