Page 85 of Beautiful Prey

I might not be able to see the road, but based on the movement and the lights growing brighter, and the sounds of cars, I knew we had to be moving along one of the main roads into town. Since he was distracted with driving, I couldn’t help trying the knots, moving my hands and feet as silently as I could, trying to loosen them.

Eventually he sped up, and the car dipped as if going down a ramp. Signs flew by. I lifted my head and caught one sign, saying two hundred and thirty miles to the Upper-state Bridge.

He was taking me north. Was he planning on taking me to the upper peninsula and hiding out in the woods? Or continue on into Wisconsin or Canada? To disappear into the wilderness maybe? How would we survive? He just needed a place to hide, to enact his revenge in secret. A few days, maybe not even that, if I could even last that long. My stomach turned at the thought. Or he might find some place to put me where they would never find me and drag out whatever he had planned. Weeks…months…

The car sped on and it felt like forever. Forever in the dark, with the vehicle humming below me.

Eventually the truck slowed. He turned down a road and bright lights nearly blinded me as he pulled into—

Wait. Was he serious? He’d pulled into a gas station.

My eyes flicked over to him in surprise as he turned back in his seat. I hadn’t noticed that he had taken off his skull face mask in favor of a thin black scarf. His gaze was icy and distant as it met mine for the brief moment before he threw a heavy blanket over me.

I didn’t have time to think of screaming for help as he got out and shut the door. I did start to move in my seat, struggling with the knots, rocking back and forth to try and sit up. Maybe someone would see, maybe I might have a chance to get out of this after all. And then maybe…

The back door by my head opened and I felt a heavy hand on me, pushing me down and sliding me back into place. I flinched and froze as the hand gripped me for a moment and I knew he was telling me to stay down. Shutting the door, he put in gas.

Damn him. Still, I worked at the knots as carefully as possible trying not to move the blanket. I couldn’t believe he’d stopped at a busy gas station. I could hear cars and people talking nearby. Iwent to scream but the cloth and blanket muffled me out. No one was going to hear.

He unlatched the gas nozzle and snapped the cap back in place. Then we were off again.

I started on the knots again. I got one to loosen a little but not enough to pull through. I needed something sharp, something to break it. I could roll on to the floor and maybe find something there.

I tried to slide off the seat onto the floor. The blanket made it more difficult, and I could see nothing. I was going to hurt my hands again, but it was a risk I needed to take. I used my hands and the movement of my body to grab the blanket and pull it off my head. I stared at Emery’s back, waiting to see if he would look at me. I waited and started to shift again, preparing to fall face first onto the floor.

I froze before I could roll off the edge as Emery put down his window and I heard the roar of the freeway. Then I saw it in his hand. A phone. I couldn’t tell whose, but I could only guess it was Ethan’s. Without another thought, he threw it right out the window.

So no tracing that. As he started to bring the window back up, I made my move and rolled off the seat. I landed on my hands and my face hit the dirty ground. I tried to search around right away for anything. Anything I could use. I felt something slender and cold like metal on my fingers, so I took hold of it. It wasn’t a knife like I hoped but a screwdriver. I turned it in my hands and started jamming it into the knots, sawing and twisting, anything that might loosen them more.

I was so focused I didn’t notice right away that he was slowing down again. I paused as I realized he was going off the freeway and turning down another stretch of road. Where could he possibly be taking me?

After some time of looking up at the window and paying attention to the turns he made, I determined the direction he was going.

South.

What the hell was he doing?

It was a long time before he stopped. A lot longer than I expected. He had back tracked a lot, going down the back roads, making sure to drive the speed limit so not to risk being pulled over. When he did finally slow to a creeping halt, it was when he made his final turn. I couldn’t see where we were because of my position, my face on the ground, now almost underneath the seat. He opened my door and pulled me up and put me back on the seat. He took the screwdriver from my hands, throwing it back under the seat with sheer indifference.

I looked around when he slammed the door. He had killed the lights so I couldn’t see him but heard him behind me in the back, looking for something.

I focused instead on the front, trying to adjust my eyes. There was something there, something in front of the car. There was no other light except the moon above, but I was starting to make out the trees all around us.

My eyes widened as my sight adjusted. A gate. There was a gate there, chained up in the middle.

I knew that gate.

Oh, my fucking god.

He grabbed a small toolbox, pulling out what looked like a saw, and began working on the lock with steady, deliberate movements. It didn’t take long. Soon, the lock fell away, and he unraveled the chains, pushing the gate open. After driving thetruck inside just far enough, he stopped, got out, and carefully closed the gate behind him, securing the chains and locking them back in place. From the outside, it looked as though no one had broken in at all.

I was shaking now and I couldn’t stop. No, not here. Why?

I cried out as he drove on. I cried, but he didn’t hear me. We drove down the narrow driveway, now overgrown.

He broke from a set of trees on each side and out into the yard of—

My old house.

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