Page 18 of Obsessed

I stand up from the bed. "Ready as I'll ever be." I ignore the pains shooting through my head and limbs, the trickles of nausea and dizziness, precursors to the waves that will hit me in a few more hours, when I'm further from my last dose. A blush of shame warms my skin as I envision myself showing up at the precinct strung out and in the throes of drug withdrawal. I see no way to avoidit.

Oscar holds the door for me. I walk past him into the hallway. I've been out of the room so infrequently, even the hallway is unfamiliar. I follow behind the stalwart bodyguard as he leads me along several corridors and up an incline. It's the incline to the garage. While I got ready, I entertained the idea that I might have a tiny send off or at least see Kane before I left him for good. A laugh shoots from my mouth as I realize how ridiculous that sounds. Why would he see me off? He obviously only had one connection to me and that was sex. Just like I insisted to Blake. It was all about pussy. I laugh again but it's forced. I like to think that sex was the only thing I wanted too but I know that's a lie. For a few strange, crazy months I wasn't Angie, the girl who was never quite good enough, or sporty enough or tough enough for her dad. I wasn't rusty haired, smart mouth Angie, the woman who was never good enough to wildly win over a man. For a few months, weeks that now feel like they were all just part of an insanely long and real dream, I was Tawny, the cinnamon haired seductress who captured the attention of Kane Freestone. But in the end, it was all aboutpussy.

Oscar flashes his key card in front of the panel and the metal door opens. Without a word, he leads me to the black van, the one with windows tinted inside so the passengers can't see out. As he opens the door, he nods just the tiniest bit, his version of good-byeapparently.

I climb inside and am instantly reminded of Yoli and Becky and all the excited women waiting to be taken to the party. The door slides shut. I sit alone, the sole passenger in the van. I glance up to the cameras and wonder briefly if he is watching me. Another laugh, a much sadder one than the last two falls from my lips. He's not watching. He's already forgotten myname.

It's colder inside the garage. The inside of the van is chilly. I wrap my arms around myself and settle back, waiting to be driven to wherever Kane has decided to dump me. With any luck, it'll be close to thepark.

The van wiggles slightly and the sound of the doors opening and closing echoes through the garage. The motor vibrates beneath me, and the nose of the van heads up an incline. I'm heading out of the underground. I'm heading back to the real world, leaving Kane's fantasy world behind. Again, it's impossible to sort out my feelings about it. I blame it on the lingering drug in mybloodstream.

I rest back and close my eyes, hoping to meditate away the horrid headache. The pounding increases with each passing minute. The rather rough road doesn't help. I've trained myself to not rub my arms when the ant army starts its torturous march along my skin but it'shard.

My sense of time is still weak, but it seems we've been driving for only fifteen minutes when the van comes to a full stop. We never hit smooth pavement, which means we aren't on a road or highwayyet.

The door slides open automatically. I peek outside. The sky above is chalky black but filled with stars. The moon is nowhere to be seen, but there is enough reflection from the headlights to illuminate the landscape. Desert. Sand, scraggly bushes and a few cacti. My heart pumps and adrenaline brings me to full attention when I consider the possibility that I'm about to be murdered in the middle of nowhere. Alarmingly, the main thought running through my head is that Kane had so few feelings for me he had no qualms ordering myexecution.

The only sound is coming from the engine of the van until a computerized voice comes through the speakeroverhead.

"Good night and good-bye, Miss Smith." A sob of relief tumbles out. It seems death wasn't on the menu. It only makes the reality that I'm being dropped phoneless and penniless into the middle of nowhere a bit easier to accept. My mind circles right back to the same dreadful reality that he didn't order my execution but he rather liked the idea of me dying slowly in the middle of thedesert.

The chilled night air envelops me the second I step out of the van. The door slides shut. I stand in disbelief as I watch it roll away, kicking up a ghostly dust cloud as it heads back to wherever the hell I just camefrom.

I wrap my arms around myself for warmth and to ease the pain that is growing in intensity. As my eyes adjust to the natural darkness of nightfall, I can see the silhouette of low mountains in the distance. My sense of direction is no use to me when I don't know my point of origin. I can only guess that I'm somewhere between the California and Nevada border, but it's only a wild guess. The first sounds I hear are tiny feet scurrying through driedbrush.

I hug myself tighter. The tiny feet remind me that there are much bigger feet as well. I quickly think back to my elementary school habitat units. Coyotes, they are the biggest predator I can think of in the desert habitat. I stupidly decide I'm better off here than in the forest where there are bears and mountain lions. Or are mountain lions a desert predator too? I shake the idea of being prey out of my head. I'm skin and bones. The four-legged hunters would probably scoff and decide I'm not worth the chase. Not that the chase would be long. I'm at the weakest state I've ever been. Athletic, strong, tough Angie has been replaced by frail, silly, gullible Tawny who actually believed Kane would never do anything to hurt her. Instead he picked the most insidious way to kill off his SweetSin.

Tears fill my eyes but I wipe them quickly away. Dad was right. They only make me weak. And right now, I need more than ever to channel tough, strong Angie. Otherwise, the vultures will be having a feast bymorning.

18

Maddox

Feelinga little like James Bond but without the British accent, I grab the asthma inhaler that instead of medicine contains a tiny tracking device. I rethink the Bond moment. The inhaler just isn't his style. The second I climb out of the Porsche, the same black limo that served as an interview location, pulls into the empty industrial lot. It's an abandoned complex at the end of town. It's fallen into disrepair and is waiting for a demo crew to raze it to theground.

The limousine pulls up and the door opens. A big guy who doesn't need to be wearing a badge to assure me he's a bodyguard motions for me to put my hands on the car for a search. I bite my tongue to avoid losing my new membership into Freestone's club. He pulls the inhaler out of my pocket and holds it up inquestion.

"Yeah, hey this is kind of embarrassing so if you could keep it just between us," I add a friendly wink. "Whenever I get a little too, you know, excited. I sometimes get an asthma attack. So I really need to bring that along. Hope that's all right." I reach for it. He pulls his hand back and throws the inhaler and its handy little tracking device. It rolls under thePorsche.

"Wow man, not cool. What if I have an asthmaattack?"

"There's a well stocked pharmacy at theclub."

"Oh, shit, well, yeah, guess that works then." I glance back at the white and silver canister sitting quietly under the car. "Hey, is the car all right here for the night? It's kind of a sketchyplace."

"You've got insurance, don't ya?" He asks before motioning me into the limo with his gianthand.

"Yeah sure." Hopefully Clark purchased the liability insurance to go with the car rental. It would take me a long fucking time to pay the department back for a lostPorsche.

I'm more than surprised to find that I'm alone in the limo. I relax back in the comfortable seat. The big guy leans in. "We'll be at the airport in thirty minutes. If you push the green button on the panel the wet bar comes out. Help yourself to thedrinks."

"Airport? We're not driving to theclub?"

"It's a short flight. The other members will meet us there." He shuts the door before I can ask anything else. Our plan to track the journey to the underground entrance is thwarted. I'm on myown.

I sit back to absorb what's about to happen. I'm about to enter the Lace Underground. There are a million questions running through my head. Will I find Ten? Will I even see her? If I don't see her, what the hell is my plan? How do I get to her without setting off alarms? And if I do find her am I prepared for it? I need to be ready for anything. Maybe a sampling from the wet bar is a goodidea.

19

---