Page 104 of The Catalyst

I do have a question that I’ve had rolling around in my head for days and I’ve wanted to ask, but I didn’t have the guts to do it.

Now, I do.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

He nods. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Have you ever had a girlfriend?” I ask, the question sounding more stupid than I originally thought it would. It’s just a curiosity. I thought he was dating Casey, but then he proved that was false when he rebuked the title she gave him.

“No,” he admits before grabbing his boxers, slipping them on.

“You never found anyone you’d be interested in that way or…” I trail off to let him fill in the blank and he smirks.

“There’s only one woman who I’d ever consider giving that title to and, until very recently, she acted like she wanted to slap me every time I opened my mouth.”

My heart speeds up as he leans over the bed and gives me a sweet kiss, one that runs down to my toes.

Damn him.

Me.

He’s talking about me.

That’s probably the sweetest thing I could get out of him and the idea of being his girlfriend isn’t off-putting at all. If what we have been doing together has been any indicator, I think we would be good together.

I could give him the ability for him to get out of that toxic house. He could move in here and he wouldn’t ever have to go back to that awful place. We could be happy, just the two of us.

It sounds like a fantasy and fantasies rarely work out the way people want them to.

He gives me another kiss before pulling away. “You can go back to sleep. I might be gone for a while.”

I give him a smile. “Okay. Just don’t scare me when you come back, okay?”

I’m way easier to spook in my sleep. The slightest move will make me jump out of my skin and Martin doesn’t move a lot in his sleep.

“You got it, baby.”

Baby.

He called me baby.

Don’t you dare turn into a wet blanket now. It’s a term of endearment, not a proclamation of love.

I lay down in my oversized t-shirt and wrap myself in the blanket before turning to face the wall. I will worry about him the entire time I’m laying here, but the sooner he gets back, the sooner I’ll be able to relax. I know his father might hurt him while he’s gone and there won’t be anything I can do about it.

Yeah. He just needs to hurry up and get back here as soon as possible.

* * *

I waketo a pounding in my head and I clench my eyes, wondering why the hell my head hurts, but then as consciousness comes back to my mind, I realize that my head isn’t pounding. No, it’s something far worse than that.

I’m no longer in my bed, surrounded by blankets. No, no, no. I’m stuck in the trunk of someone’s car. My wrists and ankles are bound and a piece of duct tape is over my mouth. I thrash my body around, kicking and punching whatever I can reach.

This can’t be happening. I’m not a heavy sleeper. How the hell could I sleep through being kidnapped and thrown in someone’s trunk?

I scream through the duct tape, hoping someone hears me, but before I can find the damn trunk release, the vehicle starts to slow down.

The one time I slept in that bed without Martin next to me, I just had to be snatched. Just my fucking luck.

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