Page 137 of Worthy

He doesn’t answer, and I open my mouth to tell him to stop when approaching footsteps sound behind me. No sooner has the thought entered my mind then a blow to my head knocks me out.

Blackness descends, and a masculine chuckle tickles my ear as a muscular arm slides around my waist. “Sshh.”

Chapter three

Jessica

Groaning, I blink my eyes open. My head thumps in time with my roaring heartbeat.

Something is very wrong.

My stomach heaves as I push up on my hands and knees, fighting the urge to hurl. The ground moves—wait, no… I’m in the back of a van.

The realization sends a spark of panic through me, and I scramble back in fear. My breath gets knocked out of me as cold metal connects with my bare shoulders.

Where’s my coat? The last thing I remember is the bar at the restaurant where the handsome stranger talked to me. I foolishly let him flirt, enjoying the thrill of pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

A light flicks on, and Melanie’s icy blue eyes stare at me over the flashlight emanating from her phone camera.

“What’s happening?” I whisper shakily, drawing my knees up. My dress is too short, and my skin is mottled with goosebumps from the cold.

“We’ve been abducted.”

Frowning, I snap my gaze back to her. “What?”

Her blue eyes never stray from mine while she leans back against the opposite wall. “You were drugged. They knocked me out.”

I blink, incapable of digesting her words. We sit in silence until I whisper, “But why?”

Intense blue eyes pierce mine for such a long moment, I’m forced to swallow down my panic.

Averting her gaze, she shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe they want to rape us before killing us, or maybe they’ll sell us? Human trafficking is a multibillion-dollar business, after all.”

“We’re in Norway.”

“So?”

“It’s Norway,” I point out like that makes sense.

“Human trafficking exists everywhere.”

“This is a safe country.”

Wetting her lips, she shines the light directly at me, forcing me to blink. “That’s why we’re trapped in the back of a fucking van. It’s so fucking safe, right?”

Tears pool in my eyes before I can stop them, and I blink rapidly. This isn’t happening to us. It was supposed to be a family vacation, not a kidnapping.

“Our parents will worry about us.”

She lowers her phone and stretches her long legs out in front of her. The van lurches, and I let out a frightened whimper as she says, “Their worry is the least of our concerns right now.”

I look up, meeting her calm gaze. It unnerves me that she can be so composed when we’re trapped in the back of a moving van, not knowing what will happen to us when it stops. The panic inside me threatens to reduce me to a pile of rubble.

“What do we do?”

“We wait.”

I gesture to her phone. “Call for help!”

---