Page 65 of Bound by Wreckage
23
Nox
The darkness fills the sky,and we’re all feeling the fatigue. Carsyn is trying her damnedest to stay awake, but having difficulty, feeling her nod off every now and again. Every time I squeeze her leg she jumps, tightening her grip around me, rousing her. She’shad a rough day and one that I’m so damn proud of her for.
When we saw the van, this hope filled me. Hope that she was alive. Hope that she wasn’t hurt. Just hope.
I thought for sure I’d be killing the motherfuckers who took her, but once again Carsyn surprised me. She found that inner strength that I saw a glimpse of and took action. Yes, she got beat up in the process, but fuck—shedid it. She held strong and fought her way out to freedom.
The adrenaline rush she felt wore off a few hours back, and she’s been dragging ever since. Cooper leads us off the road to a well-lit hotel. We’ve put a very good distance between St. Louis and us, even going a bit more south than normal to make sure we weren’t followed.
Carsyn’s grip loosens as Jacks heads into the lobbyto secure the rooms.
“Won’t they be able to track it?” Carsyn says in my ear, and I smile.
“Fake card, gorgeous. You know this.” The tension in her body relaxes, but she’s exhausted. Within moments Jacks comes out handing key cards out and giving me ours.
Fuck if she’s sleeping alone tonight.
We park the bikes around the back in a cluster and head in, luckily with noone around because Carsyn’s eyes dart everywhere searching. This has been her life for the past few months, and makes me wonder if she’s had a good night’s sleep in a while or if this fear she’s carried around has been her nightmare.
That wasn’t what I had planned for her. Fuck, none of this went according to plan, but such is life. One that can change in the blink of an eye and take noprisoners.
We make our way inside the building, up to the fifth floor, and down a long white hallway with framed art on the walls.
“We’re over here in the corner,” Jacks calls out, leading us that direction. The guys head to their rooms, all right together in a cluster, as we enter ours. Carsyn looks around, noting no one in the room, and her shoulders deflate as she pulls her backpackoff her back and tosses it to the bed. She rolls her shoulders and neck, no doubt feeling the tension of the day.
“I have to take a shower. His blood is still on me,” she says to the ceiling while rounding her head back to me.
“One second. Need to know how they got you and what they said.”
Her lip trembles just a bit before she wipes it away, and the strength she has shinesthrough. “I was in the bathroom coming out of the stall. Big Jim was there with a gun pointed at me and Cary D had a woman with a gun to her head. Said if I didn’t go with them they were going to shoot the woman. I couldn’t have that on my conscious, and I thought…”
“Thought what?” She sits on the corner of the bed huffing out a deep breath.
“Thought I’d be able to scream and getaway once I got out of the bathroom because of all the people. I should’ve known they’d drug me.”
Fuckers. While I’m glad she got her shot at them, I would’ve loved to have mine. “Do you have any idea what they gave you.”
She shakes her head, her beautiful brown-haired ponytail moving with her in waves. “No, but it only took a couple of seconds and my body went limp. But I don’tthink I was out of it long when I woke up in the back of the van.”
“Did they say anything about Buck?”
“Said that he was there with them, but turns out he wasn’t. In the van Cary D said we were fifteen minutes from wherever we were going. That’s when I knew I had to fight.”
I pull her into me and kiss the top of her head then kneel down to the floor. “You did good. Go aheadand take your shower.” She nods and stands, taking her backpack into the bathroom with her. Once I hear the shower come on, I grab the key card and step outside the door knocking on Coop’s. He opens quickly.
“Yeah.” I step in but leave the door open so I can hear the shower. She’s strong, but if she’s going to crash because of what happened, I want to be there.
“So that’s Carsyn,huh?” Coop says with a sly smile attached to his face, catching how fucking beautiful she is.
“Obviously.”
He chuckles, clucking his tongue. “She did a kickass job with those fuckers.”
I exhale deep allowing everything to sink in. Riding helped, but my mind was too preoccupied with keeping Carsyn awake and making sure we weren’t followed. “Yeah, she did. The woman I left though,she didn’t have that in her at the time. She was fragile and timid. She didn’t feel comfortable around people and shied away from everyone. Makes me wonder what all she’s gone through since I left.”
“Women are resilient. They have a strength that is unprecedented once they tap into it.”
