CHAPTER 8
Ellis
He doesn’t want me.
This thought kept bouncing around my head. I wasn’t surprised when he said he didn’t need me. That I already knew. Brody was a self-sufficient man who seemed to have everything in his life figured out and could handle anything that came his way.
I, on the other hand, was an amnesiac mess that may or may not be a criminal and needed other people to make my decisions for me.
No, Brody definitely didn’t need me, but I’d been hoping he at least wanted me.
After the conversation we’d just had, that wasn’t looking like a possibility, either. The man might like me physically, our one night together made that clear, but he didn’t want me around more than necessary.
As I sat in Brody’s parked truck feeling like a fool, I contemplated my options. The windows were down and a pleasant breeze blew across my face, in stark contrast to my very unpleasant thoughts.
Without my memories, I couldn’t leave Brody, but what if they never came back. He wasn’t going to support me forever.
Where would I even go?
I still had no idea who I even was, and so far, there hadn’t been much luck identifying me. When I was in the hospital the police had taken my blood to try a DNA match, but that had turned up nothing. No relatives or friends had shown up looking for me, and there was no missing person’s report matching my description.
Maybe I should just live in the woods, taking shelter in a tent and hunting my own food. I could do odd jobs under the table for some cash and live completely off the grid.
At least that way I wouldn’t bother anyone.
I never saw the hand reaching for me until it gripped over my mouth and pressed my head back against the truck’s seat. I tasted leather as I tried to scream, but nothing more than a muffled noise came out. Someone was leaning through the window, masked and gloved so barely any of their skin was showing.
“Shut up,” the person hissed at me. A male voice.
“Don’t bother,” another person said behind the one silencing me. “Just bring him.”
With my head pinned, I couldn’t see the second speaker, and their voice was more androgynous so I couldn’t even tell if they were male or female.
My breath came in harsh little bursts through my nose as panic made my vision go blurry around the edges. “Bring him” could only be interpreted one way. I was being abducted and based on the number of voices I heard contemplating how to get me out of the truck, there were multiple people involved.
I probably couldn’t even fight off one. A whole group would be impossible.
Brody could fight off a group. I’d seen him do it before.
The man holding my face pressed my back harder into the seat to keep me in place as he reached for the unlock button on the door. My seatbelt wasn’t on. If they got the door open, they could easily pull me out, and then it would all be over.
Luckily, my arms were still free.
Before the man could reach the unlock button, I knocked his hand away just enough to pull the door handle. With the door still locked, pulling the handle from the inside set off the alarm.
The man holding me jerked back in surprise as the alarm wailed, and I got a good look at all my attackers for the first time. It was worse than I feared. Not only was there a whole group of people surrounding the truck, but they were heavily armed as well.
Even if I tried escaping through a different door, a different kidnapper would just grab me. They had me thoroughly surrounded.
The alarm didn’t distract them for long. Another person reached around the first man and unlocked the door, allowing them to open it and grab me by the front of my shirt.
I braced my hands and feet against the inner wall of the truck, wedging myself inside as best as possible.
“You fucker,” one of the kidnappers gasped as they struggled to pull me from the truck.
For once, I was glad for my size. It made it harder for them to move me against my will.
I kicked out blindly and managed to hit one of them hard enough to knock them away, but another body just took their place. It was a losing battle. I couldn’t fight them off, but maybe I could buy enough time for Brody to notice what was happening.