Page 113 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
She was so thirsty her stomach burned for want of water. Her bladder was uncomfortably full. Every turn the car took was agony.
Just when she thought she was going to be forced to wet herself, she felt the vehicle slow and veer to the right. Then it stopped altogether.
Doors opened and slammed shut. Feet crunched over gravel. The trunk lid was raised.
She closed her eyes instinctively, but no light burned into her eyeballs. It was dark outside. Ponytail was leaning over her.
“She’s still alive,” he called.
Milo’s response came from too far away to hear.
“I need water,” she rasped.
He ignored her. Just yanked her upright by her forearms. He produced a switchblade and, before she could flinch, sliced through the zip ties around her ankles.
She scissored her legs out of the trunk. He was keeping a painfully firm grip on her upper arm to keep her from running. She knew she wouldn’t be able to, even if he wasn’t keeping hold of her. Her legs felt like jelly.
He jerked her to a standing position. It was too dark to detect anything about her surroundings beyond the fact that they were parked in some kind of rest area. Traffic zipped by a hundred yards away. She saw headlights winking at her between a line of trees.
So close, yet so far.
Milo was approaching them, zipping up the fly of his jeans. She tried to pull away, but Ponytail yanked her forward.
He marched her to a grassy bank that dropped down toward a boggy paddock. He let go of her arm and said, “Do whatever you gotta do.”
She turned her head around, gaging her options. She could run, but there was nowhere to escape to. Except down a steep drop to a darkened swamp. She still had bound hands, and her legs were shaking under her own weight.
“There’s no one watching,” he said, watching her with a nasty smirk.
He went to grab at her skirt, but she stepped away. She’d shoved the gun down her waistband, and she couldn’t let him see it. Not yet. Not until she had free hands and a clear shot, and then she planned on letting both these fuckers see it.
So, she squatted in the grass and went. And forced herself not to be embarrassed. If he got off on watching kidnapped women urinate, then he was the only one who should be ashamed.
When she was done, he hauled her back to the car. Milo was waiting by the trunk. She felt a swoop of fear at having to return to the tiny, dark space. But any attempt to break free of her captors would be impossible. She was dehydrated, starving, and her whole body ached.
Milo was holding a water bottle in one hand. He uncapped it and held it above her mouth. She drank greedily, not stopping until the bottle was empty.
Then they shoved her back in the trunk.
She lay there in the darkness again, curled in the fetal position. Maybe she was only halfway to wherever to they were taking her. Maybe only a quarter.
Maybe when she got there, she’d wish she was back in here.
Her eyelids felt heavy. Soon, they were so heavy she couldn’t keep them open. An overwhelming desire to sleep came over her. And it occurred to her then that there must have been something in the water.
It was her last coherent thought. That there’d been…something…in…the…
THIRTY-SEVEN
Jessica wokeup with a full body jerk. It drove her feet and head into hard metal. It hurt, and the crashing sound of her collision made her heart beat wildly.
She lay there, breathing fast, trying to figure out where she was.
It was dark. But she wasn’t in the trunk anymore. She was lying on her side, legs bent, on a cold floor. It was concrete. Gritty and damp and hard.
Something solid was pressing against the soles of her shoes and the top of her head. She tried to straighten her legs but couldn’t. When she tried to pull apart her hands, she found they were still bound with the zip ties.
Her eyes roamed around, feeling dilated, trying to make sense of her surroundings in the darkness.
