Page 38 of Better Run
Jayden moves his right hand to his pocket, and I jump. He pulls out a cloth and turns to me. “Blindfold.”
“No.” It slips out before I can stop it. No. I want to see before he shoots me in the head. I need to see it.
“Little one,” Cole growls in warning from the front.
Jayden’s eyes are hard. If he was going to kill me, why would he care if I saw where we went? But who knows with these psychopaths.
When I don’t move, Jayden puts it on me and my world goes dark. I start to panic again. I’m completely at their mercy.
Cole starts the car, and I lurch as we begin to move. What purpose could they have to move me? Maybe we were moving locations. Maybe the police were hot on their tail. That thought fills me with brief joy. But they didn’t pack anything. Maybe they weren’t going to kill me. Why go through the trouble of marking me as theirs and then killing me off?
Oh fuck. The tattoo could be their calling card. They could be serial murderers. It strikes me how little I actually know about these men.
My breathing is heavy. A hand drops on my knee, and I jump. He keeps it there, heavy and warm.
We drive for what feels like hours. At first, it feels like hills and twists and turns, and it makes me feel sick. Then it flattens out, and we just drive and drive. I need to pee, but I don’t dare ask them. Jayden keeps his hand on my knee the whole time. The touch grounds me. I can do this. I may not survive, but I’ll kill them before I give up.
Finally, the car stops. Cole gets out, and my door opens with a rush of cold wind.
“Scoot over.” He pushes in next to me. Jayden then gets out his side.
Cole takes my blindfold off. It’s still dark out. We’re parked in what looks to be a parking lot. Of a church maybe? Jayden is walking across the lot, hands shoved in his pockets.
“Where are we?”
“That’s not relevant to you, little one.”
I turn to look at him. He has an edge to him today that he doesn’t normally have. My gut sinks. We sit in silence. My tattoo itches.
“I need to pee.”
“Hold it.”
“What’s going on?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
I’m moving from scared to pissed off. “You know what? No. You don’t get to drag me out here and then not answer anything. Tell me what’s going on.”
Cole leans into my space, his toned body suddenly feeling bigger and more menacing than before. “Do you think I won’t hurt you? I will. And I’ll enjoy it. Stop pushing your luck.”
My heart races. He hasn’t raised his voice, but it felt like his voice filled the car.
“Do not push Jayden.” He sits back. “Not today.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jayden
Sage has moved. Thinking I won’t find her. Thinking it makes her safe. It’s laughable really.
I know that making someone disappear is about careful thinking, planning, and luck. Luck that the neighbors won’t be up and look outside. That they won’t call the cops. That if they do call the cops, that there won’t be officers in the area for a fast response. I know because I lived the other side of it.
Sage has a camera on her front door so I avoid it. I smudged my license plates with mud before we left. I left Cole and my kitten parked about a block away, and walk through the neighbors side and backyards. The ground is still frozen so I won’t leave any footprints. I’ll still throw these shoes away just in case.
The light is on in Sage’s double. I hang by the neighbor’s shed. Her backyard isn’t big, maybe 75 feet, but there aren’t any trees or anything to provide cover. Her habit is to let her dog out at five. It was one of her biggest gripes about her lab Harriet - she was as needy as a baby.
I wait. Five rolls around. Then five ten. I glance at my watch again. My thoughts keep going back to my kitten. The fear she had today was unbearably hot. Intoxicating. Made me want to delay my plans just to fuck her in the backseat. It took monumental effort not to do so.
