Page 46 of Truck Stop Tempest

I stepped out of the car and cracked my neck. Drawing a deep breath, I stared at the dark sky and welcomed the blackness that closed around me.

The black sky closed around me like a collapsing tunnel, burying me under its filthy rubble. I pushed forward, unsure of my destination, knowing only that I had to keep moving. Away from Tito. Away from the images of blood and skin, Jonas’s blue eyes begging for help, the grunts and taunts of his masked assailants, and that terrifying voice panting in my ear, “You’re next, beauty. Gonna fuck that ass up real good. Then you can run home and tell Daddy this was all for him.”

Crushing shame consumed me. The ground passed below in a dizzying blur. Run. Run. Run.

A pair of arms enveloped me. My feet left the ground, the world spun, and I landed on my back in a patch of wet grass.

Angry eyes invaded my field of vision. Hot breaths heated my face.

“You don’t drop a bomb like that and run away. No fuckin’ way. You spew bullshit like that, you damn well stick around and face up to it. Hear me, little viper?”

A jackhammer battered my chest. Jonas’s screams grew louder, clanging in my head like loose change in a dryer. Tito was above me yet seemed a million miles away.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

I gasped for breath, struggling to get back to my feet.

His heavy body fell across mine, smashing me into the wet ground. “Are you one of them? Were you trying to hurt my family?” He grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head. “Tell me.”

I wanted to speak, purge my guilty conscience. He’d never forgive me. None of them would. I was crumbling under the weight of my deception. I wanted to confess, but the words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t find them through the screams in my head.

“Tito.” I choked on my plea. “Tito, please.”

“You fuckin’ little liar,” he groaned through gritted teeth. “You’ve been lying to us this whole time. Did Jonas put you up to it? He make you get a job at The Stop? What was the plan exactly?”

“Please,” I begged, choking on my tears. “I can’t.”

So much blood. So much screaming.

“What was your game, Tuuli?” His face hovered inches from mine. His voice vibrated with disgust and hate.

“I can’t. I can’t. He won’t stop screaming.” I tried desperately to shake the images, the noises, from my head. “Oh, God. Make it stop. Make them stop screaming.”

In a breath, his weight was gone. I rolled to my side, pounding at my skull, desperate to dull the noise. I shoved my palms into my eyes, a futile attempt to rub the images away. They wouldn’t go away.

I didn’t want to see them anymore. The blood. The knives. The bodies. The masked men.

Gonna fuck you up like your daddy fucked us up.

“Stop.”

You’re next, beauty.

“Tuuli. Stop.”

Jonas’s blue eyes, wide and lifeless, focused on me through his torture. His bloodied lips mouthing, Tuuli, I’m sorry. Tuuli, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

“Fuck.” Tito yanked my fingers from my face, holding them between us with one hand. His other hand locked like a vise around my jaw, squeezing hard and holding me still. “Breathe. Just fuckin’ breathe.”

Through the dark, I heard his words—rough, angry, and violent. Through blurry eyes, I registered the shape of his face, vibrations of rage the only barrier between us. Still, his touch grounded me. His presence soothed me. His strength pulled me back from the spinning abyss.

“Breathe with me. You can get through this. It’ll pass.”

I attempted a slow and steady inhale, only to choke on tears.

“Breathe in for three, out for three. I’ll do it with you.” He pressed his forehead to mine and started to count, “Inhale. One, two, three.”

I sucked in shaky breaths.

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