Page 8 of Ends of Being

Before I know it, I’m pulling into the parking lot of the local police station. This is a large town considering I was lost in the woods not even fifteen minutes ago; however, I can only imagine what kind of operation I’m running into.

I walk towards the entrance, looking around for the way in, pulling on random doors. Everything is locked. I peer in the windows. No one is loitering about.For the love of…reporting your own kidnapping should not be this difficult.

I finally find an intercom system and press the button. And wait.

I press it a couple more times in case they missed it.

“May I help you?” a bored, crackly voice comes through the speaker.

“Yes, I need to report a kidnapping,” I exclaim, nodding to myself.

“Excuse me?” the uninterested voice queries.

I frown, my hands fisting at my sides as I squint at the metal box in front of me and say slower, “I need to report a kidnapping.”

“Hmm,” the bland voice comes through again. “Someone will be with you momentarily. Please wait there.”

Well, that response was certainly underwhelming. Should I have called emergency rather than drive down here? Maybe if I had been less calm and matter of fact and had been a sniveling, screaming basket case instead; maybe then they would be reacting with some sense of urgency.

It takes more than ten minutes for a uniformed officer to show up at the door to let me in. He pushes the door open, gesturing for me to enter and follow him. He glances at me blandly, obviously not overly concerned by my clearly disheveled appearance.

“What relation are you to the victim?” he asks as he leads me down the hallway.

“Me. It’s me. I’m the kidnapping victim,” I reply curtly, my hands gesturing towards myself emphatically.

“You were kidnapped?”

“Yes, I was kidnapped! Some asshole I work with snatched me from the parking garage!”

He stops walking, his skeptical gaze zeroing in on my face. “You’re saying a coworker stole you from work and brought you here, to this town?”

“No, he brought me about ten miles north of here, but you’re the nearest police station according to the fancy pants GPS in his car,” I reply calmly, though I’m getting more annoyed with every question this guy asks me.

“You stole his car?”

I blink at him, truly startled this has shifted from me being kidnapped to me confessing to grand theft auto. I open my mouth to reply, then pause to contemplate if I need a lawyer.

“Of course, I took his car. The lunatic attacked me then tied me up and stuffed me in the trunk of his car. I had one chance to escape, and I took it.”

“How did you manage to find an opportunity to escape?”

“Oh, I hit him with the little fire extinguisher he has in his trunk then I kicked him in the balls as hard as I could.”

The man physically winces, his hands coming up to cover his crotch as he asks, “So you assaulted him and then stole his car?”

“What the ever-loving fu—“

“Oh, there she is now! Darling, I was so worried about you.”

That fucking voice. That deep, dark, smooth-as-silk voice I would know anywhere is somehow behind me, calling me darling.Calling me fucking darling!

I’m truly speechless right now. I want to kick and scream and throw an epic hissy fit, but I have no words in my brain at all. I’m well and truly stunned into silence.

I slowly turn around, gritting my teeth as I see his annoyingly handsome face smiling back at me.

That fucking bastard.

Dare

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