Page 16 of Break for Me

Again.

This motherfucker.

I screamed until there was nothing left to come out of me, and then I let myself cry for just a few minutes. I didn’t give myself the opportunity to breakdown often, but this one felt appropriate. I felt ridiculous. This was what I got for thinking someone might’ve just wanted to date me. This was what I got for thinking I could do anything that was normal for other people to do. This was what I got for buying myself a dress and shoes. If I’d had access to my other clothes, I would’ve shredded this fucking dress with my bare hands, and then used the pieces to strangle that motherfucker until his face turned as blue as his eyes.

I calmed myself back down by thinking through the logistics of my current situation. I was across the literal country. It would take several days of just driving before we made it back to Pennsylvania. That was more than enough time to get away. I’d escaped worse people and worse circumstances while still in Pennsylvania. I could get out of this one, too. I just needed a plan. And preferably my shoes.

The only real benefit that I could pull from this scenario was that this man didn’t want me dead. I must’ve been worth more to him alive. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bothered to put up such a fight to just restrain me and toss me in the trunk. Killing me would have undoubtedly been the easier route. So, there was a reason to keep me alive. That put him at more of a disadvantage than it did me. He could hurt me. Almost without question, I knew he would hurt me if the situation ever called for it, but I would likely survive whatever he might do. That knowledge was a massive boost in figuring out the plan to escape. He’d have to be able to catch up to me if I ran. He’d have to be able to fight me off a second time if I ran. I was prepared to wager my physical safety that I wanted to escape and stay alive more than he wanted whatever payday he might get from returning me to Philly.

And depending on how you decided to look at it, it was either good or hilariously bad luck that I already possessed the experience of having to escape from the trunk of a car. It was pitch black in this trunk, so I started to feel my way around the little space. Every newer make and model came with an escape mechanism built into the trunk, but I wasn’t overly surprised to find that this particular car had been modified. The back seats were originally intended to lay forward to open up into the trunk and provide more open space, but the release latches for the seats had even been removed. Fucking Persephone was created with the intent of transporting live prisoners.

“Come on, you bitch,” I whispered to the nothingness in the trunk while I continued searching for anything. “Women are supposed to stick together. Against men. They’re the problem. I can’t help but feel like the queen of the underworld should really be on my side here.”

I couldn’t find a fucking thing that would genuinely be helpful in that trunk, though. I should’ve known that would be the case. If there had been anything back here that I might’ve used, he would’ve bound my hands with something at the very least. He hadn’t bothered tying me up in any fashion because he did this regularly and he knew there was no way out of this trunk unless he was the one who opened it. That left me with needing to have a plan the next moment that he did open this trunk. I had no doubt that he would open it again eventually. If he was really that serious about this car, he’d eventually let me out to go to the bathroom.

I worked really hard to calm myself down as much as possible to imagine the route that we might be taking back toward Philadelphia. I had no way to guess how long he planned to drive or where we’d actually be in the country when he decided to stop. He probably wouldn’t risk stopping anywhere that was as populated as Seattle. I’d have to figure out how to make a run for it in the boondocks while fucking barefoot and in a dress. I wasn’t about to even consider the possibility that I would have the opportunity to grab my backpack before I ran, but it wouldn’t be the first time that I’d just have to figure out how to start over entirely. I’d done it before. I could do it again. It was the only chance I had at staying alive.

* * *

I panicked a little when I woke up because I could feel that the car had stopped moving entirely. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep at some point. I quickly rolled into position and felt every bit of the tension and adrenaline return to my body while I waited for the trunk to open again. I heard his car door open and close and I tensed again in preparation, but the trunk didn’t open. I couldn’t even hear his footsteps, but that might’ve been because I couldn’t hear anything beyond the frantic beating of my own heart. It took so long that I wondered if maybe he really did intend to leave me in here for the entire trip back to Pennsylvania. Then I heard a tapping on the trunk.

“Keep quiet once you’re out here, Fancy Face. Understand?” He said while the trunk started to open. I waited until his arm was extended over his head to open it the full length and I kicked as hard as I could right at his groin with my foot. He stumbled back a good four or five steps and doubled over while I jumped out of that trunk like the damn thing was on fire. I started running before I’d even had the chance to look around. I tried to make out where we were while I ran. It was the parking lot of another motel. The lot was shared with another building but I was moving too quickly to figure out what it was. It was still completely dark outside except for the light from the moon, but I spotted a tree line just behind the motel and that’s where I was headed. There weren’t other buildings here. There weren’t other people who could help me. If I could get into the cover of the trees, I’d have a much better chance of getting away. Or at least hiding long enough that he might give up for a brief moment to give me a better head start.

By the grace of Persephone, I made it into the trees and forced my body to ignore the constant pain of being stabbed by whatever was being crushed beneath my bare feet.

thirteen

JERSEY

A witch.

She was a fucking witch.

I stuffed the little radio back into my ear and then I ripped my jacket off to get ready to take off after her. I pushed the button to call Memphis.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“She bolted,” I said, making sure that I had a round chambered in the gun before I put it back in its place. “Somewhere into the trees behind the motel. Headed West. She’s barefoot. Can’t be moving all that fast and it’s still dark here.”

“You have a drone in one of the pink bags,” she said.

“No time,” I said already jogging across the parking lot with a flashlight in my hand. “She’s got too much of a head start as it is.”

“How did she get away?”

“She took a dick shot and left me paralyzed for a hot minute.”

“A dick shot,” Memphis repeated and didn’t even make an attempt to hold in the laugh.

“Are we sure Texas wasn’t a man?” I asked. “If she did this shit more than once to the same man, I can see how she keeps getting away. Who wants to be around a girl who does that shit?”

I stopped at the edge of the trees and flipped the flashlight on. I breathed out a sigh of relief to spot her little footprints in the mud almost immediately. She was too focused on moving quickly. She wasn’t making any attempt to cover her tracks yet. The darkness made it difficult, but everything else about it was easy enough. She’d stumbled more than once, fallen just as many times, cut herself on something bad enough that she’d started bleeding. She was going to get herself killed out here before I ever caught up to her at this rate.

“Memphis, figure out a way for me to track her that she won’t know about once I’ve reigned her back in.”

I started on my own frustrating trip into the trees. I had shoes and a flashlight and it still wasn’t easy. The girl was determined. I had to give her that much. I made it several minutes into the trees before I came across a point where her footprints trailed off in more than one direction.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, and even had to smile.

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