Page 22 of Break for Me

She’d said it so quietly that I thought maybe I imagined it. Until I looked up at her face and could see that she might as well have been in physical pain over feeling like she had to be kind to me. Then I was certain that she’d really said the words.

“Remember this when you go sprinting off into the dark next time,” I said when I let go of her foot and took my own things toward the bathroom. “You won’t get away and I won’t be gentle about it another time.”

Her angry, little expression hadn’t improved much by the time I was dressed and back in the room to get ready to leave. I sent Memphis another text to say we were about to go back to the car so she’d know to be ready in case the girl managed to create trouble between the door and the car. I paused to look at Trista once I had the lock off the door and was ready to open it.

“I won’t run,” she said quickly and looked at the floor. “It hurts. I wouldn’t make it anywhere right now.”

With that admission, I opened the door and stepped aside to let her walk out first. The limp looked even worse now than it had inside the room. It took all of about a second for me to hate myself over it, but I still walked right up behind her to grab the handle of her backpack to pull it from her shoulder and carry it myself. She hesitated before she looked my whole body up and down, but I kept moving and refused to meet that stare. I was glad she didn’t bother to thank me again, because I tossed her bag in the front seat again and popped the hatch open for her.

“Jersey.”

“Trista.”

“You’re serious,” she said. Not asked. It wasn’t a question. I grabbed one of the protective floormats from the back of Seph and dropped it inside the trunk before I held my hand out for her shoes.

“Why can’t I just ride in the front? Or even the back? Just in a fucking seat.”

“Because I don’t want your company. Give me your shoes.”

Her mouth fell open. “You made me sleep quite literally right beside you, but I can’t just sit in a car with you?”

“Persephone. Not just a car,” I said. “And you’re significantly easier to get along with when you’re asleep and not speaking.”

“God, you’re an ass.”

She forced herself to move to get her shoes off when she realized this wasn’t up for discussion and she dropped them into my hands with more attitude than anyone had ever used to do anything in the history of the world. I offered to lift her up into the trunk. Trying to be helpful. She told me to fuck all the way off. So, I let her struggle her own way through it and I placed her shoes on the floormat in the corner of the trunk.

“Give me your hands,” I said and pulled more zip ties from my pocket.

“What?”

“Hands.”

I snapped my fingers at her twice and thought for just a second that she was about to spring right at my throat. Instead, she nearly bit through her own lip and held her wrists out toward me for me to bind them.

“Lay back,” I said. “Feet next.”

“Jersey. What the fu—.”

“No,” I interrupted. “You don’t get to be dramatic about this. You dick kicked me and made me hunt your ass back down. I’m not doing that every time I open this trunk. This is on you.”

“Maybe you should try not putting me in the fucking trunk.”

I tightened the zip tie around her ankles and put my hands up on the hatch to get ready to pull it back down.

“Uh huh, I’ll think real hard about that.”

I slammed the hatch and went to my seat to call Memphis and open the computer to look at the map.

“Morning, doll. She’s tied up in the trunk. We’re about to leave. Check ahead for me? Somewhere in South Dakota, I imagine. Give me ten, maybe eleven hours of driving. I’ll have to stop to feed her today. Don’t think I can get away with letting her starve to death.”

“Okay. So, a lot to unpack in there for a phone call this early in the day, Jersey,” she said. “First, doll is yet again, a no. Second, why is she handcuffed if she’s in the trunk?”

“Just zip ties,” I said and almost snorted at how ridiculous that sounded to offer as a defense. If any regular human heard these conversations…yikes. “You know I don’t like handcuffs unless they’re for fun.”

“We are not that close. I don’t ever need to know about your kinks, sir.”

I laughed. “I just don’t want a dick shot every time I have to get her out of there. I don’t want to have to chase her every time I open the trunk. Seemed easier this way.”

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