Page 5 of Captured By the Convict

Panic sets into Connie’s blue eyes as the blue skies of the outside world disappear behind the cold steel shutter. For a moment she struggles with renewed vigor, like she’s desperately trying to fight for her life, like she’s smart enough to know that if I was already serving a long sentence for murder, I might not give a fuck about adding another murder to the list if it gives me the best chance to get away.

Now that ruthless logic of my brain urges me to do just that, break her pretty neck and stow her under that dropcloth until I can dump the body. She’s a liability while alive. A screaming scheming squirming liability that’s only going to get me caught and probably killed.

Better her than you, comes the coldhearted command from my brain’s survival-center. Do it now, Xavier. Do it now.

But I can’t do it. Something about what her voice does to me, the way I feel warm around her even in the blistering Boston wind, the way her sweet presence takes me back to a happy childhood that never existed for me, like Connie is awakening memories of some past life, some parallel existencewhere I didn’t spend years in foster homes all over South Boston, bouncing from one place to another, rejected for being too hard to control, too violent to be loved, too angry to be accepted.

Now I realize Connie’s stopped struggling, is just staring up at me from where I’m holding her against the metal back wall of her truck. There’s a sense of resignation in those blue eyes, and for a moment I think I see a deep sadness in there.

It startles me, that glimpse of something dark and despairing in this sunny sweetheart’s bright blue eyes. Suddenly I see that it was all fake, that this woman has been forcing herself to play a part like an actor on a stage, faking it just like I tried to do so many times to trick my new foster parents into accepting me, keeping me, loving me.

“It’s all right,” I say, my voice softening even though I don’t want it to soften, don’t want to trick myself into allowing her to walk away from this. There’s no way I can let her go. Within hours every cop and trooper in the area is going to be hunting me with a shoot-on-sight order. The U.S. Marshals will mobilize, probably the FBI too. My only advantage is having a head start, and I lose that advantage if Connie goes free and reports my last known location. Best case I could tie her up in the back of the truck and leave it in the New England woods—which would still probably end up with her dead in this weather if nobody finds her within a couple of days. “It’s all right, Connie. I won’t hurt you if you do what I say. Now, I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth. You scream, you die. Got it?”

Those sad blue eyes show a flicker of understanding. Then she blinks and nods her head.

After a stern gaze of warning, I slowly take my hand away from her face while still holding her tight against the metal wall of her truck, my forearm against her throat, my heavily muscled body poised to lean in and crush her wind-pipe with my weight if she even squeaks, let alone screams.

“You . . . you escaped from the prison!” she stammers, her voice barely a whisper, blue eyes wide with adrenaline. “Oh, shit, if only I didn’t have to go pee! If only I didn’t drink that extra cup of coffee! Shit. Shit. Shit! Mama was right. You can’t fight fate. It’s just how the cookie crumbles for us O’Connor women.” She shrugs now, her pretty round face scrunching up as her pink hoodie falls away from her head to reveal light brown tresses that smell like caramel and cinnamon. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you.” It’s a statement, not a question, like she’s already thought it through from my perspective. “I mean, yeah, you kind ofhaveto kill me. If you’re already convicted for murder, it won’t add much to your sentence if youdoget caught. And killing me will probably give you a better chance tonotget caught.” She raises an eyebrow, shrugs again. “So yeah, you have to kill me. I mean,Iwould kill me if I were you.” She rolls her eyes like she’s so lost in her own thoughts that she’s forgotten I’m even here. “Sometimes I think I would kill me even if I were me. I mean, Iamme, of course. Well, most of the time, at least. When I’m alone, I’m me. But when I’m out in public, I’m this other person, all smiley and shiny, happy and friendly. That’s not me, though. This is me. Well, notthis, but—”

“OK, stop!” I growl, shaking my head to clear Connie’s stream-of-consciousness psycho-babble. “You’re going to give me a fucking brain-aneurysm. I think I’d prefer it if you just screamed and forced me to kill you.”

Connie’s mouth opens and then closes like a goldfish. “Ohmygod, I totally lost track of myself. Lost track of you, I mean. No, lost track of the situation, I think. Maybe I’m in shock. Or maybe I’m just going into shock. Or maybe I’m coming out of shock and going into acceptance, then resignation, followed by anger, guilt, remorse, and finally . . .” She cocks her head to the side as I stare in stunned amusement at this curvy little creaturewho keeps babbling away in the most adoringly idiosyncratic way. “Ohmygod, you’re going to kill me, aren’t you.”

I blink hard, shake my head harder, then take my forearm away from her throat and rub the back of my close-cropped black hair. “I might not have to. You’re going to drop dead from lack of oxygen if you keep talking so damn fast. Slow the fuck down, all right? You’re giving me a headache.”

Connie squeaks out a scared giggle, her eyes widening with panicked surprise. Then she blinks twice, sweeps her gaze past me towards the stacks of pink-and-turquoise cartons on either side of the cramped space, turning her frenzied attention back to me again and frowning. “I suppose I’m not going to be able to make the rest of my deliveries this morning. Or open my store today.”

“You suppose right,” I say, doing my best not to let a smile break on my face as my mind is drawn to this intriguing woman who’s clearly scared and also clearly something else.

Clearly mine.

“Then my life is over anyway, so you might as well kill me,” she says, her voice dropping so fast I can almost feel her despair in my own heart. “Bloom Foods won’t pay me if I don’t deliver their orders today. And they sure as hell won’t give me any more orders. And if my store is closed on Valentine’s Day, I lose one of the biggest sales days of the year. My savings are gone. My truck loan payment is already past due. My rent is about to go up. I’m screwed.” She closes her eyes and swallows hard, and when her eyelids flutter open again there’s a strange glassy look in those blue eyes. “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles,” she says, her voice suddenly sounding as plasticky as the look in her eyes, like she’s a doll reciting lines that have been programmed into her brain. “That’s how the cookie crumbles for us O’Connor women.”

“O’Connor?” My face twists, my voice lowering to a growl as I think of Padraig Kieran and his Irish buddy dead in my prison cell. “Shit, are you Irish?”

Connie chuckles. “This is Boston. We’re all Irish.”

“Not me,” I snarl. “Your people just tried to shank my ass in prison.”

“Mypeople?” Connie’s eyes narrow. “I think that’s racist.” She cocks her head and frowns. “Wait, what doesshank my assmean? Is that a butt-sex thing? That really goes on in prison?”

I rub my eyes and groan. “All right. We’re done talking. Turn around and face the wall.” Sweeping my gaze over the contents of her truck, I rub my dark beard and frown. “You got any rope? Twine? Duct-tape?”

Connie snorts. “I’m not going to help you find something to tie me up with. Look for it yourself. And try not to mess up my stacks of boxes. I have a system.”

I scratch my eyebrow, wondering if Connie’s sudden display of spunk is fake or if she’s moved from remorse and resignation to the who-gives-a-fuck-because-he’s-gonna-kill-me-anyway stage. “You seem to have forgotten that I’m in charge here, Connie.”

Connie shrugs. “Nobody’s really in charge of anything. It’s all just fate. Destiny. Meant to be.” She shrugs again. “That’s just how the cookie—”

“Crumbles. Yeah, I heard you the first three fucking times you said that.” I sigh and rub the back of my neck. My gaze lands on the neatly stacked cartons of cookies, and my belly rumbles out a reminder that I haven’t eaten in three days. “Open it,” I say to Connie, gesturing with my head towards the top box. “I’m hungry.”

Connie blinks, then steps past me and bends down to open up the box. My gaze bends down with her, and even through her shapeless black track pants and bulky pink hoodie I can see thatthis woman isallwoman, with curves that go on for days, hips that a man can really hang onto, an ass that makes me want to shank her good and hard, deep in every damn hole.

My throat tightens as my cock throbs beneath my orange jumpsuit. I’m going into a lust-filled trance with this gorgeous woman bending over just inches from my grasp. Fuck, I should already be balls deep in this woman’s pussy, should already have tasted her sweet tang, swallowed her cinnamon-spice nectar before claiming her captured cunt like my dick demands, like my balls bellow, like my heart howls.

My knuckles crack as I clench my fists by my sides, forcing back the starving beast that wants to feed on Connie’s sex, suck her nipples, finger her asshole, fuck her pussy so deep she screams, stick my throbbing dick down her throat and see if that stops her tongue from wagging like she can’t keep her thoughts inside her head, is compelled to do all her thinking out loud, like maybe as a little girl she learned to do that because she spent all her time alone.

Because that’s what happens to inmates who spend too much time in solitary.

---