After a moment, his brow cleared. “Venom, not poison.”
“Oh, of course. Wrong word.”
“Bullet ant venom.” He said the words with relish. “It’s the most painful insect sting. They call it a bullet ant because it feels like being shot. Days of agony.”
Days.
Jakob wasn’t coming.
“Oh dear,” she murmured, her tone noncommittal as she desperately tried to hide her panic.
She must have failed, because his face darkened. “I’m protecting you. From him.”
Annalise nodded, but this time it didn’t seem to appease him. Her stalker squeezed her hand so hard she once more felt her bones creak. Though she tried to keep her composure, a small sound of pain escaped as he continued to crush her hand.
“It was going to be fine, until him. That’s why I had to get you away from him. I knew when you came to Krakow that you wanted me to rescue you, and I had to act fast. That it was our chance to be together.”
“So you pulled the fire alarm,” she gasped. “Very clever.”
“Clever? Are you making fun of me?” He jerked her toward him.
Annalise tipped sideways on the bench, catching herself with the chain-wrapped hand. “No, of course not.”
He looked down at the chain and smirked.
Damn it, damn it.
The chain would serve as a visual signal that he could have other, more direct power over her.
He released her, then stood, coming around to her other side. This time when he grabbed her, Annalise clung to the table. It wasn’t fear, but rage that clamped her fingers around the wood. Rage that wanted to lash out. To fight him, hurt him. Punish him for what he’d done to her, to her sister, to Jakob.
Rage that wouldn’t be enough. Unless she could incapacitate him. Lashing out would only serve to escalate the situation and put herself in danger.
And Jakob wasn’t coming. Walt would tell someone, someone would be looking for her, but Walt wasn’t a member of the Masters’ Admiralty. He’d go to the police. It would take time.
Which meant rescue was hours, maybe days away.
If this were a movie she would have grabbed something, managed to knock him unconscious, and then get away. But this was reality, in which she had considerably less physical mass than him, was hobbled by the chain, and there were no conveniently heavy objects besides the nearly empty wine bottle, which may have been enough to knock him out if she managed to hit him in just the right spot, and with enough force.
Too many mights and maybes, especially when she knew that any aggression on her part would only escalate his own behavior.
And so, when he grabbed her by the hair and yanked, she let go of the table, scrambling off the bench in a desperate effort to alleviate some of the pressure on her scalp.
When he pushed her up against the wall, his hips against hers, his hand tight on her jaw, forcing her face up, Annalise closed her eyes.
And when he kissed her, she stayed passive, holding her need to thrash and bite in check, even when he forced her mouth open. Even when his hand trailed down from her jaw as tears slipped from under her lashes.
Jakob looked from the tracks back at Vadisk, who’d jumped out of the car and come running up beside him.
Vadisk looked at Jakob, and together they turned and raced back to the car. Walt had just managed to get the back passenger door open and his shoulder and head were hanging out the open door, his hands scrabbling on the seat to try to gain purchase to pull himself upright, or maybe out.
Jakob stopped, grabbed Walt’s shoulders, heaved him up, then shoved him back into the car, slamming the door. He raced around, jumping in his still-open door even as Vadisk put the car in drive.
“What’s going on?” Walt demanded.
“Tire tracks.” Vadisk said.
“Fresh tire tracks,” Jakob added.
“You think it’s Annalise?”
Jakob wished he had a more tangible reason than some tire tracks for the instincts screaming inside his head. For his absolute, unshakable belief that Annalise was down that nearly hidden tract through the forest. He didn’t. Just a feeling that she was close. Very close. And he would give up his own life if it meant saving hers.
“Yes, she’s there,” Jakob said.
Vadisk steered them off the road and into the dark, cold woods.
Annalise huddled in on herself when her stalker stepped away. Something, somewhere, in the caravan was beeping, but all she cared about was the reprieve. With the chain at its limit, she couldn’t cross her arms, but did her best to cover and protect herself.
He’d cut her shirt off, but left on the bra.
The part of her brain that was detached from reality, that wasn’t trembling in revulsion at the way he’d “kissed” her and mauled her breasts, was able to look at it clinically. She doubted he had sexual experience, meaning his frames of reference were porn, where the women often started out naked. But he wouldn’t have any respect for those women, so some part of him was rejecting the idea of stripping her naked and making her like those women he didn’t respect. Women he would never have called cerebral.
On the other hand, lingerie companies regularly posted billboards in public spaces of women in bras. Branding and advertising where women wore bras were common and familiar.
Right now he was probably uncomfortable with the idea of her naked, and so he’d left her in her underwear because it was a more familiar visual.
But whatever he might be feeling, it ultimately wouldn’t stop him, only delay him.
And once he did strip her naked, he might begin to feel the contempt toward her that he most likely felt for women in pornography.
The beeping got louder, and she looked up to see that he’d opened a cupboard. Inside there was an open laptop, which continued to sound an alarm.
He tapped the keyboard, then hissed in anger.
Annalise froze, scared to hope, but sure that anything he didn’t like was good for her. She craned her neck so she could see the screen—a grainy security camera feed of the clearing. The camera must have been somewhere on the caravan and showed everything, including the car he’d brought her in parked on the far side, near the slight break in the trees.
He peered at the screen, intent. There was nothing there.
Maybe the alarm was some kind of motion sensor or early alert system that someone was approaching. Maybe that was very wishful thinking on her part.
A car shot out from between the trees, going far too fast. The driver swerved to avoid hitting the parked car and then rocked to a stop.
The doors opened. The driver was someone she didn’t know, but the two men who climbed out on the passenger side…
“Jakob,” she breathed. “Walt.”
Her stalker spun to her, his eyes wide and enraged. He took two quick steps and slapped her. Annalise saw it coming and ducked, his hand just clipping the top of her head.
Then she balled up her fist and punched him in the dick.
At least that was her intention, but she was using her non-dominant arm, which still throbbed from the wine-bottle blow—a huge bruise was already forming.
She hit him hard enough to make him yelp and step back, but not hard enough to drop him.
Her stalker snarled and grabbed her by the hair, hauling her over to the cabinet, forcing her to look at the laptop. “I want you to watch this.”