And by the time all our arms had started to feel like Jell-O, the whole main living space had a fresh coat of paint on it.
It was starting to feel just a little bit more like home than a vacant apartment.
“That’s probably the couch,” I said, shooting them all a guilty look because the delivery company had been very clear. They would only bring the couch into the living space if it was on the first level. If it wasn’t, they would drop it on the curb. I figured it would be me, Cary, and Dezi who would be doing it, so I hadn’t felt bad about it at the time.
But I barely knew these three.
It was asking a lot to have them help me bring a couch up a pretty steep set of stairs.
“You owe us pizza for this,” Seth forewarned as he rolled his neck as he made his way toward the door.
“Done,” I agreed. I’d been planning on that anyway.
I followed behind the guys as we went down the stairs, figuring that Louana would have already seen them since she went downstairs to take a phone call.
And it was all just so… normal.
A moving van.
With a door that started to open as soon as we got near it.
It wasn’t until I saw Louana stiffen out of the corner of my eye that I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Run!” she yelled.
But it was too late.
Because the truck door lifted.
And arms reached out to grab me, yanking me forward before Seth and Finn even had a chance to draw their weapons.
Then there was the heart-stopping sound of gunshots ringing out, and it was impossible for me to tell if Finn and Seth scrambled and dropped low because they were hiding from bullets, or because they’d been hit.
The truck lurched into drive as the hands grabbed me tighter, making it impossible to breathe, let alone try to get away.
But as we moved forward, I saw that Louana had taken the opportunity to reach for her own gun.
Her arms were raised, but lowered when she saw she couldn’t shoot the guy holding me without risking shooting me, so she aimed toward the tire as she started to run to try to keep up.
I watched in horrified helplessness as the man holding me released one arm to raise his gun, aim, and shoot.
She fell to the pavement, hit.
Where, I had no idea.
If she was even still alive was up in the air.
A scream bubbled up and escaped me, but was muffled by the sound of the back door of the truck slamming shut, blanketing us in complete and utter darkness.
Fear was a live wire sparking through my system, making me feel overly aware of every inch of me, the way the man’s hands were gripping me, the lines of his body behind me, the way the hair on my arms and neck were standing on edge.
Because even if Seth, Finn, and Louana were alive, and they could get in touch with Cary, it would be too late.
It was too late.
They’d found me.
He’d found me.
And my worst nightmare was about to come true.
The man behind me squeezed me tighter, past the point of pressure, and becoming acutely painful.
He leaned down low near my ear and hissed at me in Spanish.
I almost wished I hadn’t picked up a good chunk of the language over the years. Some part of me thought it would be better if I didn’t understand what he was saying.
“What? You think you can leave him? No one can leave him. You’re his. Forever. But, maybe forever won’t be as long for you anymore,” he added, making my stomach twist.
Because I got the distinct feeling that he was right about that.
Raúl had never been a man with any sort of control over his anger.
As soon as he got his hands on me again, all I would know was the most brutal kind of pain imaginable before oblivion. Which, honestly, would likely be welcome. There was only so much a human being could endure. Raúl would get off trying to figure out where that line was, teeter on it for a while, then plunge me over it.
I’d known a lot of pain in my life. Mostly at his hands. I knew the feeling of dread well. And the sort of resigned acceptance of knowing there was nothing I could do but endure it.
Somehow, though, everything felt worse now, intensified.
I guess because, while I’d been with Raúl, that was all I knew. It became, to an extent, normal for me. He’d shrunk the world so much that it was all there was for me. Him. And his whims.
Now, though, I’d managed to experience the world. I’d gotten to know security and peace and joy and kindness. I’d learned what friendship meant.
And, what’s more, I’d experienced what it was supposed to be like between a man and a woman. I’d become acquainted with male hands that offered me something other than pain, ones that gave me pure, undiluted bliss, in fact.
I’d felt safe and comfortable in masculine arms.
Yet here I was, trapped in them once again, as far from safe and comfortable as you could get.
Maybe if I’d never gone to Cary, if I’d never begged for his help, if he hadn’t been so gracious as to offer it, this wouldn’t feel as hopeless, as intolerable as it did right then.
It had been selfish of me to go to him, to wrap him and his people up in this.
If I hadn’t done that, he and his friends would all be going on with their lives like nothing had happened. Because nothing would have.
For them, anyway.
And maybe if I’d gone with the original plan—to run and keep running until I was so far away that no one could find me—I wouldn’t be on my way back to Raúl.
Did I really want that, though?
To sacrifice everything I’d gotten to experience with Cary?
No.
I knew the answer without even considering it for a second.
Absolutely not.
The short time I’d gotten to spend with Cary was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’d never felt more myself, more free, or more cared for than I did when I was around him.
If nothing else, at least I would have some warm memories to cling to while I had to endure whatever was ahead of me.
Maybe if I focused really hard, I could escape back into my memories, insulate myself from anything happening to me physically while I dive deeper and deeper into my mind.
I’d never really been into meditation. Growing up, that was sort of frowned upon as something practiced by other religions. We were supposed to pray.
And, hell, maybe I would pray.
It had been a long time.
I’d absolutely had a crisis of faith sometime in the years I was with Raúl. It was hard to believe in a benevolent god who would let you endure so much, who refused to answer your prayers.
But everyone prayed in the end, didn’t they? At least when the end was bloody and violent and you just wanted a way out.
The trunk took a sudden, hard turn, catching not only me, but my abductor off-guard, sending us flying into the side wall.
He’d endured most of the impact. The sensation of it must have surprised him because, suddenly, his hands released me.
I couldn’t claim that I was being brave at that moment. Hell, I couldn’t even claim to be thinking at all.
It was pure instinct as I wrenched away, as I became hyper-aware of a metallic clattering to the ground in the far, dark corner.
The truck had been empty.
Save for him.
And me.
And the gun.
The gun.
It had to be the gun.
Granted, I would never claim to have any experience with a gun. Yes, objectively, I’d been around them a lot. But only because the men I’d been around had them and used them.