I would worry about the morality of what I was doing later, after we were free. I took her hand and she tried to yank on it. "Can’t we pick a nicer one?"
I couldn't believe this shit. "Are you for real right now?"
"It looks dirty."
"Oh my God, if I live through this and never see you again, it'll be too soon."
The car was unlocked, and I opened the driver's-side door, crouching low. "Climb into the other side."
She wrinkled her nose but did what I told her, having to hunch up her dress as she did. Her black dress had a generous slit, and lent itself to being easy to maneuver in. Thankfully she didn't have some large poofy ensemble on.
I climbed in after her and reached under the steering wheel, looking through the wires. I didn't dare turn on the lights.
Come on. Come on. Come on. Which one is it?
April reached over me and flipped down the visor. "Why don't you just use the keys?"
Of course, for her there would be keys. As if she conjured them out of thin air. There was a cluttering and clinking as the keys fell into my lap. "How did you know they were there?"
"Well, I could see them."
I grabbed them and shoved each one into the ignition until one of them worked. I put the car in neutral and then got out.
"Where are you going?" April hissed.
"I don't want to start the damn car here. Get out and help me push."
"Oh no. No, no, no. I do not push cars."
"Get out and push, or I'll shove you out, start the car, and run. At least they'll still have you."
Her eyes went wide. "You would do that, wouldn't you?"
"It's no less than what you would do to me. Now get out and push."
We were able to push the car about two hundred meters until we were at the side of the warehouse. If my orientation was right, we would be near the entrance. There was sludge on my feet, God knew what, and I was exhausted.
You’re so close; you can be exhausted later. "Get in."
For once April complied without resistance. We closed the doors with soft clicks.
We both held our breath when I started the engine.
Maybe I should have picked a different car. Not that I'd exactly had a lot of choice, but the stupid lemon was slow to start. The chun-chun-chun-chun sound jolted my heart, sending it into a wild gallop so fierce I figured April could hear it. I turned the car on again.
Chun-chun-chun-chun. Still nothing. Jesus Christ. On the third try, chun-chun-chun-chun, and then it started. With a muttered prayer to every god I could think of ever hearing about, I gunned the engine. The stupid car took forever to go from zero to sixty, but it was moving.
"Where are we going?"
It was a good question. Too bad I had no answers.
"I don't know."
Just drive. I felt like Dory with her cheerful disposition, singing to just keep swimming. But it was all I had to go with. Up ahead, there was a security station. That would be the true test. If we could get past that, we would be safe.
I held my breath and started my round of prayer again, this time making up a few deities. But luck was on our side. There was no security for the exit gate. It just opened automatically. It seemed our captors never intended for us to make it out of there.
As we pulled out of the gate, I gripped the steering wheel so hard even my pigmented knuckles started to go white. My jaw hurt with the force of clenching it. So far no one had come looking for us. There had been no shouts of alarm, no spray of gunfire. It was as if they either expected us to attempt an escape and were just waiting until we got a whiff of freedom to nab us, or it was their funny version of an April Fool’s joke. But hopefully, no one knew we were gone and luck was finally on our side.
I tried to stay calm and drive at a reasonable pace. There was no need to peel out. Drive calmly. Get on the main road. Figure out where the fuck you are. Find cars. Civilization. People.
I calmly passed the barrier and turned on my right blinker.
That’s right. Nothing to see here. I’m just making my escape from human trafficking scum…as you do.
Luckily, April kept her mouth shut. Another car approached the entrance as we were exiting. A Peugeot, older, dark gray. The driver was in no hurry as he approached the security gate. In that brief moment of ships passing in the night, he looked over, and my gaze darted over to his. It was a split-second of recognition, but I knew that man. The man with the burn. The man from my mother’s photos.
I didn't mean to look too long, and it might have only been for the length of a breath. The problem was, I wasn't the only one experiencing recognition. The awareness must have hit him in that moment as well because neither one of us was able to look away. And I don't know, maybe it was some internal sense of survival, but I gunned the engine and peeled out into the main road.
Even if he chased us, even if they came for us, we were so close to civilization. There was no way I was giving up now.
"Who the hell is that?" April asked.
"Someone bad. Someone very, very bad."
"Well, take me back to my house. My husband will protect us."
I coughed out a laugh. "This isn't Driving Miss Daisy, you daft twat. I'm going to the one person I trust. Ben will protect us. He'll see you get home, and I’ll be safe with someone who actually cares about me." I checked the rearview mirror. “Right now we have bigger problems than where we go next.”
“What's that?”
“We're being followed.”
Ben
There was going to be hell to pay, not that I cared about that in the moment. Livy was in trouble. And it was because of me. Because of my so-called brothers. Because of my life. So I owed it to her to find her.
Love. Don't forget about love.
I did love her. That sinking feeling in my gut, the one that gnawed and clawed and tried to break its way free, was brewing. Little bits of it were escaping via the bile in my esophagus, but I swallowed it down. I didn’t have time for that. All I knew was that I had to save her. I didn’t have time to get caught up in my own bullshit.
One handed, I tapped on the laptop that held information on her tracker.
I prayed to God nothing had happened to her dress.
My stomach coiled at the thought of it. What if something had happened to her dress?
You're not helping yourself.
No. I had to follow it because her tracker was on the move.
I frowned as I saw the tracker moving. It had been stationary for a good forty minutes.
Where are they taking you?
I didn't dare stop though. Judging by the information that was blinking back at me, she was still a good forty-five minutes away. Were they transporting her? Moving her? Jesus Christ.
I slammed my hand on the steering wheel. If my fucking team hadn't wasted so much fucking time, I might have her by now.
Even though my brain was full-on entertaining 'this was all their fault' thoughts, some saner part of me spoke up into the dark abyss. They were just trying to do things systematically.
She was definitely on the move. I watched the little pinpoint that represented her. It stopped on a roadway north of where I was. I headed left up the road, then turned onto the major freeway. I didn't know my way around that area well, but I knew I had to meet that dot.