And there were no tattoos.
My stomach dropped as my hand immediately reached for my phone even as my feet turned to run back in the direction I had come from.
It was too late, though.
Of course it was.
The biker was just a decoy.
He wasn't alone.
Even as that thought formed, though, there was a whack to the back of my head.
And I lost everything.My shoulder slamming into something hard jolted me awake, leaving me slow-blinking into complete darkness, confused for all of five seconds before things started to come to me.
The scratchy lining on the floor and the walls around me.
The cramped space.
The fact that I felt like I was moving.
A trunk.
A strange, hysterical little giggle bubbled up and died at the back of my throat at that realization.
It was such a cliché.
A girl in a trunk.
But, I guess, things were a cliché for a reason.
What were they supposed to do? Duct tape me to the passenger seat?
I wasn't bound. And thank God for small miracles, because I had not been proactive enough in my 'I could be abducted at any time' preparedness. I had no idea how to get out of ropes or handcuffs or zip-ties.
I guess they figured a knocked-out woman who was roughly the size of a sixth-grader was likely not much of a threat.
Clearly, they very much underestimated the amount of rage—and adrenaline—one could find in five feet of woman.
Besides, I dragged old people out of and into beds for a living. I was deceptively strong for my small build. I could probably fireman--hold these dudes over my shoulders and hand-deliver them to my brother's doorstep.
Fueled with that determination—figuring it was more useful to me than buying into my helplessness—I planted my arms and legs, trying to hold myself still so that I could try to find the release hatch for the trunk.
"Damnit," I snapped, my hand finding nothing on the ceiling but smooth material, I figured this must have been an older car. But like, really old. Because I was pretty sure they started doing release hatches before I was even born.
What kind of busted-ass criminals drove a car that old?
Shitty ones, that's who.
Ones who couldn't afford nicer rides.
Taking a deep breath, I remembered that the taillights were another option. You know, provided that you could kick them out and wave your arm out and that there was someone behind you on the road to see. And if they did see, to care. And call it in.
Thankfully, the thick soles of my work shoes could probably knock down a concrete wall.
As for help seeing and caring? Well, all I could do there was hope.
Taking a breath, I pushed my body back, lowering myself into a sort of crouching position, one foot braced, the other pulling in toward my chest for momentum.
Then, with another deep breath, I slammed it down.
There was a crack that sounded a lot like victory when I heard it.
It turned out, I had celebrated too soon, because when I curled back down toward the back of the trunk, leaning over to look out the hole I made, I saw no headlights. No streetlights. No nothing.
Empty darkness.
A similar bleakness settled inside for a long moment before I remembered that there was still time. I still had a chance.
I fumbled around, trying to find my purse where I would locate my pepper spray. But it was missing. Or my phone. But I must have dropped that when I'd been hit.
I hoped they hadn't picked it up, that West knew something had happened by now, that he had assembled my brothers and his men, that he had called his biker brothers back in Navesink Bank, that he got those local computer geniuses on the case.
They would find me.
They had to.
But until then, I had to take care of myself.
I'll admit, I was now kicking myself for not taking the free self-defense course Booker, Ayanna's man, had offered me years ago because he thought it was smart for all young women in our area to learn since it was such a cesspool of illegal activity.
That was stupid, stupid, stupid.
But it was too late to beat myself up about that.
I made a mental note that when I got myself out of this, I would track down some sort of martial arts class, and become a badass black belt or some shit. No one would ever get the drop on me again.
But now, now I had to be practical.
What did I have on me?
My work badge. The clip it was attached to. Some diabetic candies. My wallet.
Useless.
All of that was useless.
A pen!
I had a pen when I walked out. So long as it hadn't fallen out of my pocket...
My hand swatted at my pocket, finding the pen, closing my fingers around it tightly.
It wasn't much.
Just a typical cheap Bic pen.
But I figured if you aimed it at an eye, you could do some real serious damage. At least enough to distract him, to get away, to run.