And, no, I was not much of a runner. But I was pretty sure with the adrenaline surging through my system at that moment, I could beat out the spindly-legged, nipple-taped weirdos who did marathons for fun.
I had to.
Reaching up, I yanked my poncho off my head, knowing the bright color and the material that made whooshing noises when you moved would be a dead-giveaway if I ended up on a foot chase of some sort.
I would need more than a pen, though, if there was more than one guy. Which there likely was. The guy who hit me and the fake biker dude, at least.
There was nothing else in the trunk though, nothing else on my person.
My gaze went out the hole of the light again, seeing a large chunk of red plastic.
If I could break that free, it was something else that could do some damage. Especially if jabbed at the carotid.
I didn't have to stop and wonder if I was the sort of person who could kill another person.
I abso-fucking-lutely was.
I didn't need to mull that over.
If it came to me or them, I would choose me every single time, regardless of the consequences.
Human life could be precious. I worked in a job every single day that showed me how fleeting life could be, how even the best people died.
So why should some of the worst be allowed to live? And keep hurting others?
I had no moral qualms about it in the least.
Which, I figured, made me a different kind of animal in a fight.
Training would have been great, a massive asset. But pure, undiluted, bone-deep determination to survive?
That could get me places too.
Like away from these fuckheads.
Like back to my family.
Back to West.
My heart that had been hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat, slowed, calmed, as the drive seemed to surpass twenty minutes since I had woken up. There was no telling how much time had passed before then. It was dark out, but it had been gloomy to begin with. It could have gone pitch earlier than normal simply because of that.
It was long enough that my absence would have been noticed, though. And that was a small sort of comfort as I carefully rolled myself nearer to the trunk door, curling up small as I planted my legs to hold myself in place.
I wanted to seem unassuming, unthreatening.
Until the door was fully open.
Until someone reached in to grab me.
Close.
Close enough to jab a pen through their eye socket.
Hell, if I was lucky, it could go right into their brain.
It could kill them.
People died all the time when they had their nose pressed into their skulls.
That was another option.
But before I could change positions again to make use of my feet as a weapon, the car was pulling to a stop.
There were muffled male voices from inside the cabin, making me need a few slow breaths to be able to think straight, and prepare myself.
I glanced again out the busted taillight, seeing nothing.
But with the breeze blowing, I damn sure smelled something.
You knew it when it met your nostrils.
Especially if you grew up in the area.
The moss.
The water.
The something else that was hard to explain, but unmistakable.
We were by the Glades.
Sure, the Everglades were a fun tourist attraction. Airboat rides and all of that.
But you didn't exactly go to them at night.
For obvious reasons.
A hell of a lot of predators lived there.
I don't think a year of my life has passed without hearing some story about an idiot who got drunk, fell into the water, and got rolled by an alligator to later be eaten, only parts of them ever recovered.
It was local legend that criminals liked the Glades as a means of disposing of bodies of their enemies.
And, yeah, that actually made a lot of sense if you thought about it.
If parts were ever even found, they'd be too badly decomposed or eaten to ever discover how they'd been killed, let alone who had done it.
These weren't exactly comforting stories, though, as I sat there in a trunk awaiting whatever criminals were inside the car to come and fetch me.
To do whatever they wanted with me.
I couldn't imagine they were after some lively conversation.
My stomach flipped at being behind maybe bound and left here, a sitting target.
I took a small—very small—bit of comfort in the idea that alligators didn't eat live prey.
It wasn't pleasant to imagine being rolled and dragged under the water to drown, either, but it sure as hell beat being awake when something started eating parts off you.
Maybe these criminals happened to have some sort of headquarters nearby. An illegal one. Since you really couldn't live around these parts. Save for some of the old towns. But I hadn't seen any towns when I'd been looking.
God, even if I got away, there were threats to worry about here.