His hands go up in a surrendering motion as he continues stepping back. It’s not like him to give up. To show any sign of caring for my comfort. It only unhinges me even more.
What the fuck is he up to?
His eyes dart down to specks of gravel scattered across the pavement as he kicks them around with his shoes. “Look…I know we’ve made it hard on you. I’ve made it hard on you. The way things work here…the hierarchy…the system… It’s not easy to adjust to.”
He has to read minds. Has to. Or maybe just mine. He knows when I’m at my breaking point. And when to back off just enough to make me think I could maybe…maybe not be filled with rage and an intense desire to knee him in the balls. Or worse.
“I want to make it up to you,” he says, still not looking up from the rocks he is fiddling with across the black tar. “Give you a chance to…I don’t know.” He looks up and away, almost bashfully. “Get to know me. The real me.” For once, his smile almost looks like one a normal teenage guy would flash when he’s talking to a girl he likes.
I can’t stop myself from laughing out loud…until my laughter almost turns to tears of frustration. Then I stop real quick.
“That’s rich.” I look away, trying not to cry.
“Just take a ride with me,” he insists again. “I promise I won’t hurt you. I mean, it’s a beautiful afternoon.” His hand flails toward the almost ready to set sun.
It is a beautiful afternoon. The air is perfect – not too hot or too cold. A breeze rushes through every few minutes, urging you to do something to keep up with the fleeting warmth. It’s my favorite running weather.
It would also be a wonderful afternoon for a girl’s crush to take her for a drive. If my life was still anything close to normal. The realization of just how far from normal I’ve been since arriving hits my gut like a knife.
Memories of my life before coming here start flashing before my eyes. How simple everything was. And moving here… That plays like a cheesy movie montage. One where I am blissfully naïve and optimistic. I had no idea how wrong things were about to go. I want to walk straight up to my former self and shake her. Warn her that this wasn’t some dream come true. It was going to be a nightmare.
To my horror, the tears don’t hold back with the thought. My eyes burn as they begin to pool.
I quickly shoot my fingertips up, pushing the drops away too roughly. Enough to tug the skin in pain and poke into my eyes. I deserve it. I’m angry with myself for letting any weakness show.
He’s getting to me, and he knows it now.
His hand is suspended in midair, beckoning me to follow him. Get into his car. Surrender my safety and freedom. Trust him.
And like an idiot, I do. I know it’s the wrong call. Everything in me screams to stop stepping forward. Stop following him. Don’t slide into the passenger seat as he opens the door.
But my body follows him like a zombie. A dumb zombie.
I resentfully note the cleanliness of his car. Psh. Probably pays someone to detail it for him at least once a week. These people’s cars are perfect, clinging to that new car smell for dear life.
Nothing like my beat-up old car, littered with empty water bottles and protein bar wrappers.
A blur of something in the back seat catches my eye. Something that makes me feel foolish for thinking about petty things like paid help or clean cars. It is a passing nothing at first, but quickly turns into a blaring alarm. A siren going off in my brain telling me to run. My pulse pushes to an impossible speed as my muscles tense and my jaw slacks. I’m unable to move, frozen with bulging eyes through my quickening breath.
Rope. Gloves. Other random things I can’t make out…but whatever they are, it can’t be good. Not with our history. And the fact that I am so completely alone out here.
By the time my mind absorbs the warning signals, he’s plopping into the driver’s seat as I tuck into myself and lean toward the door, as far away from him as I can manage. I know I only have mere seconds before he’s going to lock the doors. My head shakes reactively with my mouth frozen in a panicked circle as my hand smashes against the door han
dle, blindly fumbling for a grip to fling it open. My shaking body prevents me from being able to pull the handle fast enough.
Just as the tiniest light seeps back through the door as it swings to open, a sharp blaring pain sears into the back of my head, causing me to cry out in pain. His fingers are digging into my scalp, catching a big enough handful of my hair to yank me backward. The door, and any hope I have at escape, slams shut. I beat mercilessly at it anyway, thrashing wildly against it with my hands and feet to no avail.
My heart started racing the moment I made that lunge for the door, and now it only quickens, the sound thrashing in my ears, as his tires screech across the parking lot, pealing away from everyone and everything that can help me.
I know the roads around here are long, winding and empty. Once he starts driving down them, I am completely at his mercy. And given everything I’ve seen so far, I can’t convince myself he wouldn’t kill me…after putting me through unspeakable torture for who knows how long.
My head hangs low and my teeth gnaw into the side of my mouth as I keep a side-eyed glare glued onto him with a need to see any other lunge for attack before it happens. I can’t let him out of my sight for a single second, but my mind races for some kind of solution. An escape. I fight through the voice in my head telling me I deserve whatever happens for getting in the car in the first place.
The only thing I know to do is move and fight and try to escape this in any way I can.
The car. He’s in control of the car. If I take back that control, even if only for a second, maybe I can find a way to escape.
My hand juts out to the steering wheel, mindlessly jolting it in any direction opposite from where he thinks he’s taking me. My scream is the only thing I can hear when the streetlight post appears in front of the windshield. It sounds foreign and far away, as if it’s not even coming from my mouth. But I feel it ripping through my throat all the same before there is a terrible, deafening crunch of metal and everything goes dark.