Kincaid shakes his head. “I haven’t yet, but he hasn’t been home. That reminds me. April and Apollo are going to move into their house early, so Harley and Aria have a room here. I think they were going to start packing and moving stuff today. Think you can help out with that?”
“Of course,” I tell him, grateful to have something to do with my hands even though I know manual labor won’t touch the thoughts still running through my head.
I leave the conference room, angling toward April and Apollo’s room. At least there’s something I can do around here that will benefit others, because pacing and getting agitated at the lack of information coming in on Grace isn’t helping anyone.
Chapter 4
Grace
Awareness trickles in slowly, unlike how I thought it would. I don’t jolt awake and scream. My eyes flutter. I try to move my arms, realizing they’re still tied, and I lick at my very dry lips.
Before I’m fully cognizant, I realize that I’m in a moving vehicle covered with a tarp of some kind, my body wedged among boxes. I don’t have memory loss, and as much as I hate knowing what has happened to me, I sort of wish it were all some nightmare I get to wake up from. I know I was abducted. I remember the forced shower a little too well.
I remember the pinch of pain. I lift my tied arms to my neck, but my fingers are too cold to determine if there is an injury there. I’m covered in darkness, forcing me to lick at my fingers when I pull them away. I’m not left with a metallic taste in my mouth, which tells me I’m not bleeding. From how quickly I dropped, I have to presume I was injected with something.
I clamp my teeth closed when the vehicle I’m in runs over a rough patch, jolting me and making it clear I’ve been out for a while. My muscles are screaming from being in the same position for so long, but I know shifting my weight could alert whoever is driving that I’m awake. I need him as relaxed as he is now, singing along with the hymns coming from the radio.
Of course, the psycho who bought me would be a religious zealot.
No longer under the scrutiny of three men, I’m able to lift my tied hands to my mouth and work open the knots keeping me restrained. I whimper in pain before I can stop myself once my hands are finally free. My shoulders are screaming, wrists burning from the rope, but I freeze, not even breathing as I try to determine if my captor heard me.
His awful singing voice filters back to me, and I breathe a sigh of relief. The boxes surrounding me seem to be taped up, but I doubt I’ll be able to find something in them to use as a weapon. I’m still assessing the situation when the vehicle begins to slow.
The tremble in my muscles renews when we stop completely.
Ringing fills the air around me before a call connects through the Bluetooth.
“You got her?” a man grunts.
“Got her,” the guy in the vehicle with me says. “Pretty little thing, too. I think you’ll be happy with the purchase.”
He doesn’t sound like any of the men I faced back at the house I was initially taken to. Those men had subdued southern accents, true to the part of Tennessee I was taken from. The man speaking has a different drawl, making me realize I’ve been sold. This man must be the buyer the other men mentioned, but I can’t determine if the man on the phone is the actual buyer and the guy who has me now is just the transport man, or they have both purchased me and plan to share.
“I’m telling you, the tits on this one made it hard to keep my hands to myself.”
His words make bile swim up my throat, as does the realization that the only thing still covering me is the towel that was wrapped around me before I was injected.
“She’s mine,” the man growls through the speakers.
“I know, Daddy. We’ll be there soon. Only have two hours before the border. I have that one last stop to make, and then I’ll be home.”
Border? Is he talking about Mexico? I don’t detect a Spanish accent from either of them, but that doesn’t really mean anything.
“Just hurry,” the man on the line says before the call ends.
The man in the vehicle grumbles before he opens the driver’s side door of the vehicle. I expect to be washed in light, but nothing filters through the tarp, indicating that the overhead domes aren’t working. There are no other sounds in the vehicle, no hint that someone is with him.
This is my only chance, and despite being in nothing but a thin towel, I slowly open the back passenger door of the SUV I’m in, grateful that the seats are laid down to hold all the boxes and myself. If I had to open the back hatch, I’d probably be discovered.