“I saw you last night,” I say.
He lifts an eyebrow. “You remember that much? Good for you. Maybe you threw most of it up.”
“Threw most of what up?”
He stares at me with dark, intense eyes. There’s an angle to his mouth that makes me think he finds me funny or something. There’s nothing funny about this.
“You remember me, but you don’t remember what happened with your drink?”
Turns out, thinking helps take my mind off how much my entire body feels like I got run over by a long train. Twice. My memory clears, and now I know there were margaritas involved.
“There was another guy, wasn’t there? He bought my drink.”
“He spiked your drink.”
My eyes widen and the room spins worse than it did before. “No, he didn’t.”
“Yeah, he did. You were ready to pass out when I found you on the beach. You ran away when somebody stopped to ask if you were okay.” He grimaces. “You weren’t in good shape. He practically had to drag you.”
“Holy shit.” I lie back down as I struggle to put this together. Sadly, I’m remembering things, and what he’s telling me rings a bell. Big time. “It’s so foggy, but I remember trying to run away and ending up on the beach. I felt sick.”
“No kidding.”
No matter how I try, everything else is dark after that. “I can’t remember anything else.” I pull the thin sheet up over me, even though I’m fully dressed. “What did you do to me?”
“Besides giving you water, mopping sweat off your forehead, and cleaning up my floor after you puked all over it?” He lifts one huge shoulder. It’s like somebody shoved a bowling ball under his shirt. “Nothing. I even slept on the sofa in my own house.”
“Am I supposed to thank you for doing the right thing?” I sit up slowly. I’m going to need to go to the bathroom for sure, and I could use mouthwash or something to get this awful taste out of my mouth. “Why didn’t you bring me to a hospital?”
I want to climb out of the bed, only I can’t swing my legs over the side. Not because my foot is caught in the sheets. “What the fuck?” I stare down at my ankle, where there’s a short rope tied to it and anchored to the bedframe.
“To make sure you don’t try to get away.”
“What?” I breathe. My insides feel icy, and I swallow down the rising fear before it makes me pass out again. It’s the best I can do with my throat tightening up like it is.
“You can’t leave. Not now, anyway.”
“W-why not?”
“They’ll be looking for you.” He turns around and pulls a pan from the glass-fronted cabinet. “Want some breakfast? Greasy food is always best for a hangover.”
I can’t believe this. He’s screwing with me. “I don’t want breakfast. I want to leave. I have to go back to my hotel. My friends will be worried about me.”
“Your friends don’t need to know where you are right now. If the guy you were with last night got a look at them—at you with them—he’ll be watching them now.” He glances over his shoulder, where I’m gaping at him with my mouth open. “He is looking for you, and he’ll use them to find you.”
“So, what? I’m supposed to pretend I disappeared and let my friends go crazy looking for me? That’s cruel.”
It’s a good thing I already threw up, because I would now if there was anything left in my stomach. Tears sting my eyes. I wouldn’t wish that kind of panic on anybody. Guilt, too. I know I’d feel guilty as hell if I was humping some rando while my friend was being kidnapped.
“It’s for your safety.”
“Why? Who is this guy you’re hiding me from?”
“A bad guy. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He goes to the fridge and pulls out a few things. It’s a state-of-the-art fridge. The entire house, at least what I can see of it, is very comfortable. Big TV mounted on the wall, high-end appliances, and the thread count on these sheets is way higher than most people could afford. He has money, whoever he is. I don’t know whether to call him my savior or my captor. Probably a little bit of both.
“I need to talk about it. I need to understand. You’re telling me something bad would’ve happened if you hadn’t taken me away from the party, right? Because somebody drugged me.”
“Smart girl.”