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10
Annie
People can just disappear in the desert. Deserts are inhospitable environments. Specially adapted animals live there but humans die there. Often.
I could see the drone overhead, some distance off. Cole's, no doubt. Watching over me. That was okay. I had no idea if drones had to be registered and if the FAA or some other agency tracked them. If so, and if any of the men around me saw it, I didn't think it mattered.
The idea that Cole would have it registered in any way that would lead back to him was laughable.
There was only so much the drone could do. It could watch and record. It could probably pinpoint license plates to say where these guys had been at exactly what time. That should have made me feel better.
It didn't. There was no way Cole could have known what casino parking garage I was going to hit because I hadn't known. There was no way he could have known where I'd go once I had the car, for exactly the same reason. I'd made it up as I went along because I didn't trust him not to jump the gun and come rescue me all too soon.
It's what I'd have done if our situations were reversed.
That made me very uncomfortable. I'd been safe much of the time I was undercover in one way – I had nothing I was longing to get back to.
That made me feel sorry for Mark, though briefly. I'd loved him, but I didn't long to be back with him during the months that I was Lily, living with Jesse or another gang member, being the troll who would eventually topple them and in the meantime, actually living a life with people I often found I liked.
I hadn't had a real life.
The window glass was warm under my forehead. The cruiser itself was comfortably cool, whether because that's how the driver had set the AC or because they didn't want to start mistreating the newest prize.
My stomach knotted with dread. I watched the drone as it hovered. That was my connection and probably I needed to look away and it needed to go away. It couldn't follow us. It might get spotted. And Cole probably didn't need that information.
The highway I'd chosen was nearly deserted. Most of the roads leading out of Vegas were, though the bigger highways connected to other metro areas. Vegas is still a huge city surrounded by a much huger desert. The few cars that did pass did so with the usual curiosity mixed with caution, mixed with the residual guilt for being a gawker. Human nature.
Human nature also meant those people who passed registered the flashing lights and the uniforms and guns and the fact that there were two of those and a two-seater sports car with no one in it.
The story told itself. Nothing to see here and no reason to worry.
My stomach cramped again, hard knot of fear. People can disappear in the desert. It's vast and easy to get lost and no matter how many technological advances, people can and do wander to places where the search grids don't take man or machine. If it was said that I ran into the desert and vanished?
Believable.
For a breathless second I wanted nothing more than to beg, plead, bargain my way out. To time travel and never have done this. To actually run into the desert and use the only survival skill I had: Endurance. I could outpace these guys but even with Cole's training I probably couldn't outsprint them. As for desert survival skills, I'd lived in Southern Nevada for a couple years and never advanced past Always carry water with you and tell someone where you're going.
Cole knew where I was going: Straight into trouble.
I didn't have any water.
They went on talking for another eight minutes. I could see a digital clock on the dash and track the time. I was comfortable and in no distress, other than the obvious – that I was caught and cuffed. That's all they knew. Every few minutes one of them would peer in the window at me.
If I were really who they thought I was, I'd just think they were having a confab out there in the desert at my expense. I'd be pissy. Scared because I'd been arrested, though Erin tended to get herself into scrapes and get caught.
I breathed through the twisted stomach churning terror with three thoughts: One, that I wasn't who they thought I was. So even though I'd gotten myself into this situation and wanted out, I had skills none of them suspected.
Second, Cole had inserted two trackers, which didn't feel good. One in my ankle, which they might find and which was fine if they did – hopefully it would make them not think to look for the second, which was a place I supposed there'd be people looking around but nothing I wanted to share.
The second tracker was deep inside me.
If they found the one in my ankle I'd cry and tell them I was an owned slave and I'd had enough and my Master had gone rogue and I'd had to get out and I didn't have any money and I didn't have a car and –
And by that point they'd probably be sick of my tears and telling me to shut the fuck up and suck it up, buttercup. The story, all the tears, it all fit into the timeline we'd designed. Plus? I was pretty sure no one who had taken me would care. Other than the fact that there was a tracker. End of story. No one was going to ask questions past what I told them.
Third thought I used to keep myself steady was the thought of all the girls this had happened to who had no idea. Popular fiction aside, I thought a lot of them were runaways, not college girls on spring break getting themselves taken during south of the border vacations. Which in no way made it any better. Some of them were probably sex workers, but they'd been working for themselves or for pimps who were still probably better than what happened to them once they were taken.
I thought about their terror at not knowing what was happening to them.
