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16
Annie
Six hours from wherever we were in Arizona, across Southern Nevada and into Southern California. Six hours and Chad and Theo switched off driving two times. Now that I knew that until we reached our destination I'd have to do something truly stupid in order for them to hurt me, I was out of my mind with boredom. I've never been a road trip kind of gal. I'm more a Let me know when they invent transporters kind of gal. I offered to trade off in the driving rotation. They laughed at me. I told them I was serious. They stopped laughing and Chad told me to shut up. There were cacti and more abandoned cars along the side of the road than made sense. If I were to drive this way alone at night I'd be halfway to believing in alien abduction. Because I had two thugs for questionable company, I got to hear how cars overheated in the desert. It wasn't particularly warm out but I wasn't going to argue with Chad. Partly because he didn't like me and would look menacingly into the rearview at me, and partly because I didn't care. There were convenience store pitstops and pizza in Vegas. My captors were neither kind nor cruel. They had a job to do and they were doing it.
I was the job.
Being in Vegas was frustrating. To be that close to Cole and not be able to reach out for him, even if it was only to let him know I was still all right. Even with the GPS, he had to be going crazy by now. Especially if it was showing him I was in the same city he was. Cole was something of a control freak…
When we finally crawled into Los Angeles, it was late night, the semi-dark that city has, and disorienting to be arriving there so late. I've always felt somewhat lost when arriving somewhere late at night, like there's something magical about being up and out and doing things when most people are asleep. Or like there's something slightly illicit about a drive that, during the day, would be ordinary.
Chad drove us directly to Raven's client's house. Beautiful canyon outside the city, long, winding road through the foothills of Southern California. The property was expansive. It looked like we were being buzzed through wrought iron security gates into some weird enclave like a drive through zoo. I could hear crickets in the underbrush, and the darker night sky away from the city was maintained. Out here there was actually a sprinkling of stars in the sky.
A few lights came on as the SUV passed, then instantly winked out again. The air smelled of salt water and the heavy foliage of the area. A mockingbird sang, freaky birds that sing after dark. It gave out with a short melody, followed by a series of sounds caused by humans: Car alarms. Car doors slamming.
A human female screaming.
It gave me the shudders.
"Jesus," Theo said. "That's fucking creepy."
"That's nothing," Chad said. "If the moon's full, those fucking peacocks scream."
I filed that away. Because Chad had been here at least once when the moon was full but Theo hadn't. Because he'd come only so far and no farther? Or not at all? Were they newly partners or was Theo new to the whole enterprise?
"Time to go," Chad said. There was an audible leer in his voice, delight at what I was going through. No doubt he'd happily hurt me himself if given the opportunity, but the Chads of the world are good at following instructions until their rage gets the better of them.
I thought I'd like to be in a position to let my own rage get the better of me when I was equipped to do something about it. Chad was a flunky, on demand for a gig economy independent contractor type thing.
In between jobs I had no doubt he left a number of women shattered in his wake. If they were still alive. I'd say I'd run into his type when I was undercover, but to be honest, most women have run into his type and if they have any kind of survival skills, they felt it even if all they did was pass him in the grocery store.
Theo stood well back from the door and on the far side where it couldn't slam into him when he ordered me out. The doors locked from the outside, at least the middle compartment where I'd ridden they did. But for one crazy second I forgot that. The jingle of the keys in the ignition as Chad had slammed the door made me think what if I slammed the door again, yanking it closed because Theo wasn't holding on to it. I could slam it shut and lock all the doors. My hands were left uncuffed on this ride and there was a thin open space between the front seats and the mesh – it was a home job, not something done for a police department. Theo was close but if I slammed the door closed and hit the lock button, then hit the passenger's side where he'd been sitting? I could move that fast because his out-of-range stance took him closer to the rear quarter panel of the SUV, not the cab. And then if I moved fast and hit the two on the driver's side? Because Chad was taking a leak on some oleander bushes and Theo was standing back so I couldn't drop him again. If I did that –
I'd have wasted the worst beating of my life. By the time I got somewhere and found authorities to tell and they started poking around the edges of Arizona, Raven and Evie would be in the wind and Chad and Theo long gone.
Besides, the mesh would be in the way of me being able to do anything but sit in the back seat and start to dehydrate and overheat as the sun came up. Even if I could kick out the mesh, long before I did so they'd shatter the windows and reach in.
They only had to do that if they didn't have a second set of keys.
"Get out of the car," Theo said.
I'd been fighting second nature too long.
The look on his face was still one I couldn't make sense of. It wasn't cruel enough. It wasn't – Chad-like enough. It was –
"Get out of the car, you stupid bitch!" His voice splintered in sudden rage and he grabbed my arm and yanked me so hard I fell to my knees. He wasn't fast enough to stop me. Gravel cut into my knees, marring what was probably meant to look all virginal. I wondered why the client wouldn't care that the schoolgirl had signs of a caning all over her but whatever.
Chad was right beside Theo. That gave me pause. He'd finished his business and come over.
He showed up at the vehicle at about the same time Theo shouted at me and dragged me?
Or had Theo shouted at me and dragged me out of the SUV when Chad showed up?
I shook my head, dizzy and confused.
"Shit," Chad said, sounding disturbed. "What the fuck happened?"
"She wouldn't get out," Theo said shortly and forced me to my feet more with menace than actual assistance.
A gun magically materialized in Chad's hand. It shouldn't have been that much of a threat. What would happen to him if the package got destroyed right on the recipient's doorstep?
But a gun is a gun and Chad was a thug. I retained my feet, motioned to the SUV when they tried to walk me forward. "Evie gave me a kit of makeup the – he – " God, I was choking. I nodded toward where the house seemed to be. "He likes." Then I nodded at the vehicle.
Chad leaned in and got out the small case of equally idiotic costumes and make up and started toward the house. Theo stopped him and took out his phone, using the flashlight to go through everything. Probably should have done that before we rolled. Probably kicking himself for not having done so.
What he expected to find in a case packed by Raven's underling after that same underling had beaten me to tears I didn't know. It seemed to take him a long damn time.
Not that I was in any hurry to get to the house. Or to meet my new master.
