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“How so, Kane?”
He takes a deep breath. “I’m not Kane. My name’s Jax.”
What. The. Fuck. “I don’t understand.”
“You got in the truck with Kane, but I’m Jax. And you clearly met Tobin.” He gestures toward the note on the fridge.
I sink to the passenger seat, my feet melting into the floor. The strength has been sapped from my body. My feet are lead weights attached to limp noodles. My hands refuse to listen as I scream for them to grip the door handle. My voice seems to be the only cooperative participant.
“Please explain,” I say as I stare straight ahead.
He rubs the space between his eyes, shakes his head, then pinches the bridge of his nose before a long, pained exhale rushes past his parted lips. “We’re different people with the same brain. I’m sorry,” he says. His eyes darken and his tone deepens. “Get your ass in the back. Now.”
His eyes seem to change shape as I’m looking at them. His lips draw tight, and his sharp jaw tenses. He’s not the same person he was seconds before. I don’t know how this is possible, but it is.
Confusion, fear, and adrenaline freeze me in place. I’m unable to follow his order, even if I wanted to. And I don’t. If I go back there, it’s unlikely I’ll ever make it out of this truck alive.
His hand wraps around my arm again, but this time, it isn’t a gentle tug. Powerful fingers dig into my muscles, and I’m helpless in his grasp. As he pulls me through the kitchen, his eyes land on the note and he growls at the words etched in black marker.
“Jax?” I whisper.
“Jax? What the fuck is he telling you?” he snaps as he throws me onto the bed. “Stay the hell back here and shut the fuck up. You aren’t going anywhere, and you need to forget about whatever I said before.”
His heated stare drops to the money in my hand, and he rips it from my grasp. I reach for it, but he pushes my back onto the bed again before leaning over me.
“I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, least of all an explanation, so don’t ask anymore fucking questions. Don’t speak at all. Don’t even breathe too loud. Just stay back here and look pretty.” He slaps the side of my cheek, his touch too soft to be considered assault but too rough to call it a love pat.
I don’t move as he stands, nor as his heavy bootsteps recede toward the front of the truck. This isn’t a conscious choice. It’s a learned response. My body has experienced fear before. It’s an old friend, though it’s paying me an unwelcome visit.
As I lie on this bed, my thoughts run in exhausting circles. He changed. Right in front of me, in the time it took to blink my eyes, he became a different person. This wasn’t some act, either.
Time passes in slow motion, but I finally dare to sit up. My gaze darts across the space that seemed so large before. Now I feel more like a grain of sand within the eye of a needle. There are no weapons to speak of, so defending myself is out of the question. The only windows back here are too small to squeeze through, meaning my only exit is through the front.
Past him.
I lick my lips and lean to my right so I can peek at him. He’s in the driver’s seat, with his arms folded across his broad chest and his hat lowered over his eyes. He’s settling in for a nap. How nice of him to give me the bed.
But how rude of him to fucking kidnap me. And that’s exactly what this is. I’ve been kidnapped.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I never expected to find myself in this situation. I’ve tried to be careful. When people choose unregulated sex work, we understand the risks involved. We know we’re all just one trick away from having our throats slit and our bodies dumped in an unmarked grave. It’s all over the news. A few days ago, it was a girl from Portland. A month before that, it was a runaway teen from Spokane.
Today...it’s me.
Chapter Nine
Kane
I pull the hat a little lower to block the glare of distant light as I lose myself to my thoughts. I don’t know why Jax tried to explain this fucked-up situation we’re in. He’s got a little thing for the girl, I get it, but it’s not his place to make her understand. She can’t understand. No one ever does.
This goes deeper than trying to make her understand, though. Jax is the protector. The nurturing type. What I choose to do eats away at him, and he would have released that girl if his goal to protect our system didn’t override his desire to protect things in general. But if he releases her, it puts all of us at risk. Deep down, he knows he needs to keep her right where she is so I can take care of what he can’t.
We can’t get caught.
Jax won’t survive more prison time. I’d be fine, but he struggled when we were on the inside. Hell, even Tobin struggled, though his main complaint centered on the lack of pussy. From what the other inmates told me, I learned he combatted his desires by loudly jerking off every night. Though I will say, being so open about his sexual deviancy kept a lot of people away from us. Win-win. But Jax was a mess. He cried all the time. Imagine being known as the chronic masturbator and crier in one cell block. It wasn’t a good look.
“Why are you giving me the bed?” she asks from the rear of the truck, and I don’t even lift my hat from my face. I won’t move unless she gives me a reason to.
“Go to sleep, dropout,” I say. I let her take the bed so I could get a little shut-eye without worrying about her escaping.
