Page 18 of Sting
“Scared of snakes? Bugs? Or are you just bashful? Too ladylike? What?”
“I’m not going.”
“I know you have to. You drank that wine.”
In truth, she’d been uncomfortable since she’d regained consciousness.
He waited for a ten count, and when she still hadn’t moved, he said, “I don’t want you peeing in the car.”
“I won’t.”
“That’s right, you won’t. Because you’re doing it here, and you’re doing it now.”
She shook her head again.
“We don’t have time for this, Jordie, so here’s the deal. You can step behind the tree or stay here, and I’ll watch. You can undo your jeans and pull them down, or I’ll do the honors. Doesn’t matter to me either way, although choice number two has its appeal, because then I’ll know something I’ve been wondering since I saw you atop that bar stool, and that’s whether or not there’s anything under that denim except you. I could find out anyway, but my mama raised me better, so I’ll let you decide, and you’ve got exactly two seconds to make up your mind. One.”
The indignity of relieving herself was preferable to wetting herself. And if he was worried about her doing it in the car, he didn’t plan on killing her right away.
“Two.”
The longer she stayed alive, the greater her chances of escaping or being rescued.
His knuckles pressed against her navel as he slid his fingers into her waistband to undo the top button.
She gasped. “All right.”
He withdrew his hand with less expedience than he’d shoved it in. She turned around and took a couple of steps away from him before he caught the hem of her shirttail and pulled her back.
“I trust you have better sense than to try and run,” he said. “Look around. What’s out there? Total darkness, swamp, marsh, sword grass, gators, razorbacks, wild dogs, panthers, water mocassins, insects, all sorts of critters that bite and suck blood.”
She yanked her shirttail free. “I might stand a chance of surviving all that. Do I have any chance of surviving you?”
He looked down at her, his eyes uncompromising, not a glimmer of warmth or compassion, nothing that gave her hope. After several seconds, he hitched his chin toward the other side of the tree. “Hurry up.”
For all the reasons he’d cited, she realized the foolhardiness of trying to escape. If she managed to outrun him long enough to reach the main road, he could easily chase her down in the car before someone else came along. If she eluded him in the darkness of this swamp, without water, direction, or any means of protecting herself, she had little chance of surviving before she could find help or help could find her.
With haste and as little thought as possible, she did what was necessary. When she came out from behind the tree, he clasped her wrist and slipped another plastic cuff around it. “Please,” she whispered.
For several seconds, he stared at the ugly red marks the restraint had left on her skin, then looked into her eyes. “Tell me about the boyfriend.”
“Oh, for godsake!”
“He have a name?”
“I’m sure he does, but I don’t know it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Save the cute and sassy for somebody who’ll appreciate them. Doesn’t cut it with me. Now, I’ll ask you again, what’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I swear. If he told me, I don’t remember.”
“Why were you meeting him there tonight?”
“I wasn’t!” With defiance, she returned his doubtful stare, but she was the first to relent. She lowered her gaze and addressed one of the pearl snaps on his shirt, saying quietly, “I’ve told you the truth. He was a stranger who came over and offered to buy me a drink. I told him no thank you.”
“You said more than three words to him. What else did you two talk about?”
“Mostly about how I wish he would go away and leave me the hell alone.”
