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The client told me his girlfriend had been kidnapped just a few days ago, but I can tell she’s already been broken. She doesn’t fight as she’s pulled from the backseat of the car. She walks as fast as the man urges her to despite the black bag over her head.
The transaction is smooth. I hand over the money, and he hands over the woman.
I don’t remove her eye cover as I guide her back to my truck, and I don’t do it even after we’re back on the road heading toward the Texas border. I don’t speak a word to her or try to calm her fears as she sniffles from the passenger seat.
She doesn’t beg for help when the man near the wall helps us across without going through customs.
When I make it to the rendezvous point with the client, I park my truck in front of his car and flash my lights.
I don’t cut the rope on her hands until my phone dings with his payment.
I reach past her and shove open the passenger side door.
“Get out,” I say, and she moves quickly.
She has no fucking clue what’s happening, but she still obeys.
Lauren would never fucking act this way. She probably would’ve tried to claw my face off the second I cut the rope on her hands. That’s why I did it while she was asleep.
I drive off with the woman standing in the middle of a secluded parking lot, not bothering to look in the rearview mirror to see if her boyfriend rushes to her because I don’t give a shit.
Compassion and apathy were beaten out of me long ago.
Chapter 32
Lauren
Liana haunts me.
Thoughts of Angel haunt me.
I don’t know how to deal with it.
It took me over a week to make my way back to Kansas.
Once an FBI agent, I’ve broken a handful of laws to eat, clothe myself, and find a means to travel.
The most awful part of it is that I don’t feel bad about any of it.
I think that has more to do with the horrific things I’ve been through and using reasoning to not feel guilty about taking clothes from a money-hungry chain store or slipping the money meant to pay for lunch off a table as I walk by unnoticed.
I feel like I deserve it, and the only thing that does make my skin crawl is the fact that I’m meeting my own needs out of a sense of entitlement rather than suffering through the hand I’ve been dealt, which is how I normally go about things.
I don’t know on which leg of my journey I made the decision to finally exorcise my demons, but as I step in front of the bank in my old hometown, I know I no longer want to be the woman who punishes herself for the things I can’t control.
It’ll be hard, but I want to be fucking normal.
Just the thought makes my skin crawl, but I also know it’s about little steps rather than thinking I can just wake up one morning and be different.
After dealing with this first issue today, I can settle in at the local motel and make a plan. That will be the very first difference because I’ve been taught that writing shit down can be dangerous. It’s why as agents, we’re trained to memorize shit.
I smile at the woman at the front counter as I approach. It feels fake because it is, but she smiles back, either uncaring or fooled. Either way, it doesn’t matter to me.
“I’d like to close out my safe deposit box please.”
She asks for the information along with my ID, and I have to pause for a second.
If the FBI is looking for me, this is going to flag in their system.