Page 56 of Kept in the Dark

She is shaking as I jerk the purse from her grip. It rips open, and the contents spill out onto the ground. The phone lands face up in the sandy dirt, the screen illuminated with an active phone call. Faintly, I hear the emergency dispatcher. “Ma’am? Are you all right? If you can hear me, please remain calm; units are already on their way to your location…”

For a suspended moment, I am frozen in a whirl of betrayal and fury. She called the police? She had a phone all this time? They are coming for her? Why? Why would she do this? Why would she—

I am unable to continue processing what is happening because she darts away, sensing her freedom is imminent. The sirens grow louder.

I curse and reach for her, but she slips through my grip.

“Stop!” I growl. I pause for precious seconds to grab the phone off the ground and end the call. In that time, she makes it to the edge of the parking lot.

The beast inside of me that is always waiting to be let out urges me forward—hunt, catch, claim—and I close the distance between us in just a handful of long strides. She is in an unfamiliar place, not wearing shoes, being pursued by a monster made and honed through violence, and she thinks she canrunfrom me?

I grab the back of her shirt and some of her hair, jerking her back into me. Her head snaps forward and comes back from the momentum, and she hits the wall of my body with a low-pitchedoof. There is a small metallic noise, like something has fallen, but I cannot stop to worry about it.

“Nicole, stop!” I growl. “Why are you—”

“You think I’m just going to let youtake care of me?”

Her limbs are flying, kicking back at me and trying to find something soft or unprotected. She is a captive wild animal, clawing and biting for freedom. “Nicole, stop!”

“Help! Help!!”

With a hiss, I cover her mouth with my hand, and it muffles her voice. “You are—”

Fire. Fire in my side explodes under my skin, stealing my breath and momentarily blinding me in a shower of white-hot sparks. Her elbow found the healing gunshot wound.

Enough of this.

With a growl of rage, I grab her arm, spin her, and stoop low enough to force my shoulder into her stomach. With a grunt, I straighten and take on her full weight. A terrified noise escapes her, ending in a choke as air is forced out of her lungs from the pressure on her diaphragm. As I trot back to the car, she cannot suck in a full enough breath to scream.

I lean forward over the lip of the trunk and drop her in among the duffel bags and laundry. My lower stomach burns as my stitches pull, protesting this movement. I think at least one rips the skin, but I ignore it. She hits the floor of the trunk with a weighty sound, and I take advantage of her stunned state to push her torso down into the space, fold her legs in and slam the trunk closed.

The banging and screaming start instantly—as soon as she catches her breath. With a mighty roar to let out all the fury, I toss the phone as hard as I can towards the ocean. A faint splash tells me I hit my laughably large mark.

I cannot leave the boat. It has our prints, our hairs and fibers, our fluids. They could never trace it back to me without much more significant resources than most police departments possess, but Nicole lives her life out in the open. She has involved the police.

I retrieve the gun from the glove compartment and the bullets from underneath the back seat. With a deep sigh, I fire off an entire clip into the gasoline reserves at the back of several boats, including mine.

The force of the explosions nearly knocks me on my ass and rattles the world around me. The tenor of Nicole’s muffled screams shifts to true terror, though she cannot see the flaming shrapnel launching into adjacent boats, dry grass on the shore, and out into the water. Some of the dead weeds at the edge of the shoreline catch fire, and it spreads before my eyes.

Doubtlessly shaken awake, lights come on in the trailer park nearby as people hurry to see what happened.

Time to leave.

Flames lick at the dark sky in my rearview mirror as the screaming sirens wail louder, closing in. I wish I knew how many, or from which direction, but I do know some of these back roads very well, so I take a chance that the police will not be on them.

Fuck.

Fuck!

Nicole, what have you done?

17

Nicole

At least fish in a barrel can see where they’re fucking swimming.

Kidnapping.