Page 71 of Mercenary

My grip on the gun tightens as my conversation with Hayden replays in my mind.

Fuck me. Madelyn.

My heart beats faster than my legs can carry me as I sprint back to my pickup. Until I see her face in the windshield. Safe and secure.

And scared shitless . . . of me.

Her fear reaches out to me, grabbing me by the throat and shaking me to my core.

Goddamn me to hell and back.

For the first time in my life, I can relate to this foreign feeling. The blind panic. Nearly losing my mind with the possibility of losing her. Madelyn’s not the only one shaken by what’s happened. Or hasn’t happened—yet.

Me. I’m afraid.

I’m afraid. For her.

22

Madelyn

Imissed my chance to escape. I was too stunned by the sight of him gunning down those men. Afterward, he came charging toward the pickup and climbed inside before my panicked mind could even process the word RUN.

He first stops at the Shelby Quick-Mart, ushering me inside to buy bottled water and a burger with fries. He demands we use my bank card in the process; I’m too shaken to protest. Then he drives out of Shelby’s town limits and checks us into a small motel catering to truckers and the overflow of down-on-their-luck riffraff looking to escape town. I’m led inside and told to sit on a chair. I don’t have a choice but to do as he orders.

Placing the burger and water on the nightstand, he steps outside. I hear him on his phone.

Another call.

Another shooting spree?

Oh my God. Who is this man?

There’s no Dalai Lama–ing what I just witnessed. He’s a killer. He shot those men in cold blood.

And the three men at the truck stop?

“I’ve got blood on my hands,” he’d said. And he meant it. He was telling me the truth. And if he caused me to be nervous and on edge before, I’m terrified right now.

I thought I’d caught a glimpse of his heart. But with my rose-colored glasses perched crookedly on my nose, all I could see was red.

The thought makes me sad. I brush it off, cast it aside in favor of my more rational self. The one who says, “He’s beyond saving. Get the hell away from him. Escape.”

But how?

The only way out is by that door or through the front window—if I can figure out how to smash it. Too noisy. An impossible, impractical plan.

I feel dizzy, the room begins to spin. And what do my eyes abruptly land on? The water bottles.

There’s this quote I’ve always liked. Old-fashioned sounding but solid advice nevertheless. It goes: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Glancing at the closed door, I pop up from my seat and drop to my knees before my duffle bag. Hastily, I search inside until my fingers wrap around the pill bottle.

Opening the bottle, I pour a blue pill into my palm and stare at it in indecision.

Great, it’s not like roofies come with the recommended dosage. I bite my lip, then pour out a second pill. Relying on gut instinct, and that fact that he’s a tank of a man.

Who made tender love to you.