Page 13 of Outbreak (Revolution X #1)
CHAPTER 12
Rue
I don’t even know what to think when he slips the sandwich and water through the door. My mind is still reeling from everything that’s happened in less than 24 hours, and this asshole makes me a fucking sandwich? I can feel myself closing up, shutting myself off from feeling anything to the point where I might as well be a catatonic lump on a log.
The last time that happened, I snapped and did something I can never take back. I don’t regret it, but it took a long time to drag myself out of that dark pit of despair it put me in. I can’t go back there. Noah and Mallory played a huge part in pulling me out. Now I don’t even know if I’ll ever see them again.
There is so much—too much. I don’t even know where to start.
My probably-dead cheating boyfriend and his weird bleeding eyes?
The dead girl he was fucking who looked the same?
Getting separated from my best and only friends in the world during a mass panic?
Or being kidnapped by an asshole that calls himself Ghost— who also happens to be my stalker apparently, if the way he made my sandwich is anything to go by.
Oh! And he claims to have killed an already dead, dead man?
Are you fucking kidding me right now?!
This sounds like the makings of a grippy-sock vacation sans the shoelaces. I mean, who the fuck rolled the Jumanji dice? Could you please box that shit back up?
Picking up the sandwich, because I am fucking hungry and stress eating is a real thing, the tangy vinegar of my favorite chips hits me, confirming my suspicions. How does this fucker know everything about me? My name, my favorite foods, how I eat my goddamn sandwich? He really must be my stalker. How long has he been watching me? My mind tries to filter through anytime I thought I was being watched or had the hairs on the back of my neck stand up from something not being quite right. But I don’t recall anything, which isn’t all that surprising considering the state of my head right now. It’s a fucking dumpster fire up there.
I know there is something wrong with me when the idea of this man stalking me doesn’t exactly piss me off. It intrigues me. Maybe I can lie to myself that it doesn't wet my panties a little bit. Did he watch me fuck Josh in my dorm room last week? Did he see me get myself off when Josh left? Did he want to step out of the shadows and finish me himself? Would I have screamed? Or opened my legs wider and invited him into my bed?
I’m clenching my thighs and stuffing my face like the classy bitch I am, lost in my fucked-up head when he opens my door again, and I nearly jump out of my skin and throw the last bite of my sandwich in his face. “Fuck a duck, you scared me!”
“Oh, come on now. Nothing scares you, Rue,” he says, taunting me.
Well then. See if I pretend to fuck him in my head again! Asshole.
I wish my face was masked like his—I can feel the flush crawling up my chest and heating my cheeks by the second. I wasn’t doing anything, but I feel like a kid with my hand caught in the cookie jar.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Besides being kidnapped and handcuffed in your truck? Nothing! I need to pee,” I half lie, deflecting with my snarky sarcasm. Good. This feels normal. He can’t know the thoughts I was just having. I don’t want to give the asshole anymore ideas. I do actually need to pee now that I think about it. I haven’t used the bathroom since before the party, and that was God knows how many hours ago.
In the light casting on him from the inside of the truck, I can see his eyes a little better. It’s still too dark to make out their color, but I can see him perk up with excitement.
“Oh, do you? Don’t move, I’ll be right back,” he says, dark amusement lacing his words. My stomach flips at whatever has sparked this reaction in him. I don’t know if I want to know the reason.
“And where would I go, asshole?” I respond to myself because he disappears around the back of the truck. My voice might sound bored and irritated, but my own excitement decides to make its presence known in my body. My curiosity is going to get me killed one day. Maybe today.
While he’s gone, I shove the last bite of my sandwich I almost lost into my mouth and uncap the water he gave me. With my luck, it’ll be drugged, but YOLO and all that. I turn it up and down half the bottle in one go. By the time I hear him coming back around, I’ve drained the whole bottle. I have no idea when he’ll let me pee again, so I might as well drink some more before I go. I have no idea what I was expecting, but it sure as shit isn’t what he walks back up with.
“That’s gonna be a hard no from me, buddy. I don’t fucking think so.”
Okay. This shit ain’t cute anymore. Ex-fucking-cuse me!?
“It’s cute that you think you have a choice in this,” he says, his voice deepening in a way that really shouldn’t be sexy. I seriously need to book that therapist.
“I’m not wearing that.”
He cocks his head to the side in amusement. I’m glad he finds this comical. He dangles the black leather collar and silver chain leash off one finger, swinging it slightly. “Since I can’t trust you not to run away from me every chance you get, you will wear this anytime we aren’t in the truck. That means bathroom breaks.”
“I’ll bite your fucking hand off if you come near me with that shit.”
“I have a muzzle, too, if you wanna try me,” he states flatly, shrugging his shoulders.
He’s fucking serious. This motherfucker! I’m going to kill him. I sit back on the seat, not agreeing to this because it’s fucking ridiculous, but also knowing if I don’t pee now, I might actually piss my pants.
“That’s a good girl,” he growls in approval, and fuck me sideways if it doesn’t make me clench my thighs together. That only manages to piss me off even more. I don’t understand why my pussy can’t get on board that we don’t like this asshole.
He wraps the buttery leather around my neck, buckling it in place in the back. I hear something click into place, and my anxiety ramps up a few notches.
“What was that?” I ask, my voice coming out higher than I’d like.
“Well, it won’t do any good if you can take it off whenever you want,” he says, holding a small key up to show me.
A fucking lock!
He locked it on my neck. Yep. I’m gonna kill him. He slips the key into his pants pocket, then clips the leash onto the silver ring on the collar. His fingers graze the skin on my neck tenderly, pebbling goosebumps in their wake, and I have to fight off a moan at how good his skin feels against mine. He hooks two fingers beneath the leather, tugging and turning me toward him quickly. My uncuffed hand shoots up to land on his hard chest to keep from falling into him and out of the open door.
My eyes lock on his, though still too dark to reveal anything beneath the mask. I can feel the intensity of his stare all the way to my toes. I can’t explain it, but I realize as much as he pisses me off, I’m not scared of him. Even though I have no idea who he is beneath the mask, I don’t think he will actually hurt me. He even protected me against… well, whatever that man was back at that house. He could have killed me when he caught me after I ran from him. He has gone out of his way to keep me safe, even if it is literally chained to him. I don’t know what he wants, but I feel safe with him, and I don’t know how I feel about that.
Have I finally lost my mind? Given my past, it's a short walk off a tall bridge to consider that my mental health might play peekaboo on the edge of insanity. Have I finally dove over that ledge and plunged into needing grippy socks and a straight jacket?
He flexes his hand, wrapping his thick fingers around my neck over the collar, pulling me out of my mental debate and back into the intensity of his gaze.
“You look good wearing my gift. I bought it just for you,” he says, like that’s not fucking creepy, and… okay, it’s kind of hot, too. I don’t know what to say to that, and I don’t trust my mouth not to betray me like other parts of my body that can’t get it together, so I keep my mouth shut.
Thankfully, it doesn't seem like he’s expecting a response because he finally releases my throat and looks away. He goes about unlocking the cuffs on my wrist and the door, massaging the light red marks left behind on my skin from the metal digging in during my panic attack. I can’t handle his gentle touches. It really shouldn’t be this hard to remember he is the bad guy here when he literally stole me from fucking college just a while ago.
Pulling my arm out of his hand, I rub the sore spot myself, looking around him in the woods. We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one to hear me scream and nowhere to run to if I could. I could die out here. The smart thing to do is to play nice and wait until we get somewhere that I can get some help. He could snap my neck out here, and no one would be the wiser. So the survivalist in me is screaming at me to shut the fuck up and be a good girl for the stranger.
“Let’s go,” he says, picking me up and setting me on my feet like a toddler. He shuts the door and gives me a nudge to walk ahead. Our feet crunch on the dead foliage on the ground, snapping twigs and crushing leaves that have fallen off for the season.
We only walked a short distance away from the truck when the chain connected to my collar pulled taut, jerking me back and making me stumble. “What the fuck, dude? A little warning would be nice,” I grumble, then immediately cringe at myself. I literally told myself to play nice, and I can’t seem to get a filter on my mouth when it comes to him. Everything he does and says either pisses me off or turns me on, and sometimes both at the same time.
“That’s far enough,” he says, ignoring my snark. “Go pee.”
“Wait… are you going to watch me?” I ask, spinning around to face him. I realize I didn’t think this through. The leash is only a few feet long. Of course the creeper is going to watch me pee.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he replies, really giving no fucks about how ridiculous this whole thing is or how I feel about it. Fucking ass face. Well, the jokes on him. I’ve been degraded and humiliated in ways he couldn’t even imagine in my life. This doesn’t even make the highlight reels.
Deciding to treat him as he has been treating me, I turn my back to him, walking as far as my leash will allow. I slide my ripped leggings down over my ass and squat, relieving myself on the ground.
“No panties, huh?”
“Nope,” I snap, popping the p in irritation. “Did you happen to think about grabbing some napkins, or should I just wag my ass like a good little bitch and drip dry?”
“That muzzle is sounding better and better every time you open that pretty little mouth of yours,” he says, walking closer behind me. I nearly fall on my face when I feel the rough texture of the napkin and his hand between my legs, cleaning me up.
“Oh my fucking God! What are you doing?” I yell, scrambling to get my balance and snatching my pants back up.
“Just giving you a helping hand,” he says, and I can feel the fucking smirk even if I can’t see it. “Seems like you could really use one.”
He holds the napkin in front of my face, and the evidence of my arousal glistening back at me makes me wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. Mortification burns through me hotter than I’ve felt in a while, and I don’t know why it bothers me so much. I’ve been through so much worse.
“I was thinking about my boyfriend.” I lie and immediately feel my face flame brighter, like a flashing red beacon of my deception.
He moves so fast I don’t even know what’s happening until my back hits a tree trunk and his body presses tightly to mine. “That fuckboy couldn’t get you off if your pussy came with an instruction manual and pretty little pictures for him to follow. And let’s not forget that you caught him balls deep in a very dead blonde tonight at that party,” he says into my neck, inhaling deeply and running his nose up the sensitive skin. “So tell me the truth, Rue. What’s got your little cunt so excited?”
“Fuck you,” I spit, hatred spreading like acid in my veins.
“Begging so soon?” He pulls back to stare down at me. His lips ghost over mine, and he growls against them. An actual, honest to God, growl. “You haven’t earned it yet. But you fucking will.”
Pushing off the tree, he pulls the leash tight and turns around. I don’t have time to even process what the fuck he said before he starts walking back to the truck, dragging me behind him. My boots catch on a tree root because the fucker’s long ass legs won’t let me catch up quick enough.
“Ahhhhh!” I scream, broken twigs digging into my palms and through the rips on my leggings. My fall pulls him to a stop, and he steps towards me, looming over me like a fucking giant. A giant fuckface.
“Look at you,” he teases, and I imagine stabbing him in the eye with a stick. “You look so good on your knees for me. Collared and waiting on my command. Looks like I picked the right bitch after all.” He walks behind me, and I stare ahead like a deer in the headlights. His words have stunned me stupid, apparently. “Crawl.”
“W-what?” I stammer at his deep command, my head a fuzzy mess from this shit.
“Since you seem to like it down there so much, crawl back to the truck.”
Okay. Snap the fuck out of it, Rue!
“The fuck I will,” I snap, pushing myself up on my knees to get up. “You’re pushing your luck, asshole. I don’t crawl for anyone.”
I slap my hands together, dusting off the dirt and debris that clings there. He’s fucking lucky I didn’t fall into where I just peed. I think I would have clawed his eyes out. Giving him a saccharine smile that hopefully conveys ‘fuck you’ properly, I spin around, marching back to the truck with more determination than a cheap whore when rent is due.
He can fuck all the way off.
I’m done. I’m not playing his stupid little games anymore. I don’t care how my body reacts to him—clearly that bitch has gone off the rails and cannot be trusted to make decisions. But I don’t make it very far in my trek before he pulls the leash.
My back crashes into his hard chest as he catches me, twisting the leash several times around his hand to shorten my reach. His other hand comes to my heaving chest, and I know he can feel my heartbeat pounding against it. He slowly slips it up until his hand rests just below the leather collar.
“You can fight it if it makes you feel better… but you can’t hide from me. I see everything. I see you. ”
“And what is it you think you see?”
His fingers flex against my throat. One by one, drumming gently in time with my racing pulse. He grips my hip roughly, the chain of the leash cool against my exposed skin. Every cell in my body feels alive, tingling and pulling me back into him. I can’t control it. I can’t stop it—like a live wire, the sparks flying could burn these woods to ash. Then, as quick as he pulled me in, he releases me, letting the chain unwrap from his hand as he steps back.
“Walk,” he growls, ignoring my question. His voice is somehow deeper and grittier than before.
Because I don’t trust myself not to do everything I swore I wouldn’t, I obey, my steps slow and steady as I try to reinforce the walls around myself. He doesn’t just invade my space. It feels as if his very essence leeches itself into my veins, scrambling my mind, and making me lose all the sense in my body.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe he does see me . But that is just disturbing and hella creepy. He’s my stalker and my kidnapper. He literally drugged me, stole me away from the only home I’ve ever felt safe in, and is dragging me to God knows where—to do God knows what. I need to keep my head about me. I can’t allow myself to get caught up in whatever demented things my body craves. I’ve done research. It’s a trauma response that happens sometimes when someone has been through the shit I have. I can’t trust anything I feel, and I definitely can’t let my body make the decisions.
Just play nice, keep your mouth shut, and figure out a way out of this.
When we get back to the truck, he leans around me, opening the back door. He steps up behind me but doesn’t press into me as he unhooks the leash from the collar. “Climb in,” he says roughly, slipping the chain into the pocket on the door. His truck is big, and with the air bed filling the space, it’s about the size of a twin bed back here. At the very least, I can get some sleep and hopefully have a better handle on myself tomorrow.
Pulling the blanket out of the way, I toss the pillow by the opposite door, stretching out. Leaning up, I stare at him standing outside the truck, and the reality of this situation slaps me right in the face. There’s only one place to sleep. And it’s not nearly far enough away from each other.
Throwing myself back down on the pillow, I scoot as far into the back of the seat as possible, rolling onto my side and finding literally anything out the back glass to stare at. He doesn’t speak as he climbs into the truck and shuts us inside. He grabs the blanket I tossed aside, covering us both as he gets comfortable behind me— as comfortable as a giant man can get stretched out in the backseat of a truck. I don’t look, but I imagine his legs are too long for this space.
I try to shut everything out of my mind and ignore the strange man behind me. It’s nearly impossible. It hasn’t even been sixty seconds since he closed the door, and already I want to get the fuck out of here. Who needs sleep anyway? My feet fidget, the heels of my boots tapping together. I wring my hands together, alternating between tapping and twisting my fingers to distract myself.
“Enough,” he growls in my ear, wrapping his whole body around me from behind. He throws his massive leg over mine, pinning me down. His heavy arm bands around my upper body, trapping my hands in his. “Sleep.”
“I can’t!” I snap at him, trying to jerk my body free.
“Close your eyes, Rue.” He doesn’t let up, just keeps his body molded to mine, holding me down as my body jerks and jolts. He doesn’t yell or get angry; he doesn’t speak at all. And somehow, the pressure from him against me eventually calms me down. It’s like a drain pulled inside me, letting all the anxiousness swirl away. I finally feel sleep tugging at me as I relax in his arms, feeling his heart beating vigorously against my back. I don’t know how long it takes for sleep to take me, but I welcome it like a lost friend.