Page 1 of Wanted

ACT ONE

I opened my eyes. For the first time in forever, I didn’t know where I was. The ceiling was sparkly clean, and the blinding lights above me caused me to wince. I felt a stabbing pain in my abdomen.

My attempt to rise from the bed was futile. I couldn’t move my limbs because I didn’t have the strength. I started heaving, and the pain in my body increased.

The numbing sound in my ears turned into a blaring beeping of the machines attached to my body.

I moved my head, but my vision was blurry. Chaotic movements of one or more energetic nurses dressed in white filled my vision. They asked me questions, but I couldn’t find the words to answer.

The memories in my head were faded. I didn’t know how I’d ended up here.

KAMILA

Fuck you, Daddy.

Yours truly looked like a modest blond woman from Germany or Sweden, wherever they bred tall blond women. I had thought my hair change would work, but apparently, it did not. Jordan Winters glanced at me once and knew who I was.

My guard was dead, in the street where I’d reluctantly left him after Jordan had shot him.

The man driving the car I was handcuffed in had dragged me away from the spot. Nobody had asked any questions. Nobody blinked twice.

Jordan, as he had introduced himself, was fucking up my life, and he had only been in it for twenty minutes.

My heart was racing.

“What does all of this mean?” I asked him. I took this urgent tone with my father, never with anyone else. I was above begging in my life outside of my father’s bedroom. “Why am I handcuffed? Kill me. If you’re going to send me back to Katantia, you might as well go ahead and kill me. I’m already dead.”

Jordan let out a low chuckle, adjusting the black beanie on his head before running his hand down his face and across his neatly trimmed full raven beard. There was a hint of salt and pepper there. It revealed his age to me when his face kept up with a man in his mid-thirties. The man didn’t budge. Calmly, he kept driving, gazing ahead. He didn’t speed, and he obeyed every rule of the road. He went too slow for my taste.

“Answer me,” I ordered.

“Shut. Up.”

“Why are you going so slow? Drive faster. Get me to my father already if that’s what you’re after!” I yelled at him, but he wasn’t moved.

“If the cops pull us over, it’s done. I’ll be another dead black man on the evening news, and you’ll most likely be dead, too, sugar. Your death will be reported on E! News instead.” He didn’t need to say anything else. He kept driving, but I didn’t see the airport. How would he send me back to my father if he didn’t take me to the airport?

When the houses started becoming bigger and fewer, I started panicking. Where were we headed? “Do you have children?”

Jordan didn’t respond. Crossing my arms in front of my chest, I waited for his answer. Kamila Ruby Wraith wasn’t going down just yet. “Would you ever have sex with them?”

I searched for sympathy, pity, for a hint of reassurance in his hazel eyes, but he didn’t even flinch. He knew exactly what went on in Katantia and he didn’t… care. “Would you abuse your child? If you send me back, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to me. My father has been sleeping with me for…”

“I know. You need to shut up,” he barked.

Jordan stopped the car in front of an abandoned house. The lawn wasn’t trimmed, and the trees were wildly tall and messy. The entrance of the house was packed with old newspapers.

I jumped when he stepped out of the car. Soon, he opened my door, carrying an overnight bag and my backpack from the getaway car. He had thoroughly searched the backpack before taking it. I took a deep breath, and then I exited the car, standing next to him. He was taller than me, taller than Aris even, and he was six-five. This man was six-eight or nine, and he was definitely more built than Aris. In other words, physically, I didn’t have a chance.

Jordan led the way towards the house. He ignored the newspapers. Then he struggled to unlock the door because it was stuck.

I followed him inside. The house reeked of negligence. There was dust everywhere. I was pretty sure somebody had died in here, and they had left the corpse to rot.

“I know who you are and what you’ve been through,” Jordan said, sighing. He rubbed the back of his neck with his big hands. “That’s why I couldn’t let you walk into the lion’s den.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, clearing my throat. My wrists were aching, but I knew asking Jordan to remove them would lead nowhere just yet.

“Your guard was going to deliver you to Spencer Rawlins,” Jordan revealed.