Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(28)

Sometime later, he veers out of the stream and puts me down.

“Ride’s over,” he says, pointing through the bramble. He wants me to go first, so I go.

We walk for what feels like hours. My feet ache from my boot heels. My shins have been whipped by a thousand tiny branches. We head up the side of a plowed field, and then another, but no farmer is in sight and no cops, either.

Well, they’re searching in another direction if they’re searching at all. I’m coming to realize I can’t count on the authorities. They couldn’t keep me safe at the prison. Why should I expect them to save me now?

I’ll have to rescue myself.

Grayson seems to know where he’s going. As we trudge along, I get the sense he’s listening—to the wind, distant noises. This is where he excels: a type of battle. Not fought between countries, but soldiers. Between sides.

We go over a hill, and I see a road up ahead. My blood races.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, leading me down the bumpy, weedy terrain to a roadside strewn with litter. We begin to walk, just beyond the shoulder. “You want to flag somebody down? Go ahead, it’s their funeral.” He picks up a whiskey bottle and swings it in his right hand as he walks, takes my hand with his left. “One way to get a car, I guess.”

I hear a car approaching from behind, and I stop breathing.

“Don’t even think about looking,” he says just when I’m about to look.

The car continues on by—a lone driver in a silver compact. And then there’s silence. He makes me pick up a glass soda bottle. It’s full of ants. A ways down he finds a shred of rubber that came off a tire, probably a truck tire, and he picks that up too. He points to a fallen tree, just off the shoulder of the road. The shadows have gone long. It’ll be dark out soon. “Sit.”

I sit, trying to think what to do. If I flag someone down or wave my arms wildly for help, will he really just shoot them? A truck approaches. “Eyes on the ground,” he growls. “Act natural.”

Act “naturally.” It’s called an adverb, *, I think, but I don’t say it. He seems to get perverse pleasure when I correct his grammar. I wonder how much he does it on purpose, just to get a rise out of me.

He sits next to me and starts breaking the bottles we collected as the truck approaches. I sneak a look. The driver’s on his phone.

Help me, I mouth.

Grayson immediately starts smiling at the truck. Almost like he’s laughing. As if I’d made a joke. The driver locks eyes with Grayson as he rolls past, chatting away on his phone. My hope slowly withers.

Then he grabs my wrist in an iron grip. My blood runs cold. He speaks through gritted teeth. “You don’t do things like that.” He jerks my arm. “You understand? You can’t.” He seems almost alarmed, as if I’d darted out into traffic instead of going for help.

I stare at him defiantly, trying to keep my cool composure in spite of my racing heart.

“I’m in charge, and you’re not,” he says. “The sooner you get used to that, the better things will go for you.”

I keep up my stare.

He looks almost sad then. “Give me your glasses.”

My stomach gets tight. “No.”

“Now,” he growls.

“I can’t,” I say with a sick feeling, though I know it’s true—sometimes playing along and getting used to things is how you survive. But I need my glasses to read. To make out faces. To shield me, hide me. I need them.

He’s waiting.

Instinctively, I put up my free hand to touch them. “Please.” He grabs my wrists. I twist my arms, straining to get away from him. “No!”

“I’m sorry.” Calm as granite, he reaches up to take my glasses with the other hand.

“Not my glasses,” I beg as he pulls them off my face.

“You think they protect you, but they don’t,” he says. “You think somebody out there might rescue you, but they won’t. They will never help you. People out there can’t protect you.” He set the glasses in the dirt and picks up a large rock.

“No!” I gasp as he brings the rock down, smashing the frame and lenses. “I can’t see.”

“I can,” he says. “I’m the one who protects you now.”

I sob as he picks out the shards of lens from the frame and sticks them into the rubber strip. It looks like a snake studded with shark fins. I watch through bleary eyes as he goes out and lays it in the road.

He comes back and pulls me into the shade under a tree. Unlikely a driver would see us unless they were really looking. “We just need a vehicle now,” he says as if we’re a team on some caper together. I maintain stony silence. We will never be a team.

A shiny blue pickup truck heads our way. There’s one person inside, but I can’t make out much without my glasses.

“Hello,” Grayson mutters under his breath as the truck goes over his trap. There’s a pop as the tire blows out, and the driver steers to the side of the road. Grayson takes my hand and pulls me along. “You say one f*cking word, you try anything, and somebody dies. Got it?”

He doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer, so I don’t give him one. I feel naked with no glasses and no panties. He wants me helpless. He’s doing a pretty good job of it, I suppose. But he doesn’t know me. And I will never get used to this.