Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(33)

I’m losing myself. The thought stops me cold.

What have I done? I told him about my mother. I told him about my past. I’ve told him everything about me, tearing off strips of my skin like it doesn’t matter. Like everything will be okay. But it won’t. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to rape me. Though just now, with my tongue curling against his, it doesn’t feel like rape. Is this what death will be like? Will he make me want that too?

A car horn sounds behind us, and I jerk back. His eyes are dazed with lust and something deeper…

I push the thought aside. He doesn’t feel anything. He’s an animal, reacting with snarls and the snapping of teeth. At least that way I can understand what he’s doing. No one likes to be put in a cage.

At least that way I understand why he’s hurting me.

He accelerates, but he still has me, fingers digging into my arm. I whimper.

That seems to snap him out of his haze. You’re beautiful, he said before he kissed me. But the way he looks at me now, I’m not pretty. I’m an alien, something he can’t quite comprehend. There’s wonder and wariness. Hesitation and hope.

The scariest part wasn’t when he pressed a gun to my rib cage while my heart beat a staccato rhythm. The scariest part is right now, wanting to fulfill his hope. Believing that I can. It’s that nightmare that follows me down.

*

I jolt as the truck rocks me awake. My cheek bounces off the window. It’s night. Did I fall asleep? Looking around, I see we’ve pulled into a motel parking lot. The place is dark, deserted. The neon blue and red light from the vacancy sign casts a ghostly glow on Grayson’s profile. My insides turn cold with dread. A motel means a bed. Me and him—in a bed.

“Why are we stopping?” My voice comes out rusty.

“I need to sleep. You can keep watch.”

A joke. If I saw anyone coming for us, I’d more likely call them over than give Grayson a warning. By his dry tone, he knows that very well. But he’s taking the risk—so he must really be exhausted.

This is my chance to escape. I just have to keep watch for an opening. It will come.

It has to.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he says, reading my mind.

Too late. “If you think I’m going to cooperate with you, you’re insane.”

He laughs, low and a little bit wild. “What ever gave you the idea I’m sane?”

Then his hand is on my wrist. He yanks me halfway onto his seat and grabs my chin. His eyes are dark pools swirling with anger, guilt—but most of all, determination.

“You’re hurting me,” I say through clenched teeth. His grip on my wrist is twisting my skin. Even his hand on my chin is going to leave a bruise if he clenches it much longer. Everywhere he touches me, I burn.

He doesn’t ease up. “It’s a warning, sweetheart. You know what I’m capable of, and I’m at the end of my rope here. Got no more patience left.”

That was him being patient? “Let go of me.”

“I don’t think I will. I’m going to hold on to you. All night even.” He grins, a little cocky. I can imagine him using that grin in a bar and having every woman there at his feet. I can imagine being at his feet, especially now. I already am, just not by choice.

My heart pounds with fear, thinking about that bed in there. I have to get away.

He pushes me back into my seat. “See that guy inside the window?”

I look through the lit windows of the motel office and see that there is somebody at the desk in there, but I can’t make out much else. There are no other people in the tiny office. No cars in the lot or buildings nearby. No one to hear me scream.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I know you can’t see him that well, but he’s just a kid. Seventeen? Eighteen? And he’s counting on you to be good for him. You can do that, right? You can sit here, nice and quiet, and he doesn’t have to get hurt.”

Really, the only thing more annoying than Grayson threatening me is Grayson being condescending. I glare at him.

He chuckles. “So we understand each other.”

I watch his back as he goes inside the tiny motel office and up to the counter. I have no idea what he’s telling the guy, but it wouldn’t be his real name or the fact that he just escaped from prison.

Grayson must seem like a completely different person in there—less scary, less intimidating. The guy’s head bobs up and down—is he nodding? Laughing at some casual joke?

He’s got the guy fooled. Well, he doesn’t have me fooled.

So we understand each other, he said, but what he doesn’t know is that I’ve built my life around reading people. As a child, it was how I stayed alive. One step ahead of the junkies my mom hung out with. I learned when to fight and when to lay low. And I’m going to use the same skills to get away.

I can’t run now, even though it’s what I want to do more than anything. But I already found out what happens when I run, and it’s not pretty. He’d catch me. He’d punish me. Or maybe he’d just make me come again.

Plus, he really might kill that kid.

I have to be smart and not let fear take me over. Wait for my chance. I won’t get many of them. Later, when he’s sleeping, that’s when he’ll be vulnerable.

He comes back and gets in. His smirk makes me itch to hurt him.