Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(56)

“Fine, bitch.” He throws down his gun and puts his hands up.

I’m shaking with fear and rage and something else. Something that feels wild and out of control. Power. Is this how Grayson felt when he escaped that prison? “Now you’re going to fill up the gas.”

“I’d have to go back in and enter the release code,” he calls out. “The release code.”

Crap. It feels like a trick. I decide I can’t let him go back in there. But what to do? What would Grayson do?

I walk several paces from the pump area and make an X in the open gravel with my foot. “Lie down right here, spread eagle, or else I’ll kill you.”

I move a bit away from the X and widen my stance, aiming at his head, shaking like crazy. I don’t know if I’m being convincing, but he saunters over—slowly—wasting time. He feels my fear.

“You want me to kill you, Mr. Fifteen Minutes? You go ahead and give me an excuse.”

That speeds him up.

It’s all coming back to me, like it was in my bones the whole time—the f*ck you attitude. The confident command, just an edge of bravado to keep them off balance. It’s the way my mom faced down a big dealer one time. The way muggers talk when they’ve got you far from help.

He gets on the ground, right on my X like I told him, staring at me, eyes full of hate through those thick lenses. Is he just waiting for his chance too?

“Give me your glasses,” I say.

He frowns. I feel like I’m channeling Grayson. I haven’t forgotten how vulnerable it made me feel, getting my glasses taken away. I also need to see his cash register.

He takes them off and throws them to me.

There’s a brick propping open the door. I go over and grab it and hurl it through the other plate-glass window. “That’s so the bullet doesn’t slow down when I hit your sorry ass if you move.”

I rush in and get behind the register. There’s video going. Shit! But then I see the record light isn’t even on. Okay. Breathe.

His glasses are way too strong—they make me feel dizzy almost, but they magnify the words when I tip them a certain way, and that’s all I need. I hit the no sale button on the cash register, but it doesn’t open. I stab at it.

Nothing.

I glance out. He’s still there, on my X. I almost can’t believe he’s staying there like I told him to. I must be more convincing than I thought.

“Not one move,” I yell, just to be sure.

I finally see it—the code, taped to the window—356. I enter the numbers, hit the no-sale and the thing opens. I take out the money and examine a bank of buttons coming from a console. I find pump two and set it to 30 gallons. A light goes on. I push the glasses over my head, and I run out and start the thing pumping, heart pounding out of my chest.

I run back in and pack a bag with waters and first-aid supplies. I eye a package of rope, covered in plastic, on one of the displays, thinking to tie the guy up, but I can’t do that alone. I’d have to put down the gun, and he’d overpower me for sure. But he’ll call the cops the second we’re out of here. Unless he decides to chase us himself.

Knees shaking, my gaze rests on a key chain. There’s an old Ford parked off to the side. His? It has to be! I grab them and head out.

The keys work. I open the trunk. It’s full of tools, which I throw onto the ground. “Come over here and get in that trunk or you die.” I watch the options roll through his mind. It’s a cool spring day. He’ll be fine inside this trunk until someone comes for him. Or he can take his chances with a madwoman.

He chooses the trunk. “Bitch,” he mutters as he hauls his ass inside.

He glares up at me, and I watch myself through his eyes. It’s like an out-of-body experience. Is this really me, locking someone in a trunk? I pull his glasses from where I’d perched them on the top of my head. I watch him focus on them. They’re probably special and took a long time to get made. He needs them. Maybe Grayson would smash them, just to keep the guy weak. Grayson thinks there are only two choices in life: weak or strong.

Fuck that. I toss them in. He catches them, and I close the trunk.

It’s here I know that I’ll never be as far gone as Grayson.

Two minutes later I’m back on the road. Grayson is still out.

We near the on-ramp.

Decision time. No more operating on fear and adrenaline. No more running simply because someone is chasing me. No more reacting. I need to decide what I want. I need to decide whether I’m really driving him to his safe house.

Because, why shouldn’t I leave him at a hospital? Why shouldn’t I drive him straight to the nearest FBI office? He told me himself that he killed a cop. He f*cked me when I couldn’t control the situation. He deserves to be behind bars even more than I do.

But when I imagine dropping him off, it feels like a kind of loss. I think of the raw need in his voice this morning as he pressed me to the bedroom wall. All that raw need when he told me I didn’t know anything about him, but really meant the opposite. I think of the way he came to me in the jail. Because I had to, he said.

I feel it too—the link we have is as unforgiving as barbed wire.

I touch his soft, dark hair. His color isn’t good, but he’s breathing still, and I think maybe the bleeding’s stopped, because the wad of cloth he’s been holding to his chest isn’t fully soaked, and he’s held it there a while.