Defending Everly (Mountain Mercenaries, #5)(12)

He was a lot taller than her own five-three, and his brown hair wasn’t short, but it wasn’t long. If she passed him on the street, she wouldn’t have looked twice at him, because he looked so ordinary. So normal. He was old, way older than she was . . . at least forty . . . and had on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt.

It was the same man who’d picked her up after school. He’d held out his phone, where he’d written something in the notes app about being Rob’s dad, and she’d stupidly believed him. She’d been a little nervous, but she trusted Rob, and therefore trusted his “dad” by extension.

God, could she have been any more stupid?

Her eyes went to his face, but he was just standing there staring at her. Finally, he gestured downward.

Elise looked down to see that he was holding a fast-food bag. Her mouth immediately started to water. She was so hungry. She didn’t know if he’d drugged the food he was holding, but she’d gotten to the point where she didn’t care anymore. She was starving. She would have to risk being drugged.

Without thinking, she stood and reached for it, but the man backed up, holding it out of her reach. He placed it on a table on the other side of the room. Then he came back toward her.

Her eyes focused on his lips as he began talking. She only caught some of his words, because of the low light in the room and because she was still working on learning the art of lip reading. She could tell he was speaking slowly, as if to help her understand him easier. Why he didn’t have a note prepared to show her, like he had when he’d picked her up, she didn’t know.

“Food . . . quiet . . . go home . . . nice to me . . .”

Then he stared at her as if waiting for an answer.

Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to provoke the man, Elise nodded.

He smiled then, and Elise immediately panicked. What had she agreed to?

She shook her head, but the man didn’t see it—he was already taking off his shirt.

Elise tried to back up, but forgot about the chains around her ankles. She fell to her ass on the hard concrete floor and looked up into the eyes of pure evil. He smirked at her as he bent and reached for the buttons on the cute shirt she’d picked out to wear all those days ago.

Gasping in horror, she smacked his hand away and scrambled as far away from him as she could get.

When he stepped toward her again, Elise screamed in terror.

The man stopped and tilted his head, frowning as he studied her.

Elise had no idea what he was thinking at that moment. She wasn’t naive; she knew what he wanted, but there was no way she was going to lie there docilely and let him assault her. She knew he could overpower her, but Everly had taught her how to fight. She’d stab her fingers into his eyes, kick him in the balls, and basically do anything and everything to keep him from touching her.

She flexed her fingers, ready to do what harm she could—when the man suddenly smiled.

But it wasn’t a happy smile. It was malicious. That, combined with the look in his eyes, made Elise shiver in dread.

He walked back over to where he’d dropped his shirt and slowly pulled it back over his head.

Elise wanted to be relieved, but she couldn’t forget the look in his eye. He had something planned, but the question was, what?

The smell of the fast food, which had previously made her mouth water with anticipation, now made it water from nausea. She wanted to cry. Instead, she prayed with all her heart that Everly would find her. She had to. She was a police officer, and Elise knew she was awesome at her job.

She’d track her down. It was what she did.

She stared at the man as he once again spoke slowly and haltingly, as if wanting to make sure Elise could read his lips.

“You . . . good girl. Pure. Waiting . . . Better. If you . . . eat, you behave.”

Then the man walked over to the table where he’d placed the bag of food and picked it up. He brought it over to her and dropped it in her lap.

“Good . . . home . . . soon.”

Then he turned and walked back up the stairs. Before Elise could even look into the bag to see what her apparent purity had bought her, the light went out, and she was plunged into the pitch black once more.

She thought about refusing to eat the food again, but that would be stupid. She needed her strength. If it was laced, so be it. If he came back to finish what he’d obviously wanted to do, and she was knocked out from some drug, that would be good, right?

Elise shivered at the thought of the man touching her.

At one point, she’d actually hoped Rob might be the man she gave her virginity to, but it looked like that would never happen. There was no Rob.

Now she had to do whatever it took to stay alive, including keeping her body strong by eating, until Everly could find her. Elise had no doubt she would.

Fingering the ring on her right pointer finger, she prayed harder than she’d ever prayed in her life.

She couldn’t taste the food, but she ate it anyway.

Then she cried.





Chapter Three

Everly’s stomach clenched in frustration. They’d called Meat, and he’d walked them through setting up the computer so he could remotely log on to it. He’d instructed them to leave it exactly as it was and to let him do his thing. They’d done as he requested, had a quick meal with her grandparents, and then begun examining the impromptu journal on the back of the poster, line by line.