Learning to Drown (25 page)

“Shut up, Ember.”

“Damien–”

He reached out and smacked me. He
probably didn’t think it was too hard, but with the fever it was staggering.
Light exploded in my vision and I cried out. “Shut up or I’ll put you in the
trunk. When we get home I’ll get you out of that bastard’s clothes. We’ll put
this whole mess behind us.”

“I didn’t hire him to steal me,” I
attempted. He still believed that. Maybe he had to.

“Of course you did,” he said, and
turned down the winding access road to the main road. “Fate doesn’t just hand
you that kind of coincidence.

It did if it was being kind, but for
now I was just trying to figure out how to get back to Lucas. I pushed my hand
into my pocket, hoping to just hit a button and call Lucas. But Damien spotted
me and pushed his hand past mine, bullied my fingers into releasing the phone
“I'll take that. Good little phone. This is how I found you.”

So I was right.

Damien was whisking back to the city
toward his house and he said “We'll get you home and then I'll take care of
you, little girl.” He waggled his eyebrows at me but there was real menace
under it all. I could tell my his facial expression and his tone. His ego was
bruised and he was pissed. I’d run off with the man who had taken his prized
vehicle. I’d left him and gone on with my life. I’d tossed him aside the same
way he did broken down stuff he found around the house his father had left him.

“I don’t want to be a taken care
of." My voice was faint, my body trembling from the cold air and now fear.
“Not by you.”

“Of course you do. It’s your fantasy.”
He put his hand on my thigh and squeezed. His fingers so hot and somehow angry
I waited for them to puncture my skin right through Lucas’s sweatpants. I
would’ve given a million dollars and my very soul to see Lucas at that moment.
I would’ve given anything at all, I think.

“Not anymore,” I said.

I didn’t add.
At least not with you
.
Self preservation told me that would be bad. He squeezed again, painfully heart
and my heart flip-flopped in my chest. “Oh, sure it is. We’ll rekindle that for
you, okay? I’ll tie you up and make all your dirty fantasies come true. I’ve
had time to think about it, after all.”

I winced at his squeezing fingers and
wished I had yelled. Wished I’d hit any or all the buttons on my phone. Wished,
wished, wished I hadn’t been sick and that Lucas and I were out hiking when
Damien showed up.

I shook my head, looked out the
window, stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say so maybe if I was quiet and
tried to focus I could figure this out. Damien wouldn’t really hurt me, would
he?

* * * *

The phone rang again and Lucas
growled, dropped the axe and flipped the phone open. “What do you want, little
brother?”

“Is he there? Did he come? Do you need
help? I’m on my way–”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell are
you talking about, Matthew?”

Matty went silent. Lucas heard traffic
and the engine of Matthew’s beast of a truck. He heard his brother’s breath
tearing in and out and he felt a spark of real fear. Matthew rarely got
flustered, never got upset and never ever got scared. He sounded like he was
currently all of the above.

“Where is Ember?” he asked, softly.
Lucas nearly flinched at the tone. “Please say she’s sitting right there where
you can see her.”

“I…she’s in the bedroom. She came down
with a fever and I put her to bed.”

“Fuck. Go check her!” Matthew’s voice
left no room for argument and Lucas’s feet were already moving through the snow
toward the house.

Still he said “She’s fine. I just put
her in there like a half an hour ago. I put her to bed after giving her some
meds and then came out to chop wood. What’s going on?”

“That guy. Derrick? Dante?”

“Damien,” Lucas said, his fingers and
toes feeling numb all the sudden, and not from the cold. “What about him?”

“He found her from the GPS in her damn
phone. He had it figured. He came here first and I nearly fed him his own shoes
for supper. But the pussy ran off and hopped in some piece of crap sports car.
But if you have the phone and the phone is on…”

“Fuck,” Lucas hissed. How stupid was
he. Not only did he have the phone, he’d given Ember the phone. A way of
showing her that he needed to be here because she wanted to. A way of showing
her that he trusted her, cared. He cared so much he might as well have strapped
a god damned strobe light to her and put a big giant arrow over her head that
said EX GIRLFRIEND HERE.

His feet slipped and his body swerved
on the wet snow. He couldn’t remember feeling more useless and frustrated. Or
more like he was moving in slow motion when all he wanted in the world was to
go faster. In his mind’s eye he tucked her in and kissed her forehead. The door
to the patio had been locked. Hadn’t it? He replayed his time outside,
remembering the distant sound of a motor, wondering about it but not being
concerned. The access road led to a few cabins. It wasn’t so unusual to hear a
random vehicle here or there. And there was a state park not far off and they
used the same access road. So park workers could be found on this byway
especially when it snowed.

“But it was him. You fucking ass, it
was him!” he said to himself and literally slid over the threshold to the front
door.

“So?” Matthew's voice hissed from the
phone. “Is she there?”

Lucas had nearly forgotten that he was
even holding the cell. “Wait. Hold on. I’m going.” His boots stuttered on the
wood floor almost dumping him on his ass. Then he rounded the corner, threw
open the door and breathed a sigh of relief. She was there. Under the covers.
Then his eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw the corners of the pillow
cases. Saw  the covers tossed back in different spots. And most importantly,
felt the cold stab of winter air through the barely cracked patio door.

“He’s got her, Matty. He’s got her.
That motherfucker.”

“I’ll call you back,” Matty said and
hung up.

Lucas wanted to throw the phone but
knew he’d need it. Instead he kicked one of Ember's sexy boots hard. It sailed
across the room and hit the side window. “Fuck.” He followed the footprints out
the door down the patio and to the side yard. When he saw some drag marks he
knew that Ember had been trying to stay. As sick as she was, she’d still made
the effort.

Does he even know she’s sick? And what
are his plans? Abduction? For real or does he think this is all part of her
game?
His throat was
threatening to close with rage. He raced back through the house, hitting
Matthew on speed dial.

“Hey, I’ll call you ba—”

“Call Marcus!”

“Back. Because I’m on the phone with
Marcus. He’s running her info. We’ll contact the cell phone provider. Hopefully
he can talk some GPS info out of them. Or something.”

“Or something,” Lucas said. “I’m
headed to the city. Call me when you know. And tell Marcus that he'd better
help her. It better, for goddamn once, pay off to be so tight with a cop.”

“Got it.”

He nearly wiped out his truck pulling
out of the drive and barreling down to the access road. If that shit did
anything at all to her, he’s have his guts for garters. That man would know
pain like he’d never known. He hit seventy before he was on the main road. Once
he was on a semi-cleared road that plows had touched he hit ninety. Maybe he
could just catch up with them. Pull them off, beat the merry hell out of
Damien, that dick. His knuckles were white, his heart raced. All he could think
of was her whispering
I love you
. Of tucking her in and her feverish
face. Of her asking him what he was waiting for. And pulling her down slowly,
ever so slowly onto his lap and fucking her deep. Watching her face. Letting
himself for that perfect moment in time admit to himself that he loved her.

“But you didn’t admit it to
her
,
yet.”

He pushed the truck to ninety-five.

* * * *

Damien pulled off when I said it
again. “I have to pee. I have to pee, I have to pee, I have to pee!” My voice
was weak but determined and Damien never had had much patience for that kind of
stuff. He snapped pretty easily, which was why I knew he would not be a good
dad. One temper tantrum and he’d pack his bags and leave.

“Fine! Jesus Christ, Ember. Shut up.
I'll pull over and you can pee. I need gas anyway. But hey–” He grabbed my arm,
grinning in a way that made my stomach feel cold. “No running. I know what you
like. I can give it to you. Hard. Painful if you need be.”

I wondered briefly if he’d snapped,
but my head weighed about a thousand pounds and I was so tired the roots of my
hair hurt. I nodded. “I won’t.” All I was praying for in the world was a
restroom with two exits that was within staggering distance of a phone or a
person or a policeman.

“Good girl.” He pulled into a small
service station set in the middle of nowhere. Two pumps, a small office, a garage
with one bay open. The restroom was clearly marked and on the side of the
building. One door. Maybe there was a phone…

Damien pulled up to the door and said
“Get out. I’ll be right there.” He pointed to the first pump that was only
about thirty feet from the restroom. “And I’ll be watching.”

I flinched and nodded. When push came
to shove I didn’t know if he’d actually hurt me. He’d never done so before. But
one of the small character flaws of Damien was his brittle pride. It was the
only time I’d seen him be irrational or cruel. Once in a heated argument, when
I’d made some jibe about his sexual prowess, he’d hit me. Not as part of a
game. Not as domination. In pure anger and with the intent of hurting me. This
was the only other time I’d seen that side of him.

It scared me.

The restroom was basically a concrete
cell. One small window set high in the wall near the ceiling that even a cat
would have trouble fitting through. One filthy stall. No phone. No nothing. I
locked the door and waited. All I could think to do was stall. Stall and hope
that Lucas would notice I was missing and come after me.

Chapter 29

I stared at myself in the mirror,
trying too hard to think straight. My eyes were glassy, my face pale but for
twin spots of heat on my cheeks. “Think, Em. Think for god’s sake.” What would
Lucas do? What would he expect of me? Or better yet, what would he instruct me
to do?

My eyes darted around the dim room.
There was no way in hell, even after the most extreme diet in the world, would
I fit out that window. And even if I could, I didn’t have the strength to get
up to the window. There was nothing to stand on, the toilet was too far away
and I could not climb a sheer concrete wall. Spiderman I wasn’t. “Shit, shit,
shit.”

I faced the mirror again and looked
for a weapon. Nothing. There wasn’t even a bar of soap. There were rust stains
in the ancient sink and a leak underneath that had slowly spread across the
nasty grey floor. I stared at the door. One hook and eye lock. Wouldn’t keep
Damien out for long if he wanted to come in. On the back was a dry erase
schedule for cleaning the bathroom. “That’s rich,” I snorted. “This bathroom
hasn’t been cleaned since I was in diapers.”

My eyes finally noticed a bulge in the
woefully neglected sheet of laminated paper and I reached out and plucked  pen
from behind the sheet. My throat was now full of my wildly thumping heart. I
prayed the universe would not be cruel.

“Please work. Please, please, please
work. Please God don’t let it be dried out. Oh, dear sweet Jesus,” I was
mumbling and muttering like a crazy woman. I ripped the cap off with weak–
almost numb–fingers and touched the pen to the tip of my finger. It left a wet
black mark the size of a freckle. I nearly wept.

The door rattled in its jam and I yelped.
“Come on, woman! Don’t make me come in there!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” I screamed.

I heard another voice, I thought and
scurried into the stall and wrote a hasty note.
Taken against my will.
Please get help!
And then the license plate of Damien’s car. I started to
cry when I realized that I loved Lucas but didn’t even know his phone number. I
could never have called him in the first place. I’d been with him since I met
him with no reason to call him on the phone. More banging and then that voice again.

I tucked the note into the toilet
paper on the existing roll–thank god there was some–and hoped the next woman
who used the facilities saw it and took it to heart. Then I hurried to unlock
the door.

A frowning gray haired woman stood
there tapping her foot. “Your fiancé is rude,” she said.

“I’m sorry. Make sure you check for
toilet paper,” I said softly and Damien stared at me.

She humphed and hurried in. “What the
fuck was that about? Check for toilet paper?”

“Women’s rooms always have like…three
squares,” I said and rolled my eyes. Hoping he believed me. Hoping he didn’t
check. Hoping the grumpy old lady didn’t wipe her ass with my note for help.