Rock Chick 03 Redemption (14 page)

“He fuck you here?” he demanded, pul ing me up, slamming me against a wal , pushing his body against mine. “Did he fuck you?” he repeated, pushing my face to the side, pressing my bleeding cheek against the wal . “Did he make you come? How many times did he fuck you?” He pul ed me away from the wal and slammed me against it again. “How many times did he fuck you!” he screamed.

No smooth talk now. No fast-talking, silver tongue.

He was out of control, completely.

“Bil y,” I whispered.

He hit me again, so hard my head and body flew to the side and I went down on my hands and knees. Then he kicked me in the ribs, his boot slamming into my body so hard, it pul ed me off the floor. Then he dropped down and rol ed me over, tore the remains of the sweater off me and forced his thigh between my legs until his hips fel between them, his groin pressing against me.

“I should fuck you, right here, in his bed. Leave a present for him on his sheets.”

God, no. Please, God, no,
I thought.

I started struggling again, my ribs were burning where he kicked me, my face aching, I could feel the blood there. Bil y didn’t notice my struggles.

“I should do it but we don’t have time,” he said and I had just a second to thank God before Bil y said, “Get dressed.” He got up, jerking me up with him.

“
Get dressed!
” he screamed.

Shaking and scared, I got dressed.

* * * * *

He took me to his car, parked out in the street behind Hank’s 4Runner. He drove, at first, like a madman, silent, crazy.

I left him to his thoughts. Mine were of survival, then escape.

Once we left Denver, he seemed to calm.

I decided it was time to try to speak, maybe reason with him, maybe talk him around. “Bil y, I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”

Okay, so I was wrong about him being calm.

He drove, fast.

Close to the Colorado-Nebraska border, we stopped at a gas station.

“Bil y, I have to go to the bathroom, see to my face,” I said quietly.

He turned to me. He didn’t look like my handsome, sweet, dreamer Bil y anymore. I didn’t even know this man.

“You run, I’l catch you. Make no mistake.” I nodded, I believed him. Stil , I was going to try.

He got me the key and I went to the bathroom. There were other cars at the station and the people in them stared at me but gave us a wide berth.

I looked at my face in the cloudy, pocked, gas station mirror. There was blood running down my left cheek and it was smeared along my face. The cuts weren’t bad but they were there bleeding a lot and the bruising and swel ing had already started.

I felt my nostrils burn and I took deep breaths to stop the tears from coming. Tears would leak energy and I needed everything I could get. I forced back the tears, washed my face and stayed in the bathroom as long as I could, hoping someone would cal the cops. Hoping I’d hear sirens.

A fist pounded on the door.

“Get your ass out here!” Bil y yel ed.

I tilted my head back, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I pushed open the door with al my strength and ran, straight by Bil y, hel bent for leather, no destination in mind, I just wanted attention, to get someone to help. So I ran, screaming at the top of my lungs.

I saw the surprised stares turn to shock, people fil ing up their cars or waiting in them, stunned immobile at the sight of Bil y chasing me. Then, he caught me, dragged me kicking and screaming to the car, shoved me in the driver’s side, got in with me and, somehow, we rocketed from the station even as I was fighting him.

I saw a man run toward us, but he was too late.

Bil y drove wild, fighting me as he drove. I didn’t care if we wrecked, I’d take the damage of an accident to my body far easier than I’d take any more damage from Bil y.

He pul ed over and turned, giving me his ful attention.

He hit me again, so hard, my mind went blank and I slowed to let my brain settle. When I blinked away the unconsciousness that wanted to envelope me, Bil y was tying my hands together with nylon rope.

When he was done, he yanked me across the emergency brake, until his face was an inch from mine.

“You gotta learn, Roxie. You gotta learn.” I didn’t know what he was talking about and didn’t want to know.

“You’l learn,” he finished, then he pushed me off him, put the car in gear and we took off.

* * * * *

He tied my hands to the steering wheel when he went in to pay. He brought back cheese puffs and a diet drink and I ate with my hands tied. I noticed his wal et was ful of bil s, bulging with them and I was too scared of what was happening to be even more scared of how he got so much money.

I didn’t think of anything, kept my mind blank, tried to sleep so my body would be rested, ready to fight, but sleep wouldn’t come.

We headed into Kansas, went west for a while and, deep in the night, stopped at a hotel. Bil y tied me to the steering wheel again while he checked in. He didn’t untie my hands al night, even stood over me while I went to the bathroom.

Lying on my back in the bed, Bil y pressed into me, half his body over me, keeping me from breathing, my ribs stil hurt and they hurt worse with his arm tight around me.

He whispered, “You can’t leave me Roxie. You’re the only good thing I got. You’re the only good thing I ever had. I can’t lose you. Don’t you understand?”

I didn’t understand.

“Bil y, you have to talk to me. What are you running from?”

“We gotta stay clear for a few days. I struck it this time, Roxie. Right before you left, I hit it. Now, I can take you to France. Now, we can go anywhere. We can go to Italy, Bermuda. You can live in a bikini.”

“Bil y,” I whispered. “What have you done?”

“It’s al for you, Roxie. Everything I’ve done is for you.” I felt the tears crawl up my throat, my nostrils quivering but I fought it down and laid there, awake al night, Bil y sleeping beside me.

I was lying in the bed I’d made for myself.

* * * * *

The next day, more of the same, the only difference was I didn’t try to escape and I got a tube of chips with my diet drink.

We headed back east, then north, cut back and then south, then north again.

We didn’t talk, Bil y was beyond fast-talk now, even Bil y was smart enough to know he’d have to talk three miles a minute to bring me back around.

We were at the Nebraska-Iowa state line when the clock on the dash turned to midnight and we stopped at a filthy motel.

The manager looked at me tied to the steering wheel while Bil y checked in. I didn’t make a move, didn’t try to communicate my dilemma. Thoughts of escape were gone, for now.

Like my Mom said, I needed to be smart. To escape, I needed people, I needed a place to run, a police station, a fire station, a hospital, an al -night café. Something. I had to bide my time, not fight; maybe make Bil y think I’d given up.

Bil y would have to fuck up somewhere along the line and I was waiting.

That’s when I’d go, escape, find my way home, get my stuff from Annette and disappear. I’d have to leave the country, maybe go to Canada, Mexico, disappear and stay gone for a good long time, maybe forever.

I was my generation’s Uncle Tex; I had to cut myself loose. I understood Uncle Tex now. I understood how it felt to feel dirty even though it wasn’t you who jumped in the mud, instead, you’d been pushed, but you were soiled al the same.

I hadn’t taken a shower in three days, my hair was filthy, my face and body stil ached from the fight, especial y my ribs and I feared they’d been cracked when Bil y kicked me.

I hurt from being cooped in the car, my hands hurt from being tied together for two days. I lay in bed, Bil y beside me again, and my thoughts drifted to Hank.

I’d succeeded in not thinking about him until then, but I was tired, so fucking tired, I couldn’t push the thoughts away.

I wondered what he thought when he came home from his run, thinking to find me asleep in his bed, to wake me, shower with me, take me to breakfast, like normal people, like a couple starting out. Instead, he came home to find his house wide open and trashed, me gone.

One date and he said there was a him and me. He was so sure about it. He was so fucking sure he’d made me sure. For twenty minutes, I’d felt good and clean and
free
.

God, how I wished that could be true.

It didn’t last,
couldn’t
last.

Here I was, unshowered, in a stinking motel, on the run with a criminal, my pretty, designer clothes dirty, no longer my armor. Hank would take one look at me and wonder what in the hel he was thinking. I wasn’t what he thought I was.
I
didn’t even know who I was anymore.

I felt a single tear slide down the side of my eye when the door splintered and crashed open.

Bil y jerked awake and came away from the bed and I rol ed the other way as the lights went on.

rol ed the other way as the lights went on.

“Fuck, Roxie, run!” Bil y shouted but I had no time to run.

There was nowhere
to
run. They were in the door, cutting off the only escape route.

There were two men, with guns. I felt momentarily stunned. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a gun, except in a holster carried by a uniformed cop.

Bil y charged, I shook free of my daze and tried to make a dash. One went after Bil y but I didn’t see what happened because the other one came after me.

Thanks to my fucking, shithead, so-very ex-boyfriend, I was hindered by tied hands, wrists rubbed raw by being bound for two days.

I fought al the same.

He easily overpowered me and forced me into the bathroom, cuffing me by one wrist to the pipes under the sink. I was shouting and he shoved his handkerchief in my mouth, tying it in place with a cord he ripped from a lamp in the bedroom. This al took him less than a minute, he was a practiced hand at this crap.

Then, without looking back, he entered the grunting, scary scuffle I heard in the other room. No one outside heard me scream before I was gagged, or, it was the kind of place where they ignored it. The scuffle stopped or moved but one way or another, the bedroom went completely silent.

I sat under the sink, tense and waiting but minutes ticked by and no one came back for me.

* * * * *

So, there I was, my worst fears had come true.

Bil y’s stink had settled on me.

I could even smel it.

I heard movement in the other room, barely, just a rustling.

I knew someone was there, maybe someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

I kept quiet and held my breath, unsure of what to do. I didn’t want the men who took Bil y to come back and get me. I didn’t think they were good people who were there to explain that Bil y had won some magazine’s mil ion dol ar sweepstakes and just got real y carried away with the excitement of it al .

I saw the shadow when it hit the doorway and, without thinking, I scooted further under the sink.

“Fuck,” the shadow muttered.

Then the bathroom light flipped on.

Vance stood there; Lee’s bounty hunter.

I blinked up at him, my eyes adjusting to the light.

It immediately hit me that Vance was a different sort than Hank. He didn’t have control over his reactions, maybe didn’t want to and he didn’t try to hide his expression from me. Vance’s dark eyes were blazing angry and his mouth was tight.

He pul ed some keys from his pocket and crouched beside me, his eyes never leaving my face even as his hands went to the cuffs. He freed me from the sink within a few seconds, then he went to work on the cord wrapped around my head, al the while looking at me.

After he pul ed the handkerchief gently from my mouth, his hands went back to mine and he worked on the nylon rope while he asked, “You okay?”

I wanted to laugh and ask him how many girls he found beaten up, gagged and cuffed to sinks in sleazy hotels that answered, “Yeah, sure, peachy.” But it was anything but funny and both Vance and I knew it.

Instead, I said, “I think he cracked a couple ribs.” His eyes flared and, again, he didn’t try to hide it.

He helped me up from the floor, helped me out of the hotel and then helped me into a black Ford Explorer.

Once I was inside, he skirted the car and swung behind the wheel. Without delay, he started the truck, hitting some buttons on the sat nav after he hit a button on the phone, making it ring inside the truck.

“Yeah?” A voice answered before the second ring.

“Got her, do you have a lock on my position?” Vance asked, stil fiddling with the sat nav.

“Yeah. She okay?” the voice asked back.

“I need the nearest hospital,” Vance replied.

Silence.

Then, “Fuck.”

Vance stopped fiddling with the sat nav, reversed the Explorer out of the spot and started driving.

“When you hear the zip code, enter it into the sat nav.

Can you do that?” Vance asked me.

“Yes,” I whispered, then cleared my throat. “Yes,” I said louder.

The male voice gave me the zip code and I entered it.