Page 16 of Night Owl Books

“When we get where we’re going, I’ll let let you free.” He chuckled. “I sure do enjoy it when you all run and cry and try to fight me off.”

“That’s good,” I said, and he laughed.

Putting the truck in gear, he drove, his hand still on my knee. I stared at it, at the way he tightened his grip. It hurt, but I didn’t respond. Instead, I lifted my head and stared out the windshield, ignoring the trees and houses we passed, my gaze fixed on the far horizon, wishing I was riding the air.

The sun was too bright. It hurt my eyes, but my sunglasses were at the tip of my nose and my hands didn’t want to work right now. I tried closing my eyes and thankfully that worked.

After a few minutes, he said, “Why are your eyes closed?”

“Sun,” I responded.

“Well, push your glasses up, dummy.”

With a quiet sigh of relief, my hands moved. I pushed up the glasses and opened my eyes. He’d driven us away from town and other people. Away from observation and responsibility. It reminded me of H.G. Wells’s novelThe Invisible Man. What would one do if no one saw, if there were no repercussions? The book took me longer than normal to read because I kept stopping to wonder what it was that kept people from letting their id run wild. Was it really only fear of discovery?

My heart sank now as it had when I’d read the book. Like all the women before me, I was going to be taken somewhere he wouldn’t be discovered so he could do whatever he wanted, free from consequences and reprisals. How many of me had there been? How many mes would there be if I failed or before he bored of this game and moved on to another?

It wasn’t long before he pulled off the main road onto a much narrower one. Trees and bushes pushed into the path. The truck shimmied and bounced over broken concrete before the road gave up and became rocks strewn over dirt. Thankfully, his hand had moved from my leg to the vibrating steering wheel.

He flicked on the radio and drummed his fingers on the wheel. “So,” he said, glancing over at me, “how’s my American accent? Did I fool ya?”

I nodded obediently, wiggling my toes in my boots. The compulsion to adore him, to do whatever he said, was waning.

He stopped in front of a rusty gate, blocking the path. Hopping out, he pulled a key from his pocket. I tried to move my body while he worked the padlock on the gate. He glanced over his shoulder at me with a grin and a wink. I braced, assuming I’d be paralyzed again, but I wasn’t. Perhaps we were close to the end of my road.

Flexing my hands and feet, I lifted my shoulders and moved my knees. I didn’t have faith in my ability to run from him. The fae were scary fast and powerful. If I gave away my lack of paralysis now, he might increase his control over me, and I’d have fewer options.

I couldn’t help but feel I was failing as a hero. In books, I knew the hero would survive, would come up with a plan at the last moment. They wouldn’t screw up and drop the linchpin of the plan, like I had. The tracker was no longer between my numb fingers.

If I’d dropped it in the truck, okay, but I was pretty sure it had fallen on the road when I looked into his eyes and lost control of my own body. I had the knife in my boot, but it did me no good if I couldn’t move my arm to reach for it.

He pushed the narrow gate open, climbed back in the truck, and drove under the low-hanging trees. Once through, he slid out and pushed the gate closed before getting back in and driving down what might generously be called a deer path. When the trees opened into a small clearing, he parked.

“Almost ready. Hang tight while I get my toys for us.” The joy in his voice made my skin crawl.

While he threw open his truck box and start pulling things out, I leaned ever so slightly to the right, willing my arm to move. It took far too long for it to obey the electrical impulses my brain was sending.

Light flashed in the rearview mirror. I looked up to see the sun glinting off the head of a hatchet. My stomach dropped to the floorboards under my boots. I was going to die. Painfully.

My fingers wrapped around the knife handle. Barely breathing, I slid it from my boot, trying not to move my shoulders or head, which was what he could see of me through the rear window.

He continued unpacking his tools, whistling a jaunty tune.

Gripping the knife in my lap, I pulled off the sheath and let it drop into my left boot. My eyes kept cutting to the mirror as I willed my racing heart to slow. When he lifted his head and winked at my reflection, my heart stopped. Now I knew how rabbits felt when I snatched them off the ground as they raced for their warrens and safety.

I dropped my right hand to the seat. The knife clutched beside my leg, I waited for an opportunity save myself. If he went back to the driver’s side, he wouldn’t see what I had. If he cameto my side of the truck, I’d have one chance. Sweat gathered at the base of my spine as I waited to see what he’d do.

With a spring in his step, he walked toward the driver’s door, and I braced. He didn’t open it, though. He swung an open duffle bag, weighed down with my torture and death, onto his shoulder and then strolled around to the passenger side.

When the blue of his eyes began spinning again, I closed my eyes behind the sunglasses. I couldn’t lose what little autonomy I’d recovered. Relying on my acute hearing to tell me when to spring, I blew out a deep breath. Muscles relaxed, face expressionless, I waited.

He made no noise when he walked. Focusing, I heard the quiet shush as blades of grass bent beneath his boots. He was close. He had to be close by now, right?

He exhaled a breath near my ear and I sprang, leaping through the open window. Moving faster than any human, I knocked him to the ground. My gaze on his chin, I registered his shock, not anger or suspicion, just surprise that I’d done something so unexpected.

It was one fluid move. I brought him to the ground while my arm arced down, driving the long, jagged blade through his chest, drilling it into the ground beneath him. Blood bloomed on his shirt, but I was already up, snatching the hatchet from his bag and swinging, bringing it down on his neck.

His shock turned to fear for one split second and then his head rolled to the side. Stock still, I stared into his lifeless eyes, unsure if it was over. Had I done it?

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