Page 17 of After Our Kiss

The boy who'd smiled shyly at me in the dark was gone. It was time for facts, and the biggest fucking fact was this:

Conway had kidnapped me.

Shifting on the floor, I stared just past his ear. “People will look for me. There were witnesses all over that party.”

“They saw you. Not me.”

He was right, but I was just talking at this point. “My friend Chelsea will know I'm missing, she'll report it.”Five, six feet at most. If I move fast enough...

“Let her. The police don't treat missing women the way they do little girls. Even if they take her report seriously, it doesn't matter. No one will find us.”

My attention bounced back to his face. His intensityburned.“And why's that?”

“You'll have to wait and see.”

I leaned towards him. He flared his nostrils, like he was angry—or like he'd gotten a whiff of me and wanted more. “The old you would have told me where we're going. You didn't like seeing me lost and scared.”

He hadn't blinked during our entire talk. “I'm not the boy you knew nine years ago, Georgia.”

“That's alright,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “I'm not that same girl.” My forehead rocked into his, sparks exploding between my eyes and along my temples. But I didn't care because I'd stunned him, giving myself a chance torun.

For the first six months that I was home after escaping Facile, my mother didn't push me into anything. Not going outside, not seeing friends, not attending school... she just let mebe.But when I turned fifteen and was still sleeping with the lights on—and triple checking the house locks—she insisted I do something about my fears. Something practical.

I humored her and endured three years of self defense classes. My instructor encouraged me to run, so I began running each day. When I returned to school I joined the track team. To this day, I kept up with the routine. All that exercise hadn't healed me.

But ithadmade me strong.

Gasping, I shoved forward, stumbling on my tied feet. I was half-hopping to the van doors, my bare knees scraping painfully on the floor.Go, go, go!I screamed at myself, fumbling with the handles.

Behind me, Conway approached like a speeding train.

The handle went down under my clawing fingers. In a great heave I threw myself outside, eating sand, some of it getting in my eyes. I didn't care—Iscreeched.“Help me! Someone help me!”

Hands yanked me up, tossing me back into the van. Even though my eyes were watering to get rid of all the grit in them, I still saw the landscape outside. It was just one long strip of road, pine trees going orange under a bold October sun.

There was no one around to hear me.

“Not a bad attempt,” he said. He didn't shut the door. He hovered next to it, the open sky taunting me. Conway touched the bridge of his nose gingerly. “Thought you'd broken something for a second.”

Rolling onto my knees, I spit out phlegm mixed with sand; my mouth tasted terrible. “I wish I had!”A nuclear bomb went off inside, my words flying carelessly. “What'swrong with you?You hated your father, remember? Now you're doing the exact kind of shit he used to! Why? Tell mewhy?”

All emotion slid from his features. “Why, or why you?”

My pulse quickened. “Whyme.”

Surveying me long and hard, he said, “You need water. I'll be right back.”

“What? No, tell me why you kidnapped me!”

But he was gone, stepping out and shutting the door. I didn't have to wait more than a minute; Conway returned with a bottle in his hands. What else did he have with him at the front of the van? Crouching, he tipped it towards me. “Drink.”

Eyeing it, I curled my fingers together in one big fist. “Did you drug it?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters,” I said, though I took the bottle anyway. Sipping from it, I shut my swollen eyes and sighed. I'd been parched, but the situation had made it easy to ignore my body's needs. I drank until Conway took the water away.

“Look up at the ceiling,” he commanded.

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