Page 142 of Desperate People

Balor! My mind screams, but he can’t hear me. No one can.

Someone opens a trunk. I catch a flash of a dark interior, and my stomach drops.

“No! No, please—” My voice is ragged, breaking, but I don’t stop fighting.

I can’t.

Hands shove me in.

I hit something hard and cold.

The trunk slams shut above me, sealing me in complete, suffocating darkness.

I try to scream again, but my throat is raw.

My limbs feel like water.

The world spins and lurches and narrows.

The only thing I can think—the only thought that roots itself and blooms in my fading consciousness—is Balor.

His hands. His eyes. The way he held me this morning. The way he kissed my temple and whispered I love you.

And now?

Now I’m gone.

And he doesn’t even know.

I didn’t get to say goodbye. Didn’t tell him how much he means to me.

“Oh God, no! Balor!” I sob, pounding on the trunk.

But the squeal of tires on asphalt is loud, and I know my kidnapper is getting away with it. With me.

So this is what it feels like to have your heart break?

Chapter Thirty-Six-Balor

My eyes are on the small tent that sits too close to a line of trees.

Why, you ask?

Because inside that tent, getting touched and styled and posed while strangers gawk and drool and plan is my wife. My Lucy.

The crowd is getting anxious and rowdy as the summer sun sits high in the sky.

Because they always do, don’t they?

Some are here for a picture or an autograph.

Some for a taste of fame.

And some—some are here for worse.

I shift my stance, scanning the perimeter again.

Where the fuck are my men? Sigma sent two teams, but it’s not enough.

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