Page 267 of Cross the Line
“I gain nothing from hurting you.”
“Then why?” God, the cottonmouth is so bad, I’m sucking the old spit off my tongue to lubricate my throat. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I owe your family a favor, and they want you back… he wants you back.”
He…Presley.Because only a sociopath would think another human being belongs to them. Only a psychopath would have their sidekick snatch a person who wants nothing to do with them.
“Presley’s not my family,” I say, translating the scream in my chest into a level statement. “My family is?—”
“Argue that out with him.” The chuff that escapes him taunts me with how pointless and stupid that would be.
There’s no reasoning with a madman.
“Why are you helping him?”
“Told you, I owe him.”
Nodding, I force myself to visibly relax, even though my pulse is battering my ribs. I’m aching all over, and when we hit another pothole, a wave of nausea hits me so hard, I can’t swallow down my vomit.
“Fuck!” Ryker slams the truck to a stop.
He’s out and at my side in seconds. Yanking me by the collar of my sweater to the brush lining the dirt road.
I don’t hold back. Even when the retching stops, I continue forcing it until I make myself sick.
The blood rushing in my veins pounds in my ears. A frantic gallop that has my brain throbbing into the back of my eyes. Streaming tears down my face with my silent pleas, my mute prayer for mercy.
Please. Please, let them find me. God, please.
“Here.” Ryker holds out a bottle of water to me. When I shake my head, he mutters through gritted teeth, “I already told you I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Suit yourself.” Ryker shrugs, taking a few steps back when white-hot pain stabs through my side and this time I retch involuntarily. “If you don’t flush the chloroform out of your system, it’ll poison your kidneys and your liver. Before you know it, your body is shutting down. By then, you’ll be in so much pain, you’ll be begging for anyone to put you out of your misery.”
I don’t want to die. That’s the first thought that fills my mind. Followed by the suffocating panic of never seeing Eli and Jayden again.This can’t be it. We have a future. We… we…
I snatch the bottle of water from him and drink it down greedily. Sofast that I choke on it several times, and when I’m done, I vomit it all out again.
“You’re a liar,” is what spews out of my mouth when I collapse into the tree trunk in front of me. My nails clawing at the bark so I don’t fall to my knees.
“We’re all fucking liars, Sweetheart.” His sneer is bitter and jeering. “Even sweet, innocent Eli.”
My bleary gaze flashes to his. The sudden dryness of my mouth makes it hard to speak.“Eli. Is he why you’re… you’re doing this?”
“For a smart girl, you don’t listen all that well.”
With a scoff, Ryker grips my arm and hauls me back to the truck. Before I can speak back, he slams the door, not bothering to put my seatbelt back on.
He’s back in the driver’s seat all too quickly. A blank expression on his face when he starts the engine and continues down the tree-tunneled road.
“You don’t have to take me to Presley. You don’t owe him anything. You… you… What has he actually done for you?”
I’m grasping at every straw I can, because the farther up the mountain he takes us, the narrower the road becomes, making it obvious we’re reaching the end.
“Please, please, Ryker… let me go.”
“No can do, doll,” he says with the roll of his eyes when he pauses the truck to fix a small camera to the back of his rearview mirror and then connects it to his phone via an app. Focusing back on the road, he says, “He gave me my life back.”
