Finding my voice for the first time since being taken, I reply, “Is that truly a choice? Both options contain monsters I don’t know.”
He reaches up, straightening the brim of his hat before letting out a sarcastic laugh, and barters, “At this moment, I would pick the monster that’s helped you already, instead of the ones who insist on dragging you back into the vipers nest. The time for you to choose is running out.”
I watch him for a moment before taking the biggest, most terrifying leap of my life. I reach out and accept his hand. Its size and calluses are in such contrast to my small soft, unscathed ones. He pulls me up with such a powerful ease that it causes a squeak to escape me. As soon as I’m steady on my feet, he turns swiftly and begins jogging, pulling me along behind him. We step into the guard shack through the fractured doorway, and I cover my mouth to keep the scream from fleeing at the sight of the guy on the floor with a gaping hole in his head. The monster moves to the heavy steel door, yanking it open and looking both ways before tugging me through behind him.
He stops, pivoting around to look at me. “I need you to run like the hounds of hell are nipping on your heels. You don’t stop or fall behind until I tell you it's okay to do so. Do you understand?”
I know I should just say yes, hell even just nod, but instead, I let my mouth run away with me, and ask, “Can you at least tell me your name?”
“Hendrick. Now can we go?” he questions, just as the first clang of bullets hitting the iron gate have me ready and willing to follow him if it means I get outta here.
“Absolutely!” I shout so he can hear me over the whizzing of sprayed shrapnel.
The monster, no Hendrick, twists and begins running down the road. We make it past three driveways when he pulls a phone from his pocket. He doesn’t break stride, or even sound winded, when whoever is on the other end of the line answers. While I know I’m panting like a dog who’s been denied water to quench his thirst from the blistering heat of summertime.
“Need a car to pick us up,” he states, without saying hello first.
“Sooner rather than later,” he growls as we come to a crossroad.
“We’re at the corner of Larson and Peach Tree. About to turn and head north on Peach Tree,” he murmurs just before we take off and streak across the street like a bolt of lightning.
“They’re right on our asses. I should be hearing the winding of car engines shortly." His words are short and clipped, as if annoyed by the lack of compliance that’s been replaced by mundane questions.
“Just get us out of here, and I’ll owe you a marker. Make it fucking happen!” he bellows, then pulls the phone from his ear, sliding back into his pocket just as I trip over something in the road, and falling to my knees. Thankfully, I’m saved from smacking my face on the ground due to Hendrick's strangling hold on my hand.
“Fuck, Little one,” he grumbles, picking me up before swinging me around, and sweeping me off my feet like he did earlier back at the house.
“I can walk, you know. I just tripped over a stump or something on the road,” I grumble, wrapping my arms firmly around his neck in case he drops me.
“I need us to move faster than we are. So carrying you out of here is the best option for us,” he responds, his feet never pausing as he speaks.
The sound of vehicles racing up behind us causes me to shake in fear of being captured. I know what it’s like to be caged in a place with no escape in sight, and I would rather be dead before I’m ever trapped like that again. Hendrick doesn’t do anything outside of continuing to run. I close my eyes trying to stop the motion sickness that’s starting to take over from his fast pace and it causes the food I’ve eaten in the last three days to make a sudden reappearance. I truly have no idea how long we run for before another car swiftly approaches us. I squint my eyes into slats and see the SUV drive past then come to a sudden stop about ten feet ahead of us. It sits there idling until we are a half of a car length away when the door is flung open.
Hendrick approaches with caution before letting out a sigh of relief when the person inside speaks, “In such a hurry to get me here, and now moving like you don’t have anywhere better to be.”
“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Hendrick growls, glaring.
“Do you ever say anything without growling or glowering at someone?” the question pops out of my mouth before I can put the brakes on my lips.
“About time you found your voice. I was starting to fucking worry about you,” the snarky bitch in my head chides.
Hendrick doesn’t say anything, just scowls down at me. Fear swarms like a pissed off swarm of bees. I shrink away from him not knowing if he’s about to strike out at me or not.
“No, no he doesn’t. You’re one of the lucky ones to get more than a grunt from him.” The man in the front seat laughs.
Hendrick says nothing in response, just reaches out punching the man in the arm.
“Fuck you, jackass,” the man moans, rubbing the spot that was punched.
Hendrick says nothing, his eyes stay lasered on me as he continues watching me. I wiggle in his lap, uncomfortable under his scrutiny, my mind lost as I continue imagining what a mess I appear to be. I try to break his grasp so I can scoot over and sit next to him. Only, his hold on me tightens, keeping me still and suspended in his lap. I look into his eyes not seeing the monster from before, but that has been replaced by fire, want, and need.
My body warms as tingles race up my spine, the sight causing my panties to become soaked from my own desire. This is something foreign and confusing because I’ve never responded to a man in this manner.
CHAPTERTEN
HENDRICK
The infernoof desire that burns in the eyes of my Little one ignites the embers that are always hot and burning inside of me. I watch in awe as the look of longing and lust is nearly overtaken by fear. This only causes my eagerness for her to heighten that much stronger. We watch each other just taking it all in. Unable to stop myself for the second time tonight, I lean into her, taking her lips with mine. I run my right hand up her bare back, bathing in the heat coming off her.
