He presses my head against the back of the seat, so I can’t move, and with his other hand, he wraps it around my throat and squeezes.
I try to bat him away, but with the spots in my eyes and him choking me, moving is like trying to crawl through drying concrete.
The harder he squeezes his hand, the faster my fear and terror drains away.
I lose my emotions and dive into survival mode. Things are black or white, good or bad, there is no room for anything in between. It is live-or-die time.
The Alpha in front of me continues getting off by hurting me. He’s excited by the power. But he’s lost in it too.
He can’t see past the tunnel he is in, but I’m already on the other side, looking for a way to live another day.
I’m waiting for my one chance. It’s a dangerous game, but if I want to survive, I have to beat him. The longer it goes on, the more his hold on me hurts, but he’s also getting off on what he’s doing so much that his breathing hitches, his eyes dilate to black, and he gets jittery. And that’s when I act.
But it’s when the man who took me first acts too.
He twists around from the front seat at the same time I throw my hands up to break the choke hold. While I try to fight my way free, my original kidnapper executes the driver.
The blast of the gun scares the absolute shit out of me.
I scramble away, screaming from behind the tape, but I’m desperate to escape the blood and being the next one killed. Hecatches and hauls me closer, barking in my face until I resemble a rag doll. I can’t do anything to stop myself from falling when he shoves me sprawling backward over the dead man.
The van lurches as he speeds us away.
The driver must be confident that his barking left me in a brainless mess of hysteria again, but I’m far from it. I’ve been in awful situations before, and it’s when the shit is the worst that I find the smallest opportunity to survive.
Without moving too much, the first thing I do is pull off the tape from my mouth, and then I stretch out my fingers, only letting the rocking motion of the car guide me until my fingers graze over the gun strapped to the now dead driver's leg. It’s hard but not impossible to pull it out of the holster. It feels like it takes forever, but one sharp turn works in my favor.
In the next sweeping turn the car takes, I use my feet to slide the body away to give me the space I need.
It would be incredibly dangerous to take a shot now—the likelihood I die in a car accident is pretty high—but I still fucking line up the shot. The van takes another turn. It feels like we slow for a moment before he stomps on the accelerator again.
I close my eyes and think ofthem.
And when I open my eyes, I take one last fortifying breath before I empty the gun into the headrest, killing my kidnapper instantly.
His body slumps forward, and his dead weight on the accelerator has the van picking up speed.
With my hands still tied, I climb over one dead man to get to the other. It’s really fucking hard to move like this, and it’s made worse because of the instant pain of pins and needles in my legs, but my survival instincts flare. Scrambling through the middle of the seats, I pop up to see where we are. I’m both relieved and horrified when I see the van is speeding out of control andheaded toward a private jet. There’s still enough distance for me to stop the van, or to at least swerve to not hit the jet. I hope.
The dead Alpha is huge. Being next to him while the van is traveling at full speed is seriously scary as shit, but before I think too hard, I start doing what needs to be done, not questioning if it will work.
Reaching through the space between his dead body and the steering wheel he’s slumped over, my fingers find the door latch after a couple of attempts. The door opens, and the wind catches it.
There's a huge bang, and I scream, but it was just the hinges of the drivers door snapping as it folds backwards against the front of the van.
Sitting with my back against the passenger door, I use both feet to kick the man.
His hands get caught on the steering wheel, making the van rock side to side, and I think we’re about to roll, but I don’t stop kicking. As soon as his center of gravity shifts, he drops from view.
I make a grab for the steering wheel. I just need to hold it straight and avoid hitting anything until the van runs out of speed or I can get my foot on the brake.
Somehow, I manage to do both from the passenger seat. Thank fuck, because there’s no way I was sitting in the driver’s seat. His blood and what’s left of his brains is splattered everywhere.
Like a stunt driver, I steer the van away from the other runways and pull it to a stop in front of a hangar.
I probably should get out and run, but first, I need a fucking moment.
Shock and elation blasts through my veins, making me laugh. I can’t believe I pulled that off.
