When she turns to leave, I grab her by the wrist and swivel her back to me. “Tell me who did this.” My voice is gravely with rage.I can’t stand a fucking woman beater, and this girl looks like she has been through a lot of shit.
“Craig,” she whispers.
“And who is this fucking Craig?”What kind of stupid name is Craig?
“My husband.” I drop my hand like she is scalding hot and take a step back.
“Your husband hit you?”
She nods subtly.
“Where?”
She takes a step toward her car.
I get in front of her. “I said, where?”
“Where what? Why the hell do you care?”
“Where is he right now?”
She mumbles something under her breath, but I don’t quite hear what she says.
I lift her chin. “What is your name, again?”
She stares at me for a moment before squeezing her eyes shut. “Blake.”
“Well, Blake. Tell me where your husband is, so I can teach him a lesson he so clearly needs to learn.”
Her soft gasp comes shortly after. “No. You can’t do that.”
“Why the fuck not?” I most certainly can, and I will. I just need to know where she lives.
“Because… he’s… umm… he’s Charlie’s father. Just let it go and let me leave, please.”
She doesn’t even look like she wants to leave right now, let alone as though she knows where she is going. I take a step back and motion toward her car with my left hand. “By all means.”
When she opens her driver’s side door, I say, “Do you even have somewhere to go?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just need to get away from here.”
Once she is settled in her seat, I spot her daughter in the backseat waving at me. The sight pulls at my heart. She is just about to pull back onto the road when I close the distance to the car. “Wait!” I huff. “Seriously, if you don’t have a place to stay for the night, you guys can come to my house.”
She looks at me incredulously. “I don’t even know you. And the last time I dealt with you was because you hit my vehicle and then kidnapped me to take me to a random road in the middle of nowhere.”
I shrug. “Oh good, then you should remember how to get there because that is where we are going.”
Chapter 9
Blake
I can’t believe I am actually considering his offer. Am I out of my fucking mind? I look over at Charlie, who has a huge smile plastered on her face as she looks at the man through my window. If she likes him so much, can he really be that bad?
We have nowhere else to fucking go. The man smirks at me and limps back to his bike, turning it around to face me. Then he pulls up next to me, his engine roaring loudly. He leans in closer and yells, “Just follow me!”
I give him a nod, and he pulls out onto the road.
I can feel the rumble of his engine from here. The bike he’s riding doesn’t look like the one that was mangled on the side of the road, though. This one looks like it was also in a crash recently. It has scuff marks on both sides, the seat is tearing in a few places and there is no backrest or design on the side of the tank.
