Zero. Absolute freaking zero.
“Are you okay?” Hailey asks.
“Um, yeah,” I mutter. “I was just trying to… visualize something.”
She scoffs.
“Already?” she murmurs.
“Why, you do that a lot?” I ask.
She shrugs, then lets her head fall back against the wall. “I haven’t seen the outside world in a long time. I like to imagine.”
That’s completely fair. Perspective changes so violently depending on context that it’s almost laughable. I wonder when the last time was that she saw something as stupid and ordinary as a parking lot, the same parking lot I’ve been fighting in like it’s the edge of existence.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to press the pressure out of my skull. Then a thought lands, sharp enough to cut through the fog.
“When did you wake up?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“When did you wake up,” I repeat. “Before or after I got thrown in here?”
“Before,” she says.
“What happened with the wife?” I ask.
Hailey’s gaze snaps to the sliver of window, like it might be listening.
“Don’t speak so loud, please,” she says.
“Okay. Okay. Sorry.” I drop to a whisper. “Just… was the wife with that fucker when he put me here?”
Hailey frowns, genuinely thrown. “No. He was alone.”
“Okay.” I breathe through the pounding in my head and force my mind to stay sharp. “When I was fighting him, his wife was out of the car.”
Hailey blinks. “Why would she—“
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut in, then immediately soften because her shoulders jump at the edge in my tone. “It was part of our plan, and we fucked up. All I know is I was fighting him, and he knocked me out in the middle of a parking lot. I don’t know what happened after that.”
Her mouth parts like she wants to ask something, but she just exhales instead and looks down at her wrists again.
“He was in a rush,” she says quietly. “Like… panicked. When he brought you in, he didn’t even check the locks like he usually does. He just threw you in and slammed it. Then the engine roared and we jerked forward. He drove off right away.”
And even in that state, the bastard still had the presence of mind to take my baton.
Terrifying.
I shift closer, lowering my voice until it’s barely more than air. “When he was throwing me in… did you hear police sirens outside?”
Hailey goes still.
Then she nods. “Yeah. They were close.”
My brain clicks it together.
He didn’t pick his wife up.
