noticing my gaze on the snake.
“Not really. I’m not into tattoos.”
That’s not exactly true. On Spider, I love them. On anyone else, including this man, they look dirty and scary and go against everything I’ve been taught to believe. It’s only now that I realize they have a different affect on me when I see them on Spider. On him, they look sexy and dangerous.
The thought that I’ll never see them again makes my chest constrict. I look away, annoyed with myself. The man tortured me. He made me nearly fall for him, sucked me into his world, made me want to trust him. And then he shattered all of that by chaining me up and using that knife on me.
All for information on this Adamson person, a man whose name I’d never even heard before. I’d actually begun to care for him. For all of them. Now...
I glance at the man’s ink and shake my head, letting the cuts on my chest morph my anger with Spider into biting hatred. Letting it fuel my determination to get out of here.
“What will they do to me when they get here?” I ask, not having to fake the tremble in my voice.
Again, my captor ignores me. He takes a puff of his smoke and then stabs it out on the metal top of the island. Then he takes his phone out of a side pocket of his jeans. A thin leather wallet slips out and drops to the floor with a soft flop. He turns his back to the island, kicking the wallet in the process, sending it sliding under the island.
He doesn’t seem to realize he dropped it.
While he pushes himself onto the island and starts playing that game again, I stare at the dark shape of the wallet, thinking hard.
It might have money in it. If I can get him to set me free and somehow get my hands on it before I run, I can use the money to pay for a cab out of here. There might be a place around here that still has a payphone. If he has enough cash and I can get to a bus, I could get out of town, well away from him, from Spider, from the MC.
One more time, I put my head back, closing my eyes, trying to control my breathing, hope and fear speeding up my heart in equal measure.
The irony is far from lost on me. I’ve been raised all my life to believe in the perils of sin, and until a few weeks ago, the idea of stealing anything from anyone would have made me feel an indescribable shame.
I’d stolen money from the Devil’s Outlaws in order to escape Deacon Jacob dragging me back to the Colony. I’d gone against everything I stood for. And now, here I am, planning to steal again.
A deeply ingrained fear embeds itself in my chest. Fear of a dark room, of a flash of pain across my back. Reasonless fear of something that will never happen again, and yet it burns its way through me like fire.
It hits me just how deeply the Colony has ingrained its indoctrination if I I’m still afraid of such things. The realization sickens me, calls up a rage toward the church leaders, toward Seth, for what they’ve done. A quiet, painful resentment toward my parents for allowing it sinks in. I shut that last one down, reminding myself of their situation, as I always do whenever those feelings crop up. They’re victims. They’re trapped, brainwashed just like I was. They didn’t have a choice.
I focus on the wallet on the floor, pushing aside the ridiculous guilt that bubbles up.
You do what you have to. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will.
Sarah’s voice reverberates through my head, not for the first time giving me the strength to do whatever I have to in order to save myself. It reminds me of what’s important, of something even more important than saving my own life.
If I don’t get out of here before the Bastards show up, I’ll be killed, a message sent to Spider for his actions against them. And if that happens, I’ll never find Sarah.
The guy’s phone makes that plonking noise, and then another.
I lick my lips. Have to get him talking.
“I really, really need to use the bathroom. I haven’t gone in at least two hours. I promise, I won’t run.”
“Nice try.” The game pings and then another plonk.
“No, really.”
Plonk.
I