FULL NOVELXO Before the Storm: Chapter 3
Everything is a blur of loud noise and flashing lights, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t focus on anything. There’s a wall wrapped around me, hard muscles pressing against my side and strong arms holding me in place, but I can’t open my eyes enough to see who’s holding me.
It occurs to me that I should be fighting. That I have no goddamn clue whose arms I’ve found myself cradled in and there’s every possibility they belong to one of the men who my sister and I met, but my limbs won’t move any more than my eyes will. I’m at the mercy of whoever is holding me, and I just have to hope they don’t intend to bring me pain.
I allow my head to rest on the man’s chest and I breathe in his woodsy scent. It’s masculine and something tells me whoever he is, he’s in a position of power. I think he was talking to the other men, but I couldn’t focus on his words, not when whatever drugs they slipped me were raging through my system.
I can’t grasp on to any one sound, or feeling, or object that passes by on the odd occasion I’m able to pry my eyes open. It’s all a haze of nothing. Perhaps it’s my body’s way of taking care of me, of protecting me from our new reality. Who knows who the man holding me is, or what his intentions are with me. Who knows if they’re pure or if they’re even more heinous than whatever the men who bought me had planned. All I can do is surrender to my body, and trust that somehow I’m going to make it out of this alive.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but panic grips me around my throat and squeezes when I realize the music is gone, and when my back hits a sofa, my heavy limbs shove against the body above me.
No. I can’t let this happen. I can’t allow myself to become another statistic, not when I’ve worked my whole life to escape my circumstances. Not when I got my first job at thirteen and the first thing I ever bought was pepper spray from an older kid at school. I can’t be a victim.
“Shh, baby girl. I’ve got you,” a soothing voice whispers as a hand brushes through my mess of curls. “I’m not going to hurt you, but you’ve been drugged and I have a doctor on the way to check you over. I just need you to stay calm.”
Stay calm? Is this guy for real? I’ve been sold by my family, drugged, and now a strange man has carried me to God knows where under the guise of getting me checked by a doctor? How the hell do I know his intentions are pure?
I shove against his chest with all the power I have left in my aching body, but he doesn’t budge. A rough chuckle fills my ears and it’s enough to make me pause. What is he laughing at? Is he laughing at how pathetic I am? It wouldn’t be the first time someone has. Hell, Sarah and my parents are probably laughing right now. Laughing about how easy it was to get rid of the family member they never wanted. Wishing they had done it sooner so they could have lived the life they always wanted.
“You’re feisty, baby girl. But I need you to stay still until I can get Doc to check you out. I don’t want to restrain you because you’ve already been through a lot tonight, but I will if it’s the only way to stop you from hurting yourself.”
I freeze at the thought of being restrained. If he restrains me, there’s no way I’m going to be able to escape. At least if my arms and legs are free I might be able to conjure enough energy and strength once the drugs wear off to run, but that possibility goes out the window if I allow myself to be tied down.
Rough fingers brush down my nose softly, the touch so gentle I’m sure it can’t be the same man who carried me in here and just threatened to restrain me if I don’t do as I’m told. But then he speaks. “I’m not going to hurt you. I can tell by the way your nose just screwed up that you’re scared, but you have no reason to be. I’m not going to let any further harm come to you, but I need you to settle down. I don’t know what the hell they gave you, and I don’t know how much damage it can do. So until I know all of that, I need you to trust me.”
Trust him? Who the fuck does he think he is that I’m just going to trust him? I can’t even pry my eyes open for long enough to get a good look at him, why would I trust him?
Maybe because he just saved you from a fate you can’t even fathom.
But how do I know whatever I’m about to go through with him isn’t tenfold what I would have if those assholes Adam and Andrew had taken me? How do I know this man is any kinder than they would have been? I can’t trust someone I can’t see, and until I can judge him properly, there’s no way in hell I’m going to trust him.
Except, there’s something calming about the way he strokes my face, and no matter how hard I try, and how much I may want to fight, I can’t help but lean into the comfort he’s offering me. Sleep drags me down despite my fight, and even though I could be in terrible danger, I can’t help but feel relieved as unconsciousness takes me.