“I don’t want to talk about it.” Or think about it. Or remember all the unbearable details.
Teague pushed the driver’s door open, dropped to the ground and rounded the truck. He opened Hannah’s door and settled a serious look on her. “Here’s the deal. You stay close to me. And I mean close. If you try to get away or make any stupid move, like scream, complain, fake an injury, whatever, I’ll make sure Taz knows not only where you live, but where every member of your family lives as well.”
He paused, waiting for that information to sink in, then put the punch behind the statement. “He murdered his baby sister for sleeping with a Mexican. He tied them both up, took them into a lettuce field, threw them into the dirt and ran them over with a discer while they were still alive. Do you know what a discer is?”
Her big eyes glazed with shock. “I ... I don’t think I want to—”
“It’s a tractor with a couple dozen rotary blades on the back. Each blade is the size of a semi’s tire. They’re used to till fields.”
Hannah’s face scrunched as if she was in pain again. And he knew just how she felt. The stories Taz boasted about had caused Teague nightmares for months. But in this case, he needed to make a point, and she needed to get it.
“They were picking up pieces of them both for weeks,” he continued. “The coroner came out to the farm with a bulk supply of evidence flags and stuck one where they found every body part—”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes and held up her hand. “Okay. I get it. Jesus, you’re lucky I haven’t puked on you yet.”
“With my luck, that’ll change soon, won’t it?”
Alyssa didn’t know if Creek’s luck would change anytime soon, but she was about to give her own lousy luck a kick in the butt. This was the first public location she’d been to since Creek had kidnapped her, and he could tell her every gruesome story he could dream up, but she wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass.
Creek pulled a shirt from his bag of clothes and tossed it on the seat, then released the cuff attached to the door. “Let’s get you into something clean. It may be October, but somehow I doubt all this blood will come across as a Halloween prank.”
Alyssa wanted the blood to show. She wanted her bruises and burns exposed. They were bound to garner attention. She didn’t have to fake the exhaustion slumping her against the seat. It was bone-deep real. “I can’t change clothes. I hurt too much.”
Creek thought a second, then brought both hands to the collar of her tank. “I’m going to tear it. Don’t scream.”
Before Alyssa had time to process the information, he yanked. She tensed, anticipating a rip of pain in her side, but amazingly, her body hardly moved. The tank however, halved like tissue paper, exposing her chest to hips. The cold air hit her skin and made her shiver.
Creek inspected the gash in her side. “The bleeding’s stopped.”
She knew that. Knew that whatever he’d done with his hand behind that Dumpster had clotted the main flow of blood. Something beyond counterpressure. She let herself acknowledge that much, but her mind continued to search for another possible, if not logical, explanation.
She’d come up with cauterization. The heat he seemed to harbor in his body must have performed some type of cauterization of the bleeding tissues. While that eased her mind, it didn’t alleviate the fatigue from the blood she’d already lost. Or the radiating pain in her torso. Or the knowledge she’d have an ugly, welted scar that would need plastic surgery if she ever planned on wearing a bikini again.
“You know I need a hospital,” she said.
Creek ignored her. He drew the soggy fabric off her body and eased her into a white, collared T-shirt with a colorful NASCAR logo across the chest. He slid her left arm in first, then stretched the fabric and eased her right arm in.
He was amazingly deft and gentle, yet efficient. He was also all business, without any hint of interest in her body, which irritated her, considering how she seemed to react to his every touch.
He reached across the seat, and with one tug, covered the swastika on his fuzzy head with the baseball cap. Then, to her surprise, he unlocked the remaining cuff and pulled the metal off her wrist.
A giddy wave rolled through her stomach. Her first step toward freedom. But, now what? She scanned the parking lot, searching for ... something. But only found a smattering of cars dotting the darkened asphalt.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“About nine last time I looked.” He adjusted the collar of her shirt up around her neck and over the injuries. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” Wondering where everyone was. Wondering if this sparse crowd would be any help to her at all. Wondering if this night would ever end.
“Remember.” Creek lifted the bottom of his tee to reveal the handle of the gun. “I still have this.”
Alyssa’s eyes skipped past the weapon to the delineated abdominal muscles beneath. This guy had blown right by a six-pack. He had an eight-pack going, and then some.
“You’re going to be a good girl,” he said. “Right?” Alyssa’s mind took a wrong turn somewhere. It veered from the clean city streets and headed straight to a seedy alley, picking up a dozen different innuendos on the trip.
Looks mean nothing. He is a criminal. A lifer
.
Those facts gave her mind the kick it needed to get back on track. “Don’t talk to me like I’m five years old.”
Creek slung one strong arm around her shoulders and walked her toward the store. Alyssa searched the area for a police car or security vehicle. None. She studied the patrons traversing the parking lot for someone formidable enough to take Creek on. No one.
He accepted the grocery cart offered by a smiling, elderly woman at the door and placed Alyssa’s hands on the cart’s handle, then covered one of hers with his own. His palm was warm, his fingers strong. He came in close behind her, one arm securing her at the waist, making her feel protected and imprisoned at the same time.
He headed from one department to the next with focus and purpose, dropping selected items in the cart and moving on. But the objects he chose seemed haphazard, almost like he was on a scavenger hunt. Disposable cell phones from electronics, fishing line from outdoors, Gatorade from beverages, bandages from pharmaceuticals, power bars from grocery, upholstery needles from crafts, a blanket from housewares.
Creek zigzagged his way around the store so that every aisle he chose was empty, which wasn’t hard to do because the store was quiet. Way too quiet for Alyssa’s preference.
The cart filled with merchandise, signaling her dwindling opportunity for escape. Jittery panic grew in the pit of Alyssa’s stomach. “I should go to the bathroom while we’re here,” she said, her mind clawing for options. “I need some water, too.”
“You can wait.”
“I’ve been waiting for hours.” She made a concerted effort to raise her voice, yet the massive store swallowed her words. “I’ve lost a lot of blood. I’m dehydrated.”
“Keep it down,” he growled in her ear and steered them toward women’s clothing, where the store opened, and she could see beyond one aisle at a time. “And pick some clothes for yourself.”
Her eyes skimmed over round racks and past shelves. A middle-aged couple browsed belts and socks across the aisle in the men’s department. She watched them, willing them to look up, hoping they could read the panicked message she prayed her eyes conveyed. But they wandered to the baseball hats and drifted around a corner, out of sight.
A young boy scampered down the center aisle and grabbed his mother’s hand as she looked at sleepwear, then tugged her toward the toy section.
“Never mind.” Creek huffed in apparent exasperation at her lack of interest in the clothes and walked toward the men’s section, where he eyed a shelving unit of sweatpants. “What size are you?”
“I have no idea. I don’t shop for men’s clothes.”
He pulled a pair of small size sweatpants and a sweat jacket off the shelf. Turned and plucked a small T-shirt from a round rack.
“Are you going to make me wear men’s underwear, too?” She couldn’t hold back the smart remark, nor did she want to. This situation became more absurd by the moment.
A woman wandered into the area and stopped at the same rack of T-shirts. Alyssa’s stomach inflated like a bubble and floated toward her throat. With Creek positioned behind her, she reached for a hanger and pretended to look through the shirts, her head turned so her bruised cheek was angled toward the woman.
In her mid-sixties, with short, straight, gray-brown hair and dark brown eyes, the other woman flicked a quick smile of acknowledgment toward Alyssa, then did a double take. When her eyes scrutinized Alyssa’s face, Alyssa lifted her hand to scratch her ear, but let her fingers drop to the neckline of her shirt instead and dragged the collar down.
The woman’s eyes fastened on Alyssa’s neck, and her expression shifted from uncertainty to pained concern. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to stare. Looks like you’re a little banged up.”
Alyssa felt Creek stiffen behind her. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she could swear the air temperature rose. Her skin grew damp. Her heart picked up speed.
She hadn’t expected the woman to
say
anything so direct. And not in front of Creek. Which was stupid. How was anyone else supposed to know this was all a big secret?
“Are you all right?” the woman asked, her eyes flitting toward Creek, then back.
She opened her mouth to respond, but found herself at a loss. “Um, I um ...”
I ... um ... should have thought this through better.
“We were in a car accident earlier tonight,” Creek said from behind her, his voice smooth and congenial. “The doctor said she didn’t break anything, but she’ll be sore for a few weeks.”
Damn. Alyssa’s bubble of hope deflated. He was so much better at this game.
The woman’s dark eyes lifted to Creek again. This time, she studied him. Assessed. Then she took Alyssa’s hand in a compassionate gesture and pressed something into her palm—a business card she guessed from the size and shape. “That’s good news. Get some rest, sweetheart.”
Alyssa watched her lifeline walk away, her throat swelling with the need to call out to her. Creek’s hand covered Alyssa’s. She startled and tried to evade his grasp, but he was faster and stronger and hotter. His fingers burned hers as he pried her hand open and pulled the card out.
“ ‘Geraldine Hummel, L.M.F.T.,’ ” Teague read. “ ‘Director of Therapy House, a safe haven for the ...’ ” His face twisted into a sour expression. “ ‘Domestically abused.’ ”
He fisted the card and dropped his hand to his side. The faint scent of smoke met her nose a second before a miniature plume drifted toward the ceiling. She looked down just as he opened his fingers. Ashes fluttered from his palm. She stared at them, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.
“How ... ?” Her thoughts wouldn’t solidify. She grabbed his hand and turned it over. No burns on his skin. No soot on his fingers. She looked down at the ashes on the linoleum.
As if those gray flakes kicked her mind into gear, Alyssa dropped Creek’s hand and stepped back. “How can you do that?”
Something glinted in his eyes—a mixture of anger and hurt—before the blue irises turned slate gray. He closed his hands around hers on the handle of the cart until her fingers were mashed painfully against the metal bar, and headed back toward the center of the store and all those lonely, deserted aisles.
“I’m starting to think you’re a fucking nutcase,” he said. “Which would explain your involvement with Luke.”
“Nutcase?” Fear ignited her anger and, in turn, her mouth. “You think
I’m
a nutcase when your body temp is twice the normal person’s and paper burns in your
hand
? If anyone in this situation is screwed up, it’s you. You’re the one who dragged me into this. The only thing I hate more than the victim mentality is being a victim myself. You’ve cut my professional throat, exposed me to life-threatening situations—”
“Shit happens.” His voice was dangerously low and flat. He passed by two rows with people browsing in them and turned down an aisle of office supplies void of customers. “You can’t always control what life throws at you. Sometimes you just have to make the best of it. And right now, the best thing to do is get the hell out of here.”
“This isn’t a ‘shit happens’ situation.” Alyssa continued to fume as they headed toward the front of the store, mostly to keep herself from freaking out over the fact that this man had just burned paper with nothing but his bare hand. “ ‘Shit happens’ is a flat tire on the freeway in the middle of the night or someone stealing your wallet. Comparing this to ‘shit happens’ is like comparing a traffic ticket to first-degree murder.”
He stopped abruptly in the middle of an aisle and twisted toward her.
“Lower your voice,”
he ground out, his own voice strained. “In fact, just shut the hell up, Hannah. You’re like a goddamned two-year-old who doesn’t know when to stop.”
He started forward again with a jerk of the cart. The sudden tug sent a stab of pain through her stomach, a harsh reminder of her weakness and his strength.