CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“
You really are a handful. Now I know why Taylor is so into you, you’re hard to predict.” Eric says to me as I shakily pull out onto the road. “I can’t believe you made me.”
“Please don’t shoot me,” I beg, looking straight ahead.
Eric looks down at his gun and puts it back into his waistband. “Don’t worry, I have no intentions of hurting you. I need to talk to you and now that you know, I need to see Taylor. The only way that happens is through you. I’m sorry it has to go down like this.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Just drive around for a bit. I’ll direct you after we make this call to my beloved brother.”
“What do you want?”
My phone lights up and vibrates on the floor of the car. It’s Taylor.
“Perfect. I was just about to call him.” He reaches for the phone on the floor. “Hey brother…Woah, woah…slow down.” I imagine Taylor reciting some sort of speech a la Liam Neeson in Taken. “I think I should be the one asking questions. Apparently I beat the shit out of Shyla? Thanks to you two lovebirds for that.” Eric eyes me as he says this. “Listen Taylor. I am gonna be brief so listen up. If you want to see Shyla unharmed, you are going to meet me at the coordinates I am about to send you. I’ll send the time too. Don’t be a minute late. Oh and it’s an open field for miles. If I see anyone else, she’s dead. You know my background and you know she’ll be gone in a second if I sense anything. Don’t bother tracking the number either, you know it’ll be pointless…Sure, here you go.”
Eric puts the phone up to my ear. Taylor’s voice is on the other line. His voice is calm, as if he is trying to assure me with his tone “Shy, are you there?”
“Yes. I’m okay. Taylor I don’t tru-”
Eric yanks the phone away from my face. “I’ll see you soon,
brother,
” he uses that last word as if it were a dagger.
Eric hangs up the phone and starts writing a text. He waits for the little swoosh sound and then throws the phone out of the window. “Shyla, that was posturing. I won’t kill you. I just need to see Taylor.”
“You’re going to hurt him.”
“What happens between my brother and me is our business. He and I have some things to discuss.”
“No. Please don’t hurt him,” I cry.
“I’m sorry Shyla, but this is not up for discussion. Unfortunately, you got dragged into his shit and I am sorry for that. Really, I am. You are a victim of his too.”
I think of my Taylor, the boy who guarded me in the closet so many years ago being riddled with bullets and I can’t let it happen. It’s my turn to shield him. I do the only thing I know I can do at the moment. I brace both hands on the steering wheel and turn the car sharply to the left.
“No!” Eric screams, grabbing the steering wheel, making the car swerve sharply to the right. He and I battle over the steering wheel, the car zig zagging on the road haphazardly. Finally, he yanks Ladybug so hard in his direction that the car hydroplanes, spinning 180 degrees, its rear slamming into a tree. “Dammit Shyla!” Eric exclaims. He pulls his gun out of his waistband and points it at me. “Why are you making me do this? Get back on the road. Dammit!”
“I thought you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I really, really don’t want to. Please don’t make me hate myself even more.” Unfortunately, the damage to the car is only to the rear bumper and the car continues to operate just fine. “I want this to be amicable between us. Don’t fucking do that again. If you cooperate you will be back with Taylor tomorrow. I swear this to you. I don’t want to restrain you right now. Are you going to fight with me, or just make this as easy as possible for both of us? Please make note of how restrained I am being right now considering you almost killed us both.”
I gulp nervously, there is no way I can overpower a man of his size even if he didn’t have a gun. Taylor has asked—demanded—that I trust him.
He takes care of things.
I can imagine him watching this scene unfold, furious with me for taking such a risk and so for once, I am going to let Taylor take care of us his way.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll go along.”
We drive a few miles
s
outh
.
,
E
ventually he guides me to make a turn, and then another, and we end up at a small motel on a quiet side road. I scan the parking lot for someone, anyone to give the
help me
eye, but the lot is empty on this dreary, wet
f
all morning. Eric leads me to a room and makes me sit on the bed. Though I am not religious and I never pray, I silently hope to god that he truly has no intentions for me in this room.
“Look,” he says, pulling the magazine out of the gun and sliding back the chamber to show me the gun is no longer loaded. “I just want to talk to you. You have to understand why I came back, okay?”
“What does it matter what I think?”
“Because it does. Because I am not a cold-blooded psychopath like Taylor may want you to believe. And because I like you. I think you’re a good person, and for some reason my brother attracts really good women. And I don’t know, I just can’t let him keep getting away with everything.”
“Taking me hostage is not really scoring you any points with me,” I say boldly. I do believe he doesn’t want to hurt me. It may be a false sense of security, but Eric has always seemed familiar to me.
“Well, framing me for torture and rape isn’t helping you out either.”
Touché motherfucker.
“Except there is some truth to those claims.”
Shit, stop being so fucking ballsy.
“No, no there aren’t. But I’m willing to chalk all this up to the fact that shit has gotten really out of control. I hope you’ll give me the same benefit of the doubt.”
I nod begrudgingly.
“But first, I’m hungry as hell. Following you today worked up my appetite. You have to be hungry too.”
Well I was, until all hell broke loose.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ll be hungry once your nerves settle. Come on, follow me.” He walks to the bathroom. I stare at him, immobilized with distrust. “Listen, I can’t leave you lallygagging in here while I get food. Cooperation; remember?”
I hesitantly walk over to the bathroom, he pulls out a pair of handcuffs and cuffs me to the the plumbing underneath the sink. Then he pulls out duct tape from his bag, and tapes my feet together, then my hands. “I’m not gonna cover your mouth, but if I come back and you’re screaming, well then, I’ll have to do it for the rest of our time together. Besides, we are in a shit hole in the middle of nowhere. No one will hear you. I paid off the illegal maid to stay away from this room.”
“I won’t scream, okay?”
“Any special requests?”
You’re fucking kidding me.
I just stare back at him.
“Suit yourself.”
He closes the bathroom door behind him. I count to 10-Mississippi before trying to pull on the cuffs and break the pipe, but it won’t budge. I scan the bathroom for anything that could be used as a tool, but all there is is soap and a shower curtain. It only takes me a few minutes to realize I will be staying here, and going along with at least the early parts of Eric’s plan. Sweat pours down my brow, I try to wipe it, but without free hands it is nearly impossible. It stings my eyes so I take a few deep breaths to center myself and cool down. For now, I believe that Eric does not want to harm me, but I know he has a different fate mapped out for Taylor. My heart floods with worry at what he might do. Taylor has been impenetrable, he has had no weakness until meeting me. I thought I gave him strength. Now I may be the death of him.
About 15 minutes later, there is the sound of someone entering the motel room: paper bags fumbling, chairs being moved, and then the television being turned on.
“Hello?” I call out in an inquisitive tone, but not loud enough for Eric to think I am calling for help.
Eric opens the bathroom door. “Sorry, I was just setting up the space.” How strange that a captor would apologize so much to his captive. He pulls the tape off of my ankles which were luckily covered in pants. My wrists aren’t so lucky. “Shit, this is going to hurt,” he says. “Alright, one…two…three!” He yanks off the tape and I hiss at the burning pain, my wrists instantly turning red. He gently rubs them to distract the pain, then he uncuffs me. I walk out to the bedroom, where he has made a makeshift eating area for us with a small table and two mismatched chairs. He has me sit in the chair furthest from the door making it impossible for me to access the exit without getting through him first.
“I got you a cheeseburger, fries and some diet coke. There’s not a lot of variety out in these parts. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine. Thank you.”
Did I just thank him? Wait, that’s good. I should make him feel like he can trust me.
We pull our food out of our respective bags and in this moment, it feels a lot like the first time we met at the bar, just two people sitting together over food and drink. I unenthusiastically bite into a fry. He grabs a few at once and then bites into them at the same time. “Mmmm. These fries are really good,” he says smiling at me. He’s right, maybe it’s the hunger, but they are fan-fucking-tastic. “Listen, I know you hate me right now, but can we at least agree that these fries are delicious?”
“Yeah,” I say, looking at him out of the corner of my eyes, trying not to shovel the entire box down my mouth.
“So, I guess you now know that I’m Evan.”
I nod.
“Listen, let’s get it all out there Shyla. I don’t have shit to hide now. I’m a fugitive from the law,” he says laughing in apparent disbelief.
“Let’s,” I say dully.
“Why don’t you ask me what you want to know?”
I get in one more scrumptious fry before I start. “Did you really leave the country?”
“Yes. I left right after I saw you, under my real name. I had a pre-arranged flight to leave the country before I came to see you. At that point I had no idea you and Taylor would frame me for rape and assault. I thought at most you might call the police for breaking an
d
entering. Leaving the country gave me some time to lay low, allow the trail on me to go a little cold
and Taylor to get comfortable. It gave me the time and space to figure out my options. In my line of work I have special contacts, fake identities, yadda yadda. I came back into the country under Evan Sumner. FBI and the police have no idea I am in the U.S.”
“Your line of work…the
d
etective said you didn’t have a security firm.”
“Well, Eric Holden doesn’t. Evan Sumner did. I sold the company months ago.”
“How long have you been following us?”
“Since you returned from vacation. I wasn’t sure what to do. I still wanted to get to Taylor more than ever, but if I ambushed you together, even when you were alone, that would be too messy. I’d have to get one of you alone. I preferred not to bring you into this, but Taylor is always secured, whether it be at H.I. or having his ‘driver’ around. So I knew if I could get you alone, well, I could cripple him, get him to come over to me easy. When I saw you leaving the house alone today, I had to follow you. Then I realized where you were headed, and holy shit, I knew you were going to make me. So I had to make very quick plans to intercept you on your way back. I couldn’t afford you going back to the police with this info.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“I’ve done it again. Every time I do something behind Taylor’s back, I get us neck deep into shit.”
Eric smiles. “That’s why he’s so into you. He likes to tame, and you challenge him. But don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s Taylor who gets people into shit.”
“He doesn’t put it so nicely,” I say.
“Why were you going to visit Ev anyway?”
“I found Em’s necklace and I wanted to return it.”
“The necklace? The one her grandmother gave her?”
“Yup, that one.”
“Dammit, Shyla. That’s why I like you. It’s shit like that. Perfect mix of nice girl and total obstinate pain in the ass.”
“Yup, and look what it got me,” I say gesturing to the decaying room around me.
“Shyla.” Eric looks into my eyes with his glassy blue eyes, he has Nan’s eyes, just like Taylor has Lyla’s. “You’re gonna be fine. I promise.”
I nod.
I won’t be fine if you hurt Taylor.
“And thank you for returning the necklace, Em was so heartbroken about losing it. Where did you find it?”
“At H.I. She never lost it at Taylor’s like she thought. So are you going to tell me what’s really going on here? Why you came back to town in the first place?”
Eric sighs, raking his golden-brown locks with his fingers, then scratching his neck. “Yeah. It’s hard for me Shyla. It’s still really hard.”
“I know all about confronting tough subjects.”
“So you know, Taylor and I never got along. And you and I need to talk about that too after we finish talking about Em. Then I was asked to leave.”
“Oh yes, because you tried to have him killed.”