The Understorey, Book One of The Leaving Series (43 page)

He never tried to stop me. I don’t think he
thought it would be an issue because I don’t think he planned on
letting me live long enough to do anything about it and although
that may have frightened me I refused to give up and refused to let
him know how terrified I really was. Peeking over the dash didn’t
get me much but I knew the little information I could get might
help Elliott find me if I could eventually get to a phone.

I prayed like hell that we were going to his
parents’ cabin because at least I could get warm there. My feet
were ice cold and I could barely feel my hands. My clothes were
soaked from the melted snow that soaked into my jeans and coat when
he had dragged me by my hair from my car to his.

    I was coming home, more
like being forced home, from the hospital where Elliott laid
unconscious from his recent surgery for some, I’ll admit it, much
needed shut eye. I promised Mark and pinky swore Maddy to go
straight home, never stopping anywhere, never opening my door for
any reason and to call once I reached home since Danny couldn’t
escort me as he was on duty and called in to handle a domestic
dispute somewhere in Bluefield. Also, Mark couldn’t leave Maddy by
herself because we were the only ones left after everyone else went
to eat, sick of the disgusting hospital food.
    So Mark walked me out to Carmen and made me
promise to ring him when I physically stepped foot inside The Perry
House and locked the door behind me, ‘not in the driveway, not on
the porch, actually inside the house’.

For foolish reasons, I thought it best not to
wake my dad and make him come escort me home because I thought if
trouble arose that I would be able to drive away from the
problem.

I mean, there was no way Jesse would come
back to Bramwell, right? Not when everyone and their dog was
looking for him. It turned out to be the dopiest thing I could have
ever thought to do. People didn’t just ‘drive’ away from Jesse
Thomas, especially when
I
was one of the ‘people’ whom he
wanted.

I was so close to home, I could smell it and
had calmed down enough turn up The Dear Hunter’s ‘Mustard Gas’.
“Look to the sky...” I sang as I crossed the intersection at Main
where it turns into Brick and in that moment, out of the corner of
my eye, I spotted Jesse’s Mustang come from out of nowhere. I
inhaled sharply just as he stopped short in front of me, barely
missing my front bumper.

At the sight of his Mustang, instant panic
ran icy through my veins. An awful sense of dread took over my body
confirming I should have trusted my own instincts and stayed at the
hospital.

My thoughts were consumed with the thoughts
that the love of my life was unconscious, on a hospital bed,
totally unable to come to my rescue. I knew that Elliott would
never be able to forgive himself if something happened to me and he
hadn’t been there to stop it.

That meant I was going to fight tooth and
nail to make sure it didn’t happen, so I could tell him myself,
give my eyeteeth to stop it if I had to. Hurting me would hurt
Elliott and there was no way in hell I was going to let that come
to pass. I was a Jacobs after all and everyone knows that the
Jacobs possess warrior hearts. I just prayed to God mine would beat
furiously enough to weather the foulness that more than likely laid
in my immediate future.

I suffered a building, wretched hysteria
while Jesse sauntered from his vehicle at a confident, lazy pace,
his face hardly visible through the blizzard swarming around us. I
threw Carmen into reverse, resting my right hand on the back of the
passenger seat to brace myself as I looked out my foggy rear
window, crystallized ice preventing me from seeing anything. I
slammed the gas and blindly attempted to steer the car a decent
enough distance to throw it back into drive and get out of there,
but there was a sheet of ice beneath me at least two inches thick
and my tires lost any traction from the all too eager spinning. I’d
driven in ice my entire life and knew the last thing I was supposed
to do was press the gas like I did but I panicked, desperation
oozing from every pore and effectively ending any chance of
thinking soundly.

Growing up, I remembered watching television
shows or reading articles about people involved in some form of
tragedy or another. I would shake my head back and forth as I read
their stories, chiding them for their stupid mistakes with a click
of my tongue for their seemingly nonexistent desire for
self-preservation.

‘I just froze’, they’d always say and I would
chock up their lack of action or mere escape from death as someone
who barely fit into the ‘survivors of the fittest’ category.

Premature judgment, I humbly admit.
Obviously, I no longer judge those people so unfairly. I swallowed
that misconception that day followed by the bitter pill of regret
mixed with a bit of my own blood.

I repeatedly tried to gain control of Carmen
but she failed me, for the first time ever, and before I knew it, I
heard and felt shattered glass spill down the side of the car and
onto my lap. Glass scraped the side of my face and I brought my
hands up to protect my eyes. I struggled to scream but I’m just not
a screamer. The few occasions I’ve needed to, I open my mouth but
nothing ever comes out. I think it’s because my voice is too deep.
I just can’t get to the high octaves without it coming out in
scratches.

Elliott forced me to keep a crowbar
underneath my passenger seat. I remember throwing a fit, I can’t
stand being coddled which Elliott had understandably done a lot of
lately, but I’d never been so grateful for his overprotective
meddling than in that moment.

I leaned over, thrusting my arm underneath
the passenger seat sweeping my hand back and forth for the steel
bar. I felt around the floor board for it and caught the cold steel
by the tip just as Jesse stretched through the newly shattered
window, grabbed my hair to yank me back and I lost any grip I
had.

I winced in pain before pulling myself
forward and frantically felt around for the bar once more. I could
see Jesse reach for me again as my fingers wrapped around the base.
I brought it out and swung as hard as I could toward Jesse. He
raised his left arm and the bar met the bone of his forearm with a
sickening thud.

It wasn’t hard enough to break it but it was
hard enough to stun him. He stumbled back from the car, bringing
his hurt arm protectively toward his chest. He bent over in pain
and I used the time as a distraction to unbuckle myself and throw
open the door, ‘Mustard Gas’ spilled into the air and I sprinted in
the direction of my home.

My face instantly numbed from the shocking
chill, the air whipped across my hair and jarred me awake from what
I had hoped was just a nightmare. I begged my body not to react to
the cold, begged it to power through the cutting blast, not to shut
down as it wanted so badly to do. I was a mere two blocks from my
front door. I yelled for someone to help me but the blizzard
drowned out all sound. I was all alone.

“Get back here you bitch!”

I still held the bar in my hand and turned
around to face him.
    “Stay away from me Jesse!”
    “Oh, no, no, no,” he chuckled, his shoulders
shaking from the effort. “This is not how things work. I tell
you
what to do Julia, not the other way around.”

He walked slowly toward me like he had all
the time in the world. I turned to run toward my home again but he
picked up his pace and overpowered me. He’s a conditioned athlete
and I basically had no chance. He snatched the bar from my hand and
threw it in Sawyer Tuttle’s yard.

    “Sawyer!” I yelled, out of
realization that his house was so close. “Sawyer, help me! Saw....”
I yelled again, before Jesse covered my mouth with his hand.

I bit his fingers and swung my elbow back
toward his face but missed. He pulled me tighter into his chest and
squeezed the air from my lungs, repositioning his hand tight across
my mouth. He whispered in my ear as I desperately tried to pull
oxygen into my lungs.

His arm acted as a boa constrictor, every
time I let out a little air to gain a breath he would choke his arm
further into my chest, cutting off the possibility of breath.

    He leaned his mouth into
my ear, “Yell again and I shove that crowbar down your throat.” He
squeezed me tighter, “Understood?”
    I nodded and he slightly released some pressure
around my torso. I gulped freezing air into my lungs and coughed
from the pain of it.
    “Come on Julia,” he said, kissing my neck,
“You’re coming with me.”

I shuddered at his touch, ordering myself not
to cry. I refused to show him any sort of weakness, not just for
me, but for my Elliott and the cruel, horrible things he did to
him. Crying would only give him satisfaction and refusing him that,
I realized, was the only power I would have over him.
    He pulled me onto the ground and the melted ice
and snow from the road soaked into my clothing. He grabbed a
handful of my hair again and started dragging me to his
Mustang.

I clawed at his forearm, pleading with him to
release me, but his thick jacket protected him from my short nails
furiously trying to scrape through, the red from my fingernails
streaking the leather.

Trying to get a better grip on him, I turned
over onto my stomach and started walking on my knees but several
times I faltered and my face ended up flat against the icy
pavement. The four times it happened he pulled harder and I would
moan in pain.
    It felt likes weeks before we arrived at his car
and he dragged me toward the trunk.
    “No!” I yelled.

I’m not sure why I protested. Instinct? Weeks
ago, when all hell started breaking loose, Elliott told me if
anything ever happened to him and Jesse got to me that I should
encourage being transported in his trunk because I could kick out a
tail light and push my arm through to get the attention of passing
vehicles without Jesse having any knowledge of it.

When I remembered this, I shut my mouth but
he brought me to my feet anyway and slammed me into the car, his
fingers at my throat, suffocating me.

    “You’ll pay for that,” he
threatened.

I shook my head, tears threatening the
corners of my eyes and breathed through my nose deeply to gain
control. His hold was crushing my windpipe. Thankfully, the tears
subsided as I stared into his vacant eyes.

He studied me before angrily pushing his lips
to mine and I kept my mouth tight. It was a punishing kiss, nothing
more than a way for him to let me know that he was in control. He
pushed hard against my mouth, cruelly crushing and bruising my
lips. I winced in pain as he drew out my bottom lip and bit
down.

Then, for reasons only he knew, he withdrew.
His empty eyes pierced mine before he inched closer, threatening
more punishment but, to my surprise, kissed me gently instead. Of
the two, the latter was the most revolting, the most disturbing,
too intimate and caused me to involuntarily lurch.

“Oh God, this is going to be fun,” he said,
grinning from ear to ear.

    He snapped my body to the
back of his car and with one hand gripped tightly on my upper arm,
he opened his trunk and removed a length of rope and a roll of duct
tape. I tried to take advantage of his distraction and swung my
elbow once more towards his face and this time it made contact with
his chin.

Immediately, his mouth started bleeding and
his grip on my arm softened but when I turned to run it just as
quickly tightened again and he grabbed the other arm with his free
hand and yanked me into his chest. He buried his face in my neck
and I could feel warm blood from his lips trickle down my throat. I
swallowed hard and tried to break free of his grip but the effort
was pointless, he was just too powerful for me. He breathed into my
neck and bit down hard on the muscle between my throat and
shoulder. I yelped in pain.

    “I’m losing patience with
you Julia,” he whispered. “If you’re not careful, I might just kill
you here and deliver your body to your parents' doorstep. Would you
prefer that?” he asked, gripping my arms tighter, not expecting an
answer. “I can just imagine it; your dad, stepping onto his porch
to find his daughter dead and exposed to the world.” He shuddered,
from the pleasure of the visual I assumed. “Come to think of it,
I’m preferring that route more and more but,” he sighed in
resignation, “no. Though it is a good idea, I plan to have my fun
instead. You’ve caused me a great deal of grief Julia Jacobs and
you will pay dearly for the trouble you’ve inflicted.”
    “I’ve done noth....”
    He yanked me closer to the trunk and bound my
hands together, then he forced me to kneel at the ground and strung
the rope toward my feet and bound those together as well. He coiled
his arms underneath my armpits and dragged me to his car, laying me
on my back in the front seat.

I felt deflated that he didn’t put me in the
trunk. I couldn’t see anything but heard his footfalls crunch the
snow toward the trunk once more. The wind whistled in protest
against the blizzard swirling around the car. I heard him shift
some things around then close the trunk. I heard his feet crush
more snow for a few more steps on the opposite side of the car
before he opened the driver’s side door and settled into his seat
before shutting it.

“Cold isnt’ it?” He asked, with all the
familiarity of old friends going for a winter joy ride.

I refused to look at him, my jaw locked tight
in resignation as he forced me into a sitting position by grabbing
my upper arms and pulling me forward. I kept my eyes closed until I
heard the stripping sound of duct tape being removed from the roll.
My jaw trembled and I clamped my teeth hard to hide the weakness.
He smiled and swallowed, causing the tattoo on his neck to dance up
and down, and stretched a long piece of tape, leaving it attached
to the roll and energetically pressing the end to my mouth. He
wrapped my head twice as taut as he could and leaned in, leaving
half an inch between our faces.