LIKED - A Dark Romance Novel (Story of Dangerous Obsession and Lust) (7 page)

Take It Slow

Gia woke up to the sound of ripping tape. She sucked in air and struggled
in a panic thinking she was back in Don’s driveway and still had a chance to
run. She felt the raw skin of her wrists and ankles in the tape and realized
that chance had passed.

They had stopped late. It had to be twelve hours of driving. Maybe closer
to sixteen. Time was lost inside the bag covered in her own filth. They had
gotten gas twice more that she knew of and had stopped finally for the night.

She couldn’t tell if it was still night and her dreams had woken her.

Her neck hurt and she swore the side of her head was dented from laying
on the bumpy floor.

He grabbed her shoulder and she yelped. Jack pulled her back up straight
against the wall. He yanked the hood off and she squinted from the light
pouring in through the windshield.

Gia blinked and Jack came slowly into focus in front of her. His hair
looked scruffier from actual bedhead than from the carefully sculpted mess guys
in LA created. She wondered where he had slept. His face looked so ordinary and
unlike a murderer-rapist.

She wanted to spit in his face. She had been afraid to scream when they
had stopped for gas, but she wanted to spit as she looked at his face more than
anything. Her mouth and throat were far too dry to even muster it.

Her skin hurt and felt tacky from dried urine. She felt crisp, matted
hair against her cheek.

Jack lifted a bottled water into her view and unscrewed the cap with a
pop from the safety seal. “If you behave, you get water now and during the day.
If you do not behave, you can live seven days without water, but it will not be
pleasant. Do you want water, Gia?”

She stared at him and blinked a couple times. She open her mouth to a
stab of pain in her throat, so she closed it again. She nodded.

He nodded back. “Open your mouth and take it slow – one sip at a time.
You don’t want to vomit on yourself too.”

She parted her lips feeling like they had grown hard and cracked in the
night. “Jack tipped the mouth of the bottle up over her lower lip. The water
was lukewarm and filled her mouth under her tongue until it ran out at both
corners. It dribbled onto her shirt, but seemed like a small offense compared
to what she had already been through.

She closed her mouth and swallowed slowly. A bit got into her windpipe
and she gagged. Gia coughed adding more pain and ruining the satisfaction of
her first drink in a day.

“Take it slow, I said.”

Gia’s voice came strained like a cord pulled taut and ready to snap. “I
fucking heard you, asshole.”

He smiled and tipped the bottle at her like he was raising a toast in her
honor. She opened her mouth again and he licked his lips. She felt dirtier than
she already had.

He tilted the water up again and she closed her mouth without losing any.
She swallowed without coughing and her throat felt better.

Jack set down the water and lifted a clear, plastic clamshell. He popped
it open and took out half a sandwich cut in a triangle. It was a wheat bread
with frilly lettuce sticking out the sides.

She whispered. “I want more water.”

“You’ll get some,” he said. “Take a bite. It is chicken salad with golden
raisins. It will be good for you stomach.”

“Chicken salad sucks.”

“I know you like it,” he said. “You used to make your own back home. I
saw the pictures.”

She frowned and looked away to the back doors of the van. The squared
windows were painted over black showing swatches of light in the spots where
the paint was brushed on thinner around the darker globs.

“I made my own because everyone else’s sucks, especially the bullshit
they serve in plastic boxes in gas stations or wherever you bought that while I
was sleeping in my own piss.”

“What did I tell you about behaving?” Jack said. “You can go a month
without food, but it isn’t pretty.”

Gia sighed and looked down at her taped ankles. A prickly rash was
crawling up her skin where she could see between one pant leg and the grey duct
tape. She needed to shave.

He held up the sandwich half and she opened her mouth. He stuck in the
corner and she bit through with a crisp crunch from the lettuce. Her stomach
rolled as the flavor hit her tongue and she realized how hungry she was. The
tang of the mayo and the texture of the raisins made her want to gag. She held
down the urge as she chewed and swallowed down the bite.

He held up the bitten sandwich and the bottle of water. Jack seesawed
them up and down in his hands as if he was comparing their weights.

Jack said, “More sandwich, please or more water, please?”

Gia said, “Water.”

Jack tilted his head. “Please?”

A swell of anger rose up from her gut into her chest as she stared
between the shitty chicken sandwich and the generic water bottle labeled: “Great
Value”. She took a couple of deep breaths through her flaring nostrils as she
fought down the anger the way she had fought back against her gag reflex.

You can go seven days without water, but it isn’t pretty, she thought.

Gia looked away from him toward the light through the windshield.

She whispered. “Please.”

He tilted the water up and she accepted more. She swallowed it down and
stared at him. He smiled and swirled the bottle. She opened her mouth and he brought
it up to give her another swallow.

He set the water down and lifted the sandwich again. “Bite.”

Gia frowned, but then took another bite of the chicken sandwich. She
swallowed it down dry and took a couple more sips of water as he offered them
to her. She was tempted to spit one of the mouthfuls back into his face, but
she didn’t want each sip to be her last.

Jack capped the bottle and held up the sandwich. “Want a little more? You
have a busy day today, Gia.”

“What is he going to do to me in this van?” She thought. She felt her
stomach knot up, but it had nothing to do with the sandwich. She shook her
head.

“What are you going to do with me now that we’re here?”

Jack tilted his head and squinted. He looked down and closed what was
left of the sandwich back into the plastic clamshell.

“Here?” He shook his head. “We’re nowhere. We are barely halfway to where
we are going. We’re probably still another fourteen or fifteen hours from
there.”

Gia blinked. “Where the hell are you taking me?”

“Home. Just like you wanted.”

“My home is … where are we now?”

“I don’t know.” Jack shrugged and looked toward the windshield. “Texacalo
or some shit.”

“We’re in Texas?”

“I think we crossed into Oklahoma before we stopped.”

***

There was a noise behind him and Jack turned his head. Gia had heard it
too. It was a voice or something maybe just outside the van.

Gia again thought about screaming for help.

He stood up.

She said, “What did you mean halfway there? Where are we going?”

“Shut up before I have to tape your mouth.”

As he stepped away, Gia saw another girl sitting against the wall of the
van across from her and Gia gasped. The girl’s ankles were tapped in front of
her by one strip of tape. Her hands were behind her back and she had a strip of
tape over her mouth.

She must not have behaved, Gia thought and squinted her blurry eyes. I
know her.

She was wearing blue jeans, a black shirt, and a pony tail like Gia.
Gia’s eyes went wide.

Jack said, “Oh, Gia, meet Susan. Susan, Gia Sorah.”

Gia said, “Uber … but, she left. How?”

Jack clicked his tongue. “She decided to come see what was going on at
exactly the wrong time.”

“Doesn’t make sense.” Gia shook her head. Her words began to rise in
volume. “She’s been in here the whole time? Where are you taking us?”

“I warned you, Gia.”

He pulled out a strip of tape and tore it off. She tried to turn her
head, but he grabbed her chin under her jaw and turned her head back forward.
She started gathering her saliva to spit on him, but then he slapped the tape
over her lips and smoothed it down on the sides.

Jack leaned in and kissed her over the strip of tape. He whispered. “I
really am more sorry about this than you could possibly know. If there was any
other way …”

Susan started grunting and struggling behind him.

Jack turned his head and growled. “Okay. That’s enough.”

He lifted up the bag and Gia started shaking her head and grunting “no”
behind the tape. He pulled the bag over her head and she smelled the stale odor
of piss all over again.

The van started, the radio blared country music, and they were rolling.
At first, she felt dirt road under the wheels and then pavement again.

Gia slumped to the side and rested her head on the rise for the wheel
well. The vibration blurred her view of the grid pattern in the light from the
windshield through the material of the bag. It drowned out the terrible music.
Every bump sent a shot through her skull and a pounding headache returned.

Susan was here because of Gia. That meant no one was going to track Susan
down to find out what happened to Gia. Maybe Susan had people in her life that
loved her and would look for her. Maybe they would find Gia by accident that
way.

Tears stung her eyes as she let her head be bumped against the metal well
with each imperfection in the road. She stayed slumped against the metal over
the wheel and waited for her consciousness to push away from her body again.

***

Here’s How It Works

He stopped for gas four times and twice to pee on the side of the road.
Each time he stopped for gas, he lifted up the bag enough to show her mouth. He
pulled back the tape and gave her a few swallows of water. He wiped her mouth
with his sleeve and re-taped her lips before pulling the bag back down. She had
to wet herself again having no way of telling him that she needed to go and
knowing he probably didn’t care. She was starving, but was afraid to eat
knowing that Jack had no intention of giving her bathroom breaks.

She awoke to him pulling her legs out sliding her away from the wall of
the van. She felt the knife go up through the tape with one rough cut. He pulled
the tape away from her skin on her ankles and she groaned behind the tape over
her mouth at the raw pain on her skin.

He pulled her up and forward by her shoulder where he unhooked the clip
from her tapped wrists. She heard the metal bang against the side of the van as
he let it go.

Jack took hold of her armpit and hauled her up to her feet. She wanted to
ask where they were going and what he was going to do to her, but her mouth was
still taped inside the bag over her head.

Her legs refused the support her weight and folded out from under her. Her
knees thumped against the floor of the van.

“Stand up, Gia. Damn.”

She tried to grunt a response, but wasn’t sure he understood that she had
been taped down for two solid days.

He pulled her up again and she fought to move her legs to walk. She made a
couple of steps, but as soon as he relaxed his support, she fell to her side
with a thud that drove the wind out of her. Gia heaved for air through her
nostrils.

Jack said, “I’m not carrying you. You two can either walk or get
dragged.”

Gia thought about Susan again and wondered if she were being pulled along
too.

Jack open the back doors and Gia heard crickets that sounded insanely
loud to her in one continuous warble of noise. She did not realize how long it
had been since she had really heard crickets from living in Los Angeles.

Jack took hold of her arm and pulled her along the floor of the van and
over the bumper onto the dirt road outside where she landed hard. She skinned
her elbow on the landing and one of her knees even through her jeans.

“Stand up and walk, Gia.”

She pulled her legs up feeling the pain build in the small of her back. A
cramp grew in one of her hips and traveled down her leg. She tried to push up
with one of her elbows with her arms taped behind her back, but failed.

Jack pulled her up to her feet again and she managed to keep her legs
under her this time. He pulled her along and she walked blindly with him. He
slammed the van doors as they passed.

Her legs were numb and her feet tingled with painful needles of returning
circulation. She couldn’t feel much of anything below the waist other than the
pain in her feet, but she forced herself to keep walking.

Cold air attacked her skin that was still damp from a mix of sweat and
partially dried urine. She shivered adding to the pain of her stressed muscles
that were screaming out from the effects of her confinement.

***