The Wilde Expedition

10. stranger danger

Copyright © 2015. All Rights Reserved.

〮CHAPTER TEN 〮

It happened when Jonah checked his phone and reported that it was almost five. We'd been stuck in traffic the hour before, so the semi was constantly going and stopping, so I resorted to letting myself flop onto the ground so my head wouldn't bob so much. Ash and Jonah took it that I was still drugged and couldn't keep myself upright. So in the end, it was a good thing I fell over.

But that was an hour ago. They had become lax with the doses—I had thick bruises on my arms where they kept stabbing me with the syringe whenever they decided I was too lucid, which happened in half-hour intervals until now. The last time Ash came to check up on me, Jonah asked if I was going to be any trouble, and he replied that I was harmless. "She can go without one for a bit, at least until her arms heal," he'd said.

After being stuck in traffic, they moved the semi onto less-traveled roads. We cruised on for another half hour or so without any interruptions, just until it was almost five. Jonah and Ash grew pretty quiet, and I half thought they were fast asleep until the trailer jerked, and Jonah had to hold a hand on the wall to keep from tipping over. "What was that?" he demanded, to which Ash shrugged and made a move to get up, only to be knocked back down by the sputtering of the semi. The entire trailer shook as we were pulled onto the shoulder of the road—it was an abrupt stop from high speeds, so my back slammed against the wall of the trailer, and I grunted on impact.

We were stopping.

Upon hearing me, Ash turned to look at me, at which point it became clear that I couldn't wait for a gas station to save me.

I bolted upright and pulled on the zip-tie around my wrists as Ash leapt up and shouted, "Whoa, whoa, she's awake!" In one swift movement, I slammed the zip-tie on my knee, successfully snapping it open and freeing my wrists.

Jonah was the first one to reach me, and he would have slammed me straight into the wall had I not countered it by using his momentum against him. At the speed he was going, an elbow to the gut didn't feel real good, and he doubled over in pain when I then landed an uppercut to his lowered head. He staggered back, only to return full force with a monstrous growl that was hardly human. I shrieked and ducked, just in time to avoid his punch to the air.

His fist drove straight into the metal interior of the semi, and when he staggered, he tripped over my chains and fell hard on his side. "Fuck! You're gonna wish you hadn't done that, bitch!" he snarled at me.

I would have kicked him in the stomach had I not noticed that Ash, who hadn't advanced at all until now, came at me on quick feet, the syringe in his left hand. I took that as a blessing, because any punch he would have thrown with his left hand would have knocked me clean out. He wasn't exactly a lean fellow, either, and his heavy build gave me a slight advantage when it came to ducking and dodging his swipes at me.

I skidded a few feet away from him, as far as my chains would let me go without tripping me flat on my face. He stood away from me then, holding his hands up as if encountering a wounded doe. I wasn't interested in hearing anything he had to say, but he started anyway: "Look, Emma, I don't want to hurt you. Everything is going to be okay-"

"Don't you fucking do that," I sneered, drawing a crease across his forehead when I did so. "Try and stab me with that again, huh? We'll see what happens."

By that point, Jonah got back his footing again, and stormed up to Ash, prying the syringe out of his hand. "For fuck's sake, gimme that," he growled out, all but seething at the teeth. He was losing control of himself, and given the stupid mistakes he made in the first round, I couldn't imagine he'd act much better this time.