It wasn’t a dream. I realize this with a fuzzy sense of panic as my hearing comes back on line like a flickering fluorescent bulb.  I recognize the voices I’m hearing.  They’re the same two I heard earlier.  How much earlier, I don’t know.  Time has slipped away from me altogether.

“She’s waking up again,” I hear one say.  “Give her some more.”

I try to shake my head and tell them not to, but the slightest movement sends a sharp pain lancing through my skull and saliva gushing into my mouth.  I hear a moaning sound and realize it’s me.  That must be what the “no” that’s in my head sounds like out in the open air.

“Hurry before that bitch starts screaming again.”

I try again to dissuade them, but I only hear a garbled gurgling noise.

My head spins and dips, even though my eyes are closed.  The slow squish of blood through my veins sounds like a tired river inside my skull.  I try again to speak.  “Nooooo morrrrrrre.” The words are drawn out around a protracted moan.

What’s wrong with me?

“Pour some more on the cloth and hold it longer.  Maybe you’re not giving her enough.”

I whimper. I can’t help it. I know instinctively that they shouldn’t give me more. I feel like I’m barely hanging on as it is.

“Too much,” I slur.

One lowers his voice, but I can still hear him.  “Is she supposed to sound like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t think that elbow to the head did something to her, do you?”

Elbow to the head?

Fear brings just enough adrenaline with it to clear my head of the fog that muddles it.  At least a little.

I think back to the parking lot at school.  I remember rolling down my window. I remember the cloth over my face.  But then there’s a blank until I was being carried.  Disjointed images from the underside of a bridge flash through my mind and I remember waking up as the two guys were transferring me into another vehicle.  I remember kicking and screaming, clawing and biting until the one holding my upper body dropped me.  I screamed and kicked harder with my feet until something dense and heavy hit me upside the head.  And then there’s nothing again until I woke up tied to a bed in an otherwise empty room.  I raised my head and started to look around just as the same young guy lunged at me with a rag in his hand.  He smothered my face with it until blackness swallowed me again.

That’s the last thing I remember until now.

“We’re not supposed to kill her yet.  Maybe just give her a little bit more, in case we need to wake her up and let someone talk to her or whatever.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

I feel tears running down my cheeks, but it’s an oddly detached sensation, like I’m feeling the warm streaks through a layer of fabric stretched over my skin.  I try to open my eyes to see what’s going on, but they won’t cooperate.  It’s a struggle just to draw one breath after another.  My chest feels so heavy, the urge to sleep so very strong.

The strength to fight eludes me when I feel the rag come across my face. I try to turn my head away, but the hand is persistent and I’m too weak.  Vaguely, like smoke drifting through a room, it occurs to me that they might be giving me enough of whatever they’re using to cause permanent brain damage.  I think of Dad and how heartbroken he’ll be.  I think of Mom and how smug she’ll be.  But most of all, I think of Cash. Of what his lips feel like, what his smile looks like.  Of all the things I didn’t say, of all the things I’ll never get the chance to say now.  Of how cowardly I was about telling him I love him.  More tears course down my cheeks, fading, fading, fading until I feel them no more.

And then all thought is gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Cash

I know that, on top of the twenty or so traffic laws I’ve broken, I’ve also just been plain dumb.  I don’t think I’ve ever made it across Atlanta faster, and during a busy time of the day, too.  Weaving in and out of the flow, taking to the shoulder and emergency lane dozens of times to get around clogged spots, squeezing between cars to get through a slow place—none of it has been advisable.  Getting myself killed trying to get to Olivia won’t do anybody any good.  But still… that doesn’t seem to matter.  All I can think of is what they might to do her, what they might’ve already done to her.

I grit my teeth against the rage that floods my blood stream.  If they’ve laid a hand on her…  If they’ve harmed so much as one hair on her beautiful head…  God forbid, if they’ve done things to her…

Just the thought of the twisted things men like this do to women makes me feel both sick and furious.  I comfort myself with the thought that they haven’t had her very long.  By the time I get there, it should be a couple of hours at the most.  But to Olivia, the captive, that could feel like a lifetime.

And it’s all your fault for dragging her into your mess to begin with.

I twist the handlebar and throttle up even more, as though it’s possible to outrun my mistakes if I drive fast enough. It’s not, of course.  There’s nothing I can do to reverse the damage.  My only hope now is to fix it for the future. To make it so that she’s never in danger again.  Even if it means becoming a criminal to do it.

It goes against everything I am now, everything I believe in to turn in that direction.  But I can say that I have a better understanding of my father’s motives now.  Everything he did, he did for us.  Even if it was incredibly stupid.  I guess it’s just a matter of finding something or someone worth going to such extremes for.

Like Olivia.

Again, like a nightmare you can’t forget even after your eyes are open, I picture her screaming as faceless men torture her, tear at her clothes, touch her with their grimy hands.  That’s when all my convictions go straight out the window.  I would have no problem whatsoever taking the life of someone who would hurt her.  None.  I might live to regret it, but if it meant keeping her safe, my regret would only extend so far.

The pit of my stomach churns with anger.  My teeth grind with rage.  My jaw aches from being clenched so tightly.  Fury, like an uncontrollable animal, claws at the inside of my chest, desperate to get out and take its revenge.

Cranking the throttle even higher, I speed toward Olivia.

The rest of the short drive goes by in a blur of violent thoughts and horrific imaginations.  By the time I drive past the street Gavin specified, I feel like I might explode if I don’t get my hands on someone, someone to pound my fists into until they’re lifeless beneath me.

Parking my bike behind a red minivan, I walk casually down the street until I get back to the intersection just beyond where they’re holding Olivia.  I stop at the stop sign and look both ways, taking in as much detail as I can without seeming suspicious.

The street looks innocent enough.  It’s a lower-income neighborhood.  That much is obvious by the size and simplicity of the houses.  Two fairly neat rows of small, square, shutter-less brick homes line the street.  The lawns are neat, but functionally so.  There’s no fancy landscaping here.  There are a few bikes on a few walkways, but I don’t see any elaborate outdoor equipment in any of the backyards.