already turned a light shade of purple from the bruises I could feel developing.
After bending over to pick up my clothes, he helped me into them and took off his shirt to slip it over my head. I looked up at him in surprise.
“You’re turning red. Figured you needed it more than me for the trip back to the truck.”
The walk was silent, not a word spoken between us. The only sound that could be heard was our steps pounding against the sand beneath us. The soles of my bare feet hurt, but I bit my lip, forcing myself to continue forward despite the searing pain.
When the truck finally came into view, JD’s hand wrapped tightly around my arm, making sure I couldn’t bolt again.
“Did you really think I would give you something to hit me?”
I was as confused by the question as I was shocked to suddenly hear his voice. “What?”
“You told me to let you go and let you hit me with something to make it look believable. Did you really think I would do something so stupid?”
We looked at each other and I noticed how the corner of his lip quirked, the tiny expression odd against the anger I could still see in his eyes.
“Yes, I was serious. I wouldn’t bash your head in or anything. Just break the skin so you bled a lot.”
He chuckled softly, his shoulders vibrating with his mirth. “Yeah, okay Munch.”
Finally reaching the truck, I could hear how the engine was working hard from having been left running in the heat. JD quickly released my arm to grab me around the waist and lift me up onto the seat, my legs left hanging outside of the truck. Pushing his torso between them, he looked up at me with a serious expression plastered to his face.
“I want you to live through this, Holly. I know there’s a tough bitch hidden in there and the only instinct you have is to fight, but you need to let that go for now and depend on your instinct to survive. These guys won’t play around with you like I have. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don’t think there is anything you can do to hide from it or outrun it. I wish I could take you to Washington myself, just to watch over you, but that’s not my choice. You and I both know how Gunner is and I promise you that Diablo is ten times worse. He doesn’t care and I think the drugs mixed with the desert sun have boiled his fucking brain. You don’t want to end up on his bad side. So I’m begging you, please just stay quiet while you’re there. In fact, stay quiet until you’ve been released. It’s the only way you’re going to walk away from this in one piece.”
There was terror in his voice, a slight reverberation of fear that gave away everything he was feeling as he spoke. All the anger and resentment I’d held up until then melted away into my own fear. The adrenaline that came with fighting back dissipating to a point where I felt drained and washed up.
“Do you hear me, beautiful?”
I looked away from his eyes, not able to handle the sincerity of his words. His speech wasn’t intended to be a lie to gain my compliance. It’d been truth spoken in an attempt to save my life. Dread was a heavy emotion that we shared and I fell into him, lying my head on his shoulder, my bound arms pulled tight against my body beneath his shirt. His large arms reached around, pulling me closer into him. I felt stupid crying on the man’s shoulder, but I was out of steam. The closer we got to the hand off, the more ‘real’ the situation became. It left me confused and disoriented, alone in a place much worse than the one in which I’d been raised. These men weren’t my father’s brothers. They were strangers who cared about me about as much as they would care about a roach they crushed under their boot.
His head turned slightly, the warmth of his breath running over my face. He smelled earthy and his body was hot against my skin.
“I’m sorry I can’t let you go, but you’re a smart girl and I know that if you play this right, you’ll get
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