Page 4 of Mistaken
It was clear that the driver did not have my comfort in mind when they took another sharp turn, rolling me right over something that felt like a crowbar and into the trunk latch.
Trunk latch…I was almost sure it was a latch to the trunk because it was a sharp metal piece digging into my ribs. Of course, the roofie or whatever poison that Russian had dosed me with was still making forming a coherent thought difficult, but I was pretty sure. Cursing under my breath, my hands pushed against the surface of the trunk, trying to squirm into a position where I could maybe open the latch.
“Wh- what did they say in the “Y” safety class?”
The heel of my hand slammed down on the latch as I stifled a shriek, feeling the shock reverberate up to my elbow. “Was it push the tail lights out and wave your hand through the opening?” The image of a wildly flapping hand at a stop sign made me choke out a hysterical laugh, but it reminded me that the car had not stopped once since I’d regained consciousness. Which meant… I was not in Manhattan anymore.
I abandoned the latch to desperately hit the tail light, trying to get a look at wherever the hell this car was speeding through. Ignoring the cut on the heel of my hand as the red plastic finally broke loose, I wedged my face against the opening.
“How long was I out?” I wheezed, “What.. am I in Nova Scotia or something? Keep it together!” I didn’t have the luxury of freaking out again. “Be rational, just…”
There was forest as far as I could see, stately pines lining the road and turning into an impenetrable mass past the car’s headlights. Hands fumbling back at the trunk latch, I took advantage of the dim light coming in from outside, shoving at it as hard as I could.
“You evil son of a bitch! Screw you and screw your stupid club!” So much for staying calm, but my rage gave me strength, and the latch cleared the locking mechanism. Holding on to the trunk to keep it from flying open, I shivered as the frigid night air slipped in like searching fingers. “I just need this guy to turn a corner or get off an exit…” On the bright side, the chilly breeze was helping me wake up, bolstered by my fury. “Is this some messed-up grand opening special? A little, ‘Welcome to my stupid nightclub’ by way of a dose of Ketamine?”
The chance to escape finally came as the car slowed, making a turn onto a dirt road. “Okay, okay,” I coached myself, “you got this.” Perching on the lip of the trunk, I gritted my teeth and rolled out.
Any thought I’d had about rolling gracefully free from the automotive clutches of that roofie-giving lunatic was squashed by my acutely painful thump onto the roadside. I kept rolling until I hit a ditch. Thank god, the car’s brake lights never flashed.
Scraping the gravel out of my palms, I turned in a circle, trying to figure out where I was. “Will they go after me if I head back, or if I keep going?” Looking up at the stars fading from the early morning sky, I really wished I’d paid more attention the last time a date took me to the Hayden Planetarium for a star show.
I didn’t know what was ahead of me, but back there is Manhattan. Somewhere. Or a police station. Or someone who will lend me their cell phone. Or a baseball bat. My Jimmy Choo’s heels had flown free some time during my ungraceful escape, so with a sigh, I headed back the way I came, barefoot.
It’s funny, after the acute terror dies down and you’re focused on the business of getting out of whatever mess you’ve gotten into? It’s really tedious.
“This suuuucks,” I was sort of singing my complaints in time to my steps, feet blistering and I was pretty sure I was going to lose the toenail on my left big toe. Cars had passed me a couple of times, but I’d jumped into the woods to hide. I had no idea if that sociopathic supermodel was looking for me yet, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Crap! What about Tania? She’d been dancing with that douchey Wall Street guy that Maksim said was a friend of his. Was she safe? Did they roofie her, too?
“No panicking,” I lectured myself, limping along. “Given that I woke up alone in the trunk of that car, I’m going to believe she went home with Mr. $2,000 Suit and she’s already kicked him out of the apartment so she wouldn’t have to make him breakfast.”
Unreasonably cheered by this, I forced myself to walk a little faster on the uncooperatively rocky asphalt. “How far is this? A couple of miles?” I ran six miles in Central Park nearly every day, but I’d been wearing shoes then and hadn’t thrown myself from a moving car. “I bet it’s about two miles.”
“Two point three miles.”
Nightclub owner and roofie expert Maksim Morozov stepped out from the shelter of the trees, all 6”6 of him, biceps bulging as he folded his arms. “Or, three point seven kilometers. Not bad on bare feet.” He was freshly showered, hair still wet, and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
I reeled backward. “Th- there’s no reason to count in kilometers unless we’re in Canada. Did you kidnap me to Canada? Oh, and nice shirt, there. So tight. Didn’t they have one in your size?”
He was on me in two strides of his stupidly long legs. “You just don’t know when it’s in your best interests to keep quiet, do you?” His massive shoulder dug into my stomach, breath huffing out on impact as he threw me over it and marched over to a jeep hidden in the trees. When I dragged back in enough air to scream and start kicking him, a hand the size of a dinner plate came down on my butt with a resounding ‘thwack!’ and hurt so much that it felt like my thigh was on fire. It hurt so much, in fact, that I didn’t even notice the sting in my other butt cheek until once again, the forest faded to black.
Maksim…
Two hours ago…
“What do you mean, you lost her?” I roared at the?????shaking in front of me.
“I- I don’t know, Pakhan, there was no disturbance from the trunk, I thought she was still out. But when I opened the lid, she was gone.”
I punched him in the face. “You’re lucky I’m not shooting you.” He was rolling on his back, groaning and cradling what was likely a broken jaw. As he was dragged out of the room, I turned to Grigoriy. “Your man is useless.”
Folding his arms over his chest, myBrigadierfrowned. “My apologies, we will find her and he will be demoted to cleaning the warehouse shit stalls.”
“Pull the traffic cameras from the club to here. She couldn’t have regained consciousness until very recently. Send up a drone along the route with a body heat sensor.”
Grigoriy nodded and left immediately as I threw the glass I’d been holding at the wall, enjoying the sound of the crystal shattering. She was not getting away from me again.
By the time I’d showered and had dinner, Grigoriy’s men had caught the image of Rachel rolling out of the trunk at the turn onto the road to my hunting lodge. The drone tracked her marching back down the highway, hiding when cars passed by. She was certainly a stealthy little thing. How she’d managed to steal my weapons inventory in her bodega’s basement was beginning to make more sense.
