Beads of sweat fall into my eyes. I wipe them away with an even sweatier palm. My limbs shake as I lift my knees as high as I can, navigating my way over the tangled vines. I stumble a few times, scraping my hands on short spikey thorns.

I cannot fail.

I will not fail.

I step over the downed sign for Broward County Correctional Facility where the ground is smooth. My breaths are labored. My chest burns.

I make a beeline for the house, running and tripping over a hose. I growl at my own clumsiness and leap up the rickety porch steps.

I hear something inside and I hold in a scream of relief.

Footsteps!

I bang on the door loudly and wildly, checking over my shoulder every few seconds. “Come on. Come on. Open the door,” I chant to myself, shaking out my hands and jumping from foot to foot.

“What’s the trouble, my dear?” A woman comes to the door, wiping her hands on her apron. She’s older, maybe in her late seventies or early eighties. I’m just about to tell her everything when I stop.

If I tell her too much or the wrong thing, I could be putting her life in danger too.

Shit.

“Uhhh…no troubles exactly. I’m just lost and a little winded from walking over all the twisted weeds,” I tell her. “I’m staying with my…boyfriend in a cottage around here, but I went for a walk, and now I can’t find my way back.”

“Oh my. Well, come on in, dear. I’m Zelda, it’s very nice to meet you.” She stands aside to usher me in.

“Thank you,” I say, entering the house. It’s just as small as the warden’s house, but it’s much cozier. Everything is yellow. Curtains, wallpaper, placemats on the table. Every wall has a high plant shelf running across the length of that wall and connecting to the next. Except there aren’t plants on the shelves, instead they’re lined with wooden statues. Mostly of animals, and most of those animals are some variation of dog. Some are crude little things that look as if a child made them with a dull knife and some are so smooth it’s obvious they were sculpted by the hand of a skilled artist.

“Lovely, aren’t they?” Zelda asks pointing up to the wooden statues on the shelves.

“Yes, very,” I respond.

“Are you staying at the warden’s cottage?” she asks, taking me off guard.

I don’t want to lie and the truth might get her in trouble so I do what I think is the next best thing. “Is that what it’s called?”

“It’s the only house around here besides this one. No one’s been there in quite a bit.” Zelda says, shuffling her feet into the kitchen.

“We’re just visiting. We won’t be staying long,” I explain. I’m trying not to jump to my point and worry her. It takes every ounce of restraint I have not to ransack the house in search of a computer.

“Have a seat, my dear.” Zelda points to a yellow chair at an equally yellow kitchen. “Do you need to use the phone?” she asks.

“I’d actually like to use your computer if you have one. I dropped my phone and don’t have my boyfriend’s number memorized so I’d like to send him a message online that I’m alright before I try and head back.” I glance out the corner of my eye toward the window. A chill runs up my spine, and it’s as if I can feel his anger from across the field.

I don’t have much time.

Zelda nods. “Would you like some tea?”

“Sure, I’d love some.” I twiddle my thumbs on my lap and tap the toe of my shoe against the table leg.

Zelda puts an old yellow kettle on the burner. “I got one of them fancy lap-stops,” she says, speaking slower and slower as the moments pass. “Friend of mine gave it to me for Christmas. He set up the internets and all, but I have no idea how to use it. Grandkids use the WeeFee when they visit, but they bring their own lap-stops. Let me just go fetch it for you.”

Zelda pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and slowly shuffles from the kitchen. When she comes back, she’s holding a laptop, but it’s at least four inches thick and dark blue in color.

It wasn’t a laptop, it was the first laptop.

“You got this for Christmas, you said?” I open the ancient computer praying to every god I can think of that the internet connections works. My fingers fly over the keyboard. I ask Zelda for a password, but only to be polite. I’ve already hacked the connection.

I’m on.

“Password is Christmas1993.” Zelda says proudly, setting a cup of tea next to me.

“Is that the year you got the computer?” I ask.

“Yup! That’s the one!” she holds up her own teacup and takes a sip.

“Thank you so much,” I say, taking a quick sip. I set the teacup down and go back to the computer.

“You’re awfully banged up. You get in a fight with some livestock and lose?”

“Oh, this,” I say, touching my fingers to the corner of my lip. I forgot about my bruises and scabs. “Car accident.”

Zelda twists her lips. She’s not buying it.

“With a truck,” I add. “I uh. I mean, a truck hit my car.” Shit.

Zelda nods, but I can tell she’s not sold on the story, and I don’t blame her.

I wouldn’t believe me either.

I’m in the deep web. Here, I’m not a clumsy young woman who’s never experienced even a fraction of what life has to offer. No, here I’m at home. I’m comfortable navigating barriers and obstacles put in place to keep people like me out with practiced ease.

I could use my time to put out an SOS call instead of locating the file that needs to be transferred, but I decide not to. Not just because I can’t spare the time, but because I can’t put Zelda at risk. Lord knows what he’d do to her if he thought she aided my escape in some way.

After a long series of replacing bank code with my own, the money is there and the transfer is finally happening.

It’s sloppy and not my best work, there are some other channels I would’ve liked to delete along the way, some ends I would’ve liked to tie up to cover my tracks, but there’s no time for painting scenery today. This is abstract art. A few splashes on paint on the canvas, and I’m done. I’m so tempted to send an SOS message. It would only take a few minutes more. I look to Zelda.

There just isn’t enough time, and it’s too much of a risk.

I sigh in both relief and disappointment, then wipe Zelda’s computer, making sure any trace I was ever here is erased from the memory before shutting it down and sliding it across the table.

“Thank you,” I tell her, picking up my cup and taking another sip of tea.

Zelda stands and moves into the kitchen. She opens the fridge and takes out a large block of cheese. She opens a drawer and pulls out a huge kitchen knife. She flashes me a slow grin, the sun catches on the blade. My heart skips a beat, and slowly, I put down my teacup, realizing that this woman might not be the friendly home-making granny she first appeared to be.

I swallow hard.

Zelda brings the knife down hard into the block of cheese. She whistles as she cuts it into cubes.

She’s just an old lady trying to be hospitable, Frankie.

I inwardly laugh at myself. My paranoia is still around. The thought is weirdly comforting. Paranoia is normal for me, and right now I’ll take any taste of normal I can get.

I slide out my chair. “Thank you again, but I really can’t stay—”

“Frankie,” a familiar and very angry voice grumbles from behind. The barrel of his gun jabs at the base of my neck.

I freeze. The nerves in my spine jump. My chest tightens. He might as well be strangling me because I can’t catch my breath, but even with a gun to my back I can’t help but feel relieved and even…a bit smug.

“What did you DO?” he asks through clenched teeth.

Zelda turns around with the plate. She sees Smoke standing behind me, and much to my surprise, she isn’t startled.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she says to him. She turns to me. “This the truck?”

“Zelda this is…” I go to make the introduction, to show Smoke I haven’t told this nice woman anything that would warrant any harm coming to her, but Zelda laughs, cutting me off.

“I know who he is, dear.” Zelda rounds the table and Smoke bends down so she can plant a kiss on his cheek. “I wasn’t expecting you, or I’d have set out the good china,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

“You of all people know I’m a paper plate kind of guy.” He’s cocky with her. Calm.

Who the hell was this man, and what did he do with the guy who threatened to cut off all my limbs while I watched?

Zelda’s gaze drops to the gun. She holds out her hand. “You know the rules,” she says sternly, and for the first time, I hear the slight trace of a Scottish accent in her voice.

Smoke leaves her hand empty but tucks the gun in his waistband. “Gotta break house rules this one time.” He glares down at me. “Can’t exactly trust this one.”

“She don’t seem so bad to me. We were just having some tea. She giving you trouble?”

“Something like that,” Smoke replies.

Zelda leans on the table and winks at me. “Give him hell, lass.” She pinches my cheek and smiles then turns back to Smoke, pointing at his gun. “A Glock17, Smoke? Thought you were a Beretta man?”

“People change,” he answers, still looking at me.

“You don’t change,” she laughs, swatting at him with a dishtowel.

“What alternate universe did I just fall into?” I ask, looking from Smoke to Zelda in a daze.

They both ignore me.

“Let me get another cup for tea out of the china cabinet in the den. I’ll just be a minute,” Zelda says.

“Make my tea a whiskey,” Smoke says, taking a seat beside me. He lights a cigarette and turns to face me, his long legs spread, his knee knocking into my thigh.

“Did I say china cabinet? I meant liquor cabinet.” Zelda shuffles from the kitchen.

We’re alone. Suddenly, I’m not feeling so brave about my big, albeit temporary, escape.

Plus, Smoke’s…calm.

Too calm.

“What did you DO, hellion?” Smoke taps the closed laptop with his index finger.

I shake my head. “Nothing. I really didn’t do anything. Didn’t get a chance to. Open it. Check for yourself.”

He’s not buying it. He opens the laptop and types in Zelda’s password. Christmas 1993.

“How do you know her password?” I ask.

“Who do you think bought me the computer?” Zelda sings, coming back into the room with a bottle of Jack Daniels on a silver tray with a doily underneath.

She sets in on the table and opens the bottle. “I’d get you a glass, but I know how you are,” she says.

Smoke grabs the bottle by the neck and tilts it to his lips, looking at me as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down with each swallow.

He somehow manages to make drinking whiskey straight from the bottle look graceful. Grace and violence. What an oddly beautiful yet horrendous combination.

Smoke sets the whiskey on the tray and turns his attentions back to the computer.

Something about the way his nostrils flare, how he gets so heated at the littlest thing, makes my blood boil while simultaneously making me afraid. There’s more to this man than kidnapper/killer extraordinaire. If I didn’t hate him so much, I might be curious to find out more about him.

“This is bullshit,” Smoke mutters, slamming the laptop shut. “You’re lying.”

“Language,” Zelda corrects, setting the cheese plate on the table along with a box of cookies. The fancy ones with cupcake papers delicately cradling each different kind.

“What did she do?” Smoke asks Zelda.

Zelda shrugs and pops a cheese cube in her mouth, talking around it. “Nothing much. She told me she was lost and staying with her boyfriend. She needed to use the computer. She didn’t do nothing. I was watching the entire time. She looked at the screen, then told me she changed her mind and shut the thing down. We’re just having ourselves a little visit,” Zelda says. “But if you want me to check the back way I can. Just to make sure she didn’t bypass…standard methods.” She looks to me and smiles, showing off the many fine lines around her mouth.

I was right. Zelda isn’t some old woman who doesn’t know shit about shit.

This is a woman who knows everything.

She knows what I did, and she just lied to Smoke for me.

But why?

“Why didn’t you ask to use the phone?” he asks skeptically.

“Stop houndin’ her, you brute. She didn’t want to get who she saw as an innocent mixed up in your affairs. She’s a smart one. A kind one to boot. A good combination, if you ask me.”

Zelda pushes a lock of curly red hair back up into the handkerchief tied around her head and takes the bottle of whiskey off the table. She chugs down twice as much as Smoke did before setting it back down on the table and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

I smile at her because I can’t help it.

She’s fucking glorious.

Smoke lifts me out of the chair by my arm and tugs me toward the door. “Unfortunately, we can’t stay,” he grates.

“Understood,” Zelda says, without breaking her big smile. She stands and follows us out.

“Just remember, boy,” she wraps her wrinkled hand around Smoke’s bicep. “The best jobs are the ones you don’t ask for. The ones you don’t get paid for. The ones you learn something from.”

Zelda leans in and whispers in my ear. “Stay strong, lass. When he gives you hell, show ‘em your horns.”

“Thank you,” I say to her, returning her smile and putting on my bravest face. I just met her but I don’t want her to worry about me, and something in her eyes tells me she would do just that.

Zelda speaks in riddles. She also likes to feed people. She knows her guns. She lied for me. She’s a friend of Smoke’s.

Despite the last item, I decide I like Zelda.

I like her VERY much.

Smoke drags me over the weeds and brush by my arm. I feel the anger wafting off him. Despite this, I wave and call back to Zelda, “Thank you for the tea!”

When Zelda is back inside the house and out of earshot, Smoke grunts, “That was a stupid fucking move.”

“I know.” This time, I agree with him. It WAS stupid. But I don’t regret it. Not for a second.

“I don’t know what you’re fucking playing at, but you need to stop before you get yourself or someone else killed,” he growls.

“Before I get myself killed?” I raise my voice. “I’m dead in less than a week. You know it. I know it. My father isn’t coming for me. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter what I do. I’m dead anyway!”

I turn and run through the field back toward the warden’s house, but I’m no match for Smoke’s long legs.

He connects with my back, tackling me. The air goes whooshing out from my lungs as I fall face first into a mud puddle. Mud fills my nose. My mouth. My eyes. My throat.

I’m pulled up by my hair. I spit and cough brown sludge until it’s no longer standing in the way of breathing. I wipe my eyes with my forearm since my hands are covered in mud.

Smoke stands and yanks me up with him. He bends at the waist, his arm at the back of my knees like he’s going to lift me into his arms.

I punch at his chest. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Desperation and terror along with frustration fill my raspy scream.

“What did I tell you?” Smoke digs his fingers into my skin. “You’re mine to do with as I please. If I want to touch you I’ll god damned touch you.”

He grunts, picks me up, and carries me into the house, not stopping until we’re through the bedroom and in the bathroom. He sets me on my feet and holds me with one arm while he turns on the shower. He doesn’t wait for the water to run warm, tugging me under the cold spray while still fully clothed.

I shriek. My teeth chatter.

“Take off your clothes,” he demands.

Freezing under the spray, it takes a few beats for me to gather my nerve again, but when I do, I look up at him with all the contempt I can muster.

“No,” I say, shivering under the cold water. It eventually turns warm, but my shivering doesn’t stop. Just because I’m oppositional doesn’t mean I’m not fearful, and there’s nothing about Smoke’s hard glare telling me otherwise.

“Why don’t you just fucking listen?” Smoke seethes.

I roll my eyes. “Haven’t you figured that out by now? That’s not who I am. Not now. Not. EVER.” I stare straight into his dark villainous eyes.

He growls and lunges for me. I leap back, but there’s nowhere to go. I’m trapped between him and the shower wall. He steps behind me, tearing my clothes from my body until I’m completely naked, wearing nothing but mud and my insolence.

“Stop! No! Don’t!” I scream.

The water’s now steaming hot. He holds my naked body against him. I struggle and flail until the stinging heat of the water is all I feel. Against my will my aching bones and muscles sag in relief. I moan without thinking.

I let my forehead fall to the tile on the wall in front of me, the steaming water washing away the mud and grime, soaking into my sore muscles and warming my bones. I dig my nails into the grout and wish I could claw my way through this shower and out of this hole I’ve dug myself into.

I’m naked in front of this strange man for the second time, but I see it as more than just exposed skin. I feel vulnerable. Shaken.

Exposed inside and out.

“These few days? The rest of this week?” I start, without looking over my shoulder. “According to you and this Griff person it’s all the time I have left on this earth. I won’t run away again. Just…just don’t keep me cuffed to the bed or locked in a room.” It was an honesty he didn’t deserve, but with few options left, I have no other choice. “I could have called for help today, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

Smoke releases me and I hear the slap of his wet clothes against the tile as he undresses. “I don’t think you’ll do this because you know her, but I have to say it. Just in case. Please don’t hurt Zelda. I swear she doesn’t know anything. I didn’t tell her anything. She doesn’t deserve to get hurt or die because of me.”

I wait for Smoke to answer. When he doesn’t and I no longer hear him rustling around, I assume he’s left until I feel him. His skin against mine.

His naked skin.

“You are concerned that I’ll hurt Zelda? A complete stranger to you?” Smoke asks, sounding perplexed. He reaches over my head and I flinch, relaxing again slightly when I realize he’s only reaching for the soap. “Why would you care?”

I tell him the truth. “Because, I can’t NOT care.”

Smoke pulls the soap out of the dish slowly then rubs the bar down my back and thighs. I push my body against the tile to put as much distance between us as possible, but he grunts and pulls me off the wall. He drags the bar of soap back up, sliding it across my wet ass cheek. The shower begins to smell like him. Like Irish soap. Clean and fresh.

The opposite of how I feel.

Dirty. Used. Trapped.

I’m still shivering, even under the scorching heat of the water.

“I’m not going to hurt Zelda,” Smoke says, taking me by surprise. “I wouldn’t.”

“But you’d hurt me?” I ask.

“That’s different,” he argues.

“How—”

“Enough!” he barks.

Smoke leans forward again to place the soap back on the dish mounted to the wall. His nose at my neck, his chest against my back. His entire body pressed against mine. He’s hard.

Everywhere.

I gasp and shut my eyes like I can make this all go away if I concentrate hard enough.

“You WILL be punished for that shit you just pulled, hellion.” Smoke says, rocking his hips so that his erection slides against my soapy ass. He feels warm. Like soft silk wrapped around hard steel as he drags his erection over my skin again and again.

I can barely hold myself up.

“Fuck you,” I seethe. I’m talking half to Smoke and half to my body who’s betraying me. My nipples are hard pebbles. I’m achingly wet between my thighs. It only infuriates me more.

“Is that what you want for your punishment, hellion? For me to fuck you?”

“No…no,” I stutter, but his words send a new kind of chill sputtering through me.

My clit throbs. I can’t think straight while he’s so close.

I don’t want this. I don’t want him.

“Liar,” Smoke accuses, brushing my long hair off my back and pressing his lips to the back of my neck. “I can smell how turned on you are.” His hand snakes around my waist, trailing down my flat stomach until they’re splayed across the crest of my thighs. “Almost as well as I can smell your fear.” He squeezes my flesh between his fingers. Hard. “I can’t decide which turns me on more.”

I freeze, my blood turns to ice.

“I…I…” I stutter. “You said you didn’t want me,” I say, recalling his words from the first night we slept in the same bed.

“I said no fucking thing. But even if I did. Don’t you know by now?” He breathes. “I’m a liar. Just. Like. You.” He licks the skin at the back of my neck, traveling up to my ear.

Desire pools low in my stomach. Fighting the feeling is as impossible as fighting off Smoke and winning.

I open my mouth and close my eyes in a silent moan, suppressing the need to rock back into him with all that I have.

“Are you trying to scare me?” I grate.

“Why?” he asks, nipping at my earlobe, dragging his teeth along the edge. “Are you afraid, hellion? Afraid of what I might do to you? Or afraid you might love it? Scream my name? Beg me for more?”

Yes.

“No,” I lie, staring at the tile in front of me. “You’re just toying with me. Trying to scare me. You just said that you’re a liar. This is a lie. A trick to screw with my head.”

“Does this feel like a lie to you?” He presses against me again, letting me feel every inch of his thick rigidness as it slides against my ass crack. The tip of his erection grazes my bare pussy, and the sensation that follows is nothing like I’ve ever felt before. A type of warm electric current.

My lower stomach contracts. My inner walls squeeze onto something that isn’t there.

No, no it does not feel like a lie. It feels like desire and confusion and lust. It feels like being out of control and adventure and possibilities, and I want it. I want him.

And I hate myself for it.

“All these bruises and marks,” he muses. “And none of them caused by me.” He trails a hand up my arms and down my flat stomach. “Pity, but I still have time to leave my mark on you yet.”

My entire body stiffens. I’m as rigid as a corpse.

Smoke chuckles against me, and I’m glad I’m facing away because his laugh is pure torture, causing his erection to vibrate against my folds which are aching for more contact.

“You will be punished, hellion. You can be sure of that.”

I look over my shoulder and meet his dark eyes which darken even further as his pupils dilate. His lingering gaze rakes me over from my feet to my breasts and back down to the space between my thighs. He licks his full bottom lip.

My stomach flips. My will to fight him off doesn’t waiver, but my body isn’t getting the message. My core clenches again. I turn back around to face the tile, digging my teeth into my lower lip until I taste my own blood.

His chest presses against my back, and his hardness pulses between my legs, rubbing against my inner thighs. He squirts some shampoo in his hand, working it into my hair. He tilts my head back and rinses my hair, then slides his slick and soapy hand down my body.

I’m breathing rapidly now. Short, quick breaths I can’t control. There’s a deep rumble in his throat. His hand travels lower and lower on my stomach until it’s between my legs, and he’s working his thumb over my swollen nub, sending sparks of need, pangs of pleasure, and a wave of self-hatred, surging within my battered body and bruised soul.

“What…what are you doing?” I ask, seeing flashes of white hot lust behind my closed eyes.

“More questions…” his voice a hearty amused rasp. His fingers circle my clit while he continues to rock his hard cock between my legs. The pressure building is so strong it borders on painful.

Tears leak from my eyes. I’m so fucking mad at myself for being turned on. For Smoke being right. I’m so wet. He feels it. There’s no way he can’t feel it.

He leans in close. I’m stone still except for the tremors gripping my body. He licks the tear off my cheek and groans. He dips the tip of his finger inside of me, and I tighten around the intrusion. It’s a foreign sensation. Strange. It feels both wrong and right. Pleasurable and painful. “Your tight little pussy is weeping too. I wonder if its tears taste the same.”

I look over my shoulder as he withdraws his finger and sucks it into his mouth. He groans. “Fear or desire. They both taste real fuckin’ good to me.”

He places his hand back between my legs. When I try to squeeze my thighs together to keep him out, he parts them with his knee on a grunt and begins circling my clit again. This time harder. Faster.

I’m staying as still as I can, but when I feel something begin to happen inside my body. The sparks he ignited within me all crashing together. I can’t hold back. My face scrunches as I try to fight the orgasm fighting its way out, but it’s no use. I can’t fight it. It’s too fucking strong. I’m so fucking close.

I arch my back without thinking, pressing my ass against him, begging for more. For what I need to push me over the edge.

Smoke hisses. “Oh, what I could do to this beautiful little pussy.”

The pleasure builds and builds as he strokes me harder. Faster. I’m about to come all over his fingers when the feeling is lost.

I spin around.

Smoke is gone.

I can’t see through the steam so I shut off the spray and wipe the water from my eyes only to see Smoke toweling off in front of the sink on the other side of the bathroom.

The only proof I have of what just happened between us was real is his cock. Erect. Thick. Huge. The purplish swollen head bobs against his abs, jutting out over the top of the towel he wraps around his waist.

“What…what just happened?” I stammer, leaning back against the wall for support.

Smoke steps forward, and when I go to jerk back, he reaches out and pinches my nipple painfully hard. I yelp and leap back, slipping on the tile, falling on my ass, taking the shower curtain down with me.

Smoke rips the curtain off my head and glares down at me with a triumphant grin on his evil beautiful face. “What just happened was called punishment and you got off easy. Next time, I’ll split that tight pussy in two with my fucking cock.”

He goes to leave but stops. “You want pain?” he asks. “I’ll give it to you. You want pleasure? Now, that’s something you’re gonna have to earn.”

He leaves, slamming the door behind him.

I release a shaky exhale.

I’d hoped the rest of my time with Smoke would be tolerable, but there’s no fucking way that’s going to happen. Not now. Not with my skin crawling with need. I’m losing my mind. About where I am. About what this is all about. About this beautiful horrible evil man.

I feel like I’ve already been split in two.

What Smoke did to me was far more than a punishment.

It was pure fucking torture.