Chapter Eighteen
So Much for Plan C
Rowan
We crossed over the New York state line two and a half days after I’d been kidnapped. I knew this was where we were headed, but seeing the welcome sign in person really drilled it home. Conor was taking me back to where I’d started. The place I’d once loved more than anything in this world, but now couldn’t seem to get far enough away from. Only, I was no longer that naïve, stupid girl. My father made sure of this when he pimped me to Conor. Conor finished it off when he killed my best friend. How he’d found me was a mystery. No one knew Rowan Burns because Rowan Burns didn’t exist. Yet, here he was. The fact that he’d never stopped looking for me proved one thing, I was in trouble. I’d suspected that he was unstable, but little did I know how unstable. The man was certifiable. If he wasn’t yelling at me, he was preaching to me. When he wasn’t preaching, he was threatening. His anger was volatile and his moods were out of control. He was a needle wielding lunatic and I was the sole recipient of his attention. Lucky me.
The morning had started with Conor opening the motel room door and me running. I made it halfway across the parking lot before he took me down. I fought him hard, but it did no good. He was stronger, and I was definitely weaker than normal. The more sedative he shot into my veins, the weaker I’d become. Two days ago I would have easily made it to the main road, if not further. As darkness took me under, I whispered, “Never.” Only, this time I wasn’t sure I believed it. I was slowly beginning to lose faith.
I woke to the sound of my teeth chattering. Chills wracked my body to the point where I was afraid I was going to bite off my tongue. This was the fifth time I’d been jabbed with that damn needle. Clearly the drug was making me sick. My knees and elbows burned from road rash and my neck throbbed from being stuck over and over again. Dying wasn’t my end game, but this was where I was headed if I wasn’t careful. It was time to admit that my strategy was not working. After what seemed like forever, the tremors subsided enough for me to focus on the situation at hand, getting away from Conor. Clearly, I needed to change my tactics, but how? I was so deep in thought that I didn’t hear Conor ask a question. When he blew a fuse because he thought I was ignoring him, a light bulb went off in my head. I’d been going about this the wrong way. Instead of mouthing off and running away, maybe I should try something less physical and more mental, such as the silent treatment.
Two hours later, I was second guessing my brilliance. Conor disliked silence, but so did I. Silence put me in my head, and my head was all kinds of messed up at the moment. First of all, there was Conor. How did he find me? What were his plans? Sure, he said he wanted to keep me, but what exactly did that mean? Then there was Nash. Did he know I was gone? Did he care? What did he mean when he texted that he was sorry? Was he sorry for leaving me the way he did, or was he sorry for knowing me in the first place? Did he really regret our night together or was it just grief talking? Did he blame me for Maeve’s death? If so, he didn’t know me at all. I loved her like a mother. The last thought hurt the most. At least when I was busy annoying Conor, I wasn’t thinking about Nash. Speaking of Conor, I could feel his eyes boring holes through me. I refused to give him the satisfaction of looking at him.
Sometime during hour three Conor finally broke the silence. “I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”
I could tell by his frustrated tone that I was getting to him. I fought back a smirk of satisfaction. Don’t engage him, I thought as I stared blankly out the window.
“Did I tell you where we’re going?” I swallowed tightly and continued to stare out the window. “I’m taking you to my apartment for a few days and then we’re taking a trip. Do you want to know where?” I knew exactly where he was taking me, and there was no way in hell I was getting on that plane with him.
When Conor realized I wasn’t going to respond, he let out a sigh of frustration. “Be that way,” he growled. Then he flipped on the radio. Grant’s voice filled the car. Surprise, followed by unbearable pain ripped through me when I heard Nash singing in the background. I squinched my eyes closed and fought back the tears. Of all songs to be playing on the radio it would have to be one of Meltdown’s. “Fucking hell shit!” Conor cursed. He slammed his hand on the off button and the music instantly died. Once again we were ensconced in uncomfortable silence. A few minutes passed, before he came at me again. “He’s a low life degenerate, Gillian, who makes money off of playing a guitar and singing about meaningless shit. He’s a disloyal skirt chaser. You deserve better than that.” I ground my teeth together to keep from responding. “I can give you everything. I have money. I have status. I have a real man’s job. You want to know why? Because I am a real man. Not a pussy like Nash Bostwick. What kind of name is that anyway? Bostwick. Pffft. Pussy name.”
I lifted my gaze to his. “You know what Nash has that you don’t?” His brow quirked up in question, and I gladly gave it to him. “Nash has my love.” This time it wasn’t the needle that took me down, but his fist.
I surfaced to the sound of him talking to someone on the phone. From what I could gather, we were a few miles away from our destination. The left side of my face throbbed like crazy and I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I deserved it. He’d goaded me and I’d played right into his hands. So far, I was batting zero for six. Something had to give because there was no way in hell I was spending the rest of my life as this man’s bitch. I would rather die. Nash’s face flashed in my mind, and I shook the morbid thoughts from my head.
Conor hung up, and once again I felt his eyes on me. “I regret hitting you so hard. When you say things like that I…I lose control. I have great plans for us, Gillian. This is not how I wanted us to start our lives together.” His apology meant nothing to me. I burned with the desire to tell him this, but didn’t dare.
Half an hour later we turned into an underground parking garage. Conor put the car in park, before turning to address me. “How you play this is up to you. You can get out of the car like a lady and walk with me, or I can sedate you and put you in the trunk until later tonight when there’s less foot traffic in the hallways. It’s your choice, but let me warn you. If you run, you will be sorry.” Being that the trunk scared me more than being alone with him, I chose the former of my two options. I was so weak I could barely stand, but that didn’t matter to him. He simply hoisted me out of the car like a sack of potatoes, wrapped his arms around my waist, and pretended that I was his sick girlfriend, the fucker. With each step, I despised him more and more.
Conor needn’t worry about being discovered because the halls were empty. The elevator was also empty. In fact, the entire place was like a ghost town, which did not bode well for me. On the way to his apartment, I made sure to pay close attention to every little detail. His place was on the sixth floor, apartment 612, to be exact. The emergency exits were at each end of the hall, and the elevator was in the middle. The building appeared to be mostly concrete, which meant that yelling the walls down would do me no good. The outer parts of the building may have looked sterile and industrial, but his apartment sure didn’t. In fact, it could have been on the cover of Architectural Digest. The man certainly had no qualms about spending money.
As we passed through the rooms in his apartment I tried to memorize my surroundings, but we were moving too fast. I got a good look at the dark granite countertops and light grey tiled backsplash as we passed by the kitchen. I noted a large living room decorated in blues and greys to match the kitchen. At the end of a hallway containing several closed doors, Conor lifted me into his arms and carried me up a short staircase. At the top was a door. He set me on my feet in front of it and made sure I wasn’t going to topple over before twisting the knob. Please don’t let this be the master bedroom, I thought.
The door swung open and Conor held out his hand for me to enter. As I passed by him, he grasped my arm, and I knew that this was it, the moment I’d been dreading. I braced for it. If he thought I was going down without a fight, he really was crazy. He pressed himself against my back and I shuddered with revulsion.
“I want you in my bed, but I realize this might take a little time.” He lifted my hair away from my neck and tightened his hold when he felt me flinch away from his touch. “I can be fair, Gillian, but I can also be brutal,” he whispered against my neck. “Don’t push me.” He thrust me away. Then he turned and walked out of the room. As the lock slid into place, I dropped to the floor, and cried.
* * *
I was a prisoner, trapped in a room of blue. Blue Christmas, Blue’s Clues, Bullet The Blue Sky, Blue Ain’t Your Color. Blue was definitely not my color. I pushed off from the bed and paced over to the window. Six floors didn’t seem that high, until you looked out the window. I could jump if I wanted to risk life and limb. I was desperate, but not that desperate, at least, not yet. The past two days had been heaven and hell. Heaven, because, other than the few times Conor had brought food and tried to converse with me, he’d pretty much stayed away, that or I’d chased him away. Either way, his scarcity had been a relief. I was in hell because I was still here. Trapped in a blue room.
My first night in the blue room I spent searching for a way out. I had to give it to the man, from a closet full of clothes down to my favorite bathroom amenities, he’d thought of everything. Too bad I didn’t want any of it. From what I could tell there were two ways out of the blue room, the window or the door. Being that the window was nailed shut that left the door. As I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, I came up with plan C. Kill him with kindness. That would buy me time to search for a way out.
Plan C started off okay. Conor brought me food and I thanked him. He asked me questions about my likes and dislikes and I answered them in half-truths. When he asked why I ran and I responded, “Because my father sold me like a cheap whore,” the conversation came to a screeching halt. He didn’t hit me this time, but he looked as if he wanted to. I wasn’t sure if this was progress or not. Something told me it wasn’t.
The next day was more of the same. Conor brought me food, asked more questions, and received more half-truths. What I didn’t expect was for him to respond to my question from the night before.
“Your father had something I wanted. In return for getting what I wanted, I gave him what he needed. That does not make you a whore, Gillian.” He acted as if this was no big deal, as if I was being petty. Maybe this was a common occurrence in his world, but in mine it was revolting.
“Did you kill him?” He reared back in surprise.
“Your father? Don’t be so dramatic.” His scolding tone infuriated me.
“You didn’t kill my father when I ran, yet you killed my best friend?” His eyes narrowed in warning, but I failed to heed it.
“I think we’re done with this conversation,” he announced.
“Now who’s running?” I challenged. He was on me in seconds. With one hand wrapped in my hair and the other around my neck, he slowly cut off my air supply.
“I killed him because he taunted me, just like you’re doing right now,” he bit out angrily through clenched teeth.
“Do it,” I wheezed, and the sad thing was, I meant it. His grip tightened, and, for a moment I thought he was going to grant me my wish. As spots danced before my eyes, I thought of Nash. Conor suddenly jerked his hands away, and I collapsed onto the bed gasping for air.
“See what you made me do! Why are you making this so difficult? All of this,” he waved his arm across the room, “can be yours if you’d just stop fighting me!”
I sat up and glared at him. “I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want any of it! Most of all, I don’t want you! I hate you!” I screeched through swollen vocal cords.
He turned to leave. Right as he reached the door, he glanced at me over his shoulder. “Maybe now, but in time you will learn to love me. You’ll see.” He shut the door and locked it behind him. His matter-of-fact tone enraged me. It would be a cold day in hell before I ever loved that man.
“Neeeveeeeeer!” I shrieked as I grabbed the tray of food from the foot of my bed and hurled it at the door. I searched for something else to throw and spotted the lamp. “Fuck you!” I shouted as I gripped it like a bat and swung it at the window. Instead of the sound of shattering glass, the lamp made a loud thunking noise. Pain radiated up my arm as I dropped the lamp onto the floor at my feet. What the hell? I thought as I stared open-mouthed at a still perfectly intact window. Conor had kidnapped, drugged, and abused me, but as I stood there staring at that window, it finally hit me. I was in deep shit.
Screw plan C.