CHAPTER 22:
JUNIPER
Zip ties. Motherfucking zip ties.
I knew Quinton was an asshole. But seriously? I was pregnant for crying out loud and he was treating me like this was the zombie apocalypse and I was some rabid beast in need of restraining. I’d already gotten into his car willingly. What more did he want? But no…he’d gone and bound my hands together. Then he tied each of my ankles to the seat. I couldn’t see past my stomach to see exactly where and how he’d tied them. But I was starting to sweat from working as hard as I was to keep my thighs semi-closed. The way he’d tied my ankles, each as far apart as they could go on opposite ends of the seat, had left me in a very vulnerable position. Especially since he kept touching me in little ways—little ways that kept growing bolder and bolder, and more and more unwelcome. Not that any of this was welcome.
The crazy part was—I actually knew how to break out of zip ties. It required tightening them as much as possible and one swift motion down against my stomach—a movement meant to break the mechanism that held the zip tie together. Only problem: my stomach. I couldn’t hit it with the force I needed while pregnant. Still—every time Quinton looked over his shoulder to change lanes, I used my teeth to further tighten the plastic. Because it had to be as tight as possible to break.
At this point, my fingers were tingling from lack of circulation. The sensation was so intense that I could almost block out all the cruel and nasty things Quinton had been saying since he started driving.
Almost, but not quite.
“I can’t wait to teach you a lesson, Juniper,” he murmured. “You have me so hard. You have no idea. I can’t wait for it.You’re going to love it more than ever. I know you’ve missed it. You know how I found you, sweetheart? A viral video of you singing. God—I never knew you could be so sexy.” He reached over, brushing a few strains of hair from my face. My 80’s shirt had one shoulder exposed and he traced his fingers over my bare skin. “So damn sexy.”
His touch made me want to disappear into a hole like one of Ben’s sand crabs. And how was I supposed to know a video of me singing had gone viral? I’d been so careful with everything, but I’d never even considered something like that being the cause of him finding me.
Quinton kept making lude comments, while I remained as still as possible. It seemed the more I fought and argued with him, the more it was turning him on. He kept talking about sex, too, about teaching me a lesson, and it was disgusting. Beyond disgusting. How could I have ever loved him?
I prayed for a way out. But it seemed this was my reality now.
“What are you going to do? Lock me up in some basement forever? I don’t love you anymore. It’s over. Can’t you understand that?” Tears slipped down my cheeks. I turned my head toward the window. I didn’t want Quinton to see me upset. I didn’t want him to think he still had any power over me.
“No. You’re going to be my wife—just like you promised on the day I asked you to marry me. Just like you promised. Dammit, Juniper, how could you? I thought something terrible had happened to you. You went to the grocery store and you never came home. How could you just leave me like that?” He sounded hurt as he spoke. Hell, maybe I had hurt him. But not half as bad as he used to enjoy hurting me.
“I left because I wanted something better. I left because you scare me. Just like you’re scaring me now.” I held up my tied hands as proof.
“Don’t be so dramatic. You know I hate that. You liked the way we would fuck,” he went on. “You wanted everything I did. I always made sex more and more intense for you. I always brought you to a higher place. Don’t even try to play innocent and deny it.”
“No,” I answered. “I never liked it.”
“Stop lying to me!” he snapped, raising his voice for the first time. “I’ll show you.” His big hand traced over more than just my shoulder this time. He shoved his fingers inside my shirt, cupping one of my breasts. Squeezing and tugging a little too roughly at my nipple, which was already way too sensitive from pregnancy. “See,” he breathed, his voice jagged and coarse. “You love it. Admit it. You've never wanted me more than you do right now.”
“Really…I’m just about as grossed out as I’ve ever been in my life.” I wasn’t exactly sure where, when, or how, but I’d lost my fear of this man. He only annoyed me now. And the way he was behaving was just plain pathetic.
“Keep talking dirty. I like this new side to you,” he said.
What?
I couldn’t remain passive anymore.
“Get off me,” I yelled, trying my best to swat him off me. “You don’t get to touch me anymore. Remember. Are you incapable of listening or just delusional?”
Quinton swerved the car, the tires hitting the rumble strip on the road, making the whole vehicle shake. “That is it!” he said. “I’m ending this argument right now. I’m showing you how good girls behave.”
He removed his touch from inside my shirt, taking the wheel with both his hands, and he pulled the car off the road. There was open grass, weeds, and space on the side of the highway. And he parked there.
As the car came to a complete stop, I knew that if I was going to try to fight him off I needed my hands. The younger ‘take-no-crap’ juvenile delinquent, former version of myself surfaced. She should have surfaced from the start with Quinton. I wasn’t exactly sure why she never had. But, in this moment, it boiled down to the fact that it wasn’t just me that needed protecting—the twins needed it too now.
With all my strength, I raised my restrained hands high in the air and brought my wrists down on my right knee. The force stung like hell, my wrists were probably going to be bruised, but somehow the one swift motion worked. The zip ties’ mechanism popped, and suddenly my hands were free. Not waiting for Quinton to make sense of the fact that I’d just freed myself, I attacked him. With the palm heels of both my hands, screaming like a banshee, I turned and stuck Quinton's eyeballs at full force.
I hit with speed, accuracy, and all my strength. Really, I had no clue what I was doing. But it was the only thing I could think to do.
Quinton screamed louder than me.
Instinctively he pulled away in his seat. And his hands protectively went to his eyes. “You bitch!” he yelled. “I can’t see!”
Good!
I grabbed the keys out of the truck’s ignition. I reached down between my legs and started using them to saw at the plastic. Easier than I expected, I freed one ankle and then the second. Then I pushed open my passenger door, stumbling from the truck, and took off running.
I ran—straight smack into a person.
As if I’d materialized him out of thin air, there Ben was. And I was suddenly in his arms. Noah was there too. Out of the corner of my eyes I could just make out his blond hair.
“How?” I breathed, staring wide-eyed up at Ben.
“We’ve been following you,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around me tight. “Thank God, you’re okay.”
“Where’s Quinton?” Noah demanded.
“In the truck,” I answered, staring up at Ben, letting him hold my full weight. The surge of energy and adrenaline that helped me escape moments ago changed into exhaustion. If he hadn’t been holding me, I’d be in the grass right now. “He has a gun. I poked him in the eyes. He had pictures of Rose. On his phone. He threatened her. He threatened everyone.” Short sentences were rolling out of me in bursts. My brain didn’t want to function properly. But Ben and Noah needed to know everything I knew.
“Let’s get in my car,” Noah decided for all us, ushering both me and Ben toward his Honda. “Hurry. If he has a gun then we don’t need to take any chances.”
Ben helped me into the backseat of Noah’s car, and he moved to sit in the back with me. Noah plopped down in the driver’s seat, slamming his door shut, locking the door. He started the car and we waited, all eyes staring straight ahead at Quinton's truck.
“The police are on their way,” Noah said. “They have his license plate number and they know the make/model of his truck if he tries to flee.”
“And I have his keys.” I jingled them in my sweaty palm. “So, he can’t leave.”
“Juniper!” came Quinton’s voice from outside.
I jumped a little in my seat.
Oh, God. I looked up and watched as Quinton stumbled, like a drunk man, from the trunk. He had both hands pressed over his eyes, and he kept repeatedly yelling my name. Maybe I’d blinded him. Maybe he only wanted us to think he was blinded.
Beside me, Ben breathed heavily in and out. His hand shook as they held my shoulders. “He’s not carrying his gun. I’m going to go out there.”
“What? No,” I pleaded, clinging to him tighter. “Please, Ben, don’t go.”
“I was ranked number one in hand-to-hand combat skills in my company during basic training for the Coast Guard. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. If it comes to it, I know how to fight.”
Of course, he’d been number one at that. Ben excelled at everything he did, but that didn’t mean I wanted him anywhere near Quinton. Not ever. “Please,” I tried again. “You can’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
I could practically feel the internal battle raging within him as he sat beside me. Stay with me—or go face Quinton. Just then I heard the sound of sirens in the distance. The police were on their way now. They could take care of Quinton. Ben needed to stay with me.
Meanwhile, Quinton still stumbled around in the grass like a fool.
“I want to speak with him before the police get here,” Ben said through gritted teeth. His eyes weren’t on me—they were on Quinton outside. “I want him to know he can never come near you again. He needs to know that.”
“Write him a letter once he’s safely away in jail,” I suggested.
Noah chuckled up in the front seat. “Let Ben go say what he needs to say,” he urged, siding against me. “I’ll go with him. It’ll be okay. We’ll be right back.”
I was outnumbered.
Ben and Noah left the car.