War(7)

I needed to plot my next move.

Milan cleared her throat, and I glanced at her, saw she had tightened her hands on the steering wheel.

“You have another question?” I said.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

She had merged onto the highway and she was headed toward the city. I opened the glove compartment and looked at her information again. Then I put it back, closed the small door.

“Your house,” I said.





Six





Milan



I couldn’t have heard him right. Grateful that the highway wasn’t too crowded, I risked looking at him again. The darkness of night shadowed his face, the streetlights occasionally brightening it to show his strong, masculine jaw, the incompatible softness of his lips.

Focus, Milan, I said to myself, wondering why the fuck I was noticing something as asinine as that and quickly refocusing myself on the unbelievable words he’d just uttered.

“Pardon me?” I said, my voice grating out of my throat roughly, almost breathlessly.

An odd, stilted thing to say, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Well, I could actually think of several other things to say, but none of them would be helpful to me in this moment. So I settled on a bland, “Pardon me,” as though this person, the one who was conducting perhaps the most genteel carjacking in the history of American crime, was not wanting to go back to my house.

My mind raced as I thought through all of the TV shows I had watched and articles I had read. One piece of advice had been consistent in them all.

Never let them take you to a secondary location.

I’d broken that rule—twice—already, but taking him to my house? No fucking way.

“Is there somewhere else…?”

Although, maybe outright bargaining was a bad idea, so I trailed off and looked at him quickly, searching the darkness of the car interior for some sign of his expression. Any insight as to what he might be thinking.

“No. Your house. It’s the best place right now,” he said.

“Um…”

The fuck-no hung on the tip of my tongue, but thank God I swallowed it back. What the hell was I doing? I should just comply with him, be smart, maybe try to escape.

That was it. At the next opportunity, I would break away and go.

“You don’t want me there?” he asked.

Of its own volition, my head swiveled until I faced him. I could feel the way my features were twisted in disbelief at the stupidity of his question. Of course I didn’t want him there! I searched his dark gaze, hoping that maybe I would see humor, though now wasn’t exactly the moment for jokes.

He just blinked, looking stern but not angry, and, more importantly to me, not remotely joking.

“Um…” I couldn’t think of anything else to say and didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing.

“Why does it matter? I already know your address, and I could find you if I had to,” he said.

My heart leaped to my throat, fear seizing me in an instant. I pushed it back just as fast, determined that I wouldn’t show it, wouldn’t let myself become a victim.

“You trying to make me feel better?” I asked, glaring at him, intent on convincing him that he couldn’t rattle me. But I quickly came to my senses and looked away.

“How you feel is not my concern,” he said. “I just want you to understand the circumstances.”

“So are you threatening me?” I asked. His words had scared me, had introduced an overt atmosphere of violence where before it had been unspoken.

Even more, they had disappointed me. I couldn’t say for sure if he was a violent person or not, but the impression I’d gotten of him so far had been as good as it could be given the circumstances, and if I couldn’t say for sure that he was peaceful, I was certain he was calm, and saddened by the thought I might be mistaken.

He glanced at me, his gaze almost searing on my skin. I felt compelled to look at him and when I did, I met dark, fathomless eyes.

“Do I have to?”

He said it almost casually, and for him my fear was probably nothing.

I, on the other hand, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“I… No,” I finally said. “But my roommate is there. Her boyfriend.”

Knowing Tiffany as I did, I knew she probably wasn’t, but he didn’t know that and maybe saying so would change his mind.

“I don’t care,” he said, dashing that hope before it had even grown into something I could hold on to.

“And you won’t”—I swallowed around my thick tongue—“hurt them?”

“Milan, I promised you that if you did as I asked, I would not harm you. That promise still stands,” he said.

I shouldn’t have believed him. Only a fool would have. But for some reason, maybe delusion, maybe wishful thinking, his words were convincing. Or maybe that was what I was telling myself. It wasn’t like I had a ton of options, any other options at all, really. Even still, delusional or not, I believed him.