Rebel (Dead Man's Ink #1)



I end up sleeping most of the day. Maybe it’s because I feel kind of safe with Cade, but I let my guard down. I can’t help it. It’s been so long since I’ve rested. Even when I have dozed, it hasn’t been proper sleep. It’s been like dipping my big toe into a vast and deep lake, too afraid to submerge myself for fear of drowning. Or in my case, being raped. So I pass out in the car and I sleep the sleep of the dead, barely waking properly to eat or stumble zombie-like to the bathroom when we stop.

All thoughts of escape fly out of the window.

Through the mugginess clouding my head, I glimpse at the clock on the dash at some point in the afternoon to find that it’s coming up on four p.m. I think that’s when I realize something’s not quite right. Or it might be later, when I wake to darkness out of the passenger window, and country music playing low on the radio.

I manage four words before I slip into unconsciousness again. “Drugged me, you fucker.” The words bleed into one another, barely audible.

I hear Cade laughing just fine, though. “Sorry, sweetheart. Easier this way all round, I’m afraid.”

I come to briefly when I’m being carried somewhere, carried in the dark. The sound of a motorcycle roaring to life, and voices, talking voices filter in and out as I sway with the motion of someone’s gait. And then nothing.

My head feels like it’s splitting apart when I wake next. Morning. It must be morning. Bright light blares through a set of thin voile curtains above…above the bed I’m sprawled out across. “What the…?” I’m not wearing the hideous, torn dress anymore. I’m wearing an oversized black T-shirt that says It Isn’t Going To Suck Itself with an arrow pointing downward. Clearly not something meant to be worn by a woman. So clichéd.

I’m already buzzing with anger as I throw my legs over the side of the bed. That anger swiftly makes way for panic as I realize I’m going to throw up. “Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no, no, no.” I get to my feet, the room pitching violently like a ship on rough seas. I don’t know where the hell I am. I don’t know where the damn bathroom is. I don’t have time to look for it, either. I scramble frantically, searching until I find something appropriate, and then I collapse onto my knees, puking up my guts.

The moment is brief but unpleasant. My body is trembling by the time I’m done. I look down at what I’m clutching in my hands, and my stomach drops all over again. A motorcycle helmet. I just threw up in a full-face motorcycle helmet. Great. Why the hell couldn’t it have been a trashcan?

I get up, holding the damn thing in both hands, cringing when I pluck up the courage to check out how bad it is. Because it’s bad. Really bad. The drugged food that Cade plied me with yesterday has mostly been digested, but what remained in my stomach is now seeping into the foam cushioning of what looks like a really expensive piece of equipment.

“Fuck.” I look around, properly taking in my surroundings for the first time. The place isn’t that big: a timber-built cabin made up of two rooms, the first and largest being a bedroom/living area. The second is a modern bathroom, complete with wet area and an overhead shower, tiled in slate. Very manly. I dump the helmet into the sink and turn on the tap, wincing as the water starts to fill inside it. Back in the main area, I try to figure out where the hell I am.