Awakening (Awakening, #1)

Chapter 17

Large bits of gravel and rough terrain crunch beneath newly purchased rubber tires. Don't ask me how I know that. It takes roughly three seconds, maybe less, to realize I'm in a car. I attempt to stretch out my legs, but they're bound tightly together ceasing any type of movement. I slowly lean back and it takes five seconds to come into contact with the cold glass. I now know two things. I am in the back of a car. A large car, probably a van, but I'm not in a trunk. Considering this, I lay down on my side as quickly and quietly as I can and roll over and count. One...two...

Two rolls. This is definitely a van but a type of car a large family would use. Or someone transporting a body.

Probably two rows of seating, so I can't be seen in the rearview mirror lying down like this on the floor. Think. Consider the situation at hand. I open my eyes for the first time, and I am greeted with darkness but since I can feel the heat attempting to warm the back window behind me, it's daylight outside. So I'm blindfolded. My wrists are wound tight behind my back as well, meaning whoever tied me up wasn't Teegan. She wouldn't be strong enough to bind my wrists and ankles and haul me into the back of a vehicle on her own.

I close my eyes even though it doesn't make much of a difference, and listen to what's happening around me.

I can hear someone breathing up front, definitely not Teegan since she has no need for air. The sound is a husky sort and is a little raspy on the exhale. Asthma or some other type of mild, untreated or unchecked breathing issue. Smells mildly like pine and dirt. Probably a hunter or someone not accustomed to bodily hygiene.

"You awake back there?" Smelly says. I then realize he's made a joke because Teegan laughs. But when I think about it further, the joke isn't funny. Not funny at all. My time with Violet and the guys at that house has made me see things completely differently. I don't want to be Awakened. Ever. I shiver, not from the cold, but from the thought of Violet and the friends I've soon been able to call family. The thought of what these people plan to do to me.

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After another hour of bumpy driving on what had to have been an endless dirt road in the middle of nowhere, the car lurches to a stop. My body vibrates with the sudden cease in the constant moving and shaking of tires on the rocky road. One door opens, and then the next, then they both close but the door behind me opening the back hatch of the vehicle doesn't open immediately. I listen and hear Teegan and Smelly talking.

"Just let me handle him. I know him, and he's really no threat to what we have going on here," Teegan says. Smelly sort of scoffs and replies.

"Don't get attached. I know what you and him used to have, but I'll be damned if I let that get in the way of what we're doing. I just won't. I have a lot riding on this one and I won't let you compromise any of it with whatever it is you're trying to do. Do what you need, nothing more. I mean it."

By the tone of Smelly's voice, I can tell that the relationship between them is complicated. I don't know if romance or pleasure is involved, but I can definitely tell that their relationship is based on some type of business, or at least it started out that way. And apparently they need me for something, and I don't think that something is good at all. I decide then and there that I'll do what I need to to get out of wherever I am and back to Violet. But for now, I'll have to cooperate and try not to let on that I'm plotting my escape. I have to stay cool, calm, and calculated.

"Okay." Was Teegan's only response to Smelly's underlying threat. It seems that she's also under some type of hold here, working with this man. The door to the hatch opens and a hand claps onto my forearm close to where my wrist meets there, and closes tightly. I am then yanked out of the car and dropped onto the ground and tiny rocks and pebbles grind into my skin. I feel the pain there, but it quickly ebbs away into a dull ache, easily ignored.