Detained

06.

❝Detained❞
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Same night, May 2016
San Antonio, Texas

"That's it. Stay still and don't make a peep."

Little did the man know, Moira couldn't move if she wanted to. Her whole body was paralyzed in shock and she couldn't even feel her heartbeat. She'd forgotten the man's presence in an instant and she couldn't really hear anything besides the blood in her body rushing past her ears. Her mind was racing with too many thoughts; thoughts of what could occur tonight, and if she would be alive to remember and be traumatized by them.

Thick fingers coiled in her hair and roughly pulled at her scalp, a shriek ripping from Moira's mouth as she was pulled back into the man's chest. His lips met the shell of her ear and she could smell his scent; a deluged mix of sweat and laundry detergent that made her want to hurl.

"Hey! Are you fuckin' listening to me?!" With his hand still gripping her hair and the gun's barrel still on her left temple, he managed to turn her around and face the house's backdoor, "Keep ya' hands up and slowly walk out the door."

Moira stayed still. She was still paralyzed and couldn't process what was going on. The man seemed to notice this and let go of her hair as he moved the gun from her temple to the center of her back. With a deep nudge from the barrel, he was back at her ear. "Hands up and move."

Like clockwork, she raised her arms and stepped forward. Each step was measured and painfully slow, and she wondered if he would hit her if she didn't move fast enough. She passed the threshold of the backdoor and made it outside to the dimly lit backyard. The back-porch's light hit only a bit of the yard while the rest of it remained pitch black.

Moira couldn't make herself move faster—her heartbeat was speeding up by the second and a pain was developing in her chest.

She didn't even realize she stopped walking until the armed man nudged her forward and tears trickled from her eyes. She didn't want to walk any further but she knew she had to or he would kill her.

When she went to step out, the man grabbed her shoulder and guided her to the right. Moira frowned past her tears. The side of the house? She thought, treading forward before the light from the back-porch's bulb no longer shone on her and the man, and the both of them dwelled into the backyard's darkness.

A plan began to arise in her mind before it was quickly dismissed. She could run the moment they turned to the side of the house, but the man could shoot her down before she made it far enough.

Moira turned the corner and immediately jumped back with a shriek that startled the man behind her. She ran into something on the ground and whatever it was, shifted. The man cursed under his breath, rustling with something before a light flashed on and he moved its direction to the ground.

Her heart dropped to her stomach and her mouth opened before she screamed to the top of her lungs. The scream didn't manage to make it out into the night's air though; instead, it was blocked by the man's cupped, sweaty hand. Moira continued to scream, twisting and writhing in his strong hold before he lowered the both of them to the ground, making them closer to the bloody corpse she ran into.

"Calm the fuck—", he started as he tried to keep hold of Moira before he growled and squeezed his arm harder around her, "Calm the fuck down!" he hissed. Moira relaxed her movements just a bit. She was still shaky and sobbing uncontrollably, but she was no longer twisting in his grip.

"He's not dead," the man dryly stated, cursing and shaking his head at her earlier wild behavior, "but he will be if we don't hurry up. I need you to get a grip. Literally and figuratively—grab his fucking legs."