At First Touch (30 page)

“Don’t listen to them, V.J. They’re just jealous that they could only afford costumes from ‘Sluts R Us’ and yours came from a specialty shop in New York,” I said loudly enough for them to hear. V.J. flushed and gave me a hesitant smile.

“Oh just listen to ‘Princess Pure’ over there. Look, she’s wearing gloves again! I’ll bet she has an entire body glove on; must be why Carey looks so itchy tonight. The poor boy can never get into her pants,” Chasisity bellowed snidely. My knuckles cracked ominously as I unconsciously balled my hands into fists.

“At least her pants are worth getting into,” a small voice said behind me and I glanced around, startled to see my inept gym partner, Quade, moving up beside us. He gave me a terrified look and then spoke up again. “At least her pants are clean.”

I stifled a laugh at his awkward defense of me; I knew he meant well, no matter how inelegant his phrasing. Chasisity, however, looked at Quade with a peculiar satisfaction, the kind of look I’ve seen in Koko’s eyes just before he reaches out a paw to smack down an insect.

“And what the hell would you know about getting into a girl’s pants, Quade? Unless it’s because you wear them?” she growled viciously, tossing her cheaply dyed hair. Quade flushed and stammered something intelligible, turning away. I sighed, thinking that I really had enough problems to deal with tonight without this, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks, Quade. I appreciate the effort. But don’t waste your time with people like that. It’s like trying to reason with a rabid dog; unless you get down to their level, there’s just no way to communicate,” I said kindly, smiling genuinely at him. He grinned back at me, forgetting all about Chasisity.

“You look really pretty tonight, Liz,” he murmured bashfully. “You too, V.J.” he tacked on hurriedly. She rewarded him with her brightest smile, making him blink owlishly. I smiled and shook my head, glancing over at Carey. He waggled his eyebrows. I cocked my head at him and he tapped his head.

Finally understanding, I switched on the connection between our minds and let his thoughts flow into me.

“I can hear Carson on the other side of the barn; he just asked someone if you were here. This would be a good set-up for our fight…act mad at me for not coming to your defense; I’ll just follow your lead. Say whatever you need to make it convincing, I know none of it will matter.”

I nodded briefly and looked away, my pulse suddenly pounding in my head. This was it. My hands trembled and I slapped them to my side, trying to calm the outpouring of nerves. I had to put the fear aside and make this believable, and then I actually had to let Carson take me. Every instinct I had railed against what I was about to do, and it would take immense concentration to make this thing come off right. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and turned around, scowling at Carey as he joined us.

“What the hell, Carey? I have to listen to that crap from Chasisity and you can’t even say anything in my defense? Some white knight you are,” I accused, trying to transform the wracking anxiety I felt into anger. Evidently I was pulling it off, because V.J. and Quade looked at me like I was nuts.

“What? I thought you could take care of yourself. Besides, you’ve got Quade here to defend your ‘pants.’ Is there something you need to tell me?” he said snappishly. I could feel Chasisity’s eyes on my back and I tried to get more into the spirit of the thing, raising my voice so everyone in the barn could hear me.

“Oh, here we go with the jealous crap again. God, every time a guy so much as smiles at me you do this!”

“Because you always smile back! If your eyes strayed any further, they’d be out of your head!” he retorted.

I threw up my hands and stalked away, headed toward the open door of the barn. Carey remained behind, as though he were simply too angry with me to follow, but I knew that he would be watching and listening. V.J. called my name but I ignored her, trying to radiate a credible fury and contain the tremors that had taken over my body.

I emerged from the barn and walked into a wall of darkness. There was no light alleviating the oppressive cloud cover and dusk had come and gone, leaving a black so thick I could nearly taste it. I blinked several times, trying to acclimate myself to the difference in visibility while fighting off panic; it’s hard to defend yourself when you can’t see anything.

“You’re coming with me, bitch,” a familiar, hateful voice proclaimed as a hand gripped my arm painfully, dragging me away from the relative safety of the barn. I pulled away hard, but my captor didn’t release me. He just kept tugging me along until I no choice but to stumble after him, knowing if I made a scene, it might discourage Carson from making a move.

“Preston, what the hell do you want?” I sighed, not really afraid of him but annoyed that he might get in the way of the plan.

“I want to make you cry,” he spat venomously, his voice vibrating with loathing. I quickly opened my mind to his and was startled by the intensity of Preston’s hatred of me. He held me solely responsible for his accident, his stint in jail, and the five-hundred hours of community service he had to complete in the next six months.

“Preston, look, whatever’s going on with you has nothing to do with me. I didn’t even start that stupid rumor,” I protested, halting my steps. He swung around toward me, face twisted in an ugly grimace.

“I hate you,” he growled, and then abruptly slammed me against the wall of what must have been an outbuilding or a shed and pressed against me. My shoulder hit against something sharp and I gasped as an intense shock ran down my arm.

“Preston, stop!” I shouted, terror and pain suddenly descending on me, and slammed my knee upward into his groin with as much force as I could muster. He dropped like a stone, screaming obscenities, and I escaped the writhing coil of hatred and viciousness that made up his thoughts. Before I could even move, Carey was in front of me, his hands on my face.

“Are you alright?” he demanded breathlessly.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, growing concerned at the deadened feeling in my left arm. “I think my shoulder is really hurt.” Carey put his hand around me and felt for the wound, drawing in a harsh breath when he touched me.

“You’re bleeding; I think a lot.” I could barely make him out in the darkness, but his concern was palpable. “Go back into the barn and find one of the adults. I think you need to go the hospital.” At that moment Preston seemed to regain himself and he jumped up from the ground and launched himself at a surprised Carey, knocking him past me against the same wall he had slammed me into. “Go, Liz, just go,” Carey ordered, his voice a low menace. I took off without another word, panicking that I couldn’t feel my arm at all.
            I was halfway back to the barn when an arm encircled my neck and pulled me against a tall, unyielding body. I had just enough time to suck in a breath to scream before a cloth was pressed over my mouth and nose and the darkness took over completely.

The first thing I noticed when consciousness returned was that my head was enormous. I was pretty sure that no one’s head had ever been larger or more stuffed with cotton balls than mine. The second thing that came to my attention was how dry and swollen my tongue was, like I’d been licking sandpaper for a few hours. Then came the slow return of feeling to my body, which was comforting and frightening at the same time, since it made it clear that I was not positioned comfortably in my bed, but lying scrunched up and unable to move on what I was pretty sure was the backseat of a car. The last thing I noticed was that I couldn’t feel my left arm at all, and that there was a terrible pain in my shoulder, like a hot needle had been plunged into my back and then gotten stuck. Different possibilities based on my borrowed medical knowledge drifted through my mind, and I eventually decided that something had probably pierced or compressed the nerve bundle just under my shoulder, meaning that I couldn’t count on feeling returning to my arm anytime soon.

That’s when I remembered that my arm was the least of my worries.

I forced myself to remain quiet and listened. I was definitely in a moving vehicle, I could hear the steady roll of the tires beneath me. There was no sound from the front seat and I guessed I was not expected to be awake quite yet. Hesitantly, I opened my eyes to slits, ready to clamp them shut again if anyone was watching.

It was dark, but the glow from the dashboard told me that I was in the backseat of an SUV of some sort with my arms tied together in front of me with duct tape. Dry panic caught at my throat as I experienced a moment of déjà vu, my mind travelling back to the day I had been snatched from the street by the Coalition, embarking on the worst nightmare of my life. I screamed inside my head, desperate to regain my calm before Carson noticed I was awake and knocked me out again. I knew this could be my only shot at surprising him in some way, and I had to make use of it.

Breathing shallowly through my nose, I tried to remain clinical, taking stock of my situation. I’d been in this position before and gotten out of it. I could do it again.

My ankles seemed to be under the same restraint when I tugged at them. I wondered how Carson was stupid enough to put my hands in front, when I realized with dread that with one arm completely numb, I didn’t pose much of a threat. Still, it was an unexpected advantage, and one I knew how to exploit, so I wasn’t complaining.

It was obvious that Carson had somehow grabbed me in a way that didn’t follow our little plan. Now I had time to think, there were a thousand inconsistencies that hadn’t occurred to me earlier, the most significant of which was that Carey was not infallible and that somehow Carson had gotten around my protector, since me being tied up unconscious in the backseat hadn’t really been part of the plan.

Dad had been right. I just hoped I got the chance to tell him I was sorry for not listening.

I had no idea where we were, but we were moving fast and all I could see out the window was a blur of unrelieved darkness. For a second I lost my nerve, and it took a gargantuan effort not to just start weeping. All the memories of my time at the Coalition and at the hands of the FBI flooded over me and I bit down on my lip to keep from whimpering like a hurt animal. But the moment passed quickly and as my head began to clear from whatever I had been drugged with, a plan began to develop.

As quietly as possible I pulled my arms up to my head, strangling a sob as it became more and more apparent that my left arm was dead weight. I glanced up at the front seat, but saw no indication that Carson had noticed I was awake. Still keeping my eyes on the back of his head, I moved my bound hands, right arm dragging the left along, up to my right ear. V.J.’s headdress was gone for good.  I felt around and thanked the learned paranoia that had made me hide a thin, sharp pick in my hair. It was pinned just behind my ear with a bobby pin, and it seemed Carson had missed it.

Carson was too arrogant for his own good. He had to know at least a few things about me; for him not to have checked my hair for a tool of some kind was the absolute zenith of cockiness. I just hoped it was enough of a mistake on his part to save me. I allowed myself a small sigh of relief as I took it from its place and looked at it fondly in the dim light; it had gotten me out of more scrapes than I can mention.

It was more difficult than I’d anticipated poking through the tape with one hand, and then pulling at the holes with my teeth, my eyes watering with frustration. After a tense few minutes, my hands were free and Carson hadn’t turned around once, obviously confident that I would still be unconscious.

Having my hands free was a mixed blessing; only one of them worked and now it meant that I had to do something about my feet, or I would never be able to carry out my plan. I tested my ankles again and found that the tape was bound tightly, but not so much that I couldn’t twist them around a bit. He had taken my shoes off and I cursed inwardly, having hoped that he would have been an inept enough captor to give me that much space, but of course, my luck in that direction seemed to have run out. He might have been arrogant, but he was efficient.

As I lay there frustrated, trying desperately to think of something, anything I could do to free my feet, I pulled the glove off of my right hand with my teeth, letting the unwanted accessory drop to the floor. Then I faced the facts. There was no way to lean down and rip the tape on my ankles apart without attracting attention, and it was clear that I couldn’t just wriggle free of the binding either. Resigned, I decided to go through with my shaky plan and hope that I could hit Carson hard enough to buy me some time.

A flood of panic rushed over me as the thought of Carey finally hit. Did he even know that Carson had me? How could he possibly find me or direct Thrasher if he didn’t hear my abduction because he was too busy with Preston? I had to face the very real possibility that no one was coming for me.

I closed my eyes and fought down the bile rising in my throat, refusing to let fear conquer me. After a few deep breaths I pushed Carey out of my mind. I had to focus on one task at a time, or I had no chance.    

Finally, I knew my moment had come; I couldn’t put off escaping any longer, after all, I didn’t know Carson’s final destination. He must have been very careful not to touch me with bare skin, which meant he knew more about me than I wanted, and we could be nearing a drop point or backup with every passing mile. I gritted my teeth and positioned myself so that my hands appeared to still be stuck together, hiding my ungloved hand beneath the other as best I could. Closing my eyes, I made a tiny moan, hoping it sounded like I was just waking up. The car jerked slightly, and I knew Carson had heard me, but he kept going, showing no signs of pulling over. Annoyed, I moaned again, this time a little louder. Finally, there was a whispered, “Damn,” from the front seat and Carson decreased his speed and swerved the car onto the side of the road, turning off the engine and killing the lights. After another moment, I shifted slightly, pretending to be more alert, and he turned around in his seat to look at me for the first time.