I sat still as stone, hiding the power I’d yet to understand. A secret I would keep in my pocket until I needed it.
For now, I needed to regroup, watch and learn, and figure out how to find the doctor who’d once taken care of me, the lover who’d seduced me, the man who—I knew deep in my heart—still loved me.
I slept for a couple hours, maybe more, and woke as the golden glow of dawn flushed the horizon beyond the tailgate. The sun was behind us, so we were headed west. Moments later, we passed two weathered road signs.
Leaving Kansas Come Again and Welcome to Colorful Colorado
A few miles into Colorado, the band of twenty-some vehicles pulled off to the side of the interstate. As our truck crept alongside the caravan and headed toward the front of the line, I climbed to my knees and frantically searched for Roark or Jesse or a familiar face.
The chain of parked vehicles consisted of small trucks and cars of the fuel-efficient variety. I didn’t see a fanged mouth—were they retracted?—or recognize a single face as fifty or so men checked engines, refueled from containers they hauled, and urinated on the side of the road. No one talked or shared a glance, yet they worked like synchronized machines alongside one another. The sight made the hairs on my nape stand on end.
Something wasn’t right about them, beyond the whole kidnapping thing. Not only could I feel their auras humming beneath my skin, but their presence seemed to repel nearby aphids. The insectile vibrations were there, a dull buzz in my gut, but the aphids didn’t come within a visual distance. If anything, they fled.
Though I had been unsuccessful in commanding these blank-faced men to die on the battlefield, I tried again. Focusing on two men standing beside one of the cars, I silently breathed, Die.
Nothing.
Shit.
We reached the front of the line and circled back to return to the tail. Not one vehicle held a cage. No familiar faces.
I was the only woman.
The only prisoner.
No Roark or Jesse.
Grief slammed into me with the force of a tidal wave. I slid to my butt, wrapped my arms around my waist, and tried to reign in my raging breaths.
My imprisonment on Malta had almost destroyed me, but I wasn’t the same person I was then. I’d dragged my ass out of a dungeon, survived the bowels of a volcano, watched the bodies of my Lakota companions burn to ash, and faced the charred remains of my beloved home.
Those events had hardened me, but what fortified my every breath was the bond that had evolved amid the hardship. I’d formed a profound, impenetrable stronghold with Jesse and Roark, one I would fight for, bleed for, and kill to protect. That made me stronger than every one of my muscled, empty-eyed captors.
I would stay strong and keep my head clear and my eyes open. No more wallowing. No more hopelessness. I would see Jesse and Roark again.
With these thoughts, so began my second imprisonment under Michio.
The next two weeks were much like my captivity on Malta. But instead of a guarded tower on an island, I was caged like a mangy dog in the bed of a truck.
Three times a day, Michio offered me food and water. Instead of bribing me to eat, he wordlessly took it away when I didn’t touch it. Instead of humoring my questions with mind games, he gifted me with blank silence. Instead of giving me baths and carrying me to the toilet, he tossed me two buckets. One he filled with water to wash with, a wasted effort since I refused to remove my pants and jacket. The other bucket was to shit in. I really hated him for that bit of degradation and told him as much.
But everything else had been the same. The caged restlessness. The dread of the unknown future. The endless ache for Jesse and Roark. And my insatiable libido.
Michio might’ve lost his soul, but his body was here, healthy and well cared for, taunting me with the confident glide of his strides, the sculpted planes of his beautiful face, and the movement of his muscles beneath flawless skin. Sensuality was an idiosyncrasy of his physical structure, whether he was looking at me with desire or not. And there were no looks from him, neither with interest nor disinterest.
The other men didn’t leer at me either. They stared at nothing with hollow eyes and expressionless faces like Michio. They did what was needed to keep me alive, but I was never allowed out of my tiny prison.
I tried to escape. Holy hell did I try every time Michio opened the gate to the cage. But each attempt earned me a blurring punch in the ribs. He hit me hard and often, his strikes too fast to counter, his strength unstoppable, and his vacant expression firmly in place. I might’ve been able to move like him, but I couldn’t outmaneuver or overpower him, and the bruises on my torso added up. Eventually, I stopped trying.