The Soldier and the Princess

Holy shit.

My brain went blank for half a heartbeat, then began to fire on all cylinders as the implications of that statement began to take shape in my mind.

The Pennington woman.

They weren’t just robbers. They weren’t here to take a couple hundred bucks and some tacky jewelry and then split.

These guys had a mission. They had a goal in mind, which meant they had to have some sort of plan.

And whatever that plan was, there was no way it was good.

Still hidden at the far side of the store, I watched as the salesgirl’s eyes shifted, her gaze moving to the back, toward the bathrooms.

To Penelope.

There was no question as to why I did what I did next. Zero hesitation in my mind at all. There was no way I was going to risk Penelope and my unborn niece or nephew to these assholes.

As the guy with the gun started to turn to the back of the shop, I stepped forward, drawing the attention of both men.

“Here,” I said, loud and clear, my voice ringing out in the cavernous warehouse. “I’m here. I’m a Pennington.” My voice shook slightly as I wound my way through the racks of clothing, doing my best to keep their attention on me.

The one with the gun sneered behind his ski mask, his crooked yellow teeth showing through the hole in the mask.

“What do you want with me?”

“You’re coming with us, you uppity bitch.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary. If you’d just tell me what you’re after, I’m sure I can arrange to—”

My words cut off when the other man, the one without the gun, who had been silently hovering near the door the entire time, came up behind me and wrapped his hand around my mouth. His rough fingers smelled of stale nicotine as he clasped me against his hard chest, my own hands clawing frantically at his arm, trying to get free.

“You don’t get to call the shots here, city girl.” His voice was low and scratchy, as if he didn’t use it often. “You’re gonna come with us, whether you like it or not. So how about you drop the pretentious act and stop making like you have any sort of say in this? Because believe me—you don’t.”

I did believe him, and because of that, I stilled my hands.

Something about him—the way he carried himself, or maybe just the detached way he spoke about what was happening—led me to believe that he was not a man to be trifled with. Sketchy dude with the gun, him I could probably talk down. But this guy was all business.

And as of this moment, his business was me.

He started walking backwards out of the store, dragging me with him out onto the empty sidewalk. My wide and panicked eyes watched as the guy with the gun shook it one more time at the girl behind the desk. But she wasn’t watching him anymore. She was watching me, her eyes on mine as the big guy hauled me out of the store and over to a car parked nearby.

I didn’t know anything about cars, but I could tell this one was old. It was low and long and had four doors and dark paint and that was all I could see before we rounded the back end and the guy popped the trunk, which was empty except for a small, zippered canvas bag. I watched as he dug around in it and came back with a syringe.

My eyes flew wide, and I began to thrash, kicking and clawing and screaming behind his hand. I raked my fingernails up the back of his wrist, feeling my stomach flip over as layers of his skin gathered beneath my nails.

“Fuck,” he breathed in my ear. “You’ll pay for that, you little bitch.”

With that, he pushed me forward, my hips against the bumper and my upper body folding over into the back of the trunk. I could feel him leaned over me, his chest pressed against my back and, revoltingly, his obvious erection against my ass. He released my mouth and fisted my ponytail—the tiara clattering to the ground as he did—but before I could draw enough breath to scream, a sharp jab in my neck made me gasp. I could feel the fiery burn as whatever he injected me with began to spread throughout my body and begin to take hold.

When his weight moved off my back, I tried to stand, but my arms were jello beneath me when I attempted to push myself up, and while my brain wanted to shove off the back of the car and run, my body simply could not comply.

I could feel his rough hands patting down my pockets, then the world spun as he gripped my hips and flipped me into the trunk. Rolling me over, the man in the mask grasped my hands and zip tied my wrists together tightly, as I stared blankly at him, my head feeling like it was floating away from my body. I lay on my back, blinking up at the man in the mask as he grinned evilly down at me, running his eyes up and down my body.

The last thing I heard before the drugs finally took me away was a scream.

And a gunshot.