Stone Cold - Ashby Crime Family

Those words were ominous, at best, and I knew the next few days would be long as hell.

But, if it ended with Bonnie back where she belonged, it would all be worth it.

Every last thing done to get her back would be worth it.

More than worth it.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bonnie

“Shit!” The word, or rather the coarseness of it as it worked its way out of my throat, shocked me. I rarely used profanity, and when I did, shit wasn’t my word of choice. However, the jarring pain of trying to open my eyes against the blinding light above me left me no choice. I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could until total blackness surrounded me, but as strange as it sounded, I could still feel the light.

Then it dawned on me. It wasn’t just light, it was heat. The sun. I was outside and, despite the searing pain of the brightness, that thought immediately had me trying to pry my eyes open again. I couldn’t, but what I could do was try to sit up and figure out where I was and how I got here.

Waking up in a strange place wasn’t exactly something I was used to, especially since until recently, I’d never shared a bed with a man. Hence, I had no clue if I should be worried or not. Until I heard the sound of a car off in the distance. Way off in the distance, but I was outside, so that didn’t make any sense.

Another attempt at opening my eyes produced another squeal of pain, but I was determined to look at my surroundings. My hands dug deep into the ground and pushed to lift me to a sitting position. That allowed more pain to tear through my palms as sharp rocks and broken glass dug into my flesh.

“Okay, so definitely outside,” I whispered to myself and shook off the pain. I needed to open my eyes to see where I was, pain be damned.

I nodded and counted to five before slowly peeling my eyelids open and letting them fill with water as they tried, in vain, to adjust to the sunlight.

“Crap!” I kept my eyes open but aimed at the ground, the spot of shadow from a bush providing just enough relief that I could finally see shapes and colors. I could finally make out where I was.

“The desert?” I looked around in shock at the baby cactus plants springing out from the ground, the tiny bushes so starved and dehydrated there was hardly any green to be seen. Otherwise, there was mostly debris and litter, bottles and discarded potato chip bags, signs of late-night gatherings far away from the prying eyes of the law.

It was a party spot, but I wasn’t a party girl, and I couldn’t remember how I ended up in the desert. The last thing I remembered was talking to Maisie at Emerald Isle. She found me just as I cashed out my winnings, not enough to get me out of Glitz but enough for a week or two in a crappy motel.

“My money!” Only the desperation of the poor and downtrodden could have opened my eyes so wide, blinding me until white dots appeared at the edges of my vision and everything started to focus. Everything.

The rips on my clothes, jagged in some places like straight down the center of the light purple Interstate Café t-shirt but cut with more precision up one leg of my jeans. The button was missing completely too, probably cut with a knife. Bile rose in my throat as I turned my attention from my surroundings and placed them squarely on my person once again.

There was a crusty blob right in the center of my chest, off white in color and my body went cold the moment I recognized it. Semen. It wasn’t just the one blob either, there were tiny spurts and long lines of white across my bra and down my stomach. I even felt it hardening on one side of my face. Blood dried on the center of my right arm. It looked like it had dried while dripping out of my vein in the hot desert sun.

It was a telltale sign, that even someone as new to this world as me, recognized easily. Someone had injected something into my vein, and I felt sick just thinking about it.

Despite what Calvin or my bitch mother thought of me, I was no junkie. I took a few pills because who could live with the pain of living in this fucked up world without the aid of something?

And yeah, maybe sometimes I supplemented with something a little harder when I needed it, but I needed it. Most days the pain inside was unbearable and it always had been. The difference was that my parents and the church had brainwashed me into thinking that this pain was normal. That it was a big part of the human experience. We should just grin and bear it, like good little Christians.