Her heart raced as she finished her chores and began walking back to the terminal. It was a mixture of so many things. Fear, longing, heartache, anticipation. She couldn’t stay forever, living under the radar, hiding from the Maguires, and eventually, the US government, once her tourist visa waiver expired and she was illegally in the country.
The best she could do was find a way to hide for a while until she could figure out how to get back to Ireland, perhaps taking up residence farther south or north, away from the central region where the Maguires controlled everything. Even with that, she’d have to take measures to hide herself, but that was easier to do in the familiarity of her own country where she could get lost in a quiet bungalow somewhere in the mountains or by the sea.
As she approached the entrance to the port authority, she found herself suddenly snatched into the open door of a van, pushing her into a cage and slamming it shut before hopping back out to shut the exterior door. She screamed, hoping someone outside the vehicle could hear her, but was quickly shut down by the driver’s door opening and loud music blaring as the van started up and began pulling away from the curb. She stopped, looking around for any possibility of escape. The cage was small, too small for her to shift within the steel bars. Whoever took her knew what she was capable of then.
“Hey, where are you taking me? Where are we going?” she shouted at the driver, but he was lost behind a dark tinted plexi-shield built between him and the cage. She couldn’t make out anything about him, or she supposed, her.
Her backpack. She still had her backpack and the phone she’d bought inside of it. There wasn’t a chance of setting it up and calling anyone, but maybe she could manage to hide it on her person so they couldn’t find it. The music was loud enough to hide the rustling of the bag as she slipped it out and stuffed it down into her bra, pinned beneath her right breast so that it wasn’t noticeable. She’d opted for one of the small ones because it was cheap, and she was grateful for that good fortune.
She looked at the bag, her brow furrowed. They’d see the bag from the store. She’d tossed the outer packaging to cut down on bulk in her bag, but she still had the store bag and the receipt. Popping the latter into her mouth, she screwed up her nose at the taste and horrible germs she was probably ingesting. Then she took the small bag and rolled it up tightly, slipping it down into her sock and shoe so that it was under her foot.
There was always the chance she’d been followed, that they’d seen her coming out of the shop, but she was hoping they’d only been tracing her to the bus station and had waited there. If that were true, there was a good chance they’d found her missing from the house and just send someone to find how she’d left, sending them to her next stop to pick her up there. She had no doubt now that the phone and laptop Sorley had given her were tracked and he’d reacted the moment he found them moving and pinging at a pawn shop address. No way could they have gotten onto her this fast otherwise.
“Bastard,” she muttered to herself.
She knew she should be scared, terrified probably, but she felt calm instead. She felt calmer than she’d ever been in her life. After the initial fright of being abducted off the street, her survival instincts were kicking in on all cylinders, her brain hitting her synapses to find a way out of this. Now, there was nothing she could do but wait to see where they took her and if she’d have a chance to get out of this or she was at the end of her journey.
If she knew Sorley, she’d not be killed immediately. He liked for people to pay with pain. Putting a bullet in her head would be too tame for him. That was, assuming this was his work. Despite what she was thinking about the situation, there was always a chance this was just a very odd coincidence and a third party had snatched her up. There was the chance it was the McNallys rather than the Maguires, but she didn’t think that Olcan would have let her go just to yank her back up again.
The more she considered the possibilities, the more she was certain this was the work of Sorley. Whatever he had in mind for her was not going to be pleasant. She had underestimated him and would pay the price for that. She could only hope that Olcan and his clan had enough of a head’s up to protect themselves. She wasn’t some ninny who thought she would die heroically saving the man she loved. She was scared, but what was done was done, and she’d suffer what came to her.