Page 95 of Living with Fire
In that moment, I hear a quiet beep, and without thinking, open my eyes to look down at my phone. I must have tightened my hand around it and bumped the keypad button because it’s on the screen along with Nate’s name.
“What are you doing??” Vincent bellows, a hand suddenly gripping my other wrist, jerking me towards the driver’s side.
I shriek in surprise, dropping my phone between my seat and the door.
“Stop!” I cry out, twisting towards him because he’s giving me no choice with the way he’s turning my arm. “Stop! I’m not doing anything! You’re hurting me!”
“You were doing something,” he growls, releasing my wrist.
He only lets go of it so he can reach over me and pat the seat beside me before he grabs my other wrist, pulling it towards him. As he does so, he’s all over the road, paying more attention to me than it.
“Hands over here where I can see them, bear. Why don’t you put them right here?” he suggests, placing the hand he’s holding over his crotch. “Fuck yeah, baby, right there suits me just fine.”
I swallow the bile that comes up my throat. I can feel him getting hard beneath my hand, but it doesn’t surprise me. Control always turned him on. Maybe I can use that to my advantage, though. It makes me sick, but if I’m going to survive, I need to do what I have to.
“You know, Vin, if you tell me where we’re going, I might be inclined to have a little fun while we’re on the road,” I purr to him, using the sexiest voice that I can muster. My stomach churns at the thought of it.
“Bear,” he whines, but his hips lift in response to me. “I wanna surprise you.”
I lean closer to him. “You still can. I won’t know what it looks like until we’re there. I just want to know where it is that we’re going.”
Running my hand down the length of his thigh to entice him, but also so I don’t need to touch the growing bulge in his pants any longer, I look around for the gun. It hasn’t been in his lap since I came to, and I’m not sure where he put it. Apparently he doesn’t think I’ll put up much of a fight while we’re in the car.
Glancing in the backseat to see if he ditched it there, the vehicle behind us catches my eye. But it isn’t actually a vehicle.
It’s a crotch rocket.
My breath catches in my throat. I would bet my life it's Liam. A bet I realize I’m going to need to make.
“Okay, fine, we’re going up there,” Vincent says, nodding to the mountain beside us.
There's a large pasture between it and us, and I’m guessing there’s a road that will lead us to the other side before we start climbing. I need to do something before we get off this highway and onto some back mountain road.
“I’ve been staying there. I know you’ll love it, bear.” His hips lift again, eager for me to do what I told him I would. “Now touch me, baby. I wanna feel your hands on me.”
I’m not sure if it’s that I know Liam is behind us, the prospect of heading into the mountains with this psycho, or the thought of touching this disgusting piece of shit that has me feeling strong enough to rebel.
“Fuck you, Vincent.”
I’m about to punch him in the dick, but he sees the move coming and grabs my wrist, twisting it so hard that I’m screeching. Blinding white pain shoots through my arm, hot enough to make me want to vomit. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, beyond the pain, I know it’s broken. It’s a warning from him. To bend to his will and stay in line.
“Does he make you scream like that? Huh? Does he know what you like? That you like being punished? Does he make you beg for it, Savanna?” Vincent spits at me in a tone that chills me to the bone, releasing his hold on me.
Despite knowing it will only spur him on, I whimper as I drag my arm away, another stab of pain, worse than before, shuddering through me.
“I hope you enjoyed him while you had him because you’re never going to see him again,” he rages, the nice guy façade vanishing. “I’m going to make you scream and beg until you can’t take anymore, and then I’m going to do it all over again until you are completely broken, destroyed, and on death’s door.”
With each word that comes from his mouth, I get angrier and angrier. I hate this man. He controlled every aspect of my life for so long, and I let him, but I won’t let him control me any longer. If death is what he wants for me, it’s going to be on my terms, not his.
He sounds inhuman when he snarls, “I’m going to make you beg for me to end it, Savanna.”
“No,” I seethe, my chest rising and falling heavily, clarity as clear as a sunny summer day easing the brutal throb in my head as my body prepares for what I’m about to do. “You don’t get to hurt me anymore.”
Grabbing the wheel with both hands, my one arm rippling with pain, I pull hard to the right.
I know Vincent doesn’t see it coming when he yells, slamming on the brakes, but it’s too late, the damage is done. We’re sent careening into the ditch and pasture beyond. As the car starts its first flip, I hope my phone is still connected, and Nate can hear me because I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance to tell him.
“I love you, Nate.”