Fully Loaded - Blake Crouch [54]
Lucy’s seatbelt released and she slammed into the metal-reinforced dashboard. Donaldson shook his head, then swiped the zip tie from his pocket. He grabbed a handful of wool cap and the hair beneath it and yanked Lucy up off the floor. She fought hard, but weight and strength won out and he cinched her hands behind her back.
Donaldson glanced through the windshield, then checked the rearview mirror. Darkness.
Lucy laughed through her shattered nose and ran her tongue along her swollen upper lip and gums—two front teeth MIA.
Donaldson blinked and shook his head again. Pulled off the road onto the shoulder.
“We’re gonna have some fun, little girl,” he said. “And two hundred and fifty milligrams is like candy to me.”
He ran a clumsy paw across her breasts, squeezing hard, then turned his attention to the backseat.
The guitar case had two clasps, one on the body, one on the neck.
Donaldson slapped the left side of his face three times and then opened the case.
A waft of foulness seeped out of the velvet-lined guitar lid, although the contents didn’t seem to be the source—a length of chain. Four pairs of handcuffs. Three carabiners. Vials of liquid Oxycontin. Cutlery shears. A creepy-looking instrument with six blades at one end. A spotlight. A small spray bottle. Two coils of climbing rope. And a snowboarding helmet.
The front passenger door squeaked open and Donaldson spun around as Lucy fell backward out of the car. He lunged into her seat, but she kicked the door. It slammed into his face, his chin crunching his mouth closed, and as the door recoiled, he saw Lucy struggling onto her feet, her wrists still bound behind her back.
She disappeared into the woods.
Donaldson took a moment, fumbling for the door handle. He found it, but paused.
He adjusted the rearview mirror, grinning to see the blood between his teeth.
“Should we let this one go, sport? Or show the little missus that there are things a lot scarier than a guitar case full of bondage shit?”
Donaldson winked at his reflection, tugged out the keys, yanked up the brake, and shoved his door open. He weaved over to the trunk, a stupid grin on his face, got the right key in on the third try.
Among the bottles of bleach solution, the rolls of paper towels, the gas cans, and the baby wipes, Donaldson grabbed the only weapon an upstanding citizen could legally carry without harassment from law enforcement.
The tire iron clenched in his hand, he bellowed at the woods.
“I’m coming for you, Lucy! And there won’t be any drugs to dull your pain!”
He stumbled into the forest after her, his erection beginning to blossom.
She crouched behind a juniper tree, the zip tie digging into her wrists. Absolute darkness in the woods, nothing to see, but everything to hear.
Donaldson yelled, “Don’t hide from me, little girl! It’ll just make me angry!”
His heavy footsteps crunched in the leaves. Lucy eased down onto her butt and leaned back, legs in the air, then slid her bound wrists up the length of them. Donaldson stumbled past her tree, invisible, less than ten feet away.
“Lucy? Where are you?” His words slurred. “I just wanna talk.”
“I’m over here, big boy! Still waiting for that spanking!”
His footsteps abruptly stopped. Dead quiet for thirty seconds, and then the footsteps started up again, heading in her general direction.
“Oh, no, please,” she moaned. “Don’t hurt me, Donaldson. I’m so afraid you’ll hurt me.”
He was close now, and she turned and started back toward the road, her hands out in front of her to prevent collision with a tree.
A glint of light up ahead—the Honda’s windshield catching a piece of moonlight.
Lucy emerged from the woods, her hands throbbing from circulation loss. She stumbled into the car and turned around to watch the treeline.
“Come on, big boy! I’m right here! You can make it!”
Donaldson staggered out of the woods holding a tire iron, and when the moon struck his eyes, they were already half-closed.
He froze.
He opened his mouth to say something, but fell over instead, dropping like an old, fat