After a little more than five hours, we stopped at a gas station of the run-down variety. The machines hadn’t been updated in decades, so the pumps had meters with needles instead of display screens. Either because we were on an abandoned road in the middle of nowhere, or because it was so late, the station only had one employee working inside. He looked so engrossed in his cell phone that were they to hold him up for all the cash in the register, he would probably hand it over without looking up. He wasn’t going to be the one to save me tonight.
Slick was in charge of filling the tank, Muscles went inside to get snacks and the guy on my left went to the washroom. This left me alone with the guy on my right, who they had called Jim, if I wanted to fight my way out of the car. However, that would also involve me having to outrun Slick once I made it outside. Luckily, the tank was on the left side, which was also where the other vehicle had parked. I was considering whether or not I could hit Jim hard enough to knock him out, when I noticed his leg was shaking, which it hadn’t for the rest of the drive.
“I know you guys are going to kill me, so you probably don’t care, but I really need to pee, and we are sitting on the same seat,” I shared, hoping I hadn’t misread the situation.
“You too?” he asked, looking to me and considering it. He was the one who had seemed the least dedicated to the cause in earlier conversations. He was a nervous nail-biter who dreamed of writing the next Great American Novel, but couldn’t make it past the prologue before ripping it all to pieces.
I nodded, pleading with him, before he got out of the Hummer and stepped aside so I could follow. I sighed with relief and made sure to look extremely grateful as he helped me get out with my hands still tied behind my back.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Slick asked from the other side of the car.
“She’s about to pee all over the seat,” Jim complained about me, without mentioning that he was about to do the same.
“Be quick,” Slick warned before we headed towards the building.
The restrooms were around the side of the station, so Slick and the others wouldn’t see what was happening once we rounded the corner.
“Do you think you could untie me?” I asked Jim, playing into the innocent little girl image as much as I could.
“That wouldn’t be cool,” he shook his head, looking over his shoulder towards the others. He struck me as someone at the bottom of the totem pole.
“It’s really awkward with my hands behind my back. Even walking is hard when I have nothing to balance me.”
Lucky for me, Jim was more interested in using the men’s room than in doing anything inappropriate to me, so he liked the idea of making it easier for me to go in on my own and not take a million years.
“What if your hands were in front?” he offered.
“That would be amazing. Thank you,” I told him, swallowing hard, both to show him my fear, and because I was having second thoughts about what I might need to do to get away from him.
He came behind me and was about to untie my hands when he thought better of it. “You can just climb through now,” he offered instead of untying and retying my ropes. At least he held onto me, so I could keep my balance while I stepped through the hole my arms made.
I took a look at the building and saw it was unlikely that I would be able to escape through a window while he was outside waiting. For starters, the window couldn’t accommodate more than my arm, and Jim was suddenly intent on coming in with me.
“I can use the sink while you…I won’t look,” he said, and although I believed him about not looking, it was still wrong on so many levels.
Once my hands were in front of me, I pretended to stagger, knowing he would instinctively come closer so I wouldn’t fall. As soon as he was within my reach, I put my arms around his head, using the rope pressed against his neck to pull him into me. He struggled, but hanging on the rope gave me leverage, so within a minute or so, he went limp and I let him fall to the ground. In the car, he had mentioned finding prohibition a lot more fun than people would expect, so I was pretty sure I hadn’t killed him for good. Not that it made me feel any less like I just murdered someone, nearly with my bare hands.
I heard flushing and remembered that one of the men would be walking out of the restrooms any second now, so without putting much thought into it, I ran off into the field behind the gas station.
As I got further away, I could hear shouts and running, so I knew they were following me, but I’d had a head start, and the field was overrun with tall grass and corn stalks. My school athletics wouldn’t help against someone with Gabriel’s speed, and the vegetation wasn’t going to keep me covered forever, but I was convinced that if I could make it to the other side of the field, if I could find someone -anyone- then I would get free.
It rained recently, or they had bad irrigation, because there were puddles along the sides of the rows. Some small enough that I could run over without even jumping, while others looked so deep and wide that I considered hiding in one, as an absolute last resort, if they closed in before I reached what sounded like a highway.
I could see the edge of the field in the distance and sped up to reach it, but I tripped on the uneven ground and fell. Luckily, I managed to put my bound hands out to break my fall, but I still landed with most of my upper body in a puddle.
I tried to use my elbows and feet to push myself off the ground, but my ankle did not appreciate the weight I put on it. I paused and took a deep breath before trying again, this time with less foot and more knee. The ankle was able to bear my weight, and the pain was more like those twists that go away quickly than an actual sprain. I limped a few steps, then used all of my willpower to keep running, knowing they were right behind me. They were gaining on me, and as much as I tried to push the thought out, I knew that it was almost impossible for me to get out of this. I needed to stop a car on the highway and get them to drive off with me before the minions caught up, or I was done for. I was now all wet, in addition to bloody, so even if I found somewhere to hide, I would most likely freeze to death overnight. It was hot summer weather during the day, but I could feel the autumn chill coming once it got dark at night.
I reminded myself that Sam would have died for absolutely nothing if those guys caught up with me, and used it as extra motivation to push myself harder and keep going. No matter what, I couldn’t give up.