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Jenna Armstrong grabbed at the arm of the young man heading toward his car.
“Please Garrett, don’t drive home. You’ve been drinking.” The stench of booze washed over her in putrid waves, combined with stale cigarette smoke, and even the acrid stink of piss where he must have sprayed his shoes at some point during the evening. He’d always been a bad aim.
He shook her off. “Don’t tell me what to do, you fat bitch. I’ve only had a couple.”
Yeah, a couple of bottles of Jack.
His words stung. She knew she wasn’t a skinny girl, far from it. But what were a few insults? She’d suffered a lot worse at Garrett’s hands. She knew she should leave him, but his comments about no one else loving someone her size stayed in her head. She was terrified if she lost him, she’d spend the rest of her life alone. But perhaps being alone would be better than being with Garrett. He did his best to put her down, to worm away at what small amount of self-confidence she had. Even, on the odd occasion when she managed to lose a few pounds, he would catch her standing in front of the mirror and comment on how she’d only lost the weight from her tits.
When she’d got home from work that evening, Garrett had told her he was taking her out. She’d been delighted, and dressed in jeans that hugged her ample curves and a floaty top to disguise the belly she was always conscious of. She’d thought they’d been going out for dinner, but instead he brought her to the grotty bar they were stood outside of now and he’d told her to get a round in while he played on the gaming machines. She should have stopped buying him drinks over an hour ago, but when she suggested he’d had too much, he got nasty with her. She figured she’d just drive home, and he’d hopefully sleep it off. She hadn’t considered that he’d fight her about who was driving.
“Please, Garrett. Just let me drive. It’s no big deal.” She could hear the whiney tone entering her voice and tried to stop herself. He hated it when she got whiny.
“This is my fucking car, and I’ll drive it if I want to.”
She needed to stand up to him. It wasn’t often she did, and, on the odd occasion when she had, she’d been rewarded by being shoved up against a wall, or having a fist balled in her face. He’d never gone as far as hitting her, but he’d threatened it often enough.
Jenna reached out to snatch the keys from his hand, but he was surprisingly quick for someone who’d had so much to drink. He whisked them out of the way and held them above his head, out of her reach.
He laughed, nastily. “You can’t get them now.”
“You’ll get yourself or someone else killed if you try driving home. I mean it, Garrett.”
“Shut the hell up. I’m fine. I know when I’ve had too much. You’re not my fucking mother. When did you turn into such a goddamned prude?”
She’d finally had enough of his bullshit. “You know what, Garrett. Go ahead. Drive yourself home, see if I care if you wrap the car around a lamppost. I’m walking.”
Even as she set off down the street, the guilt worked its way into her heart. What if he actually did have an accident, what if he hurt someone else in the process? She would never forgive herself. She needed to call the cops and report him. He would kill her—literally kill her—and their relationship would be over, but she couldn’t let him hurt himself or anyone else.
She fished her cell from her pocket, and lifted a finger to swipe the phone live. But a hand wrapped around her wrist, the thick fingers squeezing tight. Pain shot up through her arm and reflexively her hand opened around the phone. It fell to the ground, the case splitting, the battery dropping out onto the sidewalk.
Jenna barely managed to exclaim before her arm was wrenched behind her back and she found herself being frog-marched back to Gerratt’s car. He twisted her back around to face him and shoved her, so her back hit the metal shell of the car. Pain speared up her spine.
“Who the fuck were you calling? Hope you didn’t think someone else would come pick you up.”
“Garrett, just leave me alone. You’re hurting me.” She tried to wrench her wrist free. She glanced down to where his fingers dug into her skin. His nails were too long, dirt encrusted beneath them. A sudden wave of nausea swept over her. Had she really let him touch her with those hands?
“No fucking chance. You’re coming home with me, whether you like it or not.”
He gave her another shove, as if to make his point, and then reached around her body to pull the passenger door open.
A couple of guys came out of the bar to smoke, and though they glanced over to Jenna, they spoke between themselves rather than doing anything to intervene.
“Get in the car,” Garrett hissed in her ear, alcohol and cigarettes washing over her.
“No, you’re drunk!”
His tone lowered to a menacing growl. “I said get in the fucking car.”
She planted her feet and squared her shoulders, refusing to move, but though Garrett may have only had twenty pounds on her weight-wise, he was hell of a lot stronger. Before she even got the chance to fight back, she found herself being yanked forward, around the car door, and shoved into the passenger seat. He slammed the door behind her.
Frantic, she threw herself across the seat, planning on climbing out of the driver’s side, but a beep sounded and she realized he’d locked her in. Real fear pricked her heart, her skin crawling. How far was Garrett going to take this?
His face suddenly appeared at the driver’s window, a crazed ‘surprise’ grin on his face, as if this was all one big game. The car’s central locking beeped again, and Jenna turned from him and lunged back toward the passenger door. Her fingers grappled for the handle, and she just managed to crack the door open before Garrett was in the car with her. He grabbed her arm and yanked her back in again, and then reached across her and pulled the door shut. He pressed the key fob again to lock the doors.
“Don’t want you getting any more stupid ideas, do we, bitch?”
Though she didn’t want to cry in front of him, hot tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please, Garrett. Just let me out. We’ll both get a cab home and we can talk about this there.”
“Talk about it?” he scoffed. “What the hell do I want to talk about?”
She glanced back toward the bar, one final spark of hope that someone had seen what was happening and was coming to help, but the guys who had been smoking threw their cigarette butts down and ground them with their heels, before heading back into the bar. It must have been too dark for them to realize anything more than a couple’s spat was going on.
No one was coming to help her.
The engine thrummed to life around her, the headlights illuminating the area in front of the car. Garrett put his foot down, screeching out of the parking lot. The motion threw her to one side and then back again, and quickly she reached back and grabbed her seat belt. She pulled the strap across her breasts and clicked the metal clip into place.
Jenna sat back in her seat, gripping the door with one hand, and the edge of her seat with the other, her knuckles white. The bar they’d been at was located out of town, and Garrett sped along the empty road, his speed gradually increasing. Thirty miles an hour... Forty miles an hour... fifty miles an hour.
He hit sixty and barely slowly for a bend, causing her to grip her seat tighter.
“Please, Garrett. Slow down.”
He laughed. “No way. I’m having too much fun.” He took one hand off the wheel and reached down to grab the top of her thigh, giving her flesh an appreciative squeeze. “Aren’t you having fun, baby?”
“No, I’m not. You’re scaring me. Please slow down.” She used the only thing she had left. She forced a smile and placed her hand over the hand on her thigh. “If you get us home safely, I’ll show you how thankful I am.”
He glanced over at her and the sheer contempt in his eyes made her heart lurch. He pulled his hand away and she was at least relieved that he put it back on the steering wheel.
“You’ll be thankful to me when I tell you to be thankful to me. Got it?”
“Whatever you say, Garrett. Just watch the road, please!”
The headlights were on full glare, lighting the road ahead with an almost supernatural hue.
A car headed toward them in the opposite direction. The driver flashed his lights a couple of times to tell Garrett to dip his headlights, but Garrett only laughed and flipped the driver the finger. They were getting closer to town now. The apartment they shared was near downtown. He would have to slow down before he reached the built up area or the cops would be on him in an instant.
Tears poured down her face, her shoulders and neck tense, her eyes wide. Her heart beat too hard in her chest, and her terror made her nauseous. Her breath came in panicky snatches, gulping down air in between frightened sobs.
Movement suddenly darted in front of them, and before she got the chance to react, Garrett slammed on the brakes. The car went into a skid, throwing Jenna to one side, her seatbelt locking across her chest.
She caught sight of the white flick of a deer’s tail as it made it safely across the road. The car began to slow and she breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t hit the deer. Despite Garrett being way over the drink drive limit, he’d managed to control the car.
Headlights blazed on the road, coming around the bend toward them.
Oh, shit. They were in the wrong lane.
“Garrett, move!” she screamed.
But the huge, eighteen wheeler bore down on them, not even slowing. The driver hadn’t seen the car skewed across the wrong side of the dark country road.
The headlights grew bigger and brighter in the passenger window as Jenna sat, frozen in fear and her inability to react as the truck hit the car side on.
The screech of metal bending and twisting filled her ears. The white light so bright it obscured her vision.
And she knew nothing more.