It was a slow, psychological game—him, being in total control, and me not knowing what was going to happen next, or when, or where, or why.
I startled when he slid a stool next to me. It had a bowl filled with some kind of stew, a hunk of bread that looked like it had been ripped off—no knife, no niceties—and a bottle of water. My stomach jumped at the sight of it. I felt like I hadn’t eaten in days, and although I wanted to throw it all back in his face, I was ravenously hungry. I lifted my head and sank back down—the motion, combined with the rocking of the boat, making me woozy and disoriented. I attempted it again, more slowly this time, coming up on my elbows before sitting up.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
What the hell was that?
“I wouldn’t turn around if I were you,” he said.
Interesting. He didn’t want me to see his face. If he planned to kill me, why would he care? It would only matter if he didn’t want me to be able to identify him.
I spun around. The world went all dizzy and blurry, but I spun around. Maybe I was a crazy-ass bitch, but I wanted to see his face. I wanted to memorize every last detail so I could nail the bastard if it ever came down to it. And if he killed me, so be it. At least we would be more even.
I saw your face: Bang Bang.
Rather than I-Have-No-Clue-What-I-Did-To-Deserve This: Bang Bang.
He didn’t react to my defiance, not the slightest hint of a response. He just sat there, dipped his fingers in the paper cone he was holding and tossed something in his mouth.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
His eyes were shielded by a baseball cap, but I knew he was watching me. I shuddered when I realized he was taking his time, weighing my punishment like he weighed whatever he was eating, before chomping it down with his teeth.
I didn’t know what I was expecting. I already knew I hated him, but now I hated him even more. In my mind, I had pictured someone completely different, someone as mean and ugly on the outside as he was on the inside. That made sense to me. Not this. Not someone so ordinary, you could walk right by him on the street and never realize you’d just brushed past pure evil.
Damian was younger than I’d anticipated—older than me, but not the grizzly, hardened thug I’d assumed he’d be. He might have had an average build and height, but he was strong as hell. I knew because I had kicked and punched and fought him like a wildcat in that parking lot. Every inch of him was cold, hard steel. I wondered if it was a requirement in his line of work: abduction, mock executions, smuggling girls across the border.
He hooked his foot around the stool and pulled it towards him. The glossy, custom shoes were gone. He was wearing ugly, generic boat shoes with ugly, generic sweat pants and an ugly, generic t-shirt. His lips curled mockingly, as if he was fully aware of my disdainful appraisal and was enjoying it. The asshole was enjoying it.