My foot depresses the brake as I pull into a spot in a mostly empty motel parking lot.
The place is exactly what I was looking for. Off the beaten path. Low profile. Cheap.
I swallow. Because it’s also scary.
Now is not the time to start being a chicken.
I remind myself to be brave once more, then I reach forward and turn the key to shut off the engine of my brand new, super old, Toyota something.
Maybe I would’ve been better off keeping my van, and sleeping in the back like one of those YouTube campers. They always make it look so cute.
But that’s not me. I’m completely unprepared, and sleeping in the back of my van would not have been cute. Not that it matters now anyways, because as soon as I left King’s house I drove straight to St. Paul, to a sketchy-looking used car dealership I’d driven past before.
It was surprisingly easy to just swap one set of keys for another, and I’m fairly certain my new car is stolen, but that’s not my problem. Or at least it’s not my biggest problem. My biggest problem is the fact that I just pulled up to a lodgings that, from the look of it, should be named Murder Motel, on the outskirts of Chicago. And I still don’t have a phone, or a plan, or a giant guard dog.
My lips press together, but my chin still trembles.
It’s just a dog I try to tell myself for the hundredth time. But it still doesn’t work. I’m not kidding anyone. Duke was the only real friend I had over the last few days, and I’ve fallen in love with that damn beast.
“Just go inside,” I urge myself.
I eye the little bundle of clothes in the seat next to me, and decide to leave them here, and get my room key first. Not that I really think someone who works here would bat an eye at me carrying around an armful of clothes. But it would make me feel uncomfortable.
Then I start to wonder if I should ask for a room on the first or the second floor.
First floor seems more unsafe…but it’s not like the second story of a motel is any safer, since all the room doors open to the outdoors. And at least in a first-floor room I can crawl out a window if necessary.
My fingers close around the door handle, but I can’t quite bring myself to open it. Because I can’t shake the worry that I’m making all the wrong choices.
I might be free now, but fear is its own sort of prison. And it’s far more uncomfortable than being locked in a bedroom.
I had to leave.
I had to.
I’ve never really considered the lines of my morals before. Never really thought how I’d feel if someone I knew broke the law. But it only took a few hours with a kidnapping crime lord to realize that I don’t have many morals to worry about, because him being into bad things didn’t faze me.
Maybe I’m this way because of my jaded view of society. Or maybe it’s from growing up with shitty parents. Or maybe it’s because I was thinking solely with my neglected vagina. But I do know that human trafficking is a step too far.
Where I am now doesn’t feel safe, but it was the best idea I could come up with.
Because I knew I needed a big metropolitan area to get lost in, and because I knew I could get on Highway 94 and just follow the signs to Chicago, since I didn’t have a phone with GPS. Unfortunately, my budget doesn’t call for downtown hotels, so shitty motels I find by taking frontage roads off the highway will have to do.
Sighing, I start to pull the door handle when a beam of light shoots across the upper-level walkway of the motel.
I freeze as though I’m doing something wrong, not moving a muscle.
The door shuts, snuffing out the bright light, draping the little walkway back in shadows. And I have to squint, to make out what I think is a man, striding towards the stairs.
His legs are long, and he takes the steps down, two at a time.
It’s just a man leaving his room. Totally normal.
But I stay frozen, not wanting to draw attention to myself, when the man reaches the bottom of the steps.
I strain to see his features, but his long blond hair sweeps across his face, cutting off my view. Then, instead of turning toward me, toward the parking lot, he turns the opposite way, walking around to the back of the building. To the emptiness behind the motel. To nowhere.
Well, that’s terrifying.
There are two overhead lights in this parking lot. And the other one, not the one I parked under, just started flickering.
Just like in a horror movie.
This isn’t a movie, it’s your life. And you need to take control of it.
My head swivels, checking for anyone in the parking lot, but there’s no movement.
When my eyes lift to the rearview mirror, I notice a row of cars parked along the back.
Were those cars there when I got here?
I blink, but it’s still just a row of cars, parked in the dark.
My hands lift to rub my eyes. Six hours of driving has my brain playing tricks on me.
I pat my thigh, to make sure the cash I stuffed in my leggings pocket is still there. The rest is stuffed between my boobs, since I don’t want to thumb through all my money to pay for the room, and I’m too warm to put my hoodie with the pockets back on.
“Just walk up and ask for a room.” My hands close back around the handle. “It’s a motel. This is normal. So just act normal.”
With a heavy exhale, I open my car door and climb out.
The rain stopped about an hour ago, after it traveled across the Midwest with me, but everything is still damp. The air thick with humidity, muting the usual nighttime soundtrack of noisy crickets.
I take a slow inhale through my nose, and press the button to lock the car before slamming the door shut.
Just twenty steps to the office door.
Open the door, act normal, get a room.
Then get to your room, wash your hands, and have a mental breakdown.
Fifteen steps to the office door.
“Mrs. Vass?”
All of the oxygen evaporates from my lungs.
I didn’t hear him coming.
Didn’t see him.
A man nearly as tall as King, and maybe a little wider, stops next to me, forcing me to turn and face him. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to scare you.” His smile drains the last of the color from my face.
He’s not doing anything particularly scary, other than approaching me in a parking lot, in the dark, and knowing my name. Or, I should say, my married name.
No, it’s not what he’s doing. It’s just him. His energy.
The man is not in a suit, like I’ve become used to. He’s in a plain t-shirt and jeans. And every inch of skin from his jawline to his fingertips is covered in tattoos. With his buzzed hair, and thick facial hair he might be considered handsome, but he looks like he just stepped out of prison.
“The name’s Dominic, but you can call me Dom.” He extends his hand and habit has me taking it. “Your husband sent me.”
My poor heart is beating wildly. “King?” I whisper his name, barely noticing the way he gently shakes my hand, like he’s being careful not to squeeze my fingers too hard.
The man, Dom, smirks. “You got any other husbands?”
I shake my head.
“That’s probably a good thing.” He releases my hand, and I don’t have a chance to reply before he’s at my side, pressing that same hand into the middle of my back. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”
“No,” my feet stumble on the jagged blacktop, “I’m okay here.”
When I start to pitch forward, Dom grips me by the shoulders and steers me towards the cars in the last row. The ones I had looked at in the rearview mirror.
There are four of them, and they all look like those big blocky cop cars, only these are all black, with not an inch of silver on them. And even in the dark I can tell the windows are tinted.
We’re headed to one of the middle cars when I notice that the other driver’s windows are down, men behind each wheel.
Did all of these cars pull in after me and I didn’t notice?
I’m guided all the way to the passenger door where Dom reaches around me to open the door.
When I don’t move to get in, I hear him sigh behind me. “Look, I get it. This isn’t the best way to meet someone, but King asked me to keep an eye on you until he got here. And as much as I feel for your situation, I don’t really feel like getting on the bad side of The Alliance tonight. So, you can either come with me now and we can wait in the comfort of my home, or we can stand in this parking lot, hoping it doesn’t start raining again.”
There’s no dome light on inside of the car, the pitch-black interior daring me to climb in.
“I promise you’re safe with me, Savannah.”
I wet my lips and turn back to the man behind me. “Because you don’t want to cross King?”
He keeps his eyes on mine as he dips his chin down in confirmation.
King might be a monster, but I’m the monster’s wife. And that might be enough to save me right now.
“I need the clothes that are in my car.”
Dom lifts a hand and I hear a car door open. He hands my keys off to the man that walks up to us, and I look down at my empty hands.
When did he take my keys.
“Anything else?” Dom asks.
There is nothing else, so I shake my head.
“Alright, then.”
A moment later the other man jogs back, all of my clothes wrapped into my hoodie.
Dom hands it to me. And then, with my heart pounding behind my ribs, I get into the stranger’s car.
