It feels false. I force a smile, because I know if you smile when you’re talking on the phone, it sounds cheerier. Something about the shift in voice pitch. Nothing magical about it. “Okay,” I tell him. “Be careful out there.”

He doesn’t wish me the same. A quick goodbye, and I’m listening to a dial tone. I slowly lower the phone into the cradle. The phone cord immediately coils up into an unmanageable knot, and I unplug it from the receiver and smooth it out until it slips free, then reconnect it.

A little order in a world spinning out of control.

I have a wild, dark need to call my kids. They wouldn’t know this number. They might answer the call, and I’d get to hear one of their voices. I want that with such force it feels like I might burn up from the blaze of it.

I stretch back on the bed, turn on the TV, and wait. In the morning I’ll make a plan.

In the morning, I’ll find a way through this.

 

I try to stay awake but as the night drags on, my eyes drift shut. When I open them, I see Melvin Royal leaning over the bed.

He can’t be here. He can’t. I think for a beat that I’m imagining it, and that’s long enough to cost me.

I go for my gun. It isn’t where I left it. I spot it tossed on the other bed. Too far to reach.

I fight. My first punch, off balance and robbed of power by the springy mattress beneath me, still connects.

It knocks Melvin’s face askew, and I pause for a dim second in horror. Unreality slips over me in a cold rush, and I feel my skin tighten, as if shrinking from the impossibility of it.

It isn’t Melvin. It’s someone wearing a fright mask of Melvin’s face.

His punch doesn’t have the disability of being thrown from a bed. It lands hard. The mattress does absorb some of the shock, but not enough. I’m dazed from the blow, and my ability to resist is down by half as he drags me off the bed and onto the carpeted floor, where he rolls me on my stomach. I use the chance to shove myself up, and I lift my right leg in a fast, vicious mule kick.

He’s straddling me, but he’s too far forward for the kick to do damage, and then he puts a knee in my back and forces me down again. I scrabble for anything I can reach, and I find the phone cord. I pull, and just like before, the whole thing crashes off the table. It hits my shoulder, but I hardly feel the pain. I grab for any part of it I can reach, find the weight of the ancient old device, and twist to swing it at his head.

He dodges backward, traps my left arm at the end of the swing, and wrenches until I drop the phone again.

He hasn’t said a word, whoever he is. Not Melvin. He’s wearing one of those ghastly Halloween masks that were sold for a couple of years after Melvin’s show trial; my ex was a popular douchebag costume, especially among the frat boys. But seeing one in the flesh is a horrible shock.

Like a nightmare come to life.

I’m totally focused on fighting, but it hits me then: I’m in a motel. One that’s likely at full capacity, thanks to the winter storm.

I open my mouth to scream bloody murder.

He jabs the contact points of a stun gun into the back of my neck, and the volts roll through me. The world doesn’t go dark, it goes bright; every nerve in my body fires, and I see a volley of silent fireworks go off behind my eyes. The pain is familiar. I’ve been Tasered before. Hold on, hold on . . .

The second jolt, fired longer, puts me past any resistance.

I feel him manipulating me like a rag doll while I tremble. My hands are pinned behind me with some kind of cuffs. I’m picked up and thrown over his shoulder. He stops to take my gun, and my pack from where it leans, and he’s out the door in seconds. He shuts the room and readjusts the mask so it hangs straight to conceal his face. I see a blur of rusted iron railing moving past. Sleet has left a thick, watery coating of ice on it. Sam and I took first-floor rooms this time, and just on the other side of the railing, the parking lot is full of parked, silent, ice-slicked vehicles. I see one or two lights on in rooms. I try to get myself together. Scream, I tell myself, but I can’t. I can barely see. My body feels like a locked cage.

I feel my captor slip a little on the ice as he loads me in the rear cargo area of a van, and I hope he’ll go down, but he catches himself on the open door. He climbs inside, drags me forward, and does something I can’t see, but I feel a tug at my limp, bound hands. I hear a click. I’m lying on fraying carpet, but under that is cold metal.

I’m stupidly grateful when he grabs a thick fleece blanket and throws it over me. At least I’m not going to freeze to death.

Though that might be far kinder than what’s in store for me now.

I don’t have a phone. Sam isn’t here.

No one will ever know where I’ve gone. Unless they review surveillance video, if there even is such a thing, they won’t even know I didn’t leave of my own accord.

My captor finishes, and I hear the hollow boom of doors slamming behind me. The van smells of rust, oil, old fried food. My body’s starting to come back to me, and it hurts everywhere, but that storm is a summer rain compared to the fear that’s choking me. I’m alone. I’m alone, and Sam won’t know where I’ve gone.

A new thought crowds in, and it brings a bloody, ripping despair with it. Sam’s odd behavior on the phone. His hesitations. What did he want to tell me? That they were coming for me?

Did Sam do this?

I try not to think about what’s going to happen to me, but I can’t avoid it. I know. I’ve seen the results of Melvin’s frenzies. Tears leak from my aching eyes, and I realize I’m not crying for myself. I’m crying for my kids, who will never know how much I love them now. I’m disappearing into the dark. I will end up bones on the bottom of a lake, and they’ll never find me.

Please, I pray to a God I can’t be sure is listening. Please, don’t let them think I abandoned them. Do what you want to me, but don’t give them that pain. Let them know I fought for them. Please.

I hear him get in the driver’s seat, and then, with a lurch, we’re moving into the ice-locked night, and I don’t know where we’re going. The terror and shock are starting to recede just a little, enough to let me breathe. Let me think about what to do.

This is what you wanted, I tell myself. You wanted Melvin to come for you. Now you just have to live long enough to be useful to your kids.

Stay alive.

I can’t depend on Sam now. I can’t depend on anyone but myself. All my life has been coming to this.