Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Vienna

I woke up warmer than I'd felt in weeks, and for just a moment, I thought I was home in my bed, my covers cocooned around me, safe, happy.

It wasn't until I felt the body behind me that I remembered I hadn't been home, safe, or happy in a really, really long time.

My body jolted before I recalled that I wasn't in the shed anymore, the moment making Riff jerk away from me, actually rolling off the bed and onto the floor to get away from me.

"It's okay. You're alright. I'll back off," he said, sounding borderline frantic at my reaction.

"No. Sorry. I… forgot," I admitted, pressing a hand to my jackhammering heart as I sat up.

Sunbeams streaked in through the grimy window, painting the dark walls in streaks of brightness.

"Everything's alright," Riff said, moving to stand but putting more space between us. "But we should get going soon," he added, glancing out the window. "How are you feeling?"

"Honestly? Achy. But I will walk," I said, lifting my chin with a grim sort of determination.

Because I would.

I would walk as my bones groaned. As my feet blistered. As my muscles screamed.

If it meant I could finally get away.

Get safe.

Clean.

Fed.

Though my stomach did feel stretched already just from the honey and the soup from the night before. The promise of more of that later today was probably what forced my weary bones to climb out of the bed.

"We are good and truly roughing it here, darlin'," he said, giving me an apologetic smile. "Meaning we will take turns heading outside to deal with… personal matters. I'll find you some safe leaves, so you don't accidentally get poison ivy in unmentionable areas," he added, making a surprised huff of laughter escape me, the sound foreign to my own ears.

"Okay," I agreed.

Sure, I was a pretty girly-girl. Meaning I hadn't ever needed to do my aforementioned ‘personal matters' in the woods. But like Riff had said the night before, this is about survival. I had to set aside all my preprogrammed icks and pride and just… make do.

"Here, hydrate a little," he said, bringing me a cup. "And maybe some honey. The sugar will give your body something to burn so you don't use up what little you've got on your bones," he said before making his way out of the cabin.

He was gone for a bit, and a little irrational twinge of fear started to build, worried he might have decided to cut his losses and leave me behind.

But then he was coming back in, using his shirt like a little bag, and dropping a small pile of blackberries onto the bed.

"That's all the bush had to offer. Looks like the critters got to it. But I'll take anything I can get for you right now," he said. "Eat," he demanded when I hesitated.

I reached for the pile, trying to separate them into two equal sections.

"No," he said, pushing them all back into one pile. "Eat all of them."

Knowing he was going to argue about it, I went ahead and shoved them into my mouth, finding them overly mushy from being nearly rotted on the bush, but, hey, it was food. I wasn't complaining.

"There's a pile of leaves by the door. You can head a little ways from the cabin if you want, but just make sure you can keep it in sight to get back, okay?" he asked.

"Okay," I agreed, unhappy to leave my warm blanket, but moving around warmed me up quickly enough as I headed into the woods, going as far as possible without losing sight of the cabin.

By the time I came back, Riff was outside, holding onto one of the cups from the cabin.

"We have to leave some of the cups behind. It's the right thing to do in this kind of situation," he said. "But I took the jar, the honey, the last meal, and I found this," he said, unrolling some material until it took the shape of a small sweater. "I think it belongs to a kid, but it should fit you," he said, holding it out to me. "I shook it out. No critters. I didn't feel right taking the blanket in case someone else needs to use this cabin for survival."

"This will help," I said, but knotted it around my waist, wanting to use it when I got really cold, not when I was reasonably comfortable. "I can carry something," I offered as he shoved things into his pockets.

"Yep. Yourself," he agreed, and somehow, I felt my lips curving up ever so slightly. It had been so long since I had any reason at all to smile that the muscles felt tight as it happened.

"Alright," Riff said, pulling his phone out of his pocket to tuck it into a different one. "Yeah," he said, seeing me look at it. "I turned it on while you were gone. But there's no signal at all. And I have almost no battery," he told me. "So I had to turn it off. As soon as we get anywhere near civilization, I will power it up, and call my brother. Then he will get us out of here."

"Your brother?" I asked as I fell into step beside him, the morning birds chirping happily as they went about finding their breakfast.

"Raff," he said, nodding.

"Wait… Raff?" I asked. "Riff and Raff? Like… who let in the riff-raff?"

"Exactly that," he agreed, shooting me a tired-looking smile.

"Are those your real names?"

"Nicknames from when we were kids, but they kind of stuck. That's what everyone calls us."

"Your brother was with you at the… house?" I asked.

"Yeah. We were there to do a deal, but the fuckers were never going to make a deal. Shit got dicey."

"I heard the gunshots."

"Yeah. My brother got to the car, but there were people in my way."

"He didn't wait for you?"

"We have a deal for when situations get bad. Whoever gets to the car first leaves in the car, if it's too dangerous for them to wait. The other will try to meet them down the road, or will call when they are somewhere safe to get picked up."

And he had no signal to call his brother.

"He must be worried sick."

"Raff isn't usually the worrying sort, but… yeah. This is the longest we've ever gone without being in contact. We're twins," he explained. "And we… work together. So… yeah."

"I'm sorry I'm slowing you down," I said even as I felt the blisters forming on my feet, knowing I would only get slower as the day went on.

"Vienna, you've got nothing to apologize for. We will get to a road, then this will all be over. Besides, I'm not exactly hating a trek through the woods," he said. "Been a while."

"Are we in Arkansas?" I asked, watching his handsome profile.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "Is this where you live?"

"I guess… not anymore," I said, figuring that months had gone by when I hadn't paid bills. My apartment was surely occupied by someone else by now. My belongings, well, donated? Thrown away? I had no idea.

"Your family then?" he asked.

"I don't have any," I told him. "I had my grandma only. But she passed… I guess it's two years now. After her… there was no one."

No one to know I was missing, let alone worried I'd been kidnapped. No one to look for me, to lean on the police to double their efforts to find me.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"Originally? Georgia. But my brother and I live mostly on the road. The place we rest our heads for longer than a night or two, though, is California."

"I didn't peg you for someone from California."

"Well, we don't live in the sun-and-fun part. We're out in Inyo. Over by the Death Valley mountains that border Nevada. Get more of the seasons and shit. Bet it's cold as fuck at night right about this time of year."

"Why do you live on the road? Are you… salesmen?" I asked, though I wasn't even sure that traveling salesmen even existed anymore. That sounded like a thing of the past.

"Here's the part where I'm gonna tell you something that you might not like to hear," he started, tone reticent.

"Okay," I agreed, throat actually feeling a little scratchy from speaking. This was the most I'd talked in months.

"I'm a biker."

"Like…" I said, lifting my arms to mime a bicycle handle.

"No," he said, shooting me a big smile that made a strange, tingly sensation move across my chest. "No. Motorcycles. But I belong to a club."

"Oh, right. Yeah. I've seen those. That's why you have that on," I said, gesturing toward his leather vest thing.

"Yeah. But I'm a one-percent biker."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means most bike clubs are just for fun. Ninety-nine percent of them. Just to hang out and ride. But one percent are… criminals."

"Oh," I said, nodding. "Well, I guess I kind of figured you weren't a Boy Scout. What with all the shooting."

"Yeah. We sell guns. That's what I was at the house to do. We buy guns in the South, mostly, then drive them to Florida or back to California to sell."

"Well, that's a career path they didn't tell me about on career day at school," I said, getting a little burst of a chuckle out of him, a deep, throaty sound that I wanted to hear again.

"Yeah. Kind of stumbled upon it ourselves."

"So… in California… you have a club?"

"Yeah. The club owns a big fucking warehouse that was converted into a living space. So there's communal living, game, and kitchen areas. Then there are floors of bedrooms. That's where we live when we aren't sleeping in motels on the road."

So that was where they were going after this.

His brother would come and get him.

Then they would go back to California.

And I'd be all alone again.

With no apartment, no job, hell… no clothes.

We fell mostly into silence then as we walked, and I was glad for that as my body started to object to each step, making me need to actually focus to keep myself from whimpering or complaining.

We stopped midday for more water, then each took a little walk to find privacy again, before meeting back and continuing to walk.

My body felt like it was held together with elastic bands stretched too thin, making me all wobbly and uneven, but I tried to keep myself behind Riff, so he didn't notice as he trudged on, seemingly immune to pesky things like muscle fatigue or exhaustion. Even though I was reasonably sure he hadn't actually gotten any sleep either.

My gaze was fixed down on my feet, sure I would see blood oozing out of the ballet flats that seemed to be cutting into my swollen feet. That was how I ended up plowing right into him, letting out a squeak of surprise at the feel of him.

"What is it?" I asked, taking a step back.

"A road," he said as I came toward his side, squinting off into the distance. And, sure enough, a couple dozen yards ahead, there was a well-worn dirt road.

Somehow, though, the sight of it filled me with panic instead of relief.

What if my captor was in a car, driving around looking for me? What if the people who lived by this road were friends of his? What if they called him? What if he killed Riff, and took me back to hell?

"Hey, hey, hey," Riff said, reaching to press his hands on my shoulders, but pulling back at the last second, not seeming to want to touch me, and that filled me with a sadness I couldn't explain. "It's going to be okay. We will follow the road, but we'll do it from in the woods deep enough that no one should see us if they drive down, okay?"

That seemed to loosen the cord tightening around my chest loosen slightly, but not enough to make breathing exactly easy again either.

"I'm hoping that as we follow it down, it will lead to a more populated area. Then there's no way someone would try to come for us, right?" he asked, trying to rationalize with my anxiety. But there was no helping this. I wasn't going to feel okay again until I was hidden away somewhere that no one could find me.

"As soon as I see more signs of life, I will power up my phone and make the call. I promise you, darlin', Raff will come as fast as the wheels on that car will turn. And he'll get us out of here."

"Okay," I agreed, pressing a hand to my wobbling stomach.

He must have taken that to mean I was hungry, though, when he suddenly reached for the packaged meal, cut the top open, and poured some water into it.

"Here. Eat. Then we will move again. I'm hoping we will be down to somewhere with some cell service in another hour or two, max."

And, sure enough, he was right.

I'd pulled on my little blue cardigan, suddenly self-conscious about the state of my dress, of myself, as I stayed behind Riff while we walked down a two-lane road toward what looked like a small town.

"Wait, no. No," I said, tone more desperate as my hands grabbed the back of Riff's shirt, pulling until he stopped. "No," I said again, voice all shaky.

"Whoa, okay," he said, freezing. "Alright. No, what?"

"No… I don't want to go down there. Please, don't make me… not until…"

"Okay. It's okay," he said, tone placating. "I won't make you do anything you don't want to do. But I think I might need to go down there to be sure I get service and to get a town name to give to my brother. I won't make you. If you want, I will settle you into the woods, hidden from the road, and run down there, make my call, and come right back. Is that better?"

I hated feeling so shaky, so breakable.

But, yes, that was better.

I wasn't going to try to understand why.

I was just going to accept the kindness he was offering me.

"Yes," I agreed, nodding for emphasis.

"Okay. Then that's what we'll do," he said, walking us closer, before heading up a hill, and finding a particularly dense area of shrubbery to hide me behind. "How do you feel about guns, darlin'?" he asked.

"I… they're fine, I guess."

"Would you like to hold onto mine until I get back?" he asked, producing it. "Simple enough. You pull this safety back, then put your finger on the trigger and pull. But try not to shoot me when I come back, okay?" he asked, giving me a boyish grin as he held the gun out to me. "Just to make you feel better about being alone. But I will only be, maybe twenty minutes. I promise."

"Okay," I agreed, putting the gun on my lap as I sat, not wanting to do anything accidentally with it. But he was right. It felt good to have it, just in case.

"Twenty minutes," he said again, more firmly.

I gave him a nod, then watched as he took off out of the woods, this time without me slowing him down, at a dead run.

And I sat and waited for him to return.

Wondering if maybe, just maybe, they would let me go with them. All the way to California. Away from the reach of the men who had turned my life into a horror movie for months.

I guess time would tell.