Handcuffed by Her Hero (11 page)

“No!” She glared. “We try
something else.”

“Even if the patient thinks
you’re going to turn them into a Beyoncé-belting duck?”

“This isn’t the same and you know
it.”

Sally folded her arms. “It
isn’t?”

“Sal, an amputee with a shitty
penicillin reaction isn’t the same as—”

“That guy’s med personnel with a
devastating one-night-stand reaction?”

She turned her face so Sally
wouldn’t see her grimace. Like that would prevent the woman from noticing,
anyway. Sally had made the remark to get her specifically to this reaction: this
crossroads of confusion and defeat that gave her no other choice of what to
feel next.

Total desperation.

“Okay, okay!” She tossed up her
hands and sighed. “You win. I’ll try this nonsense.” She almost laughed at
Sal’s fist pump. “I said I’ll
try.
”

Sally grinned. “That’s all I ask,
sweetie.”

“I suppose you want to get this
done now?”

Sally nodded eagerly but stopped
herself. “Wait. You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

She chuckled. “Do the five huge
iced teas from this afternoon’s cleaning binge count?”

Sally scrambled to her feet.
“Only if you need to hit the little girls’ room before we start.”

A little over thirty minutes
later, Rayna found herself parked in one of the big chairs again, now seated
just a few feet away from Sally and feeling a dozen kinds of dork at once. The
lights in the room were dimmed. Sally had turned off the soft jazz station she
usually played, making the building eerily quiet. She’d already guided Rayna
through the hypnotherapy version of foreplay: breathe deep, stare at the
candle, feel your eyes getting heavy, breathe deep
again,
stare at the
candle
again
, feel your eyes slowly closing…

Ugh. Enough was enough. It was
clear this game wasn’t working. And didn’t Sal say she had a hunk waiting for
her back at home with a paused movie and a warm dinner? And likely a foot rub,
too. Yeah, game over. She’d tried this new planet, but sometimes you had to
kill off the crewman in the red shirt and beam back to reality. Now they could
both go home and—

She couldn’t move.

She thought about it. Hard. Told
her body to get up and move for…wherever it was that wasn’t here. Her limbs
were rooted to the chair. No, that wasn’t it. She was able to move. She could
lift her hands and wiggle her toes, just didn’t want to. She was really
relaxed. Peacefully focused. When Sally asked her if she was comfortable, her
head bobbed in an easy nod. Heck yes, she was comfortable. Too much so.

She really needed to get out of
here. And Sally, too. She had to go—

Where?

Where was it Sally had to go?
She’d known a minute ago, hadn’t she? It didn’t seem important anymore. She was
walking through a park on a beautiful spring day, just like Sally suggested to
her. It had recently rained. She could smell the damp pines, the moist honeysuckle.
A mild wind picked up her hair and rustled the pashmina around her neck. What an
awesome day…

“Are you in the park now, Rayna?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Do you feel safe there?”

“Totally.”

“Perfect. Just keep walking and
enjoy the day. What else do you see?”

“Mmmm.” She looked around. “Playground.
It’s themed like a pirate ship. There are some kids on it.” She lifted her hand
to wave at the children before quickly scooting to the left. “Yuck. Somebody
didn’t clean up after their dog.”

Sally’s answering laugh came from
far away, as if she’d stopped at the other side of the playground. But when she
spoke, she was back within arm’s reach. “Is there anyone with you? Anyone who
makes you feel more secure and relaxed?”

She smiled. “Yes. Ava.”

“She’s your friend?”

“My cousin. But yeah, she’s my
bestie, too.” Just like that, Ava materialized next to her. Chocolate curls
swinging. Indigo eyes dancing. A fashion plate even at twelve, with her cute
capris, self-painted T-shirt, and red high top sneakers. Rayna laughed and
sobbed in the same breath. She hadn’t seen Ava in years, since her cousin moved
to L.A. to work as a stylist on a TV show. To have her like this, flung back to
one of the summers when they’d both been so free and happy, made her heart soar
like one of the blue jays overhead.

“What are you two doing?”

She flipped her head, feeling thoroughly
twelve and arrogant. “Just hangin’. The usual.” She giggled. “Talking about
boys.”

“Of course you are.” There was a
smile in Sal’s voice, adding to the sunny freedom of the day. As Rayna offered
a stick of Juicy Fruit to her cousin, Sally directed, “Okay, you’re going to move
on. You’re moving to a place where you’re not so comfortable. Maybe the two of
you leave the park. Maybe Ava isn’t even with you anymore.”

The day got darker. Clouds skidded
over the sun. She clutched Ava’s hand. “No. She’s still with me.” Wrong. The
sun hadn’t been blocked by clouds. “Tunnel,” she muttered. “We’re still in the
park and there’s a tunnel. We normally love it in here. It’s like our secret
cave, but today,” –her throat clenched—“it’s not.”

Their footsteps didn’t reverberate
the way they normally did. “Who’s here?” she murmured. The air reeked of
cigarette smoke and sweat. She wrinkled her nose.

“But what, Rayna?” There was a
slight pause. “Come on, sweetie. Talk to me. Is someone in the cave with you
and Ava?”

She thrashed her head back and
forth.
No!
She didn’t want to see this, let alone experience it again.
Summoning strength she didn’t feel, she jutted her chin. “Stay close, cuz.
They’re just stupid boys. They’re not going to—”

Rayna, watch
out!

The tang of terror filled her
mouth. The horrible taste was worsened by the tobacco and grime on the fingers of
the gang’s leader, who snuck behind her as fast as the tall rat he resembled.
Dibs
on this slut, guys. I like redheads. The trendy tart looks like she’ll be double
the fun for both of you.

“Get your hands off me!”

“Rayna? Rayna!”

She couldn’t figure out who that
was anymore. It sounded like Ava but resonated like Sally, too. What was real?
What was going on?

The other two boys were closing
in on Ava. The one who held her already gave a low chortle. She snarled and
tried to get her teeth into the guy’s finger. Fail. He rearranged his grip,
squeezing until her molars tore into her cheeks.
Quiet, bitch. Don’t make me
do this the hard way.

“Mmmppff!” The guy was stronger
than his wiry frame let on. When she stomped her right foot atop his, he just laughed
and kicked her in the heel with his steel-toed boot. The pain shot her up with
more adrenalin. She poured it into the elbow she drove to his gut. Direct hit
this time. He groaned and doubled over. She was free.

For fifteen seconds.

She went straight for the two shit
bags who descended on Ava. She whirled one of them around and drove her nails
into his cheek, praying she peeled his skin off his skull as she tore down. He
howled, making his buddy look up and let Ava go.

“Run, Ava!” she screamed. “And
don’t stop!”

Thank God her cousin obeyed. Now
she just had to deal with her own consequences, which came with furious speed.
You
stupid little snatch.
It was gritted by the guy with the red gashes down
his face, leering as she got dropped to her back with leader boy’s steel-toed
stompers. She grunted as she hit the dirt, the air punched from her lungs, the
balance ripped from her senses. The roof of the tunnel was a twisted canvas of
dark oil and fresh moss, pigments that could’ve been pulled right out of the
fear and agony in her spirit.

“No,” she whimpered. “Please
don’t!”

Her hands were slammed back,
locked beside her head by leader boy himself, who stood on her wrists. She
choked, overwhelmed by the stench of mud and dog crap from the soles of those
hideous steel toes. His chuckle dripped with derision as he unzipped his pants.

You take her
first, Taylor. Her blood for yours, yeah? In the meantime, she can look up at
the next meat for her oven.

Taylor laughed. A switchblade
fwipped
out of its holster. In two seconds, he slid the blade through her shirt and
tore it off her torso.

“I can’t believe this is
happening.” Her rasp was a weird echo in her head. Her sob sounded even worse.
“Help me. Somebody please—”

There was a shriek but it wasn’t
hers. The switchblade clunked to the ground between her legs. Taylor was sudden
gone. No, not gone. Taken. Torn away. What the hell? Since her wrists were
still pinned, she could only see what her upstretched neck would allow—which
was Taylor getting flung against the wall. But she had to be imagining it.
Taylor hit the rocks like a hurricane had blown him there. Impossible. Superman
only existed in comic books, right? Not that leader boy gave her any time to
rationalize that. He scooped up the switchblade and hauled her across the floor
by her hair, coming to an abrupt stop after four steps.

Stop where you
are, asshole, or I’ll give this stupid squaw a nice little scalping.

She’d never been so cold in her
entire life. Fear was an ice floe in her veins. The only thing in her body that
still worked was her lungs, shoving air in and out through her nose as fast as
they could. Her lips were too busy chattering to help in the breathing
department.

“Rayna! Sweetie, you have to tell
me what’s happening!”

Sally was back. Oh, thank God! Maybe
she could help. No, she couldn’t. Where was she? Far away. She was still so far
away.

“Help me. Somebody has to help
me. He’s going to—”

There was a massive lunge, like a
bear rushing the tunnel.

“No! Don’t move! Can’t you see?
He’ll—”

The shriek belonged to her this
time. The pain was awful but didn’t touch the horror of feeling a chunk of her
hair stripped from her head at the edge of a switchblade.

“Rayna!” Sal’s voice shook. “I’m
going to bring you out of this now!”

“No!” She held out a hand,
fingers spread. “Don’t!”

Why had she done that? She wanted
to
stay
here? Trapped in the hands of a scum sucker who’d been ready to
rape her a minute ago, and was seconds from slicing into her scalp?

Her memory provided the answer to
that the next second.

Turned out the hurricane that had
flattened Taylor wasn’t done yet. And holy crap of all craps, that force of
nature really had taken human form. At least that’s what it looked like, as the
guy went at her attacker with a snarl that was only half biological. She was
certain the other half was meteorological. Raging. Roaring. Such a wild
difference from the faded jeans, plain tennis shoes and worn black hoodie that
he wore. Rayna shook her head in deeper disbelief when he made the gang leader
drop the knife by twisting his wrist until the bones cracked. When the shithead
bawled and doubled over to clutch his hand, the human hurricane planted his
foot between the guy’s butt cheeks and shoved him until he joined his gang mate
on the ground.

Wisely, the third thug had made
himself very scarce.

“You know, Kier, you should be
happy I’m in a nice mood today. The way you two dickwads are moaning on each
other, I could take a movie and sell it for big bucks to Sissy Boy Video.”

Rayna was rooted to her spot. The
voice in that body sounded like a teenager, but the muscles in that body—
oh,
God.
Her twelve year-old hormones got a jump to light speed as her gaze
traveled up his formidable legs, traced over his proud back, took in the angles
of his fisted arms, and finally followed the plateaus of his shoulders to his
hooded head.

“I need to know who he is.”

Her murmur was a deceit. There
was a scream beneath every syllable, which still didn’t explain the panic that
hit when he turned. She ducked her head behind her knees. Her frantic breaths
bounced off her thighs as she listened to the three strides he took back to her
side. He crouched and skimmed long fingers over her shoulder, setting off
tremors of hot and cold through her whole body. He was so big. So confident. So
male.

And she was being a total nimrod.
Jeez, she’d grown up surrounded by boys.
Male
was nothing new to her!

Wrong. So wrong.
This
male
was different.

She let the emotions go ahead and
invade. In a weird way, she savored them. The smallness. The gawkiness. The
inability to move or speak. Things she’d never felt around a guy before.

“Rayna.” It was Sally again, calm
but firm. “It’s time to come back. This is enough for your first—”

“Wait. Please wait.”

Are you okay?

His voice wasn’t a storm blast
anymore. It was a dark but calm caress, like the wind after an October rain. Power
leashed again.