Electrify Me (The Fireworks Series Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Eight – Charlie

As long as I keep peeling off twenties, the taxi driver keeps driving.

“Rather be driving a frantic boyfriend after his runaway girl than ferrying frat boys from strip club to brothel,” he says.

Gross. I peel off another twenty and ask him to be quiet as I dial Levi. He doesn’t even bother with hello.

“They just turned off the five onto 531 about ten minutes ago.”

“Levi! Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

“The LoJack site went down, and then I tried to call you but you must have been in a dead spot. It went straight to voicemail. I left a message.”

Next time I see Levi, I’m going to punch him in the head. “I haven’t activated voicemail! I only just got the phone an hour ago!”

“Okay. Okay. They seem to have stopped.” He gives me an address in the middle of nowhere that I relay to the driver. “The police are probably already on their way. You should just wait, Charlie. It’s not safe.”

I hang up on him again. Outside the cab, the giant Seattle Outlets sign flies by.

A few minutes later, the cab exits the freeway onto a winding, narrow highway, then again onto an even narrower, windier road. Finally he pulls up at a dark driveway leading off into thick trees. The crooked and rusty mailbox seems to be riddled with bullet holes.

“End of the road. That’ll be $275.80, thanks.”

“You’re not taking me up to the house or whatever?”

“That’s not my girl up there. And I’m not crazy. This is Methville, kid. No thanks.”

Even though I’ve already given him at least two hundred I count out another handful of bills and pass it over the seat before climbing out. “Can you at least wait?”

The driver just laughs and floors it, leaving me literally in his dust. I can’t really say that I blame him.

In contrast to the buzzing New Year’s Eve hoopla I left in Seattle, the night around here is ominously quiet. Since it’s winter, there aren’t even any crickets to add atmosphere. And it’s dark. Though it’s mercifully a clear night, the moon has set, and looking up through the canopy of trees, I can see a million twinkling stars above me. Normally I love to look at stars, but now they just piss me off.

I turn and run up the driveway. It seems to go on forever. Just as I start to think I’ve somehow fallen into some world-bending, time-stretching wormhole, a dark house appears through the trees. To anyone else, it would look abandoned, but as I approach I can hear the telltale sixty-hertz hum of electricity pouring in. No lights. Windows blacked out. It’s another grow house.

And there’s my truck, parked outside the front door.

I slow to a walk, tiptoeing as quietly as I can across the loose gravel. The passenger door of my truck is hanging open, but there’s no sign of Gloria or anyone else. I reach into the back of the truck, feeling around on the floor until I find a promisingly heavy wrench. I tuck it through one of my belt loops. Feeling around some more, I find my tool kit. I click it open, muffling the noise with my sleeve, and feel around for some clippers, linemen gloves, a pen light and a small spool of wire. Tucking everything into my pockets, I head around back.

I try to keep to the overgrown dead grass that tangles around and up the side of the house. Now that I’m close, I can smell the ripe, weedy reek emanating from the basement windows. I bend to take a closer look and can detect a faint outline of bright light around the edges of the black lining. This looks like a bigger grow operation than the place in Ballard.

My heart is pounding. Levi is probably right. I should wait for the police, but who knows when they’ll get here? I can’t take the chance that Gloria is…I don’t even want to think about it. What kind of person would just drive off with a woman in the truck?

In the back of my mind, there’s a horrible sliver of doubt. Maybe Gloria knew that guy. Maybe it was all arranged beforehand. I know, intellectually, this is illogical. It was just coincidence we even met. Just coincidence we went to that Ballard call. And how could she have arranged it that I’d go to Walgreen’s and leave her in the car with the keys? It doesn’t make sense.

Jesus.
I knew I had trust issues with women, but this is ridiculous.

But of course, I don’t know anything about her. Maybe it was just a coincidence she went to that Ballard call with me. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t know that guy. I didn’t ask her if she used drugs. Maybe he was
her
dealer. Maybe she owed him money. Maybe when I left her in the truck, she saw it as an opportunity to pay off some debts and be rid of some skinny electrical nerd she accidently picked up at the same time. So she might not even be here. He might have dropped her off at home and called it even. She might have even wanted to call me to tell me she was okay and thanks for a fun night, but how would she get in touch? I left my phone in the car and she doesn’t know my last name.

And maybe she doesn’t care.

I stand there in the dark brooding about this. I know my paranoia and doubt are just a delayed aftershock of that horrible woman taking my cat to Toronto with that fucking football player while I was in the Gulf, risking my ass for her freedom. I pretended I didn’t care when I came back and told no one how low I sank, brooding over things I could never go back and change. How I spent nights looking through the pets for adoption section on Craigslist, like some crazy old cat lady.

My brain does one of those rapid-fire free association things that goes a little like this: crazy cat lady, crazy lady on the street, crazy bag lady, bag, giant bag, giant purse, Gloria’s giant purse. And then something I saw five minutes ago, but didn’t process properly because I was looking for something to use as a weapon, finally clicks into place.

Gloria’s purse was on the back seat of the truck. She’s here. And if she was here voluntarily, wouldn’t she take her purse with her? Women take those things everywhere, even into the bathroom.

In the starlight, I can just make out a square blob on the side of the house where the main’s power comes in. That’s my target. I pull out the pen light, turn it on and pop it into my mouth, pointing it at the junction box. Then I get to work.

Chapter Nine – Gloria

Bone Hand piles marijuana into Ziploc bags, not bothering to weigh anything, just kind of shoveling everything in, zipping it up and moving to the next one. Then he starts snipping plants. It’s so warm and humid in here from the grow lights and the fans and the irrigation that he’s dripping sweat into the baggies. I make a mental note to never smoke weed again because who knows if it would be one of these batches that he’s sweated all over? Everyone has their reasons for quitting drugs finally, I guess. That’s mine. I hate to think of how much dealer sweat I’ve already smoked in my life. It’s not like the stuff is produced in sanitary conditions. I’m going to stick to wine from now on.

I’m sweating too and wishing Bone Hand had let me take off my coat before duct-taping me by the wrists to a table leg. I’ve been quiet since we got down here, but now I’m starting to feel more courageous. These could be my last minutes on earth. Do I really want to spend them sitting on floor under a table, trembling in fear? I’ve got some shit I need to say before I go, and since he’s the only person here, I guess he’s just going to have to suck it up.

I take a deep breath, preparing to give this degenerate a piece of my mind.

There’s a low thump and all the lights go out. The fans whir to a stop, the sudden absence of their high-pitched buzz a strange relief that I would probably enjoy more if I wasn’t about to scream.

Dark. Dark. I hate the dark. And this is the second time tonight I’ve been reminded how much.

“What the fuck?” Bone Hand asks. “Musta’ blown a fuse. Wait here.”

There’s a shuffle, a crash as something falls off the table and Bone Hand swears, then the creak of a door opening and closing. Then nothing.

Nothing but dark.

God. God. God.

It’s so dark I feel like my eyes have been poked out. Somehow my head spins even though there’s nothing for it to spin against. I’m in the vacuum of space where no one can hear you scream, tumbling out past the moon into those black voids between the stars where only silence lives.

“Hail Mary, full of grace…” The words come out involuntarily, as though they are an inextricable part of the panic that engulfs me. I don’t even know how I remember them from Sundays with my grandparents so long ago. When I finish it in English, it emerges again from somewhere even deeper inside me, this time in Spanish.
“Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia…”

There’s a noise. And Bone Hand’s voice. “Who’s there?”

Then there’s another noise, like a grunt and a thump followed by a slow tinkle of a collection of fragile somethings falling to the floor. A weird metallic clanging noise. Then three distinct footsteps crunching over whatever broke.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Just in the next room.

This is how the New Year’s gods laugh at me. With crunching footsteps. With glass things tinkling to the floor. With my own strangled breaths choking me from the inside.

With a strained whisper.

“
Gloria
?”

It takes three tries to get his name out. “Charlie!”

A patch of the dark moves, and he surrounds me in his arms, his hands tracing my shape like a sculptor working clay. His lips find mine as his hands slide up my arms to the duct tape holding me to the table.

“Jesus, I’ll cut it.” He feels around carefully. “Don’t move. I dropped my fucking flashlight back there. Just a second.”

“It’s so dark. I can’t see.”

“I’m right here. Hold still.”

There’s a snipping noise and the clatter of some tool to the floor. The moment I’m free, I wind my arms and legs around him and squeeze so hard he whimpers.

“Where’s…the…he…” I don’t even know what to call the guy who abducted me.

“He’s unconscious on the floor next door.”

“It’s so dark, Charlie.”  My teeth are chattering, shaking things around in my brain.

“I cut the power. You’re safe, though. I’ve got you now.”

Like it’s nothing to lift a full-grown woman, he stands up with me still hanging from him and sets my ass down on the table.

And he kisses me. It’s only a few seconds before our bodies take over. Maybe because whatever is going on in our minds and hearts is too complex, too terrifying, too insane to manage at this moment. But our bodies know what to do, know what we need. While I find his belt and the button of his pants, his hands have pushed my top up, pulled my bra askew. I gasp as he takes one nipple into his mouth and moves his hands down to tear at my tights and panties.

The table edge digs into my bare ass as he pushes against me, and I claw at his zipper and boxers until finally I wrap my fingers around his rock-hard dick, pulling urgently, trying to pull him closer somehow. His fingers are on my clit, in my pussy, my tights and panties stretched against my thighs.

“We need to fuck, Charlie, right now.” I’ve never felt the need to beg before, but right now it’s as though if he’s not inside me in six seconds or less, I’ll lose what’s left of my mind. “Please fuck me.”

He wriggles one hand out of my panties, and I hear things falling to the floor as he fumbles with the pockets of his coat.

“I have the condoms,” he says.

I can hear the smile on his face. Which makes me smile. Then laugh at the sounds of his strained breathing mixed with things being pushed off the table and the rustle of plastic wrap.

“Fuck!”

“What?”

“I dropped it. Wait.”

There’s another rustle of plastic, and Charlie gently peels my fingers off his cock. I lay my hands over his as he slides the condom on, not wanting to lose that contact. I try to wrap my legs around him, but with my tights and panties around my knees it’s impossible. So I slip off the table and stand, but now I’m so short that he’s more likely to penetrate my bellybutton than anything else.

Charlie bends his knees, kissing me, his tongue hungrily searching, his cock bouncing tantalizingly close to the perfect spot. We’re both pulling at my tights and he’s trying to get some traction so he can press in close enough, when the table slides back and we nearly end up on the floor.

“Wait! Wait!” I take a breath, panting. “I’m just going to turn around. Is that okay?”

“Oh, good God,” is his answer.

I turn, sweeping whatever remains on the table onto the floor. Then I bend over, feeling Charlie lift my skirt up over my butt. Though I can’t see him and he’s completely silent, I can feel the reverence in his gentleness. All the frenzy of the last few minutes has dissipated, replaced with a kind of quiet intensity as he slides his fingers down, just grazing my ass with his thumbs before gliding them into my pussy.

“God. Yes,” I say. “Fuck me, please. Now.”

He extracts his thumbs, and I’m left for a millisecond wondering how I will ever survive without part of him inside. Then, mercifully, he curls his fingers around my hips, and in two quick thrusts he’s filling me up, connecting us at the hot center of our lust, our passion. And our fear. And something else. Something neither of us is ready to name.

Charlie starts to move, slowly, one hand holding my hip, the other sliding up my back to stroke my spine and shoulder blades. His hands are beyond warm, actually hot, so that combined with the sensation of his cock sliding in and out so infuriatingly, blissfully slowly, it’s enough to make my eyes roll back. I must make a noise because Charlie stills, bending down over me, his lips brushing the top of my ear.

“Is that okay?” he whispers. “Does it hurt?”

“Fuck, no. Keep going.”

He moves again, still bent over me, his nose and lips nuzzling my ear and cheek. I turn my head and our lips meet, so sweetly, so tenderly. Charlie whimpers as my tongue slides against his. His arms tense around me.

“You can come, if you need to,” I say.

I feel him shake his head. When I try to kiss him again, his teeth are biting down hard on his lower lip. He changes position, spreading his legs maybe so he’s lower down, and the angle of fucking gets that much more intense. The tip of his cock presses against something inside me–a mixture of pleasure and pain that I can’t even define much less explain. Then he leans back up, one hand pressing down on the center of my back, mashing my breasts into the table, the other grabbing a handful of my hair. Kinky, debauched and glorious. With every one of his thrusts, my hipbones crack against the edge of the table. It both takes me out of the moment and draws me even deeper into it, past a need for my own release into a place where all I want is to hear him whimper again, to hear him lose control, helpless against the ecstasy of our connection.

The hand in my hair tightens into a fist while the other one releases the pressure on my back. I arch backwards as that hand slides around to swirl over my achingly hypersensitive clit.

“Ahhh, God, fuck, yes,” I say along with many other much more vulgar and frantic things as I begin to unravel in his hands, at the mercy of his pistoning cock, his inexorable fingers. It only takes seconds to lose myself in the sensation that my feet are leaving the earth, my soul is leaving my body. I become pure electricity, only aware in the most basic sense that I’m propped up on my elbows, hanging my head over the table making unearthly primal noises.

“Oh, God, please come now,” I manage to cry. “Come with me. Come with me.”

Charlie says my name. Not shouted triumphantly or in an agonizing theatrical scream. Quietly, almost whispered in a harsh exhale of air.

“Gloria…”

Like a prayer. And the noise he makes when he comes is everything I’ve dreamt of. Helpless surrendering, worshipful. As though he might append it with
in Excelsis Deo.

             
It sounds like love.