Thanks Citruspeach for your awesome review! I was all excited about updating and I kept checking my email and trying to catch up on "Cold", and then like five minutes after I updated with chapter 11, I get my first happy review from you! I have also missed my OC angst, and I have missed my reviewers, and I hope I can get back into updating. Maybe I'll even finish these two. It's a few chapters off, I'm thinking, but I can't keep it up forever….or can I? Also, thanks skankyxxinnuendo and knadineg and MHS02 and mel087 and JenScott and Cheekymonkey88 and Silver Dog Demon (oh, the sexy fight scene is coming, my friend! But like any true writer, I must drag it out for eons and eons, and just when you think it isn't gonna be there…BOOM! Nah, I'll probably tell ya the chapter beforehand if it will be in the next one SO KEEP READING!!!) and Aqua Mage and THwriter (wow, you wrote so much! I appreciate it!) and chrisUSA and chiclete for your reviews! It's nice to see some new people reviewing! Oh, and I got some alerts that people have added me to their favorites lists!!!! That's so exciting! Thanks you guys!
Disclaimer: Disclaimed!!!
Ryan screamed and punched the car horn several times. Seth looked out the window, noticing that the car was picking up speed quickly.
"Ry, is there any specific place we're going in such a hurry?" He knew Ryan was overcome with furious emotions, but he had to keep the guy talking before he lost all control.
"Home," Ryan grunted. Home? Chino home or Newport home? And why are we giving up the search for Marissa so fast?
"Is…AJ there?" Seth swallowed, afraid of what the answer might be.
"I don't know where he is. But I know where Sandy's gun is." Seth's heart skipped a beat. What were they about to get into? Whatever it was, it was obvious that someone was going to be seriously hurt. Maybe worse.
"Ryan, let's think about this with our brains, not...whatever it is you're thinking with. We'll call the cops." Ryan sent Seth a chilling stare.
"Seth, Marissa's life is on the line. I know AJ. He would rather go to jail and serve a life sentence having had the satisfaction of a kill than go to jail and serve a couple years for kidnapping. He lives to cause people pain, and he doesn't care about the consequences."
Seth looked at the floorboards, nervously. "So we're…we can't…this can't be our last resort!"
"Well, it is. Short of me killing myself, anyway." Ryan had meant to keep that last part in his mind, but it came out in the form of a barely audible mumble, the likes of which only Seth could pick up.
"Woah, wait, what?"
Ryan sighed. "AJ wants to torture me. He hates me. That's why he has Marissa. He knows I care about her. He knows hurting her is a direct blow to me. If I'm not around, he's got no reason to keep her. But I'd rather kill him. I figure he doesn't deserve his life as it is. We'll be doing Marissa and the world a favor. Two seconds. Pull the trigger, bullet through the brain, he hits the floor, done."
Seth could not tell whether Ryan was serious or just speaking out of anger.
XXX
Marissa was trying to break the duct tape again. So far the only progress was that of the pain in her hands.
"I tried to kill him," AJ muttered. Marissa glanced over at him. His speech was beginning to slur as he took another gulp off his beer. "He tell you that?" He looked at her with a grin on his face. "When he was younger, he'd come home from school. I'd whup his ass for any reason I could find. Sometimes I couldn't find a reason. I'd just punch him till he curled up into a ball. Kick him. Throw beer bottles at him. I hit him with a baseball bat a couple of times, but I was usually too shit-faced to find the damned thing."
Marissa shuddered and winced. No wonder Ryan was so untrusting, so paranoid. She knew he'd been abused, but nothing like this. The drunken man before her was the most terrifying person she had ever met, and she had only known him a few hours. She didn't want to imagine the pain and torture he had put Ryan through for so many years.
"Boy's mother sure didn't like his bruises, but she wasn't strong enough to kick me out. Stupid whore. Then she goes and pulls this suicide shit. She'd been threatening it for weeks. Saying, 'AJ, you smack me one more time, I'll kill myself' and 'AJ, you drink one more beer, I'll kill myself'. I didn't believe her. To be honest, I didn't care when she did do it. I hardly ever slapped her. Not much fun in it. She's just dramatic like that. I walked in on her as soon as she finished making those cuts. She curled up on the floor and started shaking. I said, 'hell, honey, you're getting blood all over my carpet!'. Funniest damned thing. One of the neighbors took her to the hospital. Then came your dimwit boyfriend. You know what he did? He brought her a fucking restraining order. Against me! Five hundred yards! Now Dawn tells me all this when I come to visit her, like the good man that I am, and I'm a little pissed off. I go for drinks at this bar down the road to blow off a little steam, and I get this crazy idea to knock her teeth in for showing me that paper. I drive back up to the hospital, and lo and behold, her savior comes a-walking out the front door. I ain't ever been so happy to have a knife in my glove box. I walked right up to that filthy vermin and sliced his throat." Marissa realized that that must have been the cause of the large cut on Ryan's neck. Why had Seth lied about it? Did Seth even know how it had really happened? "He kind of shoves me away and yells something about me being drunk and to stay away from Dawn. So I slammed him against a wall…" AJ reached across Marissa to pop open the glove box. He pulled out a knife coated in dried blood. "…and I stabbed him." Marissa gasped and shrank away from the knife. She could smell Ryan's blood on the thing, and it made her nauseous. AJ just continued to cackle and turn the knife this way and that so the sunlight shined on it in different ways.
Out of nowhere, a car horn blared. AJ dropped the knife and quickly grabbed the wheel to swerve out of the way. His truck when straight off the road and jerked to a complete stop. He plucked the knife out of Marissa's shaking lap. The man ran his thumb up and down the blade, slowly, his eyes glued to the blood-covered metal. "Do you think Ryan would be mad if I stuck this knife through your loving little heart?" Directly after the words were out of his mouth, AJ plunged the knife in between Marissa's arm and chest so that it stuck out of the seat. Marissa shrieked as he did so, but managed to regain her breath when the knife did not so much as graze her flesh.
AJ looked down at his floorboards, littered with cans. "Time for a beer run." He put the truck in reverse and pulled back onto the road.
XXX
Seth hated to bother Ryan when Ryan was so out of sorts, but he couldn't help but notice that they were running out of gas in a hurry.
"Hey, Ryan, I know you want to keep speeding toward our house, but I think we might want to stop."
"Seth, we can't stop. I need to get that gun, and we need to keep driving around Newport because I know AJ's around here somewhere with Marissa."
"Right, I just figure we won't get very far without a refill on gas." Ryan peered down at his gas gauge, and, upon the confirmation of Seth's words, nodded. "There's a gas station on the next street, I think. Pretty good prices, you know?" Ryan sent Seth a strange look. "Hey, man, I'm just saying. You can never be in so
much of a hurry that you overpay." Ryan rolled his eyes and flipped on his signal as the gas station came into sight. That's when he saw it.
"Holy shit."
"Did I miss something? Did you stumble upon some kind of divine revelation, buddy? Hello?" Ryan stared, completely infatuated with the convenience store at the gas station. He quickly swerved into a fill-up station and told Seth to fill up the tank.
"Why me, bro? Are you going in the store to get some twinkies or something? Will you get me an ICEE?"
"Seth, that's AJ's truck. He's inside." Ryan was still in awe of his luck to pull into the same gas station as the man he so desperately wanted to catch.
"Well, doesn't that mean Marissa's in the truck?" Ryan turned to Seth and smiled.
"Exactly! We can get her and leave! Fill it up. I'm going to go get my girlfriend."
XXX
"Alright, girl," AJ grumbled as he pulled into a parking space and shut off the engine. "I'm gonna get some beer. You stay here. No funny business." Marissa knew that wasn't a possibility since the duct tape made her quite immobile.
AJ got out of the car and tried to gain his composure as he entered the store. Marissa sighed deeply and began to try ripping the duct tape again. It was no use; the tape would not come off until he cut it off. Marissa let her head fall back and hit the seat. It was nice to have the truck quiet and not fear AJ's hand coming against her.
CLICK! Someone lifted the door handle. Marissa whipped her head around and saw...Ryan! He looked into the window and pointed to the lock. He was here to get her out!
She leaned to the side and tried to bite down on the silver, even though it hurt her teeth to do so. She had to get out of this truck and away from AJ. Shit, AJ! He wasn't going to be in the store for forever. Marissa pulled up on the lock, and Ryan immediately yanked open the door.
"Ryan!"
"Come on! Seth's by the car. We're getting you away from him, but we have to move fast!" Ryan pulled her out of the seat and into his arms. He heard her gasp, and he was afraid he had hurt her. "Are you okay?"
"Ryan-" But she was cut off as soon as the back of AJ's fist collided with Ryan's head. The two teenagers fell to the ground.
"Ain't this my lucky day?" AJ snarled. "Now I've got two punching bags."
XXX
Seth leaned up against the car and watched Ryan pull Marissa out of the truck. She was covered in something silver. Maybe duct tape. Seth slid started to go around to the passenger side of their vehicle to open the door so Ryan and Marissa could get in without wasting time, but as he passed the front of the car, he noticed a large figure exiting the store. Seth froze as AJ hit Ryan mercilessly, sending him and Marissa onto the concrete.
He wanted nothing more than to run and help them, but AJ was too powerful. If Ryan couldn't even beat him, Seth knew he didn't stand a chance.
AJ put both of them in the passenger seat. Why wasn't Ryan fighting or getting out? AJ must have knocked him out.
As soon as the truck started up, Seth jumped in the driver's seat of his own car. He didn't know what he was doing, but he knew that with Marissa wrapped in tape and Ryan unconscious, AJ would have a hay-day. Gripping the steering wheel, Seth made a decision right then and there: it was all up to him, and he wasn't backing down.
Yay! Fin...for now! Hope y'all had a piggish turkey day - I know I did! There's a reason I don't wear pants on Thanksgiving; I wear skirts because after eating four plates of food, it's kind of awkward to have to unbutton your pants on the way home, but it's totally necessary. Luckily, skirts stretch comfortably.
