Thank you ladies for your reviews! this chapter is kind of short, but the next, final one will be longer. I finally got my new device set up so im back to my old, wonderful keyboard! yessss!
I hope you've all enjoyed this story :) let me know what you think !
When Eddie woke up, her head was killing her. She looked around, taking in the visual of a bedroom she didn't recognize, and immediately shot out of the bed. A fresh slice of pain lanced her just behind her eyes and she quickly shut them. The headache was blaring, and she had to press her fingers as hard as she could against her temples to try and alleviate it.
"Fucking Christ" she muttered to herself, practically boring her fingers into her own skull to try and relieve the pressure.
The was when she remembered the Xanax, and how she had stupidly taking way more than she needed. Then came the horrifying moment of trying to remember what had happened next.
She couldn't hardly think with the way her head was pounding. She winced at the discomfort furrowing her brow caused, concentrating as hard as she could to try dredge up some kind of memory from yesterday.
She could remember eating chicken nuggets, and she had been laughing, but she couldn't remember why. Except, that couldn't be right. There was no way she could have been laughing, she had been too upset about -
"Hey pretty girl"
Eddie jumped at the sound of his voice, her head ringing out with a fresh throb of pain.
"Fuck!" She snapped, startled and pissed off. "Goddammit, what the fuck?"
"Head hurt?"
"Gah" she had the heels of her palms pressed against her face now. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.
"How many of those things did you fucking eat?" He asked her.
Eddie turned away from him as if that could possible deter him. It actually made him laugh out loud. She groaned, trying to process everything around her. Things were computing in her head but not as fast as they should be. She didn't know where she was, and she certainly didn't know why Mac was here, although it was intriguing. She needed aspirin. No, she was going to need morphine for this.
"What happened?" She mumbled.
"Oh, you don't remember sweetheart?"
She rolled her eyes at him and then groaned, gauging them with her thumbs a second after to try and get rid of the sudden agony. Every time she tried to recollect the events of yesterday she came up blank. She had no idea how she had ended up here with him. She had memories of the first bus ride, eating fast food in his truck, and then nothing.
"Where are we?"
"Can't tell ya"
"Fuck you"
"Say when"
Eddie looked around the room. There was a window on the wall behind her and she went towards it. She couldn't believe it when she looked out and she didn't see desert.
Instead, it was green. Green, brown and blue. It took her damaged cognitive processes a moment to put it all together, but when she realized she was staring at trees, at a actual fucking forest, the alarm in her rose like a wave.
"Mac, where the fuck are we?"
"Can't tell ya"
Eddie was too busy taking in the sight of the lush grass and the intense, bright blue of the sky to even hear him though. It was crisp looking, and she knew it was because of the actual moisture in the air. Looking at it made her feel like she had just taken a bite of a ripe apple. It was beautiful. She was in awe, and she wasn't listening. Mac didn't care though. He left her there, staring out the window with her mouth open, and went to find where he'd set his drink down.
XXXXX
"Lemme get this straight" Eddie groaned, massaging the base of her skull at the back of her neck. "You kidnapped me -"
"You wanted to come" he interrupted. "You practically begged me"
"You kidnapped me, she repeated, unconvinced. "and you brought me here, to this isolated cabin in a state that you wont disclose, and now you expect me to cook for you"
"And bake" he added.
Eddie was sitting at the small table in the kitchen. Her head still ached something awful, but she had persuaded Mac into giving her something for the pain. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around this grand scheme of his though, mostly because she couldn't understand why he expected her to just go along with it.
"No fucking way" She laughed
"If you don't cook then you don't eat, hows that?"
"You can't fucking keep me here Mac" Eddie barked at him, starting to actually get angry. At first she had been curious and maybe even a little excited, but now that the pain was retreating, she could finally see what he was getting at, and it was absurd.
He wanted her to live here, in this cabin, and cook for him when he 'came around'. That was how he had detailed it to her. She couldn't believe his arrogance, but at the same time, she wasn't really surprised either.
Wherever they were, it was close enough for him to get back to Utah in a reasonable amount of time. It seemed that way at least, because he was only planning on keeping her here, and not staying himself. Eddie thought that might mean it was Nevada. If that was true, then this had to be Lake Tahoe, based on the trees outside. All of it was still just a guess though.
"Ain't no where to go" he growled at her, as if he could see her trying to work it our in her head. He sat down at the table and leaned towards her. "Yer in the middle of the fucking woods"
"In every direction? How many miles each way?"
"A lot" he huffed. "And don't fucking kid yourself Ed, yer a mess at that stuff"
It was true so she didn't bother arguing. She was awful at orienting herself, and she had absolutely no sense of direction. Even in the flat desert, where it was easy to locate the sun in the sky, she got confused sometimes. Here, she was going to be hopeless.
"Why the fuck did you bring me here?"
"already told ya" he smirked at her. "Wanted ya for myself"
"And you couldn't have accomplished that back in red canyon?"
"Fucking tried that" he said, ticking his head quick to one side. His eyes were changing right in front of her. He was getting excited, a predator that couldn't wait to start hunting. "But you kept wantin' to run away"
She scoffed and shook her head. This wasn't getting her anywhere, this talking to him like he had a rational side.
"You're insane" she told him.
"Am I?" He asked her, raising his eyebrows. "Think about it darlin'"
"Think about what? That you're a fucking psycho? I don't have to, it's obvious. And don't call me darling"
He snickered at her and put a cigarette between his lips.
"Lemme put it this way" he said, pausing to light himself up and blow a puff of smoke at her. "You gave your keys to Terry and got on a bus out of town, right?"
"So? What's your point?"
"If ya'd shut the fuck up i could get to it" he growled, offering her the Marlboro. She waved it off and he shrugged, taking another drag and then continuing. "You quit yer job and made a bigggg show about coming to the bar to say bye to the old man didn't ya?"
"I-"
"So everybody's already expectin' ya to be gone, ain't they?
Suddenly, the pieces were coming together in her head. It was all happening so fast, and the smoke from the cigarette was starting to make her dizzy.
"Yeah but - "
"Lemme finish" he barked at her, the sudden harshness of his voice making her clam up. "Ain't nobody seen us together since that night ya clawed my damn face up"
Unable to help herself, Eddie looked right at him. The scar was fading, but she could still see it. She always thought he had let her off pretty easy for that, and now she knew why.
"do you know what that means princess? You wanna take a fuckin' guess?"
Eddie dropped her eyes. She knew exactly what it meant. No one was going to realize she was missing. Even if they miraculously, somehow, did notice, no one was ever going to assume that he had anything to do with it.
To the people in Red Canyon, she was in California. To the people in California, she didn't even exist. He had planned this, she realized. He had planned everything.
When she looked back towards him, he was grinning at her like a cat who had just swallowed no less than a dozen canaries. He had his pointer and index fingers split around the dwindling cigarette, and now he extinguished it in the ashtray in front of her.
"So what's fer dinner then?" He smirked.
XxXxXxXxXx
Eddie sat on the edge of the bed she had woken up on, scowling to herself as she listened to the television blare in the other room. He had locked her in after she had flat out refused to be his step-ford house wife, and now he was sulking in the other room with the volume of her favorite show turned up as loud as it could go to make sure she could hear it.
It was then, trapped in the room like a kid sent to time out, that Eddie found the bags full of her clothes. She had assumed he had thrown them out months ago when she had abandoned them to leave with Greg. She couldn't believe he still had them.
It made her think of the picture of her, and she quickly dug through her pack to try and find it. The book was there, but the mugshot was gone, and so was all her cash. She had either lost it in her Xanax fueled haze, or he had rifled through her things until he'd found it. She had a pretty good guess about which had scenario had happened, but it didn't lessen her confusion.
Eventually, and because there was no way she was backing down and cooking for him, Eddie crawled into the bed and tried to sleep. It wasn't too difficult with the opiates saturating her bloodstream, and she slept through the night without waking up once.
When she did wake up though, with a fresh headache and an overwhelming desire for caffeine, she was happy to see that the door he had locked last night was standing open. She wandered through the small house, and found him drinking from coffee on the front steps.
"g'mornin sunshine" he drawled at her.
She fought the urge to kick him. The only thing stopping her was the very real possibility of him kicking her back. He wasnt stable, and normal rules didn't apply with him. He had demonstrated as much when he brought her here, wherever 'here' was.
"Forgive me for not wanting to play house with you Mac"
He snorted at her and kept looking out over the yard. The mug looked so tiny in his massive hands. Everything looked small compared to him.
"Always tryin ya pick a fight with me" he snickered, clearly not put off by her mood. He was having too much fun with this, and his enjoyment only made her more infuriated. "Ya wanna put yer money where yer mouth is?"
Mac finished what was in his cup and stood to his full height, turning to face her and clearing his throat. As badly as she wanted to appear tough, she couldn't help herself when he reached for her. She flinched.
"S'what I thought" he said meanly to her.
He went past her into the house and she fumed, doing everything except expelling visible vapor from her nostrils as her temper surged. This wasn't fair. She had gotten away from him, she had left.
"I mean it mac" she yelled, digging as deep as she could for her resolve when she followed him back inside "I want out of here, I want-"
He grabbed her by the throat before she could finish her demand.
"Tryin' ta get me all riled up girl?"
When she sucked in the air to respond he just squeezed harder, and she had to reach up to grab hold of his wrist to get even the tiniest breath in. He smirked at her struggles and pulled her in close, his lips brushing her earlobe.
"I think ya are" he said softly, his voice dripping with awful intentions. "I think yer just making a fuss so that I get upset and tie ya to the bed"
Eddie bucked her whole body, clearly furious, and he just laughed.
"Easy" he coaxed her "easy now"
With his grip on her throat it wasnt hard to pull her flush up against him, and he moaned when her attempts to get free caused their hipbones to bump together. He spun them around so he could force her up against the wall, leaning harder into her and savoring the friction of her legs colliding with his.
"Keep it up" he warned her, burying his face into her neck "I like it when ya fight"
She screamed in frustration and shook her whole body in an all-out effort to get free. She knew if he kept it up, this body contact was eventually going to be her undoing. Her struggles were useless though. Mac was much stronger than she could ever hope to be. He held her there for a moment longer before he released her, collapsing her wind pipe with one final squeeze before he did, and then letting her fall to the floor.
"Ready to make me something ta eat?" He asked the crumpled form at his feet. "Or are ya still set on being a stubborn pain in the ass?"
Hacking on the way the intake of air caught in her damaged throat, Eddie stayed where she was. She coughed and sputtered, choking on the very breath she needed to survive. He nudged her with his boot, gently at first, trying to roll her onto her back. When she resisted, he kicked her shoulder, and she swallowed the air instead of drawing it into her lungs.
"Why ya gotta be so fuckin' difficult Eddie?" He roared down at her, both hands in fists at his side. "Just do what i fucking say"
She was still wheezing, pulling desperately for an uninterrupted breath, when he reached down and grabbed her. He hauled her up, oblivious at the way she tried to stiffen in his grip, and drug her with him towards the kitchen.
Mac threw her into the room, and she caught herself by gripping onto the edge of the table. He followed after her, forcing her into the nearby chair by pushing hard on her shoulder.
"Sit'own" he barked at her. "Wanna explain sumthin to ya"
She was too busy rubbing the injured column of her neck to argue. It took all of her focus just to draw her next breath, and the panic of being unable to hadn't yet faded.
"I ain't askin ya Eddie," Mac told her, his voice calm and deadly. "An I've already given ya three chances"
She counted in her head how many times she had run from him only to have him lug her back. Once he had found her walking, once he had Jamo catch her for him, and then he had tricked her at the bus station. She knew what it meant. According to him, she was all out of strikes.
"You run from me again an imma make it so you can't even walk. Ya got that?"
Eddie stared up at him. He wanted to control her, she could see that now, and it clearly didn't matter what she thought. That didn't mean she wasn't going to give him hell though.