Aftertaste (Sin #2)

XLII.

“Why not? I want to experience it, too. He can be a good boy and share some of the good stuff with us, huh?”

I hang my head in defeat and sob. Why do these things happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Why me?

A phone starts ringing somewhere and my head lifts. Ryder is looking at me with a narrow-eyed look. Is that my phone ringing? I watch him walk towards it, picking it up. A sadistic smile appears on his face and I immediately know it’s Alex calling. Hope blooms in my chest.

“Should we answer him?” Ryder asks me, although I feel his question is rhetorical.

I squeeze my hands into fists, silently begging him to take the call. I don’t know what Ryder reads in my eyes, but he throws the phone against the wall. I jump up when it shatters on the floor. Everything is quiet again. Agonisingly so.

He slowly turns his head towards me. “Don’t look so scared. I just don’t want any distractions while I have some fun.”

Oh, God. He starts walking towards me and the closer he comes, the harder I start crying. Ryder grips my chin with his hand, his grip so hard, it hurts. “Aw. You’re a crier,” he mocks. “Let’s find out if you’re a screamer, too.”

“Please don’t do this,” I beg him with a croaked, shaky voice. “Please,” I whisper.

Ryder only smiles in return and it’s not a smile that would mean anything good. “Baby, I love girls who beg,” he says maliciously.

My whole body is shaking from the fear and my face must probably look all red and puffed from the crying. His hand travels down from my jaw to my neck where he squeezes slightly. I close my eyes and try to tune everything out. I try to pretend that I’m somewhere else. That this is someone else. That something else is happening.

I try to think about what makes me happy and feel good and my thoughts run to Alexander. God, I wish he’d be able to figure out where I am and save me, but this is wishful thinking because he probably doesn’t even know something happened to me since we’re broken up. Kind of.

And even if he knew something bad happened to me, he most likely wouldn’t know where to find me because this place literally looks like it’s somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I can’t hear anything from the outside, no road close to here, no water that would indicate we’re near a forest.

A phone starts ringing yet again and Ryder steps back, his irritation clear on his face. I’m welcome for the distraction when he pulls the phone out of his pocket. He looks at the screen and then at me, a slow smile spreading over his face. “You have this boy pretty obsessed with you, huh? Wrapped around your little finger? Fucking pathetic,” he mutters to himself and, to my surprise, he answers the call.

“Well, hello there,” Ryder asks, starting to walk out of the room.

I don’t know how Alexander figured out Ryder took me. But now I’m at least a little calmer because if he’s calling Ryder, he must know he did something. And even though he may not know where I am, he at least knows that he took me. So, if something happens to me … Well, they’ll know who to blame.

I bite down on my bottom lip, quieting my sobs so I could hear the conversation, but I can’t hear anything. I literally don’t feel anything. Just silence. That makes me even more nervous.