Touch Me Not (Manwhore Series #1)

Chapter Twenty-Five

A wave of nausea woke Lily. She groaned and rolled over but found no relief. She was lying on something hard. She opened her eyes to the smell of gasoline and darkness. Wherever she was, she was moving. Calm down, she told herself. Calm down and focus. She listened and heard the sounds of the highway. She was in the trunk of a car. They weren't going fast, probably under the speed limit.

Her head was killing her. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what happened. She'd been running, running away from Nikoli and the girl he'd been with, and smacked into someone. She'd mumbled an apology and tried to go around him, but he'd caught her arm and pulled her around. He'd told her to be quiet and come with him or he'd cut her. Her upper arm started to sting as soon as she remembered him saying that. She'd tried to get away, and he had cut her. That hadn't quieted her down. Adam's dad taught her to scream and fight like hell if she ever got in this kind of situation, and that was exactly what she'd done. The last thing she remembered was the guy's fist barreling down at her, and then it had been lights out.

If she panicked now, she'd end up dead and missing instead of just missing. She ignored the pain in her arm and started feeling around the dark space. The first thing she looked for was a trunk latch. All new cars had them in case someone got locked in. There wasn't one, which said this was an older car.

Next, she examined the taillights, and this was her first bout of good luck. She turned and kicked the taillight several times as hard as she could, and it knocked the light out. Wiggling around, she managed to turn so her head was now looking out of the broken taillight. They were surrounded by cars. How to get their attention?

She searched the interior of the trunk as best she could but found nothing. It was completely empty. Think, Lily, think! Her bra! It was white. She rolled so she could unsnap it and worked until she got it off. She wrapped one strap around her wrist so the wind couldn't rip it out of her hands. Then she thrust it out the taillight's now-empty hole and started waving.

She prayed to God someone would see it and call the police.

***

Nikoli called Luther and explained what was going on and asked him to call 911. The campus police were not the ones to handle this. His thoughts kept running to the one place he didn't want them to. The serial killer. He'd been getting closer and closer to the Boston Campus for months now. He knew how worried Lily was about it. What if the guy had found her, taken her while she was too upset to even think about fighting back?

Dear God, he'd never forgive himself if anything happened to his Lily Bells, his Milaya.

Kade. He'd call his brother.

"What?" Kade barked into the phone when he answered.

"It's Lily." Nikoli's voice cracked, but he didn't care. "She's gone, Kade. Someone took her."

"Tell me."

"I came outside to find her, and all I can find is her phone..."

"She might have accidentally dropped it," Kade soothed.

"No, you don't understand. There's blood leading from her phone to the street. Someone forcefully took her, Kade."

"How long ago?"

"Maybe five minutes."

"Stay where you are. I'm coming. Text me the address."

Nikoli did as he was told, but he knew enough about these kinds of situations to know every second counted. He looked up when he heard running steps. Luther, Mike, Adam, and several other guys were barreling toward him.