Untethered

33 | Determination

"Shit!" he kicked the box across the room, making a loud scraping sound on the concrete floor. "We aren't even half-way through these, and it's fucking boiling in here."

"What are we going to do now?" Julie asked timidly, cautious of making herself a target for his rage.

"Now..." he seemed to contemplate this for a minute. "Now, we are going to grab the boxes we haven't gotten to, and go through them back at the motel. If we still find nothing, then we will have to be more aggressive."

"What... Um, what do you mean, more aggressive?"

His eyes flickered over to her, reveling slightly in the fear he could feel wafting off of her in waves. It was intoxicating to finally have this much control after so long. "It means that we're done sneaking around. We need results."

A thick, uneasy feeling settled in her belly, but she didn't question him further. She was as much afraid of the answers she would get, as she was of his reaction to her incessant questions. They gathered the boxes they hadn't yet examined, she, carrying two stacked on top of each other, and he with another five. She followed him silently as he led her out of the unit, and watched as he closed the door. He fished a new lock out of the duffel and locked it up, and then walked out to the car, nonchalantly carting away the pilfered goods.

"I thought you cut the lock," Julie followed him, her face a mix of confusion and fear.

"Yeah, but this way, no one will realize it's been broken into for a while. It'll buy us more time," he answered back without breaking stride.

With the sun beating down on them, it wasn't much cooler outside, but he seemed oblivious to the heat. They stowed the boxes in the trunk and backseat in silence, though she was as skittish as a mouse getting eyed up by a hungry hawk. Once inside the car, he started it and rolled the windows down. There was no air-conditioning, and she silently pleaded for him to start driving. Between her fear and the heat, she was starting to feel extremely nauseous.

Finally, he turned to her. "Is your daughter staying at the house alone?"

His question surprised her. "I think so," she said, eyeing him warily. "I spoke to Evan last night. He's flying back to California today." That conversation was actually kind of strange. Danny let her take the call when they saw who it was, and she was fully expecting him to be angry about her breaking into the house, but he never even mentioned it. Why wouldn't Emma tell him she was there?

"Good," Danny's eyes glinted dangerously.

"Good?" Now she was on full-alert. "What are you going to do, Danny?"

"Nothing... at the moment," he replied cryptically.

Julie shivered despite the heat. She didn't say another word the whole way back to the motel. Fear coiled in her gut; she had no illusions about who Danny was now, or what he would do to get what he wanted. Before, she might have even jumped at the chance to sacrifice someone else to save her own skin. But now... somehow, things were different. Staring out the window, her mind was racing. There had to be a way out of this. If not for her, then for Emma. Whatever he had planned, the tone of his voice and the ruthlessness in his dark eyes left her under no illusion. It was no good.

Maybe if she could get a hold of a phone, she could at least warn Emma to be careful. But then she remembered the way her daughter had looked at her the day before, and acknowledged it was doubtful she would pay her any heed.

In Emma's eyes, she was the monster who cried wolf. The bullheaded girl wouldn't be able to see past the things she had done, in order to comprehend the real danger.