The primary emotion he felt was fear. Clearly Samantha was in desperate trouble—in terror for her life—and it was her fear that led him forward. Whenever he deviated from his course, the fear began to lessen and Roark would guide the shuttle towards it again.
He was flying instead of driving, which he knew the human authorities didn’t like, but it was so much faster than taking their slow, winding ground roads. He needed to get to Samantha as quickly as possible. Even now something awful might be happening to her…But no—he couldn’t think that way. He had to just concentrate on getting to her, Roark told himself sternly. He had to find her before it was too late.
“Hang on, darling!” he thought fiercely, sending the mental words in the direction of the fear he was feeling coming from Samantha. “Just hang on—I’m coming for you as fast as I can, I swear it!”
Fifty-Two
When she came out of the bedroom, the TV was on and an old sitcom from decades ago was playing on its faded screen. The canned laughter made Sammi’s gut clench for some reason.
Sonny-boy was waiting for her, dressed in a slightly nicer version of his earlier outfit. At least this time his dingy white t-shirt and faded black jeans were clean, Sammi thought as she took his offered arm.
“Let me escort you to dinner, Beautiful,” he said, grinning down at her. “We’re having your favorite, tonight.”
He took her into the small room set up as a dining area and sat her down.
Her “favorite” dinner appeared to consist of cold, limp spaghetti noodles, Samantha thought, staring down at the plate in front of her. But then Sonny-boy sat down across from her at the small, cheap dinette set and produced a jar of spaghetti sauce.
“It wouldn’t be spaghetti without the sauce, right, Beautiful?” he asked, grinning as he popped the top off the jar and began to pour the cold red sauce all over his pile of noodles.
The smell made Sammi want to gag. Canned or jarred spaghetti sauce was one of the things that had recently begun smelling very wrong to her. She supposed it was a pregnancy thing but as her captor dumped the second half of the jar over her own limp pile of noodles, she had to fight not to puke.
“Wow,” she murmured, swallowing hard and trying not to breathe in the scent of the sauce. “That’s, uh, perfect.”
“Not quite yet!” Sonny-boy exclaimed, grinning at her. Though he had changed his clothes and shaved and brushed his hair, he hadn’t, apparently, brushed his teeth. Sammi could still see the little speck of green between the two crooked ones at the front.
“Oh, there’s more?” Sammi asked faintly.
“Of course! I told you, we’re having your favorite—spaghetti with clam sauce!”
To Sammi’s horror, he pulled out a can of clams and popped open the metal lid. He sprinkled a few on his own plate but dumped the lion’s share onto the red-coated spaghetti noodles in front of Sammi.
The fishy smell of canned clams hit her and she had to clap a hand over her mouth and nose.
Oh God, I’m going to be sick—I know I am!
But if she puked all over the plate of cold spaghetti and clams, what was her captor’s likely reaction? Sammi couldn’t imagine he’d be happy about it. After all, this was supposed to be her “favorite” meal. She had to control herself—had to be careful.
“Are you okay, Beautiful?” Sonny-boy demanded. His words were considerate but his tone was definitely not. He was making the angry bear face again, glaring at her across the table with his bushy brows drawn low and his small black eyes squinting suspiciously at her.
“Just fine.” Sammi pulled her hand away from her mouth and nose and tried to smile, though the expression felt like it might break her face. “Just…perfect,” she said and picked up the fork to start pushing the spaghetti and clams around on her plate.
It occurred to her that the fork she was holding might be used as a weapon—if the tines weren’t so short and blunt. It was almost more of a spork than a fork, which meant it wasn’t especially good at picking up the spaghetti.
This didn’t stop Sonny-boy for an instant. He twirled the long, cold strands eagerly around and around and shoved them into his mouth, chomping and slurping enthusiastically. Soon the dingy white t-shirt he was wearing was coated in little flecks of clam and sauce and so was his mouth and chin.
The sight was more than Sammi’s stomach could bear, so she looked away and concentrated on twirling her own spaghetti. Every once in a while she raised a forkful to her lips and pretended to eat it. Luckily, Sonny-boy seemed too preoccupied with his own dinner to notice she wasn’t actually eating a bite of hers.