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didn’t have my coat. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself moving my hands up and down trying to keep the goosebumps off my skin.
    “Don’t worry ‘Brina,” he said, “our ride is right over there.”
    I saw him point towards a large white van just across the alley. The van looked ominous, but even so it was neither that nor the cold that made me shiver the most.
    “H-how do you know my name?” I asked in a small voice.
    I heard the low laugh of the man with the low voice before he spoke.
    “Mike was always going on and on about his stepsister ‘Brina,” he said as he pulled the side door to the van open. This only confirmed what I had been sure of from the first moment he had come up to me in the bar. The man walking behind me was McBride. It had to be.
    “Get in,” McBride said, prodding me with the gun still hidden inside his jacket pocket.
    Still not able to fathom a way out of this mess, I crawled into the dark van that was, honestly, every bit as cold as the wind outside.
    McBride crawled in after me. That was when I saw him for the first time since I had glimpsed the picture on Mike’s laptop.
    McBride was thinner than he had been then, his face was more lined. Those eyes were the same. Dark and beetle black.
    They stayed fixed on me while he finally released his hold on the gun in his jacket pocket. I spotted a flash of silver metal that disappeared as he reached behind him and, with one hand, pulled the door closed.
    The dim light from the alleyway disappeared.
    I panicked for a moment in the darkness. I couldn’t see anything, not even my own hands.
    The panic receded momentarily when a light shone from McBride’s direction. He shone the bright light in my eyes. I squinted and turned away from him. As I did, I could just make out the rope he held in his hands and the yellow-toothed smile on his face.
    He had not been smiling in the picture. His smile now did nothing to soften his image. In fact, it made him look more menacing.
    "Mike’s right inside the bar," I told him trying to sound much braver than I felt, "him and a bunch of his SEAL friends. He’s going to notice that I’m gone."
    "That’s why we won’t be here for long," McBride said with a slight chuckle that sent a shiver down my spine. He moved behind me and I felt the rough rope being moved to my wrist. He was going to tie me up.
    As he continued to push behind me, grabbing my hands to put them together behind my back, I had a sudden thought. Maybe if I elbowed him in the ribs right now, while he was so close I could feel his hot, stinking breath on my neck, I could rush to the door and get out fast enough to yell for help.
    "Now, don’t think about doing anything stupid, Sabrina," he said as though he had read my thoughts, "Gun’s still in my pocket. I’m going to kill you either way. I’d rather wait but, if you force me, I will shoot. Got it?"
    I nodded again, wincing as he finished tying my hands together. He pulled on the rope so that it cut into the flesh at my wrists. I gasped in pain. He chuckled, reached an arm around to my middle and forcefully pulled me closer to him.
    "This’ll teach that bitch ass brother of yours a lesson, won’t it ‘Brina?" he whispered in my ear. "When he finds you thoroughly fucked with your brains blown out in an alleyway. He’ll think twice about ratting on one of his buddies again, won’t he?"
    I pressed my eyes closed fighting back tears of helplessness and disgust as I felt his tongue lick the side of my neck. His hands moved from my middle up to my breasts and squeezed painfully.
    I couldn’t just stay silent. I had to say something.
    "He’ll be here," I said quietly, "any moment he’ll come looking for me."
    "Sure he will," McBride answered, "but, we’ll be long gone by then."
    I was relieved for half a moment when he released me from his hold and began to crawl towards the driver’s seat at the front of the van.
    "Don’t go anywhere," he said with another chuckle as he looked