Mina waited for the door to shut before she opened her eyes and rolled over onto her back. She could hear them talking, some laughter, and Asher's sharp response. She couldn't hear what was being said but could guess and felt her cheeks flush as embarrassment washed over her, but the more she thought about it, the less embarrassed she felt. He had made her scream his name, and fuck was it ever incredible. Asher might be making her feel good for his pleasure, but she'd take the result of that every time, any time.
When she heard the sounds of car doors slamming and the cars driving away, she got up and dressed in a pair of jogging pants, a hoodie, and a tank top. She wanted to go for a run and hoped they would let her. Asher had her phone, so it was going to be a quiet one. She'd have to see if she could get something to play music on if this was going to take a while.
She stepped out of the trailer to see Les and Eric sitting at the picnic table discussing something. They stopped talking and looked up when she came out.
"Morning." She nodded at them. "Can I go for a run?"
They looked at each other then Eric stood up. "Let me change, and I'll go with you." He headed into the other trailer, and she looked at Les with a slight grin.
"I thought I was supposed to be with you or Asher?"
"I don't run for fun." Les stood up and stretched. "You'll be fine with Eric, just don't flirt with him; Asher will lose his shit."
"Mmm." Mina was noncommittal and began to stretch and get warmed up.
"Want your meds now or after?"
"After is fine." She looked up as Eric came out and began warming up and stretching.
It was a very quiet run. Eric didn't talk to her, and Mina had nothing to focus on without her music. Her brain started to jump from one thing to another. She had never understood people who went on walks or ran to clear their heads. Without music to focus on, her head filled with looping thoughts. The thought that struck her now was that she was running with one of her kidnappers, and she was fucking and sleeping with another like they hadn't come in and completely fucked up the life she had been carving out for herself.
She didn't realize she had stopped running and was standing still until Eric reached out and touched her arm. "Mina? Are you okay?"
"No." She turned and looked at the road that led out of the park. He saw where she was looking and tensed.
"Mina, if you run, I'll catch you and have to tell Asher. He will keep you locked in the RV going forward. So don't give him a reason not to trust you."
"I could scream." She said quietly. "Draw attention to us. Tell everyone you've kidnapped me." She took a step away from him.
"You could. And I'll tell them your Asher's bipolar wife in a manic episode, and we're bringing you home."
She looked up at him. He was speaking calmly and watching her carefully. She knew she'd be fucked if she ran, but her brain was screaming at her to do it. "I need my pills." She whispered, recognizing her impulse control was flying out the window. "My brain won't shut up."
"Okay, let's go back." Eric reached out and took her hand. "ADHD, huh?" Mina nodded, and he chuckled. "You should take your pills first thing for that. I take mine as soon as I wake up."
"If I take them too early, they stop working earlier."
"Just take a topper. I take another one around two. It's usually out of my system by the time I go to bed." They were walking slowly toward their campsite. "I have the hyper one, yours is inattentive?"
"Yeah. Impulse control and bad decisions are two of my worst symptoms, but my executive dysfunction is a close third."
"Yeah, the fact that you were considering running away from Asher gave that away."
"On a scale from one to fucked, how fucked am I?" She asked quietly.
"Depends on what you consider fucked, I guess. Asher isn't a bad guy, not really. He'll look after you and keep you safe as long as you're on his good side. He probably told you we were loyal to him because he pays us, and that's honestly what he thinks, but it's not true. We're loyal to him because he's loyal to us."
"What do you mean?"
"Except Joe, we were all jobs for him at some point. I went AWOL from the airforce with some intelligence that would have gotten a lot of people higher up in the chain of command in a lot of trouble. He was called in to make me disappear discreetly. He chased me for close to six months and saw my skillset while he did. When he caught up, he offered me a job, gave the intelligence back to the people who wanted it, faked my death so they'd leave me alone, and got me a new identity."
"Lexi had run away from an abusive situation, and her Grandmother hired him to find her and bring her home. He found her, found out about the abuse and her computer skills, hired her, set her up off the grid, and worked within her limits, so she's as happy and healthy as possible."
"What about Joe?"
"Ah. Well, Asher inherited the business from his father when he retired. Joe is his younger brother, and he wasn't always the way he is. He was hit in the head and spent three months in a coma. The blow messed up some stuff. He would have been institutionalized, but Asher stepped in and said that as long as he followed strict rules and took the prescribed medication, he could work for him. Of course, he's not needed; he is good at what he does and anticipating exactly what Asher wants and needs, but eh. Someone else could do that just as well."
"What kind of messed up? Why am I not allowed to be alone with him?"
"He's sexually impulsive and doesn't take no for an answer. But he genuinely couldn't help it and felt terrible after realizing what he'd done. So he voluntarily got chemically castrated last year, and he's one hundred percent okay with the rules and restrictions Asher puts on him."
"So he raped someone." Mina felt her stomach curl.
"His wife, after he got out of the hospital. It started consensual, but he started doing things without permission and didn't stop when she told him to. When he was finished and realized what he had done, he called the police on himself. She wouldn't press charges, and they're still married, but he refuses to go anywhere near their home. He started to get urges toward his seventeen-year-old daughter, left the house, and called Asher to come to get him immediately. He won't even go back to the same state they're in. Just pays for everything and has weekly phone calls. He has a very specific type, blonde hair, baby blue eyes, big ass and small tits, essentially, his wife, and since his daughter looks just like her..."
"She doesn't stand a chance." Mina nodded. "I don't look anything like that and he's chemically castrated so why all the caution?"
"Joe asks for it. He's a lot like Asher emotionally, but Asher takes no for an answer in the bedroom and doesn't cross set boundaries, Joe doesn't care anymore." Eric grinned as they reached the campsite and he released her hand. "Plus, Asher has this thing about sharing what he deems his soo..." he shrugged.
"I'm not his." Mina said quietly.
"Okay, Princess." Eric laughed. "Sorry, but you became his the moment you offered him that deal and he accepted it. He's too jealous and selfish to do it any other way."
Les came out of their RV. "Ready for your pills?"
"Yes, please. Thanks for running with me Eric."
"No problem." He waved and went to get a shower. Mina had no idea what she had gotten herself into.