Dream Maker

by Kristen Ashley

  Therefore, I whispered, “What?”

  “I love it that you’re so solid with us, you can give me your order of my boys, and ask mine with your girls, and it ends in you giggling, not getting up in my shit that I rose to some bait, tweaked you and you took that out on me.”

  “But I asked, Danny. And I did it knowing it was all in fun.”

  “I love that too. And that was the first indication you feel we’re all about trust. That’s what I love the most. You’re totally the shit, Evie. And I’m learning you’re more of that every day.”

  Oh my God.

  See!

  Mag’s phone calls were everything.

  “See you soon, honey,” he finished.

  He then didn’t give me the chance to respond.

  He hung up, and I dropped my phone and looked to the sales assistant, who was sliding my bag on the counter toward me.

  “I’m so sorry. That was rude,” I told him. “Being on the phone while you were ringing me up.”

  He blinked.

  Well then, apparently, people didn’t apologize for talking on the phone when someone was serving them.

  “It was my boyfriend,” I went on to explain. “We just decided to move in together. Accidentally, I just proved I trusted him. Which I’m glad about. And he proved he trusted me back. Which is awesome. Oh, and he’s a commando.”

  “Is he as fun to look at as that one?” the man asked, jerking his head toward Axl.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Axl, still standing impatiently, exuding badass and looking gorgeous.

  I looked back to the assistant.

  “Better.”

  The man smiled. “Then you’re forgiven.”

  I smiled back, grabbed the handles, lifted the bag his way and said, “Thanks.”

  “Have fun in those shoes,” he bid.

  Oh, I would.

  I felt my smile change.

  He saw it, read it and winked.

  My smile got even bigger before I walked toward my posse.

  I gathered up the girls and Axl herded us to the exit.

  Ryn was leading.

  Pepper, Hattie and me were following, with me walking in the middle.

  Axl was at the rear.

  “Was that Mag on the phone?” Pepper asked.

  “Yeah, he calls at least once a day,” I answered.

  “Sweet,” Hattie whispered.

  She didn’t know the half of it.

  “Do you call him?” she asked.

  Oh no.

  I looked at her. “No. Should I?”

  “No,” Pepper answered, and I turned my head her way.

  “You sure?” I pressed.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “I mean, I don’t want it to be one-sided,” I went on. “I want him to know I like him as much as he likes me.”

  “Babe, those shoes say that and then some,” she replied. “You can coast on those shoes for at least six months.”

  “Then you’ll have to buy another pair,” Hattie said.

  “Yeah, if you buy another pair, and then another one, and so on, you’ll never have to be the one to call him for the rest of your life,” Pepper added.

  Normally, I would balk at owning shoes that, Axl was right, it was unlikely I’d ever wear out of the house.

  But if it got me my way with the spices…

  “I remember those days, the first blush, when you can’t be apart, and when you have to, you connect,” Pepper mused, turning her gaze wistfully toward Ryn, who clearly wanted a coffee as badly as I did, because she’d pulled well ahead.

  “You can have that too,” I pointed out while we made the turn to go down the short hall to the doors to the parking garage.

  Pepper said nothing.

  I studied her profile.

  It looked sad.

  Shit.

  I turned to Hattie.

  She was watching her feet move.

  She looked sad too.

  Shit!

  I turned to glare at Axl.

  He caught my glare and lifted his brows.

  He then started and clipped, “Evie!”

  This was right when I walked into the door.

  Bah!

  “God! Are you okay?” Hattie asked, her hand on my shoulder, leaning in to look at my face as I swayed back and blinked.

  I might have just slammed into the door and cracked my head, but I started smiling.

  Big.

  “I’m a klutz,” I announced.

  “You’re maybe the only person I know who would say those three words looking like you just won the lottery,” Pepper noted.

  I hadn’t won the lottery.

  I’d worked long and hard.

  And then I got my reward.

  Because I wasn’t like other girls.

  Including being a klutz.

  And that landed me a commando.

  I didn’t share this with Pepper, Hattie, or Axl, who was now standing with us.

  I shrugged and said, “It’s me.”

  I barely got out the “me” part when we all heard a chilling scream coming from outside.

  Woodenly, we turned to look out the glass doors.

  Well, Hattie and Pepper and I did.

  Axl shoved through us, growling, “Do not leave this area.” He then pushed swiftly through the doors, finishing, “Call Mag.”

  I had my phone out and turned on when Hattie whispered, “Oh my God. Someone’s got Ryn.”

  “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” I chanted, whisking my thumb over my screen to go to my calls and engage Mag.

  I put it to my ear just as I let out a little scream, right along with Hattie, because we heard gunshots outside.

  “What’s happening?” Pepper shouted.

  I was stuck, frozen, unsure what to do when Mag’s voice came into my ear.

  “Forget something, babe?”

  “Someone has Ryn! And I think they’re shooting at—!”

  I didn’t finish.

  My phone was yanked viciously out of my hand.

  I whirled on whoever did that just in time to hear both Hattie and Pepper make distinct noises that conveyed the same message.

  Fear.

  And panic.

  My arm was seized, and I began struggling.

  I stopped when my wrist was wrenched up my back and I had a different voice in my ear.

  “You make trouble, she dies, he dies, you all die.”

  I stopped struggling.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Initiation

  Evie

  This just cut it.

  I was tied to another chair.

  Tied to another…fucking…chair!

  Worse!

  All my girlfriends were tied to chairs with me.

  Like Steve and Robin from Stranger Things when the Soviets got ahold of them, but without being injected with truth serum that made us giggle and everything seem funny.

  Tied to chairs, back to back.

  I was attached to Ryn. Pepper at my side, Hattie to her back.

  Ryn had been brought in later by a set of bad guys different than the three who took Pepper, Hattie and me.

  And they didn’t handle her very gently.

  Not like the guys who took me, Pepper and Hattie were gallant, but the ones who pulled in Ryn seemed pissed off and they were rough with her.

  But she was alive, breathing, she didn’t appear injured, though she was obviously spitting mad.

  Which was good (ish, though not the mad part).

  However, this meant they had numbers.

  Which was bad (totally).

  We’d been kidnapped.

  Fucking kidnapped.

  All of us.

  Me and my friends.

  Kidnapped and tied to chairs.

  I got my friends kidnapped and tied to chairs.

  No.

  My brother did.

  And due to the decree of the meathead who was guarding us that we couldn’t talk, I hadn’t been a
ble to ask Ryn about Axl.

  God, if I was still talking to Mick, I’d quit talking to him. I’d then cut him out of every picture I had that he was in. After that, I didn’t know. Possibly sew a voodoo doll of him and stick pins in it. Or perhaps burn him in effigy.

  Something.

  On this thought, the meathead who kept telling us to shut up if we tried to speak got a call. Since I had a view to the door, I watched as he looked at the screen on his phone and then moved out of the room.

  A desolate room, by the way.

  Four walls.

  Wood floor.

  No windows.

  And four chairs with our asses tied to them.

  Oh, and there wasn’t a lot of heat, something I was learning was de rigueur with kidnappings.

  It wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t toasty warm either.

  In fact, my fingers were getting numb from the cold.

  They’d put us in hoods after they stuffed us in their cars, so I had no idea where we were.

  That was fun.

  Not.

  I watched him go, and the instant the door closed behind him, I twisted my neck and asked Ryn, “You okay?”

  “I take kickboxing. I got a good one to the balls of one of them. So now we can say he’s not my biggest fan,” she replied.

  “But otherwise, you’re okay?” I pushed.

  “Well, if being tied to a chair but doing it breathing and without any broken bones is okay, then yeah. I’m okay,” she said.

  Yes.

  That was our new definition of okay.

  “Axl?” I went on.

  There was a beat of silence.

  My heart thumped hard.

  “Ryn!” I hissed, returning my attention to the door.

  “There was a firefight. I mean, like, lots of bullets were exchanged. I think he worried I would get caught in the crossfire. And, you know, I was worried too. He stopped shooting, shouted ‘cease fire’ about a million times, and showed himself, lifting his hands. My guess, he thought, since we were in freaking Cherry Creek mall’s parking garage and someone had to have called the cops, seeing as there were people shooting at each other and hitting cars and windows were exploding and such, those assholes might feel in the mood to negotiate before the cops got there. But when Axl showed himself, he didn’t have his gun. They opened fire on him and, and…”

  As she trailed off, there was a beat of nothing, though my blood pressure skyrocketed through it, before I heard a muffled sob and felt our chairs move with her body bucking.

  Oh no.

  No.

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head.

  “They shot him?” Hattie whispered, her voice not only quiet, but husky with emotion.

  So.

  Totally.

  Into Axl.

  “I-I don’t know. He went d-down, and…and I d-didn’t see him again,” Ryn told her brokenly.

  I lifted my head, opened my eyes and focused on the door.

  “Maybe he hit the deck so he wouldn’t be shot,” Pepper suggested.

  “M-maybe,” Ryn muttered.

  I stared at the door.

  “Think positive, sweets,” Pepper urged.

  Ryn didn’t reply.

  I continued to stare at the door.

  After a few seconds, Hattie asked, “They’re gonna come and rescue us. The boys are? They’re gonna come get us, right?”

  They were.

  Absolutely.

  They would just because that was who they were.

  But Auggie was into Pepper.

  And Axl was into Hattie.

  Not to mention Boone’s brain had already claimed Ryn as his even if Boone as a whole had not.

  And I was Mag’s.

  Definitely.

  We were moving in together.

  We were discussing the proper placement of kitchen items.

  We both liked John Wick and Iron Giant. And I’d recently discovered, although the film was hotly debated, we both were on the same side and thought Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a masterpiece.

  Not to mention, the last time I caught him on his laptop, he wasn’t looking at homes. He was looking at awesome, top-of-the-line turntables. This meant he liked vinyl. And I liked vinyl. But more, he wanted to make it so we could listen to vinyl.

  Together.

  He was going to buy a house and I was going to boho the shit out of it and we were gonna live there, listening to vinyl.

  And okay, maybe after Mag asked me if I wanted kids, I’d secretly started daydreaming about little boys with electric-blue eyes and little girls with dark curls.

  They were good daydreams.

  The best.

  I mean, Mag teaching little boys to be men like him?

  And Mag spoiling little girls like they should be spoiled?

  I’d never had better daydreams and I knew I never would.

  Not in my life.

  So I had plans.

  I had good friends.

  I had an awesome boyfriend.

  I had a bright future.

  I had it all.

  Finally.

  I had it all.

  And goddamn it, I wasn’t losing any of it.

  “They will,” Pepper assured. “Won’t they, Evie? They’ll rescue us. Right?”

  “He hit the deck,” I stated.

  “What?” Pepper asked.

  “Axl,” I said. “Ryn, honey, he hit the deck. He’s a commando. He’d know once he showed himself that they were going to fire on him, and he’d be prepared. He was thinking five steps ahead. He was thinking, better they take you without any holes in you so when they come and get us, we’d all be all right. That’s what happened. Yeah? Okay?”

  “Y-yeah,” Ryn replied on a sniffle.

  “Um, I mean, I don’t wanna be Debbie Downer or anything, but how are they gonna find us?” Hattie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “I was in an abandoned warehouse the last time, and I don’t know how they located me then. But I wasn’t there for very long, so obviously, they have ways.”

  “I’m totally taking kickboxing courses when this is over,” Pepper muttered.

  “Me too,” Hattie said. “Though they had guns on us and I’m not sure I’d kickbox a dude with a gun.”

  “It slots in, you know, the instinct,” Ryn said, thankfully sounding like she’d gotten herself together. “Even if he has a gun, when someone has you by your hair and it’s clear they intend to do something to you that you don’t want, the instinct takes over.”

  Pepper sounded pissed when she asked, “They had you by your hair?”

  “When we’re rescued, first thing I’m gonna do after I down five gimlets is go to the Dry Bar and get a scalp scrub and a blowout,” Ryn declared.

  Okay.

  Good.

  They were talking about blowouts.

  We were all keeping it together.

  So we’d have it together when the guys found us.

  Right.

  Good.

  Onward.

  “This is a long shot as a bright side, but just sayin’. I hope this serves to communicate that you all need to get the lead out and go out with your respective commando,” I announced.

  “How about instead, we talk about how we can escape,” Ryn suggested.

  Escape?

  She wanted to try to escape?

  I wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

  “They should have zip-tied us,” Hattie noted. “They didn’t. I can start picking at these ropes and I’ll totally get them undone. I’m hell on wheels when the chains on my necklaces get tangled. I went on vacation once, and they all got messed up in my jewelry thingie. Like, seven necklaces. I had them separated in ten minutes flat.”

  “I think maybe ten minutes is a bit longer than we should remain tied here,” Ryn remarked.

  “Gotcha,” Hattie mumbled and kept mumbling, “On it.”

  I was still feeling this was not a good idea.

  Befor
e I could impart that, Pepper did.

  “Okay, I, for one, do not want to attempt to escape.”

  “Why not?” Hattie asked.

  “They have guns,” Pepper replied. “They might get testy if they show before we get loose, and see we’re trying to get loose. I don’t want a guy testy at me who’s also a guy holding a gun. And anyway, we all came in wearing hoods. We don’t know the lay of the land. Whatever’s beyond that door might be filled with bad guys. Testy bad guys. With guns. So, Hattie, stop doing that.”

  “One thing I learned in the movies, if they wanted us dead, they’d kill us on the scene,” Ryn told us. “They certainly had enough bullets to make that happen.”

  I looked to the ceiling.

  No effigy for Mick.

  Voodoo doll.

  Absolutely.

  “I’m relatively certain the training the guys had did not come from watching Bruce Willis movies,” Pepper retorted. “And sisters, I have a kid. We can just say my main priority right now is the same as it always is. That being, going home to Juno, alive and kicking. So, stop picking, Hattie.”

  “Right. Juno,” Hattie said quietly. “Maybe we shouldn’t try to escape.”

  “Okay, I hear you, Pepper,” Ryn said. “It just feels stupid, sitting here, doing nothing but waiting to get rescued.”

  “Did anyone read those Rock Chick books?” Hattie asked. “Those women got kidnapped all the time. Maybe they’re like an…I don’t know. A how-to. As in, how-to-behave-when-kidnapped type a thing. Or how-to-know-whether-you-should-attempt-to-escape-or-not.”

  “Nope,” Ryn said. “Haven’t read them.”

  “Me either,” Pepper said.

  “I only read part of the first one,” I told them. “And to where I got, Indy had been kidnapped twice, she didn’t know what to do either, but before she figured it out, Lee rescued her the first time, and Tex rescued her the second.”

  “Well, you’ve been kidnapped,” Ryn pointed out. “What did you do?”

  “I’m learning there are various forms of kidnappings. The last time, after the guy tied me to a chair, he interrogated me then hit me. Although the numbers involved in this one do not make me happy, in ranking them, so far this is better than the last,” I shared.

  “Well, we got that going for us,” Pepper noted. “I’ve never been hit and I never wanna be hit.”

  “Me either,” Ryn said.

  “I hadn’t either, until I was kidnapped,” I told them.

  Hattie said nothing.